My organic no-till grow

[asa.eco]

I recently set up a new growtent 60×80 cm, with 2 55l pots and one SF2000. Im doing no till and using only certified organic soils/fertilisers and amendments. To fill the pots i have used aprox. 40% local vermicompost from horse manure, 30% native soil mixed with homemade compost and 30 % pumice. I also added ground up quartz for the silicon. Watered with mycorrhizae and sowed a mix of cover crop – white clover, vicia sativa, vicia cracca and latyrus tuberosus (i collected the seeds myself); then the leafy greens ill be growing til the cannabis is still small: radishes, salad, spinach, basil… Its a real polyculture! Lastly i added feminised photoperiod Black Domina seeds. The plants are now on week 2, i went directly to flower (12-12 lighting) becuse i havent got a lot of space in the tent (… lets be real, its a big closet). Havent taken any pictures since there is not much to see (yet). Pics soon tho!

[Atom]

Do you cook soil at all? This is my 2nd year doing sub cools super soil recipe for my outdoor. It’s kinda a pain cooking it but seems like it does pretty good

[asa.eco]

What do you mean by cooking? Like actually heating it up or treating it like a kompost and let it heat naturally? i havent done anything like that, why and how do you do it?

[Atom]

Cooking is where you mix the ingredients and let it sit. Then mix once a week for 2 months.I’ve been making my own super soil and that’s the terminology that subcool used to describe it.

I did half my crop last year in it did great so I went balls to the wall did while crop this year. It worked out pretty good. I fed them nothing accept for and silica every other week, recharge and cal mag once a month. It’s crazy how it effects the flavor profile. Same plant I’m growing inside, but smells like fruity pebbles or some kinda fruit punch. 🤯

[Unholyfire]

Never used any of your items. Can’t wait for the photos. Good luck.

[Keith]

I haven’t read through yet but this is what I want to do. I have had a compost pile going all summer it’s almost ready but I keep adding grass clippings. I don’t really know enough about it yet but I definitely want to get into no til soil

[Keith]

Wouldn’t the leafy greens you’re going to grow in the soil take nutrients out? How much myco did you add? You add it before you cook it? I’ve never read anything about subcools super soil but I’ve read a little bit about living soil in general. Is the compost dirt and aeration enough or is there other things I’d want to add? I’ll look more stuff up but i would love to get your opinion about the whole thing.

[Somatek]

Leafy greens often grow shallow root systems and won’t compete with plants that have deeper roots, companion  planting is a whole topic onto itself without much know about cannabis specifically.  Strawberry growers often plant basil in the patches though as it improves the flavour of the berries, there’s all sorts of interesting interactions between plants, I’d suggest watching Smarty Plant if you want to get a glimpse of the modern understanding of plants and their secret lives/plots to take over the world.

[asa.eco]

I dont cook my soil at all, just mix it and sow the seeds. Ideally i would let the covercrops and N fixers grow for a bit before sowing cannabis, but since my jar is always empty, i couldnt wait. Why do u cook the soil, are there any benifits from it? I added the myco around the 2nd/3rd watering, to get it established real soon. And yes, the leafy greens do take out some nutrients, but i think that since my soil is packed with them + i will be constantly adding more nutrients, its a bit of a waste in space and light, especially since most of the plants i sowed (like salads and radishes) will be ready to harvest before the main crop gets too big.

[Atom]

Sorry for the late reply the notification thing isn’t working properly. I’m fairly new to the organic soil game, but from how I understand it cooking it helps break down the ingredients and makes it more available for plants. I’m sure there’s lots of different ways and mixes, I used subcools super soil.

[Somatek]

You two are talking about very different methods; subcools supersoil recipe uses a lot of inputs that need time to start breaking down and becoming available whereas you’re using finished composts and EWC made from horse manure which are readily available.  I imagine any bone meal or rock phosphates you’d be adding to your compost or vermiculture, not the soil mix before using.  Hope that helps you two understand the different contexts; you’re doing more of a conventional organic grow vs super soils which are essentially an organic fortified soil mix using a soilless medium as the base.

[asa.eco]

The compost + native soil + areation is enough, but you can add more stuff if u are worried. A really good source on notill/living soil is BuildASoil, they carry a lot of usefull products and they have a youtube series where they grow in a 10×10 and it is really helpfull for new growers. Go check them out!

[asa.eco]

The pics! The first one: the 2 pots of soil under the SF2000, then the pots up close and then the plants upclose.

[asa.eco]

[asa.eco]

Aaand the update: as u can see, the salads are really raging; i must have gone a little overboard with the seeds, i guess we’ll be eating salads for a couple days (i ate a mixed salad as lunch 2 times already) . U can also see the basil and the radishes coming in, the N fixers are a bit small but they have sprouted, unlike the cannabis in the left bed – since the black domina did not come out i sprouted a seed from some really tasty weed ive grown 2 years ago (got clones from a friend) – it tastes like fruity candy. I only had the one seed and it sprouted so 100% germination i guess – but since it isnt feminised im still a bit on edge about it. After most of the seed have sprouted i also added some grass clippings as mulch – the sides are drying out faster then the middle because i have fabric pots. I also did not have the proper DLI fort he first 2 weeks or so – but then i saw someone mentioning photone (the app) on the forum and i lowered the light accordingly – now im on week 3-4 so around 600 PPFD should do. I cannot post pics, it says server error, but will post them as soon as i can.

[Atom]

Your pictures not showing up my bro.

[asa.eco]

Yup, as i said when i try to post pics it just says: Web server is returning an unknown error – Error code 520
– Visit cloudflare.com for more information. Ive had this problem since they updated the forum. Idk what to do

[Atom]

Yeah idk that’s wierd. Are they jpg images? I get an error sometimes when I try to load an image strait from my maxsee microscope. I have to edit them to be able to load them.

[Brad104]

You definitely came up with an excellent idea for the cover , that is awesome

[Brad104]

That’s a fantastic idea that you are doing or following either way great gardening tip,Wish you nothing but the best with your grow.I really hope you get your pic’s uploaded.for it’s going to be great to see your grow

Thanks for the post

[asa.eco]

Jpg files, yeah, do u think converting the file type would help?

 

[Atom]

I had to move to a separate folder to get them to load. There pgn files not sure if that makes a difference.

[Somatek]

Hope you can figure it out, I’d love to see the grow as having low light crops as a cover crop that you can eat is really cool.

[asa.eco]

[asa.eco]

[asa.eco]

[asa.eco]

Sooo i can finally upload pics, here are the pics from about 2 weeks ago, and as u can see the salads are really raging, but i do my best to keep them down. Sadly the left plant – the smaller one turned out to be male so ill try to get the max yield from the 2nd one. I started low stress training and did a little large leaf trimming so it can really spread across the canopy and then ill use a scrog screen (thats why the bamboo sticks are there). I havent taken pics for some time now, but definitely will as soon as possible now that i can post them again.

[Somatek]

What kind of salad greens are you growing?  That always sucks finding a male but just means the other has more spare if trained properly

[asa.eco]

The salad is from my own seed, we call it ‘berivka’ where im from, its a salad that doesnt produce heads, u cut the leaves over and over again, since thy regrow in no time. Apart form that i have basil, dill and i am adding spinach this week – in the bed with the male. I am also keeping the male for pollen, ive put a plastic bag around the flowers and will chop the plant as soon as the flowers – pollen sacks open. Its a bit of a risk but well, i hope the plastic seal holds and i get some pollen, otherwise this round will just be a lot of seeds. Honestly i just want to preserve the genetics of this strain, since this plant is from the only seed i had, but i also just want to see if its possible to avoid pollination when growing in a small space. A little experiment i guess

[Somatek]

That sounds interesting, I’m going to have to look it up as I enjoy different vegetables and also hate growing lettuce as I prefer greens you can cut and keep harvest.

If you use a plastic bag the high humidity will reduce the viability of the pollen.  Paper bags work well though as long as their tied lightly around the branch.  You’ll need to open them to check to see if the flowers have opened and dropped pollen, just make sure all fans are off first.  As branches open and drop their pollen they can be cut off while the bags tied tightly so they can be taken elsewhere to collect the pollen.  When you’re selectively pollinating the lower branches (that way you can harvest the prime tops and leave the lowers to ripen as seed) just make sure all the fans are off and left off until the pollen has had a chance to impregnate the ova’s before the tent is sprayed down to kill any stray pollen so it doesn’t get blown around to pollinate randomly.  Hope that helps figure out a plan of action.

[asa.eco]

Thanks, i completly forgot that high humidity is bad for the pollen, ill change the bag and def turn off the fan. I wont be pollinating this round, im just collecting pollen, but when i do ill probbavky just polinate before the lights turn off and turn off the ventilation for the night, in my small space the humidity is often at a 100% at night if i dont vent it out so i dont have to spray anything, just let the plant and soil humidity do its thing. Ill probbably cross this pollen (purple urkle i think) with the white widow im running next round.

[Brad104]

How do you like the white widow strain, have you grew it before,I do like the plant structure where it’s big stalked and it produces big buds for me.I just didn’t find it as strong as others I do like it and I only got to grow 2 or 3 last time and I wasn’t sure if it was something that I done,so how do you like the strain, and is your very strong smoke? Thanks in advance

[Somatek]

If you’re talking about that clone you said was a mutant then general stress, which expresses as reduced leaflets will also significantly reduce the quality of the smoke.  There’s also no consistency or uniformity to any seeds, especially something that’s been around as long as white widow and is now in many forms like your photoperiod vs what I assume with be an auto version based on @Asa.Eco current plants.

[Brad104]

I appreciate you for clearing that up for me, I knew it had to be something and that makes total sense,they are stressed out.I didn’t know that,thank you for the information it’s most appreciated bro.

[Somatek]

I personally wouldn’t trust high humidity to kill pollen, we’re talking about plants that have evolved in jungles where high humidity is the norm.  Although I’ve equally never tried it so maybe it’ll work perfectly well and be easier.  Good luck and hope you succeed.  What are you hoping to achieve by crossing it with White Widow or are you just trying to keep the genes alive by crossing it with the next crop that’s lined up?

[asa.eco]

So i collected the pollen by chopping the male and shaking the pollen out of the sacks. The pollen is now drying in a dark space, itll be ready to freeze soon. I havent really grown white widow before – i have photoperiod femd seeds, and ill only be doing the crossing to preserve the genetics of the male.

[asa.eco]

Meanwhile th black domina is almost through the stretch, and as u can see its almost at 75% of canopy, which is good to know for the next round, cuz ive decided to only use 1 bed at a time for cannabis so the other bed can rest/be used up by vegetables. To fill up the canopy 100% ill just veg longer or use 2 plants – if i have clones. I also defoliated 2 times to clean the legs up,  took 2 clones and LST a little to spread out the canopy even more. I cleaned up the rest of the salads (i have eaten more then enough) and took out the first radish, and a couple spinach leaves (it isnt visible beacuse its in the back) In the space occupied by salads i planted more radishes and some arugula. I topdressed the right bed with bad salad leaves and the cannabis trim  and i also added ground up chesnuts as a seed meal (leftovers with worms in them which i couldnt use in the chestnut flour i was making) and topped it all with grass clippings.  I started adding FFE(fermented fruit extract) from figs every second watering.

[asa.eco]

[asa.eco]

This is the pic from 2 weeks ago, when i though they were about done with stretch, and before i trimmed.

[asa.eco]

And the pic from yesterday, also before i hacked it back

[asa.eco]

So i havent been active here a lot since i had a lot going on but here is the update; i had i light leak (or still have it). Since i basicly had my plant on 12-12 since the first of oct. i should be around week 9 – around where i planned the harvest, but you can see that the flowers are around week 5 (and maybe some signs of reveging). I ve changed my set up since the begining first from having no light-block on the sides of the doors of the closet to just some aluminum foil, and now ive added some styrofoam to block the light some more. I hope the light leak was in the begining of flower and not this whole time and i really hope i havent got a leak now.

[asa.eco]

I dont know what the genetic looks like (black domina) so im not sure if the huge leaves near the flowers are normal or the result of the reveg, but either way i reduced the light time to like 11h30min, just to be sure its flowering, since im completly out of room, the tallest flowers already got leaf and budburn so i had to chop a couple leaves and also one bud 😐 cuz it was allbrown. i also cleaned the lowers and the leaves for the last time (i may go once more), and have been water only for the exeption of the ocasional myco / FFE.

[asa.eco]

The plant is looking beutifull across the board, (exept the burned tops)  no nutrient issue whatsoever, its puting out a lot of white hairs and the buds are getting thicker. I think i might get really huge colas – the buds on the biggest branches are almost connected. The odors were also really starting to come in – just that typical weed/fuel/funk smell, nothing really specific yet.

[Author]

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