New Grower First Time Growing Anything! Featuring Twisted Tree and Mephisto in Coco/Perlite

[proustdreams]

I don’t have experience with solos as I go straight to my fabric pot, but I grow in coco also and I’m wondering if you’re getting good enough drainage for oxygen or if there’s enough room in the cup for you to only water around the perimeter which is necessary to get the roots to stretch looking for moisture. Coco should be fertigated daily to about 20% runoff and the fabric pots allow the necessary drainage and the risers your cups are sitting on will get air to the bottom of your pot.

The inner cups have had their bottom cut out to facilitate easier transferring.

@PeaceLove&Buds I think you hit the nail on the head. I lifted the inner cup out to check the soil moisture and there was a sizable chunk of soil sticking to the bottom of the cup. The soil was pitch black from sitting in water that wasn’t draining properly and smelled “un fresh”but not rotting if that makes any sense.

Last night, while there’s no sign of root rot and the roots are still white, I decided to emergency airlift them out of their solo cups and into their final 3 gallon containers because I think the roots and soil were suffocating. There is a decent network of roots running all throughout the entire perimeter and sticking out the bottom of the cups, yet my plants look so small and stunted!

I nuked the transfer hole with beneficial microbes last night and crossed my fingers. This afternoon all the plants are no longer drooping and actually grew a bit in size! They perked up and look happier now. Hopefully they manage to recover and get back on track.

 

[PeaceLove&Buds]

Great to hear they seemed to have adapted! Just try keeping your water circle wider than your transplant hole while you’re feeding every day. Not sure if it helped but at this stage I had a pole fan oscillating set at the level of the bottom half of my pots.

 

[PeaceLove&Buds]

So how goes it growmie?

 

[proustdreams]

So how goes it growmie?

Things are moving along lol. I definitely stunted them during the early seedling phase while they were in their solo cups. Looks like things are turning around and I feel like they’re about to blow up (hopefully). Had 3 casualties this grow - 1 Sour Stomper, 1 3bogxmango and 1 cookies. I think I finally got the feel for how to water properly now and I’m confident my next run will look much better. I’ll update with pics and more detailed notes later this week!

 

[PeaceLove&Buds]

Yeah it seems to take a bit to get used to watering and feeding soil. I don’t trust myself to ever get it right and that’s why I grow in coco haha.

 

[proustdreams]

Yeah it seems to take a bit to get used to watering and feeding soil. I don’t trust myself to ever get it right and that’s why I grow in coco haha.

Coco makes things simpler for sure. I have never gardened or grown anything before so it’s taking some getting used to. No matter how much I read about the subject, watering is definitely something that I needed to do in order to get a feel for it.

I started three new seeds so I can get a better feel for watering: crinkle cut by twisted tree, LSD by Error Seeds, and Top Gun by Atlas Seeds. The crinkle went straight into the 3 gallon and the other two are starting in 1 gallon fabric pots. They’re freebies so I won’t feel too bad if I lose em (although I am excited about crinkle cut), and watering in different sized pots is helping me develop an intuition for watering. Crinkle is not quite day 1 as it’s helmet is barely out of the ground, Top Gun is on day 7, and the LSD is on day 6. Things are running much smoother this go around.

This grow ended up a bit wonky on the timing…not really starting at the same time nor is it a perpetual. Harvesting, mixing different batches of nutes for different stages of growth, and dealing with differences in height might be a pain in the ass but I’m learning a ton this run so I don’t regret it…yet.

 

[proustdreams]

Life is hectic and I haven’t been able to update in a while. Things are running smoothly and after doing some research on bottom watering, capillary action, and asking @parsing_trees some questions I decided I was going to abandon hand watering and try bottom feeding to save time.

Was looking at octopots and Autopots but I ended up purchasing the AC infinity self watering bases so I wouldn’t have to wait until the next run to try bottom watering. They’re literally just a pair synthetic cotton wicks that wick up water from the reservoir and the fabric pots sit on top of them. The pots have been on these bases for 13days now and I haven’t top watered at all. I asked the AC infinity rep what type of wicks they used and they replied it was a generic 1/5 inch capillary rope you can find on Amazon - in case anyone reading wants to DIY their own version.

Some other developments. Had to toss the crinkle cut sadly after I found some moldy looking growth on the leaves and stem. The cookies, 3bogxmango, and stomper are 35 +/- 1 days old and LSD and TopGun are around 25 days old. They’ve all been receiving the same feed for about 10 days now.

2 ml/gal Pro Tekt silica
2 ml/gal Cal Mag
5 ml/gal Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro
.5 ml/gal Dyna-Gro Mag-Pro
~1.2-1.3 EC depending on my water quality that day
I PH the water at 5.5-5.6 because I found that the PH would be rise about .2-.4 after a day or two.


These ratios are based on @Mañ'O'Green spreadsheet I found on this site.

I think the stretch is starting to slow down so think I will be transitioning to the 5ml FP + 2.5 ml Bloom feed next refill for the Sour Stomper. Does she look like she’s about done stretching to you guys?

The cookies is a bit short but I think it was my fault for blasting them with 45-50 DLI during a week of early veg and poor watering practice during the seedling stage.

Top left: LSD
Middle left: cookies
Bottom left: top gun
top right: 3bogxmango
Bottom right: sour stomper

 

[proustdreams]

Another note for comparison purposes: Sour Stomper received the most defoliation along with lots of LST - the main stem was bent nearly horizontal, 3bogxmango was topped above the 4th node and lightly defoliated and no lst, and the cookies hasn’t really been touched except for some defoliation here and there.

The Top Gun is not on the ac infinity base but it’s also being bottom watered. The fabric pot is sitting on top of three 1/4 inch wicking ropes - the brand is Orimerc 1/4 inch wicking ropes you can find on Amazon.

 

[proustdreams]

It’s fascinating watching these girls grow! Gave em all a haircut yesterday and they seem pretty happy about it today. Super cropped the tallest branches on the stomper just to give each branch a little more space to fill out when they start stacking weight. I thought they finished stretching, but guess not! I'm also lazy and I didn't want to raise the lights since the DLI on the tallest branches was over 50 - problem solved.

The LSD and Top Gun are still on the 5ml Foliage Pro schedule.

I upped the feed for the rest of the girls and now they’re taking:

2 ml/gal pro-tekt (silica)
2 ml/gal calmag
5 ml/gal foliage pro
1.25 ml/gal Mag-Pro
2.5 ml/gal Dyna-gro bloom
For a total of around 1.4-1.5 EC

I also forgot I had a bag of Mikro-Myco so I gave em all a little bit mixed in with their feed. *shrug*

 

[proustdreams]

I'm also seeing random f*** bugs all up in their bushes. Yesterday I found a cricket just casually laying on top of one of the leaves and today there was a mosquito almost perched on one of the Cookie's roots that's coming out of the grow bag. Any tips? Do I need to take preventative measures? I have some mosquito dunks but not sure how I should use them - could I sprinkle em on top of the soil or directly into the reservoir?