Yeah, being a land owner is kinda profound but a bit absurd as well when thinking in global terms. It’s crazy that not everyone has their own piece of land, there’s really plenty of land… If everyone were given a piece of desert land and a permaculture handbook, imagine what a paradise this planet would be. 
Yeh, this annoys me in a lot of different ways haha. I think it’s outrageous that land is horded, and the price of land is ridiculous too. But then I also think that being able to buy and sell land is even more ridiculous when you actually think about what that means… selling some of the thing that we just live on. 
Then there’s the people who think we don’t have enough land for everyone.
Less than 6% of the land in UK is actually inhabited, and we still have a problem here with people thinking “our country is full” when it comes to refugees and immigration.
Thats a beautiful thought! And hopefully a beautiful reality in the not too distant future.
Ocean water can be desalinated cheaply now, things are looking really good! 
Instead of oil tankers we’ll have drinkable water tankers.
We won’t have any deserts left at some point.
I love the whole process of growing plants, but these first few weeks are always slow starts and not a lot to do when I’m in living soil.
So I find myself organising a lot, and doing stuff like this
Amendments sorted into Mason jars and labelled. I’m waiting on some volcanic rock (Basalt) and crustacean meal to arrive to jar those up. I also need to get some bigger jars for my alfalfa meal and vermicompost.
Anyone else organise their equipment and amendments when they have spare time?
Would be cool to see some other people’s inventory 
Is your malted barley pre-ground? From what I’ve read, you wanna get the whole grain, like the kind they use for brewing beer and then grind them when you need it, like for a top dress or a soil amendment. That’s what I do, anyway. Supposedly “fresh-ground” barley is the best, as the enzymes are more “active” or “alive” or whatever.
I also keep my barley in the freezer. And my aloe, too, actually, just because it’s the freeze-dried kind. Mine’s white, though, and yours looks brown, so maybe you’re using a different kind of aloe. The coconut goes into the freezer as well, because it’s also freeze-dried powder, but I don’t see any coconut in your lineup, so I guess that really doesn’t matter haha. Just figured I’d mention it.
And on the rare occasions when I have bokashi, I keep it in the fridge. If you have anything like neem oil or essential oils for IPM, I’ve found that keeping those things in the fridge prolong their shelf life quite a bit.
Yeh, it was something I’d bought a while ago, picked up pretty cheap, so it’s lasted ages haha.
I’ve picked up a load of seeds for sprouting this week (lentils, corn, chick peas, beans etc) some for me some for the plants. I’ll try and pick up some more whole barley too.
The Aloe, I’ve had for a year or so, but it was that same colour when I’d bought it.
I was basically using it just for the saponin content. I might het a fresh batch as some of the other benefits may not be there in it anymore.
I can’t fund a good source of freeze dried coconut in rhe UK, so I just use coconut water fresh, and add a little to waterings occasionally.
I’ll bare that in mind. I don’t have much space in my fridge though haha.
I do have some prebiotic that I keep refrigerated. As well as my seeds, but that’s about it.
If you have corn, you really probably don’t even need to pick up any barley. It’s the enzymes produced during the sprouting process that you want; from what I understand, it really doesn’t matter what you sprout, although certain grains produce different… whatever they’re called haha, can’t remember right now. Corn, for instance, is high in cytokinins (look up the benefit of cytokinins for plants if you want; coconut water is also high in cytokinins). Barley’s probably higher in something else, but I don’t think it really matters. You can use chia seeds or even weed seeds, if you have a bunch of those laying around haha.
Right, that’s why most people use it. I think? You might wanna try to find the 200x aloe vera flake, though. Or grow an aloe plant! Can you grow aloe in England?
Oh yeah, even better. I don’t really ever use coconut, either, just remembered yesterday (veg day 61) that I oughta water with some haha.
Psssshhhh, I know, I had to buy a second fridge for all my seeds haha, that one’s out in the garage. But since there’s quite a bit of space left over, I just throw things like neem oil and aloe and shit in there, seems to prolong the shelf life, the neem oil especially.
And I put beer in it, too. Lots and lots of beer… haha.
Yeh I have a lot of different seed and grains etc now, so I’ll just use a mixture and make some sprouted seed teas 
Ultimate have to rea up on cytokinins, I’ve heard the term a few times but I’m not overly familiar with it.
I could do with a separate beer fridge haaha, especially with this mini heatwave we’ve been having here recently.
I doubt it 
probably very slowly. I have some Quillaja powder arriving this week, so that’ll be my new go to for saponin.
Installed a net today, hoping the PDD will fill out the back half and then the two Durban x Zkittles take up a front quarter each Ince they’re big enough to plant into bed. I think about a weeks time.
I’ve also lowered the lights a bit and switched to the x4 4000k strips, and ppfd is at around 470 now
Planted the 2 Durban x Zkittles (which I’m going to refer to as DBZ, because I’m a massive nerd ).
Watered them in, aprox 10% by volume, with some aloe and Biosys (instant microbe tea). Hoping the PDD at the back will start to stretch a bit soon, its very compact at the moment. I’ll probably raise the lights a bit in a day or two once the DBZ have taken root properly.
Bro you know what I can’t understand about your grows??
Why you growing the way you do?? You could make much better use of the space. Is it just because its personal smoke??
Come back in two months.
yeh pretty much, majority will be for my lass .
This first run is sort of a tester too, as its in a space I wasn’t sure would work. So I’m keeping a close eye on heat and humidity etc. If this goes well I’ll be running some bodhi packs in here next I think.
Plus when I started this set up, I only had either a full pack or Old Soul by Bodhi, or a bunch of attitude freebies, and I didn’t fancy wasting the Bodhi pack if I couldn’t get the environment dialed in.
I just kind of like the process of growing the plants too, gives me something to spend time on and chills me out.
It’s been a busy week, first week off work for paternity leave, still no little baba yet, but expecting him any day now! 
So I’ve been keeping busy in the tent/garden.
The PDD is filling out a bit now. I’ve done a bit of supercropping and topping to get some more tops going.
The 2 DBZ I’ll probably just top once when they get closer to the net.
I’ve also had to do some adjustments to manage the temps and humidity. I’ve unplugged x2 of the outer strips, and it’s now running on x4 4000k and x2 3000k strips. I’ve also had to make a little humidifier with paper towel, a stick and bowl of water. All seems to be working great, temps at around 27c and 70% humidity. Right in the sweet spot for VPD.
Bastard gnats popped up again, so added more traps and have the gnatrol going again. Think I’ll add the nematodes this week too.
Ugh gnats are the bane of my growing existence lately!
Stick a piece of tube in there mang, water in there and put a sock over it, gotta let the top soil dry out, it’s the only way that worked for me, if you keep watering with gnatrol you keep their habitat available. The larvae don’t survive draught. They don’t go deeper than about 5 to 10 cm, it’s not gonna affect your plants at this point.
Bottom watering or through a tube has been the most effective way to get rid of them for me, and it’s free, you can jam a pringles can in there, just drill some holes in the bottom. Or get a piece of pipe from a hardware store, it’s very cheap.
You can also add fertilizer through the tube, whatever powders you use, or kitchenscraps, grassclippings, nettles, dandeliion leaves, tree leaves, etc.
Sock over it and done.
I’m really not keen on letting the soil dry out though. I know that will kill the cycle for the gnats, but it’ll also kill my soil biology in that top layer where i need it to be active.
For the gnatrol to work it needs to stay moist too, or else that bacteria will die off.
If I so try the bottom water through a pipe, I’d probably just try pouring down the corner pieces of the bed, as I drilled holes in all of the bottom edge pieces of pipe before I filled it, should allow for an even distribution of water too.
Only the topsoil, less than a pinky deep needs to be less moist to get rid of the gnats, plants will be fine and the toplayer will keep breaking down, the fungi penetrate everything wet or dry, and don’t underestimate aerobic microbes!
Topdressing with fresh organic matter also helps a lot, fresh grass clippings, kitchenscraps and such are all like 70-90% water which helps them decompose very quickly, once dry you can topdress again, etc. It works fine.
Topdressing fresh organic matter is like slow release watering, the fungi suck the water out and distribute it throughout the soil. And the pipe only needs to be a pinky deep.
The toplayer doesn’t need to be bone dry, just less moist than it is now. 
Can take up to a month or more until you see results, but patience is a great problem solver.
And you can keep adding gnatrol in the tube if you insist.
Out shopping this afternoon with my Fiancé decided to call into a charity shop (I saw comic books in the window that lured me in haha) didn’t pick up any comics, but found these x3 60l fabric pots for £2.99. £1 each, won’t get them that cheap anywhere else.
So I decided to plant some potatoes in the 60l, and thought I might as well harvest some castings from my worm bin.
First time doing this, so it’s a work in progress but was pretty happy with the results!
Fed the bin afterwards too. Somw bits of Broccoli, mushrooms, banana skins, crushed egg shell and powdered oats. Topped off with a home made topdress blend, just to get some amendments in there for them to work through as well.
Seemed to still be quite a bit coco in there, so didn’t add extra coco, but I did cover it with straw mulch.
Haha Comics still get me too, nice score!
