Opt1c goes organic

[opt1c]

yup; after lots of research and fun experiments brewing teas i've finally decided to try some all organic runs

To this end i'm going with LC's #2 mix with lightwarrior as a base to be fed with the guano/kelp teas outlined in the beginner thread.

I'm blessed that my tap water is ph7; i run a carbon/sediment filter to a 55gal drum with a bubbler and foat valve hooked up to a chiller to keep my res temps at 68f. I just use a bucket and measuring bucket to scoop up the requisite amount of water i need so its quite flexible.

Couple quick questions i couldn't find an answer to without reading through hundreds of pages of threads.

If i'm not amending the mix with dry nutes how long do i need to let it cook for before its ready?

As far as cooking goes is a 55gal drum without holes good for storing the soil while it cooks? I don't have a lot of places i could put it without worrying about my dogs getting into the pile. Lid on, off, or cracked if i do it in there?

I have a small pack of humi-solve. Should i add this to my teas at all or just keep it simple and follow the recipe.

I won't be checking ph at all this run; and this is coming from a hardcore hydro guy. And yes; i'll still run rdwc and coco so i'm not purely organic but i really want to give it a try for myself.

Glad to be here.

First up for my organic run are a couple jack herer phenos i got from some sensi seeds i popped; some of head's casey jones and a few la cons but from cuts being passed around cali.

Clones are in small 4" coco square pots getting ready for their next transplant.

Here they are right after they got transplanted from rockwool cubes into the 4" suqare pots...

I'll take a pic later today to give you an idea of how the led lights can rage veg; they're under a 205 watt led from ledgirl



All input is welcome; this is my fist time with organics. Plants will be sprayed with azatrol as a preventative; no chems or pesticides this round.

 

[opt1c]

Ok... well i've sourced everything i need finally and i'm ready to start mixing. I'm going to go with the 55gal drum to store the mix in as it's very dog proof and easy for me to clean.

Anyone know what the min time the mix needs to cook? I'll be amending with tea right off the bat but i have a couple plants i want to transplant asap. If i don't get an answer i'll just go ahead an transplant into slightly larger containers leaving the bulk of the mix to cook for a future transplant.

Thanks for the views; don't be afraid to say hi.

 

[Mud Man]

schweeet- locked for this.... your gonna kill it with your skills mang..

i think 2 weeks is the min cook time, please chime in if it isn't.. but 4 weeks is best i believe 4,5,6,7,8. longer the better, let everything cycle through the microbes and dat

 

[Sir_Nugget]

teas are like ph unstable or somthing, and everytime I water with a tea i get undesired effects.. Adding earthworm castings to your water won't do squat if your mix already has a good % of castings.. feel me? same with the guanos and other types of poop, if it's already in there, there is no reason to add more unless ur plant is starving, and the roots ahve done yoked it all up from your container... I think the answer to growing no hassle organic, is to give your plant a nice big container, like 5 gallons of foxfarm, or other good complete dirt... They say the dirt only has enough nutrients for 3 weeks...? Think about how that statement kinda doesn't make sense... It should go like.. "the dirt will last a certain size plant for 3 weeks in an outdoor setting..." after which u start feeding teas... To be honest, if you give your plant enough good dirt (food) it will never have to be fed a tea, just plain water whole time, and maybe use R/O substituted with the proper nutrients ratios at low doses (i.e. 100-200ppm maxibloom or gro).. as opposed to tap which is filled with minerals in ratios that your plants won't love you that much for. you should have nothing but success, but to each his own

 

[opt1c]

well i already have the soil for the recipe; might as well go with it.

i plan on trying amended soils in the future but i'd probably get bored real quick just adding water every time; thats just me though; i need to keep myself occupied... this is more of an experiment.. i figure i might as well go all the way organic with the teas; i've read the compost tea manual 5th ed so i'm not a total noob at em and properly brewed ewc tea is almost a visceral thing for me... i've never had a prob with em and i think the ewc is more to activate the microbes in the tea while it brews as opposed to doing anything in the soil; humates or whatever

i grow a lot in coco which is a sterile medium so i try and get a little life going in it every now and again depending on how i'm growing

never had a prob with the teas; i apply em 30mins after turning off the pump to allow em to settle out yet still be fresh... i plan on cutting em with filtered water if their ec is super high but i may just follow the recipe in the beginners thread to a t and see what happens

organics can get a bit confusing between soilless, soil, amended soilless mixes and everything in between; i suppose if running a monocrop an amended mix dialed for the flowering time allowing for the proper container size would be ideal but i'm still looking for that keeper so i figure the teas will give more wiggle room; thoughts?

 

[aligee]

wsup bro looks like your doing it man !!! organic soil nice !!! you gonna use any mollasess???
organic seems like alot of fun !!!ima watch this one !!!

 

[rckymtnthuglife]

Sir Nugget can you explain? Nevermind.

Teas rock! They unlock microlife. pH doesn't matter in a proper organic set up. Alot of people swear by Liquid Karma but its not organic and I wont use it.

 

[opt1c]

I know liquid karma isn't registered and listed as an organic but you don't think it's all natural? What would you use instead?

Seems like a kelp based product fortified with humics; don't see much synthetic about it.

If adding fulvic acid to teas can you add a liquid one or is it better to just add it at the end?

Also would adding humi-solve to my tea work in place of liquid karma?

I assume its one or the other; humi-solve or ful-power.... thoughts???

Got some earth juice hi-brix molasses for my sugar source.

 

[opt1c]

Soil all mixed up.... playin in the dirt can get dirty; imagine that

A nice benefit of the 55gal drum is that i can slap the lid on; knock the drum on its side; roll it around; boom instantly mixed soil

 

[grapeman]

opt1c

I've been using large tupperware bins I buy at Lowes or Home Depot for my soil. They stack easy enough and are easier then a drum to mix and turn the soil, which is important.

I'm sure the guano mix will work well for you. CTGuy suggests that you add a bit of humic about once a week to your finished tea at about 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons of finished water mix. That was his humic product from KIS.



Good luck

 

[sneakinman13]

hell yea opt1c. been wanting to try a few plants pure organic. also some hydro of some sort. too damn busy these days tho. ha
good luck and ill be checking in on this fooo soooo!

 

[milehighmedical]

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[Sir_Nugget]

Sir Nugget can you explain? Nevermind.

ur pot of dirt should already be teaming with life. Thing is i grow pretty much all organic, and I only use 1 thing.. foxfarm.. and r/o... and about 100ppm of salts in ratios that the plants want... which is 1/3 the ppm of salt in my tap.. so the tad bit of minerals I use won't build up or cause negative affects, because i truly only give the plant what it needs..

my plants reward my like this year end to year end.. instead of adding tea, i would just xplant into another container with more foxfarm.. It is hard for a plant to use up all the nutes in the foxfarm, the food in there last a whole gro, not no 3 weeks.. simpler than pie

i got proof too..



but hey, if you like doing alot of work for an ungarunteed rward, its your show... your plants don't eat money, they eat dirt

i hope this helped some1 thats not a fucking douchebag,

 

[opt1c]

light warrior ain't much more than coco per cubic foot; i'm used to hydro prices

reason i picked light warrior over ffof was that i've really been unimpressed with the quality of ffof out the bag the past couple years; back in the day that shit was dankity goodness but now it seems as if they've long since exhausted whatever natural supply they were once sitting on. that being said i know the light warrior is light as all getup; i figured the extra worm casings will help... i've used it before for starting seeds without amendments so i know how quickly it can dry out... i'll see if it's the same this go around... i also wanted to try an non amended soilmix... ffof has all sorts of organic nutes already in the mix; i figure a clean slate would be a nice backdrop for the teas... later i can try promix/ffof/sunshine/etc... light warrior is the closest soilless mix to hydro in a bag there is probably

fwiw i did an experiment this summer growing hydro in pure perlite and perlite cut with vermiculite; got some bomb peppers... so in now way am i married to any one medium or form of growing

and sir nugget i'm not really following or paying attention to what you're saying but ur proof shots r sorta wack; i did soil once before without using pure organics and i got some pics like this...

so if u want to talk shit either find some better pics or find another thread bro; i really hope my plants turn out better than those

 

[tooper]

ur pot of dirt should already be teaming with life. Thing is i grow pretty much all organic, and I only use 1 thing.. foxfarm.. and r/o... and about 100ppm of salts in ratios that the plants want... which is 1/3 the ppm of salt in my tap.. so the tad bit of minerals I use won't build up or cause negative affects, because i truly only give the plant what it needs..

my plants reward my like this year end to year end.. instead of adding tea, i would just xplant into another container with more foxfarm.. It is hard for a plant to use up all the nutes in the foxfarm, the food in there last a whole gro, not no 3 weeks.. simpler than pie

i got proof too..



but hey, if you like doing alot of work for an ungarunteed rward, its your show... your plants don't eat money, they eat dirt

Dude, quit trolling him. You show a complete lack of understanding of organics and your pics don't prove shit. That bud your holding is some premature larf.

If you wanna make your own thread then fucking make one but don't blow up his thread with your mediocre pics.

Optic kills it...look through his gallery.

The nugs he makes into bubble hash dwarf your nicest colas.

Check out this rockbud from his album.

 

[milehighmedical]

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[VerdantGreen]

hey opt1c - good luck with your organics.

personally i found that using coco in an organic mix changed everything. it seemed to mess with the availability of nutrients - making P and K less available and N more available. i have stopped using it now because otherwise i would have had to re-formulate all the ferts i put in. just making you aware that it is not just interchangeable with something like peat (which i would say is better)

cheers

VG

 

[vonforne]

hey opt1c - good luck with your organics.

personally i found that using coco in an organic mix changed everything. it seemed to mess with the availability of nutrients - making P and K less available and N more available. i have stopped using it now because otherwise i would have had to re-formulate all the ferts i put in. just making you aware that it is not just interchangeable with something like peat (which i would say is better)

cheers

VG

Nice set up OP. Looks like you have everything you need.

VG, I have noticed that about the coco also.

Remember, the P def. in my last to grows? I also think it came from the coco knocking things out a bit. I have increased the amount of compost whe recycling the soil and it seems to have helped.

K in veg comes short and P in flower.

Nice call on that one.....Thanks.

OP, I used to use a barrel to mix and store soil. Good call tere......makes things quicker and easier.

V

 

[opt1c]

yeah i thought about coco with tea but couldn't find anyone online who'd had good results so i decided to just go with one of the lc mixes; the light warrior is peat based with humus, ewc, and perlite added (sounds sorta familiar; i thought that's what i was mixing) and see how it goes... this mix should be coco free; the bags of coco in the pic were for some random moms and coco, like duct tape, is good to have on hand.

i love coco with chem nutes; not sure how it'd work with organics and i may find out if i do a test run; actually that's a good idea; i'll keep the coco pure as amended coco seems to have problems in the long run and pure coco can be flushed like a hydroponic medium (a benefit people often overlook) I guess one casey jones is going to live in some coco now; if she suffers i'll tell her to blame u verdant

it's sorta fun; while i'm doing this run i'll be doing a rdwc run at the same time; already have em in netpots and water vegging in their little world of synthetic goodness

for this organic run i will NOT be measuring ph; my ph out the tap is 7 and i run a carbon/sediment filter to a 55gal drum with bubbler so the chlorine is long gone by the time i get to it... besides organic ph +/- is just more money; i'm taking the same route with organic nutes; if they don't get it from the tea i make they ain't gonna get it; although i may spike my tea or water with fulvic acid which i don't really consider cheating

later if i find a strain from my current hunt i really like i'll work on developing a soil mix with added ferts good for the life of the plant; some veg and whatever flower is needed and for that i'm sure i'll need all of the communities help

thanks again everyone for chiming in

 

[opt1c]

what/who are you quoting?

fwiw i don't consider you part of the community and i don't want or need your help; stop making southerners look bad aren't you supposed to be all polite and whatnot... learn to spell a bit while you're at it

stop trolling my thread already... i'm not using a 400watt light with ffof and ro water so nothing in this thread applies to your vast knowledge of growing and extensive expertise in organics; maybe if you spent less time trolling and more time tending to your plants they might give u some better flowers to smoke cuz whatever you're using now ain't cutting it

it's all karma man; i guess since u know what i deserve you're pretty good at judging others... hubris much?