Yoop's Tree Farm

[Yooper63]

Welcome OG fam! This is the continuation of an indoor log of Nigerian Sunshine #2 x Goji OG & Nigerian Sunshine #2 x Granny Shunk #5 from @SCJedi They were hardening in mid June when my laptop crashed.

I read a lot (no internet) and decided living soil and teas were the way to go I dug 5 ~15 gal holes, and filled 'em with equal parts of Vermicompost, my sandy soil & Ferti-lome (peat & perlite). The pots are also 15 gal. Please feel free to comment. I’m totally new to organic growing.
June 28th, 11 girls awaiting new shoes

They were transplanted/up potted late (July 3) due to cold weather. I top dressed them with vermicompost, and I’ve been feeding them Guano tea.
July 16th. Pistils are re-appearing. Re-veg is over. The in-ground girls. 2 NSxGoji and 3 NSx Granny Skunk

Overhead pics of potted girls NSxGranny Skunk & NSxGoji OG after battling 20 kt. winds all day.

The tea seems slow to show improvements in N, Ca & Mg. I’m almost out of LITFA, what should I do?

[TerpSneeze]

@Yooper63

I’m almost out of LITFA, what should I do?

It looks like you are doing everything right for here!! keep up the good work!

I’m pulling up a chair, if you are looking for folks to diagnose you may need provide specific shots of the problem areas. I for one never shy away from removing necrotizing lower fan leaves, they bring others issues and really the only issues I can see from the pics you posted.

Seems like your soil should have a fair bit N from the EWC might want to run some soil tests to how best to round it out. Likely foliar spray of tea or top dressing with the required amendments shouldn’t be too tough. You will find tons of information on soil and amendments through this thread.

[randrobertson522]

Man, EVERYONE seems to have this MAGICAL Goji OG, or a cross thereof… it’d be nice if someone wanted to trade for some of those, I got lotsa beans but theyve ALL been acquired thru the kindness and generosity of THIS site so not much that I have would be absent from other members stash…
@Yooper63 you weren’t kidding when you said TREE farm! Beautiful garden, friend!

[Gpaw]

I’m pulling up a chair for this one! Nice looking tree farm you have the Yoop!

Cheers
G

[Badger]

Looking nice for sure. I’m loving the living soil and teas. It seems pretty easy to me so far.

[Pawsfodocaws]

Buy another bottle, or here

[Pawsfodocaws]

looking real nice by the way,

Stay kind

Pawsfodocaws

[Yooper63]

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I did a soil sample test, soon after making the media, @TerpSneeze, N & P were “abundant”, but K was deficient. pH was 6.9 with pH 8.0 well water. I’m wondering why, after 3 weeks in this soil, it isn’t producing better results, even with added teas? It’s challenging, moving from salts to "watch & wait " organics, but I like it so far

[minitiger]

You’ll find that pH is irrelevant when you’re growing organically. I also wouldn’t worry about NPK and all that stuff. As long as your soil mix is balanced and it has all of the things the plants need, you’ll be fine. You mentioned that you just mixed up that soil, it usually takes a couple three cycles for things to start breaking down and becoming more available. You’ll also find that the quality of the smoke will be soooooo much better than anything grown synthetically.

Did you amend the soil you tossed in your holes or did you just use the vermicompost, sandy soil and that peat/perlite mixture? Also, I’d lay off on the guano teas. Now and forever.

[TerpSneeze]

Yeah you will soon ease out of old habits in terms of indoor/salt ferts. As @minitiger mentioned out in the world things tend to balance themselves out better so you won’t have to worry about certain things as much. Your soil will need time to get going, but the reason I suggested testing is it provides you with a direction for which amendments will keep you in the window without overdoing it in others. Knowing that the soil was a touch low in K and you are running pretty alkaline water is a good place to start. Ultimately it’s a patience game, but I for one would likely top dress with a mix of things that would have helped you out in your soil mix. I am a big neem cake, kelp meal, bone meal, coir, dolomite lime, and black compost kinda guy and never mix soil without it. That being said if you are running teas (I assume ACTs) the desired effects typically take a few days to show up in your plants whereas other nutrient-based teas you should see the effects pretty quickly.

TBH I think that for what you have running they are doing great!

[Yooper63]

@minitiger

it usually takes a couple three cycles for things to start breaking down and becoming more available.

At my age, I might not have 3 cycles left, lol.

@minitiger

Did you amend the soil you tossed in your holes or did you just use the vermicompost, sandy soil and that peat/perlite mixture?

That mix, a lot of Great White & then top dressed with ~1.5" of Vermicompost.I made ~165 gal. of soil. I should have known a hot mix (50/50), wouldn’t phase established plants. Both crosses are N hogs, Goji more so. I also can’t find any supplement (Langbeinite?) locally to bring up the “K”. My son thinks the in ground plants are losing nutrients due to leeching into surrounding the sand. The potted plants aren’t as deficient. Thanks for the info.

[Yooper63]

@TerpSneeze

I am a big neem cake, kelp meal, bone meal, coir, dolomite lime, and black compost kinda guy and never mix soil without it.

I had no laptop (internet access), for 4 weeks. No way to research what works best or read different opinions. Reading labels at the grow shop confused the sh!t out of me after a while. I’m using DTE line of products. For now, I’ll scratch in some bat guano until I can get some fish meal, kelp and whatever else to get these girls thriving again.

@TerpSneeze

TBH I think that for what you have running they are doing great!

Thank you! They may worsen in the short term, but yourself and @minitiger have helped me immensely.

[TerpSneeze]

There are tons on folks here on OG that I’m sure would love to lend a hand if they can. Feel free to call on some sun and soil guys you look up to, ask questions on their grows, everyone here is generally here to help. If you want to grow Trees you should definitely take a read or quick reread through @gramps @Growtogrow @corey grow threads. There are also tons of Org/Bio and hybrid growers running everything from No-Til water only to bottled bio nutes and living soil. I know @ReikoX likes to build org soils @Tinytuttle seems to always have something org going on and so many others that have tons of experience and so much information at their fingertips. For the first time in a very long time growing has become a team sport here on OG and Team OG is VERY Strong!

[minitiger]

Again, I would lay off the guano. Aren’t your plants flowering now? If they are, you definitely wanna lay off anything high N. Like @TerpSneeze said, kelp and neem are always good. You could top dress with those if you want. I grow indoors, but I’ve read that people growing outdoors sometimes have to worry about animals digging into their grows when they topdress with anything that smells fishy (my dogs would try to eat my plants whenever I would foliar my outdoor plants with fish/kelp). Another, possibly more quick-acting method would just be to make a tea. For every five gallons of water, add a half cup of neem and a quarter cup of kelp and then water your plants with it 24 hours later. You don’t even need to bubble it if you don’t want to, just throw the neem and kelp in the bucket with the water and stir it every now and then.

[Yooper63]

It’s been a couple weeks since my last update. This growing method is slowly showing improvement. These pics are a week later. Winds gusted to 35 kts.

I side dressed with some Fish & Kelp meal & Langbeinite. I’ll update more tomorrow.

[Joker]

@Yooper63. Beautiful grow!! Pulling up a chair and along for the ride!!

[hewhocoruptz]

Nice grow you got going. Are you in the U.P.? Your plants really do look like trees. Keep it goin

[minitiger]

Your plants look good and healthy, definitely don’t look like they’re lacking anything. They’re gonna end up being pretty big, too, no?

[Yooper63]

Thanks for the encouragement. The girls are slowly showing more pistils. There’s 13:55 hrs of daylight here. I’ve read that a potassium deficiency can also inhibit flowering. It seems like they’ve been re-vegging for 6 weeks now. Pics are 2 days ago. If you mouse over the image, the code will date & ID the plant.

Nigerian Sunshine #2 x Goji OG (#2 - #6), #3 is 85" tall

Nigerian Sunshine #2 x Granny Skunk #5 (#2 - #7)

Goji #4 & Granny Skunk #5 were moved into the garden. I’ll turn the cage into a greenhouse by this weekend. I didn’t want to fight the humidity, so I didn’t wrap it up sooner. Glad you’re all enjoying the “farming”. Long ways to go till harvest.

[minitiger]

Oh, man, but I’m stoked for you! Those plants are gonna be beasts. I didn’t realize you still weren’t getting less than twelve hours of light. Don’t fight it. Let them do their thing. No need to be adding anything to them. If they’re getting more than twelve hours of light, no amount of potassium is gonna make them flower.