bit of a brain dump... 'cause I enjoy learning from my mistakes and I'm not embarrassed to share them
Day 30: Lessons I've learned about my soil (so far)...
The unfortunate need to veg for 2 months (flower cab not ready) resulted in the 1.5L of soil per plant being exhausted of nitrogen and absolutely packed with roots by flower. All pots had become a rootbound block and up-potting wasn't an option so I just went with it.
Bad, Bad, Bad.
With the soil depleted I had more need to keep nutrients available via liquids. With the constant cold and dense rootmass, I couldn't water more than every 4 days or more or the plants would droop and have other lockout problems. It's also made submersion watering somewhat dangerous as the rootmass would become totally waterlogged afterwards and stay that way for a week. It's been a mess, really. Growing annuals in small indoor environments is much further removed from growing bonsai outdoors than I expected. The plants are substantially more hungry, and the approach to mixing up soil I've used for ~20 years of bonsai is too dense for indoor. I think this is partially due to different transpiration rates of MJ, and partially due to bonsai pots being wide and shallow, while my 1.5L (less than 1/2gal) canna flowering pots only have a 10cm x 10cm surface area of soil directly exposed to air.
What I'll do differently next time
Soil: Less finely-screened. Let some larger chunks of compost give the soil body so it can't compact down as easily. More drainage materials. At the moment that means perlite, as I don't have an economically viable source of rice hulls and I couldn't get enough biochar made in time for mixing up my next batch of soil. I'm using this new soil for the mother cuts that are vegging for next round, and they are really loving it so far.
Pots: Anti mentioned some Australian-made square airpots, so I went looking and it turns out not only is the company about 100km from me, their "rocket pots" are the same 10cm x 10cm footprint as my current pots, with the same 1.5L capacity. Too good to be true! I expect to receive a box of them next week some time.
While I'm expecting a very mediocre harvest quantity, I can't wait to sample the Dutchgrown Sweetest Cindy 99 and will probably run a monocrop of the most grapefruity cut next time. This morning I sat down for breakfast and suddenly started looking around for the plant, I could smell it!! Then I saw that we had 5 grapefruit from a neighbour in the fruitbowl on the dining table. I couldn't help but laugh out loud at that.
I'll see if I can get some pics tonight, once this storm stops and I can in and out of the shed where the cab lives.
Day 30: Lessons I've learned about my soil (so far)...
The unfortunate need to veg for 2 months (flower cab not ready) resulted in the 1.5L of soil per plant being exhausted of nitrogen and absolutely packed with roots by flower. All pots had become a rootbound block and up-potting wasn't an option so I just went with it.
Bad, Bad, Bad.
With the soil depleted I had more need to keep nutrients available via liquids. With the constant cold and dense rootmass, I couldn't water more than every 4 days or more or the plants would droop and have other lockout problems. It's also made submersion watering somewhat dangerous as the rootmass would become totally waterlogged afterwards and stay that way for a week. It's been a mess, really. Growing annuals in small indoor environments is much further removed from growing bonsai outdoors than I expected. The plants are substantially more hungry, and the approach to mixing up soil I've used for ~20 years of bonsai is too dense for indoor. I think this is partially due to different transpiration rates of MJ, and partially due to bonsai pots being wide and shallow, while my 1.5L (less than 1/2gal) canna flowering pots only have a 10cm x 10cm surface area of soil directly exposed to air.
What I'll do differently next time
Soil: Less finely-screened. Let some larger chunks of compost give the soil body so it can't compact down as easily. More drainage materials. At the moment that means perlite, as I don't have an economically viable source of rice hulls and I couldn't get enough biochar made in time for mixing up my next batch of soil. I'm using this new soil for the mother cuts that are vegging for next round, and they are really loving it so far.
Pots: Anti mentioned some Australian-made square airpots, so I went looking and it turns out not only is the company about 100km from me, their "rocket pots" are the same 10cm x 10cm footprint as my current pots, with the same 1.5L capacity. Too good to be true! I expect to receive a box of them next week some time.
While I'm expecting a very mediocre harvest quantity, I can't wait to sample the Dutchgrown Sweetest Cindy 99 and will probably run a monocrop of the most grapefruity cut next time. This morning I sat down for breakfast and suddenly started looking around for the plant, I could smell it!! Then I saw that we had 5 grapefruit from a neighbour in the fruitbowl on the dining table. I couldn't help but laugh out loud at that.
I'll see if I can get some pics tonight, once this storm stops and I can in and out of the shed where the cab lives.
