MOTR grows with OniTenshu

Watering has finished and I took an hour apparently from start to finish to complete it across the tent as apparently everyone needs water today. :sweat_smile:

You know I had a thought: if fungus gnats need a pancreas to process milk why don’t we just use that to kill them? Or at least something that won’t create butyric acid or spoil in the soil that would serve the same function.

Anyways I sprinkled the frass in top of the soil and I almost lost the grub in the soil😅 oops. I’m sure I shouldn’t let it join the macro herd. I can’t remember what I found, but also without knowing the particular insect I don’t want it eating roots. Little bugger was digging in the soil and I barely caught it in time. I had to grab a chunk of soil to safely remove it. All is well and it’s back in it’s bag to chill and eat and make more frass. speaking of what should I be feeding it instead of it’s own sheddings and poop?

When you say the white bottle you mean the one without the label correct? Otherwise that’s been confusing me since the bottle is transparent :sweat_smile: hopefully I haven’t been using the wrong one this whole time.

The 2 larger Lucky’s are showing sex now and it’s still ambiguous. Just 2 preflowers on the first and 1 preflower on the other bigger one. Only 1 per node and no bunches yet to help determine who is what.

And after watering

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Out for the day. Thought I’d share the pics I took before leaving

It looks like some frass is stuck on the leaves still. I hope that isn’t bad😅

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I thought you were wanting to add a blanket to help keep the plants warm from the cold floor not to soak up the water and since thats the case, its a REALLY bad idea as it’ll trap the moisture and promote nasty mold as water follows the path of least resistance and stays wet the longer it can’t air out…you really need a catch tray and putting them on a platform of corrugated metal, couple foam blocks etc will help keep the soil warmer as the air moves around it instead of sitting damp getting cold on the floor…i also thought we covered this already though I guess not

Yup, all over the pot including the dead leaves you pulled off as some will move them out of the way and wanted to be clear as we need the layers we are/will be building…not on the growing plants themselves :wink:

Milk is expensive so its more reserved for mold whereas vinegar and sand are cheap additions

More than likely its a meal worm that evolved into a beetle…happens sometimes coming from a large production plant. Good call removing it…Kill it unless you have a reptile or fish to feed then in that case get some oats damp and set it/them inside with some dead leaves…they will procreate and make a lot of meal worms before dying off

Sorry. Yes that’s the one…no label :stuck_out_tongue:

Yeah don’t look again til this weekend as it takes a few days and can be frustrating looking every day :wink:

Thats ok. Tomorrow when they are dry just dust it off the growing leaves

all in all looking like progress is being made :stuck_out_tongue:

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Some gardener I watched last night on Youtube said milk foliars were his secret ingredient for tomatoes…

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I put that up there with adding tums for extra calcium to the planting hole…just doesn’t work for that. Now milk especially skim milk, is wonderful for all nightshades though not for the calcium for blossom end rot though rather for the potassium sulphate milk is loaded with and it is that very thing that staves off fungus. Tomato’s are known to be potassium hogs so the extra they get through a foliar perks them right up especially if there isn’t enough in the soil… as a fungus/mold preventative you would mix 1 part milk to 9 parts water and spray weekly.

Oh and let me clarify when I say vinegar as an addition… I do not mean to dump it in the soil or spray the plant with it but to use it as a trap for those lil gnats :wink:

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That may be because of the calcium. If memory serves they use a good amount if allowed to. Or possibly the bugs won’t go near IDK. Despite being acid loving apparently baking soda on the soil makes super sweet tomatoes. Possibly something similar?

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I figured you meant that. That’s the household trick as far back as I know. You have to remove anything they are feeding on. I have nothing left for them to breed in I know of, so now it’s a waiting game while I keep cleaning and finding where they’re coming from.

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I’ll be heading out for the weekend tomorrow morning and I’ll be back Saturday to check on the plants. I’ll be put job hunting all day. I didn’t get the job at the gas station nearby, but mostly as I have no lottery experience and I wasn’t aware I was going to be replacing the manager as I applied for a cashier’s position. I’m not letting it get me down as I had another location I’ll be going to tomorrow to interview in the morning as well as grudgingly stop and shop again if I join the strike. Conveniently this isn’t the first time they’ve offered me a job if I strike with them. As much as I’d like to not work for them again a job is a job rn as I’m trying to get a license and a car.

I’ll be up early enough to foliar feed them the transition foliar before lights on would burn them. The leaves will be dry before lights come back on.

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Thanks for this! The dude didn’t say why. I’ll hook them up with one later in the season when the humidity rises. btw…his 2 other secrets were comfry leaves in the planting hole and rabbit poo stew (manure watered down lol)

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Yeah I am outta likes atm :stuck_out_tongue:

idk about using baking soda on tomato’s though I do know that you can use it to make a short lived co2 contraption, kill weeds and it helps reduce Rose Black Spot fungus flare ups using 4 tsp baking soda to 1 gallon water…it works because it changes the ph on the leaves so the fungus cannot take hold…same with powdery mildew using 1Tb to 1 gallon water though milk works better

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No problem! Alot of times people don’t know why they were either told to do it or tried it and received positive results…idk about putting comfrey into the planting hole as it does get pretty hot composting (excellent compost starter actually) though definitely on top of the soil with rabbit poo

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He put it straight in the hole both of them. Cherry tomatoes though… Indeterminants not sure if it matters. His plants were trellised and about 10 feet high. Pretty amazing! So many ways! I must have watched 3 hours of different peoples tomato secrets last night. haha

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Whelp as they say nothing ventured nothing gained though remember gardeners use different nutrient compositions of soil so what works for one may not readily work for another :wink:

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I’ll be heading out soon, so I got the foliar finished before it’s too late. No pictures as I’m not sure if I should when I’m working in the dark. In the very dim light I allowed myself to see and not stumble I saw them all looking very happy 45° Y look.

Now I wait to call them and head over if they’re free to meet for an interview and if not I’m still going to the area around the same time anyways for another reason. Especially now that my back and ribs have recovered once I was able to crack them in place somehow on a chair yesterday. I can’t wait to start working again and not be a bum all day. Bonus I’ll be working near the place I get my soil from and they sell all the ingredients I need to build soil with in a few months. They also sell the supplies to make my own supersoil I may try my hand at eventually, but regardless I may try and buy the supplies before I have to pay 3-4x as much to get it online.

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Well…change of plans and I’m staying home longer. They already filled the spot despite still saying they’re hiring yesterday afternoon when I went in to check.

Both larger plants were male for sure and got pulled. How should I go about composting them in the soil or should I just strip the leaves and add those to the soil and toss the stems? I thought to snip them at the base and then I thought they had a chance to come back, so I gently pulled them from the soil and spread the soil that came with over the surface and over the stem bases.

And now without the males/male root system

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For now I have the males outside in a jar together Kratky style. I’ll be gone for the day and when I come back tomorrow I’ll process them as needed. I’m interested in seeing how they grow like that. The roots already reached the bottom of the container :astonished:

I might gift them to my buddy who really wants a plant to practice on, but it’s really up to him since he knows they’re both male.

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If/when you can afford it get a green party light to use so you can see. Even though plants do “see” green they don’t really respond to it in their dark cycle

Save your money as what I have sent you in the 3gallon pot and amendments for the 20gallon pot is a super soil. Now in the winter you’ll have to get a few amendments to refresh it though that won’t be until 4 months after we restart in the fall

That sucks though great practice for next time :wink:

Strip the leaves for your soil… the woody stem takes too long to break down in this small pot so its best to toss it or throw it in a compost bin for more active breakdown

I wish you just snipped them at the base so you don’t disturb the roots on the girls plus the additional roots provide extra aeration until they break down later on then they add to the humus layer…too late now and not really a big deal in this 3 gallon pot though will be when we go to the 20 gallon. Remember: No green = no growth

Pretty perfect that the girls are directly across from each other so no need to re-orientate them like I had to do :stuck_out_tongue:

Nice! You can also practice cloning with them

That works too :wink:

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I’ll be home in a bit to check on the plants before lights out and I’ll see what became of the outside males.

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The remaining Lucky’s are very happy today. The rest if the plants needed another watering today, but otherwise the Lucky’s look good.

I decided to use the spare pot for a Auto grow. Last fem mix auto from @ReikoX and now only Crystal Candy seeds left for autos.

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I have a picture of the seedling too before I left this afternoon. It’s a strong one. I had to be really careful moving the Perlite chunks under it as it didn’t want to move and seems very well rooted. Only the shell and head would move. The rest would be rigid and stubborn. Good. Good sign for the auto. I’ve been trying to practice good watering practices on that pot too. Just regular water though. I want whatever nutes trapped in the soil to hurt the seedling gone and I hope the hungry clover have done well leaving just the never dying living mulch behind to help me out down the line.

As for the males I decided to keep them outside to grow and see what happens. When should I top them? I’m tempted to now, but I think I should wait unless now’s the Time. They seem to like it in there. In the morning I’ll change the water. I gave them some fresh water for now. I think I’ll practice cloning on them like you mentioned. They are growing well in there. Nice thick stems already after a day in there. They still have roots above the water. I’m experimenting with my mother’s variation of Kratky she just did after years of window plants. She didn’t even know why she did it. It just works. Most of my mint cuttings last year came from her kitchen window. They love it in this style.

Don’t mind the dirty water. The soil wouldn’t come off easily and I didn’t want to rip the roots. Seems so far they like it and the roots are still a nice white. No hints of brown or orange roots yet. Almost like a transition to hydro from soil as if I remember correctly that can shock plants big time if they go from soil to hydro. They are responding really positive, so once I figure out why I may mess around with it on other plants.

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