Hi, firstly let me start off by saying thank you for visiting my thread/journal, I hope you have as much fun as I do. Now lets get into my setup so far. Soil: I use sunshine professional growing mix (75% Peat Moss, 25% Dolomite lime & Perlite). When I transfer my plants to larger containers I add 50% rabbit poop and 50% of the sunshine grow mix, the rabbit poop aids big time on veg growth. Watering: I water whenever the top 1-2 inchs of the upper most soil is dry, I usually water 1-2 liters per plant, for seedling I only water less than 250 mL per plant. Nutes/Ferts: I use liquid concentrate plant food, NPK ratio is 15-5-5, I start using it when I see visible Nitrogen deficiency in the plant and plan on using it only 1 time per week or when required. Seeds: A bunch of reguler seeds from a breeding program that was done by a friend(Bubblegum X unknown genetics) 1 Skunk #1 X Power Bud feminised seed This pic is the 2nd week of growth(photo was taken with broken camera lens from a phone) This is the soil I use
HG.. Easy Organic Soil Mix for Beginners Your already more then halfway to a water only organic soil.. Compost = ecoscraps home depot, Bu's Malibu biodynamic, Coast of Maine lobster compost,, Ect// kelp meal alfalfa pellets A bit a chicken manure.. go easy if your going to use the soil ASAP as it'll burn if used to excess or you don't have a month to wait.. . Canna plants are agoraphobic and don't like wide open spaces.. Start in small cups and move up as they fill the root space.. I start in a 3x3x3 inch square as I feel squares promote better root branching.. That'll stay in that small cup till the plant is a foot tall and needing watered every day or it'll wilt.. Now it'll transplant with not a grain of lost soil or a single root knocked out of place.. The big plant in a small cup forces very rapid oxygen cycling in the root zone and this is when I get explosive growth.. Small plant in a big pot stalls as it can never drink up the water fast enough.. Water by lifting the pot.. A heavy pot put back down.. Let one actually wilt to see just how feather light that really is.. It won't hurt the plant if you don't let it stay wilted to long.. Kind of cool to watch them recover.. Takes like 60 seconds to perk back up.. Next pot is a 5x5x7 inch and that'll grow a 2 foot tall plant.. Smaller is better in my experience.. Helps keep the newbee grower from overwatering plants too.. Been there and done enough of that.. BNW
The rabbit poop I usually let sit in the sun for 2-5 days and then use it, so far all the plants have been loving it due to the extra nitrogen in it. Im going 100% organic next year, this year im just trying to get a decent harvest as I started late. I try to keep the pot size a bit bigger than usual because I have regular seeds and they say if your plant gets root bound it is more likely to turn male on you, but if you let the plants root keep going further and further down into the dirt the plant has better chance of becoming a female.
In my experience, having a smaller pot does not mean it will turn male. All I used the past year and a half were regular seeds, only got 2 males out of 15 total and I run small pots like Brass mentioned only round not square. Just food for thought
With that in mind I will keep these plants in small pots then, il let them grow big but wont move them into bigger pots until there are 1-2 feet tall or if they are heavily root bound. updated pics later tonight.
Personally I will pull my plants out of their containers every now and then to make sure they aren't rootbound. Once they start circling the the pot a fair amount I transplant into 1 gallon pots. I start with jiffy pellets, move to 1/2 gal pot , then 1 gallon pot to a 3-5 gallon or in the ground.
UPDATE I Have transplanted my feminized seed Skunk #1 X Power Bud into a smaller container that has more drainage holes, I did this because the previous container it was in did not have much drainage at all, also to note I transplanted the plant into 75% Rabbit poop and 25% soil as I figured the extra nitrogen from the rabbit poop will help it grow much faster. The plants in the square container were transplanted 2 days ago the lower portion of the container is all rabbit poop and the upper 3 inch's is sunshine grow mix, so far they look like they are growing a bit faster than before, they are probably trying to establish strong roots first. The 3 plants in the round container are in a mixture of 50% rabbit poop and 50% sunshine grow mix, the lower portion of the container is rabbit poop and the upper portion is the sunshine grow mix, this way the plants roots reach down towards the rabbit poop and absorb all the nitrogen they need from it rather than me having to feed them nitrogen rich fertilizer, I prefer natural gardening as there is less screw ups from burning plants from too much nutes. The smallest looking plant I left as is, although I did put a good 1-2 inch's or rabbit poop as top soil so that whenever I water it the nitrogen from the rabbit poop goes into the soil thus increasing growth. The two largest plants I have each feed them 2 liters of water with fertilizer in it, the fertilizers NPK ratio is 15-5-5, I have also put 3 inch's of rabbit poop as top soil so the nitrogen goes into the soil via watering and so that their is less need of watering as often, The smaller plant for the past 2 days has been wilting and the leaves fall down, they dont fall down all the way but is noticeable, I am not sure whats is wrong with it, I have no pests so I may think it is a nutrient deficiency as my soil before did not have any added nutrients but I have now added rabbit poop and 15-5-5 fertilizer, the other one is doing the same thing wilting and leaves falling down but if you look at the pics you notice it is just a tiny bit, if anyone could put some input towards why they are doing this that would be great, my guess is nutrient deficiency or the plants go to sleep and since their is no sun they dont require to have their leaves fully outwards to absorb light because their is none.
Im pretty sure the leaves wilt downwards at night due to over watering, im going to let the soil get near bone dry then give them only water for a while.
Every night right after sunset all mine let their leaves droop. I water in the morning, I've always been told they do that prior to darkness. Could be over water . Always check to see if the top 1-3 inches is dry before watering
Thanks I was very worried that I over watered or over fert or something. I gave both the big plants a full dose of 15-5-5 and today in the morning they looked great pointing towards the sun very perky I am going to wait at least 3-4 days before I water again so that the plants absorb all the nutes I feed the two, I plan to water the two with a homemade eggshell tea so that the ph is a bit less acidic, I lost my litmus paper so im just winging it but 65% of my soil is peat moss so I would like to give them some ph balance with the eggshells soon. Any input on this would be awesome.
What do you guys think I should do to balance my ph, use eggshells or use hardwood ashes? I want to balance my ph as I grow because my soil is 65% peat moss based which gradually turns more and more acidic as you water.
Ash works wonders I mix some into my soil before planting. But I'm also in raised beds and don't check pH what's so ever.
I have a raised bed also but only use it for veggies and food I grow. I dont check ph either cause I lost my litmus paper, I will be addin maple hardwood ash to my plant in the next few days on the upper layer of soil, I also have a bunch of eggshells I plan to make a tea out of and feed the water to the plants.
HG A soil rich in organic materials like high quality compost is self regulating as far as PH goes.. I run about 1/3 compost in my mix and a touch of sulfur as my water is really alkaline.. 8.5 in fact.. Stinks like a public pool from all the chlorine too.. Doesn't matter a bit either as the chlorine is neutralized by the organic materials before it can cause any harm.. It really is a stupidly easy way to grow.. I don't have to do a damn thing but pour on the hose water day in and day out with zero thought about anything.. .. Most city water supplies are searchable online as to the content.. Low PH water needs more lime in the mix and high PH supplies need less lime and a touch of sulfur in my experience.. Most western states drawing water from the Colorado river have high PH water.. Eastern tends to run more acidic from my observations.. Eggshells are a poor source at best and I'd use a better agent.. BNW
I have used rabbit poop as a top soil, I filled the pot about 4 inchs to to the top from where the original soil was so that when I water the high nitrogen content gets into my soil. Once my plants are ready to transplant into larger containers I plan to do what you reccomend, I will use 1/3 sunshine pro mix, 1/3 rabbit poop and 1/3 perlite, lime, maple hardwood ashes, bone meal, ground eggshells. That way as you stated I wobt have to worry much about nutes or over doing it all I have to do is water and the occasional nutes. Any more tips would be great. Thanks for everything so far though its been very helpful. HG
UPDATE How do they look? When do you guys think they will start showing pre flowers? The two large plants are starting to smell when you get your nose close. I plan to just monitor them today and probably put more rabbit poop topsoil and keep the seedlings happy. The two large plants im going to start LST later today and will post more pics when I do, Im going to start LST now because I see little new shoots of leafs from the nodes. Im also brewing some eggshell tea for calcium carbonate for my plants so I can balance PH, im also going to be adding maple hardwood ashes in the days coming.
UPDATE I had 11 plants and now have only 3(two one month old plants and 1 seedling). 8 of my plants were dug up by chipmunks so I now old have 3 plants which sucks. The seedling had gotten topped by a chipmunk that bit off 2 out of 4 total leaves so it is left with only 2. The other two larger plants were not dugout.