TeddyNugget grows stuff (grow room diary)

Guess I should have mentioned some more details on growing methods/mediums, etc.

I have been at this a long time now and have used a variety of methods over the years - living organic soil, bagged soil/soilless, coco, hydro (DWC, top feed drip, flood and drain, NFT/aero). My favorite, and the one I’m probably most passionate about is living organic soil. I just love the idea of letting Mother Nature run the show, but I do like to run hydro and more recently (last few years-ish) started getting into coco a bit. I really like that it allows much easier use of organic inputs than hydro, but still similar growth rates and yields.

I have also done a lot of runs over the years in amended store bought soils using a variety of different feeding methods. All sorts of bottled nutrients, dry organic nutrients, compost teas. Using store bought soils is just a convenient, easy method to use so I often fall back on it I guess.

I’ve also done a lot of runs using the old General Hydroponics AeroFlo’s. Love those machines! My buddy has my last remaining Aeroflo and he ghosted me, so I consider it a lost cause at this point but I am planning to build my own modified version eventually. I have the manifold mostly built and have a bunch of extra spray lines (they screw onto the manifold). So I just need to get a reservoir and cut some 4” square tubes.

And I still have an old General Hydroponics Rainforest I use (w/the vortex sprayer). That little machine is a great small single light hydro setup. I can pretty easily pull 2lbs from 4-5 plants under one 600w LED in that machine. I’m sure I’ll do another run with it at some point this year (probably).

This current run is mostly in store bought bagged soil. Roots organic original and fox farms ocean forest. Feeding methods are a mix of organic inputs mostly, and things like fresh aloe, seed sprout teas, compost teas, some foliar feedings, top dressing with EWC/compost, etc. I do have my own composter and worm farm so I try to produce my own as much as I can.

I am testing out some of the Organics Alive nutrients on the 3 plants in flower now. I grabbed their sample pack.
It comes with small amounts of their soluble dry organic nutrient line, a few bottles of their liquid extracts and a sample of their compost (which I used to make aerated compost tea). So far I am liking it. We’ll see what the end flower results look/smoke like though! I know the 2 strains well, so we’ll see how they compare to previous runs.

I am cooking up a batch of living organic soil now as well. So next round there will be plants in living organic soil. I had organic soil that was multiple years old but I had to leave it behind when I changed locations :cry: so I’m starting over on that front. This past year has not been fun…

I also bought a plastic tote to make a SIP (sub irrigated planter) ala @CrunchBerries thread. So that will be a fun project! That is one grow style that I haven’t done and I’m very much looking forward to trying.

Ok, I think that mostly covers it. Sorry for the long post

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Oh yeah, I also grabbed a few bags of the Bio365 Bio-all on the very strong recommendation of the hydro shop employee. He said it was miles better than any of the other bagged soils. So far I don’t know that I agree. The one bag I’ve opened had big chunks of compressed coco in it. 2 different chunks both about 3/4 the size of a full brick. Wtf is that?! lol I had to break them up and mix the bag of soil well. I really like the overall consistency of the bio-365. It seems light and airy, but It’s been giving me some nutrient imbalance issues. I think I am finally getting it dialed in though. I know it’ll work out. Worst case I’ll have to switch to bottled nutrients or coco nutrients but I’m hoping I can stay organic. Thankfully only a handful of plants are in that bio-365. Maybe it was just a bad bag? Guess we’ll see what the other bags are like…

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I’m returning the heater :rofl:. After plugging it in and testing out for a hour or two, it was horrible. Dripped my humidity from 78 to 55. Back to the Honeywell ceramic heater. When that runs, I get higher levels.

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Wow! That’s a crazy drop. I guess if you needed a dehumidifier it would’ve been good, huh? :joy:

This is what I use:

Those electric baseboard heaters work well too but typically use at least 1000 watts.

Happy Saturday to you. I went back to my old heater, the old one didn’t suck as much humidity out of the air. I’ve been hearing those radiator heaters work best.
Hows the garden today?

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Hey Happy! Just finished up the kitchen molding and checked in on the garden. Everything looks good! I’ll try to get some more pics next time. Thanks for asking

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Took more pictures today.

Flower room: a picture from above and a picture from the side

I put another plant into flower. It is an extra bonsai mom I had that I just stuck in a 4 gal. fabric pot with some reused soil. I wasn’t planning to flower it out. I was just going to take clones but then I needed more space in the veg room and it seemed like a shame to chop it so I put it in the flower room. It actually filled up the open space in the top canopy pretty nicely.

I’m not 100% sure what it is right now. I’m pretty sure it’s expert Mac 1 but the tag fell off. I’ll know for sure once it flowers out.

Some pics of the 2 Bodhi field trip:

And the Katsu celestial tremors:

Got some aerated compost tea brewing in the flower room too (it brews better in there since it stays around 75° day&night)

I don’t have any home made compost or castings right now, so this was made with 3 cups of 3 different types of bagged compost (1 cup of each).

  • the soil makers fungal compost
    -organics alive compost
    -malibu compost

I put them in order of how I’d rank them. I was really impressed with the soil makers compost. Price was reasonable (with shipping factored in). It shipped super fast and most importantly, it seems high quality. It was still nice and moist too.

I only got a small amount of the organic alive (in that sample kit they sell) so it’s harder to truly judge the quality but it seems good from what I can tell.

The Malibu compost is from the local hydro shop.

I also added 1/2 tbsp. of alfalfa and 1/2 tbsp. kelp meal plus a tbsp. of molasses and a just a bit of ‘fish sh*t’ and sea green.

I’ll water my plants with it, foliar spray the plants in veg and then any leftover will be used to water the batch of living organic soil I have “cooking”.

That’s a photo from a few days after I put bokashi bran on top. It really took off after that. The entire top was covered in thick white fuzz. I left it for maybe 2-3 weeks then mixed it into the soil last week. I’ll put a bit more on top after I mix it and water it with more compost tea.
I’m just trying to add extra micro life since I had to use bagged compost and EWC to mix this batch up.

I got some LAB going too. Looks like it’s about ready!

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Grabbed some more flower pics. Nearing the end of week 5 iirc (I have it written down, I’d have to look to be sure).

Field trip:


Celestial tremors:

And here’s that male Venom Breath I mentioned last time. It has a nice strong smell and I really like the looks of it. More indica looking than the rest. I may collect some pollen from him, along with a couple other males I have.

And a couple of (boring) veg pics… lol

You can see some of the plants in that bio365 soil that I’ve been having issues with. They are definitely headed in the right direction now but still aren’t 100% healthy yet.

I forgot to take pics of the other veg room with all the seedling and stuff.

I will be turning on another light in the flower room this coming week.

@syzygy ’s SSDD f2’s will be moving into flower, followed soon by:

-Tony green’s gorilla bubble

  • bodhi tranquil elephantizer & cluster funk
    -my mystery strain (I call her blue velvet because she turns a nice blue shade when grown in hydro, and is super oily. I wish I knew what it really was though).
  • gelato
  • gg4 x longbottom leaf
  • thug pug peanut butter breath f3’s

And then I’ll have more on deck after that. Still waiting for more seedling to show sex, and then I think I have a 4-5 more mom’s to flower as well.

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I am not running out of smoke, but I’m dangerously low on weed I actually want to smoke. So I decided to go check out a local dispensary and try some different flavors.

Ended up getting 1/8ths of 3 different kinds. Cost me over $150! :face_vomiting: :joy:

I’ll never get used to buying weed without even being able to smell it first. I hate it. Had I been able to smell it first, I wouldn’t have bought 2 of the 3 I did.

At least one was really, really good.

Allen OG (Tahoe OG x alien or vise versa, not sure).

Edit - it’s “Alien Kush x Tahoe OG”

Grown in living organic soil. The taste is f’n incredible. It has that classic Tahoe OG taste but with a bit of funk added to it. Not really sure exactly how to describe the smell.

The taste is so addicting. This is a strain I need to find to add to my garden! :grin:

The other two I got were GastroPop and Grape fire or something like that (it was grape something).
Grape on the left, Gastro on the right:

The grape is very bland/generic tasting. Just kind of tastes like mediocre weed. No real flavor profile. High is mids too.

The GastroPop looks good, but doesn’t smoke nearly as good as it looks. And It’s nothing like the GastroPop I had before. That one was fire. It had a nice skunky/funky smell and taste, and the high was potent. That’s the whole reason I bought it - I was expecting it to be similar to the GastroPop I had before. Nope. lol

This one is all fruit. I am not really a fan of pure fruit.
Plus it has that kind of bland hydro taste (not that all hydroponic weed is bland by any means). It still tastes pretty good, but there’s no real nuance to the taste. Just very generic fruit and hash. It also seems to me like too much nutrient was used + some type of nutrient to force the plants to produce more “frost” (due to the look and the generic hash taste). At least it seems that way to me by the taste, look and the way it burns (not clean). It reminds me of some of the hydro batches I’ve grown in years past (especially when I was newer to it and using high PPM + tons of additives/supplements). Those batches had a very similar taste.

Man, I can’t wait until my own stuff is ready! I haven’t been this low on good smoke in a LONG time. Last year was awful though. We had some family stuff happen that flipped my world upside down and my garden fell by the wayside for a while there. But I’m back on track now!

I hate buying weed, especially these days since I don’t have the connects I used to. lol it’s overpriced dispensary weed now. I wouldn’t mind as much if I could at least smell it first. Not that smelling it would 100% prevent me from buying something I don’t like, but it would sure cut way down on that happening.

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I am going to be ordering my first grow tent. I want a better space to do seed projects and reproductions. I figure a grow tent will be the perfect place for it. Plus it will allow me to start making seeds sooner because it would obviously add additional room.

I found a 4’ x 3’ “2 in 1” tent that I was thinking of ordering. I would use it without the inner wall installed (like the pic below).

To anyone with grow tent experience (and/or seed making in grow tents):

Do y’all think a 4x3 would be big enough to do 10 plants at a time? Like to sprout a full pack of seeds then make f2’s from the males and females?
I’d use smaller 2-3 gallon pots and just keep the females smaller. I know it wouldn’t be a big enough space to flower out 10 big females. I barely fit 9 females under one light in 5 gallon pots in my normal flower room. But chances are it will only be 4-7 females at a time + how many ever males are in the pack (and the males won’t take up as much space since they can be kept in 0.5 to 1 gallon pots + trained so it’s just a single cola).

Outside of making seeds it would just be used as an extra veg space.

I’ve thought about getting a 4x4 but I’d like to eventually add a 2nd tent and two 4x3’s would only be 6’ wide instead of 8’ for two 4x4’s.
Plus I already have an LED light that can do a 3’ x 5’ veg footprint, so it would light the 4x3 fine. If I went 4x4 I’d have to get another light so that would add to the expense.

I feel like the 4x3 should work for my planned use but I was just curious of other’s opinions.

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Moved a few more into flower.

@syzygy thats the 3rd SSDD f2 female at the top left. The other two are the ones on the far right.
That pic was right before I watered her (she needed water as you can probably see).

The plant in front is my mystery female (more pics below). She’s always finicky but she’s also one of the plants in that bad bag of soil I got, which has made it a huge PITA to try and keep her healthy. You can see I’ve been dealing with issues. She’s still not 100% happy but I had to get her into flower before she got any bigger. I’m already nervous that I’m not going to have enough space in the flower room for everything that needs to move in there.

And this is the Bodhi Tranquil Elephantizer remix. She’s in a smaller pot than some of the others.

Oh, and a quick pic of the other plants in flower. I forgot to take close ups. I’ll get some next time.

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Yeah if it’s 4x3 then you could do 12 3 gal pots pretty easily. I’ve run 9 3 GALs in my 3x3 without issue many times. Another ft of space would let you do another row of pots.

Nice! Really hoping you find something decent in there to justify the space/time.

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That looks perfect! Now I feel confident the 4x3 size will work for me. Thanks man! You put my mind at ease.

I doubt I’ll be lucky enough to get 9 (of 10-12) females out of a single pack of seeds. But even if I did, the extra foot of space would still allow me to keep the males along the edges of the room.

And thanks again for the ssdd f2’s. I am so happy to have that strain back in my garden. I am doubtful I’ll find what I’m looking for in the first 3 females, but I still have like 45+ seeds of yours to run through + the triple sunshine cross + @Knifeman was also nice enough to send me a flip of each of his 2 SSDD phenos (that came from your seeds! :grin: he seemed quite happy with what came out of your ssdd f2’s)

And I still have the SSDD f1 coming along nicely, and that will be used to make more seeds too.

So I’ll have a good amount of SSDD to sift through to find what I’m after. Should be fun!

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What kind of tent did you get? I dig the shelves from the 2 in 1 deal going without the divider.

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I didn’t order it yet. Probably this Friday after I get paid and pay my bills. But I think I’m going to get that 4’ x 3’ tent pictured above.

I’ve found a few different manufacturers who make that size. The two I was thinking of getting were the VivoSun or Spider Farmer. The spider farmer is slightly more but that’s the direction I’m leaning. It’s supposed to be better quality and no light leaks.

Yeah I like the shelf too!

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Moved some more stuff into flower. I was lucky enough to win some blue moon rocks pollen from the very generous @DougDawson and I wanted to make sure my best/favorite strains were ready to be pollinated. So I moved a few into bloom ahead of schedule.

I really wanted to make sure my GG#4 x longbottom leaf and Cheese Candy got pollinated. They are the two strains I’ve kept around the longest. I’m really excited to hit them with blue moon rock pollen! I plan to share the seeds here too if anyone wants any.

So, 3 of my 4 best/favorite strains will definitely get pollinated (my “mystery” bag seed strain being the 3rd). I’d love to pollinate a Field Trip too, but they’re in week 7/8 so that time has long passed. Maybe next run if I happen to have pollen left.

Everything in bloom will get pollinated. I plan to pollinate the lower branches only.

Bloom room is filling up!

Group shot:

The plant on the top left (sunshine daydream f2) is sitting on a bucket, which is why it looks taller.

Below it on the left is my mystery strain, and a peanut butter breath at the bottom left of the pic, with another sunshine daydream on the bottom right. I had to bend the top over to stop it from stretching too much. I let it get too tall…

Here’s my mystery female. She’s one of the plants in that bad bag of soil. Looking much better now, but still not 100%. I’ve been able to remain 100% organic though.

Here’s a few more.
Pics 1 and 2) tranquil elephantizer remix
Pic 3) peanut butter breath
Pic 4) cheese candy
Pic 5) GG#4 x long bottom leaf (this was another plant in that bad batch of soil. I planned to get her healthier before moving into flower but I want to pollinate her)

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And here are some pics of the plants later in flower:

Celestial tremors:

Expert Mac 1:

Field trip:

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Your plants look great bud, nice job. :v:

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Thanks man! Appreciate it.

I’ve definitely battled a few issues, and some stuff got too big on me due to lack of space. But I’m making do! lol

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In your top pick of this post whats the strain with the monster fan leaves in the bottom right of the pic?