Live slow and get your toes dirty in my grow. Come on down

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!

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So from pro grow/pure options in Michigan I grabbed

Bubba Diagonal
Apple fritter
Wedding crasher.

They had just rooted when I grabbed them. That was 10/23. So we are at 5 weeks from receiving them. Like my first post said I absolutely wrecked them the first week they were home by using ventanas nutrients wrong. So here you can see the gnarly purpling and lockout I caused. So that was fun. I straightened myself out and went with just calmag for a few days, then some k+amino then some fulvics and we got back on track.

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Oh and I had a lovely bout of spider mites while they were young. I sprayed with iso to treat at first, but that was during the time I was messing up the nutes so I switched to neem and soap for one spray and topdressed with compost. Luckily my compost seems to have loads of lacewings larvae and they seemed to crunch the mites. Watered in some gnatrol and I think the good bugs have conquered the bad. I’ll hit the whole tent with iso Friday as they switch over.

A lovely lacewing doing what it do.

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Fast-forward to today.
I’m taking clones from the three girls on Sunday (two days into flower). So they’ll get a heavy haircut come Sunday. Excuse the business. But here is the progress on them up til today.


Bubba Diagonal early.

Bubba Diagonal now.

Apple fritter early

Apple fritter now

Wedding crasher looking rough early.

Wedding crasher now. Still purple but I think the vipars are partly to blame as well as those purple genetics

Some canopy shots.


This is early. I wet vac the floor every other day so don’t mind that funk, that was only there for a short time. And yes I do indeed have 3 gallon pots on top of other 3 gallon pots of dirt because runoff. And dirt. Duh.

Today’s canopy.

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Last but not least, I started 6 Eternal Sunshine from bodhi a few weeks back. Unfortunately, two popped soil. I do believe I’m to blame. I did pick the worst looking 6 and the stronger 6 are still in the bag, but I was hoping for more than two survivors. Ideally, if we have both sexes I’d like to make a few more seeds, but I’d also like to see what my options are. Any opinions on dropping the other 6 or rolling with these two would be helpful.

And here are the babies. Two eternal sunshine from bodhi.

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Cool setup, eternal sunshine sounds interesting. I’ve been thinking about going to Michigan for clones for the past few years but now that we’re legal I’m glad I never put in the effort haha.

Pic is a bit blurry but I’d say that’s not a lacewing. Lacewings lay eggs individually at the end of a thread on foliage. The larvae resemble alligators and don’t hang out in compost as far as I know.

Here are some pictures I took of lacewing larvae a few months ago.

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And some older pics of mine from previous grows. For shits and gigs. And the rosin presses I built back in the day before they were cheaper. By all means scroll past this photo dump as it’s largely for myself.

(upload://xcyRIaXcu4Jy3soxYThEuqgqPvt.jpeg)

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It is very much blurrier than my phone when I pull it up. There are multiple in the tent and I can grab more shots. I’m fairly certain they’re green lacewings. But I’ll get better shots and if I’m wrong, then time to move.

Edit: almost sure they are not lacewings. Hehe. Thanks for that. Will report back. PXL_20231127_022422868

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Pretty sure I’m headed back up next Monday. I can let ya know what’s around. And so if they don’t seem to be lacewings, any guesses as what they are? I’ll peruse myself but the answer doesn’t seem obvious to me right this second

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I don’t know, they remind me a bit of bugs I’ve seen before that were likely either on vinegar or decaying organic matter. Avocados or tomatoes maybe. Doubtful they are a plant pest (almost certainly not) and wouldn’t really worry about it, unless they’re sticking to the buds or being a nuisance and if that’s the case simple sticky traps should suffice.

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Thanks. I’ve got sticky traps I need to put up and have mostly just not lol so I’ll do that and see if anyone unexpected hangs out. They seem to really enjoy being on the leaves and they don’t eat them, so I will keep an eye on them and obviously reduce bug activity as they flower. Thanks for being the first to like on my stuff too :muscle:t2:

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Hey @DirtySlowToes!

I’ve been getting into organics myself. I’ve been growing outside in 50 gallon cloth bags and did several rounds of soil testing last season getting things figured out.

Also been starting to get a grow setup inside, fascinated by your homebrew COB LEDs and heat pipe thermal management. Like the 80-20 in one of the pictures. I have a feeling we’re going to have a lot in common.

Great looking pictures and setups! Bummer to hear about the bumpy start with the clones but they are looking good now.

I think I’ve heard some interviews with the Better Organix guy or something similar I’m checking it out. I used lots of simple amendments and compost teas outside last summer.

Welcome to OG!

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Thanks for coming by. It’s awesome to meet you. I’ve always wanted space to be able to play outside. If you ever need a hand, let me know!

Thanks for the compliments. The lights were tons of fun, but also a headache at times. We used citizen cobs, I’m pretty sure and went for a blend of efficiency and power. Those bars were capable of up to 1000w each. Managed to get prices a little under .75/watt. They worked really well though they put out just a touch more heat than the sinks and fans could handle at 100%. It’s hard to compete with big name LEDs with the costs now, but the build was fun and we learned a lot. I’ll dig around for more detailed light pics when I have a moment. Thanks again

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Now here’s somebody that knows what they are doing when it comes to mounting LED drivers! (I did it much the same… :+1: :laughing:)

Nice ‘heavy metal’ (press) collection too!

What are you using for your cover crop? I’ve been using micro clover…

Cheers
G

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Haha it was really satisfying to see them all up once it was all done with. It was a pain in the ass to take down though :dizzy_face:‍: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.

I’m using cannaisseur currently. The 13 plant blend. I bought a bag a few years back for $17 or something and didn’t realize how big it was so it’s still here. I can’t complain though!

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Compost shot for those who like it.

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Update on the buggo situation. @syzygy they seem to be soldier flies! So that’s a benefit. Pixel 6’s upload capabilities suck. Decent photo on my phone but it’ll upload a bit blurry. Anyway. Thanks for sending me on the hunt! I read they aren’t harmful to humans but damn do they dive at you :sweat_smile:

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Ahh, cool that makes sense. I know people use Black Soldier Fly larvae for composting and have seen BSFs come out of compost before but never intentionally composted with them. I assume that color soldier fly has a similar role consuming organic material in the larval stage.

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Got some weird little Velcro straps and bamboo sticks because the shop was out of the plant tie. Here we go!

Dropped 5 WBMK into water then into paper towel 10 hours later. I’ll be posting a lot of those in the contest thread but some others here.

Tied down the three ladies today:


Canopy today. Wedding crasher(bottom right) seems to be most sensitive to nutrients for sure. Curious to see how she flowers.

Shot of their legs before tying down a bit. Defol and clones come Sunday.


Wedding crasher spread out a bit.

Bubba D spread out but has some wild branchy growth from the triangle in her. Ogs are pretty but also suck at the same time. Feel happy about the structure but she’s funny.

Fritter spread out. I do not trust her branches not to snap on me so I didn’t push it too hard. Super cropped the taller top to even the canopy before flower

Fritter from top

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Goodnight y’all. :wave:t2:

Group shot and the seedlings after watering. Ones got wonky leaves but we will roll with it.


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