AK’s Frosty Fields

Welcome to my first grow journal! I’ve been wanting to do a journal for a couple years at least, but never really had the time or motivation to do so. I’ll try and keep up on it and do one update a week for my records and for anyone who might want to follow, learn or tell me how i should be doing it...lol. I’ve been growing for almost a decade and a few months over a year ago I started doing no-till thanks to MOFO’s thread. It really helped me just do what seemed right and make the switch to organics. Let me just say, I love it! I’m sure I could ramble about it for way to long, so let’s just skip it. My grow room is in my basement and it measures out at 11’ x 8’ and is just over 7’ tall. I split it into two rooms. One for veg and one for flower. So....I call them the bloom room and the veg room, cause it’s been that way for sooo long. The bloom room is 5’x8’ and the veg is 6’x8’. When I started no-till I planted in 25gal fabric pots and then after a while i went down to 15gal fabric pots so I could move them from the veg room into the bloom room when I wanted. It worked but when the plants got big they would dry out the pots too fast for my liking. And if you know living soil you know it shouldn't dry out. Before my last cycle I went ahead and bought a 4’x4’ living soil bed from Grassroots and installed Blumats like Joshua Steensland has his setup except i use maxi carrots and a 5gal res. It worked/works awesome! So I ordered up another bed and put it together today. Mixed some new soil and put the rest of my 15gal fabric pots into it. The soil I use is Coots or MOFO’s from the forum on this site No-Till Gardening: Revisited. I used glacial rock dust from a fairly nearby glacier instead of Basalt. Alaska. I also added a cup of oyster shell flour per cuF. When i was done filling the bed i amended my old soil on top with neem, kelp, MBP, and a very small amount of insect frass. I spread some seeds in the bed including white clover, basil, parsley, peas, and a couple beans and watered everything in. The soil mix works great and I will be using a soil savvy test soon to see what it may need or not need sometime in the future. Before my last cycle started I also switched to LED’s. I use two lights per bed/ room. Horticulture Lighting Group 260 Watt XL Quantum Board LED Kit V2 in 3000k. I also have a small HLG 65 V2 in 4000k for my Aloe and clones in the veg room. So far I love them and would recommend them to anyone. Now that i have two rooms and enough light to flower in either one, i will start to flower in both of them. The veg room will be called room #1 and the flower room will be room #2 from now on. Cycling the rooms of course, me and my wife believe in staying legal for our state. Alaska allows for 6 plants per person, no more than 3 flowering and no more than two adults per household. So i like to stay below our limit of 6 and 6. When i filled my bed today i had to chop my plants down. They were kinda like mother plants due to not being able to move them into room #2 anymore. So i took clones of some my cultivars (AK48, WWxBB, and Orange Banana Kush) about a month ago and have them in my bloom room vegging out in 3.5x3.5" pots now. I also have a seed started of B.O.G's Sour Grape started in a solo cup. The next cultivar I'm going to flower is going to be in room #2 and it will be my WWxBB. I'm going to do a mono crop this time. Normally i do at least two strains at a time to have more variety of smoke but i believe it'll produce more and probably cycle the room faster doing a mono crop. The phenotype i have of WWxBB doesn't produce a lot but makes a really good quality smoke and thats what the wife and i love most "quality". I took clones of the cultivar i want to bloom in room #1 today before i chopped it down and spread its remains on top of the 4x4 bed. It's a "strain" i picked up as a clone at a dispensary, its called "AK Blackberry". I've smoked it before and it's some good quality smoke for sure. I believe it won Alaska best indica back in 2016. Anyways i haven't flowered this strain yet and am soooo ready to get some more flower from it. Due to the fact the dispensary who sells the clones stopped selling its flowers. Damn shame! I think i'll end my first post now due to the fact my back hurts and I'm tiered from playing with dirt all day...LOL. I took some pics of my progress today and will get them up in my next post. But, there isn't a lot to hoot and holler about yet because everything is still small...lol.

 

Ok, so here is room #1 with its new bed. I opted for the bed with trellis fittings. Then I ordered extra 1” 4-way fittings from amazon for a second trellis net. (I will be using this setup in both rooms) With the trellis frames up it really made centering the lights perfectly an easy task. The small rope/ string hanging from my lights is for keeping the lights the ideal distance from the plants. Which is anywhere from 18-30” depending on the age of the plant. The plant next to the humidifier is my sensitive plant. Love that little plant as it really is sensitive and it also puts out some small pink flowers every once in a while. The flowers remind me of the tree’s from a Dr. Suess book...lol. The planter box next to it is where I just started a new hurb garden. It won’t be staying in here to long. The bucket is my chair. I installed a resealable lid on it so I can keep my malted barley grain in there. Works like a charm. The humidifier is cheap and the smaller one I had took a dump just after a year. The one in the pic does the job just fine but I’m sure it won’t get too much use with a large bed in the room now. When I installed my first bed into the bloom room it raised the humidity to an excellent range. I almost didn’t even need a humidifier except for the beginning stages of plant life. The aloe plants are for the garden and my family. It really is an awesome medicinal plant! I recently transplanted them into new/ more pots due to all the babies the few I had produced. All my water is filtered through a small boy filtration system. Even though Alaska has some of the best water in the country they still put chemicals in there. I know the small boy won’t pull out the fluoride but at least I can get the chloramine and some of the rusty sediment from the old pipes In my city. In my next post I will show room #2 and some more of my setup.

 

I’m back for an update. Room 2 is pretty much the same as 1 just a little smaller as I stated before. The Blumat reservoir is setup at 3ft high, it seems to do the job just fine. So that’s where I will be setting it at in room 1 too. The other day I found the R/R carrot running so I opened it, let it run and then reset it to one tighter than a holding drip. I installed my moisture sensor and it’s coming back up to my target of a 100. When it gets where I want it I’ll reset it to a holding drip. The bed is starting to sprout everywhere and the cover crop is growing back pretty strong. Yesterday I cut all the barley grass in there cause it was getting to tall for my liking. So today I took my 4 little babies (I watered them this morning) and spaced them out in the bed. Every hole I dug up looked heathy and alive with castings, worms and some soil mites. Not bad for one cycle. I sprinkled some fungi on them and the hole after fitting them in the wholes. While I was transplanting I noticed the drippers where under all the grass I trimmed up. So I pulled them up and repositioned them where I saw fit. I finished it up with resetting the mulch, watering them in with some plain water and then measuring them. They are all right around 6 inches. They were a little too cold when cloning and they took longer than normal to root. That’s why I think they aren’t as healthy as they should, but they are coming out of there funk. I ordered up some supplemental lights a little while back and got them the other day. I wanted to use them this time around and at least keep track of what they might be helping on or not helping on. I will only keep these in room 2 to try and keep a control...lol. I know there are to many variables, but let’s find out if I can come to a conclusion.

 

The rooms are doing ok. A lot of the clover seeds are sprouting from the new bed in room 1. I have been lightly top watering both the beds at least once every couple days if not everyday, just to try and help the seeds until they get established. My rooms/plants and I seem to prefer a mostly living mulch over a dead one so far. It seems to keep the soil food web cycling at all times. So I try and get everything up and going as fast as I can (when possible). I checked on the AK blackberry clones today and they got dry since yesterday’s light spraying of the cubes. Popped some out of the tray after watering them and they have rooted! Now I know they clone well, only took 7 days according to my Bob Ross calendar of notes. I need to get the blumats setup in here soon. The little WWxBB plants in room 2 have all grown about an inch if not more since the last update and a some pea and/or bean plants have started taking a likening in the bed too. I turned the lights up in here to 200W each yesterday. Doing so brought the temps up to the low 80’s in the middle of the room and mid 80’s in the back. It’s definitely a little more dry in here now too. (Too bad my other humidifier stopped working a while ago) I can tell the mulch dried out some and most of the seedings are doing noticeably better near the drippers. The lights were at 30” and the actual leaf temps checked with a meter were averaging out at 80-81. I raised the lights a couple inches dropped the temp a couple degrees and leaf temps dropped to 77-78. The plants are already starting to perk up after an hour. Things are slowly doing better day by day as everything gets dialed in and grown up. Once the plants get established in here good the humidity stays steadily above the 50’s. So I’m not too worried about humidity now. The R/R carrot is still set to high and the moister sensor has stopped at 74 so I tighten it another step. I might just have to pull the carrot and put some CSPM in there and reset it. I’m keeping an eye on it still. Tomorrow I think I’ll harvest some worm castings and start brewing a tea for the beds. It’s been a while since I have and I’m sure it will help the new little ones and the bed to come to life a little faster.

 

The plants are doing good in the old bloom room. They really started to take off a couple days ago. The two in the front are bigger than the ones in the back. I’m sure it’s due to the blumat and the the runner I had. I ended up having to pull it and put some moist peat in the hole. I reset it to two past a holding drip. The moisture is slowly coming back to where I want it. I guess it could be due to some micro climate issues in the back there, the fan blows that direction and it ends up bouncing off the wall. It is always warmer back there than the front too. I guess I will end up finding out in the long run. Some of the cover crop is coming in pretty decent and this morning I had a bite of some parsley...lol! I installed another timer in here for the red lights and plugged one in finally. They seem to work good. For now I’m going to just run the one because they aren’t really setup and hanging properly. I have it set to come on an hour after lights on and turn off an hour before lights off. I’m going to end it here and I will probably do another update tomorrow for the other room. I started to setup the blumats in there today but I have other things to tend to before I can finish it up.

 

So here is the next update. I installed the blumat system in room one and transplanted my four AKblackberry clones in the soil. This time around I put a little cspm in the hole before the final install of the blumat carrots was done. I also put the reservoir at four foot, just cause that’s what the 2x3 is at when cut in half. Why not? The plants are struggling a little in here. The starter mix I made doesn’t seem to be very good and is a little too hot or not of at least one thing or another. But they are starting to snap out of it already. After everything was installed and transplanted I watered the bed to get it to my moister target. Then I will reset my blumats. In room two the plants are on a roll now and are growing fast! In both rooms the temps, leaf temps and humidities are staying steady and near optimal VPD levels. The bean plant is going crazy and it is going to need a trim very soon. I went ahead and installed the first trellis net in here too. I haven’t used this feature for the beds yet and I found It was remarkably easy as the 3 1/2 inch trellis netting fit over the outer pipes with a decent stretch. I then trimmed it up and it secured it nicely with string. After I finished with that I top fed the plants with some MBP, full power, coco and silica. I figure once all the plants start to fill the first trellis I will flip the switch and start flowering them. I’m not to sure if I want to top them or not as they are branching out beautifully already. What’s your opinion? Anyways leave a comment if anyone wants, later.

 

Here is the next update. The newest bed and blumats seem to be dialed in, the moisture sensor has settled in the 115 range. I added some mulch in here too. It’s been long over due and I’m sure it’s the reason the cover crop and plants are still so small. No biggie though this is a home grow. It does disappoint a little bit as the cycling/ soil food web isn’t really going strong yet. After adding the mulch I fed every plant in my house some home made worm casting tea. That’ll help get the food web to start cycling. The babies in here are all around the 11” mark except the the one on the bottom left. Not sure what it’s deal is could’ve been a hot spot in the soil mix, but it does seem to be coming out of it the last couple days. As far as room two goes the plants are doing good and are growing at least an inch a day if not more. I have noticed some small amount of very slight yellowing in some of the larger fan leaves. It could’ve been the worm tea/ top watering. Maybe too much water and/or to much nutrition. I do see some minor tip burn and will be keeping a close eye on them. I might have to use the Soil Savvy test kit soon to see what it shows. I have been tucking the tops off to the side instead of topping them and it’s filling the trellis fast. I raised the lights a couple inches and the old hydrofarm par meter is reading in the 500 range. I started some clean up underneath last night to help get some needed air flow. It was really packed down there and I’ll do some more lollipoping later this week for clones before I flip them to 12/12. I don’t want them to go too much further because I know they will out grow there head room fast if I let them. This phenotype of WWxBB normally has about 100% stretch in my experience. So later this week I’ll have another update for the clones.

 

So I have a lot of growth since last week in room 2. I’ve been tucking the tops under to the next square all week. I took clones and lollipoped the plants on the 22nd/ Friday and it didn’t really faze them. But I did notice all the plants are showing a little sign of some sort of stress. I’m thinking it’s a couple things hunger and the lights might have been to close. I fed everything some kelp and neem tea yesterday and raised the lights up. Busted out my par meter and set the lights in at just under 500. Dropped my leaf temps down to 75 and the plants seemed to respond very well. Today I finished installing the red lights in here. It boosted the total par reading up above 500 so I raised the lights a little bit more. I believe and have always had better results with “less is more”. My first room is still coming out of it kinda slow. The temps in here were kinda high so I dropped them and got the leaf temps back down to 75. They really seemed to snap out of it this morning and are showing new light green growth. I have been dialing in the blumats in here still and think it’s almost perfect now. If I scratch away the mulch in both my beds I’ll find my co-workers getting down and dirty for me. Gotta love the biology! I bought a bag of KIS Organics water only soil mix for my clones when they root. The last small batch of soil I made sucked. I guess I’m bad at making small batches Whatever... I know Tad has his shit on point so I don’t have to worry about it. I’m a Patreon for his YouTube/ podcasts and recommend everyone listen to the knowledge he has shared. Amazing content! Here are some picks of the rooms.

 

I flipped the lights in room two to 12/12 last Friday (22nd). They are doing there thing and stretching pretty good now on there first week of flower. A lot of them are starting to show there first couple white hairs already and I’ll be trying to keep up on the light hight in here so they don’t get to close. They are drinking a lot of water now. Yesterday I took 4 small samples of soil in here, mixed them up in a bowl and used it for a soil savvy test. Which I mailed immediately. I am very curious to see what it says. Today I went ahead and installed the second trellis net in here. I don’t want them to get to tall and it turn into a chore or possibly damage any plants when installing it. The first room isn’t as happy. They are slowly growing but they are looking over fed and a little stressed. It is a new bed and I’m sure over time it’ll start to do better. I did trim up the bottoms a little bit for some air flow. I’ll be sending a soil sample out of this bed in the next few days to help see what might be the cause. As far as biology in here goes. Today I noticed there is an over abundance of tiny white soil mites running around everywhere. They are on all the blumats, moister sensor and also seem to be going after the water in the res. Not too sure what the meaning of this is and will be reading into it. I’m thinking the book “Life in the soil” might help give me some insight as to the meaning of all the mites. Maybe too much fungi or something? My clones are doing good and about 1/3 of them are rooted already, yesterday it was only 3. I’ll probably transplant some tomorrow into small pots. Anyways until next week

 

I got my soil test results and man my soil is off the charts in a bad way. It’s high in almost everything except P and some of the micronutrients are lacking like manganese, zinc and boron. So to fix this problem I went and purchased a bottle of liquid micronutrients by DTE. I didn’t really want to use it because of the other nutrients in it (N and K). So I went on the hunt for some TM-7 per a recommendation from a friendly fellow grasscity grower from the no-till thread. Unfortunately i couldn’t find it anywhere locally. So to remedy my problem of low micronutrients I have switched to unfiltered tap water and top fed with a one third strength of the liquid micronutrients. The plants do seem to be doing a little better this week and they probably will do better once they reach the new soil mix in the lower half of the bed. The tops of the plants that are flowering in room 2 are starting to get into the low 600 PAR range. Because I stopped raising the lights. The soil samples I took are from about 6” depth. That means the soil is mainly from my old 15 gal pots and will eventually even out in the whole bed. Which will still be over fed I’m sure but will get lower over time with plants taking it out of the system. I’ll have to keep an eye out for pests with the plants being over fed. Im sure they will be weak for a while until everything balances out and gets right. Here are some pics. Until next time, peace.

 

Ahh man! Red Alert in the grow room last night. I found a couple leaves with some spider mites on them. Pulled out the scope and sure as a bear shits in the woods, there they are. Little Muther Fu*^#er’s! So I began by pulling fan leaves off in the veg room. (only place I have found them so far) After getting the majority of the fan leaves off, in the trash and outside. I sprayed the room and the plants down very well with my normal IPM spray (neem/aloe/agsil). Then I installed new filters on my intake fans from outside and put a filter in between my two rooms. I’m assuming they came in from my intake fan as I found the filter was no longer in its correct position for the old veg room. Today I continued the fight and went to the store and purchased a couple bags of lady bugs, a new propagation tray, and some raisins. I made a nice little home for the ladybugs. I put two small plates in the tray one with cotton pads for water and one with the raisins for food. Then I took an old dome I had laying around and sealed one opening and left the other one simi open for them to escape if they want. This will hopefully keep a place for them to continually reproduce. I also cleaned my fan and turned it up a setting to make it more windy. Then I dropped the temps a few degrees to help keep the rooms a less desirable environment for the mites. After about three hours the lady bugs are flying around everywhere and I’m already starting to see them mate. I am also already starting to see a decrease in my soil mite population in here too. I guess they are fast. I have been keeping an eye on the soil mites as they are always on top of my blumat carrots. Not any more...lol! I did take about a half a bag (700-800) of the ladybugs and put them in the flower room. I also sprayed the bed very lightly so they had water. I didn’t want to defoliate the flower room until around week 4 of flower, but I’ll dont think I want to risk waiting that long. So within the next few days I will probably get that done. Now that I know there is too much nutrients in my soil I planned on adding all my leaves in my compost pile outside or just feeding them to my worms. I figured it will help get the excess out of the soil faster. The plants are doing good in both the rooms even with the minor deficiencies and major toxicities that are going on in the soil. So I’m just chilling at the moment and letting nature do it’s thing. I really hope the mites don’t really catch a hold and do any major damage. I will definitely be staying on top of things as I normally do. But this late in the game of life I have learned to just roll with the punches as there is no way to always have everything go perfectly. As a grower we will always run into issues. It’s how we deal with them and learn from them that makes us good growers. Until next time, bust of luck to you. “If anyone is even watching this thread”

 

I agree and thanks for letting me know I’m not the only person in here. I have tried ladybugs in the past and your right they won’t do a lot to the kill all the spider mites. But, I do think they will help a little until the calvary arrives. Awesome, I was already looking into this company as a local nursery told me they use them also. About 4 months ago I purchased a lemon tree and it ended up having mites on it. I didn’t see them until it was too late and to make a long story short it almost killed the tree. I ended up taking it back and exchanging it as it was a $125 tree that came with mites. When I got the new one they had a ton of predatory insects in the greenhouse. So I asked who they use as an insectary and they told me the same place. The new one had mites on it too and It took about a month of spraying it down to make sure they didn’t take hold and survive. So this morning I ordered some Amblyseius Andersoni and some Neoseiulus Californicus mites to combat the little devils. The one and only good thing about the whole situation is that i caught it early. I only found 7-8 leaves with damage and/ or mites on them, but I do know how fast they can multiply and spread.

 

IKR! It looks like the two spotted in the one pic doesn’t it? Trust me, I’ve been looking for another one for a positive ID.

 

Here is the newest update on my rooms. I stripped the fan leaves off the plants in the flowering room. It helped the air flow a lot. The plants are still looking good though as what leaves are still there are at attention and bud formation is looking good for 2 1/2 weeks. They did slow down on water uptake for obvious reasons. Didn’t find a single spider mite in here! I sprayed the plants in the veg room last night and all my clones with my normal IPM spray. The ladybugs are still flying around everywhere this morning. After inspecting the plants I can’t find any spider mites. The plants in this bed are showing symptoms of being over fed too and are not the happiest, but still growing fairly fast. I will have to get a soil test done on this bed too. I’m sure it will be close to the same as the other one due to using the same old soil from my 15gal no-till pots. For now I’m just giving everything plain water. I’ll be getting my new addition of predatory insects today from evergreen and will be adding them in as soon as possible in both rooms. Not sure if I should continue spraying my plants every three days with my new addition of beneficial insects. I don’t want to kill them.

 

I agree I’m sure it has stunted them. I’m not sure how severe it was though. They slowed down on water consumption for a day and now they are back to drinking even more than they were before. The room temp and humidity is definitely more stable and even now, because airflow is awesome. I have even noticed the lower leaves praying to the light. In all my years of growing this plant I have never done a full defoliation like this for the some of the same reasons you stated. I have always plucked the largest fan leaves every once in a while when I felt necessary. I guess we shall see what happens. If I get reduced yields but better bud density all the way down the plant it maybe worth it. I received my beneficial bugs yesterday and put them to work immediately in the garden. They are smaller than I thought and look a lot like what I believed are my soil mites. The ladybugs seem to still be in full force and I am starting to wonder if I should start taking them out? I don’t want them to eat my new investment...lol. But I’m sure they will be fine. I have started to find there eggs on my plants. I haven’t found any spider mites or there eggs anywhere since I started treatment. I am finding more ladybugs down in my mulch eating than I do in my canopy which is fine with me. The life in my rooms is off the hook right now! I’m am truly enjoying it as I have never brought bugs into my grow on purpose...lol. The cycle of life is so cool to watch in a controlled environment. Thanks for the advice Prepper. Hopefully I won’t have to order a lot more bugs, overnight shipping to Alaska isn’t cheap. I’m at work at the moment and haven’t stepped foot in the grow today. So I’ll post some pics tonight with an update.

 

Week three in flower today for room 2. I already have some pics up from recently but I have some more and a couple pics for fun of the mulch, buds and some biology. The worms are building up the casting near the drippers and everywhere pretty good now in the flower room and when I move away some mulch there is a lot of activity going on in the soil. The plants have been drinking a lot. The humidity is steadily staying in the 50’s for both rooms. The leaf temps are still steady in the 75 degree range and the PAR readings are in the mid 500’s for the top of the canopy. The plants in the veg room are getting big and I’m already behind on installing the first trellis netting. I might just skip it and only use the second one for flowering in here. I don’t want to flower in here with the current situation but they are growing so fast. I will probably have to put the trellis up, trim, wait and then start flowering. They have some really good stocks on them. I’ve never grown this strain before and I probably won’t keep a mother of it bacause it seems to always be available locally. My clones are doing good. I have extra of everything just so I don’t loose my genetics. A couple are for sexing so I know what they are. Hopefully I have a girl out of the two sour grape seeds I popped from BOG seeds. Anyways here are the plants and stuff.