Today is day 41.
The last eight days have been much more lively. I'm confident I have been chronically underwatering every plant I grew that wasn't in autopots. I was always so worried about overwatering that I seem to have overcompensated. Now I'm focusing on keeping the soil moist without giving too much; and stopping just shy of runoff so as not to waste all that organic goodness. I've also abandoned all LST measures since they seem to be taking off at this point.
I've given water twice since the last update. I split two gallons of RO/well water mix between the three on Day 38, and then they got two more gallons with 2 tbsp of molasses yesterday on day 40. All waterings have a little bit of yucca extract added.
Higher frequency is leading to a new development in that I'm not having to do anything extra to add humidity. I always wondered why others were struggling to keep humidity down when I could never get mine to a decent baseline without help. Well, now it's my latest problem. For now, I've switched to 24/0 lighting. It's helping keep temperatures stable around 77F, and humidity is around 54%. I'm right where I want to be.
Lights
Lights are now right around 700-800ppfd. I've been incrementing by lowering an inch or two each day with no negative signs. This is also helping me keep the plants warm and mitigate any excess humidity. I noticed today that Grapefruit is within an inch of the minimum recommended closeness of 15", so I'll probably start raising the lights with the plants as they continue to grow now.
Deficiencies
I'm tracking a few random rust spots in lower growth, but I've been seeing a few of these for a couple weeks now with no signs of significant spread in any plants. I think my watering habits might have contributed, but given that the problem doesn't seem to be spreading and all other signs are good, I'm going to proceed as I have been for now.
Now for a few photos:
3 Bears
Northern Lights
Grapefruit
Worm Bin
Got the worm bin polished off and picked up my red wigglers last weekend. We're off to the races there. They seem happy and are chowing down. It'll be quite a while before I can put any of this to use, but I'm excited to start incorporating fresh teas and castings into my soil mixes going forward. It's only going to help.
The last eight days have been much more lively. I'm confident I have been chronically underwatering every plant I grew that wasn't in autopots. I was always so worried about overwatering that I seem to have overcompensated. Now I'm focusing on keeping the soil moist without giving too much; and stopping just shy of runoff so as not to waste all that organic goodness. I've also abandoned all LST measures since they seem to be taking off at this point.
I've given water twice since the last update. I split two gallons of RO/well water mix between the three on Day 38, and then they got two more gallons with 2 tbsp of molasses yesterday on day 40. All waterings have a little bit of yucca extract added.
Higher frequency is leading to a new development in that I'm not having to do anything extra to add humidity. I always wondered why others were struggling to keep humidity down when I could never get mine to a decent baseline without help. Well, now it's my latest problem. For now, I've switched to 24/0 lighting. It's helping keep temperatures stable around 77F, and humidity is around 54%. I'm right where I want to be.
Lights
Lights are now right around 700-800ppfd. I've been incrementing by lowering an inch or two each day with no negative signs. This is also helping me keep the plants warm and mitigate any excess humidity. I noticed today that Grapefruit is within an inch of the minimum recommended closeness of 15", so I'll probably start raising the lights with the plants as they continue to grow now.
Deficiencies
I'm tracking a few random rust spots in lower growth, but I've been seeing a few of these for a couple weeks now with no signs of significant spread in any plants. I think my watering habits might have contributed, but given that the problem doesn't seem to be spreading and all other signs are good, I'm going to proceed as I have been for now.
Now for a few photos:
3 Bears
Northern Lights
Grapefruit
Worm Bin
Got the worm bin polished off and picked up my red wigglers last weekend. We're off to the races there. They seem happy and are chowing down. It'll be quite a while before I can put any of this to use, but I'm excited to start incorporating fresh teas and castings into my soil mixes going forward. It's only going to help.
