Organic Autoflowers First Time Solo Grow

MAGpie81

MAGpie81

Well-Known Member
Zanonomicon said:
Mixed the soil today and planted the seeds.
Did not have that much fun washing perlite but mixing the soil was therapeutic.

I decided to basically start things off by experimenting with soil and my dry amendments. Kind of wish I had done a control plant buuuut was a little too excited. That said I'm slightly concerned I may run in to some nutrient burn but hoping for the best.
I'm running x2 Banana Kush, x2 Gelato and x2 Cheese, with one of each in two different soil mixes.

I started with one 1.5 cubic feet bag of Fox Farms Ocean Forest and added 30 cups of perlite for extra airation. This was enough to make up the bottom half of my six 5 gallon pots.

For the top half I had three 12 quart bags of Fox Farms Happy Frog potting soil. This is just shy of 1.5 cubic feet that's in the FFOF. I added 30 cups of perlite to this soil as well. Additionally I added 1.5 cups of Down To Earth 3-3-3 seedlings fertilizer.
I'm hoping it will compliment the HF and early stage of development.
View attachment 4827668

That's what is the same for both mixes.

Mix #1
For the bottom half I added 4 tablespoons of Down to Earth 4-4-4 Vegetable Garden fertilizer and mixed it on. Then lightly sprayed the top and added 2 tablespoons of myco.
View attachment 4827664View attachment 4827665View attachment 4827667
No further amendments were made to the top half of HF besides the 3-3-3. Both Happy Frog and 3-3-3 have myco so I didn't add any additional.


Mix #2
Probably a little hotter and mostly trying it out from what I saw on a Canucks Grow video. Don't think it's exactly the same though since I'm not totally sure what the difference is between the Gaia Green soil and FFOF/HF but all the Gaia Green products are like double to get them in the US from what I've seen.
Bottom half of FFOF has 2 tablespoons each of 4-4-4 Vegetable Garden and 4-8-4 Bloom and Flower mixed in. Then a light spray and topped with myco.
The top half of HF in Mix 2 has 3 table spoons of 4-8-4 mixed in. I then dug a cone shape out of the center of the top half and added additional HF that just had the 3-3-3 so the seedling isn't jumping right into the 4-8-4 mix.
View attachment 4827670View attachment 4827671View attachment 4827673

Again this mix is a little hotter and is mostly an experiment to see the amendments will are too much or work out all right.

Spider farmers are set to 20% right now.
Will start 2 more Gelato in 2 weeks as it's a advertised as a 10 week plant and then 2 weeks after that another 2 Banana Kush and Cheese plants. Hopefully find out by then if the mixes are looking good or if I need to slow my roll and run with some control plants.
View attachment 4827674
Click to expand...
(Edit: my statement is below is wrong but leaving it here to humble myself, and link to this other RIU thread. Happy Gardening! https://www.rollitup.org/t/fox-farm-is-not-100-organic.222595/ )Hate to break it to you but FF isn’t organic all the way.
But- if talking simply “organic” material, then yes.
Not hating- I use it often, too.
 
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Zanonomicon

Zanonomicon

Member
New babies! The three I was waiting on all popped today and are looking great. I think this is the best looking Cheese that's sprouted as well.
Picked up the Langbeinite on my lunch break. I added 3 tablespoons of the Langbeinite(0-0-22) and 2 tablespoons of Blood Meal(3-15-0). Went a little lighter then the recommended doses since I just fed her about 2 weeks ago.
Every day is just a new and exciting challenge. Happy growing everyone!
 

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Zanonomicon

Zanonomicon

Member
MAGpie81 said:
(Edit: my statement is below is wrong but leaving it here to humble myself, and link to this other RIU thread. Happy Gardening! https://www.rollitup.org/t/fox-farm-is-not-100-organic.222595/ )Hate to break it to you but FF isn’t organic all the way.
But- if talking simply “organic” material, then yes.
Not hating- I use it often, too.
Click to expand...
Good link! When I viewed the Fox Farms site I felt like some of their products weren't all organic. Since I'm only using the Happy Frog Soil and Oceans Forest soil I should still be painting inside the organic lines. All of my fertilizers are Down to Earth brand which is organic as well. Cheers!
 
Zanonomicon

Zanonomicon

Member
After poking around the internet I found some info that points to blackstrap unsulfured molasses being beneficial for organic grows. It provides the microbes in your soil food so they can continue being healthy. Molasses also assists with flavor profile in your buds. I mixed 1 tablespoon to 1 gallon of water, pH'd to 6.5 and watered the Gelato until run off. Had some left over so I put it in a spray bottle and gave all the ladies a little foilar spray of the mixture.
The Control Banana Kush and Gelato seem to have exploded even since this morning. Their leaves seem much bigger since last night.
The Jiffy girls seem to be doing very well also. Their color looks great and they're growing nicely.
Happy growing everyone!

After I wrote all this up I was back down in the tent before bed refilling humidifiers. The Banana Kush Control plant started whispering to me. She said "I want a hair cut". I was puzzled, like are you suuuure? I gave in and Fimmed her. After it was done I wondered why I decided to do that to my first Banana Kush girl but I'm sure she'll be fine.

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Zanonomicon

Zanonomicon

Member
Cleaned up the Gelato foliage a little bit last night. Mostly just the leaves that were blocking bud sites. I will probably need to connect the filter inside the tent soon. She's starting to get a little smelly.
Watered the rest of the girls and gave them a little spray. The Banana Kush I Fimmed is looking pretty good still.
Everything else is looking great. The Banana Kush I planted the other day is about to surface. The Cheese should be following shortly.

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Zanonomicon

Zanonomicon

Member
Everything was going so well. Main Gelato was looking good Friday night and I felt like even Saturday morning she was looking all right. Checked on things at 1pm and instantly noticed some unhappy leaves drooping when I opened the tent. A closer look showed some yellow spots forming on the leaves. Other leaves were curled and crispy on the ends.
I think I may have overwatered the pot by watering too frequently, she may not have been ready for another watering. Also I overwatered with the molasses mixture which may have caused some drainage since molasses is sticky. Even diluted I could see it being stickier than water.
I noticed some of the sides of the fabric pot were kind of hard and crusty. Definitely from the molasses soaking through. I took a damp towel and wiped the areas to try and clear it. I also elevated the pot so airflow could get under it to help dry out the bottom.
Any other suggestions or insight would be greatly appreciated!
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Zanonomicon

Zanonomicon

Member
Both of the Control girls had pretty dry pots so I gave them some molasses water. The rest of the girls will get molasses water when it's time for their watering.
Everything is looking pretty green save for my big girl. She's looking better every day though.
Gelato Control sprouted a couple pistils on today. Same day that the big Gelato did. No pistils for the Banana Kush yet and she's getting pretty big.
Got two Exhale Co2 bags for the tent. Have them hanging above the fans in each corner. Going to keep the the fans off for a bit every day to allow the plants soak up the Co2.
Happy April everyone!
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Zanonomicon

Zanonomicon

Member
I'm loving all the green in my tent. The oldest Gelato is working on making those sweet buds. She's frosty and has such a sweet fruity scent.
I was able to train the Banana Kush's second set of branches. Getting pretty excited about her, she's looking great. 2nd Gelato seems to be a little thinner than than both the oldest and you gets Gelato but we'll see how she does going forward.
Everything else is looking pretty greeeeat.
Tent has been steady at 75 degrees and 45 humidity.
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Zanonomicon

Zanonomicon

Member
First things first, had to give one of my ladies the chop this morning as she had developed some pollen sacs and that's just not allowed in my tent.
On the plus side I'll be able to take a look and see how the roots were doing.
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A friend of mine has some plants that were planted right around the same time as my control pots only they're twice the size if not bigger. After going over our notes and setups I'm pretty sure the power humidity I'm running is stunting the growth of my veg. I had researched a lot to make sure I had a good plan going in but looks like this was something I overlooked.
Google search "humidity for perpetual grow" and there are a lot of answers. I happened to click on this forum: https://www.thcfarmer.com/threads/vpd-and-running-a-small-perpetual-harvest.89734/
So I've been running humidity at 45 and it's possible my hygrometers were reading high so it was even lower than 45. This is less than ideal for plant growth.
I'm going to raise the humidity to 50% for a week and then bring it up to 55% and see how things go from there. I have good airflow so if needed I can go to 60%. I know there are plenty of concerns about bud rot but before we bring it up here just read through the first 2 pages of the link I posted where it was hashed out at length.
Since I'm growing in my basement I also have the humidity of my overall basement to keep in mind too. I may need to come up with a solution to keep the tent humid and allow the rest of the basement to be drier. I do have a dehumidifier for the basement but I might need to try and create a seal with a tarp to keep the moisture in the tent. My fresh air is supplied by the intake fan anyways.
Might take me a few weeks to get everything dialed in that's why I'm taking it slow and maintaining things at least for a week before making further adjustments. I don't want to stress the plants out too much since I'm basically changing the entire environment.
 
Zanonomicon

Zanonomicon

Member
Canopy maintenance happened last night. Went a little crazy on the oldest Banana Kush. I blame it on the Lucky's 75 YouTube videos I've been watching. That dude does some crazy shit to his plants with results. I'm thinking about running a plant like it though on the next run to see what happens.
The younger girls got a little LST started. They're looking great and I'm loving their color.
I pulled the stunted gallery to make room for new plants that will go in the ground on 4/20.I have a bin ready to go to start recycling the soil. I will be adding some Bokashi and anytime there is leftover molasses water that will be getting added in as well. One my Bokashi buckets get here I'll be adding that compost to the recycle bin as well.
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Zanonomicon

Zanonomicon

Member
Oldest Gelato is coming out of the tent for 48 hours of darkness tomorrow. Her trichomes are looking ready and frosty. Pretty stoked to get her dry and trimmed. Still about 40 days out from finished though since I'm going with a 30 day cure. One of the baby buds might find their way from the dry tent into my bowl. For scientific purposes of course, to determine the difference of dried flower vs cured flower.
The rest of the girls are looking pretty naked. Every since seeing Lucky 75s youtube videos my OCD kind of ramped up and been heavy defoliating. Let's call it a phase/experiment for now until I decide I was wrong and having fan leaves are better.
Despite the lack of gorgeous fan leaves everything is looking great. The younger Banana Kush's I've topped are looking pretty strong at their ages.
I moved the tent around a bit to get ready for my next 6 that I'm planting on 4/20.
I'll post the soil recipes in a separate post after this one. I also brewed my first tea which was fed to girls last night and I soaked the new pots with the tea as well.

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Zanonomicon

Zanonomicon

Member
Tea Brew
4 gallons RO water
1 cup worm castings
1 cup bokashi
8 teaspoons Extreme Gardening Azos
8oz Liquid Seaweed
4 tbsp molasses
Will add the appropriate amount of cal/mag just prior to watering when I pH the mixture. Also adding bloom wizard prior to application

New soil recipes
2 pots FFOF all the way through
4 pots bottom half FFOF top half FFHF
Bottom half
layer of hydroton clay balls for aeration
1/2 cup worm castings
1 Tbsp dynomyco
1/2 cup bokashi

Top half 1/4 cup worm castings
1/4 cup dynomyco (recommended application amount for transplants)
1/2 cup bokashi

Will still be planting seeds in the Jiffy pucks seeing as my success rate has been best with that method. This time I will expand the pucks with water and liquid seaweed. Liquid Seaweed should help with germination and early root development

Will be planting

Ilgm genetics:
Gelato
Cheese (maybe Banana Kush instead)

TNT Genetics:
Grampa Gorilla (GDPxDark Gorilla (Dark Devil Gorilla Glue #4))
Bubba Skunk OG (Bubba Skunk OG (BH12 x Bubba Hotep OG (photo) x BMG)

Homegrown Cannabis Co
Blueberry
Zkittlez

The TNT genetics are regular autoflower seeds so will be keep an extra close eye on them.
I'm still keeping a close eye on everyone now though since one of my ILGM seeds dropped pods.
This is officially being called my 2nd run since my methods are vastly different than all the previous girls.
Additionally I'll be running the tent at a more optimal humidity for growth. Will just need to keep good airflow and an eye on the girls going into flower. I'm aiming for 55% humidity.
 
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