Meesta's Grow

[alltatup]

They look as happy as fish out of the barrel!! Noble endeavor!!

[Canuck147]

Good read MeestaFeesha - must have been some good smoke you had - hehehe - And that's why us lazy guys grow autoflowers. Germinate the seed and plant into the final pot you are going to use. Me - I use 2 gallon Geopots - fabric. These pots do come with a Velcro opening down one side - very convenient for transplanting - as well as handles, if you desire. The handles are very convenient on 3 gallons or larger. Last year I thought I would try 7 gallon outside - not good with autoflowers - they took too long to spread out their roots, and didn't get as big as I thought they might.
Good luck growing.

[MeestaFeesha]

Alright my pot people, I will warn you now, I feel a long post coming...I'll break it down as we go.

Transplanting! It can be a stressful time for both grower and plant alike. Let me say, I love it and have fun while repotting or up-potting! Ok, ok, let's look at how it went for me. This is Up-Potting with fabric pots. [July 6]

First off, gotta undo all of the training that you have in place. With twist ties, I undo my anchor point on the edge of the pot and then remove it from the branch/stem. This way there's no tension as you take them off. Some movement is fine, although the key to all of this is being gentle.

Once that's taken care of, go ahead and get that bag of soil you'll be using. I use a knife and cut the top completely off, create a nice open bag. Here's some fun, get in there!! Mix up the soil, break up clumps, turn it around with your hands. I use an old nursery pot to scoop soil out of the bag and into the new pot I will be using. Fill'r'up until you can set your current pot inside and you like the height. Don't fill in the edges yet, remove your current pot from where it's sitting in the new pot. Take your watering can (no nutes) and get your soil damp, not soaking (the soil in the new pot)...Get in the new pot with your hands! Mix it up, get down in the corners, turn it all around. Go ahead and level it off, do not pack down.

Now, place that current pot (with the plant still in it) into your new pot with its damp soil bottom layer. Get the pot situated in the center, or close, I'm a bit of a perfectionist at times. Take a cup/old nursery pot and slowly fill in the sides. By sides I mean the area between your current and new pot, let's call it the 'trench'. I fill in one smaller area, and after each pour of soil I lightly spread it around the 'trench' with my fingers. It takes time, continue doing so until you have reached near the same level as your current pot. Do not pack anything down.

Alrighty! We've got pot, inside a pot, inside a pot. 🤦*♂️. Our next step is to remove the current pot, but if we do that right now, all the soil will fall into the void created when we lift our pot. So, what I do is water the 'trench' (and current pot lightly). Lightly is a relative term, I give my 7gal plants 2gal of water every watering. Watering the trench here, I gave 1/2 that, 1gal. Do keep in mind to water the current pot a little bit, however the 'trench' is the focus. I let the soil soak up the water, and drain a bit to allow the soil to take shape. I also at this point pull up on the edges of the new fabric pot to get rid of any sagging. I give nutes at half strength here, and the final watering.

Now this is the real enjoyment of fabric pots. Pull the plant out, if done gently and your watering skills were on point, you'll have your current pot in hand, and a perfect void to place it in! I move to a shady area, and pull my old fabric pot off. Having one hand support the stem, I tip the plant just a bit more than 90*, I do not like going upside down. With my other hand I squeeze the bottom of the fabric pot, around the edges at first and then from the center of the bottom. Should come out no problem! Then you can go ahead and plop your lovely plant into their new home. *With fabric pots, the roots are pruned away from the edges and bottom of the pot. This allows for much easier transplants, in my opinion, as it's a simple fill, pull, drop.*

Our finals steps are as such, get a nice dressing of soil on top of our new transplant. Scoops at a time, spreading the soil gently and evenly. Once finished, administer your final watering (For me, it was my remaining 1gal w/ nutes). Let me add again, don't pack anything down! Your watering will do an excellent job at that, for you, over time.

Whoaaa, didn't expect my thought process to go there. 😂, I can only hope that someone finds this useful. Well, in my next post I'll get into the larger ones, more of what 'I' did, and how much fun it was. Thanks for stopping by, stay classy GWE community 😎.
-Meesta

[SoOrbudgal]

Yes exactly I am in the Umpqua valley. And I too learned gardening from my folks out of necessity and have learned to love it so I now grow veggies & weed indoors during winter. This site GWE has been my mentor for indoor growing and just great folks to learn from. I have a sister lives near Grants Pass visit her and we take drives out to vineyards, Selma is "growing" steadily. Rouge Valley is hot area, we love our forest home.

[MeestaFeesha]

Thank you 😊, it's my plan as well.

It was hard waking up this morning...as it was before 5 and still dark, was antsy and had trouble falling back asleep!

It is a wonderful time of year (well, I'm kinda spoiled here compared to many others). As I assume you are too...in Southern Oregon? In other news, I figured out how to pronounce your name yesterday 😂

[MeestaFeesha]

Soil Volume Chart

https://www.geopot.com/pages/soil-volume-chart-for-geopot-fabric-pots

[MeestaFeesha]

[July 6] They say if you enjoy/love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. I love my work and hobbies! With that, yesterday there was not a ton to do, but it must be done carefully (and properly). I up-potted (3) plants from 1gal to 7gal and (3) from 7gal to 25gal. I use this soil volume chart to estimate the amounts that I will need at any point. I used 10cu ft yesterday, 5 bags. This leaves enough leftover to transfer the remaining (3) into 25gal should I choose, while still having 1.5 extra bags of soil.

I'm gonna go over a few things here in this post. Soil. For us growing in it, the most important ingredient aside from genetics. In the photos, I've got shots of Happy Frog and then Premium Potting mix. I have added perlite, vermiculite and earthworm castings to the premium potting mix, but still do not use it for my plants. All plants require different things at different stages of their life, soils that are already catered to cannabis are an easy button that I chose to push this time round. If I were to use something else, it would be creating my own Super Soil, which will be a build to be utilized next year.

Just because I chose those route, doesn't mean all do the same, or will achieve sub par results doing differently. There's millions of different ways on how to do things, difficult to say who's right or wrong. So, let's talk a bit about the most important quality of a soil, in my opinion, is that its breathable for the roots, holds water and drains well.

Perlite is used in soil to increase aeration and drainage. Those little white things you see hold the soil apart. Vermiculite is used for water retention, so if you're pots are drying up too quickly (and it's not because of your pot size) you can look at adding it into your mix to assist. These are the two main things I mess with, being that I'm using Happy Frog, I've only added more perlite to the mix when they were seedlings. Let me say, I love perlite. Helped enough people who have used none in the past that I have started feeling like a broken record over the years.

Alright, what's a Meesta Morning Grow post without some rambling, coffee shop is almost open, and I'll dive into the sense of accomplishment from yesterday.

[SoOrbudgal]

Today you need to sit and admire your work. I dig the tiny mantis and your plants & garden is beautiful. Boy I love this time of year

[alltatup]

Good job, Meesta!! I can see a wee tiny bit of drooping, but I'll bet they have perked right back up today!! They are probably going to explode with growth for you = thank you for repotting us!!!!!

[MeestaFeesha]

All finished, tired. Need. Food, water....haha, in all honesty everything went well, here's a "finished product" picture, with the details to come.

[MeestaFeesha]

Moving along, slowly I will add. Progress is progress!

Edit: 2nd Pic added 3:50pm

[MeestaFeesha]

I've been working here, 2 transplants down, 4 to go...will type up a whole thing once I'm finished. Just wanted to show an unwatered plant if people need a visual. Droopy, leaves slightly curling at the tips, can also be symptoms of being root bound (not 100% on that last tidbit)

[alltatup]

Sacrifices must be made to the goddess Cannabis.

[MeestaFeesha]

And so it begins. I hate it when people give excuses to get out of things they had planned, hope my date today doesn't feel that way when I let her know I'm not gonna make it! 😂🤘🌳

[MeestaFeesha]

Haha! Gotta give credit to my mother. I was her laborer (the only one) for her landscape staging business for some time while she still lived here in California. All about the thirst for knowledge and experience, lots of new things out there! Many more mistakes to make and learn from 😎