Beautiful compost! What’s in there?
Glad you got the bugs identified. Your plants are looking great.
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So much! I’ve got Walnut, pine, and black cherry trees around my house so I collect and shred those leaves, the nuts that fall, pine needles, and the branches I trim up/chop up and then kitchen scraps. I cook most evenings for dinner and the missus likes a very, very diverse array so almost every veggie you could imagine is in there. I also get milk and eggs from a farm and they got one dose of labs I made and plenty of egg shells. They get some bio media pro and the piles got a bag of Dr. Earth split between them. And obviously quite a few soldier fly larvae.
I’ve been wanting to spend time curating more specific nutrient profiles in the piles, but all that looks like right now is that one pile exclusively gets the coffee grounds. The end plan is to have a high-N pile and a high-P pile that I can use but I haven’t honestly looked into how feasible it is while maintaining c:n ratios in the pile.
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@DirtySlowToes i wondered my way in here bro! Loving the thread. I look forward to all the awesome info ill pick up hanging out over here. Everything looks great, loving the compost pile i really want to start one but i dont have much land and the misses would kill me if i started a pile of dirt a and scraps in our yard lol
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Thanks! It really does mean a lot coming from you. I’m still learning daily and hope it doesn’t stop.
I’ve had worm bins inside that don’t get too stinky. Usually 
And shoot, if you ever want me to bag up some of my compost and shoot it your way, I would do it in a heartbeat.
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@DirtySlowToes i might have to take you up on that offer bro. I made a batch of living soil using humus & compost from homedepot. I never got to use that soil yet it is still outside in a trashcan lol.
I do plan on recycling the soil that im using now so that compost you got might really come in handy when that day comes.
Im just trying to make a plan. Im not sure if i should get a trashcan to recycle my soil or if i should make a pile. I would really like to keep it mobile but i feel a trashcan would be really hard to mix every week or so
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Nice journal. Amazing pics, especially those with lacewings and their eggs 
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Man. You’re really speaking to my soul here. I had my soil in two trashcans for a long time because I didn’t grow where I lived. What a headache. It’s super beneficial for me to have piles I can turn easily, but I definitely still have those trash cans if I ever need to move the piles. A couple tarps really help to cover, move, etc.
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I need some guidance here bro. So i got 6 5gal pots full of used soil and roots. Can i dump them all in a trashcan loosen it up as much as possible, water in some LABS and feed table scrapes and toss weekly? How soon will i have actual useable compost in that trashcan? I know it depends on what you have decomposing but say i just did potato skins, carrot skins, apple skins, small relatively quick decomposers. How long of a cook would i be looking at?
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Yes I’d dump them all out, loosen them up. Then add some brown material(shredded leaves, pine needles, or cardboard if you need to) and your kitchen scraps. I’d turn it twice a week. If it seems overly dry, wet it a little because the microbes need moisture to break things down but you don’t want water sitting in the bottom of the can ever if you can help it. If it’s got good microbial life, you should have some good composted material in somewhere between 2-4 weeks. If it’s slow to start breaking down, watering in with some grow will help start the breakdown
Did you feed biobiz into those pots the first time or what was the feed? That’s matters a lot as one of the biggest considerations in organics is heavy metal buildup(or bicarb if you’re using tap water).
When you’re ready to use some or want to use some, I’d throw some in a 1 gal pot and water it. Add cover crop if you do. I’d let it chill for a week or two - let it cook. It’s here that I assess if the composted material has become super heavy or less aerated. I do this to see if it’s hot or if nutrients are out of whack before it touches cannabis. If the pot is still super heavy after I’ve watered it, I add hydroton and perhaps coco and you’re good to roll in my experience
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What a fun and wild read. I do appreciate that @Rogue . It has me really thinking about a few things… you may have inspired some ridiculous experiments in the next few years.
Welcome, @Garcimore ! I’m happy to have you here and hope that the journal gets much better as I get a little more comfortable with photos and uploads and the like. In the meantime, @syzygy is the man with the knack for photos. I’m very lucky to have his pictures in my thread.
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BRO you’re living in 3023 laying a 4x4 on its side for more lateral veg growth 
. Fucking genius, my man
Nice work on everything, you know your stuff 
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I’ll throw a few pics down of how the ladies responded to the tie down and progress pics of eternal sunshine babes just for good measure.
Moved the crasher and fritter so bubba D on left, fritter in right, crasher up top. Sowed 3 wmbk last night too. 2 more tonight.
That second little sprout is still looking wonky but it’s growing and moving so I assume it’ll grow out of it.
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Humble lil brag while I show off some books! Mostly sharing so if anyone wants any fun info from any, feel free to reach out.
Plant updates coming this afternoon! Clones being taken, 3 big girls are on 11/13, 7 babies healthy.
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I’d add this one to the collection especially if you do soil testing 
I haven’t read Teaming With Nutrients (or Fungi) yet, recommended?
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Oh man I tried to get the cannabis related ones. Just farming, soil and growing food I’ve probably got 25-30… hah Steve Solomon is a badass though. I got the teaming with as a set. Teaming with microbes is the must read and the rest just add info to it. They’re quick reads with amazing pictures, so I would recommend for that reason alone.
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Yeah I’d lump The Intelligent Gardener in with the Teaming With xxx general, but highly informative, gardening category. He’s a good writer and great content
I’ll pick it up 
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Did a big defoliation and cut for clones today! Took 7 apple fritter, 7 Bubba Diagonal, 4 wedding crasher. They’re looking a touch green on the new growth so they are getting some nitrogen, potassium and calmag tonight to correct that. I’m a pretty heavy defol type of guy and really want them to grow up and fill out the usable light space, so I went pretty hard with the trim up. From what I’ve seen, the fritter will respond and it is generally a big grower during flower so I went the hardest on it. I went the easiest on the crasher because it’s the slowest vegger. Perhaps it simply didn’t take well to the nutrient mishap early and I’m going to give it another run without ventana nutrients to see if I can give it a better showing. Going to keep running them through their life though for the most part to see what that line puts out. But, because it’s been my least favorite and slowest to grow, I took the least amount of cuts from it 
anyway…
The two eternal sunshine babies are just fine, they’re happy to be moved from the flower tent. They were right at ground level and they got a little chewed on. I moved them over and have full confidence they’ll both come around and be pretty. Popped 5 wmbk. The baby shots are in the contest thread and I’ll post shots here when they grow up a bit!
The eternal sunshine babes. They took a beating and I’ll make it up to them later. Thanks, little ones for being the first seeds I popped in 3.5 years
From cup to Box-o-clones.
My thoughts are that the Bubba Diagonal is super easy growing, has a really great branch structure and spacing in veg. It gets a little spindly but they’re not wirey yet…they’re sturdy and hopefully will produce well. Below are some shots of it.
Structure before trimmed for flower/clones
Structure after
The Apple Fritter is super nice…it grows really really well with pretty thick branches. It’s fairly straight up and down but it’s easy to train and grows quickly. So far I’m into it.
Kinda hard to tell from here but it has a very even canopy and lots and lots of bud sites. I went hard on her to really see what she can produce.
Structure after!
Structure before.
This will be the last time I really touch them for a few weeks. I’ll go in on week 3 or so and start to lightly defoliate.
Wedding crasher pre clones.
Crasher after clones.
Group shot after being trimmed up and ready to rock into flower.
Canopy before and after the defol!
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Update shots on the 7 seedlings now that they’re coming around. Already starting to see the fat leaves the wmbk is known for.
Plan today is to clean up those drip trays lol and make dirt.
I’ve got some fun seeds on the way and will be popping another 7-12 probably here in the next few weeks and plant to have the flower tent pumping all year. It’ll be the scarlet grapes autos from a pal here and definitely the Jaeger x hashplant from bodhi. After that I’d like to pop the rest of the eternal sunshine and the Koh Gold and see if there is anything promising there and maybe throw some pollen around between those two. That’ll happen in a separate tent and I’d like to find solid ladies of both types so that’s probably what the back half of my 2024 will look like. I’ll tag folks once seeds are in the ground.
Got outside this morning to see the leaf collectors running around. Meaning there was a 20ft pile of leaves across the street from me and I ran over and grabbed 3, 5 gallon buckets full 🫡 mixed it with pine needles, walnuts, ground cherry wood, finished compost, hydroton and two bricks of coco. And watered in some fulvic and will be filling more pots with good soil in a few days…
Happy Tuesday! Time for coffee 
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Very nice grow, and informative journal you’ve got going here, @DirtySlowToes . I’m pulling up a chair to follow along.
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