Help me dial in my Subsistence Grow!

[Tika]

I'm subbed
love your avitar too

[Beach_Town_Brit]

Good luck with your first grow cycle

[Nopalito]

Here are some pics to start out. Light is ready for pickup tomorrow so I'll probably plant tomorrow. I'm going to germinate directly in the soil.

Darth Feeder (pictured) will be feeding the Blumat line (currently soaking now). I'm going to do 2 regular sized bluemat carrots in each pot. I guess there's some debate as to whether or nor the Blumat Maxi's are better than a couple regular ones for fabric - style pots. Just another variable that I'm not going to be worrying too much about until my plants tell me I need to. Plus it's really for when I'm out of town and need to keep the soil moist. I'll be hand watering when i top dress anyway.

[Tika]

Hahaha very cool

[Lakegal]

I like those smart pots
You said they are 10 gal.?
Your Darth Vadar is pretty groovy too

[Nopalito]

Lakegal thanks! They are 15 gallons pots. I maybe could have gotten away with 10 gal but I wanted to have a huge powerhouse of soil for the plants to draw from.

[Nopalito]

Today I pick up my light and plant some seeds. I'm thinking of doing a white widow and an Afghan plant.

To to continue my noob thoughts on no till-

Of all the main proponents of no-till, the one that has, in my opinion, the best, most simple, and most current information is Clackamas Coot (Aka AgnesDawgz depending on which forum). As a matter of fact I bought from build a soil because I thought they were affiliated with Coot (they aren't but that's another story).

Its crazy because there is a lot of stuff about no till on the internet and some of it is years old. You can read a mega thread on no till gardening and then you find out it's from like 2012. Then you find a more recent thread and they're saying all that old info is useless. As often is the case on the internet, there is a lot of ego to sift through, a lot of pretentious dismissal of other people's methods, etc. My approach to it has changed a few times already and I don't even have seeds in the dirt yet.

That being said, that No Till Revisited thread on grass city that I linked to in the comments earlier seems to be the most recent- it's like 400 pages long and I'm only on page 30 and a lot of the content is like bread recipes and arguing but the very first post seems to really be all you need to get started. 6 amendments, the sexiest compost you can find and you're off to the races- no cooking required

. Hopefully in this grow journal I can condense all of their amazing knowledge into something even simpler- that thread is a goldmine but it does go off the rails pretty regularly.

Anyway thats where i'm at now. I'll check back in when I have the light and the seeds in the dirt.

[Nopalito]

OzBud I went with photos. Definitely not opposed to exploring the auto version but I like the option to take cuttings if I find a particularly pretty plant. I might snag a couple of those seeds though for future.

[OzBud]

yeah the one down side to autos is you need to get seeds for every grow and you can't search for that 'special' mother plant.

[GanjaGed]

Is it possible to feminize autos? Seems like it should work.

[Nopalito]

Here they are. I'm gonna have to find another solution for the filter, it's going to get in the way as I raise the light. Lights are at about half power. Top dressed with some kelp meal, watered with aloe water. Got the blumats going, we'll see how that goes.

[Marley]

That's a good point about collecting the dust and such. Still, I'm not convinced it would shorten the life of the filter significantly enough to do it one way or the other. I could be wrong. I'll let you know when I have to change mine.

[OzBud]

could always cut the pre filter to size & put it inside the empty space in the main filter when pushing air out if it's never going to be used on the outside of the filter.

[Tika]

Wow..this will be so interesting to watch.

[Nopalito]

So, some new developments.

I planted the seeds and then left town for 3 days (I like to live dangerously). The soil was pleasantly moist when I got home but no seedlings. I gave the soil a really good soak with coconut water, let it sit for a couple hours and re-calibrated the blumats.

Woke up this morning, checked the tent and found a bunch of runoff in the bottom of the tent and the fitst blumat in the line continuously dripping. I adjusted all the dripping ones down and will have to continue dialing them in. I don't have much height to work with but maybe I put a hydro tray full of perlite underneath for possible runoff?

Good news is both seeds sprouted. I'm a dipshit and totally forgot which one is which so maybe you guys can help me with ID when the plants grow up a little. The Seedlings are tiny but they look strong. Also got some bonus random cover crop coming up, no idea what it is but anything's good for chopping and dropping I suppose.

Humidity levels hover around 55-60% and temp in the tent is around 75 constantly. Not bad I'd say as far as environment. When I open the tent, even on a hot day, it's pretty mild in there. I think the COBs help that a lot.

I'll keep you updated.

[oldjarhead100]

that extra growth is from the compost, mine is the same way I have to weed the weed lol

[Tika]

Good save

[OzBud]

will be pretty hard to tell which is which unless they're completely different looking strains. Always label when growing multiple strains.

[Nopalito]

Yea I'm dumb for that. One is an Afghan and one is white widow. I'm hoping the Afghan has really fat obvious indica fan leaves. Also might be able to figure it out by smell. My nose isn't super advanced but I can definitely smell the difference between a kush, a purp, and a fruity sativa. I think the Afghan is on the right but I might be making that up. We'll see. I'm hoping the 40% sativa on the widow will show itself somehow.

[OzBud]

yeah you're right, the afghan should hopefully throw out some fat fan leaves, especially when the earliest ones grow big. I've got some auto afghan kush going, since cutting off the biggest fan leaves it doesn't look so much like an indica on the rest of the leaves despite having not even the slightest amount of sativa in it.

[DingusKhan]

It is what it is. I do that too.

[Nopalito]

A little hack to share with you guys. I use binder clips for so many things other than clipping binders. In this case, I'm using them for some cable organization. http://lifehacker.com/5927857/top-10...-1-binder-clip

Anyway, not much to update with other than that. I started the IPM regimen on my outdoor blueberries (which are coming along decent - i top dressed the fox farm with some of my left over homemade soil, some worm castings, and topped with mulch so it's a half ass super soil.

IPM recipe:
1 Gallon h20
1 oz Dr. Bronners Peppermint Soap
1 tbsp of Karanja oil.

Also inoculated the soil with some mycorrhizae inside.

[Tika]

Very cool idea thanks

[Nopalito]

Just thought I'd give a little update on my outdoor ladies. First one is a bagseed that I pulled from some Blue Sherbet, not sure what pollinated it but if it's sexy I might take cuttings for my next indoor run. The other two are the 2 of 5 blueberry autos that survived. I don't know that I can blame it on the seeds since I planted them before I left town (i keep doing that for some reason) and the soil got a little dry. One looks a little stunted and the other one looks gorgeous.

Fed my indoor plants today with some coconut/aloe water. Hit each 15 gal with a half gallon of water and I'm getting runoff. Way less than the amount that I'm seeing other people feed but also seedlings don't drink that much. Will continue to experiment. Seems like the blumats keep the soil plenty moist.

[Nopalito]

Today marks 7 days since I planted the seeds. I'm really happy with their growth rate so far, I have a good feeling about them.

Also attaching a picture of what I think is a little mantis that has taken up residence on top of my outdoor blueberry. So much life in here!

Lifted up the mulch on the outdoor bed, the homemade soil I made and put on top is looking dark black and beautiful. Onward.

[DingusKhan]

Nice! Mantis eat bugs!!

[NebulaHaze]

I agree, very nice looking plants for their age! And you've got your own garden defender

[Nopalito]

Welp, got some fungus gnats. My soil is super wet because I've been dialing in the blumats. Got some neem meal on the way to top dress with, that should kill the larvae and I'm going to mist the mulch with my IPM juice every other day or so. Very annoying but otherwise the seedlings are blowing up!

Got some tm-7, ful-power, and agsil that I'll add to the aloe water for top watering into the mulch as I top dress with malted barley powder - this will comprise of my "Nutrient" solution. I top dressed both pots with kelp meal early on and it's still decomposing. The worms I added this week should help that happen faster.

Also, I'm ironing out my watering schedule. I think i'm going to do it weekly, inputs on every third day.(Monday- IPM/ Pest stuff, Thursday- Nutrient Soak, and Sunday- Aloe/Coconut)