Thanks for the advice man I wasn’t planning on it but I probably have to don’t I. Maybe I’ll get a 5 gallon fabric pot for a final transplant before starting that process. Like I can probably put her outside for a week or two to get usd to it first and then transplant. Depending how the weather shapes up I’ll probably put her outside in a few more weeks… As early as first week of May.
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Thanks for all that detailed and useful info … 
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Day 47:
I topped a couple more times and pruned a couple fan leaves. I pruned two of the newer fan leaves up top because they were blocking new growth sites. I also pruned off some of the lower growth again. Pot feels light again today but I will another 12 hours until watering. The plant still looks happy.
I will be careful to water with less than half as much run off this time. Between this hot soil mix and the excess water it was not ideal last time. Hopefully less water will also result in slightly less nutrient uptake.
I also got some lime maybe I could sprinkle a little on top and see good results. But I may just keep truckin in this pot and try to get the new soil better for that final transplant.
My self assemenet so far is a short list of the biggest issues. Please feel free to add your two cents!
- soil mix too hot (possibly too low of pH at times, definitely excess nutrient(s) from amendments, no pH buffer to balance those factors)
1.5) OVER WATERING! (I probably did this twice or three times now… noob)
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Not enough light (this might be the main reason for slower growth, or it may be all due to reason 1 combined with low quality water and low humidity as well)
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low quality tap water (hard water, probably rather high ppm… might do a test to see but one of my goals is to try to achieve a solid soil mix to at least optimize pH and nutrient availability within the limits of my tap water, just for ease of watering with hose and watering can)
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Often 50% or lower humidity
So moving forward I really hope to see better results just by making a better soil mix, adding the lime, reducing the amendments. Also my neighbour has free range laying hens and bags and bags of chicken manure that I will try an experiment with… essentially adding to the worm casting portion of my mix with chicken manure. I think she has some at least year old composted that is ready for use.
So I’m going to get that soil mix done up this week and I’ll let it sit for a couple weeks with the lime and amendments to all neutralize the acidity a bit. I’ll aim to get it a little under 7 on the pH meter but not too close to 6 this time.
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Day 48:
Pot still feels light but I don’t even know maybe it could get lighter. Nonetheless I don’t see that this plant is needing water right now. I’ll give it another day.
That last watering with over an inch of run off was way too much. That was 5 days ago. I’m going to get that down to less than half an inch next time. I believe I will be able to water every 3 days like that.
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UPDATED SOIL MIX:
4 tbs kelp meal
1 tbs blood meal
1 tbs bone meal
1 tbs dolomite lime
3 cups top soil
11 cups worm castings
18 cups peat
22 cups perlite
tbh I ran out of worm castings and I wanted to get this mixed up and settled before I transplant my next seedlings. That’s also something I didn’t even do with this Papaya before transplanting.
These are apparently 2 gallon fabric pots from amazon that were like 5 for 10 bucks. They seem a little smaller than that…
I will be making more of this mix at these ratios for my final transplant with this Papaya, into a 5 gal fabric pot. It will be acidic with all the peat but the addition of the lime should reduce that, as well as my hard tap water. Given that she has survived in the hotter version so far I am fairly confident that cutting the strength of the amendments in half (by doubling everything else) and adding the dolomite lime should be an improvement.
Now I’ve got it stewing in the tub for my seedlings to get transplanted into in about a week or two. I ran through a watering can of decantered tap water to get everything activated and neutralized. Might even do that again once it all dries out. This will also give me an idea of how fast these pots dry out from evaporation only.
Day 57:
Can’t wait to put this plant outside and transplant again. Temp and humidity have been all over the place, not enough light… probably too much nutrients and acidity in the soil but we’re still kickin! I’ve also been pining the lower fan leaves off as they got all dark and started getting weird spots even… I was also running them a lot to smell hahaha.
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Looks like they could use a little magnesium. Do you have any Epsom salts? Add a 1/2 teaspoon to a gallon of water and spray the leaves until they are soaked and drooping. Do this right before lights out for best results.
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Thanks ReikoX, will do. I’m actually just running it 24/7. I’ll get a timer for my next one and try 18/6 or 20/4…
But I’ll get some quality water and epsom salt and try that anyway? or even just run one manual 6 hour dark cycle?
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Just turn off the lights until the plant is dry would be fine.
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Day 65:
@ReikoX so haven’t actually done anything at all yet and it’s been quite a long time since I watered even…
Should I foliar spray and water at the same time? and just cut the lights for 6 hours? Can you estimate a ball park volume of water recommendation as well?
EDIT: I should note that this thing just looks ready for water today. yesterday the majority leaves were all looking quite nice and upright toward the light.
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Yeah you can foliar spray and water both. A plant that size would only need about a quart of water to spray all the leaves until they droop.
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Day 66:
I accidentally got vanilla scented epsom salt but it’s magnesium sulphate so i went ahead and did the spray but my spray bottle is such a fine mist that it takes forever and i would develop carpal tunnel running a quart through it (it’s an empty costco glasses/lenses cleaner bottle).
So I soaked the leaves top and bottom probably with a total of 1 cup of water. let it sit for about 6 hours in dark. I also watered it. then i literally gave the plant a shower in my shower with cool water… because i wanted to rinse the vanilla scent off. however i obviously would have rinsed residual Mg too.
Anyway. I’ll give it a couple days and maybe do it again with non-scented epsom salt.
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Day 69:
Well scented vanilla epsom salt seems to be confirmed as a horrible idea. This plant is looking yellower.
I will still get some regular and and try that sometime this week.
Maybe this could be a different problem with lacking nutrients? 70 days in would my soil become depleted?
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Day 70:
Just gave REGULAR epsom salt foliar spray. Put about 150 mls (3/4 Cup) through the spray bottle at 1/2 tsp/ 8 cups (half gallon). So it was double the concentration @ReikoX recommended but if I’m not mistaken that was a conservative concentration anyway. And also less volume with a higher concentration. The leaves were soaked and drooping.
As you can see this plant is a sickly light colour with yellowing in the leaves.
EDIT: Was also in the dark for 6 hours for the foliar spray.
I then mixed in about 1/4 tsp kelp meal, 3/4 tbs gardening lime, and about 1/2 tsp blood meal into about 1.5 gallons of water and then dumped apple cider vinegar into it until it came out about 6.5 on my pH meter. The goal was just to put a bunch of Cal and Mg in the water and a little of other nutrients. I watered just in the tray only about 2-3 cups max. It was absorbed quickly, last watering was over three days ago although the pot still had some weight.
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Looks like phosphorous or maybe nitrogen deficiency to me, but don’t quote me on that. Here’s a good pic for a general idea:
From this site to give full credit:
Nutritional soil mixes can be great, but when deficiencies arise it can be hard to tell what the problem might be, and feeding can further compound the issue… particularly if the deficiency was caused by lockout in the first place.
I’d love to move to complete, organic soil some day, but having a more inert medium and having complete control over feeding is just too easy and consistent for me atm.
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Stealing that thanks.
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ya thanks beacher i think i have to leave it alone now… i’m really suspecting some sort of lock out due to soil and water quality.
I was actually diggin around in our new backyard today and realized we have extremely rich looking clay soil that is just full of earthworms. So I’m thinking of trying a 1-1-1 soil, peat, perlite, with a little dolomite lime added and should hope to get a good pH. I am also able add chicken manure from my neighbour.
So i think aim going to make that soil mix with 5 Gal pots within the next couple weeks for all my plants and hopefully that will straighten things out.
btw this is the “gardening lime” from home hardware… is it dolomite lime? same thing?
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According to that chart, @beacher, N deficiency is what it looks like. However from a little googling I gather the Mg deficiency sorta shows the same.
The purple stems are an indication for Mg deficiency as well I believe.
I think it’s possible to lock out Mg with too much of other nutrients as well. So that’s why I tried to give a little fertilizer using this Cal Mg rich lime, balanced down with apple cider vinegar. And i added a pinch of kelp meal (N, K, micros) and a little bit more of the blood meal (N). shook it all up and let it sit for 20 mins or so. So we’ll see what this does…
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