TrevorLahey's Trailer Park 2020

Indoor Growing Growroom Diaries
#82

Thanks for the input everyone, been a busy few days.

Plants are coming around big time. Since my last update I’ve only fed them once for the sole purpose of adding new oxygen, since the pots are still really heavy I gave them about a liter each.

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New seedlings are coming along, middle row is from a “Northern Outdoor Reg Mix” by Seedsheaven, donated last summer by @McMuffin . Not sure what strains are in here but I’m northern and I’m outdoor so im counting on some fem gems in these. Also a Cali-O x Durban as it was a good strain last year and finished way earlier than expected. Rest are Dark Sparks that either didnt make the cut or still waiting to see if I want to keep em.

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Also picked up some supplies for the outdoor garden. 350lbs of seafood compost and 2 bails of peat to amend into my existing soil compost. Hope that will be enough for a couple no till beds. More on that in the coming days.

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Definitely want some tips on what else I can add to the mix to spice things up. Lots of biochar on hand, some agricultural lime, 5lbs of gaia green 2-8-4 dry amendments and some ewc.

Please enlighten me as I’m still a noob with this organic stuff but I think I got the basics down.

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#83

Those seedlings have a nice structure :+1:, maybe a little hungry? :sunglasses:

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#84

Hi @TrevorLahey Been checking out your grow - very nice!

I’m a Cocoholic, hope this can be of some help. Had many problems in the early grows. Prepping my coco, consistent/proper ec and proper ph does wonders. No plain water.

Seedling specific.

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#85

If you don’t want to over complicate it, I would just get some gypsum, you can get a 12 kg bag for 12$ here. That will give you plenty of sulfur, calcium and a bit of magnesium. Apart from that it will just be a K source for flowering, so if you wanted to cover that organically some kelp meal will give you that plus lots of minerals.

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#86

Thanks for that @GramTorino I love that site but somehow missed that in-depth guide I definitely learned some things, and confirmed some of my suspicions. I actually even thought at one point “man I wish there was a step by step fertigation schedule for seedlings in coco”. First time I saw someone targeting 6.2pH in coco though.

I think my buffering process might have been wrong too. I have done it two ways and both gave me symptoms of cal def.

  • I flushed the coco with pH’ed water down to 100ppm or so then watered with a calmag solution to a healthy runoff then planted seeds in that.

  • This recent start I just made a big batch of calmag water with a dose of fertilizer at a total of about 500ppm and instead of flushing the coco out, just watered it to a healthy runoff and planted seeds in it.

Both methods resulted in sick seedlings. Cal def most likely but it didnt make sense considering I’ve been adding calmag all along.

They do look ok today but the 3gal pots are all still really heavy from the pre-charge. I think I should start with the daily fertigations anyways but am wondering if I should even bother hooking up the blumats in these 3gal pots. Scared of a flood or issues with the coco staying too wet for too long(?). But really dont want to be hand watering again either so I’m on the fence.

Didn’t know about gypsum, where do you get it locally?

Right now the recipe is 1/4 seafood compost (lobster too so lots of calcium), 1/4 peat, and 1/2 my own compost soil which is mostly 5 years of peat, perlite and yard clippings.

But if I can get something beneficial right now locally to add to it before filling these beds in the next few days then I’m all for it.

Also need to know about cover crop and if I need one or should I just mulch and with what.

Tomorrow I’m going to plan the bed layout I think. Might need some input on how to make this work on an incline.

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#87

Sounds like a good mix, with what is already in the mix, you probably won’t need to add to much to it, for one grow. It will be near the end when you need max sulfur, calcium, magnesium and K, where you might be short. Every thing is a bit of an experiment the first time around :wink:

How steep is the incline, you live on a big hill. Watering might be awkward.

I got my gypsum from Halifax Seed, and the grow off Shop in Burnside, does an expensive Gai green version. I have seen it in home Depot, might have it in Crappy tire, online check will probably confirm that properly.

3 Likes
#88

25kg bags at home hardware for $35 so will keep that in mind come late summer. Or some other sort of dry amendments to add along the way. I’m thinking what I got on hand should be a good base.

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Its not much of an incline, but it’s more than it looks in the pic. I think I got the incline part figured out, just need to figure out how many beds and what size and shape to fit the most amount of plants in this space (about 12x12 ish) while still being able to move around them. Also needs to be in such a way that I can dome or wrap them in come frost season. Lots of wood on hand too can build just about anything but wanna make it nice since it will be a permanent feature in my lawn lol.

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#89

12x12 is a good area, have you got a pick axe, that’s a lot of digging, how much top soil have you got, before you hit granite or shale. Have you got lumber to make a frame to raise the bed up, save some digging.

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#90

Not digging anything, going strictly no-dig with these beds and yes I plan to build raised frames for them too. Thinking three 3x6 beds arranged in the shape of a U so I can walk into the centre.

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#91

Your back will thank you for that decision :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: at least being at the top of a hill you won’t have to worry about a high water table. I can only go about 18 inches down and the hole will start to fill with water.

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#92

From my research I’ve learned that a full grown cannabis plant really only needs 12-16 inches of root depth, or even less if theres good lateral growth. My experience in the field has been the same, plants like cannabis and tomatoes that I’ve planted in the ground in the past were pretty easy to pull up come harvest.

And as far as a hill, im actually in a dip at the bottom of a bigger hill so its swampy all around my property. Cant grow in that area very well even though I tried lol

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#93

When I grew in my back yard in the UK I used grow bags, they were about 2ft long, 1ft wide and 4 inches high, you would have to water daily but they grew up to 7ft high.

I thought that was the top of the hill when I visited you, shows how much attention I was paying :rofl:

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#94

This no-dig method is all new to me I’ve always thought you needed to till up your land or have super high raised beds but it’s so much simpler… if it works… lol

Just had to change the formula up a bit.

Speaking of which I got the layout I want down, figure this can do 5-7 big photoperiods with some autos scattered in the gaps.

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#95

I think 5 photo’s would be the safest bet, seems to be a lot of shade there, they going to get enough light?

Edit I am looking at your place on google maps, can you see me waving lmao, you need to cut that tree down behind the shop :wink:

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#96

Just that time of day, it actually recieves more sun than anywhere else on the property.

It’s a whole tree line, I wish they weren’t there but wcyd. I used to grow in there but not as much light and branches would fall on plants, as well as needles and stuff.

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#97

Is that when you had to be secretive. Now its more get them up front and center lol.

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#98

Pretty much. Where they’re at now is visible from the road I have to keep clothes on the clothesline in summer to cover em up lol.

This year I want to keep them shorter and bushier and want to add a trellis to help with that. Last year I had 8 foot plants that were visible from the highway haha

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#99

That’s why I said 5 would probably be better than 7 because of how big you grew them last year.

A trellis is good, I did a vertical scrog with a trellis, works really well, you would have to be all South facing outside really. Inside the tent it was a light above and one in the middle with a C shaped trellis with the plants growing all around the outside.

LabRat has a 45 degree trellis he lays his plants over it and ties them down as they grow.

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#100

I used to do something like that and had a lot of success with it but it required a massive plant to be successful, as far as yield per sqft goes.

Tomato cages are ok too but I’ve kinda grown out of them over the years.

This is all assuming I have decent plants to work with when the time comes to transplant them. Please oh please be a good outdoor season!!!

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#101

Dollar store does a heavy plastic green trellis, I bought 3 last year to grow some sweet peas up.

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