DonBrennons 'Unconventional' organic gardens

[DonBrennon]

I've decided to stop posting in my other thread https://www.rollitup.org/t/side-by-side-organic-soil-mixs.896414/, because I've got more than just that going on and want to keep it all in one thread. Some will be familiar with the other thread others won't, but if you want a bit of background on that particular side by side, which will be carried on here, check it out.

Now, I really want to give credit to all RIU organic forum contributors and staff, for helping me learn how to do this shit and giving us the platform to do it. I know IC was probably the forerunner to these ROLS forums and threads, but I think the community here on RIU are now probably at the cutting edge (I don't include myself in that, I'm fairly inexperienced 'organics' wise, if not growing MJ) and we are developing ever more efficient ways to grow our beloved sensimilla, to the highest standards.

I also have to give credit to Gill and Patrick from http://theunconventionalfarmer.com/, I use a few of their DIY products and their enthusiasm and passion for organic gardening is inspiring. One of my next test runs is going to be using their fermented sst compared to either conventional sst2 or plain coconut water, I'm not sure which yet, I suppose it'd be a fairer comparison if I used sst2, but I'm lazy lol



ROLS Blueberry, I harvested this around 10 days ago, it's now in a large sealed food grade container, along with 3 & 1/2 gallon of the rest of the bud I chopped over the space of a week balancing out the small amount of moisture throughout the bud before going into glass jars soon.

 

[DonBrennon]

Here's a run down of my current tent set up:

Mother tent -1m x 1m x 2m - Around 200w of botched diy led, salvaged from work I haven't actually measured how much power they're drawing, I will at some point and post it later. I plan to divide this tent into 2 sections, building a cabinet to flower some males in.



Experimental/Pheno finding/Breeding tent - 1m x 1m x 1.8m - DIY LED COB fixture with 9 cxa3070 3000, running at around 300W and roughly 40 -50w 4000 led light strip to add a little more blue into the spectrum



Main tent - 2.4m x 1.2m x 2m - Just added an extra 600W HID digital ballast, from the experimental tent, to 2 existing 600W+HID digital ballasts, making it over 1.8kw (not sure how much more, this will be measured too, at some point). My new plants have just come from the mother tent and gone under these running at 250W each, with 2 MH's stradling a HPS. These lights will be replaced by DIY LED COB's eventually, when I'm happy with the prototype in the experimental tent and funds allow, it's gonna be a massive investment.

 

[DonBrennon]

What've I got under the lights??????

Mother tent

Blueberry mother plant - Dutch passion - regular

I think the soil she's in has high ph causing various nute lockouts, I've done cuttings off her below, as a replacement and she'll be mulch soon, here's the cuttings, they need feeding and/or re-potting very soon. (shit, like NOW, they looked perfect yesterday).


Purpletrainwreck - HSO - Fem'd, I tend not to buy fem'd seeds but these were a gift and I had to give it a go.

She grows structurally like a sativa with leaves of an indica, I can't wait to see her in flower, I like her a lot lol

Critical kush - Barneys Farm - Fem'd - These were also a gift..............I've ran barneys before with some disappointment, I've got to admit though, that their blue cheese turned out pure dank, if a little light on yield. you couldn't smoke it anywhere, it could be smelled miles away lol. But I tried various others and found them average at best. I do like the look of this girl though and I ahve heard good things about the CK, here she is

 

[Richard Drysift]

I love that HSO purple trainwreck..very distinct flavor; grapey/skunky = yum. Not a bad yielder when trained well- nice dense sativa bud structure.. Tight nuggets....Mine was throwing nanners which seeded out the plants around her so I stopped taking clones but that's my only complaint. Sub'd

 

[DonBrennon]

Experimental tent

These are an accidental cross between the Dutch passion Blueberry and THseeds Bubblegum. The pollination occurred in at my friends house, I'd given him the cuttings and left him to it. But he must've really stressed them somehow and one of the bubblegum plants hermied pollinating most of his crop. He didn't even notice till close to harvest, he's got shit loads of these seeds so I thought I'd run a couple. I popped 8 beans, all germinated, I potted the 4 best looking ones up discarding the rest and started mainlining. About a month ago I flipped the light to 16-10 to get them to show sex. 2 immediately grew balls and were chopped, and a few days later pistels were showing on the 2 others. I then switched the light back to 18-6 for further growth. They have been vegging for a long time and have been mainlined to give 32 tops on the one on the left and I'm not sure how many on the other, one of the branches snapped of during extreme LST lol.


The picture above was taken last night, the day after a root soak and foliar, all my plants received the same treatments as they're all in growth at the moment, but these are going to be flipped to 12-12 today, so I added fermented alfalfa SST in with the root soak. These were the only plants to 'Pray', so I guess the fermented SST must be doing something.

Various photos at different stages

 

[DonBrennon]

Main Tent

I will be running at test of Fermented, sprouted seed tea's, which I've made following this method - http://theunconventionalfarmer.com/sprouted-seed-tea/ - I've got alfalfa, crimson clover and fenugreek seed already done and a mixture of the 3 left over pulps re-fermented together to hopefully give a supercharged SST.


Back row, Left to right - Purple Trainwreck(PTW) - Critical kush(CK) - CK - PTW
Front row, left to right - PTW - Bubbleberry(BB) - BB - PTW
Mirror image of each other for the side by side I'm running. The plants on the right will be receiving fermented SST2, the plants on the left will be receiving coconut water. All the plants being compared to each other are cloned from the same respective mother, the one's on the right currently look unhealthier than the ones on the left, so the plants receiving the fermented SST2 are already starting off at a slight disadvantage, I'm hoping the various sst's I've made will compensate for this. I'm not sure how often they will be applied as yet, I'm gonna go easy at first and gradually increase application, playing it by ear. I've not read about any results from the application of these tea's, but I did use an aflafla one on my last run from time to time and my plants always seemed to respond well to it.

Left hand side PTW's
Right hand side PTW's
BB's
CK's

I really should have transplanted these sooner, but the space wasn't ready yet (my timing sucks sometimes), I also don't like the pots I planted them in from cuttings, they're made of coco fibre and you plant them straight into your final pot. The problem with them is that they dry out within hours and need watering very slowly twice a day.

 

[DonBrennon]

Some shots and info on the DIY LED light I've built and I'm testing in the experimental tent. It is a prototype for more lights I will be building for my main tent, I will be going full LED for all of my lighting, eventually.

9 x CXA30700N00AB30F, 3 per HLG185H-C1050A, with around 60W supplimentary 5000k strip light. It draws a measured 422W

 

[DonBrennon]

Gave the plants in the main tent a foliar of

2L filtered water
10ml Homemade Immunity boost/Pest repellent (Garlic, ginger, chili, cilantro, rosemary, thyme and other herbs, I forget now, Gill & Pat styley)
20ml Lacto serum (Gill & Pat )
10ml Fulvic acid (Bioag)
and a couple of drops of Dr Bronners peppermint soap


Thought I'd add a little interest to the tent by adding some marigolds to each pot, I've already sown some micro clover, but the seeds have been lying around in poor storage for some time (although I did mix a sachet of cheap Myco spores in with them) and I'm not sure how many will germinate, or if I've buried them too deep in the mulch. Some will definitely come through some won't, that's life.



The Marigolds were sown for companion planting for my outdoor fruit and veg, but I had good germination success and have got way too many. I'm not sure how beneficial they'd be indoor as companions, but they do deter certain pests outdoors, I can't currently recall which, but as I said, they're for added interest, there may be a few more additions before they get chopped and dropped on switch to flower.
Each mirror image plant has had the same varity of marigold planted to keep the side by side as fair as possible( this may be being too anal)

edit.............I moved the lights up a little a turned them up to 400w each, so 1200w, I also sprayed the whole tent with water, I'm struggling with low humidity again and think I'm gonna have to get a cheap humidifier.

 

[DonBrennon]

I've also been debating whether to add some mosquito dunks to the mulch, I've defo got fungus gnat, a week ago I had shit loads of them, now I've just got a few.



I've got a theory about this but would be interested on opinions. Towards the end of my previous grow (not the one just cropped, the one before), I found spider mite('RED' or more correctly identified '2 spotted') and thrip in small numbers and applied 2 diff types of predator mites, I then cropped and forgot about it. I've also had a vast number of springtails since I turned organic and after early research didn't mind them being around. About mid way through flowering my last run I noticed an explosion of predator mite's, I couldn't exactly Identify which, but I'm pretty sure they were hypoaspis miles, you may have seen the video on the vermicomposters forum. What I noticed, when I saw an increase in the number of F-gnat, was that there were no spring tails left in my soil. I figure the predators came to such a population that they totally drained their resources eating all the springtail and in the majority of them died out. The F-gnat seem to be abating after the vermi-C topdress and i know the predator mite are still around, so I'm not sure whether to just let them battle it out.



The big fly on the flypaper must've come from a larva out of the rotted logs, activated by the heat in my grow room. There are no active flies around here at this time of year, it's too cold for them.

 

[DonBrennon]

It's been another busy day............................I've also Harvested 80L of the good old black gold today, way more than I was expecting, the red wrigglers really make a difference when you add them to euro night crawlers(that always sounds like a seedy porno, lol)


and prepared new bedding of shredded cardboard, which I later mixed with a bit of coco fiber and the remains of the un-composted material from before and a good couple of cups of fruit/seed meal/calcium pulp under the surface.


...........and I've re-potted the blueberry clones, one of which will replace the unhealthy mother

 

[DonBrennon]

These are screaming to be put into flower, but they need a amended VC topdress, a final lollypop and a bit more spacing out


I haven't got the time or energy left today, lol

 

[Grandpa GreenJeans]

Looking great! Subd -
You definitely have been listening and learning. I'm impressed man!

 

[DonPetro]

Some shots and info on the DIY LED light I've built and I'm testing in the experimental tent. It is a prototype for more lights I will be building for my main tent, I will be going full LED for all of my lighting, eventually.

9 x CXA30700N00AB30F, 3 per HLG185H-C1050A, with around 60W supplimentary 5000k strip light. It draws a measured 422W

Nice lights!

 

[Grandpa GreenJeans]

What've I got under the lights??????

Mother tent

Blueberry mother plant - Dutch passion - regular
View attachment 3606055
I think the soil she's in has high ph causing various nute lockouts, I've done cuttings off her below, as a replacement and she'll be mulch soon, here's the cuttings, they need feeding and/or re-potting very soon. (shit, like NOW, they looked perfect yesterday).
View attachment 3606053

Purpletrainwreck - HSO - Fem'd, I tend not to buy fem'd seeds but these were a gift and I had to give it a go.
View attachment 3606048
She grows structurally like a sativa with leaves of an indica, I can't wait to see her in flower, I like her a lot lol

Critical kush - Barneys Farm - Fem'd - These were also a gift..............I've ran barneys before with some disappointment, I've got to admit though, that their blue cheese turned out pure dank, if a little light on yield. you couldn't smoke it anywhere, it could be smelled miles away lol. But I tried various others and found them average at best. I do like the look of this girl though and I ahve heard good things about the CK, here she is
View attachment 3606050

Topdress the blueberry with powdered garden lime. Add 1tbsp/gal of powdered lime into the water to wet down and leech in the dressing. Throw some EWC in with it and a little Epson salts, (in the topdress) No more than 1tbsp/gallon of soil on the epsom. I'd probably add the epsom to the lime water.
Don't fucking mulch her! You can bring her back around, she's not flowering yet.

 

[Grandpa GreenJeans]

Or foliar with epsom. It looks like mag def from lockout base in pH. Fix the pH and the lockout will reside. Hit her with an epsom foliar instead of adding it to the limed water. I'd add epsom to the soil as a dressing if you choose to foliar.

 

[DonBrennon]

Topdress the blueberry with powdered garden lime. Add 1tbsp/gal of powdered lime into the water to wet down and leech in the dressing. Throw some EWC in with it and a little Epson salts, (in the topdress) No more than 1tbsp/gallon of soil on the epsom. I'd probably add the epsom to the lime water.
Don't fucking mulch her! You can bring her back around, she's not flowering yet.

Too late, she's already been mixed into my side by side soils, lol. She was never intended for going into flower, only for cuttings and I've got two cuttings off her coming around nicely now, so I haven't lost her.

The issue wasn't low PH, it was too high. I think the calcified seaweed I'm using is breaking down faster than I thought. I think I'll stick to grinding up oystershell grit and eggshells in my pestle and mortar in the future.

 

[Grandpa GreenJeans]

Too late, she's already been mixed into my side by side soils, lol. She was never intended for going into flower, only for cuttings and I've got two cuttings off her coming around nicely now, so I haven't lost her.
View attachment 3608598
The issue wasn't low PH, it was too high. I think the calcified seaweed I'm using is breaking down faster than I thought. I think I'll stick to grinding up oystershell grit and eggshells in my pestle and mortar in the future.

Understandable, bit the dolomite maintains a neutral pH. So even if your over or under, it puts it at 7.
Eitherway, I know that plant has plenty of nutrients and minerals that will definitely benifit your needs.
But she was so pretty tho -

 

[DonBrennon]

I decided to add my mosquito bits to my pots, the fungus gnats are pissing me off now and I think my hypoaspis miles have gone on strike lol.


While adding it I noticed some of the micro-clover coming through and in some strange places........who'd of though a rotten log would be good germination substrate pmsl

 

[DonBrennon]

This is what's going on under the log

The worms seem to love it under there and there's a woodlouse dug it there too, breaking wood down and pooping nutrients, let the bugs do the work lol

 

[Grandpa GreenJeans]

This is what's going on under the log

The worms seem to love it under there and there's a woodlouse dug it there too, breaking wood down and pooping nutrients, let the bugs do the work lol

Cool as hell man!
I knew exactly what your up to with those logs. That's a really good idea. It's a micro habitat within a habitat.