First organic grow, couple questions.

[OneMoreRip]

Why alfalfa? I mean if your looking for cheap organic nitrogen/mulch just grow clover on your pot and mulch it. A 1 lb bag of clover seed is like 15 bucks. I buy a bag every couple of years for my 4x4 beds. Mulch in my left overs from bubble hash/harvest. Clover is living mulch. Mulch is food for the soil food web. It breaks down, the fungi/bacteria start to break it down, nematodes consume it and poo, plants use the poo. Its a self sustaining system. Just grow clover.

I'm inside using 1 gallon pots for this winter and ~just staring organic. I got cover crop for veggie garden outside when the weather gets nice next year

 

[m4s73r]

That is the best thing about organics. You can start small and get bigger with time. I preach a tote system to get started.

The Tote system. With 2 totes you can rotate your totes for harvest. So one tote growing, one resting. With no till, you want to give the soil time to recuperate from the grow. Let things break down like cover crop, top dressings, ect. Totes are also a good stepping stone if your wanting to get to say a large no till bed.
Get a tote fill with living soil plant clover. Post harvest, add a light dusting of some Craft blend, your leaves and stems from your crop, any trim your done with to the tote. Let clover grow in real thick and start mowing it into the pot. Get new tote and fill with living soil, plant clover and grow your plants in it. Once clover is in good and thick on the Tote 2, put a lid on tote one. Follow same pattern post harvest. Repeat once more.

So in the end we have 3 totes. One with a lid on it. One with clover growing and resting post harvest, and one were growing plants in. Now if we are smart and use a commonly available tote from HD around 27-40 gallons all said and done you have 75-120 gallons of living soil. You could then fill the bottom half of a 4x4 bed with aged wood and a bag or 2 of just promix and dump your 3 containers on top of that and boom you got a aged living soil bed that you built up too over time. Never water more than 5% water : soil.

I'm inside using 1 gallon pots for this winter and ~just staring organic. I got cover crop for veggie garden outside when the weather gets nice next year

Fabric or Plastic?

 

[OneMoreRip]

That is the best thing about organics. You can start small and get bigger with time. I preach a tote system to get started.

The Tote system. With 2 totes you can rotate your totes for harvest. So one tote growing, one resting. With no till, you want to give the soil time to recuperate from the grow. Let things break down like cover crop, top dressings, ect. Totes are also a good stepping stone if your wanting to get to say a large no till bed.
Get a tote fill with living soil plant clover. Post harvest, add a light dusting of some Craft blend, your leaves and stems from your crop, any trim your done with to the tote. Let clover grow in real thick and start mowing it into the pot. Get new tote and fill with living soil, plant clover and grow your plants in it. Once clover is in good and thick on the Tote 2, put a lid on tote one. Follow same pattern post harvest. Repeat once more.

So in the end we have 3 totes. One with a lid on it. One with clover growing and resting post harvest, and one were growing plants in. Now if we are smart and use a commonly available tote from HD around 27-40 gallons all said and done you have 75-120 gallons of living soil. You could then fill the bottom half of a 4x4 bed with aged wood and a bag or 2 of just promix and dump your 3 containers on top of that and boom you got a aged living soil bed that you built up too over time. Never water more than 5% water : soil.


Fabric or Plastic?

plastic or humidity would win. I like to keep the fans on low since in my room and don't want to hear it

I'm just filling a 4x4 tent with mostly cannabis but veggies and peppers and stuff. going to keep most things small to bring out in spring.

Last year I was having trouble getting some seeds going, and some take over a month go germ. I just want to know that I will be able to get some of the tougher plants going for next season and have them ready for spring. I didn't have a humidity dome and mat in use last season, so used a different method and lalala, not many of the plants i really wanted to grow actually grew. big part of it was i started very late too. Sometime in may.

Also, wanted to try some veggies outdoors that are considered winter crops I guess, radishes, kales, cauliflowers, also strawberries, blueberies, ground cherries, tobaccos, flowers, this that and the other.

I also like to start a new cannabis seed every 5 day about, sometimes more, sometimes less. everything on 12/12 now pretty much to make things easier and keep growth slow/keep plants smaller

getting all the 1 gallon pots set up on a wick irrigation so they will all be automatically watered from the bottom, sort of like sips but I believe it yields better results if set up correctly from some stuff i have seen, and I will only need to fill one res to get water to how ever many plants. Going to use wick irrigation outdoor next year as well in the vegetable garden, so trying to get better with it now.

the totes idea sounds good but I would want more space for that, though I may get some smaller ones going if it seems convenient/like it will make things more manageable. 4x4, jsut makes you want a 20x20, just makes you wanna be somewhere you can grow outdoors all year round

going to have so much stuff in tight space it helps to be able to move things around for so many reasons

 

[m4s73r]

plastic or humidity would win. I like to keep the fans on low since in my room and don't want to hear it

I'm just filling a 4x4 tent with mostly cannabis but veggies and peppers and stuff. going to keep most things small to bring out in spring.

Last year I was having trouble getting some seeds going, and some take over a month go germ. I just want to know that I will be able to get some of the tougher plants going for next season and have them ready for spring. I didn't have a humidity dome and mat in use last season, so used a different method and lalala, not many of the plants i really wanted to grow actually grew. big part of it was i started very late too. Sometime in may.

Also, wanted to try some veggies outdoors that are considered winter crops I guess, radishes, kales, cauliflowers, also strawberries, blueberies, ground cherries, tobaccos, flowers, this that and the other.

I also like to start a new cannabis seed every 5 day about, sometimes more, sometimes less. everything on 12/12 now pretty much to make things easier and keep growth slow/keep plants smaller

getting all the 1 gallon pots set up on a wick irrigation so they will all be automatically watered from the bottom, sort of like sips but I believe it yields better results if set up correctly from some stuff i have seen, and I will only need to fill one res to get water to how ever many plants. Going to use wick irrigation outdoor next year as well in the vegetable garden, so trying to get better with it now.

the totes idea sounds good but I would want more space for that, though I may get some smaller ones going if it seems convenient/like it will make things more manageable. 4x4, jsut makes you want a 20x20, just makes you wanna be somewhere you can grow outdoors all year round

going to have so much stuff in tight space it helps to be able to move things around for so many reasons

Nice on the plastic pots. A lot of people miss that. Look at dripworks.com I went back and forth on sips/wicks, bluemats, or drip irrigation. I ended up going with drip as it was cheaper for me to set up. Not saying it is for you but with growing so many different things you may want a bit more control over where water goes and how much.

 

[OneMoreRip]

I’m using an auto pot base in my tent and keep the res outside.

With the auto pot base the water level only changes a couple inches at most and now I’m just trying to dial in the ~perfect height for the autopot base, so that it won’t wick to much or to little. I started to low at the beginning I think , maybe it’s doable but I wasn’t getting it to work, 20 inches below the plants.

Various ways to slow down the flow as well, tie loose knot in wick, clamp on wick longer or shorter wick.

Medium plays a big role too of course in the wicking.

With capillary wick bottom feeding you can keep the moisture of the medium near ideal at all times because if set up correctly it will not over water/ take very long to overwater. The plant and evaporation from the medium, controls the wick

kinda got everything set up in my mind and done enough fiddling around with it. Now I just need to clean up and not fuck up my ph again.




(Topsoil soaked from flushing, not wick)

Using 5 gallon bucket for res, outside of tent.

Gonna cover all medium with circle of plastic to keep humidity down in tent, top most soil should always be dry but I’m sure humidity still coming out.

fucked up my ph worse than I can even believe, while using hydro nutes, so been flushing trying to get plants happy again, keeping me from getting everything set up nicely. Just about through that mess thankfully

I also have tubing for the wicks to keep them from evaporation.

 

[m4s73r]

Right on. Its been a hot minute since I've seen anyone doing a wick system. Shouldnt those pots be close to the water source and the wicks shorter? I thought the systems were normally like totes sitting on top of one another? Totally intereted. Been trying to decide how to tackle autowatering a bunch of seedlings/fresh mothers.

 

[OneMoreRip]

I finally started one that way, the tubes just keep the pot elevated and the dish is the res. Not filled up with to much medium because I expect it to stretch a bit but I set the seed directly on the wick in dry medium just because I thought it was funny and wanted to see how it would respond, top soil moist now, waiting to pop



I also am working on a small scale one for my seedlings, the black tube in the one on the left is where I feed the wick in. Not sure if necessary


seedling wet from day one never signs of over watering, always bottom watered

I needed to lower the flow on them, they were getting to wet. I think anyways, they were doing great and no signs of overwatering, I found it interesting and am going to try and replicate, with less standing water and correct ph.

yes finding much on wick irrigation seem to be difficult for me, a bit of stuff here and there but not a whole lot and nothing that goes over a lot of the variables.

I also made a thread on here not to long ago to see if anyone is doing it in hopes of seeing what other do with it. Not much happening there.

Pretty sure my setup in first post wasn’t working

Watering with string.

Hi. I was just curious if anyone else was doing something similar using rope/string/cord, to water their plants. If so please share setup and experience using this method. I am still setting up mine, got light blocking tubing for the string and going to use an auto pot base + 10ga res, to...

www.rollitup.org

Best video on anything aside from standard plant in pot above res. But there are a few other pretty good ones.

I am pretty positive the plant that didn’t get so messed up , was able to dry it’s pot out, I just hooked the wick back up yesterday and pretty positive the pot is gaining weight and even top soil is slightly moist. So I think I may be good on elevation.

got 4 of the auto pot bases to set around the tent, few inches under the plants and also with the tubing to prevent evaporation on longer runs 20” max I should be fine.

kinda larger scale.

I’ve heard it’s used for irrigation on farms still in some places. Haven’t come across anything on it though.