We have launch. Four of four seedlings popped – 2 HBSS and 2 Double Grape.
Each went directly into a 3 gallon fabric pot – skipped the Solo cups, thanks to you guys. The mix was pretty informal:
~16 quarts Expert Gardener potting mix (Walmart)
~16 quarts perlite (regular, not the #3 I wanted)
~12 quarts Fox Farm Ocean Forest (worked into the top 4 inches of each pot)
~1 tsp ea mycorrhizae
I did three things a little different this time.
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Chunky and airy is good. I used a lot more perlite than usual, by design. I was told the soil should be super aerated for these girls. I was looking for a chunkier perlite (#3) but had to go with regular sized. The #3 actually looks really good and I may standardize on that for all my grows. Btw, #3 is closer to 5 mm - 10 mm grains, a little bigger than regular. Not all perlite is labeled with a number, so know your preferred “grain sizes” in mm, too.
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Vibing. I sorta hippied out on this one. I spent a long and meditative period hand-mixing the soil, breaking down every chunk, removing some hard stuff, talking to it, telling it all about the plan for the next few weeks. So much of our success is dictated by what happens underground – I felt like I wanted to use extra care and thought in the process. I was essentially practicing mindfulness is all. It’s something I try to do, especially with growing.
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Thinking about my pot in 3D – vertically, horizontally, etc. Because you’re all warning me about the fast take off, I spent some time “architecting” the soil build and layering. I wanted to dilute the FFOF so I only used the 3 qts. per plant, concentrated in the top 3 inches or so. As I finished each potting, I stood a toilet paper tube upright directly in the center of the pot and added to the inside of the tube only fine soil, perlite, and a good amount of mycorrhizae. The FFOF went on the outside of the tube, with a sprinkle of remaining myco. Then, I sealed it up.
The “nursery silo” idea struck me after watching time lapse videos of cannabis seed growth. The general idea was to ensure that the soil immediately around the earliest tap root would be conducive to good early growth. The tap root grows straight down for about 2 or 3 inches, stops, and begins to build outward, all within about the first week. My idea was to keep the myco and fine grained soil close, and the harshness of the FFOF away from it. Who knows if it’ll matter, but I feel confident in the feeding plan for this.
Also, since I had diluted or “cut” the FFOF already, I think there’s just enough food in there to get this plant started – and that’s really all I want from it. A jump start. I mixed the FFOF only into the top few inches of each pot. In other words, almost halfway down inside this pot, there’s just plain soil. I’ll water with a nitrogen additive early on, to prevent buildup, and then cut that back as it transitions to flower.
At flowering, ideally, the FFOF layer is spent, the roots are hitting the non-fertilized soil zone, the fungal network is big and healthy, and there’s not a ton of extra N laying around in the soil. At that point, I may top dress with some blooming food – stuff with a little more P and K.
Right now, 200 PPFD for 18/6 with gentle blurples and a humidity dome in my tent most of the time. 77F and 83% RH. Every day they’ll spend a little more time in the sun (shade).
Oh, and I ph’d my water properly for the first time. It took 132 drops of pH down to drop my gallon of water to 6.3
Cheers! I’ll be back when they are hardening up.
