Greetings all! it's that time of year where I should be knees deep in to veg and getting in to bloom, I'm almost there! I've just been getting a few things ready that I'm ready to share and get the ball rolling with another diary here in the ledgrowlights.co.uk forum! This year I am trying out the ecothrive range available in the shop https://ledgrowlights.co.uk/collections/ecothrive I like the idea of no till but not willing to go down the rabbit hole or having the time to dedicate myself to it like some of our amazing posters on UK420 so we are using amendments when needed by top dressing as well as the mulching concept used in no till. This will be taking up half of the space in my tent so I can flower rooted cuts to keep the jars topped up with top quality organic produce, the other half is used to find new keepers (you might see some in some of the shots but I won't be sharing them in general here) I'm expecting the arrival of the PAR+ ULTRA soon which is due to be released not long after I'd imagine, I'm thrilled to be getting my hands on it a little early to show you all! - So it's been a while in the making I started this back in February or March we had some good weather and I nipped out to the lumber yard and came home and built this (some of my edges are shit I used a hand saw) it's 600mm high - 400mm wide - 800mm long - the bed depth is 300mm and should comfortably take 2 boxes of the ecolife soil.. I lined the bottom with membrane and stapled secure, mixed the ecolife soil with a "light" application of the Life-Cycle amendment, this was watered in with a tea made with 0.5ml/L Fish-Mix and the recommended dosage of Psycho Myco (which came free with my order, thank you guys!) I put slightly too much in to my first drench and what started out with a few drips in the bottom (at least the drainage is working) became a bloody swimming pool in the tray overnight, good job I bought one of those flexi trays with the high sides This is the full range I will be using with the bed, the Fish Mix is onboard too as it's a great recovery feed and long term the beneficials love it! A couple of weeks passed here as I let the bed dry out, I went out and got some worms for the mulch layer as well as a bag of Westlands New Horizon Peat Free mix and some Meadow Hay, the New Horizon stuff is decent but it stinks of well rotted manure which took a while to settle, thank fuck for negative pressure in tents! When bedding the worms I built a bowl shape on top of the ecolife soil with the New Horizon mix and then poured the worms and their bedding mix in to the bowl and covered with a New Horizon and Meadow Hay mulch mix before watering in with some plain water to settle the mulch. New Horizon Peat Free up close, well rotted material, coco coir and grit Few days later and the hay had seeded the bed, at this point I was covering the bed with sheets of cardboard to protect the worms which like to make an appearance, I hope the Worm Lord approves... Another week or so and I receive the lob worms for the deeper parts of the bed, so we have the mulch layer guys working the top and the lobs just generally turn everything over as is my understanding, I let the worms get over the shock of being squeezed through my letter box and then settled each bags contents in it's own end of the bed.. While waiting for the first round of cuts to fail (long story, short one is I wasn't on my game and still in winter hibernation skunked to fuck mode) I decided to pull my finger out and install the soaker hose I am going to use to water the bed when things get thirsty, I also was going to use the light hours in the tent vegging new plants to establish a cover crop so I ordered a kilo bag of clover mix online and threw more on than I probably needed! About a week later and you can see where I was heavy handed the most with the seed doesn't take long for this stuff to grow once it gets going New round of cuts rooted I have now plopped them in the bed and watered in with the Biosys Tea 1g scoop per litre, I only need it to water in the first few waterings (will do 3 rounds) @buddy13 Subscription seeds Psycho Animal Stomper x M.A.C. 1 keeper, she produces sublime ripe mango trichome laden buds that reek of skunk, not a heavy yielder so I'm looking forward to topping up the jars. This first run is a test run first and foremost to see what the bed can do, some reports say that it needs a grow or two in before things get going so I plan on using the amendments to counter that, considering the soil should be good for nitrogen I am looking at options to specifically target bloom like 0/15/0 guano. And that's where we are now up to date, would like to thank a few people just to end this post, first off @Ledgrowlights-Adam and @ledgrowlights-Craig for their stellar service - I am really pleased these guys have started stocking select quality nutrients and additives all my purchases came as well packaged as my light, snug as a bug in a rug I couldn't even hear the grainy amendments in the tubs. I would also like to thank @blackpoolbouncer @FarmerPalmersNT and @lildaveham for answering all of my questions and putting up with my banter, these are just a handful of people whose diaries I have gone through that have inspired me to take on this method of growing but these 3 lads helped me the most with realising my limitations with their documented efforts To everyone else reading, thanks for looking in! The fun's just getting started