Hi!! I'm LadyLuckyBean and I have been a little curious about running auto's outdoors in the pacific northwest. Light dep means covering them in plastic and I don't want to pull tarp twice daily or risk having bud rot. Right now it's piss pouring rain at the end of august. So I signed up to try out some free auto beans from The Vault. I wanted to make it into hash as the end. I have some bubble bags and i wanted to do a dry sift as well. I am doing this journal to keep track of info for Jack at The Vault as well as for myself. I run No Till smarties on a SIP. I use cover crops and straw mulches. Um, its basically a water only soil recipe. I do add a couple things as I'll document along the way. Soil Recipe Used The soil mix I'm using is basically BAS's recipe and watering schedule. ⅓ each Sphagnum peat moss, pumice, oly fish mountain compost ½ cup each per cu ft kelp, crustacean or crab meal, and neem cake meal 1 cup each per cu ft glacial rock dust, basalt, gypsum, CaCO3 lime at 93% calcium carbonate to replace the oyster shell flour I don't use compost teas, bottled organic fertilizers or sparkle trich spray either. I use typical no till stuff like aloe, silica, fulvic acid, malted barley flour, kelp teas, stuff like that. I'm pretty big into top dressings and like to use comfrey, EWC, compost, chop and dropped living mulch, nettles, along with the kelp, alfalfa, and neem meals. I mixed this up on a tarp using Jerry's method of spreading out the soil one foot deep then applying amendments evenly across instead of my usual dump in a pile and mix technique. I get a bucket and add the entire amount of kelp, neem, and crusty meal and mix well. Then in another bucket I add all the rock dusts and mix well. Then i apply each bucket for a more even mixture. I think it's easier to mix this way. I like to mix with my feet and a garden hoe at first, then grab one end of the tarp by the corners and lift up trying to flip the soil to mix the bottom up towards the top. You go to all four sides doing this, then mix with feet and hoe again. Repeat some more until you're exhausted. This is the time you go and have a safety meeting to recharge for another mixing. To gauge how evenly I've mixed the soil, when I'm spreading out the stuff for the base soil, I put down peat, then compost, then aeration in layers. Then when I'm mixing, I can tell how well it's mixed by seeing how even the pumice is distributed.<br class="kix-line-break"><br class="kix-line-break"> I use HID lights; mainly HPS even for veg. I've been growing for around a year and a half but only switched to organic soil a year ago. I'm no expert but I'm no dummy. If you wanna learn more about how I grow, check out the No Till thread and some of the stickies in our organic growing forum. You can ask me questions too. I love questions. lol anyhoo, I hope this goes well. I would really like to throw some outdoors in the ground hidden in my landscaping. I'll get some pics up shortly. I germinated on Thursday the 27th of August. around 70 days from then it should be ready to harvest. All I know is that it is Alien OG x Triangle OG Kush Auto.
heres a list of info and threads that I've found awesome. Good websites to check out <a class='bbc_url' href='http://remineralize.org'>http://remineralize.org <a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/'>http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/ <a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.theunconventionalgardener.com'>www.theunconventionalgardener.com Acronyms collected from Gandalf <a class='bbc_url' href='http://forum.grasscity.com/topic/1322727-Organic-Growing-Acronyms#entry20378555'>http://forum.grasscity.com/topic/1322727-Organic-G... Threads about different subjects <a class='bbc_url' href='http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-medical-marijuana-growing/1033041-indoor-gardening-without-bottled-nutrients.html'>http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-medical-marijuan... <a class='bbc_url' href='http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1299862-no-till-gardening.html/page-1'>http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1299862... <a class='bbc_url' href='http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1245650-sst-sprouted-seed-tea.html'>http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1245650... <a class='bbc_url' href='http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1275083-beneficial-insects.html'>http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1275083... <a class='bbc_url' href='http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1151159-noobwannbs-self-wicking-smartpot-ghetto-setup.html'>http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1151159... <a class='bbc_url' href='http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1339168-symphytum-comfrey-growers-thread.html'>http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1339168... <a class='bbc_url' href='http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1277064-sourcing-organic-soil-mix-components.html'>http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1277064... <a class='bbc_url' href='http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1172831-making-kelp-tea.html/page-1'>http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1172831... <a class='bbc_url' href='http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/980786-silica-%E2%80%93-hidden-cost-chemicals.html'>http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/980786-... <a class='bbc_url' href='http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1168520-gimiks-library-organic-gardening-pdf-files.html'>http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1168520... Thanks for watching my show!! I hope you guys enjoy my garden!! I'm excited to show what I've learned so far and to continue learning about how this all works.
nice front row seat NA! glad to have ya! you'll have to stop me before i screw up these plants. nice save on the 3 gallons.
Hi LLB I'm just in the process of reading your "big beds" thread. (Soz about your problems ). And am trying to work thru some of your suggested reading. I'm a newb so have nothing to bring to your table but if I stand in the back and not make much noise can I stay?
oh my well you got a lot of reading to do! that thread is super long. most of it's jokes and silliness. you can also search by my posts somehow I think. that would save some time. hopefully those problems are gonna stay away. stupid mites...... !@#$%. you can stay and feel free to make noise just because you're a newb doesn't mean you don't bring anything to the table. pay attention to the big organic guys, read the stickies and you shouldn't have much problems. this soil mix is dummy proof and with some determination, you can learn anything. its not too hard as long as you don't have killer mites.
Awesome a female jerry. Subbed up and interested i too have these beans but have photos going and having trouble setting up shop atm for an auto run. Will be popping them asap. Good luck lady
Great dude. Has always helped me. First person i thought of when i read your posts. . too funny Cheers
I fill up a 3x3 tray with about two inches of water which gets kinda low and even can dry out but underneath each plant remains moist for quite a while and then it starts to dry out. With sips the top watering of teas causes overwatering issues and sometimes stinky stuff in your sip. I just got them and love it! I hate watering and I'm lazy so filling it up every week sounds awesome. It's just water too so I drag the garden hose in there and fill er up! Easy. Lazy. That shits sustainable. Sometimes you get tuckered out or need a vacation so these can get you by for quite a while. They create humidity but I have 17% during winter so it will help.
Oh I made it so the teas are converted to top dressings instead so you just lift up the mulch or sprinkle on clover instead of brewing and cleaning tea stuff. Easy. Lazy. Just the way it should be.
Hmm I have way too low of humidity also so I may do that lol! If the smart pots wick up the tap water that won't harm the soil?
Sorry for all the questions... lol... Can I top dress things like ful-power and coconut powder or should those at least get mixed into water and watered in?
Nope. Rotate pots twice a week. That's it. The soil loves it and it keeps perfect moisture for optimum oxygen levels. Roots go nuts. You'll see. So yes I'm going to get the powders but I have been just using my wand sprayer to top water. But I let the sip dry out first. That's kinda the pickle. Lol Fulvic has no powdered product that I know of.