The growing large plants, outdoors, thread...

[theJointedOne]

agreed, more water is better as long as you have optimum conditions

i said this earlier but the biggest plants ive seenwere grown on continious water feed. it never stopped! and if you can provide the ammount of root space and soil and drainage like planty said you are in buisness...with ten pounders!!

 

[CityOfTrees530]

nomaad that's true that's the one thing i have been worried about was my pot size i have two teens that will be going in and there big the rest are good looking clones. don't want to run out of space

 

[frikn squirrel]

Just wanted to drop in and say that this thread is packed full of incredible information and the season has just begun! Imagine what kinds of stuff will be in here in 6 months...

 

[theJointedOne]

whats up bro, welcome

 

[nomaad]

agreed, more water is better as long as you have optimum conditions

i said this earlier but the biggest plants ive seenwere grown on continious water feed. it never stopped! and if you can provide the ammount of root space and soil and drainage like planty said you are in buisness...with ten pounders!!

This seems like a perfect time for Butte to do a photo tutorial of his watering system like he did for trellising.

 

[CityOfTrees530]

We all enjoy watering with 5 gallon buckets. I'm pretty sure i'm settled on using age old organics for my nutes heard good things.

 

[theJointedOne]

heck no i dont enhoy doing 5 gallon buckets....after the first 30 or 40 loads t gets old fast

run some hose

 

[localhero]

I second the Butte watering tutorial. The plant support walkthrough was pure gold. Yeah I did 5 gallon bucket feeds last summer. screw that.

I know the watering amount is gonna change throughout the season, but I'll ask anyways. Heres some watering questions for the pros:

1- what percentage of pot size would you typically water your plants? (Ive heard 10, 15 20% )

2- How often do you water?

3- drippers or sprayers?

 

[baet]

1.10% 200gal soil=20gal water. at a certain point if the soil drains and the plant is monster, im sure you could water a lot more and theyd love you. sometimes i give them a deep saturation.
2.gets more frequent as plant gets bigger and days get hotter...
3. i would recommend hose over drippers/sprayers(what are sprayers???). just because every plant/strain has different needs and the hose gives you more control. if you have access for a hose down at the garden, spend some quality time with the girls. just time how long it takes to fill a 5 gal with your hose, then multiply that by how many gallons each bed needs.

but what are sprayers? cause those might be kickass

 

[localhero]

Planty could answer that better than me, basically just mini sprinklers pointed at the soil.

 

[baet]

hmm, each way will work, i'm a hose man for ease and control, never used sprinklers or drippers, so can't comment.

sprinklers sound nice if you need automation and have lots of plants. comes down to your specific situation. sprinklers for me, would be unnecessary and a lot more work for initial set up.

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

agreed, more water is better as long as you have optimum conditions

i said this earlier but the biggest plants ive seenwere grown on continious water feed. it never stopped! and if you can provide the ammount of root space and soil and drainage like planty said you are in buisness...with ten pounders!!

A great thread and a Goldmine of info, many thanks all....

The water info is very interesting, it kind of tallies up with what I have seen on my and friends plants outdoors here over the last couple of years.

Plants grown near the river, with access to groundwater always seem to do really well, people who grow on poor mountain soil, but with a bit of prepared topsoil and plenty of water get very big plants. Normal problems of waterlogging etc just do not seem to be relevant, large plants just drink it up and ask for more.

Looking at the ideas behind Krusty Buckets and thinking about the guy who ran a soil/dwc hybrid system I am wondering about running a catch tray at the bottom of my beds with a few inches of water in it and a bubbler running. I tried one 2 years ago pumping fresh air into bubbler cages in Coco pots but was not sufficiently impressed by the growth to go on that way ....and then a wild storm zapped my air compressor....

Has anybody run into problems with Wild Boar routing around in their raised beds ? Any solutions ?

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

Yea, running like 10 hours or something nuts is what my concern was.. I've read some LED ads that say they run 12 hours on a charge and that somewhat concerned me.. You don't by chance know the model or at least brand of what you're using do you? I'm not going out until June 1 which will probably make it a non-issue in my neck of the woods but if this goes well this season the property owner is interested in going for 3-4 years.. I'd go for early May outside if I could not have to sweat the pre-flower deal as the last frost date in my area is mid april.... Thanks for your response!

i could use that info as well...

the olny solar powered leds i saw at walmart werethe garden path kind that stakes into the ground but i wanst looking for them , they were just on the end of a aisle

The ones I am trying are from Bauhaus, round post style cheap [guess Chinese] LED Garden lanterns, the kind with stakes.

Given how cheap they are, it would be very easy to pull a couple of packs apart and modify them to work better for you and your plants. What would really make them work well and be very portable, would be a simple 12v timer that would control them all to just run an extra hour at Dawn and Dusk. Any ICers handy at a bit of Electrical Hacking ? Those battery powered [e.g. Rainbird] watering timers you get that open a solenoid could be butchered I think, just get one that runs on a real clock and switch the power feed from the solenoid to the LEDs ? There are probably quite a few products that could simply and cheaply be altered to do this. Ideas please....

Likewise, if you were actually building a proper system to do this, there are probably better sources of LEDs and Solar Panels/Batteries than butchering cheap garden lamps.

 

[JOJO420]

HI

HI

Hi everyone, really loving this thread. Big up's to all
Taking into consideration all things, is hand trimmed vs machine trimmed a consideration I need to address with my genetic choice for growing plants this big.We grow 5+ pounders and we think we can do 10's soon like you guy's. Does certain strains hand trim better than others? Do I need a Machine to manage others? Does the machine mangle certain types? I'm curious more than concerned. Been hand trimmin for AGE'S ,lol
Other thing on my mind is pruning techniques? Does the yields you guy's are getting have a certain pruning technique beyond the basics that you care to share? Does pruning factor in with the cages and the Hortinova every time or is it strain dependent? thanx for your time

 

[planty]

http://www.dripworksusa.com/store/sprayer.php

 

[nomaad]

JOJO: i'd look at 2uptown's thread from 09 and I think humboldtlocal also did some writeups on trim machines. I am still on the fence.

I hand watered last year. For feedings I got a 250 gallon rubbermaid stock tank and a submersible pump. THis year I will get a more powerful pump because last year's was too damn slow. When we were in a rush to get a feed done, we'd use 5 gallon buckets. Its a good workout, but I wouldn't want to do it 3 times a week. I am going to look into a well pump this year that keeps a certain amount of water under pressure and delivers it at a very high and steady pressure...

pruning techniques: each strain has its own specific training method that will bring the best out in it. one of my homies got 7 lbs out of a grape ape by aggressively pruning all the leaves bigger than his hand during VEG! I got a couple of pounds from the same cut in the same amount of dirt... i didn;t prune at all.

 

[nomaad]

planty, those are the same sprayers I use for aerocloners... seems like they will spray WAY too far for the purposes of watering containers. thoughts?

 

[theJointedOne]

2500 gallons of love

 

[planty]

Nomaad I don't understand your question bro. The internet is getting in the way. I saw mention of the sprayers I like so I figured I'd throw a link up to them.

 

[theJointedOne]

a buddy of mine used those sprayers (the 90 degree) and they worked great, also have a friend that runs 6 drips per bed to get even h20 and that works well too

id say just dont water at night and your good!