I thought I'd post some pics of the beginning of my perpetual garden. This a real vegtable garden on the raised deck attached to my home. Everything is organic in Kellogg patio mix. I brew worm teas, add beneficial insects, nematodes, and basically feed the soil. I'm flowering by taking them in and out for about 9 - 10 hours a day. The rest of the time they're in their 690 watt flower room on a 12/12 timer 6am - 6pm. From the 6 that are in flower I hope to pull 1/4 lb. The 1 other plants that are in veg, (1 reveg), are on 18/6 timer 6am - 12am. They go out at the same time as the flowers and will stay out longer as the day grows. Everything is 215 compliant. 4'x 8' Half planted. I'll be adding soil for the rest of the table for more vegetables in a week What's a garden without it's Weed. Bagseedm, 2 weeks into flower. Indica dom. Clone from collective 4 weeks into flower. 3D I forget the 3 crosses, 1 is Chemdog. Went and checked...No chemdawg. It's Blue Dream x Jack Herer x Master Kush. BlueDream Clone with 2 weeks more veg. She's 2 weeks into flower. I have a second one that is on week 4, but the uplaod didn't take. I'll take another of her in a day or two. Clone Purple Kush 4 weeks into flower Unknown bagseed Unknown bag seed in reveg. 8 Grape Ape, 2 Skywalker, from collective seed. Be going to flower in 2 weeks. I'll be updating periodically.
i think that was corn up there if i'm correct? with corn you wanna have a minimum of 150-200 plants if your growing to save seed but even if your not you need over 50 at the very least or they wont pollinate and you'll get very little corn from it just some helpful advice not trying to be an ass but with corn you need lots of it to get anything valuable
sub'd looks sexy. so u just leave them out for a certain time and put them back in darkness? that sounds dankly simple. down.
Yeah, keen eye...Silver Queen, in fact. Needs 8 minimum to polinate. The rest of the 1/2 empty tray will also have corn, to offset harvest dates. The corn also has pole beans planted with them at their base. Legumes fix nitrogen for the corn and the corn is a natural trestle for the beans. Didn't think you were an ass, we all have assumed things without proper research, the difference is when we choose to speak. No offense intended
KISS, works. I came accross this method of a perpetual harvest utilizing free light. My hope is the 6 ladies that are currently in flower will yield 1/4 lb. Generally from seed or rooted clone with no veg yield should be 3/4 ounce per plant. The seeds have had 2 weeks veg and the clones were 10" - 12" from a collective and were transplanted. 3 were vegged 1 more week, ( now end of 4th week of flower), and the duplicated Blue Dream was given 2 more weeks veg. and is at the end of 2 weeks of flower.
Sorry peeps, I should have posted pictures of the rest of my garden so you can get a better idea of my set up. This is based on the square foot concept made popular in the 70's and 80's. Gonna be eating and smoking good this year.
awesome, i'll have to check that strain of corn out man thx and i have read about the bean thing, sounds awesome let us know how it goes and this all looks pretty nice, i think your gardens a bit bigger than mine, atm i got a 3x8 bed and 11x2 bed,11x2 has cinder blox for the sides so i use those for some of my extra lettuce also, do you know of any alternatives to the ingredients in mels mix? i like it and use it but am trying to think of alternatives in the case where i'd want to expand my garden and there is no stores to buy peat moss and perlite if the peat moss is si9mple enough to grow than that would be solved, but perlite? any alternatives that increase aeration, drainage, retention and is possible to come by if you didn't have society to rely on? just wondering, and i personally don't know so if you dont, no biggie and i stand completely corrected on number for pollination, though i have read somewhere the 200 plants for good seed, this is so you can pick the best 100 plants for seed without running the risk of inbreeding in the following generations but definately able to get food from a smaller plot... and i have decided i have little desire to grow that much corn lol
I have 2 4' x 8' beds and the half filled 4' x 8' bed with the corn the will be getting filled and planted in a week. I have 2 1' x 3 ' bean, pea and pickle bed. 2 6" x 36" various lettuce beds, 6" x 36" herb beds, and various single container. This fall I put in a 4' x4' patato bed that will build up to 4' high that I pull 4 different spuds from with hopes of 150lb countinuous yield til spring. I'm sorry I don't know his Mel's mix. I found course 40# bags of perlite at a local hydro store for $31.00+ if it helps. They also had nematodes, ladybugs, neem seed oil and various other usually online order only stuff, if it helps. I also have heard of using crushed volcanic rock in place of perlite, but I have no first hand experience with it.
mels mix is genreally the mix for sqftgardening its: 1/3 peat moss 1/3 perlite 1/3 compost and thats it, problem is that evne though its easy and nice to create your own compost, the ohter two ingredients confuse me when thinking of getting a hold of them without stores...
Coco coir would be a peat moss replacement. I wanted easy this year and didn't want to mix my own, so I went with Kellogg Patio Mix with a few amendments , but here's a simple mix that our very own Lumperdawgz recommends: Take 2 c.f. of peat moss or coco coir, 1 c.f. of perlite (or pumice) and 1 c.f. of earthworm castings. There's 4 c.f. or 'about' 30 gallons. These numbers are for 1 c.f. ('about' 7.5 gallons) of your potting soil mix: 1 cup of kelp meal 1 cup of alfalfa meal 1.5 cups of Azomite (that's usually the easiest to find for most folks) 1 cup bone meal (steamed is usually easier to breakdown by the microbes) 1/2 cup of limestone or oyster shell powder (calcium carbonate - no magnesium) If you opt for dolomite lime then others will be better able to give you the appropriate amount. Add some mycorrhizal fungi to your mix and Viola! You now have a viable soil that can be 're-cycled' over and over by amending with earthworm castings, seed meals, etc.
without stores...I'm pretty sure any of this can be sourced online, but if you can get it local, you should save shipping. If security is a concern, these are pretty common garden ingrediants that generally shouldn't raise any suspicions and there's always "cash leaves no paper trail''.
I love your gardens Dank. It's looks like you are resourcefule like me. I noticed the plant that was in the used cofee can and the ones that were in the cups. I was doing this earlier this year before I had the money to get regular pots. You have a beautiful garden going and I appreciate all the help you have been giving me.
Thank you. I just started harvesting from the vegetables. Although I'm 215 compliant, I still don't need the hassle that can come with discovery by a neighbor. I'm intending to enclose it with greenhouse plastic, then I'll grow larger and will have the ability to control the enviroment with heating, cooling, odor. I'm entertaining the idea of CO2 supplementing. It will be interesting to see the effects of CO2 enrichment in a greenhouse. Lol, the coffee can. I can be a cheap sob at times. I didn't want to spring for a $5.00 pot at Lowes or Home Depot. Then I came across the ones you see now at a Dollar Store 3/$1. I might amaze you with just how resourceful I can be.
so if you had fibers from a coconut, you could use this to replace your peat moss in your mix? even though im in wyoming, a coconut tree isn't too farfetched for me, with a good walipini thats totally possible what is pumice? i've never heard of that and thx for helping me out, sorry OP not trying to jack your thread or anything, can't wait for another update i like to see other peoples gardens, especially those that do sqftgardening, since i'm the only one i know that does this... also, with the "three sisters" or squash corn and beans, where do you plant your squash to make it beneficial to the other plants, for me the beans and corn is well understood as to how it helps eachother but the squash... and by with no stores available i meant IF the economy collapsed and there were NO STORE ANYWHERE, you know plan for the owrst hope for the best, then if it does happen, i know how i can get some good soil
Gave the entire garden, vegetables and pot, a foliar spray of neem oil for insect control this morning. It's a long term preventative maintenance that I'll apply tot he entire garden once per month. I will be adding neem seed meal as a top dressing soon. Friday or Saturday I'll pick up a #40 bag of alfalfa pellets with molasses for an ACCT tea for $22.00. Lets see: At the rate of 2cups per 5 gal. of brew and I'll do it once a month. That bag of horse feed gonna last a very long time.Think I'll cycle a cup or two through the worm bin for the extra nutrients. Might be a lot of nitrogen, as I also have 5 exotic birds that are doing their part. lol Thinking about 2 bins; one with an emphasis for veg and the other for flower. Each plant phase has slightly different nutrient requirements that can be easily tailored by what I put in the bin. I also have added nematodes and ladybugs so far. The ladybugs decided they liked my plum tree and went to larvae there. It's great they found a home in my back yard. So, I just grab a bunch and place them back in my garden where they do their thing at least til they turn into an adult. I have started a worm bin for the third time and it appears that they are thriving. Kept killing the poor things. Another resourceful endeavour. I have setup worm attracting stations and I just harvest from them and put them into the bin. Doesn't take long take to get a bunch and they breed like crazy when conditions are right. Sorry about getting so wordy.
Now I understand where you're coming from. Given the current state of affairs, I think it is only responsilble to have a real plan if things go south. I don't know that I need to consider growing coconut trees to provide coco coir. The three sisters planting. It's beginnings come from the indians. They would plant all three in the spring, before they went to there summer hunting grounds. In the late fall they would harvest whatever survived. The squash was ground cover that provided moisture retention and weed control.. Ingeniously simple. What an observation to understand and replicate this relationship by a semi normadic people. I don't have the squash with the corn because moisture retention and weed control isn't as important to me as it would have been to them. There growth will be on verticle trestles. One trestle is pictured. Tomatoes also will be trestled and pruned. Pumice is volcanic rock: Pumice - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Lots of it around Wyoming for sure. I appreciate your interest in my garden. Thank you
again i wish i could give you some rep but i gotta spread it thx for the info on that stuff, i did some google-ing on the three sisters stuff as well so i think i get it now, VERY interesting stuff really. and all and all i think i'm getting a little closer to some alternatives to mels mix, i think when i get it i'll do a side by side experiment to see which works better or if the alternate works well enough, if it does, i'll have to think of some name for it... anyway, thx for all the info and letting me ask it on your thread, best of luck with your garden