A micro living organic soil grow

Nice sharing. Like what I’m seeing

2 Likes

Well said couldn’t agree with ya more!

1 Like

I can relate man, it’s hard. The only way to make it easier is to plant more seeds so you have more plants to grow.

I wouldn’t worry about the RO, it’s not like it’s harmful. It’s just that if you have a recipe for a certain water source and use RO it might fuck it up majorly. You might have this issue in the small containers since you don’t have soil mass to balance the ph shock. As you grow in this soil mix with your water, like grow a few plants through flower, we’ll see if it’s a problem or not (not is my guess).

Yeah, they’ll be fine, I know I was quite anxious too in the beginning when leaves weren’t perfect, but then again, are our bodies perfect? You have a really great soil mix and it’s only gonna get better. :sunglasses:

Just back away with the nutes, however “organic” and “natural” they may seem.
The less interference the better.

Edit: I just looked up what RO water is. It’s really not necesary, I use dirty rainwater or regular bottled water, no problem. Another thing to experiment with if you like, on two seperate batches.

1 Like


cat mint, on the prowl.

3 Likes

Sometimes, I will use the dehumidifier water, which is conductivity 0 on plants. The beauty of distilled/ro/dehumidifier water is it can’t change your ph due to the fact there are no acids or bases in there to buffer ph. I use it on the huckleberries and blueberries all the time.
My entire seedling operation is run on dehumidifier water. Looking at “living water” under the microscope gave me the heebie jeebies. I get skin crawls just thinking about drinking it. lol, maybe that’s just me.

3 Likes

@ChemicalDependant
So I guess I didn’t look close enough, but they actually all have five fingers! lol

1 Like

I’ve always thought about using dehu water… if you had a closed system/sealed room, I feel like you’d be pretty dang efficient with your water usage!

Also, I heard it captures the tiniest bit of CO2 from the air since it is void of everything, I wonder if that would make for some nice foliar water :wink:

1 Like

I’ve drank straight from mountainstreams in Norway during hikes, LOL.

1 Like

Prob better than some cities’ water with all their chemicals they put in it.

1 Like

For sure. People are way too afraid of microbes, and covid didn’t help… The whole problem is that we’re living way too clean, we need microbes to live, they make life possible. We have more microbes in our intestines than we have cells in our bodies… There’s tens of thousands of different species on our lips and in our eyebrows at all times. It’s all about balance, and that’s achieved by inclusion, not exclusion. I’ve seen people on organic farms pull carrots out of the ground, dust them off and eat them just like that, straight away. That’s the best way to improve your immunesystem, and get some extra vitamin B12 as well. We should wash our hands less instead of disinfecting them.

5 Likes

Right on…

So another couple questions to anyone about determining first day of veg…

Today I noticed the leaves with five fingers, although those leaves emerged a bit ago but I didn’t realize or know that they were the five fingered leaves…

So, is it when the leaves that are going to have five fingers emerge, OR, when those fifth fingers on those these start to show themselves?

The only thing I know is that today marks two weeks exactly from when the seedling emerged from soil.

How many days after the initial popping out of soil do you usually find yourself starting to count as veg?

2 Likes

Every plant has its own growing speed, I don’t count days but just look at the plant. The seedling I have now only has two pairs of leaves and I went to veg lights. It’s been holding its leaves nicely level. I don’t give more than 14 hours currently because some days I sleep close to 10 hours and I don’t have an automatic switch. :sweat_smile:

Take a wild guess and switch and see how it reacts. It’s not really an exact science.

1 Like

you heard of the germ theory of disease?
I can like, show you things…

1 Like

Give it 1-2 weeks to germinate, after germination 2-4 weeks of babying before it gets put into veg pot. I look for them to have 2 sets of full five fingered leaves, but sometimes they get left longer. Not a hard and fast rule, just kind of look for the plant to want some more nutrients. They’ll loose some of the vigor they had from seed around that 4-6 weeks and slow down a bit.

1 Like

I count from the day I put the seeds in the dirt.

1 Like

Ok, another few random updates:

Tested the RO water for ph, seems like it settles around 6.75. This is nice to know but I think once again it doesn’t matter as much since the alkalinity (30 ppm/buffer) is pretty low.

While I was at it, I tested some left over of that tea concoction I gave them (yesterday? hah) and that shows at 5.7 :grimacing:… not sure if it changed much from what it was when I gave it to them since now it is >24hrs later (I think water’s ph can change after it’s been left out for instance).

So, further speaking of water. I finally got around to weighing these containers for the heck of it. I took some barely moist soil out of the bag into two containers similar to what the girls are in and got this:

134gm Baseline

Then I weighed each pot:

UK - 198.8gm

UK2 - 185.5gm

BB - 188.4gm

BB2 - 178.2 gm

SS - 172.9gm

SS2 - 180.1gm

I’m not 100% sure what I’m going to do with this info, and to make matters maybe slightly more complicated, all those pots have the double coffee filters which when wet maybe add 5-10gms(guess)?

Anyway, maybe I’ll further take that soil in the “Baseline” containers and fully soak it so I have an approx max water weight. I’m not sure if I’ll be monitoring for certain weights at which I water or not (or to even water to a certain weight), but I think this might just help me get a lil better feel for it to go without a scale down the road.

As I watered approx the same amount, it’s interesting to see that the SS which seems to have the most and healthiest leaf growth is the lightest, prob shows that it’s health is allowing it so consume water more I assume. Or, could just be that I watered it less, less soil etc not perfectly scientific at all lol

And last interesting development.

That tall SS2 that’s had its issues maybe went into flowering (weird bulb on top?) from that one day of short light? It also has two sets of five fingers where as the others seem to only have three fingers for their first set and five for their next:

2 Likes

I think you’re overthinking things a little too much. pH is completely irrelevant in organic growing. I’ve never, ever checked the pH of either my water (RO) or my soil. The microlife in the soil takes care of everything.

Having said that, that SS2 is looking ROUGH haha. Just chill, dude. Water your plants every other day with what they need and let them do their thing…

3 Likes

Yeah for sure, the ss2 is def not too happy, but I think maybe, just maybe it’s recovering a tiny bit? I mean the new growth color seems a bit more consistent but still could look more vigorous that’s for sure. Any idea what’s going on at the top of it?

So what I’ve heard with ph in regards to organics is that it does matter, however, it has a bigger (also higher)range and that whatever the soil’s ph is dictates the ph more than the water (not sure about fertigation effects tho, but prob def less effecting that for hydro obv)…

I was just curious what I was working with and posted it since it was talked about a lil bit.

1 Like

I found little use in weighing my pots quickly. Ultimately they would rather you left them alone. Worry about the environment. If you give them a nice environment, and soil with enough nutrients, they will grow just fine. You can force them to go faster, but then you experience burning and they die. So just let it flow. Seedlings aren’t worth losing sleep over. Break the worrying habit now, I had to do it on 4 month old plants. If you need more seeds, I know a guy.

As to your uh… pineapple? Could be new leaves, honestly they do some weird stuff. It’s not flowering. From what I’ve read you can not get a plant to flower much sooner than 3 months from seed.

2 Likes