Hi all, I wanted to start a journal, in the spirit of having one more spot on the grass city where any random amount of comments, suggestions, and criticisms might be amalgamated. A year long hiatus from posting pictures of a timely relevance, and I have found some more pictures to impress you all with the challenges that I will fumble over before a decent crop might be achieved. they are not of the greatest quality but hey, it's a start. here's an exhaustive ''metadata'' : the larger plants are all clones, six in total that a friend donated my way. Met at the hydro store of all places LOL. one of them died when it was underwatered and is not in the images. the others had deeper roots apparently.. the living five are two smaller plants in flower, two flowering clones in veg (one of which has yet to pull into veg), and the tall plant in veg (ready to bloom imo). the larger plant in flower is a F-I from a co-op. Then theres the seven seedlings in veg. The large one is a tangerine dream, the medium three are ace of spades, and the small three are ''sticky bud'' a hybrid developed in a town near whistler, canada. In case you wonder where the other two spades and three TD's are, I failed to germinate them. my total germination rate is currently 7/18. Don't worry though, I believe I can hit %80-90 now. trial and error thing going on. Other thing's going on there in flower is transplant stress because they were just moved to the DIY smart pots yesterday. the root balls were too big so the coco isn't filled in the sides. Also I have been using neem oil for the last two weeks. I am hoping it will not stunt the plants, reducing their yield.
Welcome to the journals bro. I use neem oil 2x a week and try to be religious about it. Neem has other minerals and compounds in it that make the plants happy and IMO you won't stunt your plants. If I get lazy and don't spray, I'll pay for it in the flower room. I also will mix it up from time to time and spray them with either a lavender or a rosemary FPE. LD has been getting mite kill from spraying stinging nettles. It's my opinion that using an array of mite fighting tools keeps them from building up a resistance or tolerance to any one individual miticide. FWIW, there are several different botanicals that fend off mites and PM so you have a lot of choices. chunk
I'm looking into FPE's, theres a lot of useful information around here. having used the neem for a few weeks, I am feeling ready to apply a substitute type of insecticide as a coco drench. I haven't seen mites yet but I will inspect more closely. im hoping a little preemptory action will go a long way, and I can keep the flower corner perpetual. do you harvest the plants like lavendar or nettles, that are only growing out in the PNW during the summer, so you can use it to make fresh FPE throughout the year? or leave the bucket of FPE outside in a drum throughout the winter?
FA, I've just started the whole FPE thing early this spring. I have family property that's loaded with stinging nettles, I have my own honey hole of comfrey and have horsetail fern growing like crazy all over the place. I just returned from my brother's place this afternoon with close to 3 lbs of fresh lavender (2 varieties) There is wild yarrow growing all up and down I-5 so Ive got that covered. Right now I've just a 20 gallon plastic bushel bucket full of comfrey tea with plans of using a 55 gallon drum to make a syrup for use over the winter. LD gave me an FPE that was made with rosemary, scotch bonnet peppers and garlic that we've both used to spray for mites. If you can get to a Whole Foods. buy about 3-4 bucks worth of dried lavender flowers and cover with about 2 quarts of hot water (not boiling) and let it steep for a couple of days or until a root beer brown color. Strain out all of the plant material (very important) and store the infusion in the fridge. Start low with your dosage, 1 tbsp/ga as a foliar and check to see if there is sufficient mite kill. You may also notice new plant growth with a lavender spray. You can use up to a half cup per gallon but I recommend working up to make sure the infusion is not to strong. You can also do this same thing with rosemary or you can mix them up. Several of the culinary herbs have compounds that are known insectifuges so there are a lot of options. LD has even used his stinging nettle tea to kill mites. cheers. chunk
OK Chunk thanks for the replies! that's so cool that you have gathered a bountiful supply of those useful plants. the hot pepper and lavendar fpe sounds awesome. have you used stinging nettle FPE for its pyrethrins? or do you prefer the less harsh natural pesticide? I am guessing the lavender FPE is also useful as a soil drench for gnat larvae and baby mites? although it sounds like your mites live only on the leaves? I know where to find the stinging nettle and the lavendar, that grows wild in some areas and in my family's yard, so I can easily harvest it. I'm thinking it might be most efficient, considering I won't have space in my place for drums of FPE, to collect it in garbage bags and just take out several pounds of dried plant matter each time I make 2.5 gallon batches of the FPE. I'm also planning on making some home made lactobacillus culture using the rice and milk method....
8-10-11 update. Th gnats are all gone. last time I saw them was before a massive neem/mosquito bit application. plants are pulling out of gnat infestation nicely health wise. vegetating plants are coming along. side by side pic of two flowering clones taken at the saem time. New leaves showing on the slow gal (barely visible twisting out the side). pics of flowers going on week 4. Rooting into the new medium (frisked down to root balls and transplanted from plastic pots- were getting too hot) nicely. The VISC F-I especially. I watered them five days ago with bat guano and BAM phosphorous burn. Pulling out of it with a clear water flush two days ago. I'm going to use the humic acid next time I water them.. The blueberry is the only one of three that barely looks unaffected by the nute burn... that fourth small plant was looking droopy so I watered it with my vegetating water- some 7-7-2 fish mix, 9-5-1 neem meal, and 85% humic acid ph 6. It's going to green up a bit and take more root before it goes on its third week of flower.
I'll be updating with pictures later tonight. here's what's new though: i burnt my seedlings with neem foliar spray, my flowers are coming in nicely though. I've been trying to find some JOTI god bud clones to participate in the demonstration next month. I also created a home made root pot tutorial with pictures, it's in my sig. Now I'm going to take the purse sized mutts (Actually one of them is inbred so she is 'pure.') to the lake it's a beautiful day, and they love swimming.... i usually get soaked though. OK peace out!
yesterday i got back from a four day toure de olympics. too bad most of it's a tree farm. random thing there. any way i don't know if that's exactly correct but up to a 1/3 of seawater is ok? it'd be interesting to see if the 1/3 seawater per feeding would work or how it could. I dropped the ph meter into a bucket. apparently gdp induces some numbness. So for one watering, the ph was askew. Watered them because things seemed kind of dry, using a milwaukee meter. I'm inking about adding P to water next time, in addition to the kis kelp and humic acid i already add, but we'll see if i think it's necessary later. the bacillus was ready s i added it and am having a fermenting bucket to test out soon.
Wouldn't seawater create unnecessary salt build up? I know my babies are super sensitive to any salt build up especially form foilar feeding. Also If anything I would use your guano in your actual media mix or even a very light top dressing. As you know already it seems to burn very easily. If you still water with it maybe use half of what you did last time. Oh and very cool diy root pot +++rep!
Good to see you around Forbin. You've got a nice grow, if you're so close to harvest can we see some pics? You've got an awesome selection of plants growing, variety is something that is harder to achieve in micro unless you've got multiple spaces. I'll be subbed to hear the rest of what happens
update: blueberry will come down today. I've pulled around 5-8 buds off the tops in the last few days, where they were starting to 'dry out.' a combination of transplant and insect stress-- thousands of larvae gnat in plants. plant is holding water ok but the medium is very dry. It's in the dark now and when lights on i'll water it fully- give it 30 mins or so, and cut down. F-i is looking real stressed - translucent yellow leaves, apparent low bud density, pistils are twisting and browning at their ends - (IDK looks like stress to me). i've read that pulling dying leaves off can be useful so attempted pulling the leaves off like the way they normally come off easily when it's time- but they stuck on hard so I left them alone. she got a top dressing with some EWC and 0-5-0 guano hoping this will help out... the FI clone taken one week into flower is pulling nicely into veg, so we'll get another try at this started applying diatomaceous earth massively, due to a lack of immidiate solutions for the gnats burnt through a quart of dyna gro neem, botanical soap, and four mosquito dunks this month). started mini-training the hawaiians with a chopstick. and the TD is going to give her second and third cuttings soon. and last but not least the 3 ace of spades have pulled out of their shock of th last month. Thought they were done for but they each have two little sprouts at the bottom: thanks for stopping by!
Geez it sounds like both you and I are fighting the damn gnats! Except mine are in my tomatoes. Glad your Aces are coming out of it though. Just keep being persistent with your treatmens and dont give up! Have a good weekend Forbin!
pulling for you man, way to keep fighting for those plants. I had a gnat infestation this spring that took about a month to quell. Now I rarely see them, although I also appreciate how quickly they can repopulate...
yeah the first sticky showed sex. some pistils about two weeks ago. her features were noticably taller than the oher two although leaf size about the same. her growth rate's faster, and the other 2 are just recently showing pistils.