One Pink Lemonade - no-till cycle 7 in 4 foot diameter pot, 5x5 tent

Hollatchaboy

Well-Known Member
Oh crap. 1000 lbs.... I'm gonna have to move my tent to the first floor. Lol

I agree... he seems very knowledgeable and he does explain it well. Well enough that even i understand it. Lol
Yeah i dont use hay. unless im burying it. I dont live on a farm and any hay I find is at Ace Hardware lol. Hay, Mulch, stems/stalks, leaf mould whatever. I guess it depends on how deep your pot is. The one I mention is 16 inches. Going on the idea that you want at least 12 inches deep of soil, that leaves you 4 inches. were talking 9 cuft/67 gallon pot. Maybe try 10 inches of soil and leave 6 inches? I dont know. Ive always done the 12 inch rule for beds. And kinda followed what i have seen from just gardeners. not so much the cannabis community.

So... Unless you get a deeper pot not sure. I have never put that much stuff on top to start with. Even my current bed. 20 cuft of soil 3 inches of mulch plant clover. My current bed is 18in tall. So i got 15 inches of soil. Been doing no till this way for 6 years. no issues yet. But after 6 years in 25 gallon Geopots I did finally fill it to the point i couldnt put shit else in it. When I started it I only dropped in 20 gallons per pot. So About a gallon of build up a year? That was why I got the 4x4 bed. I had to either dig my pots out and go to bigger ones or just start over. So i took all 8 pots that had been running and dumped them into the bed.

Holla: That may be a issue you run into. Northwood has a point. If you dont have enough room you'll find yourself where I did. Full pots that i couldnt mulch on no more. I ended up dumping them into a giant 4x4 bed. So either plan that you may upgrade in 4 or 5 years. May be worth looking around for a bigger pot that you can slowly fill over time. maybe something like this. its 32" wide by 29'' inches tall. You could proly roll the sides down put in bamboo like northwood does and roll the side up as you fill it.

Yes I've been thinking about that. Right now every 2 weeks I top dress. Eventually I'll run out of room doing that. I figure with no till, you keep adding to the soil you already have, never really taking anything out. Eventually it'll fill up. I've heard fabric pots are bad for organic though. They dry out too fast is what I'm told. It kinda makes sense.
 

lakesidegrower

Well-Known Member
Yes I've been thinking about that. Right now every 2 weeks I top dress. Eventually I'll run out of room doing that. I figure with no till, you keep adding to the soil you already have, never really taking anything out. Eventually it'll fill up. I've heard fabric pots are bad for organic though. They dry out too fast is what I'm told. It kinda makes sense.
I really like the idea of wrapping the sides of the fabric pots with plastic to help retain some water, but leaving a top and bottom band to allow for aeration/drainage
 

jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
It's been going good so far I had some issues with my cmh ballast and when I replaced it I got a much bigger wing with the new one and wound up giving her a little light burn. It went into flower shortly after I got these issues fixed as the old ballast wasnt firing all the time. So I decided to just switch my timer as I kinda want to get some new genetics in the tent. Here it is on Jan the 3rd and 26th View attachment 4817436View attachment 4817430
So many gorgeous pictures in this thread. Amazing work sir. I love the cover crops!
 

Northwood

Well-Known Member
Is that something I can source online? Or would you suggest a visit to a local nursery? I'd love to do some cover crops on my soil plants! I just love the ambiance :)
LOL, most of my seeds except for the clover are just bought from Walmart. It's like $2 for a lifetime supply of lentils or mung beans or whatever.
 

Northwood

Well-Known Member
I really like the idea of wrapping the sides of the fabric pots with plastic to help retain some water, but leaving a top and bottom band to allow for aeration/drainage
Just for the record I suggest just leaving a 1 to 2 inch bottom band. I needed most to cover the top because the top 3" of your soil is where the action is happening. Also you don't want your top watering to wash over your soil just to spill out the top few inches of soil down the sides of the pot. I used plastic above my top soil line, in fact all the way to the top of the fabric and folded over it.
 

lakesidegrower

Well-Known Member
Just for the record I suggest just leaving a 1 to 2 inch bottom band. I needed most to cover the top because the top 3" of your soil is where the action is happening. Also you don't want your top watering to wash over your soil just to spill out the top few inches of soil down the sides of the pot. I used plastic above my top soil line, in fact all the way to the top of the fabric and folded over it.
Smart. I think thats a great idea
Have you used aloe with waterings to help avoid the dreaded side-spill? I’ve never done it but come across it often. I can’t recall if you ever mentioned it before
 

DoctorChaos

Member
Awesome thread. Thanks for answering all of the questions that were asked, reading through this thread is a far better primer than any indoor no-till guide I've seen online. I'm ramping up a 50gal notill bag in a 3x3 tent, excited to see if I can come close to replicating your results.
 

Northwood

Well-Known Member
Smart. I think thats a great idea
Have you used aloe with waterings to help avoid the dreaded side-spill? I’ve never done it but come across it often. I can’t recall if you ever mentioned it before
My base wasn't plain peat moss, but instead I cheated and used "Pro-mix Organic Herb and Vegetable" growing medium. Pro-mix contains a surfactant (wetting agent) to avoid hydrophobic conditions when it's dried out. But if you're doing this properly your peat moss shouldn't dry out to the point of being hydrophobic to begin with even without any special wetting agent. This is what the mulch over top of the surface is for. As your mulch breaks down, you'll start to see an accumulation of decayed organic material on the surface (think humus layer) that never becomes hydrophobic even if you let it dry out completely (which again, you shouldn't). It's a temporary condition anyway until the biology gets going, the worms mix things up, and the peat moss begins to break down itself, especially near the surface where all the action is.
 

Northwood

Well-Known Member
Little baby plants are about as fun to grow as watching paint dry. Most of their growth is below ground while they establish their root systems and is sadly hidden from us. They've been poking out of the soil for just over a week now and have reached this stage:

20210225_092932.jpg

This strain's first set of true leaves are pretty large. I'll wait until the next set of emerging leaves expand completely before I mulch some hay around them. At that point (in a few days) they'll be growing more quickly.

I buried the stalk of the Pink Lemonade plant in the middle of the pot with branches, crushed up fan leaves, a couple handfuls of alfalfa pellets, and some bentonite just for the heck of it. I want that area to retain lots of moisture with active biology to break down that friggin huge stalk. Of course the springtails are going nuts over the alfalfa pellets again. This is where the Pink Lemonade was growing:
20210225_093721.jpg

Here is what the cover crop looks like as of this morning, growing quickly:

20210225_093007.jpg


I took the following full-pot photo last Saturday and it's almost like a "Where's Waldo" puzzle. lol
You can see the grave I made for the Pink Lemonade. I was going to create a little cross out of a couple of her branches and stick it in the middle there, but I decided against it. haha

20210220_132453.jpg

I'm going to take a lazy approach to this grow - no scrog netting or anything like that. I'll just use LST with a bit of super cropping and let things get a bit wild to fill up the tent quickly.
 

Brandon137

Well-Known Member
Little baby plants are about as fun to grow as watching paint dry. Most of their growth is below ground while they establish their root systems and is sadly hidden from us. They've been poking out of the soil for just over a week now and have reached this stage:

View attachment 4836617

This strain's first set of true leaves are pretty large. I'll wait until the next set of emerging leaves expand completely before I mulch some hay around them. At that point (in a few days) they'll be growing more quickly.

I buried the stalk of the Pink Lemonade plant in the middle of the pot with branches, crushed up fan leaves, a couple handfuls of alfalfa pellets, and some bentonite just for the heck of it. I want that area to retain lots of moisture with active biology to break down that friggin huge stalk. Of course the springtails are going nuts over the alfalfa pellets again. This is where the Pink Lemonade was growing:
View attachment 4836620

Here is what the cover crop looks like as of this morning, growing quickly:

View attachment 4836619


I took the following full-pot photo last Saturday and it's almost like a "Where's Waldo" puzzle. lol
You can see the grave I made for the Pink Lemonade. I was going to create a little cross out of a couple of her branches and stick it in the middle there, but I decided against it. haha

View attachment 4836624

I'm going to take a lazy approach to this grow - no scrog netting or anything like that. I'll just use LST with a bit of super cropping and let things get a bit wild to fill up the tent quickly.
Looking great have you ever just grown anything in your pot just for fun I was thinking of adding some zinnia seeds just for fun on my next grow my wife may not approve if she finds out that I used some of her seeds tho lol
 

Northwood

Well-Known Member
Looking great have you ever just grown anything in your pot just for fun I was thinking of adding some zinnia seeds just for fun on my next grow my wife may not approve if she finds out that I used some of her seeds tho lol
Everything grown is fun! In this pot I've managed to grow a couple pounds of ripe tomatoes with the cannabis growing. It was an indeterminate that was probably from the worm bin so I trained it up a corner almost all the way to the top of the tent until the weed crowded it out too much. My very first cover crop in this pot was a bunch of inoculated bush/snap beans. It produced enough beans to use as several side dishes.

I've not tried ornamental flowers like zinnia yet. I probably will though.
 

Frankly Dankly

Well-Known Member
Yeah we even left the roots still on while hanging the whole plant upside down during the late 1970s so that the THC in the roots would run down into the bud. We learned that from the esteemed High Times Magazine. Lol
I remember when people used to dunk the roots in ice water right before hanging to “shock the plant and send all the thx to the buds” lol.
 
Have you ever had problems with seeds getting eaten by the bugs in your soil? I dug one out the other day because 2 of the 3 sprouted and the one that didn't sprout was a hollow shell.
 

Northwood

Well-Known Member
Have you ever had problems with seeds getting eaten by the bugs in your soil? I dug one out the other day because 2 of the 3 sprouted and the one that didn't sprout was a hollow shell.
I've not seen it personally, but I have read a couple threads on forums where others have apparently had the issue. I haven't seen anyone post a photo of the bugs in question though. Once in awhile I catch a dud... the hollow seeds, but usually I catch them before planting if I can help it.
 

Northwood

Well-Known Member
Here's what my little seedlings look after another week (2 weeks from the seed popping out of the soil):
20210304_165900.jpg

I'm just amazed at how big the leaves are, like even the very first true leaves. These phenos sure make fat little seedlings. It's all genetics obviously, and I think I'll be cloning 3 of the plants for evaluation. Unfortunately 1 of the plants out of 4 is a runt. It's not sick; it's just growing 1/2 the speed of the other 3 plants and rather weak looking. I'll just leave it in case it grows out of its condition, but from my experience they usually don't.

My cover crop is getting so out of control it's embarrassing. I need to clear it from the plants once a day by pushing it over. At least the cover is keeping the humidity up around these seedlings, otherwise they'd be sitting at 20% humidity. That's another benefit of planting your seedlings surrounded by cover crop plants. Hopefully I can nudge this along for another couple weeks before knocking it all down without it becoming too much of a problem.
 
I've not seen it personally, but I have read a couple threads on forums where others have apparently had the issue. I haven't seen anyone post a photo of the bugs in question though. Once in awhile I catch a dud... the hollow seeds, but usually I catch them before planting if I can help it.
I will try to post a photo if it happens again. The seed and the soil was surrounded by some kind of beneficial mites. I wonder if I am not planting the seed deep enough? Do you do anything out of the ordinary when you plant a seed? It looks like you prep a little area for planting.
 

Northwood

Well-Known Member
It looks like you prep a little area for planting.
Yeah I prep the area for the seed because just throwing it into a very thick 4" cover crop growing out of at 2" thick mulch might be a bad idea. lol

In all seriousness, if these mites were responsible then I'd not really consider them all that beneficial. Then again, if the area where the seed was planted was watered more frequently than other areas, then obviously that would attract the mites that enjoy a bit of moisture. The seed was cracked open though, right?
 
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