Mephisto Genetics Cosmic Queens in not quite living soil

[Dudeski]

Sissy wants to rule the world! She is definitely queen of the closet .

 

[stedimed]

I haven't reached a conclusion on this yet, but I suspect we could get our mineral part of the mix simply by adding a few handfuls of the next best soil we can dig into (as long as it's not anaerobic or heavily fertilized, we don't want to be introducing unwanted elements that could cause havoc in our mix - whereby, with a really good microbial herd, they could handle that too).

Basically I think we're all completely confused by the chemical-think of the past 60 years, and the fear of scarcity it generates in our bones - and I totally count myself in with the crowd on this and keep stumbling over it!
Plus of course there is environmental devastation, which forces us to doubt the integrity of any inputs where man has been actively influencing.
Stories of people telling me how alpine herbs no longer have the healing power of former days - no agriculture up there beyond light sheep or cow grazing, along with some maintenance to preserve the cultivated ecosystem that has arisen over the ages of this mode of alpine land use! Up there, damage is being done by the mere settling of pollution dusts we're blowing into the air...

I opened an Instagram account recently to see how Mountain Organics is faring with his system (the system I'm leaning on to get my soils going), and LO! He's skipping just about all the amendments he used to recommend, depending mainly on his compost to have the right microbial profile, and mulching plant material back to the soil.
My opinion: yes! That's exactly where I want to head myself!
But you can only pull that off with a really good compost, and finding a trustworthy source (or taking the time to learn and make our own, with all the conundrums on inputs coming back boomerang style to haunt us) is the core issue.
But the reason I'm mentioning it: he makes the mineral portion of his mixes with volcanic rock dust along with pumice for aeration

Here's his recipe along with his reasonings:



Nothing more to be added to that!
He's showing amazingly healthy and beautiful plants growing in no-tills on their 22nd run btw lol


So since I'm not going to start recommending the hillbilly-handful of random soil approach until I have done that myself, I don't see any reason not to use those rock dusts as a sand-silt-clay replacement in the meantime.
I forget which, but the one or other input in that "department" has problems like hi aluminum content and such, at present I tend to counteract such potentially negative effects simply by input diversity, i.e. small amounts of different inputs vs. relying on a single input, and not worry too much about it elsewise.

Hoping that's not totally offtopic to your question!
cheers!

First, I think I need to apologise for even making this post,.....but here goes. In my area we have a big Amish community and with that there's the automatic understanding of there organic growing principles. I want so bad to approach I no not who to try and get some hand fulls of living soil to culture and keep for the obvious. It's bugging me nonstop, I just don't know how to to go about it, you know with the approach.

 

[stedimed]

Sorry again for the odd post, it's early here and I've not been around much lately. Not feeling well, and just jumped in.

 

[Dudeski]

First, I think I need to apologise for even making this post,.....but here goes. In my area we have a big Amish community and with that there's the automatic understanding of there organic growing principles. I want so bad to approach I no not who to try and get some hand fulls of living soil to culture and keep for the obvious. It's bugging me nonstop, I just don't know how to to go about it, you know with the approach.

Stedi it is easy. All soil is alive until we hit it with chemiclas. A bail of peat moss is alive, we just feed it with stuff like compost, minerals etc. You want a link to some good listening? I can't explain it in the detail calliandra can.

 

[calliandra]

First, I think I need to apologise for even making this post,.....but here goes. In my area we have a big Amish community and with that there's the automatic understanding of there organic growing principles. I want so bad to approach I no not who to try and get some hand fulls of living soil to culture and keep for the obvious. It's bugging me nonstop, I just don't know how to to go about it, you know with the approach.

Heya stedimed!
Thanks for asking this very interesting question, even despite feeling bad - I hope you feel better soon, the times when we are weighed down by our diverse burdens suck big time!

Quite honestly, I don't really know anything about how the Amish culture their lands, except that they have some cutoff point from which they refused to take up new technologies - and what I've seen of them in movies lol
Those images I do have, however, do include plowing.
And if that is indeed so, and also depending on how exactly, it very well may be that their soils aren't up to par either!

Because it wasn't just post WW2 that we started destroying the biology of our soils. It only took off exponentially then, with our increased power of disturbance that came with oil, big agricultural machinery, and synthetic inputs.
We had been at it for millennia before, but in much smaller scale. First, just manpower with a hoe. Then we yoked up animals. With the rise of cities, population growth, and compartmentalization - by the 19th century, soils were already showing signs of exhaustion, leading to colossal misharvests like the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s.
It is only because our soils had already been overly disturbed for all that time before, that the grandiose idea of dumping leftover war chemicals onto the soil in the large scale even worked out, and the Green Revolution could even take place.

Disturbance isn't bad in of itself.
In a peaked ecosystem, where burgeoning trees block out all light from the undergrowth, reducing diversity and energy turnaround, a nice storm that wreaks some havoc and opens clearings is a breeze of fresh air to the ecosystem. Species who have been on the wait can now flourish again.
But disturb the same soil over and over in short intervals, and you will be moving it backward in time, from forest, to shrubs, to annuals, to weeds...to bare earth. The more you disturb, the faster that will happen. And the soil ecosystem gets reduced in the same measure.

So it's possibly not going to be that the Amish-managed soil is mannah from heaven itself anyway

Nature around their fields however is probably going to be healthier than in an area close to industrial agriculture.
So chances are, a handful of shroomy-smelling soil brought along from a walk through the woods or past a wild hedgerow, added to your next soil mix, will do for you already
Or if you're doubtful there may be critters in there that you don't really want indoors (assuming you're growing indoors haha), inoculate your wormbin with it.

What are you growing in at the moment?
I'd also be really interested how the Amish actually do go about!!!
Whenever you're up to it, there's no rush!
Cheers!

 

[calliandra]

day 62

Have I mentioned I don't like this part of the grow?!
It feels like stagnation after all that growing, even moreso with autos
And, I really have trouble taking pictures!
That said, here they are.

Queen Sissi gives me the impression she may be wrapping up, not putting out much in terms of fresh pistils - though on the pix it looks like more..

Main cola, from the side and more from above

Dam, I cut these pix to be 800 wide on purpose to give you all a nice closeup view (I thought I'd figured out the AFN dimension limits) seems the height is also limited sorry!

Anyway, a closer shot of a secondary

Her buds are pretty leafy (which I put down at least in part to the defoliation, it may have made her grow those out more - so grower error), but not as much as they look like on the pics.

Mz Woozy, well visible how she is a week behind, with pistils all over the place

Main bud

And a secondary, looking like she just started flowering lol

I'd be happy if they were so kind as to finish soon (without being unreasonable,.. Sissi, 2 weeks, please?!), my stash is about empty!
Cheers!

 

[Dudeski]

day 62

View attachment 860251

Have I mentioned I don't like this part of the grow?!
It feels like stagnation after all that growing, even moreso with autos
And, I really have trouble taking pictures!
That said, here they are.

Queen Sissi gives me the impression she may be wrapping up, not putting out much in terms of fresh pistils - though on the pix it looks like more..
View attachment 860252

Main cola, from the side and more from above
View attachment 860253 View attachment 860254

Dam, I cut these pix to be 800 wide on purpose to give you all a nice closeup view (I thought I'd figured out the AFN dimension limits) seems the height is also limited sorry!

Anyway, a closer shot of a secondary
View attachment 860255

Her buds are pretty leafy (which I put down at least in part to the defoliation, it may have made her grow those out more - so grower error), but not as much as they look like on the pics.

Mz Woozy, well visible how she is a week behind, with pistils all over the place
View attachment 860256

Main bud
View attachment 860259

And a secondary, looking like she just started flowering lol
View attachment 860258

I'd be happy if they were so kind as to finish soon (without being unreasonable,.. Sissi, 2 weeks, please?!), my stash is about empty!
Cheers!

Oh no! I think they can sense when to stash jar is empty and slow down

 

[calliandra]

Oh no! I think they can sense when to stash jar is empty and slow down

ha and there you have it - the real reason they're taking their time!!!
my stash has been dwindling these 3-4 weeks lol
but now I'm down to one bud of skylar white (nighttime only smoke for me, toooo relaxing!!) and half a bit of fastbuds pineapple express, and that last Sour Stomper bud at the back of my storage shelf, I wanted to keep until I grow her again and then compare (probably not happening lol)

So I pulled out the digiscope today and looked at a leaf off a middling bud of Sissis
freaking carpets of trichs lol

These are all pix of the bottomside of the leaf btw

This girl is making me feel like I've never grown weed before - I mean, it IS the first grow in this closet, and my first go with fabric pots too (not to mention the overcrowding element lol), so there were unknowns manifesting and having to be dealt with that will be better sorted in future...
but this looks more like one week til chop, not two?!?!
Can someone less desperate please say what they see there?!
Cheers!!

 

[Dudeski]

I see some amazing tric covered leaf! Mainly clear so a week sounds right. Do you like to harvest with less amber? I do personally.

Skylar White has such a fine flavor and definitely not a daytime smoke

 

[calliandra]

I see some amazing tric covered leaf! Mainly clear so a week sounds right. Do you like to harvest with less amber? I do personally.

Skylar White has such a fine flavor and definitely not a daytime smoke

Yeah another strain I definitely want to grow again, but that one's going to have to wait another while, my list is so long already and with the CQ and Creme de la Chem cutting in line..
Say what have you got going at the mo?! I think I followed your sig-links a few weeks ago, landed in a gorgeous grow of yours - was it even your first! - but then got lost? lol

Thanks for your opinion! (also, it quite caters to my situation haha)

Yeah I don't actually look for ambers at all, besides so-called "true amber", which is largely strain-dependent AFAIK
I let a plant go too long on one of my first grows, the high was disagreeably numbing as opposed to buds from lower regions of the plant.

Usually I stalk trichs like crazy beforehand, but unless there's lots of dark ones all of a sudden, I usually end up harvesting when the magical day comes where I open the closet and - bam, plant looks ready!