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wtfn's 4000w legal medical soil food web organic grow show

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There's another row directly behind the row on the left.
 

manic

Member
I would consider using a seperate little zone for vegging , with half the watt per square foot
that will allow the cuttings to have a transitional stage to grow decent roots , before you place em under the big ones

this also serves well as a preparation room , so you can re start your floweringroom in a matter of days after harvest

i find the bud to leaf ratio of plants that have vegged under half to a third of the flowering watts better. I prefer it over vegging under the same buld as i flower with
it also saves a few bucks running a smaller light for preveg

and- if your cutting-suppliers serve you with scrawny cuttings, why not add another zone wit a fluor tube rack

taking time for each growing stage , from small to big makes best yield and seems most efficient

but thats just my two cents
 
Yeah, that's the plan, more or less. I've just been so strapped from the move and getting this room set up that I haven't been able to do anything else. I've been keeping my cuttings in a bathroom that gets plenty of light during the day. I wish they had a veg area. Soon enough, my friend...
 

manic

Member
one of the best vegging rooms i ever had was a bathroom with a roof window and a double fluorotube.

the cuts got 1 hour of straight sunlight supplemented with the fluoros ( 2 feet from the plants)
the combined spectrum and even temps, coupled with high humidity from my 10 minutes daily showers made these babies really strong.
I had well over 1 gramm a watt if i took my time , and waited till they were almost rootbound before transplanting

this taught me that proper vegging really adds to the yield.
 
Looks like the yield on these Sublimes was a lot lower than I was expecting, and many of the plants have very thin wispy buds, probably due to inconsistent watering, or me screwing up in the first few weeks of flowering. I can always make wax.

Also, the quality isn't that great. The other two strains were top notch. My clone guy and I are going to have a little talk, then I'll probably be moving on.
 
Hmmm, manic...I've been trying to decide where to put my veg room. I have 3 rooms upstairs: 1 large flower room, 1 drying room (future flower room) and one small bathroom. Looks like the bathroom is in the running permanently now. :)
 
Picked up Teaming With Nutrients today. Work is super crazy but ill try to read it in the next few weeks before I go into flower
 
Ok final total yield was just 4.5 - 4.75 lb of decent nugs, depending on how you calculate popcorn. Not too great but adequate enough to get me through. Also, the Sublime pretty much just sucks for potency. Terrible genetics for cash cropping. Reminds me of mexibrick. I can't talk too much trash because I'm smoking it right now. The other two are just too strong for me as morning smokes.

Anyway, moving on...


I left my plants unattended for two weeks and on my return they looked incredible!

I'm going to ask for a little advice from you more experienced fellas on building my organic beds here, about 4 paragraphs down.

From what I can tell I need to fill about 64 cu ft with high quality "soil." The pots I have right now contain roughly 19 cu ft of soil, leaving me with 45 unanswered cu ft.

Very locally I can get a cu yd, or 27 cu ft, of organic compost, organic humus or a 50/50 compost/soil blend, for $32, $25 and $30, respectively. That's a lot to fit in the trunk of my compact sedan but I've done it once before so I know it's possible. I'm willing to bet he'd sell me half a yard for a slight rate increase, maybe $20 for 1/2 cu yd of the compost. I'm using this compost right now with decent results, but there are so many things in the mix I simply cannot attest to the quality. The guy selling it seems to think very highly of it, of course. He claims to have gone outside the area to have procured the highest quality compost around, but still can't tell me the NPK on it.

Slightly less locally, maybe an hour's drive, I can pick up 1/2 cu yd of vermicompost for about $200. I've been on the fence about whether I need quite that much of it, but it looks like it's really good quality and I've got a 35 gal cone bottom tank on order, so my castings needs are about to increase greatly.

If I get 1/2 yd of compost and 1/2 yd of vermicompost, minus what I keep for teas (2 cu ft? castings), I'll have maybe 43 cu ft of soil. That leaves 21 cu ft to be filled, or 3/4 of a yd. What's the best thing to fill here? Should I just go with straight coco, or a coco/promix blend, or add some perlite in there too? What sort of mulch should I be looking for in your opinion? Should I bother more than just the compost and worm castings? In other words, is there a significant gain to amending things like blood meal and kelp meal now or should I be adding those things into the beds by top dressing over long periods of time?

Also, how should I prepare my coco coir so it doesn't sap all my nutrients?

I'll be googling all of these things soon but I'm buried in other work right now, any help would be appreciated.
 

silver hawaiian

Active member
Veteran
Ok final total yield was just 4.5 - 4.75 lb of decent nugs, depending on how you calculate popcorn.

Not too shabby at al! You'd be surprised how many people could royally f*ck that up, not realize it, and be stoked to have a couple pounds. :) That's at least a lb per 1k, which is respectable, I'd say..

Also, how should I prepare my coco coir so it doesn't sap all my nutrients?

I'm confused - why the coco if you're all about an organic/food web grow?
 

Mister_D

Active member
Veteran
Ok final total yield was just 4.5 - 4.75 lb of decent nugs, depending on how you calculate popcorn. Not too great but adequate enough to get me through. Also, the Sublime pretty much just sucks for potency. Terrible genetics for cash cropping. Reminds me of mexibrick. I can't talk too much trash because I'm smoking it right now. The other two are just too strong for me as morning smokes.

Anyway, moving on...


I left my plants unattended for two weeks and on my return they looked incredible!

I'm going to ask for a little advice from you more experienced fellas on building my organic beds here, about 4 paragraphs down.

From what I can tell I need to fill about 64 cu ft with high quality "soil." The pots I have right now contain roughly 19 cu ft of soil, leaving me with 45 unanswered cu ft.

Very locally I can get a cu yd, or 27 cu ft, of organic compost, organic humus or a 50/50 compost/soil blend, for $32, $25 and $30, respectively. That's a lot to fit in the trunk of my compact sedan but I've done it once before so I know it's possible. I'm willing to bet he'd sell me half a yard for a slight rate increase, maybe $20 for 1/2 cu yd of the compost. I'm using this compost right now with decent results, but there are so many things in the mix I simply cannot attest to the quality. The guy selling it seems to think very highly of it, of course. He claims to have gone outside the area to have procured the highest quality compost around, but still can't tell me the NPK on it.

Slightly less locally, maybe an hour's drive, I can pick up 1/2 cu yd of vermicompost for about $200. I've been on the fence about whether I need quite that much of it, but it looks like it's really good quality and I've got a 35 gal cone bottom tank on order, so my castings needs are about to increase greatly.

If I get 1/2 yd of compost and 1/2 yd of vermicompost, minus what I keep for teas (2 cu ft? castings), I'll have maybe 43 cu ft of soil. That leaves 21 cu ft to be filled, or 3/4 of a yd. What's the best thing to fill here? Should I just go with straight coco, or a coco/promix blend, or add some perlite in there too? What sort of mulch should I be looking for in your opinion? Should I bother more than just the compost and worm castings? In other words, is there a significant gain to amending things like blood meal and kelp meal now or should I be adding those things into the beds by top dressing over long periods of time?

Also, how should I prepare my coco coir so it doesn't sap all my nutrients?

I'll be googling all of these things soon but I'm buried in other work right now, any help would be appreciated.

I would go with 1/2 yd of vermicompost + 1/2 yd of compost/soil mix + 3/4 yd of 50/50 coco/promix HP. If you want a bit more aeration in the mix perlite or better yet floor dry are great additions. If you plan to go water only, yes you need to mix all the amendments (bone/blood/kelp meal, etc) into the soil so it can cook for a few weeks prior to planting. You can then top dress as needed, and re-amend between crops. This will also take care of the coco's CEC requirements. Straw makes great mulch. Clovers and such can be grown as a living mulch if that's your desire.
 
I would go with 1/2 yd of vermicompost + 1/2 yd of compost/soil mix + 3/4 yd of 50/50 coco/promix HP. If you want a bit more aeration in the mix perlite or better yet floor dry are great additions. If you plan to go water only, yes you need to mix all the amendments (bone/blood/kelp meal, etc) into the soil so it can cook for a few weeks prior to planting. You can then top dress as needed, and re-amend between crops. This will also take care of the coco's CEC requirements. Straw makes great mulch. Clovers and such can be grown as a living mulch if that's your desire.


Thanks, that's the answer I was looking for. I'm not really planning a water-only grow, per se. I have a 35gal cone bottom tank coming soon so I should be able to brew up a pretty nice batch of tea. I was planning to push a whole bunch of tea through that soil in the next few months. Up to this point I've been brewing strictly microbial teas, but I plan to use quite a few nutritional teas once I get my soil tested. Also, I'm not really planning any cooking time with this batch so I think I'll leave my amendments out for a little while. Am I screwing up there? I would think I'd get everything I need for the first round from the worm castings/compost but please correct me if I'm wrong.

I glean from your answer that I should still include true "soil" in my beds, even if it's in much lower quantities than the other media. Also I gather that a coco/peat mix will be my best bet rather than going toward one or the other.

You answered Silver's question perfectly because whether you realize it or not I'm leaning toward coco based on your recommendations to bobble. If it hadn't been for that I would have gone with straight pro mix and never thought twice about it.
 
I've been working around the clock (literally worked for 76 hours straight this week, with 2 3hr only breaks) so I've been a little bit neglectful in the garden, but things are doing OK. The temps got a little out of hand at some point and some of the plant directly under the light are showing VPD issues again. Tonight I'm going to take the time to order a 5-disc fogger unit (I think I need one that big ...?) and a line voltage humidistat, assuming I can find one cheaper than a true humidity controller. I already have the float valve, small duct fan, and a bucket. That should be all I need to build a humidifier. I've played around with fogponics in the past so I'm very familiar with these units.

Anyway, I was awake working from Sunday at 6am until wednesday around 6 pm. There was a lot of money (7 figures) riding on me meeting that deadline, so I sucked it up and did it. Wednesday afternoon I had to tend to my plants, since I hadn't seen them in days, despite being downstairs working on the computer the entire time. I was feeling a little loopy from lack of sleep. I had a watering can full of water and I tripped on a bucket and fell face-first into a pile of smartpots full of soil that I had stacked there. One of the pots had some rusty bailing wire that I had used to tie down my plants. I went almost the entire way through the base of my thumb, although I honestly thought it was barely more than skin deep at the time, because I was so out of it. Within 24hrs I had 2 red lines running up my forearm all the way to the inside of my elbow, and I was having pain in my armpit. As soon as I noticed the line I hauled ass to an Urgent Care facility. They let me wait for 45 minutes before telling me that they don't accept any new patients without insurance. Pieces of shit.

So I went down the road and got a shot and some meds. It was a great visit and I left laughing and smiling, but I won't go too much into how disrespected I was by the secretary on my return visit.



Today's the day I start building my soil. I've been working solid, with zero days off, for almost a month now, if you don't include the 2 weeks I spent back home for Christmas, which I don't, because I was constantly working and running around the entire time, not to mention driving across the country twice, once straight through.



Gotta head out the door now to go get that 1/2yd compost/soil. Vermicompost is coming on Sunday. Maybe I'll get the peat and coco tomorrow.
 

Mister_D

Active member
Veteran
Thanks, that's the answer I was looking for. I'm not really planning a water-only grow, per se. I have a 35gal cone bottom tank coming soon so I should be able to brew up a pretty nice batch of tea. I was planning to push a whole bunch of tea through that soil in the next few months. Up to this point I've been brewing strictly microbial teas, but I plan to use quite a few nutritional teas once I get my soil tested. Also, I'm not really planning any cooking time with this batch so I think I'll leave my amendments out for a little while. Am I screwing up there? I would think I'd get everything I need for the first round from the worm castings/compost but please correct me if I'm wrong.

Wouldn't say you are screwing up not adding the amendments, more of a personal preference. Castings and compost (depending on quality) should get you through veg and possibly part/all of flower.

I glean from your answer that I should still include true "soil" in my beds, even if it's in much lower quantities than the other media. Also I gather that a coco/peat mix will be my best bet rather than going toward one or the other.

It's beyond the scope of one post to explain the "whys", but yes you want real "soil" in the mix. Same goes for the mixture of coco and peat. They all contribute important characteristics to the mix.

You answered Silver's question perfectly because whether you realize it or not I'm leaning toward coco based on your recommendations to bobble. If it hadn't been for that I would have gone with straight pro mix and never thought twice about it.

Always good to hear someone found value in my advice :tiphat:
 

bobblehead

Active member
Veteran
I use straight promix myself. The only compost I use is my meals composted in a bucket for at least 30 days and vermicompost. I run my trim for hash, and then add it back to the beds. The worms seem to be happy. I grabbed a handful of soil off the top of one of my beds and found a worm making its way through.

Am mending the beds without letting the amendments cook ahead of time leads to pH fluctuations. No matter what you do, add dry amendments now w/o cooking or add them later after they cook in a bucket, you'll have issues either way. I would just add them and mix them into the top few inches and let the biology sort it out.
 
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