loco's organic grow

sorry if this is the wrong spot to be posting this, but really only visit the organic and led lighting sections, so figured I'd post it all up here. haven't been keeping notes on anything, so hopefully this will help me start being a bit more organized as well as get ideas and advice moving forward with everything. this is only my 4th grow and first using regular seeds and I am far from an experienced grower, but hopefully someone finds this of interest.

only have space for a small 2x2.5 ft tent right now. I'm currently using 2 high lights led boards. I just bought and set these up, so my first run with them. I vegged the plants under some cob leds, but these plants have been under the high lights boards since the flip.

the soil I'm using has been used and reused, both for marijuana as well as other plants over the past two years. I had just mixed up a new fresh batch of soil, but decided to use the recycled mix instead. I just mixed in some ammendments and fresh compost/ewc and let it sit for a bit before planting the seeds in it.

sorry for the long rant without actually going into much detail on anything, but ask away if you have any questions on the set up or anything.

so I started with 4 seeds, 2x gps sundance kid and 2x bodhi more cowbells. ended up with all 4 being female. I had to take one plant out as I didnt train or lst these plants at all. I have only taken minimal fan leaves off. so currently I'm left with two sundance kids and one more cowbell. the other more cowbell was looking great too, in a couple pics, but was the shortest of the bunch and was trying to keep the plants more relative in size.

the seeds all went in the soil around January 1st. I left them in the solo cups for two weeks and then transplanted the into their pots they are in now. two are in 3 gallons and the other remaining plant is in 2 gallons. I vegged for a little over a month on a 17/7 schedule and flipped to 12/12 on February 9th (only know this based on the dates from the few pictures I took so far). I am pretty much water only, but sometimes add a little something since they are in small containers. I've done a couple coconut powder/agsil and then one fish hydrolysate and one kelp/alfalfa tea so far I think. I top dressed some fresh ewc/fresh soil mixed with some kelp/frass/oyster shell right around the flip.

sorry if you've read through a lot of my ramblings in other places. a lot of this is just repeating some of my recent posts, but like I said, trying to get myself more organized as well.

most recent picture is from yesterday, 14 days from the flip. sorry, I'm terrible at taking pictures and my phone is shitty as well.

so 3 weeks from the flip and things still looking good to me. I was out of town this weekend, so that threw my waterings off a little, but plants look great and have definitely started to pack on some frost. Tallest one getting a little close to the lights, like 14 inches, but no major signs of stress. I'll get the extension put on the tent in the next couple days and raise it a little, but should be good until my next day off i think. These high lights led boards, https://growlightsaustralia.com/product/high-light-225w-max-uv-3000k/ , are killing it as of now though. I know it's still early and plenty of time for me to make a mistake, but I'm optimistic for a quality harvest. The bodhi more cowbells in the back right corner, the tallest of the three, is probably the best looking plant right now in my opinion.

Since I was out of town and messed with the watering, I decided to fill all the pots with a fresh ewc from the bin. Mixed in the pumice I was using as mulch from the top of the pots, along with 2 tsp of frass and 2 tbsp of kelp. Ended up being 2 gallons which i mixed in a 2 gal smartpot i had laying around. I watered all this in with a small dash of coconut powder, 1/2 tsp for 1.5 gallons of water.

As always, advice or suggestions always welcomed. I'll try and get some pictures of the worm bin later this week as well. going to flip the worms to a fresh bin.

Hey Loco, looking good. How hard are you driving the boards? And what are your temps and rh?

Exciting start, best of luck for an amazing harvest and trouble free grow.

Rocket Soul said:

Hey Loco, looking good. How hard are you driving the boards? And what are your temps and rh?

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thanks man. right now they are pulling 180 watts from the wall on an hlg-185-48a. temps and rh fluctuate day to day with nothing really controlling it other than the exhaust. temps are generally between 78-81 and rh in between 45-55 with lights on.

was over at the parents house doing a little yardwork and decided to turn the two compost piles real quick since it's starting to warm up again. I mixed in a few cups of kelp/alfalfa mix I had on hand as I was turning. other than a few ammendments/little biochar/basalt, the piles are all leaf and yard litter.

I plan on using this compost as a base for a few new worm bins (uncle Jim's has a pretty good deal going now with code "greatdeal" and a $70 purchase). figured I'd get a couple more new bins going since I am long overdue harvesting my current bin anyways. I'll get some pics up of the worm bin soon. after I get the bins set up, I'll use the rest of these piles in the outdoor garden bed.

finally got around to setting up some new worm bins today. the worms I ordered should be here in the next two days. I went with bigger totes this time. I used 27 gallons instead of the 19 gallon ones I used on my first bin.

I used the compost from the outdoor piles as bedding instead of coco coir or peat for these bins. i mixed in roughly a cup of basalt and a half cup of st George black rock dust into each bin. I had a little extra pumice and bu compost, so mixed these in as well. after all that, I added a 1/2 cup each of neem and oyster shell. a lot of this is probably unnecessary, but hoping the end result pays off.

the two bedding totes are sitting in the same size tote on little drain props to keep them above whatever leachate drains through.

some pictures of it all and a couple of the bin I will be harvesting soon. forgot to set up a fresh bin for them, so will get to that in the next week or so.

also here's some pictures of the girls 4 weeks since the flip. everything seems to be going well still. got the lights raised the last two inches i could go up, so now they are 14 inches from the top of the tallest plant. i can put the extension on sometime, but just letting it roll for now until I see negative signs. Just plain water since the top dressing.

week 5 from flip today. Gave them one watering with a little coconut water powder 1/2tsp and agsil less than 1/8tsp. Otherwise straight tap water on other waterings. Still haven't put up the extension, keep making excuses and being lazy, but it's coming soon.

Got the worms on thursday and they seem to have settled in pretty well. Threw in the first scraps yesterday and hoping things start to take off soon.

Nice garden

Your efforts on using your own fresh compost will be rewarded! Awesome

time for the week 6 update. Finally got the extension put on, was a fiasco with the plants remaining in the tent, but got it done. The tallest cola is now sitting right at 16 inches under the lights. The other two tops are now around 21-22 from the tops. really think I should have done this a couple weeks ago, but work's been crazy and at least finally got around to it.

ounevinsmoke said:

Your efforts on using your own fresh compost will be rewarded! Awesome

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Thanks, I'm hoping I can start to find some more time to get outside and work on some outdoor garden/compost projects. I'm hoping to get hooked up with one of the local craft breweries around here and start incorporating their spent grain into my yard litter compost piles. I had access to spent grain when in Colorado, and got a few 55 gallon barrels (maybe 45 gallons of grain in them). Worms loved the grain and the mycellium explosion when that was added to some bins was awesome. The smell was really strong for a couple weeks and my small bins there needed turning every day for a week, then every other day for another week or so, but eventually calmed down. Should be a little easier with these pallet style "bins" I have going now. Hoping to get a few more sections of pallets thrown up, think 5-6 sections would be ideal so I can hopefully start a flowing system from one end to the next instead of one large pile.

7 weeks now and still moving along. just threw a handful of ewc on top of each pot and watered with a tsp kelp meal that sat for 24 hours.

on overnights for the time being, so snapped a few shots of the girls waking up this morning. I decided to add like 1/8tsp epsom and 1/2 tsp of oyster shell to each pot and will water it in later tonight before work again. Went real light on these, but don't want to do too much at this point. definitely going to start working on my lst game next grow, lots of room for improvement. Hope everyone is staying well though..

8 weeks now and have done plain water since the kelp tea. wont be adding anything else and continuing the plain water from here til the end. the more cowbell strain is by far the best looking plant, nice dense buds. the sundance kids are more leafy and airy in the buds. everything was done the same to all three strains, so think the enviornment/soil suited the bodhi genetics more so. all in all just excited for a harvest in the near future.

went on a little spending spree and bought a few things to play around with (arcadia t5 6%uvb bulb/fixture, some greensand/gypsum, and a couple gallon fermenting jars). going to re-ammend the mixes a little and see how the t5 fits with my led build. thinking I might try to squeeze another grow in before the lease is up, but we'll see how this harvest all plays out.

loco41 said:

8 weeks now and have done plain water since the kelp tea. wont be adding anything else and continuing the plain water from here til the end. the more cowbell strain is by far the best looking plant, nice dense buds. the sundance kids are more leafy and airy in the buds. everything was done the same to all three strains, so think the enviornment/soil suited the bodhi genetics more so. all in all just excited for a harvest in the near future.

went on a little spending spree and bought a few things to play around with (arcadia t5 6%uvb bulb/fixture, some greensand/gypsum, and a couple gallon fermenting jars). going to re-ammend the mixes a little and see how the t5 fits with my led build. thinking I might try to squeeze another grow in before the lease is up, but we'll see how this harvest all plays out.

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Looks great.

DonPetro said:

Looks great.

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thanks man. I think I first read about insect frass in some of your posts, which got me to buy some to try out. I appreciate you checking out my little log because I remember reading through a lot of your posts and gathering a lot of information from them, so for that I thank you.