Indoor 2nd Earthbox Garage Grow (Night Owl, Dark Owl, Gnome & Dream Beans)

[WildBill]

Everything is looking pretty good man, just be mindful of your flower top dressing. You don't wanna get behind. Check underneath the cover and see what kind of root activity you have.

 

[R Wayne]

Everything is looking pretty good man, just be mindful of your flower top dressing. You don't wanna get behind. Check underneath the cover and see what kind of root activity you have.

Thanks for the reminder. I did that like a week ago, but at this point I should be checking everyday. Checking your journal I know you follow buildasoil and their products. I’ve been using craft blend as my main top dress amendment throughout the grow for years now. But I’ve always wondered if another product that is more bloom/flower NPK focused would be better for my next top dress. Any thoughts? What have you used for amending?

Edit: I do have the buildabloom product as well. I just find that I don’t use it as often because it needs to be watered in.

 

[WildBill]

Thanks for the reminder. I did that like a week ago, but at this point I should be checking everyday. Checking your journal I know you follow buildasoil and their products. I’ve been using craft blend as my main top dress amendment throughout the grow for years now. But I’ve always wondered if another product that is more bloom/flower NPK focused would be better for my next top dress. Any thoughts? What have you used for amending?

Edit: I do have the buildabloom product as well. I just find that I don’t use it as often because it needs to be watered in.

It just takes a little time and man that's all.
I always top dress when I am need of watering...................ie filling the rez. It's still the same in regular pots. Naturally, following my adversion for any nutrients reaching the reservoir, this makes sense in Earthboxes also.
First of all, I recommend mixing all your top dressings together, then applying them. This easily distributes your nutrients evenly and if you're adding dry mineral ingredients, they're less likely to get on your bottom leaves when mixed together with other ingredients.
Earthworm castings and compost are always two of your ingredients. I will also add Craft Blend but at one quarter rate that I initially use with my first top dressing at the time of potting up............... And that's based on BAS recommendation for the volume of media being used. I want to leave room for different forms of nitrogen. If you use any of the dry mineral terp teas, You could add that to your top dressing mixture. If you use Build a flower, You could add that to your mixture now. I don't use it anymore as it's not that cost effective for the price. I had used it for a few grows mainly for the life that was in it. Since I had my own earthworms now, I don't need that aspect.

Now this is where your liquid flower ingredients can be utilized very easily.
I have three main liquid flower products.

Build A Bloom...................Great Stuff!

Blue Gold Flower.................. From BAS Very good stuff!! Can get out of early cal/mag for a super hungry girl. I tend to go very light on with this With the fairly rarely available nitrogen in it. Early flowers is not so bad and that's when I usually use this. Toward the end I would refrain from using it. It could induce foxtailing with a flash of nitrogen late.

And I think some of the best............. My own homemade J! My stuff is still perfectly fine after two years. I think I still have 4 more quarts. It's potent stuff! It's real pretty! It kind of looks like syrup! That stuff feeds your plants and your microbes very well!

So, you have one of the very good liquid ingredients. I always try to integrate my dry top dressing with using compost tea to water everything in. This is when you want to use your Build A Bloom.
I hope I can explain this adequately so you understand.

You don't want to use the rate as listed for one gallon, at least that way of thinking. You want to base it on your girl. If you have a relatively small auto or a quickly vegged photo, both going into early flower, I would give one teaspoon. That's kind of equivalent to giving them one gallon of water with that same rate. Now if you have a fairly big photo you are just now flipping into early flower, then two teaspoons would be the proper dosage in my opinion.
Now just remember you're not going to use a gallon of water in either a junior or a regular to do this job. You're gonna have to have enough water to saturate what your top dressing with and slightly wash it into the media. It also kind of depends on how long you've let it go since the reservoir went dry. I suggest doing this when you are ready to fill the reservoir. Base that on how it feels after I notice the reservoir is dry. I go by when I notice this lightness when I pick it up on one end. That's how I know when it's time for me to add water to the reservoir. Hence that's why it's the best time to do the top dressing with the additional liquid added. Just go at it slowly and I would probably top dress as many as you can at the same time so you can rotate between the pots. I can't really tell you exactly how much water it will be since I don't know how long it'll go and how light your pot will be. Just remember to add up all your pots when you're mixing stuff up. I'm sorry man i'm stoned as hell right now and I'm trying to think of everything!

Just remember your surfactant. I tend to go a little heavy if I have some mineral ingredients in my mixture to help get them wet.
If you don't wanna do compost tea, just do some recharge.
I did play around with Rootwise Mycrobe Complete in the last grow. I can definitely tell a response from it. You could use that if you have some of that instead of the compost tea.

Or you can just use plain water with just surfactant.

Oh yeah! If you have it throw some Bokashi on it last before you put your cover back on!


I hope I didn't confuse the hell out of you.

 

[R Wayne]

I hope I didn't confuse the hell out of you.

No sir, it all makes sense. I’ve skipped watering in the liquid flower products and tried to add them to the reservoir which I won’t do again.

Naturally, following my adversion for any nutrients reaching the reservoir, this makes sense in Earthboxes also.

Didn’t seem to do much of anything, but it also didn’t seem to hurt my past plants either. Though it may have been F’ing them up and I didn’t notice. What’s the reasoning for not adding any nutrients to the reservoir?

You don't want to use the rate as listed for one gallon, at least that way of thinking. You want to base it on your girl. If you have a relatively small auto or a quickly vegged photo, both going into early flower, I would give one teaspoon. That's kind of equivalent to giving them one gallon of water with that same rate. Now if you have a fairly big photo you are just now flipping into early flower, then two teaspoons would be the proper dosage in my opinion.
Now just remember you're not going to use a gallon of water in either a junior or a regular to do this job. You're gonna have to have enough water to saturate what your top dressing with and slightly wash it into the media.

So let’s say I’m watering in the top dress of BBB in the jr. I would only use about a liter of water, maybe a bit more depending on how empty the rez is. Since she’s relatively big would you still use a full 1-2 tsp of buildabloom for the 1L of water since it’s not a full gallon? Or would you cut that by 1/4? Hope that makes sense.

First of all, I recommend mixing all your top dressings together, then applying them.

I’ve never been sure which way of top dressing is better. I’ve done both but I’ll be mixing it all up from now on.

Also how do you make your J? I would love to make a nice homemade bloom additive. Crazy it’s still good after 2 years.

Appreciate the thorough response @WildBill you have definitely cleared up some questions and thoughts I’ve had.

 

[WildBill]

Base your buildabloom dosage by your girl, Not the amount of water you will be utilizing. You can do that if you want to for simplicity, but you will be giving a lower dosage to the plant.

This is all based on my theory of the plant developing two basic root structures, one for water and one for feed. ...............Mainly, they'll still do both

When you top dress with your worm castings and compost, don't be afraid to be very generous! You could actually go a little hard on the mineral type ingredients. You are mixing it up and top dressing it all. Your resupplying the feeding area that you have already established. At least you should at this point. This little Earth box thing of having access to clean nutrient free water, allows the girl to pick and choose what nutrients she needs from your nutrient bank on top of the media. As long as that area is moist and microbially active, the girl will have no problem of picking exactly what she needs and when she needs it.

Now if you really want to avoid any possibility of washing any nutrients into your reservoir, is do what I did with the Asian haze outdoors and also I believe root beer float. Asian haze was huge outdoors in a regular earth box and she was going to flower like crazy. She had already fully explored her nutrient mound. The nutrient man was already above the top of the planter so I had to be able to mount on the top dressing. Well I would just not work when you had the water it in. So the correct that I just made a slurry of all my top dressing with whatever liquid nutrient I was going to use.
That's slurry makes it real easy with no worries of washing anything down into the reservoir

 

[R Wayne]

I appreciate the

Base your buildabloom dosage by your girl, Not the amount of water you will be utilizing. You can do that if you want to for simplicity, but you will be giving a lower dosage to the plant.

This is all based on my theory of the plant developing two basic root structures, one for water and one for feed. ...............Mainly, they'll still do both

When you top dress with your worm castings and compost, don't be afraid to be very generous! You could actually go a little hard on the mineral type ingredients. You are mixing it up and top dressing it all. Your resupplying the feeding area that you have already established. At least you should at this point. This little Earth box thing of having access to clean nutrient free water, allows the girl to pick and choose what nutrients she needs from your nutrient bank on top of the media. As long as that area is moist and microbially active, the girl will have no problem of picking exactly what she needs and when she needs it.

Now if you really want to avoid any possibility of washing any nutrients into your reservoir, is do what I did with the Asian haze outdoors and also I believe root beer float. Asian haze was huge outdoors in a regular earth box and she was going to flower like crazy. She had already fully explored her nutrient mound. The nutrient man was already above the top of the planter so I had to be able to mount on the top dressing. Well I would just not work when you had the water it in. So the correct that I just made a slurry of all my top dressing with whatever liquid nutrient I was going to use.
That's slurry makes it real easy with no worries of washing anything down into the reservoir

Appreciate all the knowledge dude. I dont see any feeder roots popping through in either EB, but like you said and I think Jeremy from BAS mentioned, that top dress is like a bank account for the plants. They can make withdrawals when they need it from that mound (bank account) on top. The BBB rez was empty, so I went ahead and top dressed it with 3/4 cup craft blend, sprinkle of kashi, and buildaflower. Mixed all together and mounded it on. Of course I made a bit too much, but I tossed the extra on the Marathon OG. I also added in some mosquito bits since I am seeing more gnats flying around. After adding the top dress I mixed together CalSil+ (micronized calcium silicate), small dose of Big6 from BAS, 1.5 tsp of buildabloom, and a nice amount of quijalla. Then added a little over a L of that to the top dress. Excited to see how she handles it.

Though I did have an afterthought, the Blueberry Breath just stopped the stretch phase and is starting the bloom phase. I hope I didnt add the buildabloom too early. Cant take it off so we will find out.

There was still some water in the reg EB so I will check it tomorrow to see if it is empty. Once it is empty I will do the same thing that I did today. But there are two plants in there at different stages. The ZaMango is done stretching and is working on her flowers, the Black Strap is still in the preflower stretch. I may cut the amount of buildabloom I use when I water in the top dress. Happy growing!

 

[R Wayne]

The regular earth box reservoir was empty so I decided to top dress. Took pictures this time.
Top dress mix: buildaflower, 1.5 cups of craft blend and a sprinkle of kashi.

Lots of clumps in the BAF.

Gotta break those down.

Add and mix the other ingredients

Next is the mix of stuff added to the 2L of water. CalSil+ from Bokashi EarthWorks, Big6 micronutrients, buildabloom & quijalla from BAS. I also went to my local ace to grab some more mosquito bits, but they only had the dunks. So I made some mosquito dunk tea before adding the rest of the mix. Never used mosquito dunks, but I believe it’s the same. Just BTi

Hoping you can see the difference between before and after top dress. Before

After

Love seeing the suds the quijalla makes

Black strap nodes

ZaMango nodes. This plant smells so damn stinky and good.

Tent after everything was done.

Happy growing!!!

 

[R Wayne]

Just a quick update. We’re at my favorite part of the grow. I love it once they hit about 45 days. Start building the flowers and the smells. I could hang out in my tent all day. These pics were from yesterday which was day 47.

Blueberry Breath is my favorite so far. Giving off a nice blueberry funk and drinking the Rez up quick.

Black strap is the biggest plant in the tent right now.

ZaMango smells great though this plant is significantly smaller than the last one I grew.

Marathon OG is making quite a comeback. I think it’ll give the black strap a run for the biggest plant in the tent.

Tomato, basil and catnip

Happy growing!!!

 

[R Wayne]

Pulled the regular earthbox out to clean the plants up a bit and water in some goodies. When I took the cover off I noticed the black strap has already put feeder roots through the last top dress. So I added another layer of buildaflower, craft blend and kashi. This black strap is a hungry girl.

The tent

We got our first tomatoes forming

Happy growing!!!

 

[Rick Dirte']

Plants are looking nice and healthy.
I think I’ll try ZaMango this fall.
I bought a San Marzano tomato plant last week and have it under the lights with my container patio plants. Last expected frost is Apr 15 here. Probably can put it out 1st or 2nd week of Apr.