The power of the Earth box comes from two things, the clean Nutrient free water in the reservoir and a nutrient mound........top dressings.
In Earthboxes, once the plant has established a root structure into the wicking area, it now has a source of nutrient-free clean water. The girl can now take up water without having to take up any nutrients. This means the girl can pick and choose what she needs and not what she is forced to take up through transpiration and growth.
So the plant basically develops two root systems. One is pretty much just for clean water and the other is for nutrients.
The cover over the Earth box keeps the top of the media moist for biological activity to help break down and make the nutrients in the nutrient mound available to the plant. Roughly 20 to 30 days, you will see feeder roots invading the nutrient mound. As you get more experienced, you can use the amount the roots have invaded into the nutrient mound to determine when the next top dressing should be administered. This takes time. This is why I established my nutrient mound at the time of potup, I'm giving it time for all the bacterial activity to breakdown and make everything available.
I've just recently tested the 3.0 media for seedlings sensitivity. It passed with flying colors. Your nutrient mound cannot burn the plants because it's not plant available yet. I'm not the only time you're going to burn your plant from the top dressings is if you let your reservoir stay dry for a few days. Forces the plant to take up the nutrients with what water is left in the media. And that's pretty much with any kind of container growing.
Really the only problem you're going to run into in growing earth boxes is if you pick the wrong earth box for the size of your girl or you wash some nutrients into the reservoir by top watering too much. For a simple beginner grows you won't be top watering any, other than maybe misting the top if it needs it. This comes into play when you're more advanced and using different flowering nutrients that are liquid, such as
J......Fermented Fruit Juice. I get around that by just mixing my liquid ingredients with compost to make like a wet slurry and apply that to the nutrient mound. But like I said, that's for later when you get more experienced in growing with Earth boxes.Just using those ingredients that I have mentioned, you can definitely grow some really killer plants. With this setup you really don't have to worry that much about your nutrients and you can concentrate on providing your girls with the best environmental and lighting conditions.
And you really don't need to worry about pH'ing your water. 6.2-7,5 will work and up to 200ppm. Anything after that you should consider filtration and may be RO.
Really, the only hurdle you need to overcome with Earthboxes Is establishing that relationship with the wicking area. This takes time. In Jrs, it's about 10-14 days you can start limited water in the rez. I usually start with about 10 ounces only. This will wet the center wicking area in the junior and the roots will go toward the moisture directly underneath the plant. A couple of days later I will add more water, usually another 10 ounces. A little small flashlight will help you see into the reservoir to gage when to add water. Usually by day 21 you can add a half a gallon. Now this is just still going to depend to own the progress of your girl.
Establishing a good root system on autos is extremely important, especially in the beginning. Too much water or too little water you will stunt your autos and they will go into early flower. This is the same in regular pots or earth boxes.
This is why I now pot up the day that I'm planting my seedlings. I bring up the moisture level and use whatever biological inoculate to bring up the moisture level of the media to the proper level. It's the exact same level that I used in making compost. And if you haven't made compost, If you take a handful of media in your hand and squeeze it, you should not get any moisture out and the media should still stay very well clumped together.
This makes the media dry enough for the roots to need to explore and wet enough to encourage or enable it.
With the cover installed, it helps to keep this moisture level more even for a longer period of time.
Feel free to pull back the cover and use a simple moisture probe to give you an idea of when to add water. By potting up the same day and being extremely consistent with the moisture level, allows you to judge better when to add the water just through consistency from grow to grow. You won't have to use the moisture meter after you've gained a little bit of experience.
Here's Aunt Jenny's elixir at day 31. That's the day I fully filled her reservoir with one gallon for the first time. A couple of days later she kicked it into high gear. When they get that relationship established, they really blow up!
Regular Earthboxes are just a little bit different. Namely, it takes a little longer to get the relationship established. If you have a big enough Auto girl that needs a regular earth box, then planting on one end will help shorten the establishment of the roots to the wicking area, since Regular Earthboxes have the wicking areas on the ends. If you have the same girl planted on the same day, with one being in a regular and the other being in a junior, the junior will always jump ahead of the regular, but the regular will overtake the junior in the last half of stretch. Planting on one end also facilitates a very easy method of training. All you really gotta do is take a pull from the top main cola and pull it to the opposite end. I call it the layover method. done in small increments in this night stretched the girl done in small increments in this night stretched the girl any whatsoever and it makes for a lot of top buds.
If you go this route, just buy the Earth box itself. You don't need any of Earth boxes nutrients nor their methods.
Honestly. this is pretty simple way to grow cannabis! You'll be amazed at the root system after you chop one! It's nothing but one big root ball...................... If you did it right!
If you really want to learn more about Earth boxes, the same place I did, then check out Jeremy of BAS 10x10 Youtube series at the beginning.
Here's the first episode of the series
I think this is the easiest method for the beginner to learn and grow quality cannabis. That's why whenever it becomes fully legal here, this is the method that I'm going to use to teach other Veterans on how to grow their medicine.
And after the grow, all you gotta do is dump out the boxes into a tote, chop up the rootballs, add your re-amendments and let cook for 3 weeks.
If you wanna go down this rabbit hole, I'll definitely help you in any way I can.
