Alright my 2 x 2 tent is arriving today. So I’m setting up for my grow. I’m popping 2 seeds and planting in hempy buckets (first time trying this method). The seeds are:
Lollipurps (island sweet skunk x the purps) from Jahseeds
Orange Blossom Special (Clementine x Stardawg) from Greenpoint seeds
My plan is twofold.
If both are regular I will collect the pollen
If both are female, I will just grow them out
If one is male and one is female, it’s time to pollinate em baby!
Was also thinking about making some fem seeds with the OBS. If I go that route, it’ll be seed run only.
Been doing hempies for a long time. Tried 'em every which way.
Perlite to slightly above the drain hole, mix of 50/50 coco/perlite or 50/50 perlite/vermiculite up top. Pure perlite works great too just gotta water a little more often. Doesn’t matter what coarseness of perlite.
Drill holes near the lip of the bucket for ties so you can easily train plants. Don’t just drill one drain hole, drill a bunch of them clustered together, drains faster if you need it to flush. Mine looks almost like a mesh starting 2" from the bottom. Alternately, cut one big hole with a forstner bit and use contact cement or silicone to attach an actual mesh screen.
Buy a couple extra buckets in case one plant is significantly taller than the other. You can stack short plants on buckets so the canopy is even.
Thanks for the reply! I’ve only got one drain hole in one of my buckets, so I will add more and the holes up top is a good idea too for training! Thanks for the heads up! I’m thinking of adding some light hydroguard to the water mix once it gets going. Any experience with it?
Ive done hempys in the past . !00% perlite and 70/30 perlite verm with good results . Im actually planning to do hempys again in the near future with coco
/perlite after reading some posts by @vernal . Ill be watching your grow .
I’m thinking of ditching the coco altogether I’m sorta over the differences in quality. Sometimes even 1/3rd mix coco will tank my pH and require adjustment. Usually 50/50 works great but every now and again…
I may go back to vermiculite but they hardly ever have big bags at the hydro store. Vermiculite has the same issues, just reversed, often a very high pH. I find perlite to also have a higher pH out of the bag but not nearly as bad as vermiculite. Only thing that is truly neutral is rockwool croutons but those things are crazy expensive in large quantities for hand watering. It’s been a struggle to find a truly plug and play handwater soilless media that isn’t $$$.
Canna Coco is more consistent but still not perfect.
Coco and vermiculite with dry organic amendments work really well as a water only, but I’ve never tried with hempys. For coco I use Cyco, and mostly use FF dry ferts. Also some beneficials/teas from time to time.
I can imagine a hempy grow getting a bit “gunky” and even clogged up in the perlite layer with organics though.
I have done a straight hydroton bucket once as an experiment. Pebbles shift too much, heavy but holds almost no water, and the weird part is, the pH of 5 gallons of clay pebbles is apparently extremely low. I fought pH as low as 4.5 in pure hydroton hand watered. Hand watering is just so different than active hydroponics, without the water being exchanged constantly from the media, the solution in the buckets can be very sensitive to non-neutral media.
Hydroton works just fine as the lower layer though. So do lava rocks.
I’ve been running hempys for a few years now and have tried many different mediums (all great results) but I’ve settled on HP Promix and dry nutrients. Watering daily till 10% runoff. Love me some hempies. Ill be around watching your thread, exciting.
Soil:
HP Pro mix with Mycorrhizae 80%
Regular potting soil 20%
Nutrients;
Gaia green 444 all purpose (2 tbsp per 1gal)
Gaia green 284 Flowering (2 tbsp per 1gal)
Gaia Green Worm Castings (2 tbsp per 1gal)
Dynomyco Inoculants
It’s very very easy. One tsp/gallon all the way through, seedling-bloom. Sometimes for hungry plants in early flower I’d do as high as 2 tsp./gallon but that’s it. I used it with a silica product as pH up. I prefer the dual series with MaxiGrow but you can absolutely use just MaxiBloom start-finish. Works well, super cheap.
Perlite it is…