Hello hello. I’ve popped up here and there and want to have a place where you all can pop in now and again. While I do want to take time to explain and document a lot of things that I just haven’t, I’d also like to let you guys in on what’s growin on with me. In a new spot after taking a little over 3 years off because of a boatload of legal hassles. I spent the summer making compost and preparing soil and as of October, I’m growing again. So, here we go!
Picked up some clones from Michigan to use as guinea pigs to help dial in my space and soil.
Lights:
Viparspectra ks5000, 500w for flower. 4x4
Viparspectra p2500, 250w for veg/clones. In a 4x4 in it’s side…so 4x7 with 4 foot of height.
Probably another ks5000 and 4x4 in the future.
I landed on vipars after seeing how they perform commercially. Previously I was rocking with some hand made COBs. I’ll have to grab the pics from thcfarmer or dig for them if anyone wants to see those. So, first run with the vipars. Less wattage than I’m used to but super even coverage.
Nutrients:
Better organix
Ventana
I love better organix. Love the dude behind it and have had pretty great results with a lot of their products.
This is my first run with ventana. Got high and watched one of the chemists for ventana talk about it and decided I wanted to give it a shot. I have both good and bad things to say about their line so far but I’ll probably open up about that as I post. I’ve got to finish this first round of flower to make a final determination. Right away though, I thought I read everything properly and still combined their calmag with their grow for two feeds and absolutely diddled the girls before they were ready for stress… thankfully they are guinea pigs and exactly for those mistakes. They’ve rebounded and head into flower Friday 12/1.
Medium:
Soil.
I’m a great big fat soil biology nerd. We love Elaine over here and the soil food web. I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to better understand the dirt beneath us and how the microbes within it play their roles. What I’ve learned is that I’m fascinated more than I’m knowledgeable. I have a lot to learn but have a real passion for creating living soil and so that’s what I do. I vermicompost and have three compost piles(active, finished, and partially finished). While I have picked up a few bags of promix, roots, and some coco, I’ve largely been recycling and reusing soil for 9 years. I do love talking about it and can go deeper down that rout if anyone wants to get into it. I’ve got an amscope microscope that I use to check all compost before anything goes onto plants. I loosely use the 1:1:1 ratio for building soil. I use lava rock/hydroton because of it’s ability to hold charges and the way the clay breaks down over time. I use dark compost as the middle third and my recycled mix + a few coco bricks. I mix it, fill in 15 gallon pots and plant cover crop. I basically let that sit and cook for a month with some inoculant. After that month, I put that soil into three gallon pots, mulch with chopped cover crop, reseed the cover crop and that’s what I use to grow in. Sorry for the rant. I like dirt. I’ve had tests done on my mix in the past and am yet to see negatives from reusing soil so long as microbial life is the priority in the in between. Different strokes though!
)
:dizzy: it would’ve been better to build that space out in a permanent spot, but it was too much fun trying to make it work.
