Greetings AFN neighbors and friends,
I'm a hobby gardener living at 45° N in Vermont, and high elevation. I've been growing photoperiod plants for a number of seasons, outdoors in organic soil, with good success. I've typically grown between 2 and 5 plants that have turned out nicely overall, but the freezing temps always start to hit at the end of September and the plants barely have enough warmth and time to really do their thing in the final stretch. Here are a couple of pics from the past few years:
While I'm happy with what I've accomplished, I do believe that to grow the truly best herb, the plant needs to have decent growing conditions all the way to the final chop, without it being rushed, and without a long cold spell at the very end.
This year I've decided to go a totally different route and grow nothing but Mephisto autos and be done by early-mid September. (I have done a few autos here and there over the years for fun but never prioritized them like I'm doing now.) So I'm starting this grow journal to document my methods and hope to garner a little discussion on the topic of outdoor organic growing with autos.
A bit about my setup: I have a spot next to my house that is all sandy backfill, so I'm blessed with perfect drainage conditions to start. The location also has immaculate southern exposure and my house is directly on the north side of the garden, so the sun warms that whole area quite nicely. When I first started growing 4 years ago I dug a few big ol' holes in this spot and dumped in a bunch of yards of Vermont Compost potting soil which is extremely high quality. (I'm blessed to have such a high quality source of compost and potting soil so close by: https://www.vermontcompost.com/). I added some high quality local vermicompost and 20% chunky #8 perlite. Over the past number of years I've recycled and re-amended that soil, adding mostly KIS nutrient packs (www.kisorganics.com), Organic Gem fish hydrolysate, phos bat guano, kelp, fresh worm castings, malted barley, and aerated compost tea. I also use humic acid & fulvic acid from Bioag (www.bioag.com), potassium sulfate, and maybe a few other things. I mulch with old hay from a farm down the road. I have had tremendous success with this soil and setup, growing several 8' spherical photoperiod bushes each season, which is run-of-the mill in Northern California but is pretty good for way up here in Vermont I'm told!
Anyway, this year I'm going a different route. I dug out the soil in those holes and rearranged all of it into a single 6'x12'x2'deep bed, which is about 5 yards of soil - and added a yard of nice compost to it. I also added my leftover malted barley from last year, 32 gallons of inoculated biochar from Vermont Biochar (www.vermontbiochar.com), 45 gallons of very fresh and high-quality worm castings, 2.5 KIS organics nutrient packs, some more chunky perlite, and a pinch of ful-humix from Bioag. Here is most of my go-to collection of grow supplements and additives (not pictured are coconut water, aloe vera, and a few others):
Here is the heaping pile of inoculated biochar spread out over my bed:
layers on layers on layers!
Getting all tilled in now...
And now it's all raked out flat and covered with black poly to help the soil get as warm as possible over the next 4 weeks before planting.
I have 5 Mephisto strains: AVT, Hubbabubbasmelloscope, Ripley's OG, Walter White, and SODK.
I am planning to squeeze 15 or so plants into my bed (so ~ a 2' grid) and do a sea-of-green style grow to max out my available bed space. I have a little experiment planned - I'm going to cut holes in the black poly and direct seed some of my seeds in there in early-mid June, in small little patches of Biobizz light mix for each seed. I'm hoping the soil under the black poly will be warm enough to support good growth early on. But the nighttime temps are often still in the 40's F (~5-10 C) half way into June, so...yeah. With the other half of my seeds I'll start them indoors in 2L tiered transplant pots for a stressless transplant and see how that method compares with direct seeding.
I plan to use aerated compost tea made with fresh worm castings, aloe vera, coconut water, mycorryzal inoculant, fish hydrolysate, bat guano, maxi-crop, and malted barley as side dressings throughout various stages of the grow. In the second half of flowering I will probably cover with a greenhouse tunnel to avoid heavy rain on the buds.
I intend to do some fairly regular updates on this thread, but for now I'm letting this bed digest until I plant into it about a month from now!
I am fairly new to posting on here so I'm not sure who/what to tag so please jump in if you have any advice. I'd love to get some of the more seasoned outdoor/organic/Mephisto growers in the discussion mix if possible. Thanks for tuning in y'all and happy growing!
@stan_mephisto @KIS (Is that ok to do? Anyone else I should/could tag? Any outdoor/organic gurus out there? Thanks!!!)
I'm a hobby gardener living at 45° N in Vermont, and high elevation. I've been growing photoperiod plants for a number of seasons, outdoors in organic soil, with good success. I've typically grown between 2 and 5 plants that have turned out nicely overall, but the freezing temps always start to hit at the end of September and the plants barely have enough warmth and time to really do their thing in the final stretch. Here are a couple of pics from the past few years:
While I'm happy with what I've accomplished, I do believe that to grow the truly best herb, the plant needs to have decent growing conditions all the way to the final chop, without it being rushed, and without a long cold spell at the very end.
This year I've decided to go a totally different route and grow nothing but Mephisto autos and be done by early-mid September. (I have done a few autos here and there over the years for fun but never prioritized them like I'm doing now.) So I'm starting this grow journal to document my methods and hope to garner a little discussion on the topic of outdoor organic growing with autos.
A bit about my setup: I have a spot next to my house that is all sandy backfill, so I'm blessed with perfect drainage conditions to start. The location also has immaculate southern exposure and my house is directly on the north side of the garden, so the sun warms that whole area quite nicely. When I first started growing 4 years ago I dug a few big ol' holes in this spot and dumped in a bunch of yards of Vermont Compost potting soil which is extremely high quality. (I'm blessed to have such a high quality source of compost and potting soil so close by: https://www.vermontcompost.com/). I added some high quality local vermicompost and 20% chunky #8 perlite. Over the past number of years I've recycled and re-amended that soil, adding mostly KIS nutrient packs (www.kisorganics.com), Organic Gem fish hydrolysate, phos bat guano, kelp, fresh worm castings, malted barley, and aerated compost tea. I also use humic acid & fulvic acid from Bioag (www.bioag.com), potassium sulfate, and maybe a few other things. I mulch with old hay from a farm down the road. I have had tremendous success with this soil and setup, growing several 8' spherical photoperiod bushes each season, which is run-of-the mill in Northern California but is pretty good for way up here in Vermont I'm told!
Anyway, this year I'm going a different route. I dug out the soil in those holes and rearranged all of it into a single 6'x12'x2'deep bed, which is about 5 yards of soil - and added a yard of nice compost to it. I also added my leftover malted barley from last year, 32 gallons of inoculated biochar from Vermont Biochar (www.vermontbiochar.com), 45 gallons of very fresh and high-quality worm castings, 2.5 KIS organics nutrient packs, some more chunky perlite, and a pinch of ful-humix from Bioag. Here is most of my go-to collection of grow supplements and additives (not pictured are coconut water, aloe vera, and a few others):
Here is the heaping pile of inoculated biochar spread out over my bed:
layers on layers on layers!
Getting all tilled in now...
And now it's all raked out flat and covered with black poly to help the soil get as warm as possible over the next 4 weeks before planting.
I have 5 Mephisto strains: AVT, Hubbabubbasmelloscope, Ripley's OG, Walter White, and SODK.
I am planning to squeeze 15 or so plants into my bed (so ~ a 2' grid) and do a sea-of-green style grow to max out my available bed space. I have a little experiment planned - I'm going to cut holes in the black poly and direct seed some of my seeds in there in early-mid June, in small little patches of Biobizz light mix for each seed. I'm hoping the soil under the black poly will be warm enough to support good growth early on. But the nighttime temps are often still in the 40's F (~5-10 C) half way into June, so...yeah. With the other half of my seeds I'll start them indoors in 2L tiered transplant pots for a stressless transplant and see how that method compares with direct seeding.
I plan to use aerated compost tea made with fresh worm castings, aloe vera, coconut water, mycorryzal inoculant, fish hydrolysate, bat guano, maxi-crop, and malted barley as side dressings throughout various stages of the grow. In the second half of flowering I will probably cover with a greenhouse tunnel to avoid heavy rain on the buds.
I intend to do some fairly regular updates on this thread, but for now I'm letting this bed digest until I plant into it about a month from now!
I am fairly new to posting on here so I'm not sure who/what to tag so please jump in if you have any advice. I'd love to get some of the more seasoned outdoor/organic/Mephisto growers in the discussion mix if possible. Thanks for tuning in y'all and happy growing!
@stan_mephisto @KIS (Is that ok to do? Anyone else I should/could tag? Any outdoor/organic gurus out there? Thanks!!!)
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