What better day to start a grow diary than on 4/20, right?
Seeds
- Mr. Nice NL5xAfghan, regular
- Tatanka CBD by Royal Queen Seeds, feminised
- Either it’s Black Cream Auto, Devil Cream Auto or Cream Caramel Auto by Sweet Seeds, not sure.
- Aurora Borealis auto fem ( starts at post 15 )
Tatanka CBD:
Got a drastic surge in humidity with as result budrot on two of them so I removed all affected material. They wanted me to take their clothes off, and who am I to say no?
Weird growth of the cola’s is from accidental revegging from keeping the main flap open, got that under control now. 12 hours of total darkness every night.
This is basically the 2nd start of flowering. They still have a ways to go.
In the pic above you can see the high water mark of my continuous winter soak. That’s right, I gave them a months long foot bath just to see what happened and have now let it dry out completely. All pots haven’t been watered since the 1st of April.
While they were standing in a puddle of water fungus gnats happened and I lost a few seedlings but 4 out of 8 survived. 50% survival rate. That’s the natural balance and odds when growing in a swamp. Now I want to find out what happens if I never water them within this grow cycle. To know how long my soil can retain moisture.
Above picture has red beet in the corner, grown from kitchen scrap. The beet never really regrows, it just creates thin white roots, but the leaves keep growing, I use some as topdressing and others I eat. Also slugs prefer them over cannabis.
Edit: I have one red beet now that is regrowing fully, I guess it depends on how big the top is that you cut off and plant.
Below picture, the largest one is the Cream strain.
was sown in the tent with the adult CBD and didn’t get enough light so stretched a lot, then I lowerd the light too much and she got burned, so I rigged up a second LED somewhere else and seperated them. Then sowed the NL5xAfghan to keep her company. The burn was quite severe, the top growth turned completely yellow and stopped growing, so I pinched off the top, basically FIM’d her. Two main branches developing now, being held down. She survived the gnats too.
Above picture, elm oyster mushrooms ( hypsizygus ulmarius ) pinning at the bottom of the NL5xAfghan seedling. Added some mycelium when I sowed it.
Good to know that whatever grows in my soil until harvest can tolerate gnats. I guess I’ll call it stress testing. Survival of the fittest seed, whatever dies wasn’t strong enough to live. Welcome to planet Earth.
A 50/50 survival rate is fine for me. That’s balance. The cycle of life. Winter and Summer. I can wait until something wants to grow in there. There’s always something that comes up eventually and survives until harvest when you keep adding seeds. Just keep laying down a wide variety of organic matter and manure. Whatever is common in my area, nettles, dandelions, thistles, these contain lots of minerals because they have deep taproots.
I go outside now and then to harvest some green manure to use as topdressing. Everything that is free and close. In nature everything is always new. You’ll never pick the same plant, every nettle or weed is unique, I continuously make discoveries of how connected and diverse everything is.
All life feeds on death.
All death feeds on life.
“A forest grows on top of a fallen forest.” - Geoff Lawton
Everything is an experiment of balancing extremes, allowing everything to unfold.
Living soil and an “only add water when the plant wilts” type of approach.
- 20 days since I last watered. Soil still moist.
Let’s see where this goes.
Soil mix
- Certified organic compost
- Wormcastings
- Malted barley
- Seaweed
- Basalt
- Alfalfa
I’ve thrown a lot of other random organic matter in my pots since I started. A little soil from my back yard, apple cores, banana peels, orange peels, nettle, beetroot leaves, cucumber plant matter, grass, woodchips, dandelion, sticky weeds (that living velcro stuff), tree leaves, onion (decomposes really fast), broccoli and carrot scraps, stuff like that.
Most recently topped up the two youngest pots with a thin layer of peat/sand mix to keep the gnats in check. There was a reduction.
