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No use for a name farms El Dorado 2016

HillMizer

HillMizer

Member
Hey y'all. I've been lurking and learning on this a long time. Thanks So much to Tom Hill, Butte, HumboldLocal, BYF, Schrews, a bunch more of y'all. I'm hoping I can make some good contributions on here.

I've been doing a lot of dep and 30 ish plant full season in Nevada County for a while. I did that garden last season and made a new one at my property in El Dorado. I'm only in El Dorado this year. 2800ft elevation.

I'll be doing 30ish full season and 1000 square foot dep. This year.

Been cutting some trees, making some light. I'm using the logs for building material and firewood.

Soil tests have been done and amendments are weighed ready to be tilled in along with cover crop.

I'm amending the 200 gallon pots first then adding another yard of soil. I made some homemade 400 gallon rings using filter fabric and construction adhesive to make a double hemmed seam.

Squirreldawg is on the lookout for the deer that are the cover crop from that pot.

Thanks y'all, It's going to be a fun year.
 
HillMizer

HillMizer

Member
I'm off to a slower start than usual. I've been running a lot of Blue Dream and Cheese clones for years. I usually take cuttings on Valentine's day.
I think the later start is for the best, but I like to flip my dep on May 10.

Full season seedlings to pick from.

Bodhi Sky Lotus
Bodhi Snow Leopard
DJ Short Azure Haze
Dinafem Super Critical Haze
Cali Connect Deadhead O.G.
Reservoir SSSDH
Greenhouse SSH

Light dep:
Blue Dream
Super Lemon Haze

These are Sky Lotus

Squirreldawg checking on the SSSDH

Super Critical and in the lead with Sky Lotus CLOSE behind. Popped them last week of March?
 
HillMizer

HillMizer

Member
I started by sending a soil sample of last year's vermifire to Logan labs. It looked good, not high in anything.

I had Bill Mckibben, author of The Art Of Balancing Soil Nutrients take a look at it. We talked for a while about my soil and I answered some of his questions about the cannabis industry. At the end of the conversation I had the feeling that he was very unaccustomed to working with soiless mixes with such high % of organic materials. He said I could likely double the amounts he recommended due to the light weight of my soil (seems backward) He was generous with his time and told me to call anytime.

Next I had Jeremy Silva of Build-a-soil.com take a look at my soil. He was generous with his time as well. He filled some worksheets out and sent them over.

Jeremy appears to have used an equal p2O5 to K ration rather than and equal P to K ratio. He also converted lbs/acre to lbs/cubic foot by dividing by the standard 807 which I believe is for soil weighing the standard 2000 lbs.
He recommended neem cake, crustacean, kelp and basalt on top the balancing nutrients. Maybe the extra P is there.
 
HillMizer

HillMizer

Member
I'll be using 7' wide x 18" deep planters with 3 micro sprinklers per pot for full season. I use the DAN microsprinkler by Jain Irrigation. It has removable/changeable offices for customizing flow rates, spray width and for cleaning
The orange concave downspray spread also comes seperate and is sometimes backordered from China.

I prefer these opposed to drip for large plants. It is easy to do a visual inspection. I can actually hear whether or not the garden is running properly.

The installation time is very short compared to drip as well.

Here's the Super Lemon Haze for dep:
Just potted
 
R

redlaser

Active member
Veteran
Looks like a good summer ahead at your place, solid setup. Nevada county looks fairly dicey with double the helicopter budget, greenhouses might hold them off for a while. Check out malted barley if you haven't, provides enzymes and chitin that is more usable by the plant than other sources. best incorporated when mixing soil but can be top dressed. cool dog
 
HillMizer

HillMizer

Member
Thanks redlasar. I'm interested in that. I've stop adding simple carbs such as molasses and am sure that's a better carb choice. I was thinking of trying sprouted barley foliar as well.

Would I get it from a feed store?

I'm out of Nevada County now altogether. I'm just in El Dorado. Things seem chill up here.
 
R

redlaser

Active member
Veteran
Beer brewing supply places will have the malted barley. Have to get a grinder too if you don't get it pre ground.
 
HillMizer

HillMizer

Member
Adding charcoal to increase CEC

Adding charcoal to increase CEC

I have 35 yards of Vermisoil to use as a base. I had good luck in the past with Fire but decided to save a little and amend it myself.

Well now I have high K and Sodium. I only have a CEC of 11. Probably a lot of crummy compost in it?

I'm thinking of adding some charcoal from some stump burns that the forest service was doing up the road.
Wondering about charging it. Can I just add it to the soil and water it in? Or should I put it in a 300 gal IBC tote with some N and some EM1?
From what I can tell it's biochar.

I could add some clay instead. Montmorillonite, zeolite, bentonite?

Thanks Y'all.
 
J

jbarsk8

Active member
Nice job hillmizer. Have you used those sprinklers before? How muc do they spray? Does it ever create a problem? Nice work!
 
HillMizer

HillMizer

Member
Thanks Jbar. Yes I've used these sprinklers for a few years in greenhouses and in full season pots. I used spirals of emitter tubing from Netafim before this.

Maintenance and installation are easier and performance is better IMO. Topdresses get nice and wet this way. The oxygen rich top layer of soil is the most biologically active zone, assuming it is wet. Drip left me dry on top more than I liked.

The flow rates range from 8.75 gph to 75gph depending on office size. I prefer to use the smallest size available and run for a longer duration. It means I can use less valves "zones" and smaller pipe.

I used grey orfices last season, I will be ordering violet this year. They both have a 3 foot pattern. In greenhouse I just push the stake in deeper to make the pattern more narrow.


I'll throw pictures of past season soon. I am in the process of retrieving them from a wonky PC.

Backhoe is coming Wednesday!
 
HillMizer

HillMizer

Member
Thanks for checking me out Megayields! I'm watching your project as well.

Always feel free to chime in everyone.

Now that I don't have a partner I end up bouncing my ideas off of Squirreldawg and Skilletdawg.

It ain't my first rodeo, but I'm always looking to increase efficiency.
It's my first year back on seeds and back on 99% organics. I was doing blue dream greenhouses on fertigation. Spiromesifin and Mono potassium phosphate.

It's also my first year working full-time at this location which gets less sun than my old one.
This winter I'll be buying that sunny 40 acre commercial site, once I figure out what county is going to welcome me in.

Thanks. I'm headed off to Big Sur to a friendly campout.
 
HillMizer

HillMizer

Member
Happy 4/20!

I had some tree fellers come out and drop a couple of big ponderosa pine for me. 30"+ by 100'+

I worked on making a better truck and tractor road to the
Garden and drag the logs out and stacked em up.
picture.php
picture.php

Squirrel worked along side me when I let him.
Some friends helped out while I moved 35 yard of soil up to the existing garden.
picture.php

I received JH biotech calcium and multimineral biomin booster 153. I also got a jug of Trilogy neem extract.

Yesterday my helper topdressed all the babies with out coot's style amendment since they were only in vermisoil. It's just a small dose of what we are adding to the big holes mixed with worm castings.
Neem seed
Basalt
Oyster
Fishbone
Gypsum
Crustacean

A few days ago I foliared a new Cal carb product sample "kelzyme". It had really rich directions for use, I diluted a bunch but still got a thick residue on my plants.
The plants responded well but only after I washed them down another time.

I bought buckwheat for a living mulch. I figured it was cheap, likes warm weather and easy to knock down.
I'm reading that it is a little aleopathic so I'm not sure if I should use it or not.
 
HillMizer

HillMizer

Member
I'm thinking the alleopathy works in small seeds and prevents them from germinating I can't quite find out much more. I think it won't hurt a strong cannabis plant?
 
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