From SSeeDD to sail.. exploring SSDD, pollen chucks & Bodhi Crosses

[Dirt_Wizard]

@syzygy

Always interested to hear if anyone has any strategies for keeping rootbound plants happy “organically”.

For a while I was letting my plants get regularly rootbound in late veg in their 1g hard pots, and I found the best combo for healthy white roots was pretty hard dry down cycles combined with Recharge and LABS watering. I use fabric pots now for everything but if I had it to do again I’d probably go Hygrozyme and LABS and maybe aerated water, just everything to get oxygen to those roots and clean up the sludge. One I haven’t tried yet that’s organic is just a 2:1 H20:H202 flush, which makes perfect sense but would also wreak havoc on everything. Still, that for sanitizing and oxygenation followed by a compost tea or microbe pack watering might be a protocol that would work nicely for mother plants.

[Dirt_Wizard]

The other option would be to just take them out and do some root pruning with a sharp knife, shave off an inch from every face and repot in fresh soil in the same container. That’s only for vegging plants, obviously.

[syzygy]

Thanks for the suggestions! I tried making LAB a few times when JayKush posted some Rodale / Gil Carandang “How-To” guides on ICmag back in like 2008 or something like that. Was using much larger pots back then though, so it wouldn’t hurt to try again. Assume that is the better route rather than buying EM-1 or something like that… Will have to search through @BeagleZ thread a bit more.

@Dirt_Wizard

The other option would be to just take them out and do some root pruning with a sharp knife, shave off an inch from every face and repot in fresh soil in the same container.

Yeah, that’s my usual approach with mothers once they start getting unhealthy and ultra root-bound. I am envious of the coco / hydro guys who can pull off healthy large flowering plants in tiny containers haha.

[nube]

No need to bonsai them, just keep em warm and moist during the day, with good air movement/circulation. 6-10 DLI on an 18hr light schedule is plenty.

For reference, that’s 100ppfd at the bottom of the canopy, and 150-160 at the top, 18hrs a day. Pretty cost effective maintenance veg.

[Dirt_Wizard]

It’s unreal how big the plants get in tiny soilless pots!

[CrunchBerries]

Here a link to a couple LABS how-to’s that have been helpful CrunchBerries’Probiotic SIP Thread - #46 by CrunchBerries

[HeadyBearAdventures]

Ay yi yi!

I am so late to your party @syzygy !
I’m gonna make my rounds, shake some hands, and look at some of the finer details of the grow thus far.
Before I do, if it please the cultivator:
I bless this grow with the headiest of Heady Bear vibes!

[HeadyBearAdventures]

@syzygy

Ya, Both. I am correctively overwatering out of necessity. I lift the pot at lights on and it is bone dry and light

This struggle is real. My Maui Mango Haze was drying out her pot every day in late veg, so I raised the water level on her bottom- watering by an inch and a half, because I can’t be home for twice daily watering. Nope. She nearly fucking died! From one overwatering! Yellowed out, droopy, leaf necrosis, the works.
Sometimes it be like that.
Like you said: they’ll come around. And, as one of my travel buddies says: “When you get home, nobody wants to hear the stories where everything went right… they want to hear about the adventures!”

[CrunchBerries]

@syzygy

Over the years I’ve used a lot of bedding sources but my 2 favorite that I no longer have access to consisted of :

Horse manure / straw mix hot composted with other green sources and then aged.

2+ year old “leaf mold” / rotting leafpiles

Those are much better bedding choices, I agree! I do what I can, with what I’ve got to give me the best EWC. I feed my worms amendments in their smoothies which seems to up the quality. What goes in, must come out in a more plant friendly way and with the added bonus of a silica coating around the casting.

The rice hulls help aerate for a while, but then eventually breakdown and add silica to the mix. Usually by the time they are starting to breakdown I am using the EWC on my plants. If they don’t breakdown by the time it’s used it’s no big deal to me as it all ends up in the wash.

I started with a can-o-worms like greasy, and recently built a 27gal. CrunchBerries’Probiotic SIP Thread - #318 by CrunchBerries

[HeadyBearAdventures]

@CrunchBerries

We need to get an active worm / vermicomposting thread going on here.

Hey CB, I think this thread would be a great standalone topic too. Do you want to start it? If not, I’m happy to!

[HeadyBearAdventures]

The working title I have in mind is:
Invertebrate Shit: What we know about Vermicomposting 🪱💩

Edit: It appears there is a thread, last post May of '22. Definitely not as snappy of a topic title.

Vermicomposting: Tips, Tricks, and Wizardry

Worm farms. You know them, you love them, and you might even know what you’re doing with them. You’ve got your browns, you’ve got your greens, and you’ve got a handy GrowFAQ guide on nutrient content of dry organic amendments. It seems like most people have a strategy for their composting, however. I’m still getting my feet wet, so to speak. I try to keep things at a 60/40 split between browns and greens, dice and freeze greens before feeding to make them nice and mushy. For grit, I use a …

[BeagleZ]

You know me: anything worth doing is worth doing yourself right

Using EM you will get a very specific type of LAB. When you make it yourself you get a broad diverse collection of LAB.
Much more “E”ffective

[HeadyBearAdventures]

Yes @BeagleZ ! A man after my own heart. I too, support wild culturing microorganisms when possible. Not only for the incredible diversity, but also because it is a part of your own local flora and fauna in the environment where your plants will be grown.

[BeagleZ]

Yeah, thanks Heady! Forgot to mention the importance of the “I” in IMO

[CrunchBerries]

Shit! I’m apparently watching that thread.There is also the “ show us your worm bins” thread which hasn’t had much activity since Dec. 22. Let's see your worm bins!

Which do we want to flash mob?

[HeadyBearAdventures]

I think you could get away with starting a new one if the OP was both an invitation to share practices, and also a detailed description of, for instance, your complete vermicomposting setup.
They might merge the topics, but at least it would bring the other one back to life. (And maybe we can change the title )

[nube]

I think you gotta use the Let’s see your worm bins one, since it’s got 800+ posts and was recently active.

[HeadyBearAdventures]

Party pooper

[syzygy]

@CrunchBerries

Here a link to a couple LABS how-to’s

This looks like the same method as the guide I followed way back when from rodale / gil carandang. I also remember people were saying that the curd is really attractive to worms in their bin but don’t think mine cared much either way. Thanks for posting that, now I didn’t have to dig up a guide and will just follow this whenever I do it!

@HeadyBearAdventures

This struggle is real. My Maui Mango Haze was drying out her pot every day in late veg, so I raised the water level on her bottom- watering by an inch and a half, because I can’t be home for twice daily watering.

Good to have you here as well as everyone else! Ya that’s pretty much the situation I’m in. If I didn’t corrective over-water them then they would be too dried out by the time I get back. I like @Dirt_Wizard 's suggestion of trying to increase the o2 levels of the water as well. Might try to find my air pump that I used to use for CTs later on. Don’t think I want to mess around with peroxide but a pump setup should be an improvement over stagnant water jugs.

@HeadyBearAdventures

Like you said: they’ll come around. And, as one of my travel buddies says: “When you get home, nobody wants to hear the stories where everything went right… they want to hear about the adventures!”

Absolutely. Plus it gives me an opportunity to seek out strategies from others.

I remember watching a dog video in the past and the guy making the video made a comment along the lines of ‘this is why every professional dog trainer has one of these dogs (talking about high drive dutch,malinois,shepherds), because they make you look like an expert’. I feel similarly about quality compost as well. Takes the gardener out of the equation and the plants just grow themselves.

@BeagleZ

Using EM you will get a very specific type of LAB. When you make it yourself you get a broad diverse collection of LAB.

Yeah figured as much, plus you don’t become reliant on a bottled product.

[Dirt_Wizard]

@syzygy

I feel similarly about quality compost as well. Takes the gardener out of the equation and the plants just grow themselves.

Right?!? Everyone is like your plants look so good and I’m here going “just put the Oly and the EWC in the bucket and let the microbes be smarter than you”

Q: How do you recycle your dirt so well, Dirt Wizard?

A: absolutely mindlessly by adding lots of things that smell stinky in that good alive way and leaving it alone, adding all plant matter back in and occasionally weird stuff like rolled oats or cooked rice but mostly just compost tea sludge, cold composting the dumb and easy way instead of trying to be Mr Hot Composter