jonnynobody
Well-Known Member
I started growing about 12 years ago. First one bombed out horribly. It was a cool learning experience though. Nothing was smoke-able. About a year later I moved to Michigan and started growing medical marijuana in a 2 bedroom apartment inside of a grow tent. I got about 13 ounces out of a 3'x3'x6.5' secret jardin consistently with a 600w HPS light for flower and an 8 lamp t5 for veg. I grew in soil using regular old 5 gallon plastic buckets. Started plants in happy frog. Moved into ocean forest after a strong root system developed. After about 4 weeks the plants ate all the fertilizer in the soil and started showing signs of being hungry. A little yellowing on lower leaves and such. That was my queue to begin feeding fertilizer. I fed the general hydroponics 3 part flora trio with floralicous plus PH adjusted to 6.3 on a water, water, feed, water, water, feed cycle. In a nutshell the plants usually got fertilizer water once a week or so. Nothing more. The pot was consistently incredible. It burned to a clean gray ash. The bowl tasted good until it was cashed. It was quality herb. I had 4 or 5 successful subsequent harvests in that 2 bedroom apartment using the exact same system. I then moved to hydroponic hempy buckets. I had the largest harvest I ever had. It looked like high times center fold material. It burned and smoked so horribly I had a horrible epiphany. I realized the last 4 months of my garden efforts were a complete waste, and I produced a product I didn't even want to smoke. The primary culprit in that particular grow cycle that caused the poor burn qualities was that I dried the flowers too fast. 3 days if I remember right. Locked all the chlorophyll in and it burned horribly. Kinda left a charcoal black looking hard nugget in the bowl when you smoked it. There was no gray ash. Just black char. I believe the elimination of soil as a buffer between the plant and the synthetic fertilizer produced an inferior product. Since then I have purchased a home and now have a professional perpetual garden going. I have been running hydroponic water to waste hempy buckets in #4 perlite using general hydroponics maxi series. I recently switched to Jack's 5-12-26 with outstanding results. The quality of my flower is superb these days, but it is no match for the quality of the soil grown flower I grew 10 years ago in a little grow tent in a little 2 bedroom apartment. This fucks me up mentally and makes me think. Why am I not growing in soil? I really had no good answer.
So TODAY is the fucking day baby! I'm determined to ultimately switch my entire garden over to soil. It simply produces the best tasting product there is. Organic fertilizers aren't what make the magic happen. It's the dirt. It acts as a buffer between the synthetic chelated nutrients and the plant's roots. Hydroponics removes that buffer. The plant's roots are just bathing or being washed in a highly concentrated synthetic fertilizer solution. That's like a human being sitting in a hospital bed being fed by an IV. It's literally the same thing. Now consider the alternative. A plant's roots grow in dirt which acts as a buffer between the fertilizer and the plant's root system. Remember the example of the human being I mentioned above being hooked up to an IV in a hospital bed? Now let's look at the alternative again. A human being not laying in a hospital bed on an IV, but rather sitting at a restaurant having a steak dinner. The fella eating the steak dinner is getting nutrition. So is the fella in the hospital bed on the IV. Which do you think is healthier? That's a rhetorical question
What is a buffer? I kept hearing that term used 10 years ago by soil growers and I had no idea what it really meant for years. It means there's something in between the roots and the fertilizer. This buffer changes the dynamic of how the plant absorbs nutrients and at what rate they absorb them. It is the way plants have developed to live and grow for billions of years. I assure you there's no human designed system that's going to improve upon god's design. I mixed 50% happy frog and 50% ocean forest to create a medium strength mix. I transplanted a godfather OG that was growing in a 1 gallon hempy bucket into a 5 gallon soil container with holes drilled up and down the sides to allow the roots to breathe more naturally. Fuck those stupid overpriced air pots. Lame shit for idiots with far too much disposable cash and no appropriate way to spend it. I also have some cabbage, tomatoes, wild flowers, and corn going that I put in the same mix. Those are for my grand baby She planted the seeds and everything. I'm just providing the light and minor transplant assistance. Planning to transplant them into a garden bed in my back yard when things warm up in about 8 weeks.
10+ years in the making. I'm officially playing in the dirt again
Nursery with a critical mass in the front left, corn, cabbage, wild flowers, and tomatoes in the small pots. Girl scout cookies in the rear left under a 432w 8 lamp T5:
Godfather OG. My first real soil grow in over 10 years. FUCKING STOKED!!!!
Check this out. She's been needing a transplant for about 4 weeks. Finally the growth started showing signs that something was amiss in the root zone. Shocking, right? There were literally 2 fucking root balls. The root ball below the top root ball feels like it weighs 3 or 4 pounds. Never seen anything like it in my years of transplanting. I rinsed her roots in RO water. About 4 gallons to be exact to eliminate any residual fertilizer. That's the girl I put in dirt today. Nice healthy root system like that should absolutely take off in the dirt. I'm really excited. And I'll also say it simply felt good to mix my dirt with my hands. To water the pots slowly. The whole process just felt "right." I plan to journal the process of this particular plant. I'll be feeding the same regimen I fed with 10 years ago with outstanding results. Feed, water, water, feed. Feed days go in at about 800PPM. Stop feeding fertilizer 10 days before harvest. Provide plain water only. No rocket science. Just the basics.
Here's a pic of the girls that just went into flower yesterday. I still have to put 3 more plants in there that are presently chilling on standby in a 5x5 grow tent on a 12/12 light cycle:
So TODAY is the fucking day baby! I'm determined to ultimately switch my entire garden over to soil. It simply produces the best tasting product there is. Organic fertilizers aren't what make the magic happen. It's the dirt. It acts as a buffer between the synthetic chelated nutrients and the plant's roots. Hydroponics removes that buffer. The plant's roots are just bathing or being washed in a highly concentrated synthetic fertilizer solution. That's like a human being sitting in a hospital bed being fed by an IV. It's literally the same thing. Now consider the alternative. A plant's roots grow in dirt which acts as a buffer between the fertilizer and the plant's root system. Remember the example of the human being I mentioned above being hooked up to an IV in a hospital bed? Now let's look at the alternative again. A human being not laying in a hospital bed on an IV, but rather sitting at a restaurant having a steak dinner. The fella eating the steak dinner is getting nutrition. So is the fella in the hospital bed on the IV. Which do you think is healthier? That's a rhetorical question
What is a buffer? I kept hearing that term used 10 years ago by soil growers and I had no idea what it really meant for years. It means there's something in between the roots and the fertilizer. This buffer changes the dynamic of how the plant absorbs nutrients and at what rate they absorb them. It is the way plants have developed to live and grow for billions of years. I assure you there's no human designed system that's going to improve upon god's design. I mixed 50% happy frog and 50% ocean forest to create a medium strength mix. I transplanted a godfather OG that was growing in a 1 gallon hempy bucket into a 5 gallon soil container with holes drilled up and down the sides to allow the roots to breathe more naturally. Fuck those stupid overpriced air pots. Lame shit for idiots with far too much disposable cash and no appropriate way to spend it. I also have some cabbage, tomatoes, wild flowers, and corn going that I put in the same mix. Those are for my grand baby
She planted the seeds and everything. I'm just providing the light and minor transplant assistance. Planning to transplant them into a garden bed in my back yard when things warm up in about 8 weeks.10+ years in the making. I'm officially playing in the dirt again
Nursery with a critical mass in the front left, corn, cabbage, wild flowers, and tomatoes in the small pots. Girl scout cookies in the rear left under a 432w 8 lamp T5:
Godfather OG. My first real soil grow in over 10 years. FUCKING STOKED!!!!
Check this out. She's been needing a transplant for about 4 weeks. Finally the growth started showing signs that something was amiss in the root zone. Shocking, right?
There were literally 2 fucking root balls. The root ball below the top root ball feels like it weighs 3 or 4 pounds. Never seen anything like it in my years of transplanting. I rinsed her roots in RO water. About 4 gallons to be exact to eliminate any residual fertilizer. That's the girl I put in dirt today. Nice healthy root system like that should absolutely take off in the dirt. I'm really excited. And I'll also say it simply felt good to mix my dirt with my hands. To water the pots slowly. The whole process just felt "right." I plan to journal the process of this particular plant. I'll be feeding the same regimen I fed with 10 years ago with outstanding results. Feed, water, water, feed. Feed days go in at about 800PPM. Stop feeding fertilizer 10 days before harvest. Provide plain water only. No rocket science. Just the basics.Here's a pic of the girls that just went into flower yesterday. I still have to put 3 more plants in there that are presently chilling on standby in a 5x5 grow tent on a 12/12 light cycle:
