Gorilla Girl, San Fernando Lemon Kush & Crystal Candy - No-Till Grow - 6th Sweet Seeds Grow Diary Competition

[InTheSystem]

17 minutes ago, vince noir rock n roll star said:

chamomile only works for one season ..if left til next season youll have very poor growth and flowering ..as it reaps back what it sowed .

I end up mulching it (and most things in the pot) really as the canopy will shade everything pretty soon in flower, kind of the same tactic as the nitrogen fixer plants.... I did not actually know about it working for one season though, might actually explain something on Guerrilla grow plot last season where it's not so hastily mulched (or at all ha) - nice one man! 

[2Fat2EatThat]

Looking spectacular man,what else if there say! Great effort,great layout,plenty of information,most of it above my paygrade but totally understandable. 

 

177ltr smartpot!!! - my wife would go nuts  (she does all my heavy lifting and shifting as I'm a 50yr old toddler)

 

Genuinely hope you smash this grow,love the ethos and effort.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[InTheSystem]

@2Fat2EatThat - Hello mate! Thank you so much for the kind words and good vibes.. Really appreciate it coming from yourself - I am firmly aboard the Sweet Seeds Express also, this is going to be a great competition with the diaries I am reading across the board. I wouldn't want to be a judge put it that way  

[shire]

Your grow and diary is completely intriguing and look forward to you having a great time with this. Loving the picture with the worm, very impressive. Eco warrior growing love it!

atb shire

 

 

 

 

[InTheSystem]

@shire - Thanks for the kind words mate I really appreciate it. I hope peeps can take something away from this as basically a "How to No-Till" diary and guide.. It's very much the intention of this diary and the competition is a fantastic platform/opportunity to do it! I am overwhelmed with the positive responses from everyone, some of whom I consider to be elite/very experienced growers too, so it's motivating me to keep this up start to finish even further! I am also enjoying all of your guys diaries too, we never stop learning or being amazed by these wonderful plants eh?!  

 

 

Edited January 17, 2020 by InTheSystem

[ratdog]

i like the mini no till gardens you are starting in mate.

 

good luck with the comp dude.

[InTheSystem]

@ratdog - Thanks mate for the good vibes! Yes it was by chance actually I had these little containers with males culled from them.. A true 'No-Till' start  

[InTheSystem]

Soil Building.
Today I have been continuing with the soil building so this post is going to be purely around this process. They used to call it 'super soil' and I think it came from TGA Sub Cool, kind of has a ring to it so will refer to it as 'super soil'... With soil building like this, I will start very firm and say it is very important to ensure you source quality inputs.. You can refer to my soil mix recipe on the original post of this thread for the inputs and dosages I have used. I think when it comes to a solid mix, one of the most important inputs is a good source of mineral rich humus. To create that we have to either thermal compost which does take some time and diversity of inputs to have it well balanced. There are some great sources around for the people interested in that route or I am sure there are some good composts available from organic farms/similar. The source of humus I would like to talk about is via worm castings. This is created via vermicomposting and will require the setup of a worm bin. 


My starting point with setting up a new bin is getting a load of horse manure from a mates livery yard and mixing in around 20% of the volume with rice hulls for aeration purposes, vermiculture is an aerobic process after all! I then grab the biggest Smart Pot I have and start filling it with the manure mix and whilst doing this create layers of it between an amendment charge of ground malted barley, kelp meal and Neem cake then layer manure on top and repeat that process. I don’t really have measurements for the amendment dosage, but basically it is just chucking a cup or so in each time. It should be noted that the malted barley should be diastatic  - meaning that the enzymes weren't removed from it. 

 

Once the Smart Pot/s are loaded, I chuck around 1000-2000 worms in the bin (worms multiply and kind of regulate their population). I only used California Red Wrigglers but European or African Night Crawlers would work nicely too – combination of the two would be perfect as Red Wrigglers tend to work the top layer of soil and the Night Crawlers work the lower level… I don’t really find this as issue though as the Red Wrigglers get to the bottom no worries for me! Anyway after around 2 months cold composting I harvest my castings using a fan cage as a sieve (specialist equipment here ha!) and they are ready for the soil mix. I really find this a simple and effective method compared to other methods I have seen. Using the Smart Pot in itself is advantageous, the problem with say plastic worm bins is they tend to sweat a lot and will raise the moisture level too high. I keep my worm bin at around 60/70% moisture level tops! Which is just not going to happen in a plastic worm bin or if you are feeding food scraps (90% water in it!). The Smart Pot also being aerated are why I find them great for worm bins – all this commercial stuff I see like 'flow through' and 'stacked worm' bin systems with taps for collecting worm leachate.. It is just not necessary in my humble opinion… If there is leachate coming out the bottom of the pot, The pot is being over watered.... Worm juice certainly has it’s place, but not for this purpose. 

The worm castings are then mixed in with the charged biochar (details on that in the previous post) and mixed in with Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss… Sphagnum peat moss does vary from peat moss so it’s important it is Sphagnum peat moss. I don’t use any aeration in my soil mix - the aeration will come from the soil life constantly turning the soil and living and dying roots creating pathways for water and oxygen. Biochar actually does give some aeration in itself which can also hold 10x its own weight in water and is porous increasing oxygen content in the soil. The amendments of kelp meal, neem cake, gypsum, crab meal and malted barley were then all added to the mix to provide some base nutrition, minerals and enzymes. The ratios I use come from your typical “Coot” mix you see posted widely on the American forums for ‘No-Till’ soil mixes. It is really important all the amendments are mixed thoroughly and evenly so there are not ‘hot spots’ in the soil. 
 

The last step is rock dust! I use basalt but glacial rock dust can work great also.. I would stay away from azomite though due to it being an aluminosilicate clay. Rock dust is good to add generously as the soil life will feed off it and in turn, makes it plant available. Therefore, rock dust is a huge factor as a source of nutrition and minerals. I think I have stated it before but rock dust is the biggest source of nutrition on the planet:

I will now let the soil mix ‘cook’ for around a week. This allows the microbes to start breaking down the amendments and start the process of cycling them into plant-available forms. It will also allow for the soil to physically cool down as it can get a little warm to the touch in the centre, mostly from the malted barley in abundance, but nothing the worms can't handle still… I generally stack it in a pile so they can burrow down and outwards if they need to. The end result of all this preparation work and graft is some pukka living soil ready to grow some lovely organic plants in:

The next update will be back to the young Sweet Seeds plants don’t worry! The key to this style of growing is the bond between the plant and the soil it’s growing in, so I feel it was important to share the process of building a good soil mix and giving it it's own post. I am pretty sure if I was a plant or worm, I wouldn’t mind living in it!
 

Happy Friday everyone!  

[Clumsy]

Wow...high quality content there, great pics and great info on everything,

 

That soil looks fantastic, looking forward to seeing the fruits of your labour

 

Good luck with the comp, all the best.

[InTheSystem]

@Clumsy - Thanks for checking in mate and for the kind words on the diary thus far, much appreciated! The soil does take some graft have to admit and is around 2.5 months in the making. It was all lucky with timing and this competition as I am making tonnes of this super soil for raised beds in my vegetable and salad gardens to sow in mid march - so already had worm bins, 6 cubic feet of CSPM (Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss) and amendments in abundance! I am also prepping for the 2020 outdoor season as I always do some automatics outside which I am going to start doing 'no-till' on cycles twice a year too... I have seen Sweet Seeds have a nice selection of automatics also so it could be a 'sweet summer' all going well  



 

Edited January 18, 2020 by InTheSystem

[Exhale]

Super soil mate. 

[InTheSystem]

@Exhale - You know it mate! Won't find anything like this in shop shelf that is for sure! Due to the neem cake in it also - fungus gnats will not be happy chaps in here! In fact, I have actually seen beneficial mites in this mix already making themselves cozy (I have not added them!) so good luck to any pests that want to try living in here is all I can say  

[InTheSystem]

19/01/2020 – Day 5 From Seed 
I wanted to do an update today to also start talking about foliar feedings and insect pest management (IPM). Plants can assimilate nutrition from the stomata so foliar feeding can really aid in a healthy crop and some growers will really swear by it... I do want to improve on my foliar feeding with tinctures and tonics from brewed organic matter such as Bocking 14 comfrey, stingies, afalfa and other stuff I am sure @Nervous could recommend beyond my knowdege  For now, I basically do your typical IPM and feeding foliar recipe of neem oil, silica, Aloe Vera and I add some fulvic acid for some catalyst goodness if we want to talk about enzymes... For my silica source - I actually/shamefully use the bottled Grotek Pro-Silicate… I have bottles of it lying around from the coco coir days! There are much better sources of silica such as raw agsil or even better horsetail diced that I will switch too when my bottles run out:

 

When working with neem oil you will need to emsulify it – which is another use of the silica but you can use horticultural soap too. I mix the silica, neem and warm/hot water. If you don’t do this, you will end up with huge clumps and sludge of neem everywhere…. Don’t ask me how I know

 

 

It should be noted that this foliar is a preventative method of pest control. It’s also important to not be lazy and cover the surface and underside of every leaf to really gain the benefit in the pest resistance and overall plant health.

 

 

Back to the seedlings finally (honestly this isn't much work I just want to show what I am doing!) – temps have gotten COLD this week, even down here in Spain! I will probably have to get another tube heater the way it’s going as temps are dropping 18c or less in the tent which will be affecting growth rate. I do have a heat tray under them so the roots are staying warm which is the main factor. Humidity is nice and high at 65% plus as it’s a bloody monsoon here at the moment! I am pretty high writing this update (champ advice from my friend @Smokebelch) due to having to deal with roof leaks the last 2 hours… Sweet Seeds mods – note the update commitment, you must be experiencing this 'Gota Fria' too.. Puto lluvia jaja! At least all the plants and trees outside are going to flourish which I can smile out still... Despite this the seedlings are going just fine:

 

 

 

I am getting used to the new highlight LED and have it set 25 inches away at 50 watts. I did have it set to 28 watt but they were getting a bit “leggy” so just increased the wattage as I know the score with LED’s owning a few models and bugging @diyleduk too often:

 

 

Here are each of the cultivars after the foliar spray mentioned above: 

 

 

 

 

 

I am using the heat blanket now in my actual sleeping bed so will get a greenhouse heat tube ordered to keep the temps around the 25c mark. In terms of irrigation -  the only inputs I have added besides the foliar is some ground malted barley, so I expect there to be more growth and in terms of the soil; enzyme explosion and visible mycelium developing on the surface. I will be introducing a botanical tea consisting of kelp/neem which I have started brewing today to boost the plants nutrition, recipe being: 1 cup of neem and half a cup of kelp to 4 litres using an air pump and air stone for 24 hours... I will update when I do that to show the process  

 

Catch you for the next update! Cheers 

Edited January 19, 2020 by InTheSystem

[Nervous]

You've got all the blocks of a good foliar in there mate, my recipes won't be much different on a chemical level. Just differently made. You're not using anything microbe wise so you could use soap nuts or something similar to make it all stick   

All looking good though! 

 

[Nervous]

*currently working on a cacao nib foliar for use between the times of flipping and stopping using foliars altogether, almost forgot