Earth Box vs Living Soil

[No3odiesShad0w]

Yeah she's staying. This set of leaves looks better and the following set doesn't look deformed at all. Good good. I didn't want to have to do another transplant.

[No3odiesShad0w]

Since I'm leaving the Mandarin in place, I transplanted the Freak Show into a 3 gallon pot. I trained the MAC1 x BD # 1, the only one left of the 4 seeds. I don't know if the freak show or the Mac x BD are females or males. I'm just going to keep them small and flower them out under the table tent. Another 3 weeks or so.. and I'll be flipping the switch on all the plants to 12 hour lighting.

Gave the Mac x BD a top dress too since it's been months just running on the initial feeding. I took 2 clones of this plant ..... Just in case. I need some practice cloning. It's been some time. I've just been seed popping.

Freak show got my normal living soil recipe with the fresh castings I just harvested. Hopefully it's a female. Would be nice. I'll take clones when it gets bigger for the same reason.... Just in case.

Well it's lights on time.... That means back to work. I'll post a few more pictures when I'm done.

[No3odiesShad0w]

Here's an interesting anomaly. From where I supercropped her, everything above has three pointed leaves and looks really dark green and already forming buds and frost while everything below the break is growing normal 5-7 pointed leaves and the flowers look like normal sativa like buds. It's like the super crop caused a split in the phenos and is growing 2 different extremes on one plant. She's also super leafy. I had to defoliate her yet again.

Anyone ever see something like this?

[No3odiesShad0w]

Both of the Uncle Grandpa's are doing fantastically. They both look happy and healthy. Not much difference between the living soil and earth box soil.

The Mandarin Zkittlez has been on the fence but I think I'm going to keep her. The next leaves are looking like they're less and less deformed. She's growing, she's trying.

The Grape Balls of Fire is looking really nice and healthy. She's growing well. Haven't seen any problems with her.

I watered all of them with a very light dose of Recharge. 1/16 tsp for 1L I split it between 5 plants. I also made sure to adjust the lights DLI to 35 umol. They should have plenty of everything to get growing.

The freak show in going to have to pull out everyday for a few weeks. The Mac x BD is under the table with 12hr lighting. I don't want the freak show to start blooming yet... Obviously.... So I'll just pull her out at 7am and put her by the tent for a few more hours to prevent flowering for 2 weeks

I hope that table tent is light leak proof enough to allow flowering. 😅. We'll have to see. If not then she'll just grow for 2 more weeks.

[No3odiesShad0w]

I'm glad I hung in there. She's giving me normal leaves. I'm not liking the color on her but one issue at a time. She might gain some color as she gets better. I really tortured those seedlings. They're a month old and I stunted them a lot by under watering and keeping them in high VPD not the best start but they're photos. They have time to recover and grow even stronger.

[No3odiesShad0w]

It's been a good grow week!

The MAC1 x BD cross is a FEMALE!!! I'm glad I took clones! The leaf rub test so far smells like straight up pepper. Just ground black pepper. It doesn't even smell like a plant 😅. Neither the blue dream nor the Mac 1 had any pepper smells. Let's see what it develops into before I decide to do a full run.

The Lilac Diesel by Ethos for Battle of the Breeders. Day 59 from 🌱 She got her 3rd (and hopefully final) defoliation. I never had to deal with such a leafy plant that stretched until about day 49. It's finally noticable in the time lapse videos that in the past week she's been thickening up rather than stretching.
Very different flower morphology than in used to. She doesn't have these big white flowing puffy flowers. These things are dense greasy growths that stick to EVERYTHING, including itself.
The Smell!!! Woah! Not only is it sticky like candy but it smells like gassy citrus candy. If you touch it, it's like melted candy goo covering your fingers. They get shiny. They get sticky. They get sandy feeling as if the sugar was crystallizing. I kid you not..... These candy cultivars are getting more and more impressive. The Pound Town tastes like honeydew candy. This one in expecting to taste like sour citrus candy. I was never one for the cookie and candy cultivars but lately the candy has been 🔥. She's got about 30-40 days left so there's plenty time to stack up some impressive buds. The sticky greasy slick trichomes are really interesting.

This living soil is on its 4th run and it's still growing absolutely amazing stuff. Coco Living Soil is totally doable 💪.

Now, onto THE ACTUAL EXPERIMENT that this thread is about 😅

I defoliated and started some basic LST on the UG. Both were FIM attempted but IDK how successful it was. Either way, it caused her to start side branching. Both UG's in both boxes look amazing hardly any difference in appearance. Both soils are performing as they should.

The Mandarin has these 2 giant side branches. I pulled the leaves the expose more sites to light so she starts to branch. She needs another node or 2 before I attempt to FIM her. She's growing. She's strong. She's a little funky but she's doing fine.

It's the same story for the Grape Balls of Fire. I need her to grow one more node and I'll FIM her. She looks healthier, color wise, compared to the Mandarin but the structure is also very different. I pulled some leaves to expose some sites because they're still too small to LST.

So far both boxes are neck in neck. Pretty much what I expected. Which is great because I have 3x more packages of the Earth box nutrients. That's 3x grows without having to spend a penny. Ready to use easy peasy mix it up and let it grow method. Love lazy growing!

It gives me time to do things like repot all my cacti 🌵. They desperately needed it. They were all root bound in terrible substrate with zero drainage. It was all peat-wood chips. Not even a single piece of perlite. I'm surprised they grew as much as they did.
I recorded the repotting and edited the videos. I'll be posting them on my YouTube channel in a 3 part series. I wanna see what length of video does best in terms of views. I used 2 cameras to get different angles so it's not all static. Gave me some practice with editing. I did all 6 videos in about 4 hours time. Took longer to convert for editing than the editing did and I did A LOT of different effects. Slowly getting better and better.

Happy Growing 🪴 Hope everything is going as smoothly in your gardens 🙏

[Franklin]

Nice man, glad it's going so well. The lilac diesel sounds amazing. With all those cactuses have you considered some Peruvian or Bolivian Torch?

[No3odiesShad0w]

I used to have those varieties. I used to have almost 30 different ones but lost everything about 7 years ago. Only now, I've gotten motivated enough to rebuild my collection. I had all the trippy ones, including peyote (3yrs old). I had white ones, leafy ones, melty ones.....cati were my intro into the growing world; cannabis is the latest plant to the game because of legal reasons. I got my first cactus when I was 5yo and I still have that same cactus. African Milk Tree. It's as tall as me now. It resides at my parents' house because there's no way to safely transport it to my apartment....not that I even have space for it. I just want small slow growing varieties. My kitchen environment is Perfect for cacti. Always hot and dry. Cool and moist in the winter. I don't even have to water them for 2 months. Basically, just looking to rescue any I find at the store that look intersting or bloom nicely like the M. Bocasana with its pretty crown of flowers.

[No3odiesShad0w]

I'm 90% sure this is a male. Tastes exactly like a male plant. And yes, male plants do taste different than females. Don't believe me? Try it. When you get a male plant. Eat the top. The male plant will taste like Hemp seed. Kinda nutty planty taste. The female plant of the same cultivar will taste more plant like leaning towards tomato leaf. It will taste more dank and It won't have that distinctly nutty taste.

I'm fine with it. I didn't even have space for these. It was just left over from my other project.

[No3odiesShad0w]

Super happy the girls bounced back so well. 👍

It's been 3 days since I defoliated and FIM'd all the girls and they have bounced back with no issues. I also started to do some LST because if I don't start early, I'll just be breaking branches trying to train them later on. They grow so thick that they don't want to move. I already snapped one branch. I didn't even notice it happened. It seems to have scabbed over so I'm just going to leave it alone.

Both of the UG's look like the FIM was successful. I ended up with 4 branches instead of 2. Both UG's look much healthier and the color is more vibrant compared to their pot mates. They're side branching strongly and they're showing their sex.
I'm hoping they're not going into flower yet. I have been only giving them 15hrs of light. I increased it to 16hrs 2 days ago just to be safe. I'm pretty sure they're just showing their sex because they're 2.5 months old.

The Mandarin Zkittlez is still looking a bit weird. She's grown these 2 bottom side branches but not much else. Color is light on her and growth is on the slower side. I FIM'd the top and the 2 big side branches. I can work with it if she decides to branch out. Wondering if I should give her a little nitrogen boost top dress around the stem?

The Grape Balls of Fire has been growing kinda slow, but she's been doing a lot at one time. She's growing up, while growing leaves, while side branching. She seems like she's growing slower but once that pre bloom stretch comes in, she'll get huge really quick. She also got the FIM and now she's focusing more on the side branches. Haven't been able to LST her yet.

Her color looks better than the Mandarin but both seeing are a little worse for wear and that's my fault. I had them in a bad environment, bad pot, bad watering practices and everything else. They really had a rough start. I could do better. I just had too much going on in too many places.

[No3odiesShad0w]

There be nitrogen toxicity going on the lilac...🤷♂️ Not much I can do now. Just skipped on any nitrogen containing products. Last plant was hungry, this one is a much lighter feeder. Hard to gauge with new cultivars. Compared to the UG that I've grown before, I know what to expect that's why they look so healthy and vibrant.
Even the Mandarin is turning into a giant octopus. Speaking of. .... Found a 12 pointed leaf on her. That's the most points on a single leaf that I've ever grown. Just thought it was an interesting oddity.

Did more LST on all the girls. I think they'll get one more week before I flip. I was going to flip this Sunday but I might wait... That's why the frequent updates. I can't let them get too big or they'll outstretch my tents.

[No3odiesShad0w]

It's been another week and it's time to Flip to Flower .... ALREADY!! 😲

It's only 21 days since I transplanted into the Earth Boxes and all 4 plants have gotten so big, busy, bushy, branchy and so thick. If I Veg them out for another week, I'll probably be in trouble during "the stretch."

That being said, I decided I'm going to do something a little different. Instead of just flipping to a 12hr cycle over night, I'm going to lose an hour every 2 days instead until I get to a 12 hr light cycle. It'll take me 6 days to get to 12 hours from my 15 hour light cycle.
Yesterday they had 16 hours of light, today they will only get 15 hours. Tomorrow they'll get 15 hours and the day after it'll drop to 14 hours for the next 2 days and so on. I want to give them a softer flip and see if that does anything noticable since I'm growing a cultivar that I'm familiar with.

Both Uncle Grandpa's are doing great. No problems. They're big, leafy, beefy and fast growing. In my box or the earth box nutrients, no problems.

The Mandarin Zkittlez was given a tiny tiny bit of soy fertilizer. Just a 18-0-0 water, soluble nitrogen fertilizer with all the aminos needed for growth......I probably shouldn't have😅. She was the runt.... Now she's probably the biggest ones. She's literally growing triplets. That stuff is hyper potent.
Amino Power Powder Nitrogen Fertilizer - Plant Based High Nitrogen Fertilizer for Plants - All Natural Nitrogen Source and chelating Agent - Suitable for Turf, Vegetables, Fruits & Berries https://a.co/d/aUXEaPU

There's the link. I've been super curious about this after doing some reading in my botany text box. Learning how photosynthesis works and now nutrients work with building blocks. I didn't have money for the Dr. Bruce Bugbee course, so I got a botany textbook that's at about that level. I got some BIG BIG plans for next year for some cool new tests. Gonna grow BIGGER, BETTER, STRONGER 💪

The Grape Balls of Fire on the other hand ended up being the runt of the bunch. She looked better out of the 2 seedlings but then just grew slower than the others. She's picked up since then but she's still behind.

The MAC1 x Blue Dream cross is starting to flower as well. She's looking okay. We'll see what kind of flavor we get off her. See if it's worth growing.

I also FINISHED MY GROW ROOM!!!!! 🙌🙌. I think this is more or less the FINAL set up of the whole place. There may be some minor adjustments and whatnot, but this is it! I got my pictures up, my records up, the tents are done, the driver bay is up behind the tents, the walls are painted, the work bench is turning into a seedling tent and the rest of the stuff is neatly stored away in the closet. It took a bunch of work and I still need to plaster a few holes on the ceiling and walls but that's a one day job at some time in the future. Not when I'm flower, that's for sure.

I'm just so hype about how it came out. The vibe in that room is SOOOO GOOD. Even when I'm bummed out, I go in there for a few minutes and I start feeling better. Just good energy flowing all around. It's my thinking space, it's my creative space, it's my work space and def my happy place.

I also baked some CBD cookies with some of that extract from that White Widow CBD that I grew last Christmas. CBD Peanut Butter and CBD Oatmeal Raisin. They should be about 1g of flower per cookie equivalent extract.

I still have a little more RSO extract in my fridge. Just been using it to make medicated cookies that I can nibble on of i feel shitty. I also made a virgin batch of the peanut butter cookies because my cookies are delicious. It's really hard to have just 1.

[No3odiesShad0w]

I posted a reel on my Instagram and got a lot of love for my grow space. Feels good to finally be where I wanted to be. It's been a crazy bumpy ride, especially in the beginning, but I'm glad I stuck with it. Now it saves me so much money and the quality.. Better than anything in a dispensary.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAPySN0slry/?igsh=MTZyNW43OHI0cXRydA==

[No3odiesShad0w]

Wow... This reel went crazy!! Almost 2500 views and 170 likes. Super unexpected.

[No3odiesShad0w]

My best friend completed his grow. 85 day bloom. He just chopped and hung to dry. Really proud of him. For a first grow, he did really well in a 1 gallon pot, growing organically using my test recipe and my GSC cross. Let's see how it tastes and smells. I'm going there this weekend to inspect everything.

[No3odiesShad0w]

Also posted my first cactus repotting video on my youtube https://youtu.be/smlv6VkKsps

[No3odiesShad0w]

We are down to 12hr lighting schedule!! We went down 1 hours every 2 days and this is the result. The Stretch has begun!! They practically doubled in size since last week. So much beautiful growth. I got a good feeling about these!!!

For Christmas this year, I'm gonna have a different kind of fruit cake 🍊🍋🍒🍇 All sweet fruit and gas. I can't wait. My favorite terps. Fruity, gassy, earthy. Love those flavors.

The lilac diesel..OMG this lilac diesel.....I am SO HAPPY I decided to participate in this Battle of the Breeders and grow this cultivar. The WHOLE ROOM just smells like it's a sour lemon candy factory. Those smells are freaking UNREAL. The texture is like sticky crushed candy with the trichomes the size of sand! Sucks about the nitrogen toxicity but just WOAH. The last one that got me this excited was that Hot Cakes. Super unique and loaded with flavor. She's on Day 71 of growth. So 10-20 days before she's ready to chop. Good Lord that went QUICK. So quick.

Since everything goes by so quickly, I'm going to plant 2 seeds on Sunday. 1x FreakShow and 1x Acai FreakShow. Last FreakShow was a male. Hopefully one of those 2 will be a female. Maybe both, who knows. I have 2 months to figure out if they're male or female. I'm gonna plant them and when they get 3 nodes high or 2, I'm going to top them to encourage side branching. As soon as I get a big enough side branch, I'll cut it and root it. After 14 days, I'll put it in the closet for 12 hours and see what happens.
This way when I'm ready to start my next grow, I'll just be able to pop in the clone like I did with the UG this time. If this blue dream x MAC1 is any good, I'll grow one of the clones I have. That will make 3 plants. If she's not good then I was thinking about doing Blue Dream and Wedding Cake along with the Freakshow for the New Year grow.

I figure start the New Year freaky!! Something unique. The time lapse will look awesome!!

[No3odiesShad0w]

My best friend got me a few log of black walnut. I'm going to turn them into 2 didgeridoos..... In about 2.5 years when the wood seasons 😅 https://www.instagram.com/p/DAclXjcM...l2dzd6Mm1jaQ==

[No3odiesShad0w]

Another week down. Another week closer to harvest and the start of flowering for others.

In the last week, the 2x UG, Mandarin Zkittlez and Grape Balls have doubled in size. You can see on the time lapse that they started their stretch about 2 days ago. All 4 plants look really healthy and growing strong.

The blue dream x MAC1 cross is doing well too. The clones are getting wild. I'm gonna need to trim them back.

Shame the lilac diesel is still dealing with nitrogen toxicity. Probably won't have really tight buds. Smells amazing but structure wise... It's a bit meh. She's on day 72 of growth. She's still drinking 4L every 2 days but that's probably going to slow down soon.

[No3odiesShad0w]

Sucks about the nitrogen toxicity....🤷♂️. Still smells amazing.