DB's organic gardens and DIY projects thread.

DonBrennon

Well-Known Member
Hopefully two of my own 'pollen chucks' will be going into flower next, I've got 2 Blue iguana x SSDD(pink tags) and 2 SSDD x Fat Purple seedlings(yellow tags) in my prop area, as well as some back up in case they turn out to be male, the poor looking seedling in the middle is a Bodhi Blueberry hashplant, the other one didn't break ground for some reason:?

The plants at the back are cutting off the plants currently in flower, I've decided to take cuts off them before I pass them on..........I've been reading a lot of people getting bad male-female ratios recently, better to be safe than sorry
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Really cheap DIY lighting, one of which either needs new lamps or fucking off completely.
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DonBrennon

Well-Known Member
Life on the 'pen'..................
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Really not expecting to get anything other than a bit of pollen off the following plants, the climate here just ain't suitable for flowering ladies to the finish without a greenhouse

Mystery fem unexpectedly sprouted where she is beneath a real good tomato plant which has totally dominated her all her life till I chopped it last week and used it as mulch.
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Mr Nice shit male
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Very late to show sex Bodhi Space monkey, I thought she was a male so she got thrown out, I an gonna try and get a couple of cuts off her, shes taken an absolute hammering, but she's healthy as feckIMG_0463.JPG

Baby snails love MJ too..........who knew it
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..........but this lad and his lovely ladies, love baby snails
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Colanoscopy

Well-Known Member
Mucho gracias amigo, but Cola's gotta take the rep for the real fancy one with on board Watt/Amp meter on it, his design also prompted me to put fans on my heatsinks, running much cooler since then:-P
It was a joint effort Don. You finished it up nicely and got it to run at full capacity. Even though you figured you don't have to now. Lol. Which is why I didn't then. I'm sure i worked it out to about 24w/sq ft myself. Isn't the magic number 38w/sq ft?

I've spent a week wondering why I'm running so hot in mine. Because my bastard bungees cut through my ducting so I was just circulating hot stale air. Haha
 

DonBrennon

Well-Known Member
It was a joint effort Don. You finished it up nicely and got it to run at full capacity. Even though you figured you don't have to now. Lol. Which is why I didn't then. I'm sure i worked it out to about 24w/sq ft myself. Isn't the magic number 38w/sq ft?

I've spent a week wondering why I'm running so hot in mine. Because my bastard bungees cut through my ducting so I was just circulating hot stale air. Haha
I must have had a good initial instinct on that then, cos although I didn't know that, all my previous fixtures have been 1 cob per sq/ft running at 36-37W

I've had that happen before with the ducting, at least it's happened and you've found it now, rather than mid flower, it's a total PITA trying to duct tape ducting while reaching over yer plants bongsmilie
 

calliandra

Well-Known Member
Heyhey Don Brennon, great to see a thread of yours on here again :D

I really like your theory on the Space Monkey's, er, sensitivities haha
Given your soil must be excellent, it sounds very plausible that the change of lights incurred a sudden leap in nutritional needs - also from a microbial perspective.

I can totally understand the impulse to want to test your soil to see what you need to amend further down the line.
But what is it going to tell you, if you get a chemical one done, really?
Even if you get one done that measures the TOTAL nutrients, not just the available ones, how are you going to know how much of that is microbial mass, or whether the set of microbes you have are well-rounded enough to be cycling those otherwise non-available nutes? Chemistry will follow in the wake of the biological activity in our soils. We need to keep reminding ourselves of that (even I do, though I've never really worked chemically, it's built into in our general mindsets!).

I think the only test that makes any sense at all on organic soils (unless you're suspecting toxic substances that may need specialized remediation) is the microbial one. When you know what the different sets of microbes are doing, what ratios they're present in, you get to see whether microbial nutrient cycling can be expected to be efficient, AND you can even determine what to amend your soil with - bacterial or fungal foods :mrgreen:
The single minerals, they'll get those sorted by themselves. Every bit of plant matter in your compost has aaalll the nutrients in it a plant will need to grow and flourish (unless the compost was made entirely of sickly struggling plants) - else it wouldn't have grown itself to begin with! All those teensy tinsey bits of trace elements, all the NPK (if the compost was made properly and it didn't gass off right in the beginning ha) etc etc our plants could ever need...everything'S in there anyway!
But do we have the microorganisms to get the job done?
And when we did, are they still there after a few weeks? Or have extreme conditions knocked out a bunch of them, living in pots as they are, and they need to be replenished?

As you know I've been thinking about amendment alot these days. While I don't believe there's one correct answer, I'm tending to think the best way to go about amending our pot soils, especially after they've had a few runs and we have lost track of what they've been amended with (and heck, what has gotten processed of that and what not), is just a good balanced mix of bacterial and fungal foods, along with some good aeration and a wide diversity of fresh microbes for our plants to select from.
Am I oversimplifying?
Perhaps. But in the light of the newest hypothesis regarding species diversity on Earth, which etstimates the soecies somewhere in trillions - of which 3/4 are microbial - we have a loooong way to go before we can actually assess the species we have in our herd, and what they'd prefer to eat, and make sure enough of that is around for when the plant feeds up those species to get the right nutes at the right time...
As much as we'd like to think it, we're not actually in control :bigjoint:
Hence, to provide maximum diversity for the plants to choose from, directing development of the microbial herd as they need it in every phase of their life cycle.

I feel we still have a lot to learn in managing our soils to our darling plants' satisfaction, especially in that critical stretch phase, in which clearly there is a shift in needs we need to attend to way before it happens, so the right biology will be in place to satisfy those needs and tide them over into luscious bloom.
Looking at your plants, you're definitely not far off :-D
Cheers!
 

Colanoscopy

Well-Known Member
I must have had a good initial instinct on that then, cos although I didn't know that, all my previous fixtures have been 1 cob per sq/ft running at 36-37W

I've had that happen before with the ducting, at least it's happened and you've found it now, rather than mid flower, it's a total PITA trying to duct tape ducting while reaching over yer plants bongsmilie
When I first started looking I headed straight for supra spl's stuff mate definitely worth a read. Ducting all patched up and were running sweet for now. The goji still showing sickly Barring on the leaves.
 

calliandra

Well-Known Member
As hinted at in the above post I wanted to build a sort of mini raised bed within a 800x800cm tent (roughly2.5x2.5ft) with materials I already had on hand and this is what I've come up with....................an 'air bed' or 4 air pots glued and screwed to a piece of 650x650cm plywood

View attachment 4017203 View attachment 4017204

I realise from experience that this is gonna be a total PITA to water, so I was thinking of sitting them in trays with strips of capillary mats running from bottom to top to either soak up run off from top watering or act like some kind of sip............any opinions would be more than welcome as it is still very much WIP
haha @ 650x650cm, love the wishful typoing - just imagining the jungle of plants that can grow on that!!!! :bigjoint:

Gosh love the idea though!
Looking at your prototype, the plywood bottom does get me pensive though... how long is it going to be there before it gets, erm, integrated into the substrate I wonder? Do you plan on making a waterproof runoff tray under it? Possibly you could lose it completely then, just having a bottom layer of coarse material that will aerate from below too...
Just a thought there, I didn't really understand the bit about the trays and capillary mats?! haha
A fine weekend to you! :blsmoke:
 

Colanoscopy

Well-Known Member
Heyhey Don Brennon, great to see a thread of yours on here again :D

I really like your theory on the Space Monkey's, er, sensitivities haha
Given your soil must be excellent, it sounds very plausible that the change of lights incurred a sudden leap in nutritional needs - also from a microbial perspective.

I can totally understand the impulse to want to test your soil to see what you need to amend further down the line.
But what is it going to tell you, if you get a chemical one done, really?
Even if you get one done that measures the TOTAL nutrients, not just the available ones, how are you going to know how much of that is microbial mass, or whether the set of microbes you have are well-rounded enough to be cycling those otherwise non-available nutes? Chemistry will follow in the wake of the biological activity in our soils. We need to keep reminding ourselves of that (even I do, though I've never really worked chemically, it's built into in our general mindsets!).

I think the only test that makes any sense at all on organic soils (unless you're suspecting toxic substances that may need specialized remediation) is the microbial one. When you know what the different sets of microbes are doing, what ratios they're present in, you get to see whether microbial nutrient cycling can be expected to be efficient, AND you can even determine what to amend your soil with - bacterial or fungal foods :mrgreen:
The single minerals, they'll get those sorted by themselves. Every bit of plant matter in your compost has aaalll the nutrients in it a plant will need to grow and flourish (unless the compost was made entirely of sickly struggling plants) - else it wouldn't have grown itself to begin with! All those teensy tinsey bits of trace elements, all the NPK (if the compost was made properly and it didn't gass off right in the beginning ha) etc etc our plants could ever need...everything'S in there anyway!
But do we have the microorganisms to get the job done?
And when we did, are they still there after a few weeks? Or have extreme conditions knocked out a bunch of them, living in pots as they are, and they need to be replenished?

As you know I've been thinking about amendment alot these days. While I don't believe there's one correct answer, I'm tending to think the best way to go about amending our pot soils, especially after they've had a few runs and we have lost track of what they've been amended with (and heck, what has gotten processed of that and what not), is just a good balanced mix of bacterial and fungal foods, along with some good aeration and a wide diversity of fresh microbes for our plants to select from.
Am I oversimplifying?
Perhaps. But in the light of the newest hypothesis regarding species diversity on Earth, which etstimates the soecies somewhere in trillions - of which 3/4 are microbial - we have a loooong way to go before we can actually assess the species we have in our herd, and what they'd prefer to eat, and make sure enough of that is around for when the plant feeds up those species to get the right nutes at the right time...
As much as we'd like to think it, we're not actually in control :bigjoint:
Hence, to provide maximum diversity for the plants to choose from, directing development of the microbial herd as they need it in every phase of their life cycle.

I feel we still have a lot to learn in managing our soils to our darling plants' satisfaction, especially in that critical stretch phase, in which clearly there is a shift in needs we need to attend to way before it happens, so the right biology will be in place to satisfy those needs and tide them over into luscious bloom.
Looking at your plants, you're definitely not far off :-D
Cheers!
Early Saturday morning educating from calliandra there. Just had a read of that I'm far from qualified to comment but im gonna dig a little deeper now. You got me intrigued. Am I gonna end up following you down this rabbit hole now lol
 

calliandra

Well-Known Member
Early Saturday morning educating from calliandra there. Just had a read of that I'm far from qualified to comment but im gonna dig a little deeper now. You got me intrigued. Am I gonna end up following you down this rabbit hole now lol
Hahaa! Nothing like a sweet Saturday morning to catch a new bug lol
A scary and bumpy - and sometimes sketchy - road, I won't deny it, but fully worth the adventure and those moments of incredibly mindblowing discovery and realization! Apart from the fact that our very continued existence on the planet is closely linked to our finally understanding all that and changing our anti-microbial ways to turn things round and bring real health back to the soils, landscapes, critters and thus also ourselves :rolleyes:

I've just resolved to be more exacting in my observations and hope to discover more specifically about the microbial developments in the course of our indoor grows by monitoring my next few rounds via time course microscope assessments of the microbial herd. Probably going to start a thread on here too to share what I find or don't find... so nice rabbit hole pending right there lol

Cheers!:bigjoint:
 

DonBrennon

Well-Known Member
Heyhey Don Brennon, great to see a thread of yours on here again :D

I really like your theory on the Space Monkey's, er, sensitivities haha
Given your soil must be excellent, it sounds very plausible that the change of lights incurred a sudden leap in nutritional needs - also from a microbial perspective.

I can totally understand the impulse to want to test your soil to see what you need to amend further down the line.
But what is it going to tell you, if you get a chemical one done, really?
Even if you get one done that measures the TOTAL nutrients, not just the available ones, how are you going to know how much of that is microbial mass, or whether the set of microbes you have are well-rounded enough to be cycling those otherwise non-available nutes? Chemistry will follow in the wake of the biological activity in our soils. We need to keep reminding ourselves of that (even I do, though I've never really worked chemically, it's built into in our general mindsets!).

I think the only test that makes any sense at all on organic soils (unless you're suspecting toxic substances that may need specialized remediation) is the microbial one. When you know what the different sets of microbes are doing, what ratios they're present in, you get to see whether microbial nutrient cycling can be expected to be efficient, AND you can even determine what to amend your soil with - bacterial or fungal foods :mrgreen:
The single minerals, they'll get those sorted by themselves. Every bit of plant matter in your compost has aaalll the nutrients in it a plant will need to grow and flourish (unless the compost was made entirely of sickly struggling plants) - else it wouldn't have grown itself to begin with! All those teensy tinsey bits of trace elements, all the NPK (if the compost was made properly and it didn't gass off right in the beginning ha) etc etc our plants could ever need...everything'S in there anyway!
But do we have the microorganisms to get the job done?
And when we did, are they still there after a few weeks? Or have extreme conditions knocked out a bunch of them, living in pots as they are, and they need to be replenished?

As you know I've been thinking about amendment alot these days. While I don't believe there's one correct answer, I'm tending to think the best way to go about amending our pot soils, especially after they've had a few runs and we have lost track of what they've been amended with (and heck, what has gotten processed of that and what not), is just a good balanced mix of bacterial and fungal foods, along with some good aeration and a wide diversity of fresh microbes for our plants to select from.
Am I oversimplifying?
Perhaps. But in the light of the newest hypothesis regarding species diversity on Earth, which etstimates the soecies somewhere in trillions - of which 3/4 are microbial - we have a loooong way to go before we can actually assess the species we have in our herd, and what they'd prefer to eat, and make sure enough of that is around for when the plant feeds up those species to get the right nutes at the right time...
As much as we'd like to think it, we're not actually in control :bigjoint:
Hence, to provide maximum diversity for the plants to choose from, directing development of the microbial herd as they need it in every phase of their life cycle.

I feel we still have a lot to learn in managing our soils to our darling plants' satisfaction, especially in that critical stretch phase, in which clearly there is a shift in needs we need to attend to way before it happens, so the right biology will be in place to satisfy those needs and tide them over into luscious bloom.
Looking at your plants, you're definitely not far off :-D
Cheers!
Hey Calli, welcome aboard and thanks for your (as always) insightful response.

I understand where you are coming from, but I do feel that base cation saturation levels are very important and have a lot to do with creating a good environment for the right microbes to thrive and proper nutrient cycling to occur. I know that you're striving to get more fungal activity going in your soil, but I think my problem is that it's too fungal and my soil is pretty acidic. I know all the nutrients they need are there, something is preventing them from being cycled, I'm gonna up both the amount of aeration and calcium in my next recycle. My plants are 5 weeks into 12-12 tomorrow, with 3-4 weeks left and are cannabilising a lot of older fan leaves. The Space monkey is really starting to look ugly
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DonBrennon

Well-Known Member
haha @ 650x650cm, love the wishful typoing - just imagining the jungle of plants that can grow on that!!!! :bigjoint:

Gosh love the idea though!
Looking at your prototype, the plywood bottom does get me pensive though... how long is it going to be there before it gets, erm, integrated into the substrate I wonder? Do you plan on making a waterproof runoff tray under it? Possibly you could lose it completely then, just having a bottom layer of coarse material that will aerate from below too...
Just a thought there, I didn't really understand the bit about the trays and capillary mats?! haha
A fine weekend to you! :blsmoke:
I built a compost bin in my back yard out of plywood, my design wasn't very good as I didn't leave enough room for me to get a fork in and turn the thing, pmsl...............So.............it became a slow composting bin and seems to be standing up well 2 years down the line. I took the lid off it because I was gonna shift the compost over to the allotment, but never got round to it........look what happened, lmaoIMG_0524.JPG
 

DonBrennon

Well-Known Member
haha @ 650x650cm, love the wishful typoing - just imagining the jungle of plants that can grow on that!!!! :bigjoint:

Gosh love the idea though!
Looking at your prototype, the plywood bottom does get me pensive though... how long is it going to be there before it gets, erm, integrated into the substrate I wonder? Do you plan on making a waterproof runoff tray under it? Possibly you could lose it completely then, just having a bottom layer of coarse material that will aerate from below too...
Just a thought there, I didn't really understand the bit about the trays and capillary mats?! haha
A fine weekend to you! :blsmoke:
The intention is to have a tray beneath catching runoff, with the capillary matting running from the tray, into and possibly around the soil to slowly soak the run-off back up. As said before, still very much work in progress and not exactly the highest priority ATM.
 

Colanoscopy

Well-Known Member
I've had a brief read of your postings today Don and Calli. I'm gonna have to come and have a re read this evening when I can sit down with a spliff and chill. This moving lark is too stressful. I'd fuck it all off for a mud hut at the minute
 

DonBrennon

Well-Known Member
I've had a brief read of your postings today Don and Calli. I'm gonna have to come and have a re read this evening when I can sit down with a spliff and chill. This moving lark is too stressful. I'd fuck it all off for a mud hut at the minute
Hope it all runs smoothly for ya bro.........gotta be a little exciting too, no?, quicker the move and all?
 

Colanoscopy

Well-Known Member
Hope it all runs smoothly for ya bro.........gotta be a little exciting too, no?, quicker the move and all?
So far it's running like clockwork mate if I'm honest. Between the Mrs writing lists and me doing what's on em anyway haha. We will be in by Wednesday but the decor needs attending too first. It's all well and good when I'm getting paid to decorate but it's shit when I'm paying lol.

And tiny cola's new favourite pastime is a really shrill squeaking cacophony. God bless mary jane
 
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