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SOIL A Slightly Seedy Summer Sativa Grow

Living soil seems to do best in peat-based media but I have mixed in a fair amount of coco to their 3.0 recipe with no ill effect. Once you get the soil to where worms are able to live in it, the plants will respond. Keep the top of the soil mulched and moist and be proactive with pest control are the two biggest things I can advise. Good luck with this and future grows!
 
Humidity is rarely a problem. I plan to dodge the problem months for hot & humid air by taking a growing sabbatical June-August. The RH in the basement has been 30-40% lately, so the dehumidifier fan doesn't have to run long to dry a tent out. I've had the opposite of too much humidity. Some of the tops of the plants are damaged from the air being too dry when forming leaves. I countered that by raising the target RH for the fan to run and by spritzing the plants with plain water when I open the tent to work and then I spray the soil surface to keep everything from getting crusty. If you keep the top of the soil covered with either the cheapo covers that came with the pickers (the rubber bands that held them in place deteriorate under grow lights!) or with clover and straw, the gnats won't be able to get established.
 
It's getting more fun with fewer problems and less work now that everything is flowering. As I mentioned above, I'm spraying the plants as soon as I open the tent now and then I turn the sprayer on dried soil after that. I have more budshots of both sexes to post, so here goes.

Coconut Grove:
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Stretch is mostly done with budsites all through the canopy. Even Liberty Haze is getting a bit more height.

Flower Tent:
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I'm doing most of my remedial topwatering in this one. All of the rubber bands that came with the picker mulch covers have deteriorated and broken off! I gave them a good soaking this morning. Flowers are just starting to show.

3x3:
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One of these things is not like the others. I took the largest female from the Mother's Finest seed project out so she can make usable bud. Tangies are ripening and showing some fall colors.

Tangies:
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Nursery:
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It's getting hard to get a good shot!

The tall one is indubitably a boy:
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MF has a mutation in common with Tangie:
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Chop for the Tangies may happen within two weeks. I'll need the space!
 
Argh. It's been a tough start to the week so the update is late. The garden stuff is fine though. Just a few days after reamending with gnarly barley and homemade worm castings, the flowers got swole compared to these pictures. Also, I have to work the Nursery tent last because it is radioactive - meaning pollen clouds happen just from unzipping the tent.

Coconut Grove:
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I took these pictures at a higher angle so you can see Liberty Haze at back left again. Flowers are really starting to swell and stack, especially on Acapulco Gold.

Flower Tent:
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These girls are moving along about a week behind the other 4x4 but flowers are happening. Did I mention that the flowers are much larger today?

3x3:
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MF is dwarfing the Tangies. She grew into and over the lights, true to sativa form. After the Tangies are gone, I will bend those branches down and center her pot. Here's close-ups of Tangie:
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An overhead shot to show the fall colors she is putting on. It won't be long.

Mother's Finest:
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I forgot to take a picture of the Nursery tent! This is the one in the 3x3. Male flowers are open all over and he is dumping spent flowers and pollen dust all over the neighbors.

Next grow will feature some auto seeds provided by Going2fast in a bean swap! I've got four varieties: Scarlet Grapes, Scarlet Runtz, Scarlet Sunset and Scarlet Galaxy so one of the 4x4s will host one each of these.

Have a great weekend, however you choose to celebrate it!
 
You do great work, UF, you definitely helped inspire my switch to all organic living soil. I've been having a blast making and using worm bins and aerated compost tea and sprouted seed tea and such. My next round, which will be starting within the next couple of weeks, will be my first shot at fully loving soil from the start. I hope it will look as good as yours. What size of pots do you use? I just bought four 15 gallon fabric pots as they will nearly completely fill my 3x3.
 
It is pretty odd. I'll have to compare it to the TXBB later on. I don't think any Blueberry pollen got into the Tangie tent last year. The TXBB seeds came from not isolating a Kosher Kush female before dusting it with BB pollen. A Blueberry and a Tangie for sinsemilla got a whiff of the pollen cloud too when the oscillating fan swept across.

I'd recommend the Earth boxes or pickers to anyone.
 
Thanks! I think each of the pickers holds between 12-15 gallons of soil. The smaller pots I use are five gallons. Four of the pickers fit in a 4x4 and the 3x3 holds four and maybe five of the five gallon pots.
 
Happy New Year! I've been busy and not making it here to post but there is news and pics to share. Tangies are hanging to dry in the room because lights are still going in all grow tents. I bumped my head into them a few times today and now I reek of oranges. My Mother boy is about to come down too now that his tentmates aren't showing many white hairs but do have plenty of swelling calyxes to show for the past few weeks. The others in flower continue to build flower and drop lower fans as they go. I'm on the fence about installing a second net in Coconut Grove - the buds are getting heavy but they aren't that significantly higher than the net that's already there.

Oh yes, here's some Tangie bud porn:
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Coconut Grove a week ago:
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Most of the difference now is that buds are fatter.

Flower Tent:
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Again. buds are significantly fatter now, especially Super Lemon Haze (left rear)

3x3:
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She's a sativa. She grew into and over the light, so I've had to bend and tie her to get buds back under the light.

Nursery:
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Pollen dust and spent flowers litter the place. He's done his job and he will soon be mulch after a good wash to kill remaining pollen.
 
Week whatever of flower! I haven't kept track at all this grow. It's helpful to have a big enough stash that I don't count the days until I should be able to chop. Speaking of chop - Tangie filled two and a half jars and is more potent than the last batch! Drying was a challenge because the micro tent I started out drying in stayed too humid. I moved them into the grow room to hang there after three days and they dried a bit more than I like them to be. On the plus side, It burns clean. Thirst is a constant in the 4x4s. I'm still misting the plants with plain water every time I open the tent. I'm having to double the water I'm giving Durban Poison - I've never seen such a thirsty plant. The pictures will show some of the damage low humidity did to the plants in early flower. Most bounced back OK but they'd be much better off if I'd corrected the humidity settings on the Niwas sooner.

Coconut Grove:
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The lower angle shows the "forest of bud" better.

Flower Tent:
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Super Lemon Haze is starting to get stinky! You can see timothy growing in the vacant picker from the hay I used for mulch last time around.

3x3:
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Not shown: tomato plants as cover crop. Tomato seeds can hide in compost then sprout months later because the seed coat needs to ferment before the seed can sprout.

Nursery:
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The smaller MF suffered from too-high humidity and too-low temps for a while and won't make very many seeds. Big sister is doing fine. Natural selection I guess!

I think I can have this summer grow end before February, who knows?
 
How are you handling humidity through your niwa? I just got a controller, no humidifier though, I don't want a humidifier in my tent but would like to pipe humidity into the tent but not sure how to do that. I don't see a humidifier in your tent so figure you might have similar circumstances.
 
I tell the Niwa that my exhaust fan is the dehumidifier. The RH outside the tents is hanging around 30-40% so bringing in fresh air will bring down the RH after plant respiration drives it up.
 
I'm seeing signs of fading in Coconut Grove, so the end is in sight!
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I had to string up the Durban Poison after it fell over from the weight.
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I'm starting to think those aren't tomatoes but rotten seed potatoes that somehow survived.
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Also, Mother's is fading too!

The one in the nursery is getting closer.
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The smaller one probably got a little too cold during that arctic blast.

Now for last week's bud shots:

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Acapulco Gold, Liberty Haze and Sweet Amnesia Haze

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Lavender, Super Lemon Haze and Durban Poison

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TXBB, Mother's Finest and Mother's Finest seeded. (It still gets frosty.)
 
Coconut Grove got the chop Monday!
Just before that:
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Flower tent gets it as soon as SLH is ready - maybe even sooner.
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The odd-looking buds on Durban Poison at right rear....DB hermied and seeded itself and a few TXBB buds and I didn't catch it because I was watering after lights out most days. Now I need to decide to keep those seeds or not. Speaking of seeds - the first Mother's Finest seeds are out of the buds. It's the one that shouldn't have any. She must've caught some pollen just before I moved her out.

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She's fading fast. This whole garden might go down this week. I've got two seeds collected already.

I'm just starting to see fading in the Nursery:
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Too bad little sister didn't like the cooler weather. I'll still get a few seeds from her.

Acapulco Gold, Sweet Amnesia Haze and Lavender produced OK considering all the hard times. Liberty Haze isn't too bad either. I chopped just in time - I found a few nanners on Acapulco Gold just before I grabbed the chopper. I will welcome a fresh start in a couple three weeks, maybe it will all finish before mites can find them. Maybe spraying the plants frequently will keep them from widespread attack too. Next grow is a tent full of autos, a tent full of fems and just maybe this time I'll get some Ghost Train Haze.
 
Damn, I've been busy. I didn't mean to go away for this long though! All plants are down and jarred. Acapulco Gold produced the best overall and I'm still trying to sample everything. I had issues with pollen in tents where it didn't belong, whether by nanner or by travelling on my hoodie. There will be more mystery seeds. [sigh] Mother's Finest produced a nice baggie of seed for just the few plants I pollinated and the bud from the unpollinated one is outstanding head stash. I'll get my stuff together better and make a better final report - or not. I have tents screaming to be cleaned top to bottom and soil to reamend.
 
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