Hello everyone, Noob post here, I apologize in advance for any dumb questions. Going to be my 2nd grow, first outdoor grow, first no-till grow, just want to plan things out this time before I start. Planning on: Planting 1-4 seedlings of the sativa "PuTang" I picked up from Mass Medical Strains, into one 30-gallon fabric pot. 30 gallon tan fabric pot to place outdoors (I'm in southern california, temps here get down to around 55-60F at night and typically around 80F during the day. Sun is damn strong during the day). Using Coots style Mix (1/1/1 of coco coir / supersoil / perlite). Everything organic. Will use cover crops (white clover and alfalfa). Will also plant some companion plants in the pot (mint, dill, to keep away spider mites). Possibly KNF inputs... I still don't know anything about them. Will be adding worm castings from my worm bin with red wigglers, I only feed them organic veggie scraps. No neem, will only spray with essential oil extracts, to prevent spider mites and such. Will also probably use enzymes (though I don't know anything about them, but someone told me I should for an organic grow). Questions: 1. For the coots-style mix, can I use something like M3 Michigan Made Mix supersoil instead of compost? My reasoning is that it has all the beneficials inside of it already. Or would there be a better way to approach it? 2. Any good alternatives to M3 Michigan Made Mix soil? I've heard it's amazing, but might be too costly to acquire out here in southern california, after the shipping costs. Looks like M3 is out of stock anyways of this soil. 3. Any other advice? Hoping to learn, open to any suggestions, fascinated with living soils. Thanks in advance for any help!
I'd suggest using the recipe in the No-Till Gardening Revised thread. Page 1. Do NOT use coco in your base mix you will run into problems easily avoided by using peat. Why are you considering not using neem oil or meal. Do some research, your being fed bad information. Use the prefix edu. when searching. Or just read up on neem here on GC. I'd personally grow 1 plant in a 30 gallon outdoors. Read the first few pages of the No-Till Gardening Revised thread.
Yeah neem has more benefits than just pest management. Also on page one of the thread mentioned is the importance of compost in the mix. Get either bus blend compost or coast of Maine lobster compost from what I have read.. I ordered those online. 7 ft³ total and the lobster compost is $20 a cubic foot on eBay so not even very expensive.. And like Tim said Coco is not a substitute for Peat..
The most important information is on the 1st 10 or 20 pages of the no till thread. If you are going to give it a serious go I would recommend reading that at least.. Really paid attention to what mofo says and it's easy to come to understand what's going on. Then I have found the fellows on that thread to be very helpful and and informative
I find it cool as a michigander that you are considering importing a soil mix from here to so-cal. Ya need compost though, very important. Call up a local farmer and see if they have any 3 year old cow manure sitting in a pile. They might charge you or they might let you haul as much as you want for nothing. If everything else is unavailable or too expensive, bagged cow manure from home depot works pretty damn good really. 2 bucks a bag. If you get a bag of malted barley and a little food processor, malted barley powder will give ya the enzymes you're looking for. I would give each plant a 30 gal or just plant em in a hole in the ground. Just my 2cents
Thanks. I almost forgot to urge you like everyone else not to use coco in your living soil mix. Stick with the peat moss in a bale. 10 or 11 bucks a bale at home depot. Coco has ph problems... Or I have ph problems in coco... Anyway peat moss is your friend.
I have done a bit of pestering on the thread for sure, a lot pointed at soil2Coco and Tim but thanks to the lot of you guys I'm pretty sure I will be ready to be up and running on May 7th.. I rather strictly followed the recipe on the lower end of the amendments and I added alfalfa meal. Otherwise exactly following the recipe and dammed excited to get started.. Well i guess i did do 50 50 mix of crab meal and oyster flour.. Otherwise the recipe
Soil is not a replacement for humus/castings/compost. I suggest you look on craigslist if anyone in your area is offering some organic worm castings or compost. Dont fall for the hype on soil bags telling you about beneficial microbes, any organic compost/castings will be loaded with beneficial microbes, even if you make it yourself in a bucket under the sink. As this is your first grow I suggest you follow a recipe and method and stick with it, dont try and mix all sorts of methods because you heard about this or that giving some guy results. Pick a method and stick to it. I suggest no-till because its easy and you dont have to mess with anything past mixing the soil. If you want to get into KNF and enzymes or whatever I suggest doing that after you get your basic grow down pat.
Meant to tag the pic. Love what you got growin on Sent from my SM-N975U using Grasscity Forum mobile app
SoCal grower here. Growing outdoors in SoCal the one pest you WILL have to control is the budworm AKA Heliothis virescens. The issue with these pests are that they attack all through the flowering stage. The adult moths are very elusive, and lay pearl-like eggs on buds and leaves. They eat buds and pistils, but favor the stems connecting the buds to the branches. As they do this, the bud loses nutrition and dies. As they eat, they shit it all out into the middle of the buds, causing mold. I have many natural predators in my garden, but nothing controls the budworms that emerge from those eggs. They aren't hard to kill, but many products that do kill them you won't want to spray in flower. Grab yourself some BT (bacillus thuringiensis), its the only thing that works consistently. I also recommend yellow sticky traps, for the thrips, leaf-hoppers, and near the end of flower - white flies (their arrival signals ripeness/or declining plant health IME). Best harvest to you neighbor!
Thanks for your response - I'll use peat then, definitely want to use the best stuff. I'll also read though that thread. Any brands of peat that you'd recommend? I was learning from the Mass Medical Strains podcast, he was talking about how cannabis is a systemic plant, meaning it soaks up and stores whatever is in the soil. And although neem is safe to eat, it doesn't seem to be that healthy to smoke - makes sense to me... just trying to be as safe as possible. Hopefully I can get away without using it, not sure if it's realistic. What are the other benefits? Just heard from Mass Medical Strains that it gets into the buds and isn't good to smoke. Thank you Scoobie, I remember what you said about just needing worm castings and good compost to grow, and I definitely take it to heart! Trying to keep things as simple, and natural, as possible. That being said, not sure how long I'm going to be stateside, so hoping to get started within the next week or two, excited to finally have an opportunity to grow outdoors. This grow is on a friends property, going to be helping him out. I'll be starting my 2nd worm bin (first one is back in Mexico). Not sure if I'll have enough for my grow in 2 weeks though, but I can always buy some locally here in southern california. Do you think I can use those castings, and also Malibu Bu's Blend biodynamic compost? Everyone seems to recommend that one as truly organic and biodynamic. I'll reread the No-Till thread and try to find a simple method before asking any more questions. Thank you friend! Great info to have, glad I decided to research and ask on here before planting. Do you have any other common pests you run into besides the budworms? Also, even if you spray the BT in veg, will they not attack during flower? I'm hoping not to spray anything in flower, and spray essential oils and enzymes in veg, and the BT as you mentioned. First time hearing about using yellow traps for catching white flies to know when the bud is ripe / declining plant health. Do they act as a way to control the thrips and leaf-hoppers, or is there another reason to place them there? Are there any other natural beneficial predators or companion plants, or anything you'd recommend for growing outdoors in SoCal? (I'm in San Diego if that helps, not sure if anything specific to growing here). Just putting together everything I need to source so I'll be ready to go in 2 weeks or so. Thanks again for your help!
You may want to seek some guidance from a fellow grower that lives in your state. Most, if not all of us here use neem meal in our soil and spray neem oil on our plants in the vegetative cycle.
If you can get the bu’s blend for a good price,it’s a real good compost. Beneficial nematodes and mites would help your IPM Good luck
@ RenaissanceBrah "Thank you friend! Great info to have, glad I decided to research and ask on here before planting. Do you have any other common pests you run into besides the budworms? The most significant are: grasshoppers, caterpillars, aphids, leaf-hoppers, fungus gnats, leaf-miners (flies), white flies, and Japanese fig beetles. Also, even if you spray the BT in veg, will they not attack during flower? I'm hoping not to spray anything in flower, and spray essential oils and enzymes in veg, and the BT as you mentioned. I wish it was the case, but budworms only want your buds. You HAVE TO SPRAY BT IN FLOWER (if you're concerned with burning pistils with spraying bt, I use 1/2 strength twice a week with no pistil damage. BT is super safe, and won't persist on buds whatsoever). Another option is to use mosquito netting, so you don't have to spray anything....thrips will still get through, you need special netting for them, but they will reduce the amount of sunlight and airflow. Caterpillars on the other hand, will be controlled by BT in veg. IME, EO sprays have limited use outdoors, because the elements (wind, rain, sun) dissipate the strong fragrance much faster. When I use EOs, it is part of a knock-down kill approach to pests. First time hearing about using yellow traps for catching white flies to know when the bud is ripe / declining plant health. Do they act as a way to control the thrips and leaf-hoppers, or is there another reason to place them there? Yellow sticky traps will help reduce thrip and leaf hopper numbers. They also control leaf-miners (flies) and white flies. Are there any other natural beneficial predators or companion plants, or anything you'd recommend for growing outdoors in SoCal? (I'm in San Diego if that helps, not sure if anything specific to growing here)." Marigolds and nasturtiums are good plants to attract pests away from your plants.
Hot peppers, basil, garlic and rosemary help down here too. Dill and yarrow will bring you in a lot of butterflys and beneficials. Sent from my SM-N975U using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Ah damn, I think I remember reading about budworms now, sounds like one of the more effed up pests you can run into. I'm going to try to build a mosquito tent enclosure around the grow space. Sounds like a pain in the ass to build the cover frame, but I had another socal grower tell me that it works really well, you can get a 5x6 mosquito net from walmart to cover 2 plants. How much time do you think I'd have to build the cover net? Anytime before flower? Also, when do you start spraying the BT? Also debating now on what size container to go with. I hear 30 gallons is the minimum recommended size. Though wondering whether or not to just do a raised bed... I'll have about 8' x 8' of outdoor space to work with... though will probably end up growing anywhere from 1-4 plants. Just don't wanna spend too much, we're only growing for us 2 to smoke anyways, but would be cool to try growing different strains. Thanks Reggae - you plant all of those in 1 fabric pot? Still debating on pot size but I'll probably go with 30 gallon fabric pots, and plant 1 (or 2, 3?) plants per pot. Still trying to figure all that out. Got about 8' x 8' of outdoor space to work with, but don't want to break the bank buying amendments and everything.
I start spraying BT when I first notice budlets forming. The reason is that this is when the moths start coming around to lay eggs. BT must be eaten to be effective, so you want the baby's first bite to be poisonous. The worms eat the BT then die in a few days. You'll find them posing on the bottom of a leaf usually. They are super small at first, so the first sign is either a dying leaf in the middle of a healthy bud, looks like something has mowed the pistils off your buds, or little black (brown or yellow too) turds on leaves or buds. There's been a few times I thought I started soon enough, only to find a whole top taken out by a baby worm that hatched in the middle of a fat cola. Start early, be consistent. As for the mosquito netting, it's purpose is to keep them from getting their eggs on the plant, so anytime before flower as you said. I use 45 Gallon fabric pots outdoor, you can check my journal, about a week or so until I transplant the keikis. Best luck this year!
1 gal pots or in ground all over the place. I constantly change out companion plants or rotate them. Can't stress the info that @poiboy is giving you enough....the last few years it has got worse and worse with the bud worms Sent from my SM-N975U using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Thanks Poi! Think the mosquito netting alone could prevent the budworms? Also, still wondering how the harvest would turn out if I stick to Coot's recipe, but forego the neem. Also, I'll be buying all the ingredients, but I wanted to ask - is it realistic to be able to start the grow in 2 weeks or so? I've been reading I have to let the soil cook for 4 weeks, so just wondering how that all works. Trying to source the 1/1/1 ingredients (Bu's compost, etc) and then the kelp, gypsum and other amendments. Checked out your grow journal, good stuff. 6 x 45 gallon pots, looks like it'll be a pretty big harvest! I've always been curious about trying super silver haze - since you're socal if you haven't tried it, I'd recommend trying to get a clone of "wet dream" - it's blue dream x OB Haze, a local san diego haze. Best weed I've ever tried, but I haven't been able to find it since Dec 2018. 1 gallon pots make sense, I'll be sure to order those with the larger fabric pots, or see what I have lying around. When you say change out companion plants or rotate them, what do you mean exactly? Like move them around the garden?