lilindian
Well-Known Member
Thank you, appreciate the compliment, i'm going to try and be more active in my own thread, i've got more going on than what's on display here, expect more posts, plants and pictures soon...
Hanging Gardens - Floating 1200W Stealth Cab Under Kingsize Bunk-bed
lilindian
Well-Known Member
- Tea Time -
- From what i can gather, everyone has their own ways of making tea's. Usually the method is pretty much the same, but what goes in differs from grower to grower.
- I have previous experience in making tea's. The last time i went down this route, i filled a reservoir with water, filled some tights with various organic powdered fertilisers, added a touch of liquid organic fertiliser to kick start the process, turned on the air pump, and went to bed.
I woke up with the reservoir overflowing with organic froth, a good sign, but a messy one at that. Learning from past experiences, my reservoir, or bucket, is only half full now, leaving plenty of space.
Also, i found using the tea's did something amazing to the plants, they looked frostier, greener, and stunk more than ever before. Oh did i mention it also caused my entire grow to finish early by just over a week! Having the nutrients and organic goodness do all the hard work BEFORE it reaches your soil has some serious advantages, all energy and attention can go straight into delivering this goodness to your plants, as appose to making your soil process the feed and then in turn make the product of that process go and feed the actual plant.
- This time i have less powdered fertilisers to play with, and therefore at the moment only have bat guano in the mix. Hopefully in the next couple days I'll add some palm tree ashes to it, my favourite PK supplement. But for now, it's 200g of bat guano to my 10L or so of water, a touch of organic flowering feed, a low dose of an organic flowering booster, a little organic root stim (for its seaweed content and micronutrients) aannnd.... a bio stimulant (It actively feeds & encourages the friendly microbes in the root-zone) which is not strictly organic as such, but has amino acids, seaweed extract, plant sugars and plant hormones to name a few. Its mineral content must be extremely low.. it is purely an additive.
- I am expecting the tea to brew over the course of the week, and froth to start forming. Although there are very very little base elements in the tea, i still plan to dilute it by at least 50% before feeding it to the plants.
- The wire going across has been added to keep the air-stone from rattling against the side of the bucket. It also helps keep the guano powder nicely floating in the middle of the bucket, with the stone hanging right next to it.
- The pump is a double outlet pump pumping through one stone. It's all i had lying around from last time. More air is never a bad thing. The pump is sitting on the floor in the picture, but will be raised above the water line. I have learnt why to do this the hard way... If the power trips for any reason, and the pump turns off, the water will be syphoned back into the pump, which can ruin the pump...
Anyway, just a couple pictures to show you whats going on
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lilindian
Well-Known Member
- 12 Hrs into the Brewing Process -
- As you can see in the picture below, 12hrs in, the froth i speak of is starting to form nicely. At the moment its clear, but as time goes on and the microbes form and do their thing, the foam should start to become a brownish froth.... hard to describe but hopefully when it happens you'll see what i mean. Things should start moving along in the next 24-48hrs.
- Call me stupid, but i didn't let the tap water sit out for a couple of days to evaporate any chlorine in the water. I should've filled the buckets a few days ago, and now i don't want to wait a few more days until i can start brewing. I'm fully aware of what this will do to the life inside my bucket, however last time i brewed a tea i didn't let the chlorine evaporate either and the tea was incredible... Yes it could've been better, but it was good enough.
In an ideal world i'd have a 3 stage RO System hooked up to make the teas with, feed the plants with, foliar the plants with, and make my own tea for drinking. But the house is a bit all over the place to go hard plumbing such fixtures anywhere. Maybe i should get one to attach to the garden tap... future investment for sure.
- Having a quick read about what others are doing with their tea's, it seems the dilution ratio is more along the lines of 1/5. I seem to remember not even diluting my last tea, and the effects were incredible. This time I'm going to check the PH and EC of the undiluted solution once the tea is brewed and go from there. I'm not really sure what to expect, i only have the equipment from my hydro runs but am interested to see if brewing this stuff has changed the PH or EC of the solution against normal tap water and/or a weak nutrient solution. Never have i checked such factors in a soil grow, the PH isn't usually important due to the buffers in the soil (unless you are re-using soil in which case you may need to add more buffer agents), and the EC is pretty much useless in organics, can't remember ever burning a plant.
Anyway
lilindian
Well-Known Member
- 24 Hrs into the Brewing Process -
- My much sought after brown foam has started to form and things are smelling sweet.
- I just fed the plants a full strength feed of liquid organic nutrients as a fair few of them were beginning to yellow a little earlier than i'd like them to, and the tea isn't ready juuuuust yet (next feed). I am aware of those organic growers who believe anything bottled is not truly organic (for various reasons), however what i use is stamped with the highest organic certification available in the consumable gardening industry. I have not seen this same certification on other bottles from other manufacturers. Unlike mineral fertilisers, this stuff foams up too, straight out the bottle and into the bucket. It's also what i used to kick start my AACT.
^ AACT ^
^ Regular bottled nutrients mixed up before being fed ^
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lilindian
Well-Known Member
- End of Week 5 Flower -
- So, we are at a crucial stage, and things seem to be going a liiiiiittttle bit south. This week the floral development hasn't been as strong as i'd hoped, and i was expecting the buds to be larger by this point. I can only hope they explode in growth in the next couple weeks. A few plants are yellowing a decent amount, and i'm not 100% sure why. Two possibilities are as follows..
1.) They have been underfed with nutes if anything (always better to underfeed than over feed, even in organics), i don't think i've given a proper full strength feed in flowering. It's important to note i am trying to feed 4 different strains with 1 feed..... so some are bound to be deficient. The Blue Santa is probably the plant with the biggest tolerance, as no matter what i feed her, she always looks alright.2.) They have been overwatered this past week, leading to oxygen levels in the root zone dropping, thus in turn leading to very little nutrient uptake. I have heavily watered them for 2 reasons, firstly because i felt they needed a heavy watering and a solid feed after being on the lower end of the feed strength up until now and reaching a crucial stage in flowering, and secondly because i wanted to use my tea on the plants before i lost all the goodness i'd brewed!This has led to the pots staying wet and not being let to dry out, over the past 4-5 days. I think the result of such treatment is showing.
- Anyway, you live and you learn, i guess i was just too keen to use my tea! I'm gona turn the fans up to increase the air exchange in the cabinet, hopefully that might help to dry the plants out ever so slightly. I will also let the pots dry out niiiiicely before feeding them anything else.
- I did an EC check on the tea and it was reading 1.8, which i felt was stronger than i needed. I wanted to build up the strength of the tea's i use from now until the end of flowering, and therefore diluted it down, 1 part of tea, to 1 part of water. This brought it down to 1.2 which i then fed the plants. Although overwatered as a result of this feed, you could see from the 'praying leaves' the plants loved it. Leaves that were slightly droopy were now sticking out strong and looking sharp. They definitely liked it, but root zone oxygen levels must've suffered.
- I am now in possession of my precious palm tree ashes. This together with bat guano makes an immense organic PK fertiliser. I will use this in my next tea, altering the ratio's of each for each of the remaining weeks, slowly introducing more ashes and reducing on the guano. The yellowing will most likely continue, as i do not want to throw in more Calmag at this stage. There should be enough still in the soil to help the uptake of the phosphorous and potassium that i'm to introduce in the following weeks.
- Since my last post here, i have been schooled on REAL organics, including tea making. I now realise my recent tea has missed some VITAL ingredients! The next one should be something special. Whilst this grow pretty much is a fully organic grow with the exception of the Calmag supplement, this is only stage 1 organics. My next grow will be stage 2 organics, less bottled nutes, more tea's. I have the recipes, i have the equipment, i almost have the ingredients. I'm already looking forward to my next run, and getting this one out the way! I look to greatly improve on this grow... i know i can do a lot better, i have done a lot better in the past.
- The 2 plants that were a week behind are still behind.... still not progressing as fast as the others, but still look perfectly healthy if not a touch too dark green. Not 100% sure what is going to come of these, their structure is beautiful, maybe a bit more spaced out than desired, but if they filled out..... i'd be onto a winner. You can see their development is behind from the pictures, compare the tallest plants in the middle to the rest, and their flower size.
- All plants were rotated 180 degrees since the last pics were taken, just to allow different branches more light ect, try and even up growth on the plants.
lilindian
Well-Known Member
Pretty good indeed but not perfect
Next run will be perfect, starting from the cuttings. This run has been a case of working with what i got. Plants began life riddled with bugs and stuff. Plus feeding 5 different strains with one feed isn't ideal..
18 Blue Santa and 10 Cheeseberry Haze cuts have been taken from large healthy mother plants. The last time i did a single strain grow was years ago, i want to see the potential of my new space... I might just do half/half, haven't decided yet.
The field of nugs is about a foot in height. Some of the Kollosus nugs are nice and chunky, didn't see growth like this last time, but last time she was neglected... The best looking plant yield wise is still looking to be the Blue Santa, if she bulks up, smell wise i can't pick a winner as they all smell super sweet indeed. The closest to finishing looks to be the 2 Katsu Kush x Killing Fields... The harvest will most likely have to be staggered. The right side of the cab has been heavily pruned to allow more light down and improve air flow. Hopefully it shows in the pics next week. Left side will be done tomorrow.
Been brewing a new formula for the past 36hrs with worm castings, more potassium and sugars in it, upgraded the pump, added another airstone in the bucket. Checked the EC of this formula and it was flashing 3.8 on the wand after 36hrs (not 100% sure what exactly made is so strong), so i diluted it down: 15L of de-chlorinated water to 7/8L of tea. This dropped the EC down to 1.7, and this was fed to the plants after mixing in a bit of an organic booster. I use this booster mainly for its Trichantinol. The effects of Trichantinol are huge. It's an essential ingredient in all my grows.
Anyway... stay tuned
lilindian
Well-Known Member
- End of Week 6 Flower -
- The past week has seen some decent growth and swelling come into play, however the speed of such growth has been restricted by some extreme pruning. I imagine it will take the plants a couple of days to fully recover from the shock, but once they get going again, they should appreciate the improved airflow and light penetration.
- I am aware a lot of people are against pruning in flowering as the big fan leaves not only act as solar panels, but also as a nutrient source to the plants. However in my past experiences, healthy plants have always adapted to my pruning and once recovered have continued growing strong. As long as the soil is still feeding the plant, and has enough food/water to keep all the biological activity going, I'm hoping the nitrogen in the tea's i make will provide the plants with enough to encourage the smaller leaves to grow out a bit (ones growing out the flowers), now the big fan leaves have gone. We will see in next weeks updates the effects of such pruning. Different plants respond differently, i'm not 100% sure how the haze's will respond, as they generally have less leaf, but we shall see.
- The plants needed a feed last night, and the tea was not quite ready, so i gave them 1L each of a full strength feed just to keep them going until the tea time today. I was very very surprised to see that a full strength feed from the bottled nutrients i use only gave an EC of 1.4.... I find that extremely low, and know the plants can take more. That is around the EC i would want at the beginning of flowering.. My last tea was EC'd to 1.7, the tea fed today was EC'd to 2.0. I know its hard to burn plants in organics, but feeding such low strength feeds throughout is not the reason!
- Today's tea i felt contained a much better balance of nutrition that the last couple batches i've made. The difference i think is due to me reducing the levels of worm compost used. I also added a touch of the flowering booster i use (a naturally fermented plant extract), the roots stimulator (mainly for its B1 and B2 vitamins) and a touch of the base feed as a food source for the microbes (contains sugars and plant extracts). I brewed the tea for 12hrs, before adding the above. What i found interesting was that the roots stim and booster seemed to react instantly to the tea, in terms of increasing the froth almost instantaneously. However when adding a splash of the base nutrient, it killed all the froth straight away! This was added in last which is how i noticed.
After adding the stuff i went to sleep, woke up the next morning and there was more foam then i've seen in years, easily filling up the other half of the bucket!
As i'd changed the ratio of castings - phosphorous - potassium - additives, i felt it important to check the EC before feeding anything to the plants. Although i'd reduced certain things in the tea, and added a TOUCH of bottled nutrition, i had to dilute the tea TWICE to get an acceptable EC reading. This tea was twice as strong as my last batch....
I feel the additives must've made a difference (booster and roots stimulator). It's all 100% organic so must've given the microbes something to feed off, which they loved.
Anyway the 12L of tea i made was mixed with 12L of de-cholinated water, and still gave an EC reading off the charts of my truncheon (3.8+). Last time 12L of water was enough to bring it down to 1.7. I then removed 10L from this bucket into another bucket, and added another 12L of de-chlorinated water. This brought it down to an EC of 2.0. This solution was fed to the plants, and the rest of the tea i will continue to bubble for another 24hrs, adding a bit of mollasses to feed the microbes before i go to bed. I just checked on this bucket and it is absolutely overflowing with froth, building up on the underside of the lid and collapsing back in... definitely those additives... and this solution is 50% weaker than last night's solution..... I think there's a better balance going on....
- I'm glad i underfed the plants all this time, because it means i can now really start to try and push them. I've never used an EC truncheon in an organic grow, so this is new to me. This is also the reason i am taking such in depth notes in regards to my tea's and feed's, i am trying to gain a basic understanding of EC's in organics, and what affects it.
- The reflectors have been raised slightly as i've upped the wattage to 660W per light. The fans have had to be upped slightly also due to the slightly warmer weather we are having these days and the extra 120W in the cab. Still, temperatures are stable...
I can't be sure, but the 2 most yellowing plants left and right side of the cab, have been in the line of fire of the fan... which has been blowing past the bulbs... I don't know if this has caused stress which in turn has stopped the plant doing what it needs to do... and that is why they're yellowing more than the rest... When i do a 1 or 2 strain grow in here next time i'll know for sure.
As i said before, its hard to feed 5 different strains (a mix of haze's, kush's and hybrids) all the same feed, and keep everyone happy. Organics i feel at least gives you a chance in making that work.
The Cheeseberry Haze plants were expected to take the longest to flower, and their delay in development at this stage in comparison to the other half of the cab is noticeable, however they've got a good 4 weeks left of solid growth left so i'm hoping they fill out real nice. They also look the least happy, i might need to back off the feeds and give them time to do their thing. All the crazy coloured leaves are from them. Too much phosphorous too early maybe? I think so.
lilindian
Well-Known Member
Nice to see the wall of text is being read!
The Root Stim is not to stimulate new root growth, that would be difficult to achieve at this stage! The product i'm using is Canna BioRhizotonic at 0.5ml/L. It smells like it has come straight off a farm. I'm using it for its B Vitamins (stress relieving properties). It's actually marketed as a root stimulator and stress reliever, and as of yesterday, i have identified SPRINGTAILS in my pots. If they are causing any damage the B Vitamins will help. This could explain a number of things though. However their numbers right now are low, very low. Maybe 1-5 per pot. I have a feeling they've come about since i've upped my watering. Up until week 4 of flowering i didn't drench the pots, fed each plant roughly 2L at a time, now it's more like 3L each, in 6L pots, and more frequently. Will back off again as i know they like those overly moist soils and keep an eye on the run off (which is where i saw them, not floating to the surface of the pots). I was more focussed on keeping the soil nice and wet for the microbiology going on down there, went a bit overboard maybe. They COULD have just come in the peat... the plants never gave me any clear signs of being overwatered...
Thanks man, what can i say.... stoners are creative people! This is one of two dream set ups, the other requires a lot more space (a whole house) and a lot more money (a whole pile)
I can't wait to see how the next run turns out!
ReddEyez
Well-Known Member
Lol, i read every word. Great inginuity, and your girls look great! Best of luck in all your endeavors man. Definitely be following. Thank you for sharing.Nice to see the wall of text is being read!
The Root Stim is not to stimulate new root growth, that would be difficult to achieve at this stage! The product i'm using is Canna BioRhizotonic at 0.5ml/L. It smells like it has come straight off a farm. I'm using it for its B Vitamins (stress relieving properties). It's actually marketed as a root stimulator and stress reliever, and as of yesterday, i have identified SPRINGTAILS in my pots. If they are causing any damage the B Vitamins will help. This could explain a number of things though. However their numbers right now are low, very low. Maybe 1-5 per pot. I have a feeling they've come about since i've upped my watering. Up until week 4 of flowering i didn't drench the pots, fed each plant roughly 2L at a time, now it's more like 3L each, in 6L pots, and more frequently. Will back off again as i know they like those overly moist soils and keep an eye on the run off (which is where i saw them, not floating to the surface of the pots). I was more focussed on keeping the soil nice and wet for the microbiology going on down there, went a bit overboard maybe. They COULD have just come in the peat... the plants never gave me any clear signs of being overwatered...
Thanks man, what can i say.... stoners are creative people! This is one of two dream set ups, the other requires a lot more space (a whole house) and a lot more money (a whole pile)
I can't wait to see how the next run turns out!
CookieCrumbs
New Member
I'm late af but thats a bad ass grow space