New year, New Projects, New New

[No3odiesShad0w]

Everyone is blooming crazy!!

The Blue dream got some neem seed and kelp all of a sudden she's also getting nitrogen deficient. But this is all good knowledge. I know what ingredients to double for my soil recipe. I'm also going to bulk up the volume to fill those 7 gallons.

[No3odiesShad0w]

Full Steam Ahead!!

Temps 72- 80°F (22-26°C)
Humidity 50-58%
VPD 1.15 - 1.45kPa
CO2 600-1400ppm
PPFD +/- 1000
DLI 48-52 @12hrs

It is Day 70 for the Tangie. She's definitely looking like she's getting ready to finish. I dropped the light intensity from 100% to 75%. From 1200PPFD (51DLI) to 890PPFD (39DLI). In another week or so, I'll lower it even further. For the ripening stage she doesn't need 1200ppfd. She's already bulked up as much as she's going to. The pistils closest to the light have curled; just waiting for the lower ones to do the same. It's gonna be a tight one... Will she be ready by 4/20? 🪴🤔🤷♂️. It's very possible. Gonna try out that Cannatrol really really soon!! It you notice on the pictures above, the smallest buds are golf ball sized. Really nice structure, really nice frost levels; just really nice all around and the SMELL omglih ... Like the freshest, juiciest orange peels. It's got that tart sweet smell but with a bitter back. Just awesome all around.

The Pineapple Express
At first I was a bit worried about her. She needed nutrients and quick! I'm glad I still had the GH Cali-Magic since it's got some water soluble nitrogen. I put some in the water and top dressed with organic nutrients and man oh man did she respond! SO many flowers. Flowers stacking on top of flowers. When these things start fattening up..... They're gonna be HUGE! She picked up some green coloring but she's not so focused on repairing yellowing leaves. She's more focused on building flower so she looks a bit yellow but def greener than before. I don't want to feed her too much nitrogen otherwise it will mess up the bud structure. The cover crop is coming in which is good because this kind of keep that topsoil a lot more moist and keep those nutrients flowing. A similar thing was happening to the Blue Dream she was looking all dark and green so I wasn't thinking about nitrogen and then out of nowhere she started getting nitrogen hungry and started pulling all the nitrogen from the bottom leaves. So this time I reacted much quicker.

The Blue Dream
She's growing nice and strong. Although I have noticed that she might be a little hungry for nitrogen. The bottom leaves have been yellowing and falling off. So I did the same thing I did with the pineapple Express. I put some of that general hydroponics and cal mag in there and she started growing again. The leads stopped yellowing and she's drinking water again and growing really nicely. It was weird because the last time I filled the base was March 26th and I didn't water her again until March 6th. Meanwhile all the other plants needed the basis build two or three times in that time period. So I knew something was off It was the lack of calcium and nitrogen... Or at least nitrogen. Thankfully she's back to doing her thing. As you can see above the flowers are fat. Super dense thick giant flowers on her and she's only about to start fattening up now. So I can only imagine how nice those flowers are going to look when she's ready in May.

MAC1
She's the real surprise of all the plants. She had the roughest start, the slowest growth, the most stunting, the slowest to start flowering and the longest to stretch. The flowers were looking so small for so long and just weren't really developing. But recently she really started growing. The buds are developing really fast and getting fatter and faster daily. I noticed the worms in the pots are taking care of the dead cover crop. The bottom used to be little with dead cover crop that I trimmed too low and it's all gone and decomposed. Could be the worms alone but could also be the bokashi helping along.

COULD WE HAVE BEEN WRONG?
I saw a HUGE improvement in ALL the plants when I stopped using PH down. I have been using vinegar instead.

So it states like this..... Initially I use just plain filtered water at 7.3ish pH..... Then after like a month I'll start getting concerned the pH is rising so I start using pH down (one or 2 drops per gallon) to get the water down to 6.8ph. As soon as I start doing that, things start getting wonky. I'll start getting calcium deficiencies I'll start getting magnesium deficiencies or just other weird nutrient problems.

I went and did some research and found this out. The phosphoric acid inside the pH down May be causing the calcium in the soil to become calcium sulfate which is gypsum or calcium phosphate which is the same material your bones are made out of. Now consider this when you bury a body in the soil everything decomposes except for the bones. The bones stay around for many many more years before nature is finally able to break down that calcium phosphate. Is it possible that when I add the pH down I'm converting a lot of my calcium into calcium phosphate??? I started reading into using vinegar as a pH down. For multiple reasons.... The first reason is the TPS Cal mag If you smell that it smells like straight up vinegar. Then I've also been experimenting with making calcium acetate by taking eggshells grinding them up and soaking them in vinegar. It turns out that calcium acetate is hundreds times more water soluble and available for the plants to use readily compared to any other type of calcium source including calcium carbonate. So I started experimenting. I picked one plant which was the pineapple Express since she was the one showing the most nutrient deficiencies and I switched the pH down with vinegar and ever since I did that she's come to life. Not only that but I've noticed biology forming in the actual bases where I pour the water. Ever since I started adding the vinegar there's just hundreds of springtails in the water. Not even sure how they got into the water unless there's some roots poking holes in the fabric pots and they were able to sneak past there and reproduce in the water. either way I'm always really happy to see them because that's how I know for a fact my soil is just about as happy as it could be.

I know using baking soda as a pH up is really bad because it ends up turning into sodium in your soil but the same can't be said for vinegar. Not sure why people are so against vinegar. It's one of the easiest ingredients to break down by soil biology. It doesn't interact negatively with any kind of organic nutrients if anything it just makes them more available for your plants to use...
I know other people will say well they use vinegar as an herbicide. Which is true but that's 30% vinegar not 5% vinegar diluted down to .0005%. I know that phosphoric acid could build up in the soil over time and cause other problems meanwhile vinegar doesn't build up in the soil and it's broken down really quickly. Not only that but if there is any calcium phosphate that was created by using the phosphoric acid, the vinegar will actually help break that down back into a usable form for the plants.

Granted if you're using bottled nutrients you're okay with using the pH down phosphoric acid. I wouldn't recommend using vinegar for synthetic nutrients because it is not as stable as phosphoric acid in keeping the pH stable. Not only that but the vinegar could react with some of the nutrients in the synthetic bottle stuff so this ONLY* works with organic and living soil grows. (*I can't confidently say if it works or doesn't work for synthetics; we need more science)

I'm telling you there's been a real noticeable difference in the quality and the vigor of growth for all the plants ever since I've switched to using the vinegar as a pH down. I'm still going to keep experimenting although I'm not sure how much pH down I'm going to be using in the future but I will definitely be using vinegar. I'm not sure why vinegar got such a bad rap. For organic applications it seems like the better choice for hydroponics I wouldn't recommend it.


But anyways before I drag on more with my theories... Week 9 time lapse is posted in the Dropbox. Link will be below. Keep on growing my friends, keep on experimenting and most importantly have fun with it all! 🪴🪱🌱🍄🌼

[No3odiesShad0w]

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/e4y68f53mkamf0tun3l5e/h?rlkey=k9ltb9jgs4gv01xiiewiwrtbp&dl=0

Week 9!

[Bluey]

Use lemon juice from a freshly squeezed lemon for your pH down. 1 drop in a gallon may be enough. Depends on lots of things but I never need much.

Your Cal deficiency may be related to too low pH in your soil though which is most common so be cautious

[No3odiesShad0w]

Bluey. I've tried lemon before as a pH down and it wasn't very effective. In about 30 min to an hour, the pH would start to creep up again. It doesn't happen with the vinegar. At least not that I've noticed yet but I need to do more experiments. The other problem with lemon is the citric acid. The ascorbic acid... No problem but lots of microbes and biology don't like the citric part.

The pH has been fine since I started using the rock dust and ag lime. Also I usually water with 7.0 average water. Someone's it's 7.3 sometimes it's 6.8. It seems the best range. I long ago worked that kinkout . With the rock and calcium, Any time it wants to go lower due to the peat, it should be neutralizing it and releasing calcium into the soil. I'm theory. Though I may only have 5 gallons of soil there so it's still not a big enough battery to last a whole grow with water only.... But I'll get there. I am pushing them with high light and CO2....I probably could be a bit heavier on the feed tbh.

[No3odiesShad0w]

I'm wondering why it got so dark all of a sudden then I remembered. Oh yeah. Solar Eclipse!! Well partial where I am. But still cool AF. I love astronomical events. What a week. We had 3 Earthquakes in NJ .... Which is really rare especially one as strong as the one we had. Then 2 days later we get an almost total solar eclipse...... Right as I got the Cannatrol. Is it a sign?? Maybe. I'm a realist but I do have a curious mind.

[No3odiesShad0w]

Some bud shots from tonight.

The Tangie is getting really close. Most of the pistils have browned and are in the process of curling. She's really putting on some frost. In about 5 days I'll start looking at the trichomes.

The rest are done with the first stage of flowering, now their going to start getting really nice and fat. The MAC already started. She's doubling in size almost every 2 days it's amazing to watch!!! So many surprises this grow!!
The Blue Dream is pressing on the gas pedal too. Those flowers are already chunky and she's still got another month to go!
As for the pineapple, she's going to be a yielder! If all these flowers get nice and fat, I'm gonna have a massive harvest. I might actually hit that 1lb goal this grow!

I top dressed everyone besides the tangie with some crab, alfalfa meal as well as some NLS flower power, bokashi to get it all broken down a sprinkle of the langbeinite for the potassium but also the magnesium. That should hold all of them over until harvest. One more month all of them are 56 -70 day plants so they should all be done at similar times

[No3odiesShad0w]

Wooo just got my seeds! Next grow is going to be all auto, all EarthBox. Going Humboldt Pound Town with some Cherry pie, purple gelato and sweet zombie! In the fall, I'll do Grape Balls of Fire, sour Orange, Mandarin Zkittlez and birthday cake.
*Like always all those plans are subject to change about 3 to 20 times before I actually get to doing it 🤣*

[No3odiesShad0w]

I picked the super lemon Haze x Gary Payton simply because I've never grown a super lemon haze and everybody says that's like a must in your cannabis growing repertoire. I'm not a fan of many sativas, So it wasn't on my radar but I'll take the freebie... It's from Ethos. I've been buying their genetics so much that they actually sent me some ethos stickers lololol

[No3odiesShad0w]

OMG that's so adorable. It's so tiny!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣 I am so amused but also so high 🤣🤣🤣

[No3odiesShad0w]

The door to my grow room 😋

[No3odiesShad0w]

That lock doesn't even work lololol. It's just in there for .... Fun? IDK. I have a solid oak 5 inch thick entry door with bolt lock. That's all the security I need. About nobody getting through that especially not with that tiny hallway full of stairs.

[No3odiesShad0w]

I have the old school key for the bottom lock somewhere. That still works. Amazingly after almost 100 years

[Bluey]

Ok. Maybe a little battery operated chainsaw 😉

[No3odiesShad0w]

Bluey this be the lock on the door 🤣🤣🤣🤣 talk about ancient houses.

[No3odiesShad0w]

Holy hell it's been another week already???

Man time is FLYING. It's almost 4/20! Next Saturday!!! It's gonna be an awesome weekend! The fam is all happy and healthy. Things are moving along!

Tangie
I dropped the lights down to 50% this week. Top PPFD 680 and around the side branches around 550PPFD that comes out to 20-30DLI. I'm really hoping she's going to finish on Saturday. She's fading nicely, all the pistils have browned and they're curling and filling in the rest of the bud structure. She's starting to get some cloudy trichomes here and there. Still mostly clear but that's going to change in the next few days. The last 420FastBuds Tangie ran 84 days. This one is looking to finish right around there too. Very very pleased with the growth overall. She's def gonna be 2oz at minimum.

Pineapple Express
Her color has really improved. She's gotten greener. On the 9th, I did top dress all the photos. This was their last feeding until harvest. She just exploded with growth. She tapped into the wicking string and grew roots into the base. She's drinking 4L of water every 3 days. The buds are stacking like crazy, she's growing like mad. I feel a 4 to 5 ozer over here.

Mac 1 aka the MAC
This one is the biggest surprise. She was the runt of the litter and now she's definitely going to be the 2nd highest yielder of this grow for sure. The buds are still doubling in size every 2-3 days. All the lower buds are getting swollen, the tops are already frosty and OOZING with terps. Man does she smell like a candy store. All the sweets all the flavors. Those buds are huge and we're just 36 days into bloom. She's still got another 30 days to really swell up!!

Blue Dream
Sadly she's the under performer. I know those buds are dense AF and they're already smelling like a bowl of berries and gasoline. She's going to be amazing but probably not much more than 2.5oz maybe 3oz. I could be totally wrong. She's still got another month to grow so she can totally blow up especially after the most recent top feeding

Top feed
4-5Tbsp crab meal
2-4Tbsp alfalfa meal
1Tbsp kelp meal
2Tbsp NLS Flower Power
1/2 cup fresh worm castings
1/4 tsp bokashi blend
Some BTI for gnats

I prepped my resting soil with fresh amendments. Next is going to get worms and castings and then it'll sit for almost 2 months before I use it in my next grow. The Big Summer Auto Grow Show! I put together my mushroom tubs. They're away in a dark warm place so the substrate can colonize and then I'll be able to fruit them!

Here's some bud shots from tonight and W10 time lapse is in the Dropbox. Enjoy and happy growings! 🪱🍄🌱🪴🌼

[No3odiesShad0w]

This Mac1 and tangie are looking amazing right now!

[No3odiesShad0w]

I was looking at the time lapses and just look how much the tangie faded in the last 10 days. Today is day 84. She's gonna be ready any day now! The trichomes are so close yet still so far. It's about 50/50 Milky and clear. This is always the most anxiety inducing time. When will she be ready? Just have to watch and wait. She looks great. She's going to be the inaugural bud in the Cannatrol. I'm wondering if I'm going to be able to even fit this harvest in that thing🤔🤔. I'm probably gonna hit my 1lb goal or choose to it if the blue dream doesn't do something.

I was also messing with my worm bin 🪱 and to my surprise, the drip trays that were full of just cardboard have turned into straight castings. I dumped all of them into a bucket and put fresh cardboard back into all three trays.
I just divided it between my 2 resting tubs; castings, worms, cocoons and all. I needed to turn my soil today but got a big surprise when I opened the tub.
First off, it's WAY too wet in there. All the worms were trying to make a run for it. When I started turning the soil, I noticed how wet it actually was. It was also starting to go anaerobic. It's not there yet but it's on the way to badness. I decided to leave it open off to the side of the fan so that it can get some fresh oxygen in there but also to dry it back. It's going to be open for a few days at least. I just amended them so there's lots of life in there plus it's been warm so it's super thriving.
Now for the good surprises. First is all the BABY WORMS!!!! Omgl there's HUNDREDS of them. It must have been from the castings I put in there with all the cocoons. With so many workers in that soil, this next Earth Box grow is going to be 🔥🔥 Technically, now I have 3 worm bins. That soil is going to be reused, tested and reused for many more grows.
The second surprise was unintentional. Because I'm trying to dry the soil back, I have the lid open and it's off gassing. I noticed my CO2 levels in that room have been holding at a steady 1000ppm all night long. A nice little CO2 battery I got going there! The other tub isn't as wet so it's not as crazy but I do notice when I mix both tubs the CO2 in the room shoots away up and I don't think it's all from my breathing from all the mixing. It's been steady and that's not a sealed room because of the window ac. That's why I don't bother with CO2 during the summer time It's usually too hard to maintain, but if the testing soil can do it alone then I'm going to have CO2.

It's very interesting how I can use my resting soil as a CO2 battery. This organic growing thing just gets better and better!! It really is a whole circular system. It maintains pH, it generates CO2, it's practically a water only system(if using large enough containers), the worms and micro biology (ie springtails, predator mites) do the worm of breaking down the nutrients and aerating the soil for you while leaving plant soluble food. The more I learn the better I get at this and the flower gets better and the grows go smoother.

I'm really disappointed with the blue dream. She's so sluggish. It takes 10 days for her to drink a gallon of water. The buds are nice and dense. She smells absolutely amazing 🤤. Super terpy but there just not much there. The MAC1 is like double almost triple the size and she was the runt of the bunch. The pineapple is MASSIVE. Even the tangie for an auto, might have more yield. Not looking the Gaia Green amendments. They keep the plant green for the most part but she's looking like she might be wanting potassium or something. She's got about a month left, maybe she'll thicken up and surprise me yet. It seems the soil i built is performing so much better than peat/casting/perlite and Gaia green amendments. Could just be the genetics

Speaking of genetics. That MAC1. From runt to front-runner. The Rocky Balboa Story 🤣🤣🤣. She came in SWINGING. My lord I was not expecting this kind of bud growth 🤯🤯. The structure, the terps everything about it is 🔥🔥. I will def be growing her in the near future. The buds are already 5x bigger than even the "Reserve MAC1" at the dispensary. These flowers are HUGE!!!

[No3odiesShad0w]

Could be potassium deficiency for the blue dream or maybe beginning of magnesium? The yellowing on the top most cola leaves. Almost all the leaves have a yellowing tip Browning thing going on. Not exactly sure what she needs. I did give her some help, langbeinite, crab, molasses, alfalfa top dress on the 9th. She's started flowering a little better but not sure what other stuff she needs. I'm just going to build my own soil from now on. I'm also going to start testing my soil to make sure everything is in check.

[No3odiesShad0w]

So today I got to the root of the problem. Literally.

The Blue dream has really been bugging me since it's one of my favorite cultivars. Why is she drinking water so slowly? Did the peat over dry and become hydrophobic? I pulled nearly a whole gallon from the tray. It's been 7 days and it's like she drank nothing. The water was bad and dirty. There wasn't even any springtails in there. I cleaned up the water and the tray. I put in 3L of fresh water with 2ml silica and 2ml cal mag. I also took some springtails from the MAC and inoculated the water of the blue dream with them. I changed the wicking ropes and turned her so the hole she has is under the fan instead of a nice top cola. Hopefully this will give her some better growth.

I regret lifting the MAC as you see she had nice roots and the water in the base wasn't perfect but it wasn't gross like the blue dream tray. I poured out the water trying to keep as many springtails in there as possible. I left some gunk for them to eat and wiped up the rest. Gave her 3L of water with 2ml of silica and cal mag

The pineapple Express I only peeled under. Even I saw the massive healthy roots and the springtails all over, I just left her as is. I only gave her a bit of water since she was running low. Same amount of water with the silica and cal mag added. Those roots though... She's practically half hydroponic at this point!

The Tangie also needed fresh water but things were healthy. Not as big of a root system but there's springtails there keeping things clean.

[No3odiesShad0w]

Finally took some better pictures of the Tangie. Gave her a little photo shoot sadly from what I'm seeing she won't be ready for another 3 to 5 days minimum. Up to day to 14 days on the long end. She didn't start blooming until about day 40 so it's very possible she's going to be a late finisher. I have the PPFD down to 480-600 at the top cola. That's about 21-27 DLI. It's a nice ripening range. She's fading beautifully as you can see in the pictures above. I'm 10 days she lost a large amount of nitrogen from her leaves. When you look at the trichomes though, there's still lots of clear ones and no amber trichomes yet. I want at least a 10% amber. I like the more chill body highs. The heady stuff feels like the high lasts 10-15 min and then you're sober It's great for when you still have things to do in the day but not so great when you want to go to sleep at night and all the cultivars that I have growing currently are all stimulating. All sativa leaning. I don't know how I did that but I definitely need a remedy that and get me some sleepy buds.

I have also planted 1 seed of the Sweet Zombie Autoflower. She's a very quick finisher so she'll be a nice transition while the photos finish up blooming. By the time the SAG(Summer Auto Grow) gets started, she'll be finishing up. I planted her in my basket cup so that when I pull the Tangie out, I'll just pop the basket on the soil and top dress. She should grow really well. Just want to test the reusing Coco meduim indefinitely. Though I'm pretty sure I'm going to be switching to all Coco for the fabric pots and I'm going to stick to peat in the Earth Boxes. Get the best of both worlds.

[Bluey]

Nice. Not long now

[No3odiesShad0w]

Happy belated 4/20 everyone!!!

I was so high yesterday. My best friend came over with some Snow Panda cultivar Moon rocks! I was so baked 🤣🤣. It was a good day. I hope everyone had a blast!

It's already another week! Time flies but the buds take FOREVER to ripen up 😅. Today is Day 84 of the grow and day 42 of flower.

Tangie
She's close and getting closer. Another few days and she'll be ready to chop

Pineapple Express
She's coming along. Still stacking buds. She's not very terpy. She smells more like an Amnesia Haze than anything resembling pineapple. I'm sure that will change as she starts to fatten up and load on the terps

MAC # 1
She has not ceased to impress me. She's growing so well, she smells amazing and better yet, it looks like trimming will be a breeze. There hardly any leaves! It's just all flower!

Blue Dream
She's super terpy. If you just move her, it smells like berries and gas. I just wish that there was more yield there. It could still change.

I planted 2 more plants. One is the White Widow CBD and the other is the Sweet Zombie Autoflower by Blimburn.
I figure as soon as the Tangie finishes, I'll stick the Sweet Zombie in the same pot and give a big top dress and let her do the thing. She's going to be a transition plant. I don't want a big gap in the tent. I already have limited space so I want to take advantage of it. I'll be able to start the next grow right next to it. She'll be able to finish while the next batch gets started. Have some what of a conveyor belt style of growing. Especially now that I have the Cannatrol.

The Sweet Zombie popped on 4/20. Hopefully that's good luck🙏🌱

[No3odiesShad0w]

The blue dream looks like she wants potassium. I gave her a bit of langbeinite, kelp,crab, ag lime and fresh castings from my worm bin.

The pineapple is just HUNGRY STILL!! She's lacking in calcium, nitrogen. No matter what I give her, it doesn't seem like it's enough. I'm going to have to grow her again but I'll make sure to load up the soil. I fed her on the 9th and I gave her another top dress today. She's got about a month to go....I hope it's enough😅😅. I just don't want to over do it but it seems like I'm under doing it.

It's all good learning material because if I'm going to be keeping CO2 levels up and lights up then I'm going to need more nutrients. Next time I grow the pineapple, I'll double the inputs. It's always harder to play catch with organics than it is to get the soil mixture right from the beginning. I'm also going to increase the volume. Instead of doing 6 gallons I'll do the full 7 and more if i can fit it. In the earth boxes, I'm going to mound the dirt. They just want more food except the MAC1. She's happy. The rest could use some food.