I am going 12/12 from seed and I am not doing as well as I expected. My soil is 1/3 peat moss, perlite and E.B. Stone compost. The seedlings are very small and yellow. They have been growing since Jan. 17. They are starting to green up a little since I’ve been adding my home grown worm castings. I am disappointed with myself for not using a more quality compost. Going forward I will be experimenting with Kratky jars and transplants from them to soil and transplants from germination in paper towels to soil and kratky jars. I am going to start 2 seeds per week. I will mix soil with better compost and use 2 gallon pots. I am interested in getting good at no till. I believe I can do good work with recycling my soil by adding worm castings and perlite in equal parts to my old soil each cycle. By starting some new seeds each week I have plenty to experiment with. This journal is my way of tracking my results. I like the idea of no till but I am unsure of the practicality in small pots. My worm bin is going to be crucial to my success. I have been screening my chicken coop droppings and I have plenty more to go through but something killed my chickens last night. I will be needing some quality compost to feed my worms. I am excited about this project. I can’t wait to get great results. It is fun even though it’s not working well right now. I am already improving my current seedlings and look forward to what’s to come. Right now I have 7 northern lights struggling along. One is looking like a male. I was planning on making a batch of seeds but I’m not sure if this group is going to make it. If I can get 10 viable seeds then I get my investment back. Only 7 germinated out of 10. I have a 1000 watt lamp dimmed to 600 to save electricity and keep the heat down. As I improve my soil and my room conditions I will turn up the power. I put 2 super skunk seeds from Robert Bergman seeds under a moist paper towel in a sandwich baggie today. I will put them in my soil mix of equal parts peat moss, perlite and worm castings. I will feed that soil kelp, alfalfa meal, need seed meal and more worm castings. I will adjust my method as I get results. My goal is to grow thick, dense single cola buds. My inspiration is del6666666 who I found on this site. I may have to follow him and use cocoa peat and bottled nutes if my soil recipe doesn’t improve drastically soon. These are in 7 gallon fabric pots and the tomato volunteer is now turning into mulch. I will use this soil in the future as my peat moss component. Things will improve as time goes on.
I took out a seedling from a Kratky jar and placed it in a 3” pot filled with peat moss that has only 0-8-0 seabird guano. I watered it with the Kratky jar water. I also turned the light up to 1000 watts. I watered with a nutrient solution yesterday and I’m not seeing any more greening up of the seedlings. The super skunk seeds I put on a moist paper towel have germinated and will be planted in the peat moss mixed with perlite in 3” pots tomorrow.
That’s my weekly update. Got some malted barley powder on there. Watered with aloe blended in. One super skunk popped one hasn’t yet. I planted the first in a peat and sea bird guano and the second with a cover crop in a 2 gallon pot. I also put one bubblegum seed in a shot glass of ro water. I will germinate one seed per week for now. I am using the spillover of Timothy hay from the bunny as mulch. I have 2 stackable worm bins and a bunch of chicken manure and a continuous supply of bunny Poo. I will compost the bunny poo and chicken poo and feed it to the worms. I will feed that to the soil in my pots as I experiment with no till in different sized pots. I will leave everything alone for tomorrow and probably the next day. I’ll check in as I do stuff so I keep a record so I can improve as I grow.
I put the bubble gum seed in a 3”x3” pot in a mix of seabird guano and peat moss. Same with a super skunk seed and neither have broken the surface yet. I have a lemon skunk that has been soaking in a shot glass of ro water since last night, about 18 hours. I am not sure if I should cut the peat mix with some perlite or add some of my worm castings. I planted a bunch of pepper, tomato, eggplant and radicchio seed and they all sprouted well in my peat mix. My room hangs at about 82 degrees Fahrenheit. I have been having less than stellar results germinating my Cannabis seeds lately no matter what technique I use. Many germinate and that’s it. Slow or no growth after that. The male northern light sprung up tall and gangly over the last couple weeks. I am not impressed with their health and the one female is still small. I am hoping that straw, malted barley and kelp will improve my garden health soon. I am hopeful also that I get a decent seed crop to help keep things local. My best crop came from subcool’s supersoil recipe but I found out about no till and I can’t get it out of my mind that it is superior I just haven’t followed it with enough effort to get the results I’m after. The worms are thriving even with the recent frost. I am trying to systemize my tasks to get consistent results. I’ve been adding more peat moss to the bins and sifting out large chunks and rocks from the compost I feed them. I also planted some cover crops in a couple of pots in my grow room and those are growing super fast but not as green as I’d like. I am going to drop some more cover crop in those pots then chop and drop, let them grow and then do another chop n drop and plant my seedlings. Meanwhile I plan on amending with neem meal, alfalfa meal and kelp meal monthly and malted barley powder waters in weekly.
The seedling in the 2 gallon pot is 2 weeks since being put in a glass of r/o water. The plant with the most buds has seeds. It is so tiny but it has quite a few seeds. It should more than cover my original investment. Hopefully they are as good as the parents are supposed to be. I am attempting to go no till in these small plastic pots but I may adjust to a 3 gallon fabric pot. I put together the soil as described in the first post of the no till revisited forum. Except for the bio char. My 2 newest pots have seedlings, one is thriving and I don’t think the other is even surviving. I will put a seed in a glass of water tonight and when I plant it I won’t put a green house on it. My week old seedling got moldy under the greenhouse. Probably won’t survive. Since I’m starting one plant a week and I want seeds I will plant the same type 3 weeks in a row to keep them close enough in age for breeding. The small pots will allow males to be removed and I can selectively choose who to breed. One of my northern lights looks healthy. It looks a little stunted but it has seeds and it is green. I have been grinding malted barley and top dressing with it once a week. I’m also adding kelp, neem and alfalfa meals weekly too. I put some worm castings too.