VERMONSTAH
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See i misunderstood
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Aphotic's No Till- Indoor- Raised Bed- Experience & Pseudo Knowledge Emporium
- Thread starter Aphotic
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See i misunderstood
Which is exactly what you should have going on in your pots/beds, hella microbial action
I actually went searching for one of those products recently, but my local grow shop had notta. One thing to keep in mind, too much silica = brittle plants! They'll be more apt to snap when bent or blown, some strains seem to take up more than others, I've def noticed a difference once I started making my own silica heavy soils.
I'm going mad not having anything in them at the moment! I want to make super sure the pm is under control before letting anything enter. I'm doing a seed run in there next, I haven't decided whether I'm going to bag the males or just open pollinate, I'll definitely pull the male white widows this round, I'd rather not take a chance at cross pollination, but I'll pollinate some others with the afghan Kush just for fun.
VERMONSTAH
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Attachments
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VERMONSTAH
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wrong thread
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Each batch makes a little over a cubic foot or like 8 gallons, this makes it easier to hand mix, thorough mixing is essential. I mix many of these batches and dump into a larger tub. My beds take up about a 7'x4' space. Even if you use a cement mixer, you still need to hand mix at the end. Remember this soil is a little hot, so you'll have issues if not mixed well. I've found that after mixing a while the soil will begin to smell strongly of neem meal, beyond the way it looks this has been my indicator of it being mixed well.
Are you going to make beds? Don't forget to save room for runoff catchment. I made rolling carts with boxes lined with pond liner, works great and will last a long time. Whatever you do, remember, this soils going to be there for a very long time, so over build everything.
its perfectly fine to have a temp drop at night, you'd be surprised what a small space heater can accomplish.
What's your setup? I can help you with your environmental issues, it took a good deal of trial and error, but now it's easy.
VERMONSTAH
Active member
thx
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It's better to have runoff, I was going to use kiddie pools as my bed tray, but round was too much wasted space. You could use the pools as your runoff tray, and put a big fabric pot inside, like a 200gal smart pot. It's pretty cheap to make your own carts if your ok at building things. The basement would be easier to maintain a constant temp in, and you could put up temp walls to make what ever size rooms you wish down there. I wish I had a basement, if I did that's where I'd set up, even if in tents, I'd have them down there.
And kiddie pools are pretty shallow, is nice to have at least 14" or more depth.
Sorry I missed your question about your recipe, it's hard to read it in the pic, could you type it out for me?
Remember you don't have to fill the entire room, just because you have the space, I wish I had more room around my beds, the rolling carts make it better, but still, I want more room. It just makes life easier when you can get to everything with ease, you'll be more apt to keep on top of everything if it's not a pain in the ass to access shit.
If you do end up using the pool or something of similar size make sure you can easily reach the middle, and imagine the plants in them, once they get bigger will you be able to trim them up, etc without crawling into the bed? This is the reason I went with 3 beds instead of one huge bed.
The more thought and research you do before building the happier and more sucsessful you'll be, I spent weeks thinking and designing before building. Even with all the forethought there's always stuff I wished I'd done differently, and I'm always looking for ways to simplify my space and make it more efficient.
Sorry I missed your question about your recipe, it's hard to read it in the pic, could you type it out for me?
Remember you don't have to fill the entire room, just because you have the space, I wish I had more room around my beds, the rolling carts make it better, but still, I want more room. It just makes life easier when you can get to everything with ease, you'll be more apt to keep on top of everything if it's not a pain in the ass to access shit.
If you do end up using the pool or something of similar size make sure you can easily reach the middle, and imagine the plants in them, once they get bigger will you be able to trim them up, etc without crawling into the bed? This is the reason I went with 3 beds instead of one huge bed.
The more thought and research you do before building the happier and more sucsessful you'll be, I spent weeks thinking and designing before building. Even with all the forethought there's always stuff I wished I'd done differently, and I'm always looking for ways to simplify my space and make it more efficient.
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VERMONSTAH
Active member
Thankyou
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No problem, without people helping me out on here, I'd have a lot more issues than I do. Do you have a sewing machine? It's really easy to sew even if you've never done it, it's way cheaper to make your own fabric pots, and then you get to make them any size you want. But, if you go the pool route you should be able to find a pot that will fit perfectly in it. Be careful with the kiddie pools, they're built like total crap these days, it's very easy to puncture them, so make sure if you put them on carts that there are no sharp edges. They're barely stronger than panda plastic lol.
The other thing about round beds is that unless your using a China hat hood, the footprint of your light is rectangular, and it's nice to use every bit of the light you're paying so much for.
The other thing about round beds is that unless your using a China hat hood, the footprint of your light is rectangular, and it's nice to use every bit of the light you're paying so much for.
i've been running kiddie pools for some time now, agree a lil more depth would be nice but the shared rootspace for organics really does wonders imo
VERMONSTAH
Active member
Sorry
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I agree totally, it would be best if that root zone was shared with a variety of plants. It depends on your space, if I used pools, like I had originally planned, it would be a giant pain in the ass to work in my room, and there would be a to of wasted space.
Bamboo would be a mistake in your beds, it's rhizome would quickly dominate the soil, and it just grows too quickly. Stinging nettle on the other hand might be nice
Oops I didn't realize I had already responded earlier, I've been so busy, everything's a blur.
VERMONSTAH
Active member
nah
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So when choosing plants to accompany your cannabis, there are three categories we can put them into. Plants that have no perceivable effect good or bad, plants that have a negative effect, and plants that have a positive effect. The positive and negative effects are pretty straight forward, and pretty easy to detect, however we have to be careful with the ones that seem to do nothing, we shouldn't count them out too quickly, as they might over time have a benefit.
As far as I've seen there's not a very good list of companion plants for cannabis, or many other plants for that matter. There are some nitrogen fixers, and some insect repellent plants, other plants that feed the predators that ear our pests, when the pests aren't around, there are some other categories escaping me at the moment. It would be nice to investigate wild cannabis locations and document what grows with various landrace strains in their natural habitat.
Ive heard others mention that there might be plants we can plant with our cannabis that boost terpene production. As no tillers there is so much focus on the soil life, I think that it would benefit us to consider what we can nurture above ground as well, after all, mono-cropping has proven to be a destructive unsustainable practice. I think many commercial "organic" farmers never left the chemical paradigm. They're still mono-cropping, still tilling, still ignoring the microbes, etc.
There's an organic farm not too far from me, last season when the switched their fields to strawberries, they tilled the field 32 times in a row before planting, raked it into windrows, and covered it in black plastic. How many chemicals are leaching into the soil when that plastic heats up in the sun? How do you think the soil life felt about the excessive tilling?
As far as I've seen there's not a very good list of companion plants for cannabis, or many other plants for that matter. There are some nitrogen fixers, and some insect repellent plants, other plants that feed the predators that ear our pests, when the pests aren't around, there are some other categories escaping me at the moment. It would be nice to investigate wild cannabis locations and document what grows with various landrace strains in their natural habitat.
Ive heard others mention that there might be plants we can plant with our cannabis that boost terpene production. As no tillers there is so much focus on the soil life, I think that it would benefit us to consider what we can nurture above ground as well, after all, mono-cropping has proven to be a destructive unsustainable practice. I think many commercial "organic" farmers never left the chemical paradigm. They're still mono-cropping, still tilling, still ignoring the microbes, etc.
There's an organic farm not too far from me, last season when the switched their fields to strawberries, they tilled the field 32 times in a row before planting, raked it into windrows, and covered it in black plastic. How many chemicals are leaching into the soil when that plastic heats up in the sun? How do you think the soil life felt about the excessive tilling?
