lol
fan leaves or the actual fans with orange blades? Either way thanks, I guess...
FE
Big Soil Little Room, Recycled soil trial
- Thread starter FatherEarth
- Start date
lol
fan leaves or the actual fans with orange blades? Either way thanks, I guess...
FE
Your grow has inspired me to make a bed in my grow cab next run. I usually can pull between 4-6 oz's from a 3' wide, 18" deep, 6' tall cab. With a bed I know I can make it go up a little if not a lot.
LOL,
Rik,
Always aspire to be better than those who inspire you.
Then remember only outshine the master when you know you got it locked.
Frank,
Go with as much soil as will fit. When you budget your grow grocery list blow all your extra money on soil. I promise you wont be sorry you did.
Thanks for stopping by.
Respectfully,
FE
Rik,
Always aspire to be better than those who inspire you.
Then remember only outshine the master when you know you got it locked.
Frank,
Go with as much soil as will fit. When you budget your grow grocery list blow all your extra money on soil. I promise you wont be sorry you did.
Thanks for stopping by.
Respectfully,
FE
As others have reported using the AEA lineup. Phototropism is increased heavily. So much you dont need a light meter to tell where the weak spots are in your light canopy. The plants will be looking to the area where it is strongest. This makes the plants seem more alive in that they are highly reactive to even small changes in light intensity.
Hey Father I have beds too, 6 to be exact. I have been toying with ideas for a feeding system, I see you have some emitters? What is your setup -- looks like airtubing with some holes punch along the way and an actual drip emitter at the end to keep pressure on the line?
Looks simple and effective, trying for something that isn't going to clog... Excuse me if I missed the post where you have detailed this already.
Looks simple and effective, trying for something that isn't going to clog... Excuse me if I missed the post where you have detailed this already.
Im using a deluxe deck kit from Drip works. Each plant gets a line with a drip stake at the end. Then I use the soaker dripline with 12 inch spacing to spiral over the entire bed. So I have 5 lines per bed. The mainlines each have their own pump and most of the time for regular watering share the same 55 gallon barrel. It runs about 15 mins per day on a timer and almost kills the 55 gallon container. Later Im sure they will need more but for now its working great. Even pressure and everything is good. I do a top watering with a 6 ft watering wand to help the grass seeds get a foothold. I also top water for the sake of keeping the whole bed moist about once or twice a week. So far its been super easy to manage comparatively. I still wont put anything thick in it just cause I dont want to screw up a good thing. If I need to add this stuff Ill do it with the wand by hand.... I got another room that will have a similar watering setup that will need nutrients to go through the drip system Ill let you know how that goes....
FE
FE
Day 13 Veg
Day 13 Veg
Day 13.. Seems to be gaining momentum. I really need to get the trellis up on these girls already. Thinking I will have to flip them within the next week or Ill be sorry. Guess Ill let it ride 3 weeks maybe before flipping maybe, lol?
I had to top the glues.. youll notice they are still large and in charge, didnt miss a beat . .
FE
Day 13 Veg
Day 13.. Seems to be gaining momentum. I really need to get the trellis up on these girls already. Thinking I will have to flip them within the next week or Ill be sorry. Guess Ill let it ride 3 weeks maybe before flipping maybe, lol?
I had to top the glues.. youll notice they are still large and in charge, didnt miss a beat . .
FE
Photosynthesis
Member
Your room looks perfect!
What are your plans for reamending? With no-till you will have to try to combat stratification. Got any ideas?
That is what has kept me from doing giant no-til beds.
What are your plans for reamending? With no-till you will have to try to combat stratification. Got any ideas?
That is what has kept me from doing giant no-til beds.
I am willing to till the top 3 inches of soil which is how I will add amendments after sending a sample in for testing. Ideally I would have had a single batch made then filled the beds and eliminated the need for 12 tests. The situation that arose was unusual but was certainly good practice at amending on an individual basis. So Ill amend based on analysis, till in the top 3" of soil then add Tainio microbial products: bio digester, spectrum extra and AEA Humacarb and Rejuvenate. Water regularly and keep warm. The plan is to have enough beds like these to rotate. Once I harvest these Ill do what I mentioned above, wheel them out of the room and rotate in another set of beds while these fallow. The goal here is to make a scalable system for using on a much larger scale. This run here is to show that indeed you can scale this method up. I will most likely be doing a mega one of these if all goes well here..
The Beds are on wheels. Ive not had to tend to them at all so far. I plan on doing a prune up of the underside and adding trellis before flowering and they shouldnt need much else after that. So yea, wheels are the key to this whole room working. I have 1.5' of walkway around the outer perimeter. that means I can make a 3' floating isle appear where I need it. This was the basis for the whole idea of how this garden would function. Higher yields from solid canopies. No wasting light in walkways.
FE
Ill also add a fresh 6" or so of new soil these beds have began to shrink in size. From watering and I will also say the digestion of organic matter that the microbes are constantly doing... I saw this a lot on the large soil beds I posted previously...
I think its time to go 12/12 Id rather be comfortably full than be greedily overcrowded. I think Ill still hit two per but not sure bout three. Ill need 12 ounces per plant to hit 3... at this size its less likely but not impossible. I could space the beds out a lil more but that does nothing for the plants in each bed.
The bumper harvest is going to be the key factor in tipping the scales....
The bumper harvest is going to be the key factor in tipping the scales....
Why do my beds volume seem to be reduced?
I do have soil mites again this run. I noticed last run that all the big chunks of woody material had disappeared as with anything else that was chunky in the compost.. maybe its because it has become more fine thus more compact...? Still seems like Im losing soil.. but really how can you gain soil anyway? Unless you are adding things to be composted? I mean I can see gaining the root mass after harvest but arent we losing material added to the soil when we harvest? Unless we return all the plant to the bed how can our soil volume go up?
FE
I do have soil mites again this run. I noticed last run that all the big chunks of woody material had disappeared as with anything else that was chunky in the compost.. maybe its because it has become more fine thus more compact...? Still seems like Im losing soil.. but really how can you gain soil anyway? Unless you are adding things to be composted? I mean I can see gaining the root mass after harvest but arent we losing material added to the soil when we harvest? Unless we return all the plant to the bed how can our soil volume go up?
FE
exactly!
as well as compaction and decomposition, its worth remembering that all of the elements that make up a plant, apart from carbon and oxygen, come from the soil - so a large part of the mass/volume of a plant is directly from your soil... plus of course the CO2 that the soil microbes give off.
aint nature a wonderful thing
VG
as well as compaction and decomposition, its worth remembering that all of the elements that make up a plant, apart from carbon and oxygen, come from the soil - so a large part of the mass/volume of a plant is directly from your soil... plus of course the CO2 that the soil microbes give off.
aint nature a wonderful thing
VG
