This community and everyone involved has been all about sharing successes and failures through trial and error, with a side of mad scientist encouragement from fellow City folk tossed in. I don't think any of us would be where we are today without this forum.
IMG_20180521_185347 by JDOG209 posted May 22, 2018 at 4:00 AM IMG_20180521_185616 by JDOG209 posted May 22, 2018 at 4:00 AM IMG_20180521_185651 by JDOG209 posted May 22, 2018 at 4:00 AM
Wanted to throw some pictures on here. Because of all this thread had to offer I was able to grow my first notill round, and have no intensions of turning back. Thanks to everyone. I should add that it was grown at around 300 watts of leds.
I've used RO water with blu-mats. Works great. I use RO water exclusively for container gardening. Yes it wastes water. The water out of the spigot in not potable and unhealthy to drink and to water plants with. I also pay for the water to be treated for consumption and also to have it treated again before it re-enters the water supply. Pretty sure that same water gets used again by others down stream from us. Positive actually. "Waste" is relative... I think the water coming out of the spigot is a waste and I'm turning it into something useful. For your res and worrying about clogs. Well it happens. Nothing to do but clean the lines ever so often. I've been running an automated watering system now for several years. Clogs are a thing and a fucking pain in the ass. Just have to do preventative maintenance and clean/blow out the lines say every 3 months. I do it after harvest and before the next round goes in. There's a product called SLF-100 that is made for this sort of thing. Supposed to keep lines and res clean. Read about it, never tried it yet. I've had clogged lines. Its not good. I have a 90 gal res and the valves gets clogged open. Pain in the ass. For Blu-mats I think you will get clogged closed so wilted plants depending on how long you are away. If you're running HID and you wanna go on vacay.... suggest finding a trusted house sitter. Safety first... I changed over to all COB LED so I don't have to worry = very little heat. Woah guys... getting nostalgic on me here. Ah the good old days. We are here because of them. I think we can pat each other on the back too. We all did a lot of heavy lifting to make this no-till process work. I think that it's gaining more popularity than we think. With Canada going legal, there's a pretty large country that is and has been environmentally centered for ever. These sustainable growing practices hopefully will become more popular. I spend most of my time on another website dedicated to cannabis growing. I've been spreading the good work done here side to side. Lots of folks pay attention. That bottled mentality tho is very ingrained in US mentality. It's going to take a little time to reverse what the chemical companies started last century. It's happening in AG now finally.
bob what valves are clogging for you? i have yet to get a clog on my blumat system using nothing but tap, and our city water is fairly hard
I dont use blu-mat any more. I switched to an automated btm watering system Auto-Pot XL with 7.5gal hard containers. Works great. Have to clean the tubes every so often from muck that I get in the tubes. I run then all 24/7 365. Expect that sorta thing. I filter the water (mesh screen) at the reservoir going into the tubes. Muck seems to grow in the small diameter tubing.
Hey Scoob do you still use the moister meter and if so what millibar do you find to work the best for you and your plants? If not no worries Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
Hey thanks for the advice will for sure look in to the SLF-100. We’re getting ready to head out to Colorado for 2 weeks so have to figure out something for my plants while I’m away and I trust 0 people with my garden so I need some type of automatic watering system for my 2 4x8 beds and whatever I do get I’ll make sure to do some maintenance cleaning every few months. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
You have to find your sweet spot with YOUR soil mix. The reason I say this is I’ve worked with other growers on this very issue. Worst thing I’ve ever did was follow that blumat chart. To accomplish calibration, water the pot with the blumat turned off and meter in. Watch the plant and take daily readings when the plant goes from droopy to praying that is the sweet spot. Dial in your blumats at that time. If your just using the meter this will teach you YOUR scale. Also blumats do not like pressure changes, so if your setting up tanks use a head tank to feed the res and keep the pressure constant. Or use the pressure reducer and hook to your house supply.
I would dare say the bottled mentality is alive and well in the U.S. of A. It's the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about. No till soil now comes conveniently in a box with free shipping! Wait there is more! All the bottles you need to move and groove like the cool kids too! Don't worry about it...it's a proprietary blend, brought to you by the guys that insisted for years bottles and grow stores should be avoided. This is the definition of hypocrisy itself. Selling out? Carpet-bagging? Charlotan? Call it what you will... I don't consider it a noble gesture by any stretch of the imagination. At the very least it shows a complete lack of integrity. If Masanobu Fukuoka and Ruth Stout started bottled fertilizer companies...I'd feel the same way. I'll probably be back in a year or two if I don't get banned for this. Peace. RD "No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path." - Buddha
I have had my own thoughts on this as well, but where do we draw a line? It’s okay to get 100’s of pounds of soil amendments shipped and make your own soil from scratch but not organic bottles?? What about all the closet growers out there that still want to grow organically but don’t have the space to produce their own inputs? Not saying your wrong, all the stuff we use like mined mineral amendments, Neem Oil bottles, the coal or nuke plant powering my growlights, etc. can’t really say we’re really doing anything beneficial for the planet growing anything inside... Perfect world I could have all my plants in a greenhouse and use herbs for IPM and Dynamic Accumulators for nutrients. Just a small legal issue in the way... Comfrey’s getting there lol
How is it hypocrisy? He isn't selling a $300 dollar gallon of water with some essential oils added to it or a chemical fertilizer which is what they talked down on. Ful-Power, neem oil, essential oils and the aloe vera gel from walmart all come in a bottle but nobody bitches about that. I don't think it was ever about the container but what was in the container and the lack of knowledge in the grow stores. You obviously missed the point. Maybe he should start selling it in a bucket or a bag so people don't get so but hurt over it. The ingredients are not a secret and neither is the process so IDK what you mean by "proprietary blend" and where is the lack of integrity? I live in a 600 sq ft cabin on less than a half acre with about 200 sq ft of shed space for storage and an indoor grow. I don't have space to make my own tinctures like he does if I wanted to nor the space to grow all the ingredients used so I would have to buy a bunch of bagged seeds to sprout and glycerin which comes in (gasp oh no) a bottle. If you don't need or want to buy the shit, don't, but why talk shit about someone who has helped so many people here just because he figured out a way to make a few bucks?
i guess the point here is that you should practice what you preach. So if you are bitching about making $ off a bottled additive selling one can seem rather audacious to some. edit: unless of course you are giving it practically away.
My point is that just because his products come in a bottle does not mean he is a hypocrite. He and Coot didn't bad mouth bottles, they bad mouthed what comes in the bottles and promoted the use of some products that do come in bottles. There's nothing audacious about it, he isn't selling chemicals or over priced water.
@FickySiskers pretty much nailed it. i wish i followed that advice when setting up as my soil is all over the place. as long as its between 50 and 250 i dont mess with it.
No till for me has been an eye opening experience. Many years ago, I embarked on my first journey if growing cannabis, and within two years i was exposed to the organic and the "no-till" ideology in specific. No-till agriculture and the sustainability behind it needs to encompass more than cannabis in our lives. Whether that is gardening more, and adopting new organic methods, composting, changing our diets to veganism (which I highly recommend) or even reusing old gardening tools and miscellaneous items, our actions have a direct impact on the Earth. It is our job as humans, the smartest animals on Earth, to look out for our home and the critters that roam it. I'm a little stoney bologna this AM so IDK what I was really trying to say, but yea fuck these stupid ass laws limiting us from growing our own meds. HOWEVER, nothing is stopping us from growing all the food we want Peace out blades and if you want to talk about sustainability, shoot me a PM or provide a link to a thread, i'd love to chat it up about sustainability -OB P.S. If yall havent already subscribed to Preppee420's freedom in sustainable gardening thread. You should, if you're into that kinda stuff. I remember back in the day reading through PokeSmot420's threads and Ironhead's threads and learning heaps. Of course not like Preppers style, but i still strongly believe that thread will end up influential to many emerging growmies! Keep up the great work prepper, and all my blades spreading that organic and "no-till" knowledge!
going back to press talk, how does this press look to you? Rosin Press Easy Swing, 1000PSI,, Dual Heated Plates | eBay
@bobrown420, a quickie question about the 7.5 gal hard containers. They wouldn't happen to be the black square pots would they? Regardless, are they adequate in size for other stuff like peppers, container veggies? I use nothing but square pots indoors, but outdoors the 5gal Homer buckets seem a tad too small and the 17gal tubs have gotten way to big for me to horse around, even slightly. Plus, the UV renders them useless after a couple of seasons and the Homer buckets after ~4 seasons. I leave them outside all the time. Anyway, I just wanted to get your opinion on the 7.5 - 8 gallon size for all around use. Thanks, Wet