Sanity Check, please.

This is my first grow and I've done a ton of research but I'm hoping to validate some of my logic. So any feedback you can provide is appreciated.

I'm trying to decide if I should feed the girls again. It's been 7 days since their 2nd feeding with Down to Earth 4-4-4. Now that they're in flower, I'm thinking of feeding them again today with:

1. 5 TBSP 4-4-4
2. 5 TBSP 2-8-4
3. 3 TBSP Dolomite lime - to get ahead of a future cal deficiency - plants have already shown signs of it.

Based on their overall appearance I would say that the girls look healthy and I don't need to space my feedings out every 7 days. However, their growth has seemed to slow - especially Double Grape which. in general, has been more vigorous than the other 3. All three phenos of 3BOG have trailed Double Grape in terms of vigor and growth rate. I would say they're about 2 weeks behind Double Grape in terms of growth.

I'm thinking this slower growth can be attributed to the plant having nearly depleted the nutrition in the soil. However, given their current appearance, I would say they look healthy and I don't want to risk overfeeding them and locking the plant out.

I guess my questions are:
1. Do they even need a feeding right now based off the pictures?
2. How often do you space your feedings?

Date Sprouted: 5-27-2022 (+36 Days from Sprout)
Strains: Double Grape, 3 Bears OG (Mephisto Autoflowers)
Grow Medium: Redbud Soil Company No-Till Living Soil
Pot Size: 5 gallon
Tent Size: 3' x 3' (1m x 1m)
Light: Mars Hydro TSW2000 set so the canopy gets 600-700 PPFD via photone app
First Feeding: 6-16-2022
Second Feeding: 6-26-2022 (+10 days)
Dry Amendments: Down To Earth 4-4-4 @ 1 tbsp/gal medium
Other Fertilizer: Worm Castings @ 8oz/5 gal every other feeding
Water Schedule: 1/2 gal every 3-4 days with 5ml/gallon of Bloom City CleanKelp
Water Quality: Tap water filtered with APEC CS-2500P under sink filtration system, ph = 7.6
Tent Temps/Humidity: Recent ranges of 67F-80F at 47-60% RH

Your plants are well into flower so you won't see much to any new vertical growth at all. Don't wait till it needs to be fed to feed them because it could become a downward spiral by then.

So what makes you think you need lime at this stage? Don't go adding stuff to the pot just because you have it in your inventory. Did you add lime to the soil before planting?


If you're top dressing the recommended amounts(2 TBLS per gal) I recommend feeding them two weeks apart and incorporating a layer of ewc with the feeding not a week later.

I added it because I saw what looked to be a calcium deficiency. I was seeing orange spots on a few leaves here and there.

i went light on the lime. Giving the plants a total of 4.25 tbsp (each) over the course of 1 week during waterings.

I’m going to give them 2 tbsp/gal of 4-8-4 with the next feeding along with 8oz of ewc. If this is as tall as they’re going to get that works for me.

Five gallons Is an awfully small pot to be running a NTLOS. If you could run larger pots, say 15’s or ideally larger you could just let the plants grow and not have to worry about feeding. The stuff you are feeding now probably won’t be available to the plant for a couple of weeks.

if you don’t have chlorine in your water there is no reason to filter it.

if you wanted to know if your plants or soil are deficient get them tested at Logan Labs and you can make decisions based on scientific measurements.

Rufus T. Firefly said:

Five gallons Is an awfully small pot to be running a NTLOS. If you could run larger pots, say 15’s or ideally larger you could just let the plants grow and not have to worry about feeding. The stuff you are feeding now probably won’t be available to the plant for a couple of weeks.

if you don’t have chlorine in your water there is no reason to filter it.

if you wanted to know if your plants or soil are deficient get them tested at Logan Labs and you can make decisions based on scientific measurements.

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Next run I’m moving into a 30 gallon. That’s the one thing l’m kicking myself for. Luckily the worms are alive and doing their thing so I think they’ll like moving up to the 30gal.

There is some chlorine but not much per the water quality report. It’s more about being certain any contaminants coming up from the local plumbing are filtered out.

im planning on doing a soil analysis at the end of the run. Thanks for the recommendation on the lab.

I would definitely try and step up the pot size to avoid these constant feedings I run 20 gallon pots and reamend the soil after every grow. Feeding the soil two months into it before I flip to flower. That way the only things your adding to your water are beneficial and root enhancers like recharge and mycos I do use Epsom salt and silica as well but again they’re not foods. The littler size pots are nothing but a problem when running organic. Have you tried any terp teas I do keep some veg and bloom teas available in case anything weird happens they s it m to work really well for me.

Hiphophippo said:

I would definitely try and step up the pot size to avoid these constant feedings I run 20 gallon pots and reamend the soil after every grow. Feeding the soil two months into it before I flip to flower. That way the only things your adding to your water are beneficial and root enhancers like recharge and mycos I do use Epsom salt and silica as well but again they’re not foods. The littler size pots are nothing but a problem when running organic. Have you tried any terp teas I do keep some veg and bloom teas available in case anything weird happens they s it m to work really well for me.

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I haven’t tried any teas yet. But I do have some LABS brewing so I can charge up the microbial life. What kinds of results are you getting with the teas?

Before popping the seeds I amended the soil with some myco. Having a strong fungal network was a priority for me going into this.

insangu said:

I haven’t tried any teas yet. But I do have some LABS brewing so I can charge up the microbial life. What kinds of results are you getting with the teas?

Before popping the seeds I amended the soil with some myco. Having a strong fungal network was a priority for me going into this.

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I usually use Gaia green amendments to do my top dressings with but when I top dress I’ll make a terp tea for veg and one or two during flower before evrything is broke down and ready to be used by the plant that way I don’t get any weird deficiency’s during that period where the amendments are becoming available here are the two I use. As for microbial life I use the recharge basically with every watering and Epsom salts once every two weeks also using the silica with every watering for protected strong roots. When ever I do my transplanting I’ll sprinkle in some myco, and fox farm bloom food to keep evrything happy. I’ve also had really good results with stump tea

Here’s some I just finished last week this is about a month ago. I do two 5x5 nets with ten plants total and get anywhere from 3 to 4 lbs a grow I get anywhere from 5 to 9 oz per plant. I just redid everything and added in a second net on top and lowered the bottom net. These where only topped once and came from hermit seeds.

Hiphophippo said:

Here’s some I just finished last week this is about a month ago. I do two 5x5 nets with ten plants total and get anywhere from 3 to 4 lbs a grow I get anywhere from 5 to 9 oz per plant. I just redid everything and added in a second net on top and lowered the bottom net. These where only topped once and came from hermit seeds. View attachment 5158206

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Those are some chonkers. I’m going to check these terp teas out! I wish I had the space for two 5x5’s.