Indoor Lugubrious perpetual indoor grow notill 8x4 bed LED journal

[Lugubrious]

Hey everyone, setting up my indoor grow this will be my first no till run. 8x4x1 geopot grow bed inside a 8x4 tent.

Lighting: all above par led panels.
1x 600w
1x 1200w
5x 300w

Medium:
Loosely following others notill mixtures I'm still mixing at the moment so will update more.

1:1:1

BASE SOIL:
I have around a equal mix of humus soil and worm casting, a little heavy on the castings side. had two 1.5cf bags of compost. Supplemented a bag of happy frog and some prepackaged super soil, basically what I mixed already because I needed more soil then I accounted for and didn't want to buy more casings or humus. It was cheap.
Was very surprised just how much dirt I needed. It was like a bottomless black hole. Calculations on how many bags of what were way off and dumped a ton in there.

AERATION:
lava rock/bio char
And sphagnum moss. I have a lot of sphagnum in there, a mix of small lava rock 1/4-3/8 and some large 1 1/2 rocks. I didn't get as much char as I'd like it's really hard to find here, got a bag of biochar shards I think .75 cuft from hydro store and 3 small bags of char powder from a regular garden supply store this had a bunch of perilite in it which I hope will help aeration as well.

Amendments:
Kelp meal
Rock phosphate
Neem seed
Karanja cake
Dolomite lime
Oyster shell
Crab meal
Mixed in some different mycorrhizae ect.
Maybe one or two randoms

Didnt really pay much attention to exact quantities of what, I added alot haha. Some whole boxes like the rock phosphate and oyster shell. Some half boxes like the neem seed and the karanja. Can use for teas.

Worms. A lot of them. I think just under 150 I got crawlers and will be looking for red wigglys but they are "out of season" here because of temperatures.

Thinking about lady bugs to help with any pests but not sure I want to deal with those things flying around. I think I am just to avoid any pesticides or anything that might be a sub par product to put on some hopefully quality plants.


Still deciding on a live cover crop or just mulch, think I'm gonna go straight mulch this first go.
Edit: prob no cover crop this round, I'm worried live plants will be too tall for some of the autoflowers and will just be a mess, and mulch would make replanting a mess because seedlings are so fragile.

Stay tuned for more pictures and updates. Going to keep this one pretty active.

 

[Dudeski]

Hey everyone, setting up my indoor grow this will be my first no till run. 8x4x1 geopot grow bed inside a 8x4 tent.

Lighting: all above par led panels.
1x 600w
6x 300w

Medium:
Loosely following others notill mixtures I'm still mixing at the moment so will update more.
1:1:1
Castings/soil I have 90% castings and supplemented a bit of happy frog
Aeration: lava rock/bio char
And sphagnum moss.

Mixing in different sorts of rock dusts neem cake kelp meal malted barley powder and earth worms.

Still deciding on a live cover crop or just mulch, think I'm gonna go straight mulch this first go.

Stay tuned for more pictures and updates. Going to keep this one pretty active.

Welcome to afn! The setup sounds great and a no till will be fun to watch. You have worms in your beds? How many of you have an idea.

Soil sounds good, guess this isn't your first time making soil.

@pop22 might like to see this. He is doing no till pots, I'm following his lead and about to try my first.

 

[Lugubrious]

@Dudeski its actually my first time mixing my own soil, just trying to keep it simple though and just go by most guidelines. My soil might end up a little on the hot side but hey, autoflowers usually dont complain about that.

Worms and biochar I'm picking up tomorrow. But hopefully as many as I can get comfortably, aiming for a fat handful for every 2sqft surface area.

Heres the progress so far. Big pile o lights on the floor and the tent with the grow bed in. I'm still getting the mixture together hence seeing just a big pile of lava rock. Excuse the pics as well I used flash on light in room

 

[Dudeski]

If you think it's hot you can always put some plain soil in the holes they are being planted in. You are in for a great journey, looking forward to following along. Are you using any compost? Perlite? Lime?

 

[Lugubrious]

@Dudeski Not quite compost but just the worm castings as my base if you will. No perilite just lava rock and rice hulls if I can find them.

What do you mean by lime?

 

[Dudeski]

Garden lime, as a buffer. Not sure where to find rice hills.

 

[Lugubrious]

I need a bit more though I'm probably going to add some humus soil in too

 

[Lugubrious]

I havent thought about that, it would be a good idea but I'm worried it's too much of a short term thing to work without reapplication which wouldnt quite be possible without tilling or mixing it back in.

 

[Dudeski]

I need a bit more though I'm probably going to add some humus soil in too

That would be good. I know home depot here sells some nice compost, wish I could remember the brand. Really adds some good natural foods to the soil.

 

[Dudeski]

Dr earth!