MGT's Living Soil Bed Thread

[MedGrowerTom]

My personal cloning medium which makes roughly 1.5 cu ft:

5 gal peat
2.75 gal coir
.75 gal EWC
.75 gal composted cow manure
.5 gal chunky perlite
.5 gal vermiculite

Cloning Amendment Recipe:

2/3c crab meal
2/3c kelp meal
2/3c pH mineral mix*
2 tbsp DE/Calcium Bentonite

1 tbsp Bio-Vam
1 tbsp Bio-Ag Endo Vam


From the same thread...



dank.Frank

thanks, I was thinking about that but was unsure if it needs time to cook or not, my thoughts were since its just crab and kelp that it needs no time. i have everything on hand to make that. have the bio-vam and bio-ag endo vam as well

oh and one more update until I get the scrubber and scrubber venting up...



...let there be light..

 

[dank.frank]

Just mix and plant. I'll be re-amending my soil bed this evening, actually, and will be transplanting immediately after doing so.

A good rule of thumb, is to get the entire soil bed watered in, before ever planting in it. You'll know when you hit a true saturation point by the behavior of the water. If it runs out too quickly after pouring, ie runs through, the soil has become hydrophobic and is too dry. Water should rest on soil surface for a couple seconds and then begin to sink into the media, at a rather even rate. Dry soil will pull away from the side of the bed.

Here's the best trick for me, personally though. Watch the humidity in your room. When you first water and the bed is saturated, notice RH in the room after 15 minutes. When the bed is drying out, RH will drop. You can learn when your soil is dry, based on RH.

I know my room will sit around 58-64% when the bed is fully saturated. When the soil is getting overly dry, the room will sit around 25-33%. When the room gets down below 40%, I know it's generally a good time to water.

You'll also notice the water under the bed, the runoff, will evaporate and impact this. Too much run off, without the radiant heat from HID, is an interesting nuance with LED.

It's really not that difficult once you find some sort of metric that is relevant to your environment to use as a gauge. That's better than saying so many gallons every so many days without actually factoring in how the room itself is performing...



dank.Frank

 

[trichrider]

that's an interesting observation DF.
i sometimes have enormous RH swings even without having runoff. of course normal RH swings wildly when atmospheric pressure changes when swapping from high to low.
bottom watering is what i consider the cause...i sometimes do that because of bugs, and that the pots/plants draw up what water they need...don't really know for sure, i try so many different methods.

 

[Fitzera]

I'm really digging this MGT! I've reamended most of my soil based on franks recipe (slight tweaks where i had to use whats available to me) and can't wait for the next run to see how it does.

 

[MedGrowerTom]

Just mix and plant.
dank.Frank

thanks much Frank, sounds like a plan

I'm really digging this MGT! I've reamended most of my soil based on franks recipe (slight tweaks where i had to use whats available to me) and can't wait for the next run to see how it does.

Hell yeah, its quite the mix that's for sure, I know I'm excited to see how this turns out.

So, after reading the clone/seeding mix, I worked out a lil math to figure out how much needed to fill my 12 solo cups, and this is what I came up. Also, as far as the ph mineral mix, I dont have any oyster shell so I just used equal parts dolomite and gypsum.

Here is what I came up with, and then I got it all mixed as you can see in picture below.

11 1/2 cups peat
6 1/3 cups coir
1 3/4 cups ewc
1 3/4 cups black kow
2 1/3 cups perlite

1 1/2 tablespoon crab meal
1 1/2 tablespoon kelp
2 2/4 teaspoon dolomite lime
2 3/4 teaspoon gypsum
3/4 teaspoon DE/Calcium Bentonite

16 oz solo cups
192 oz of mix needed
192 oz is 1.5 gal

(basically converted everything into cups and tbsp/tsp, and divided everything by 7, and rounded to the nearest easy measurement, as I only needed 1.5 gal of this mix, to fill my 12 solo cups)

 

[dank.frank]

Oops. Oyster Shell and Aragonite are exchangeable. Both are nearly pure sources of calcium carbonate. One is east coast the other west coast...



dank.Frank

 

[MedGrowerTom]

Oops. Oyster Shell and Aragonite are exchangeable. Both are nearly pure sources of calcium carbonate. One is east coast the other west coast...



dank.Frank

dang oh yea, I had forgot that. I have some in storage, when I drop this stuff off ill grab some, but that means ill have a tad to much, should be fine tho I think.

Got the ro hooked up, cleaning out the carbon filters now for a few, obviously I still need to mount it.

Almost rdy, just waiting on the beans to sprout.

 

[dank.frank]

If you have a tad too much, that could be a pH issue. However, if you toss in a pinch of elemental sulfur - ie tiger90, then you'll be fine as that will counter balance. However, I really think you'll be fine regardless. LOL. In such small ratios, I don't expect you'll notice.



dank.Frank

 

[MedGrowerTom]

If you have a tad too much, that could be a pH issue. However, if you toss in a pinch of elemental sulfur - ie tiger90, then you'll be fine as that will counter balance. However, I really think you'll be fine regardless. LOL. In such small ratios, I don't expect you'll notice.



dank.Frank

right on, I added both the aragonite and some elemental sulfur, just have to add some bio-vam and bioag vam-endo and water with ro. Got a few beans cracked with taps just starting to poke out. Thinking I'm going to start them in the mini solos, and then move into some larger ones before going into the beds. btw, I buried some solos in the beds so after I water them, I don't have to disturb them when I plant the plants. And in doing so, I def felt some warmth down towards the middle of the soil beds. Not sure if I should water them now, or leave them how they are.

 

[MedGrowerTom]

So for filtering the intakes of these tents, I got some ducting at the bottom vent flaps, and on the ends of them I have some humidifier cut to fit filters, hepa/carbon, and its black. couple layers. did this for the duct going to the a/c hood as well.



they also happen to sit right next to the glass sliding door, and the section is partitioned off so they should all be drawing colder air.

 

[MedGrowerTom]

So for exhausting, I'm coming out of the top vent flap on each tent, 6", and they both connect into a y, that then goes to 8". That goes to an 8" inline on a speed controller, that then goes to an 8" inline carbon filter. I went this way to both keep down on amps(less fans) and to cut down on space and not have a filter in each tent. The smaller duct coming out the side of the HID tent is for the a/c hood.

I may or may not make these vent outside, but since winter is coming, I may just let it heat the house pending how warm it gets.

 

[MedGrowerTom]

and we have tap roots starting to show

 

[MedGrowerTom]

well, they are officialy planted in the seedling mix now, think they like mini 2 oz solo cups(cant find my seed planters) and they each got a tbsp of water lol. under an led desk lamp right now until pop above dirt, or the clone tents is fired up with lights and venting, whichever comes first.

 

[MedGrowerTom]

Well, 5 of the beans still dont have tap roots as of the other day, the other 7 def do. I dug them all up to see because I didn't see anything poking out of the dirt yet. somehow, they were all deeper than I had thought, so fixed that, flipped over the one that was going upside down.

And then I got them a gift, they got a heat mat and controller, and went into the small tent.



And here is a pic from an hour ago, got 6 above soil.

 

[Prodigygrower]

Hell yea I’m tuned in for sure. This mix grows bomb. Your gonna crush it.

 

[MedGrowerTom]

Happy Thanksgiving...

Well, I dug up the ones that didn't poke above dirt again. Well a couple of them anyways, 2 of the bubba x katsu I dug up, still no roots, didnt check the other two, but the last platinum cookie x grape pie finally had a tap just starting to poke out the seed so that was nice to see. so 8 of the 12 should be good, hoping these last 4 wake up soon. Here is a pic as of right now.



On a side note, got some clones today too.

 

[dank.frank]

Hell yea I’m tuned in for sure. This mix grows bomb. Your gonna crush it.

Happy Thanksgiving, MGT and PG.

Those that run it...
"If you don't know, now you know, grower...."



dank.Frank

 

[MedGrowerTom]

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, I know I did.

Here is an update as of now, before I got to bed...

 

[MedGrowerTom]

going to go into larger solo cups later on today, is the plan

 

[dank.frank]

A bit early I think...



dank.Frank