My perpetual no-till adventure

Firstly sorry for the long winded first post and any grammatical mistakes I make, I can’t edit posts yet so bear with me for now! This first post will be mostly back story, current stuff will be coming shortly after.

Secondly I hope this thread can be an open discussion, feel free to offer constructive criticism, suggestions, your own experience etc. Anything you feel brings value and furthers the never ending educational experience that growing this plant offers.

A little of my history:
I’ve been growing continually for the last 8 years in med-legal state. I have a purpose built grow room in my home offering complete stealth, hidden door, completely sound insulated and smell free. Basically anyone can come in my house at any time and have no clue there’s a full on grow op running in the basement. 4 years in this house an not even a single question. I am legal to grow but I try to keep that separate from my family life as much as possible. Plus I would hate to answer the “are you growing pot” question from a guest. I’m a one man show all the way through and occasionally have someone help me trim if the help is available. For the record I hate trimming, it’s tedious and boring to me. Plus when you’re pulling 1-2lbs every month for years on end and doing it all yourself it gets old quick.

My room is approx. 10’x11’ with a 4’x5’ closet carved out of that for veg. A single 400w MH runs veg. My current flower space ends up at approx 7’ x 4’ covered by 2k watts. I have equipment and space to double that to 4K should I ever feel like it. So far I haven’t had the need or the time with family life though it might happen in the future if I can pick up another patient.

For years I’ve grown what I call poor mans hydro. Pro-mix and either dynagro or JR Peters for nutrients. After years of running both I much prefer the jacks classic 20-20-20 supplemented with pro-tekt. Both brands are very high quality and reasonably priced and I never had much issue hitting the 1g/w make when running my pride and joy strain (more on that later). I’ve always hand watered, I’ve never trusted a pump to not flood my room so I kept it simple.

When I had kids I found I didn’t have the time to maintain the garden properly using this method so I decided to make the switch to a water only organic type of grow.

My last grow was using a super soil style recipe (not subs recipe but similar and using the same layering methodology). It grew some dank weed but came with a whole slew of issues that I wasn’t prepared for since I’d never grown this way before. I ended up with bulb mites from a bag of cheap worm castings, the worst fucking pest I’ve ever encountered. I ended up finishing everything and removing every plant from the room, tossed every thing in the room down to pots and stakes scissors etc. everything. I was able to save my genetics thank god so not a total loss. I used the down time to mud, sand a paint all the unfinished drywall in the room which needed to happen any how. But still....fuck bulb mites.

Next post will detail my current setup, the mistakes I’ve made and how I’m going to continue pushing forward. I hope you all enjoy the show and can teach me some new things about this no-till methodology in the process. Stay tuned!

Hey Tommy, sounds sweet man. Looking forward to hearing more about your adventures. Would love to see some pics of the stealth setup/hidden door and your room if you get a chance.

Checking into this discussion

Before I get to the new stuff here’s a couple of shots of the love of my life, tangerine dream. I’ve had this cut since my first legal grow 8 or so years ago. She definitely doesn’t follow the description of the seeds that’s for sure. She takes 12 weeks finish, yields massive dense buds and offers a soaring high, no couch lock. I must have got the Neville’s haze pheno. Very hazy smell but but when you crack the jars open you get the unmistakable tangerine smell. Not super stinky, very subdued, virtually no smell during growing unless you brush up against the plants. During harvest the citrus terpenes actually burn the eyes while trimming. These pics are from the last round with the bulb mites in super soil. Even with the issues she still yielded over 1lb in a 10 gallon pot. The plant was a former mother plant and was pretty massive. Wish I had pics of the stalk, it was bigger than my wrist, then again that plant was about a year old by the time she finished flower. Here’s a couple pics. Live shot was taken about day 30 of 12/12. Typically she bulls up cask like she’ll be done in 8-9 weeks but around week 8-9 she doubles down and new growth starts again. I’ve cut her at 9 weeks before, still high quality smoke but the yield and terpenes suffer greatly.

soil margin said:

Hey Tommy, sounds sweet man. Looking forward to hearing more about your adventures. Would love to see some pics of the stealth setup/hidden door and your room if you get a chance.

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I will definitely post some pics of my door shortly. The basement is partially finished so it more or less looks like raw drywall. The only thing visible from the outside is part of the hinges. It’s not real obvious but the cheap-o in me couldn’t justify the $100+ for the real hidden hinges so I made a compromise. The door is secured using a cheap amazon special magnetic lock with a numeric keypad mounted in an inconspicuous spot. This keeps the outside looking clean and the mag lock pops the door open when activated meaning no need for a handle on the outside. Access is through a utility room and is located under the stairs and behind my furnace. Fairly discreet even without the hidden door. Even if you found the door you’d still have to hack through the wall to get in, there is no prying this lock open, it’s strong AF. Hopefully I’ll get some pics up after the kiddos are in bed.

So here’s some pics of the current setup. I want to be clear here, not every pic of every plant in my garden will look like it came off a mag cover. I WANT to show my mistakes so others can learn from them and so others can help me avoid them in the future. I’m definitely not perfect especially transitioning to a completely different style of growing. In the past I’ve been shy on other forums about showing the less than perfect aspects of growing and the learning experience. I want to over come that in an effort to better myself and help others that may view this thread in the future.

This is my first attempt at no-till, I’m sure it won’t be perfect as I’ve already gone and fucked up. I’m using the basic coots mix which I’ll detail shortly. In order to maximize my soil volume and make efficient use of my now too small veg space I built my own rolling beds. They hold approximately 40 gallons and for production runs I plan on having 2 plants per bed. To get things off the ground I’ll be planting some beds with 3 plants in order to shorten veg time as the room re-construction and bulb mite issue ended the perpetual cycle I’ve maintained for the last 4 years. I’m currently vegging under my 1k hps lights in hopes the extra wattage will get things moving a bit faster. Not ideal but I work with what I got and make the best of it.

Hopefully these pics work, pain in the ass doing this from an iPhone.

First pic is of the flower area currently being used as veg. I’m kinda in the middle of transplanting and I still have some tidying up to do with AC drain line and installing a sump bucket to evacuate any waste water from the AC. The garden hose dangling is already plumbed to the sewer I just need to install a float activated pump. I also need to mix about 80 more gallons of soil to fill 2 more beds. There will always be 4 beds in flower and 2 in veg once the cycle is established.

The bed with 2 plants are both tangerine dream the bed with 3 plants are ml ultra. I should have had 4 full beds but I dun fucked up, more on that in the next post. The third bed will be planted with 2 Cinderella 99 and 1 my ultra. You can see I also have some seedlings going. I planted 5 ******s killing fields. I grew this strain in the past and I’m looking for that pure dark purple rotten blueberry 10 week Sativa, hopefully I find her again. I got 5 fem beans so we willl have to wait to find out if I find my old friend.

The beds are on wheels, once they are full of water they are well over 100lbs, wheels make my life easy and keep me from getting a hernia.

This was supposed to be a second bed of tangerine that I ended up killing both plants. This is the first time I’ve actually lost a plant in YEARS so my ego hurts a bit but I identified the issue and pin pointed mycorrhizae application as the culprit. In the past I’ve always just dusted the transplant hole with micro. This time I thought I would just powder the roots then Transplant. Well...I coated the roots which prevent oxygen from getting to them ultimately killing both plants. Whoops. Live and learn. The beauty of cloning is I can always make more, just frustrated my room won’t be full right off the bat. Either way, it’s a shot of my veg room (you can see I still clone hydroponically for now but that will likely change in The future. I currently have no mother’s but I’ll pull more clones once these gals grow up a bit and utilize those for future mothers.

Anyway, that’s a single 400w light in there, depending how this new method shakes out I’ve got a second 400w on deck if I feel I need it.

Last post of the night this one about the door. There’s a shot from the outside (hinges visible on the right) and then a further out shot so you can see I’m tucked behind the furnace and under the stairs. Out side the room is purposely left slightly messy as I feel the clutter and BS provide distractions and don’t draw attention to the door. My key pad for the mag lock is mounted to the back of the furnace in the cieling (I can’t even really see it I key in by feel alone). There is also zero light back there so the flash probably makes the door more obvious then it actually is.

A bit about my mix. I’ve still got more to mix but here’s how the first batch went:

3.8cuft (compressed) bale of fertilome black gold peat moss
5 cuft bags of volcanite pumice
4cuft of Malibu compost
1cuft high quality local worm casting
1cuft biochar

I figured this was approximately 16-17cu ft of base mix so I amended accordingling. Rates are per cuft.

1/2c kelp meal
1/2c neem seed meal
1/2c crab shell meal
1/8c alfalfa meal
1/8c green sand
2c basalt
1c gypsum
1c oyster shell flower
1c coarse milled 6 roe malted barley from the brew store.

Great details you’re giving out. Pulling up a seat dude.

I know I said last post but I’m still awake so fuck it.

Obviously I’ve been growing the tangerine for a while, I love it, my small circle constantly requests it, and it yields like a pig. It’s hard to get rid of something like that. Additionally because I’ve had it so long it is my standard, my baseline and it gives me something reliable to gauge new products/methods etc. she’s extremely hardy, pest resistant (I’ve literally had a room full of mites with 0 to be found on the tangerine) and I’ve never had a PM or mold issue with it. It’s my holy grail.

That being said I’ve run dozens of other strains (all from seed) over the years the only one I regret losing was the killing fields (at one point I REALLY struggled with cloning) which I’m currently trying to get back. Hopefully I find her.

The other strain (mk ultra) I’ve had for about a year and a half. Due to life obstacles (mostly having twins) I never feel like I have her the proper 100% she deserved to determine if she deserves a place beside my holy grail. That’s why she’s still around. It’s a moderate yielder, 9 week flower and seems to be fairly tolerant to me being lazy and not doing things 100% every time. She always smokes good tho more couch lock then I typically like, my patient seems to enjoy her. Hopefully this grow will give me a difinitve “keep it kill” answer. Still pretty potent weed and gives me a touch of needed variety.

Looking to the future I have a bunch of ******s freebies I could grow out, some master kush and some Malawi gold which I’ve been itching to try. Hopefully the beans aren’t too old. Before any of that I need to get through the killing fields selections. On deck I have blue orca haze and crowbar from swami organic seeds. There’s not much info around on these beans but of the dozens of modern hybrids I’ve grown 99% are a total disappointment. Most are weak ass plants with no real immunity or internal defense to combat pests and PM. Sure they’re semi-potent but I have to grow this shit and I’d rather not fight with weak genetics for a mediocre high. I’m not too old but I’m old enough to remember REAL northern lights and haze strains that rocked my fucking works unlike ANY modern hybrid I’ve tried. I figured I’d take a chance on swami blue orca haze since neither of the parental lines are modern (at least how I’d define them) hybrids.hopefully it pans out but this is a game of patience and those strains won’t hit my pipe at least until the end of this years. We will h e to wait and see.


Hopefully everyone is good with this format. I know I ramble....sorry...there will be more pics when there’s something more interesting than clones and empty beds. I tend to just type what’s on my mind. I’ll do my best to explain what I’m doing and the reasoning behind it so hopefully this post provides some insight as to the future of the garden as well as what I desire in strain selection. If there are questions I’ll do my best to answer them.

Looks really cool man. Great job I’ll be keeping an eye on your grow for sure

Here’s a couple more shots. First is some finished product tangerine I’m bringing to a friend today.

Second, I wrapped up transplant. Some of the gals look a little rough. The ones on the left I coated to heavy in mycorrhizae but not enough to kill them, they’re stunted but should recover with out and issue. The tangerine is in the center and looking beautiful on the right the two that look terrible are both C99. I sprouted these last round shortly before the bulb mite issue. Once that was identified I put everything on hold to minimize contamination and so I could finish flower what was already going. Those plants were sprouted in solo cups and stayed there for nearly 2 months before I took clones of them. They look like hell but they rooted fine and I expect them to recover. We shall see!

The third is a pic of my digital Blumat moisture meter. I bought this to teach myself how to water again. I definitely didn’t realize how forgiving straight promix was to over/under watering. This no till soil is heavy AF and holds water like a mofo. Old water techniques I used before have no place in this methodology so I’m using this as a tool to help me wrap my head around the watering requirements of this soil. So far it’s working splendidly. Worth the investment. You can probably also see the white Dutch clover cover crop starting to sprout in the beds. Hopefully the clover will take off and I won’t need to most the top layer once a day like I have been. Other wise I’m going to buy a bail of straw. I was trying to avoid bringing in material that’s obviously stored outside to reduce the risk of in wanted pests. We shall see on this one as well.

Good news is I’ve already spotted an abundance of miles mites working the top layer of the soil so I’m hoping my pest problems will be minimal. More intensive IPM will start once these clones start to show healthy new growth. I’ll detail that process when we cross that bridge in the near future.

Enjoy!

1 day later and the healthy transplants are already showing new growth. Time to ease into the IPM starting with fungus gnat prevention. I’ve had past issues with organic mixes and fungus gnats. 1. I believe my home has the ability harbor them whether I grow or not due to the French drain/sump pit in the basement. I started hitting these spots with BT to help reduce the issue outside the grow room. 2. Organic soils retain far more water than promix and contain plenty of organic material, pretty ideal home if you’re a gnat. I’ve been treating the beds with BT as a preventative measure. Thankfully my local worm castings also contain plenty of miles mites though I may release more in the future.

I’ve also ordered some nematodes as a tertiary preventative and will dose the beds with these as well. Fungus gnats are more of an annoyance but left unchecked can weaken plants to the point where other pest populations can take hold which is the real issue at stake here.

I’ve also ordered 2000 red worms which should hit the beds towards the end of this week. Things are starting to get exciting.

I’m working with another grower friend to try to obtain some different cuttings so i can fill my beds and not be stuck kicking things off with a half full room. We will see what he’s got ready and what new genetics I might be able to snag.

I’m also brewing a compost tea to give the microbial life a little kick in the pants, hopefully this will get the beds cycling a bit quicker and give me better results in the first round.

Tuesday I’ll mix the remainder of my soil and hopefully by Friday I’ll have some fresh cuts to fill the other beds.

So far only 2 KF beans sprouted. A little disappointed but I have a poor history with seed germination and I’m pretty sure I let the cups dry out a little too much. Any tips on successful germination are appreciated. I’ll be honest I haven’t Germed seeds in some years due to running the tangerine like I was married to her.

I currently soak seeds for about 12 hours in water/fulvic acid then plant into my standard mix (pre moist) in solo cups. Cups are kept in a humidity dome on a heat mat until I see the first true leaves then the dome can come off and I ditch the heat mat. If I only get 2 of these to sprout, I’ll be popping the blue orca haze by the end of the week.

Ill snag some pics tomorrow when the lights are off so you all dont have to keep looking at my crappy HPS orange pictures.

Fun part I forgot to add. I need to mill the barley a little finer next time as I’ve got barley sprouts popping up everywhere!

Here’s some pics guys, the good the bad and the ugly. All of them seem to be progressing though so I think we’re over hump. Pretty nervous going from 8 years of salt based nutrients to a hands off style of growing using organics. I’m starting to feel better.

Let’s see if I can get the order of the pics right, still can’t edit posts so my apologies if there are mistakes.

1. These are the two remaining tangerines. Both put on an inch of new growth since last night. Looking good. Don’t mind the white spots in the leaves. I know it looks like PM but it’s drywall dust. When they were still in the clones I forgot to close the door before sanding the drywall. Whoops! If this growth rate keeps up I’ll be topping and cloning them again for mother’s in about a week.

2. In The foreground we have an MK ultra, the two runts in the back are my neglected C99 cuts. Both seem to be improving albeit slowly. No worries here.

3. All 3 of these are MK ultra. The ones I coated too heavily with mycorrhizae. They look a little worse for wear but they’re a starting to show fresh growth.

4. These are the two killing fields that made it. I pulled them from the dome and they can chill with the rest of the fam until they’re tall enough to clone. I’ll top them for clones and transplant them into open bed space when the time comes.

Hope you guys are enjoying the show as things get more exciting.

Correction, descriptions for pics 2 and 3 should be reversed.

And just because this journal has been so damn wordy, here’s a couple of shots of last rounds harvest to keep the interest going and provide a good comparison when I finally harvest these gals.

First pic is the MK ultra second is the tangerine dream.

Tommysalami said:

And just because this journal has been so damn wordy, here’s a couple of shots of last rounds harvest to keep the interest going and provide a good comparison when I finally harvest these gals.

First pic is the MK ultra second is the tangerine dream.

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Personally I enjoy the threads where people really explain what they are up to. It helps paint the whole picture and see what differences and similarities we all have. Keep up the good work man. Your end product looks delicious

Nice looking buds Tommy. Lemme know when I can buy a bag, would love to try a joint of that right now.