Diary Hoping for something great

[Chunkypigs]

another good homework question would be how did you choose 10# per 100 square feet as the amount of N that you want? are you planning on adding more at any time in the season? personally I divide my minerals into 3 applications, one before planting, one at transition, the rest halfway thru flower but that's just my strategy and all my nutrition is top dressed or tilled in, no liquid feeds in my outdoor.

 

[Chunkypigs]

1% ?

nope! there's 1% of something in there but not K.....anyone else want to try? this is just one of the basic parts of chemistry that very few weed smokers will remember. download the ideal soil by astera for free, the pdf, and look in it for how to get the right answer here, important to understand if you want to grok the whole picture.

 

[OG_NoMan]

Not gonna pretend I know anything. I was basing my nitrogen 10# off of their recommended blood meal but using the alfalfa because I don't want to use blood meal. Figured (guessed ) the 10 # tilled in would give me a good start and then planned to topdress at the very least weekly worm castings and some alfalfa. Want to see how the plants look and adjust using some bio alive, gypsum (Not till mid season), and probably a soaking or 2 of fish fertilizer. My calcium numbers are high from the 80 pounds that went into it last year . My approach has always been to use lots of different inputs for diversity lol.

 

[OG_NoMan]

This is what I started the garden with last year:

Ended up with a garden thats @ 35' x 10' and I used 60 # of gypsum, 25# rice hulls, 160 # composted cow manure, 30 # bio alive, 60 # worm castings, 5 # kelp, and left over coco and soil from indoor grows. Tilled and amended today waiting for rain tonight to water the area well. Plan to top dress with remaining bio alive and gypsum during the season.

 

[OG_NoMan]

Just down loaded that book. Thanks for the resource.

 

[OG_NoMan]

nope! there's 1% of something in there but not K.....anyone else want to try? this is just one of the basic parts of chemistry that very few weed smokers will remember. download the ideal soil by astera for free, the pdf, and look in it for how to get the right answer here, important to understand if you want to grok the whole picture.

.83 % elemental K. I understand why you were asking how the Potassium was listed on my test now as it could have been potash making my real potassium number lower.

 

[Chunkypigs]

OK, you got it now go and read in the book about how to do the same with P also.

right off the bat I'd say the best thing you could do is to add another bale, or roughly 50#s more of rice hulls and till that 6" or deeper using a bigger roto tiller or more passes or something then retest with a different lab, but regardless we move on. adding rice hulls will lower your bulk density and make the soil lighter and drain better. tilling deeper will dilute the existing minerals in the gypsum laden surface and give a better starting values for soil balancing

back to the Nitrogen and Potassium added when you dump 10# of alfalfa meal on every 100 sq feet of the garden space and only till to a depth of 3" which is not as deep as would be ideal...

10# of alfalfa meal is 4540 grams. 2% nitrogen is expressed here as a decimal 0.02 1% Potash is 0.83% elemental K as a decimal 0.0083 bulk density is 0.7

this calculator/spreadsheet is for a cubic yard or 27 cubic feet of soil

so this is showing what a 4560 gram, 10#s approx, addition of Alfalfa meal would add to our 100 square feet tilled to 3"

170ppms N and 70.55 ppms of K

typically P is balanced before N as most P sources have plenty of N along for the ride when using organic inputs. I like Triple super phosphate for my P but it's not organic. I like fish and other bone meals as an organic source along with soft rock phosphate or seabird guano if you can afford it, no N in that.

here's a chart of some typical products used in organics and their elements

 

[OG_NoMan]

Back at the corporate laboratories and bought-off State agriculture colleges, the
dyed-in-the-wool chemical farming fans are still trying to prove that the growing of food can be forced into an industrial production model. Their version of "working with biology" up until the 1990s was hybrid crops, and has now morphed into
GMOs, genetically modified organisms. Both the hybrids and the GMOs are
usually plants that have been bred to live on a starvation diet of NPK fertilizer
while being regularly doused with herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides. Yield,
disease resistance, the ability to survive repeated dosing with noxious
poisons---these are the goals of the mad scientists leading corporate chemical
agriculture. The health of the soil and the nutritional value of the crop are
meaningless to them. Is this too harsh a judgment? Look at the nutritional quality
of our food and the worn-out state of our farmlands to answer that question

 

[OG_NoMan]

Just finished up potting cherry cookies, trop cookies, and smackerz to 1 gal pots. Roots looked great this time. The headband plant is a mini bush almost 3 foot round. Gonna try cloning again probably Monday. My last attempt with the headband only yielded 50% so gotta keep trying and learning.

 

[OG_NoMan]

Just cut and stuck another round. Got 3 of each cc, tc, and smackerz also took another 9 of the HB. Hoping for a better round as this will be the last before going outside.

 

[Chunkypigs]

what are you sticking them in there, coco? you adding nutes?

these work great, 1/4 - 1/2 inch perlite on bottom, one sheet on top, add about 2-1/2 to 3 liters of 1/2 strength bloom nutes and cover...

oops, these

 

[OG_NoMan]

what are you sticking them in there, coco? you adding nutes?

these work great, 1/4 - 1/2 inch perlite on bottom, one sheet on top, add about 2-1/2 to 3 liters of 1/2 strength bloom nutes and cover...

What work great? There's no pic. I use Coco, nutes 300ppm, temp at 79, dipped in clonex.

 

[OG_NoMan]

Those cubes are pretty cool! Picked these last 2 cuts up in Vermont to round out this year's outdoor . Think I am right on schedule this year with everything so hopefully it stays that way. Just sprayed everything.

 

[OG_NoMan]

Just dropped an hour on my veg time to start getting ready for outside in a few weeks. Day 11 of clones and I see roots on the biggest clone which is a headband. Got a feeling I will have better success with this round.

 

[OG_NoMan]

Clones are up potted, only had 4 not root. Gotta up pot into gallon this week for the outdoor plants but they are all rocking

 

[OG_NoMan]

Did a final up pot today for some and all are ready to go outside this week prob mid week to start acclimating. Been on 16 hours about a week now so should be good to just leave them out and move them around the yard to get used to the sun.

The front three need to get into the garden to spread their roots as the gallon pot is full.

Full table

Copies of cc, tcc, smackerz, and hb

 

[Creeperpark]

Happy plants are plants that get to go outside. Your plants look good and ready for the outdoors. This is getting interesting.

 

[OG_NoMan]

Just cut and stuck 6 of each of my mothers, headband, smackerz, cherry cookies, and natty bumpo . Let's see how my cloning game is this year.

 

[OG_NoMan]

Cloning is going better this year . Got 20 out of 24. Lost 2 to bad handling and 2 didn't root. Everything is nice and healthy.

 

[OG_NoMan]

Just got a new girl to add to the garden . Here's Grape Ape joining the stable. Really hoping to get another chance to have the 2.0 this spring . So now we got Grape Ape, Cherry Cookies, Smackerz, Loompa Headband, and Natty Bumpo. Just got rid of my extras and happy to see nice roots.