Organic Grow With a Mix Of Strains (Newb Alert)

[LowRange]

Beans Broke Soil: 16th February 2023

Ok guys, bit of a newbie and i'm probably making it harder for myself by growing a bunch of different strains but hey i might learn something from my mistakes.

Feel free to post comments, feedback, criticisms etc it's most welcome and appreciated. With that said here's what I'm working with:

Seeds:
3 x Skunk Special by Female Seeds
2 x Blue Cheese by Barneys Farm
2 x Mimosa X Orange Punch by Barneys Farm
2 x Sour Diesel Auto by Seed Stockers
2 x Charlotte's Dream CBD by Growers Choice
1 x Bodega Bubblegum by Greenpoint Seeds
1 x Gorilla Zkittlez - Barneys Farm

All seeds bought from Seed-City.com except for the Bodega Bubblegum. I did finish a grow using all Greenpoint seeds but got a stack of seeds, i dont know if one of the plants hermed or i stressed them. But the Bodega was a winner with potency and the smell was like someone knocked over a gallon of gas in the room, it was hard not to gag when trimming it. So I'm running a seed from the plant i grew, i want to try this strain again without it turning seedy and hopefully get a higher yield but just got to watch this one close for nanners.

Soil:
Both the soil and amendments I'm using are from High Powered Organics from Australia. I'm starting with their Gro-Dirt Super Starter, and then potting up to the full strength Gro-Dirt which is re-used from my last run. They now have starter kits (https://high-powered-organics-online-shop.myshopify.com/) with soil, dry feed amendments and feeding chart to make things easier getting started.

I also bought a few of their plain amendments like feather meal, insect frass and alfalfa meal to experiment with and to have on hand if there's a deficiency etc. This is what I've got:



Equipment:
Currently in a 4x4
ViparSpectra P2000
AC infinity 6" Exhaust
Inkbird WiFi controller connected to a heater
Clip Fan
InkBirds CO2 meter also running

Note, i do have another 5x5 tent and a brand new SpiderFarmer SE7000 bar light. But wont use the big guns until they are starting to fill the 4x4.

Germination
Just placed all beans in PH 6.4 water with a tiny dash of Green Surpreme powder from HPO. Stirred them after 12 hours and they sunk, then another 12 hours i put them in solo cups with SuperStarter Gro-Dirt.

The 11 beans all germinated quite quickly, In a moment of madness, i planted 2 new seeds (Bodega and zKittlez which was a freebie) so they are a few days because the late start. They broke soil on 16th Feb 2023, and the 2 extras i threw in germed a few days later. So from 13 beans i done a 100% germ rate, happy to celebrate the small wins lol.



So i guess i'll take 16th February 2023 as the official start date. Let the fun begin and thanks for following along!

 

[LowRange]

Day 5 from sprout, taken 21st February. So far so good, they seem happy.

 

[LowRange]

Day 9 from sprout, taken 25th February. Slow and steady all are looking nice.

With watering I've been experimenting and water from the top on one day, then the next day bottom water. The plants seem to love it. I ordered some cotton wick and I'm going to experiment with wick lines and bottom watering on a few of the plants after i pot them in fabric pots.



Now the reason for potting only one of the Mimosa's to a 3gal pot before it was ready. It was quite stretchy, i added more soil to the solo cup but next day it was stretched again so re-potting allowed me to sink it more. Also because i'm re-using soil from my last run i'm worried it was way too hot from the build up in it. A slurry test showed PH was great, but the EC was crazy high. So i "cut" the old soil 50/50 with fresh Super Starter to try and lower the nute's and add a fresh microbe source.

So i planted the Mimosa as a crash dummy to test the soil. So far no issues, i wish i had a bit more Super-Starter but happy with the progress for 9 days.

 

[LowRange]

Day 11 from sprout, taken 27th January

Some more growth in the last 48 hours, i was going to just update weekly but i will re-pot some of them out of the solo cups tomorrow so one last pic in their baby cups. Also i have an odd looking plant, it was a bit wrinkly which is slowly going away but it still looks "odd". Not sure if it's genetic or user error, but I'll see how it goes.

But i think for 11 days they are doing good.



The odd one:

 

[cobshopgrow]

youre doing great, odd one is genetics ill say, will prob grow out of it.

 

[LowRange]

Day 15 from sprout, taken 3rd March.

I re-potted a few plants on the 1st (the 4 outer ones on the black lid) and got the rest done today. This are how the girls are looking today.





The ones at the front in plastic pots were germinated after the others so are a few days behind. It's hard to believe the big plant is only 15 days old like the others, only difference is i re-potted it on day 9 to test if the soil was too hot but obviously not because it's growing fast. So i topped that one plant today.

So all are looking good so far, however I've had something eating the leaves on a number of plants. I cannot find any critters, and don't even know how one got in because you need to get through 2 doors and get in to the tent which has bug screens on the intake port. A number of plants are effected like this:



All i can do is keep looking for the culprit i guess.

Also i setup the pot experiment. AC Infinity self watering pots are way too expensive for what they are, so i tried to rig something up similar. I got some 6mm cotton wick/cord from ebay for $10 for 20 meters (65 feet). I also got a big sheet of paving panel from the hardware store, it's used to lay down under gravel driveways to stop the gravel moving or washing away. I cut it in to circles on the bandsaw to use as pot risers.



I poked holes in the fabric pot and fed lengths of wick through them and back out the bottom. Inside the fabric pot:



Then the wicks just sit in the water.



I don't know if this works or it's a dumb idea... probably the latter lol. But it's similar to the AC Infinity diagram on how their pots work so we shall see. I done this to one of the Skunk special plants because i had 2 that were identical in size, growth and leaf size. So one can be the control to see how much better or worse the wick idea performs. If it doesn't work i will just cut the strings off and pretend the stupid idea never happened haha.

Anyhow i have not fed the plants anything yet, just ph water and some Mykos on the roots when i re-potted. Environment is sitting at 26c/80f and humidity around 70% when the tent is closed. PAR is around 320 on the taller plant and 250 on the smaller ones based on the Photone app.

 

[LowRange]

youre doing great, odd one is genetics ill say, will prob grow out of it.

Thanks mate. Yes i think you are right, it seems to be this one plant is just a bit of an odd one. The wrinkled leaves are improving, but it still has something funky going on with the leaves. It will be interesting to see how this plant turns out.

 

[LowRange]

Ok well I'm extremely surprised, opened the tent today and the wick experiment actually worked. The saucer was bone dry, so all that water was sucked up. I wasn't expecting that.

The pot feels heavy like I just watered it and all the rest are far lighter. Whether this translates to improved growth or not I'll have to wait and see.

Edit: This wick idea may actually work too good for a young plant, i feel the amount of water it's putting in to the root zone may be too much. I have 6 wicks in to the water, i will pull 4 out so it's only using 2 and see how that goes.

 

[DrDukePHD]

Great pot/wick idea I'll stick around to see how it works out if you don't mind

 

[LowRange]

Great pot/wick idea I'll stick around to see how it works out if you don't mind

Thanks mate, and yes absolutely pull up a chair and enjoy the show.

On my last grow i would sit the pots in a tub with an inch of water every 10 days or so because i was concerned the soil would get dry spots at the bottom. The soil i use can get fairly hydrophobic if it dries out. Then when i bottom watered the plants looked noticeably happier, leaves praying more so figured i would give this a shot.

I have a hunch the benefits at first will be slim, and it can even overwater but as the plants water needs increase and i go up in pot sizes it will work better and better. This is hows things are now so we can compare later, wick pot in the middle and it's starting out as a fraction smaller of the three. All are Skunk Special.

 

[LowRange]

Day 21

I have topped all plants except for the 2 Sour Diesel auto's. Everything is going ok for the most part and everything looks healthy, with a few little issues. I still cannot find what is chewing the leaves, I've hunted under all leaves and on the top of the soil and cant find anything, yet each day there's new chomp marks. The Sour D autos are starting to show some hairs, i was hoping to get way more height out of them before this happened so i hope they shoot up more. This is the fam



And kind of worrying is all the Skunk Special plants are really short with tight inter node spacing. I've had the PAR on the lower end the whole time hoping they stretch but they just haven't. The skunk plants i was most looking forward to, they might need longer in veg then i wanted or maybe i'm just impatient. I'll check some grow diaries of 21 day plants to compare after i post this. Here is the 3 skunk plants, wick pot in the middle.



The one Mimosa X Orange Punch i transplanted early is doing excellent for 21 days,



And the other one with the odd leaves is still being... odd. I don't know what her problem is but she's like a red hot mess after a night on the town.



The Bodega Bubblegum has started to grow well in the last 5 days or so, but the Gorilla Zkittlez (which was a freebie) is the runt of the litter but they are both younger than the rest.

Oh and i gave them the first proper feed today, just a small dose of Rhizo-Mojo, Green Supreme and Anti Matter. The environment has been good, just humidity a bit high especially after watering. So got the exhaust running tonight to come on at or above 75% humidity, outside the tent is around 65%.

 

[DrDukePHD]

Those are big chomp marks & only at the edge of the pot. You let your cat in there?

 

[LowRange]

Those are big chomp marks & only at the edge of the pot. You let your cat in there?

I'd end up with some cheap blood and bone if a cat got in there haha. But no i don't have any cats or dogs, just a cockatoo with no feathers who's never been in the shed. I've always had bug screens over the intakes on the tent and you need to go through 2 doors to get to the tent. It's really strange. I'm guessing a caterpillar got in when i had the soil in tubs near the door to outside.

I'll have the plants in a 5x5 with SE7000 light within the next week and will probably pot up the bigger plants again. And have to research topping a second time Vs topping once and using LST and which is better.

 

[DrDukePHD]

5x5 is definitely the way to go, good choice!

 

[green_machine_two9er]

Those are big chomp marks & only at the edge of the pot. You let your cat in there?

I’ve seen this before. Took me 6 months to figure it out…. Turned out a hairless gorilla was man-handling the poor plants and when moving them A big thumb ripped off the poor leaf.

 

[green_machine_two9er]

Nice journal and garden! Looks clean and tight!

 

[green_machine_two9er]

I'd end up with some cheap blood and bone if a cat got in there haha. But no i don't have any cats or dogs, just a cockatoo with no feathers who's never been in the shed. I've always had bug screens over the intakes on the tent and you need to go through 2 doors to get to the tent. It's really strange. I'm guessing a caterpillar got in when i had the soil in tubs near the door to outside.

I'll have the plants in a 5x5 with SE7000 light within the next week and will probably pot up the bigger plants again. And have to research topping a second time Vs topping once and using LST and which is better.

I’ve been looking at your other pics and noticing the other “bite marks” they all seem to be in the radius of edge of pot.and much more of a rip. I’d bet on my physical damage theory from carrying fabric pots other than a caterpillar.

 

[LowRange]

Nice journal and garden! Looks clean and tight!

Thanks so much mate, i try to keep things perfect with the environment, cleanliness etc. I've learned a lot from this forum, especially peoples grow diaries and a few good YouTube channels.

I’ve been looking at your other pics and noticing the other “bite marks” they all seem to be in the radius of edge of pot.and much more of a rip. I’d bet on my physical damage theory from carrying fabric pots other than a caterpillar.

Yes this 200lb gorilla is definitely prone to man handling things. And it really does look like rips because it's mostly leaves touching the edges of the pots. But i've unzipped the tent of a morning and noticed new damage without touching them. Like this one on the right in the plastic pot away from the edge appeared overnight. It's really weird, i try to never touch the leaves but after reading your comment I'm being super careful about it. So thanks mate i appreciate it.

 

[LowRange]

5x5 is definitely the way to go, good choice!

Done, i got the 5x5 running tonight with the SE7000 and moved the girls in to their new penthouse.

Day 26 from sprout (time flies)

In the 4x4


In the 5x5


I guess it gives folks a good comparison of the space in a 4x4 Vs 5x5.

I trimmed up some of the lower leaves, mostly the 1 and 3 finger leaves to get them off the soil and get a bit of air under the canopy. But things all look healthy with no deficiencies or problems i can see.

I do need to start some LST and re-pot some of the bigger plants like the big Mimosa Orange. I also need to pull the heater apart and disable the red LED so it doesn't interrupt the night period. Unfortunately my back hasn't been cooperating, so I'm taking things easy until it comes good.

I've done 1 very light 1/4 strength feeds, and may do another next water. I also have some feather meal which is NPK of 15-0-0 and it releases slowly. So i may add a low dose of that to get them through the stretch.

What else is new... Ahh yes, the strange Mimosa Orange is still being it's usual odd self. Also i got a Seahawk cloning station, so the grow journal is going to have some cloning action soon. With seeds so hard to get here it's worth a try, i hope some of these pants are keepers. This is the one, it has a res in the bottom with a number of misting spray heads.



So that brings the grow up to date. I guess 2 days and i'll be right to start re-potting some.

Cheers everyone.

 

[DrDukePHD]

Get a HD Webcam inside your tent, watch the tape when a leaf dissappears!