I was told if you spread sawdust bedding litter on fields it eats nitrogen initially until it begins to decompose. It’s a great amendment given some time is what my ag chem guy tells me. Is this a similar occurrence with wood mulch? I was also considering it for my outside grow this year.
3 Likes
I’m guessing the mulch will take considerably longer than sawdust bedding to work into the soil and become assimilated by the microbes, but yes, eventually it will.
My mom is no chemist or botanist but she has been growing gorgeous gardens for close to 60 years. She recommended that I add a good layer of wood mulch to a) primarily, retain moisture in the soil, b) reduce unwanted weed growth and make weeding easier, and c) eventually provide soil enrichment as the wood is assimilated into the soil.
Since the mulch is sitting on top of the soil, only a millimeter or 2 of the soil will be (potentially) robbed of some nitrogen.
The way I see it, the benefit of moisture retention will far outweigh the possible cost of nitrogen robbing at the surface. I live in a very, very dry climate and I am not the best at keeping things watered. Despite the fact that this strain is said to flourish in dry climates, I think it makes sense for the soil to retain any moisture it gets - and I’ll be giving the plants nutes so they’ll get their N.
4 Likes
Plus the wood chips look really tidy. They are growing like mad so I’d say no nitrogen problems😀…well done!!
1 Like
My straw mulch was creating a major atmosphere for insects when I had my bug invasion. I’ve beaten back most of the ground insects, but I believe some beatles are flying around out munching here and there. I’ve been kind of nervous to put a lot of the mulch back to be honest, but it’s not 90 degrees here either. Oddly enough we have barely broken 70 all spring. I think the plants are happy though as it’s been in the 60’s at night for at least a month now, so the ground is staying warm, despite the unusually cool spring.
3 Likes
Best of luck on your upcoming adventure with Mother Nature!
You are off to a strong start.
4 Likes
Interesting that you mention insects! Check out the damage on plant #2 in this morning’s photo. Something attacked the poor thing last night. Any idea what may have done that? (2nd photo)
I gave them all a full strength feed of the full line of General Organics nutes this morning. Hopefully they will green up a bit. My secret source of info on these Lebs says they like a lot of food, and the yellowing of bottom leaves is them telling me they are hungry.
6 Likes
Cheers, although it seems I now have something munching on one of my plants… 
Thanks very much!
No guesses yet on what is eating plant #2 ?
1 Like
My guess would be a beatle of some source probably those damn earwigs , time for some traps!
2 Likes
We do have earwigs around… hmmm traps, eh? I’ll look into it.
1 Like
I can’t tell. Could be those damn fuckwigs I had a problem with. I took out most of my ground bugs with spinosad and Diatamaceous Earth and some tin can traps filled with veggie oil and soy sauce. I did the triple whammy. Honestly, I would move all of that mulch back until you kill off those suckers. If it’s earwigs they are all in those wood chips going to town every night. They decimated almost every plant in my garden when I got them. Dig around a bit in that mulch, if it is earwigs you’ll find them hiding in the daytime. Good luck! Oh, honestly I also sprinkled Sevin powder outside of the beds after I got pissed off as a barrier. I hate gnarly pesticides, but it helped a lot. I made sure it wasn’t actually directly in my planters or veggie patch though. More in the grass lining the outside. I think it worked better than anything actually. The DE took a good week or so to make things happen.
3 Likes
I pulled the mulch away from the plants at lunch. While doing so, I uncovered some creepy crawlies. One was too fast to identify, but I think it might have been a fungus gnat - but larger? It “ran” away rather than flying. Also a couple of very small centipede-looking things, and at least one small pill bug. We have lots of pill bugs around.
3 Likes
I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure pill bugs just eat dead stuff. The earwigs look centipede like when they are small, but not sure on centipede thingys. Probably munch plants… Throw down some DE I think for them to creepy crawl over
3 Likes
Thanks. Going to grab some DE on my way home from work.
2 Likes
The nutes have greened them up and they continue to grow well. DE makes the garden look like crap but I don’t care, if it keeps some of the pests away.
12 Likes
Today’s photos.
ACE #1 - Very Sativa-looking, tall, lanky. I am guessing male.
ACE #2 - Sativa- looking leaves, squatter, branchy/bushy AF (compared to the rest).
RSC x Blue Hemp Co. #1 - More Indica-looking, squat, not branching.
RSC x Blue Hemp Co. #2 - Indica-looking leaves, tall, lanky.
7 Likes
It’s really weird but all of my plants seemed to have slight nitrogen issues after transplanting to the ground and like you, one dose of fert greened them right up. Wonder if it just stalls out their nute uptake for a minute when going from a pot to the ground. Once they establish though, they always seem like the happiest plants in the garden!
They are looking really good!
5 Likes
You going with all bottled nutes this grow or are you planning to throw down some slow release amendments?
2 Likes
Thanks! Yep I think they seem pretty happy. Mine lived in solo cups, with only water, until I put them in the ground. So they didn’t get a fantastic start. Cannabis never ceases to amaze me.
3 Likes
A mixture of both, probably. I put EWC, compost, and bone & blood meal in the soil mix, so there’s some slow release already. Will use a combination of General Organics line of bottled nutes, simply because I need to use them up soon (and they’ve always worked well in the past). I haven’t really researched other slow release stuff…
4 Likes