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The growing large plants, outdoors, thread...

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Feb2006er

Active member
Has anyone ever used lava rocks in their smartpots? I have some of these in front of my house. They're light and have a bunch of holes. I saw them at walmart for $4 a bag. They're cheaper than perlite. I think I might try a bag.
 
Y

Yankee Grower

As I remember He was real pissed off when it happened last year, and it did set him back. The strain is an old California purple indica dom. He is going to plant this weekend.
My buddy had to put everything out early due to a leaf fungal infection and only cure was sunlight he said. Was wild to see how all the different strains/phenos responded being put out late April. Was a great learning experience. He got lot's of decent early bud but most was only hash worthy. Still yielded about a lb of hash so not too bad...lol. For sure hurts production when things go into flower after being put out.
 

nomaad

Active member
Veteran
Feb: I'd test pH in a small batch with those lava rocks. If I am not mistaken, volcanic soil has pH issues.
 

ROOTWISE

Member
Veteran
My personal experience with Lava Rock has been very positive, I'm actually re-using some from a greenhouse grow we did years ago for this year's grow....never any problems.
 

localhero

Member
I was told that a pumice mine in bishop hit a vein high in arsenic like in the 70s or something killing thousands of plants. so to replace the pumice people used crushed up lava rock in the 3 to 4 size and did fine.
 

Dr. Purpur

Custom Haze crosses
Veteran
I was told that a pumice mine in bishop hit a vein high in arsenic like in the 70s or something killing thousands of plants. so to replace the pumice people used crushed up lava rock in the 3 to 4 size and did fine.

What's a little arsenic between friends?
 
C

CityOfTrees530

You guys have mentioned using seeds and planting early may not worrying about budding.
I have 3 seeds i've started and sexed already making sure they were females. Could I plant early May, get them in tomorrow with no supp lighting
 

Dr. Purpur

Custom Haze crosses
Veteran
Hey Nomaad,
Thanks for making me think. See Brother I had a problem, and you helped me solve it. Im Building a black box for three 4 foot plants tomorrow. Im taking one out of the ground and not messing around. I have Ladies in waiting to fill the places. All Different Kushes and Haze as well. Im Gonna Put L A Confidential ( two foot mother) into the 400 gallon hole.
 
Y

Yankee Grower

What's a little arsenic between friends?
Arsenic is an interesting thing. In sea products, such as kelp, there's a pretty high level of organic arsenic and not so much inorganic...about 10:1. I've had someone tell me about one study where they removed all the arsenic from the diets of some rats and they got sick. Organic arsenic seems to be necessary. It's inorganic arsenic, from the best I can tell, arsenic trioxide (As2O3) that's the problem. An easy way to tell the organic vs inorganic arsenic content of something is to test the same material using the dry sample prep method (hydrochloric acid) and wet sample prep method (nitric acid).
 

Hash Man

Member
Summary

Summary

OK SO HERE IS SUMMARY OF WHAT TOMHILL SAID IN THE FIRST 40 PAGES OR SO… I made this for myself as I am following this recipe to a tee(cut in half, and plants in by june 1) The thread is so long, maybe this can help sum up Tom's advice for others who are following this thread.

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I've played with a lot of different soil recipes over the years, 1rst year new soil mixes, as well as yearly additives. Here's a very simple mix that is well proven and I am comfortable recommending for those large outdoor containers. It gives about 50 cubic feet or just over 300 gallons (dry U.S), and fills a 6ft diameter container to a depth of about 18inches - perfectly.

25 bags black gold potting soil (1.5cf ea)

4 bags stutzman farms chicken manure (1 cf ea)

1 bag perlite (4 cf ea)

1 bag (50 lbs) bonemeal (steamed, not precipitated)

1/2 bag gypsum (aprox 1/2 cf) - Edit -> 1/2 of a 40 lb bag (20lbs).

Mix well, water thoroughly, let rest for 2-3 weeks minimum, transplant, and stand back
___________________________________________________________________


The mix is for outdoor use only, for one we wouldn't want to use chicken manure indoors with a quicker cycle. If your water is good, plain water with this mix until budding (at which time I like to slowly add bloom formula, maxing out at week 4-5 or so with 2-3 consecutive fertigations at full recommended strength) seems fine. I had very high pH water source (8+) so I used Earth Juice grow/cat at the rate of aprox 1/4 tsp per gal on every watering to lower irrigation pH to 6.5. Folk who have no H2O pH issues, use plain water in this mix with excellent results. Also, If my H2O pH was closer to 7, I might go 50/50 gypsum/lime instead of straight gypsum.

Started in June, I'd cut all the amendments in half or so.

_______________________________________________________________________
My favorite thing to spray for outdoor crops is "brix mix" by peaceful valley farm supply (fisher15's link - groworganic.com) at 1/2 recommended dose every two weeks. I add 1 tbs per gallon of molasses to this (attracts beneficials), and 1/2 tsp per gal of ascorbic acid (vit C). I adjust this spray to 5.8 pH +/-, and bring it to 125-150 ORP via h2o2. Every two weeks, that's my foliar spray, until about midway through what we call the August stretch (stop before any buds stack). Then, as if my soil mix didn't contain enough calcium hehe, I spray once a month a product called calcium25, and stop using this at the same time as the brix mix.

___________________________________________________________________

Irrigation/fertigation,
From water source to large collection tank. From large collection tank to a 305 gallon mixing tank where I can add measured out food while it fills/mixes, then off to the garden, from the mixing tank it goes 1-1/2" poly to 3/4" poly ea servicing about 6 plants, each plant gets 6 spaghetti tubes with spray emitters. I use Earth Juice products to lower my h2o pH to 6.4 during veg, and let it creep up to 6.7 in flower.

___________________________________________________________________

I recommend a pH meter, an ERGS (energy released per gram of soil) meter, and an Na (sodium) meter at the very least. The other two meters in my arsenal are an ORP (Oxygen reduction potential) meter and a refractometer (reads degrees Brix/%sucrose),
___________________________________________________________________

Spacing, about 14ft on center will give you 2 ft walkways between 12 ft wide plants. 12 ft wide is about what to shoot for in a 10lb+ plant. A wider base (container etc) will give a wider plant. I like 6 ft minimum containers, 8 ft is better. No need to go any deeper than about 18 inches imo.

As a rule of thumb I calculate a water volume of around 10% of soil volume per "maintenance" (normal) watering. Occasionally I'll do a light watering (5%) or a more thorough soaking (15%) but 10% is the "normal" watering once we are in maintenance mode.

So that would be 1/2 gallon water for a 5 gallon container. These 6 foot containers are up around 50 cubic feet or something over 300 gallons. This requires about 30 gallons per cycle. -Tom
 

Hash Man

Member
IE, the addition of readily available humus is certainly valuable. Worms, humates, etc. But, the action of matter breaking down into humus and the rate at which that occurs is equally or even more valuable.

A hard working soil is more productive than one that has shit (eg, humates etc) handed to it - that's the basic thought.

All breaking down of these organic inputs results in salts, period. When salts are high we get false (high) readings on our meters. H3ad and I have been yacking about this for years to pretty much zero avail. A ppm/ec/ergs measurement is fairly worthless without knowing how salts are affecting said reading. The effect of salts needs to be diminished/tied-up/complexed so that we can more accurately feed our organic mediums. My meters of choice are energy released per gram of soil (ergs), pH, Sodium (Na), Oxygen reduction potential (ORP), and refractometer. Pretty good idea of what's happening with these. Many here a bit further north on this board may like to believe that these things don't matter at all, or even exist, but they do, ime. -T

Tom, as I stared at my mound of soil at the yard and discussed my plans of dumping 900 lbs of bone meal, 180 lbs of gypsum, and 180 lbs of crushed oystershell into the mix, my soil guy shook his head and commented on how it seemed like alot of ammendments for 36 300 gallon pots... I laughed it off, and dumped it all in the pile for him to mix... he will be delivering it tommorrow...Pics to come afterwards... Thanks again for sharing your recipe with all of us. Hash Man
 
P

planty

When do you plan on planting out HashMan?

I went with a different approach to my soil mix. I don't like to eat the same thing all the time and I figure my plants would like a gourmet buffet too...so I came hard with an ocean based mix. In to a cubic ft of worm castings I mixed fish meal, kelp meal, activate 80 granular humate, fish bone meal, shrimp shell meal, crab shell meal, oyster shell lime , gypsum , greensand, alfalfa meal , nutri rich 4-3-3 My beds are 30 sq ft (6 feet circle) so I just went with 30% of what is recommended for 100 sq ft...My thinking is in such a large volume, so many things breaking down on different schedules nothing in too high an amount will just give the base mix I used (pro mix hp) which is completley inert enough of a charge for me not to have to use too much other than compost tea.

Tomorrow I'm going to hit my beds with a compost starter as well called BioTron.
 

Hash Man

Member
planty- may 24th or so.... they will be in the greenhouse by tuesday... i have lots of genetics to pick from, including salmon creek big bud this year, and will be placing only the healthiest in the ground... a few blue dream, but mainly stuff from the chem fam... sounds like your plants have a nice buffet to pick from, will be cool to see how they react... good luck man.
 
M

MediNice

Hey Tom, regarding your post: "I would be comfortable and have swapped out the Black Gold for many premade soil recipes, Ocean Forest, Happy Frog, SunShine mix #2, etc, etc,. If I was making my own, I'd just make sure the peat wasn't too far off the charts on the low pH end. If I had deeper holes and was able to tend them at will, i'd go with a lighter base mix, and the opposite otherwise."

Are you saying you could swap the Black Gold with Ocean Forest and still add all the supplements listed in your recipe? I ask because I plan on rockin' the Greenfields as a base, which is similar to Ocean Forest.
 

nomaad

Active member
Veteran
I plan on rockin' the Greenfields as a base, which is similar to Ocean Forest.

but quite a bit less perlite. take that into account. i am working with them both this year and the GF is heavier. My main problem with my mix last year (Roots:707 3:2) was the bad drainage. Should have added perlite. Leaving it out when it didn;t come on the truck was a big noob error. I'm going to try to get the perlite percentages in the mix from the companies on Monday morning.
 
T

theJointedOne

hey guys sorry i missed htose posts, no net...umm off the grid and a newbie to electrical shit....well not newbie my entire family are freaking engineers for nasa and boeing but me, i got the ganja gene!

so i have a gene, 3.5k watt, its a pull start though so i cant put that on a timer can i?

i went with genetics proven to not flower early for my main crop also so i hope that helps., the rest are going to be randoms that will get some supp if im on the hil

Lets see, that last storm was super gay....i came up to a GH that had fallen over with 12 large moms in 20 gallon containers, i was able to save 5 but most broke at the stem base. FUnny b/c i rigged this thing much tighter than my little hoopie i thought but the hoopie was fine and the big gh was a bust!

well as far a supp lighting, i now only have 2 blue dreams, and 3 red dragons and a uk sheese that are really large enough to flower early imo, i rigged some lights over them and i turn on the light for 5 minutes every night around 2-30 or 3. I have missed three nights 2 weeks ago then had a week of nights straight with supp, now they will not have it again tonight but i will be giving them supp again tuesday night and so on..

so far only 5 blade leaves off the big girls so i know its all good. My babies are santa cruz kush, master x bubbba, and 1 single Jack clone! those are under solar leds when i cant give them supp and to be honest i threw a bunch of the solar leds in the canopy of my moms so at least if i cant gve them supp they will get pinner led light.



so yeah please more info on the battery thing, im gonna read that article thanks bombadill

ok hope you guys are well, filled my first 12 smarties and boy let me say a good wheelbarrow is worth its weight in gold! mine is worth one dollar, us!.....

other than that its all good

big RASPECT!
 
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