Chevy's blumatized organic soil LED mini grow

[Chevy cHaze]

Yeah they're great and I couldn't picture me growing without them right now.
But watch out if you use water only in the reservoir. In summer you might find a swarm of gnats procreating in it and then have hundreds of blood thirsty mini vampires in you house hahaha.

 

[Chevy cHaze]

Happy weekend everyone.
Quick update to proof to myself that these ongoing ongoings are still ongoing.

Despite the fact that I still have a bunch of weed to smoke on, I decided veriety is key and sprouted two new seeds. A Bubba Kush and a Blue Dream Auto both from the Humboldt Seed Organisation.
They're just over a week from sprouting and doing fine so far. Medium is BioBizz Lightmix

While the seedlings are developing it's time to get the organic soil ready and let it cook for about two weeks before the small plants will be transplanted into it.

Here's the stuff I use to mix it.
Canna Coco, Lightmix(only for the seedlings), worm castings, dolomite lime, bone meal, dried blood, kelp meal and Liquid Karma to water the mix with.
I'm starting with the same mix, recycled from my last grow which has been sitting in a bag for about a month. On top of that half the amendments from the original strength mix. Which is LC's mix from the organics for beginners thread. LC, BurnOne, Suby and all others contributing thank you very much, growing the first round of buds with this method has been an eye opener for me.



This compartment has a total of 18w lighting from the two LED tubes.

There's a heat mat on the side, make it an acceptable 18C lights off despite everything drowning in snow and freezing temps outside.


So far so good, enjoy the weekend!
CC

 

[Chevy cHaze]

Oh no, being the clumsy f... that I am I have toppled the little blue dream auto re-arranging things in the tent.

Let's hope there's enough xylem and phloem left to get her through, but I think she'll make it. Slightly perking up again already!

 

[bsgospel]

I almost did the same thing transplanting yesterday. My reflexes remain in tact though and I caught myself before I took my seedling out at the knees.

I dig the grow! Good stuff.

 

[DARKSIDER]

Oh no, being the clumsy f... that I am I have toppled the little blue dream auto re-arranging things in the tent.
[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=71351&pictureid=1829392&thumb=1]View Image[/URL]
Let's hope there's enough xylem and phloem left to get her through, but I think she'll make it. Slightly perking up again already!

Same happened to me a week ago Chevy cHaze moved pot behind me to move another and how clumsy i was,, sat on her and squashed her. till death did us part luckily had a back up and was a bit further in than yours .

 

[Chevy cHaze]

Thanks Bsgospe and good to know and a relief that I'm not the only one having accidentally hurting his plants
But she made it !
Bounced back up and today I put her under stronger light, together with the BD auto.
Each one of them has now a 13w Philips 2700k light above it.


The moms' compartment looks less crowded now and I hope that leaves enough room for my clumsy hands to work in there when needed

 

[TheFertilizer]

Hi Chevy, I just discovered this thread and I'm really excited because it seems like we're trying to accomplish something similar. I'm trying to get setup on water-only with an automated watering system, and I have a pretty small grow to supply my medical needs. For me it's just all about avoiding pH adjusting and mixing nutrients, and missing waterings when I'm laid up sick.

I have a question about the blumats, and I guess organic gardening in general, and it's all about the saturation level of the pots. Do the blumat sensors keep the pots moist all the time, or do they allow a sort of traditional wet/dry cycle? I'm worried that because the sensors are not so long, that the bottoms of my 5 gallon pots will stay moist forever while the sensors only open and close depending on the moisture level in the top of the pot. Or is that what I want? I'm pretty new to this soil/water-only method, but I worry about root rot from keeping the roots too wet.

Thanks for letting me know about the run-off tray! Right now I've just been watering "semi-automatically" as I call it, running a submersible pump with a line going to each pot and I can control the flow to each with a shutoff valve. I've been sticking a moisture meter in the pot, and letting it flow until the moisture probe reads to 10, but I noticed that in my bigger pots it just never gets up to 10, like it just flows out of the bottom before it can build up in the soil. That had me worried that if I was using the blumats, it would just run out my whole reservoir before it really ever watered the pots. Do you have any suggestions on emitter types? I'm just used barbed tees wide open, and it doesn't seem like there's a lot of pressure and too much flow, so maybe that's my problem; I was thinking some kind of sprinkler may work better.

 

[Chevy cHaze]

Hello Fertilizer,
This method is really the most simple and bullet proof way of growing I know of...
I've done ebb&flow, top drip drain to waste & recycle, chem nutes, bio nutes, hand watering, timers you name it and this method here has been an eye opener.
In some way it's almost boring, as there's so little to do and if you want to spend time tinkering with nutes, ph and all--- this method might not be for you hahaha.

To your question:
First off, no need to worry and break your brain, blumats are your friends, if set up properly.
There are ups and downs in moisture between when the sensor opens and closes and therefore waters or not, but the medium never really dries out, which makes them perfect for coco and the plant seem to love the even moisture levels. Runoff is only required with salt nutes, so best forget about that right away as there's no need with this method.
There is a restriction in pot size or if you're using bigger pots you must use two blumats to get even results. I'm using 3gal/ 12L smart pots and they're pretty big for my tiny tent- one blumat per pot is enough in my case.
The length of the drip line or better the distance from the point where the water drips out to the carrot sensor is crucial !
Think of it this way: The drops from the end of the drip line hit the soil and then moisture wicks through your grow medium into all directions at almost the same speed ( a bit faster downwards due to gravity), so by adjusting the length of your drip line, you can influence the radius drip point to sensor and therefore also how deep the moisture will sink before the carrot sensor is triggered (it soaks up the moisture once it reaches the carrot and the pressure on the inside of the carrot therefore increases, pushing the valve in the cap shut).
So no need to worry about root rot.
When setting up your blumats, the guidelines say to turn them up and then close slowly until the last drop is just clinging to the end of the drip line--- and then close three more marks. But that's just a guideline, you can experiment: close it 3,5 or 4 marks for drier soil or just close it 2,5 marks for slightly wetter soil.
As long as you make sure there's always enough water in the reservoir and the carrots don't dry out, you're good. Don't let the carrots ever dry out when in use, other wise things can go sideways quickly, especially when you're not suspecting anything and will the reservoir, but your carrots don't contain enough water anymore to shut the valve when the soil is saturated and voila: you have flooded your catch tray (hopefully only that)
Good luck and have fun!
CC

 

[Chevy cHaze]

Update

Update

Hello dope friendly people,
Quick update.
The recycled soil fromlast summer had been re-amended with full LC's recipe strength and was cooking for well over two weeks.

They have been replanted into the big pots with the new old soil about a week ago.
Switched to 12/12 today

Can't tell that I broke the auto Blue Dream as a seedling

My ghetto ass 7in1 lamp holders. Running with only 3 lamps each as the plants are still small.
The blumat feedline is already in place from last time, will plug in the blumats in a bit

 

[Chevy cHaze]

Here's a quick update, switched to 12/12 last saturday.
Now 5x13w 2700k over each plant aka 65w or 13o total.
Check my math!
Not sure what effect the switch to 12/12 will have on the auto Blue Dream, probably none.

Some heavy bondage going on, too lazy for a screen so tying the branches down for a more or less even canopy soon to be is the word.

It looks brutal but I think they like it.
Went over the top a bit and even broke two branches, but nothing that a duct tape cast can't fix.

later
CC

 

[soil margin]

Yeah good aggressive training job. What are they looking like now?

 

[Chevy cHaze]

Next update, we're exactly two weeks into flower.

I raised the lights for the pics...
trained and restrained them to grow sideways.
Normally the plan was to flower 4 plants in this space,
But who's going to smoke all that grass...


That's a sleeping Blumat, a duct tape cast and twisty ties (is that what they're called ?)



Here's the Auto Blue Dream, going a bit auto on me.
Stretch is hard and many shoots coming up.


And the Bubba Kush, staying short and squat


These are the moms and they're starving, must feed them asap.
And in the moms' containers the fukcing symphilids are still having a party despite two flushes with BTI (that is 2 years past its shelflife though)

 

[soil margin]

Oh sweet pics, blue dream looks nice. I got some bubba kush going in my tent right now for the first time and I can't wait to flip em to 12/12 soon. Not tall plants but really vigorous growth on em. Hopefully that translates to lots of buds.

 

[BusinessFactory]

These are the moms and they're starving, must feed them asap.
And in the moms' containers the fukcing symphilids are still having a party despite two flushes with BTI (that is 2 years past its shelflife though)
[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=71351&pictureid=1840863&thumb=1]View Image[/URL]

Hey Chevy, how big is that mom tent and where did you find it? I need something small for moms/clones but seems like there barely any options on the smaller side.

Great grow btw, LED + blumat is how I roll too.

 

[Chevy cHaze]

Oh sweet pics, blue dream looks nice. I got some bubba kush going in my tent right now for the first time and I can't wait to flip em to 12/12 soon. Not tall plants but really vigorous growth on em. Hopefully that translates to lots of buds.

Hey Soil Margin, how are things ?
sorry for the late reply, I wasn't able to post due to technical difficulties for some time!
Heard good things about both strains, hope they phenos I got can deliver the goods. One for the day, one for the night ;-)
Ladies are doing fine, after a bit of struggle which was my fault and update in the pipeline!

 

[Chevy cHaze]

Hey Chevy, how big is that mom tent and where did you find it? I need something small for moms/clones but seems like there barely any options on the smaller side.

Great grow btw, LED + blumat is how I roll too.

Hello BusinessFactory and welcome !
Thank you Sir, it's a secret jardin lodge (the smalles model) and it's basically a flower compartment with two stacked, smaller compartments on the side in one tent ! look it up on the interwebs, it's decent.
Yeah LED &Blumats FTW !!!

 

[Chevy cHaze]

Update!

Update!

Hello Pot Friendly People,
Here's a long overdue update!

Sadly the blue dream had to suffer while I was away at the cup in Barcelone getting high all day and all night too !
The blumat dried out without opening the valve, strange... it was one of my oldest blumats, must have had it for 5 (?) years and was used a lot, so maybe just old age...
Found her with all leaves hanging and also heavily underfed as she was growing so quickly, I'm thinking the microbes in the soil couldn't keep up getting food ready for her ? Can that even be ?
The soil was well amended...
Pictures take in week 5 of flowering



And I tried to root some clones ghetto style by just sticking the cuttings into a glass of water, not even changing it. Took about two weeks and voila- ze roots are a-rootin

 

[Chevy cHaze]

New update as of today day 38 of flower

New update as of today day 38 of flower

And here are they after having gotten some attention.
The blue dream had a good clean up and some well deserved food in form of biobizz nutes which I hope the microherd in my living soil can tolerate


And the bubba kush had to be restrained and defoliated quite a bit.
She's a bushy little one! Branches were strong enough to tear apart the initial restraints that were supposed to open her up a bit for better light penetration


And here's the whole flower compartment:


Let's ee if the blue dream can put on some more weight, the buds look a bit toooo skinny, the bubba is doing ok, first couple of signs of deficits starting to show here as well. I'm guessing two or three more weeks, so no more extra food.

All the best,
CC

 

[Chevy cHaze]

Harvest

Harvest

Finally harvested yesterday, after 66 days here are some pics

Funky colors





The colors are more from deficiencies than from temperature
The Blue Dream Auto could have been flowered a bit longer, but I needed to take both of them down in order to dry before I'm travelling.

 

[Chevy cHaze]

BTW if anyone was wondering what's going on here, I'm taking a break as too much weed has accumulated. I'm not selling any, so really hard to smoke up all my crops.
Back in due time