[MintyFresh]

I am very new and I have been reading around but some things are very confusing. I was thinking of using a 'hempy bucket' style but for the life of me I can't find vermiculite anywhere, lowes, home depot, sutherlands, etc. I decided to use mostly perlite with some peat moss thrown in. Would peat be considered organic?

Ok I have another question.

I have read that peat is very acidic and that your ph will be very high with it. I was thinking of mixing some of my tap water (very alkaline) with my RO water to help but decided to test it first...I ran RO water through a 2:1 perlite, peat mix and tested the run off...it was somewhere between 6.2 and 6.5 (the color was hard to tell exactly). So now I am very confused..is this normal?

I know this is likely a very noob question..but well..if the noob hat fits..:smile:

[GreenThumbBumb]

Yes peat is organic, the kind a get from lowes comes ph'd with lime, its in a red bag. Add dolomite lime to correct the PH. Get the pulverized lime by the lawn nutes at lowes dont get the pelletized. Here are 2 good threads i think you might like.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=116431

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=94461

[MintyFresh]

Thank you for the reply. I forgot to mention that I also have a hard time finding lime, I look and look and even asked the people and they just scratch their heads.

Pretreated peat might be the reason. I have the Miracle Grow peat moss, it is all I could find..I figure I just wouldn't feed the plants for a week or two to use up what is already in the moss (and the perlite too as well- again the MG is all I could find.)

but the lime is proving to be difficult to find..any thing else I can use? What about the ph up/down for fish? Would that hurt? I can't order online, can only get what is available in stores....and no hydro shops or any garden centers for that matter.

Oh and thanks for the links..I have started to read them.

[Sleepy]

i knew a guy named Organic Hydro...

i sure miss him, too.

[MintyFresh]

??

Anyhow I have finally found lime! Turns out there is a nursery outside the city that sells it. But now I am wondering if I should use it. The run off right now is 6.5, using lime would make it go higher and I want somewhere between 5.8 and 6.3 right? So instead of using lime, I need something else to make it go up a little...right? I definitely can't get a hold of ph up/down so it has to be something I can get from the nursery they had all sorts of things like cotton seed meal, garden grade corn meal, etc..

[DrunkenMessiah]

Ahh, the fine art of pH buffing!

Having long since gone microbially-assisted organic myself long ago I've had to bother little with pH adjustment. Occasionally the finer points of oxygen-injected organics can be a little mysterious and frustrating and I sometimes miss aspects of sterile hydroponic gardening. However, one thing I will never miss is pH management. That said it isn't impossible and good predictable additives aren't too difficult to come by if you know what to look for.

Hydrated lime is a (relatively) fast-acting source of calcium and will raise your pH (make it more alkaline) to a controllable degree. Alternatively some sources of potassium (potash) as in burned organic matter will buff the pH upwards nicely. To lower your pH (make it more acidic) add a source of sulfur. Straight-up 'Garden Sulfur' can be found at Lowe's and is nearly pure sulfur but it doesn't hydrate well. Epsom Salts are Magnesium Sulfate crystals (MgS4) and the stuff is 100% water soluble. It will kick the pH downward. Keep in mind you need four times as much magnesium available to the plants as sulfur and so Epsom salts are exactly opposite from the desired ratio. Be sure to provide additional Mg from a separate source.

Good luck with your Hempy Bucket! I have seen some peeps on this forum get astonishingly good results although I believe that the best ones around come from gardeners who embrace the pro-biotic side of organics (whether they know it or not). Despite what the method's originator, DaliHempy, claims; straight hydro nutes in a sterile hydro-style pearlite/vermiculite whicking pot is not fully taking advantage of what makes it good. The Hempy Bucket is great because it makes low maitinence possible via its bath. A very spongy medium keeps things nice and oxygenated. This in turn encourages the development of aerobic bacteria who vastly improve the soil chemistry and break down complex organic fertilizers into raw components suitable for intake from the plants. Much extra vigor is generated while nutrient efficiency goes up and susceptibility to pathogens goes down. Fertilizing with organics, using natural compost, or even whipping your own bacterial culture jaykush-style can create increasingly good odds for harboring beneficial microbes.

In this gardener's opinion to use organic ferts while not thinking about or taking time to develop beneficial microlife is to miss the goddamn point entirely! Either stick with all-salt ferts and do it sterile hydro style (which has its merits) or come to grips with the fact that there is NOTHING you can do to prevent some bacteria from living in and among your cannabis plants. If they are going to be there anyway you may well take the time to make sure your precious ladies have some upstanding tiny neighbors who will help them along their way to greatness.

Either way though, the HempyBucket is at least a predictable method, you shouldn't have too much trouble making it a tolerable place for your plants to live. If you are doing your buckets hydro-style, which is to use all concentrated liquid hydro nutes with very regular feedings and do your best to keep microbes out of the equation then you want a pH right around 5.8 On the other hand, if you want to use organics and therefore leverage micro-life in any way you would really prefer to have a much more soil like pH in the neighborhood of 6.5 Finding some good buffing agents isn't hard, you've already got material to raise the pH; just go to the drug store and grab a carton of Epsom Salts and keep in mind that you need to supplement some magnesium. Good luck and happy gardening!

-DM

[MintyFresh]

Thank you! Actually I rather like the organic method and I was reading about a variation on the hempy bucket that used soil, so I would think you could use organic soil as well. I was a little intimidated at first about organic because I couldn't find the right stuff, but now that I can get everything I am doing more heavy reading into it. thank you again for helping me out!

[DrunkenMessiah]

Aha!

Soil-based Hempy Bucket variations? That is getting awfully close to a mutant low-maintenance organic hydro technique of my own design tentatively known as the Organic Bubble Bath Tub! The OBBT is fairly similar to the HempyBucket design in that it features a light spongy medium up top and a rock-filled water bath in the bottom. Despite the similarities though the OBBTs operate in a way that is a radical departure from the HB method and is indeed unique in the world of cannabis cultivation for what it is able to accomplish.

Here's the problem with running an organic HempyBucket: Even though a good HB medium is fairly oxygenated it lacks a method for rapidly replacing that oxygen. HempyBuckets are entirely at the mercy of osmosis. DaliHempy claims that this makes them fail-safe and extremely low-maintenance. To a point this is true, the method is not effected by power or pump failure like so many other hydro methods. However I take issue with calling a DaliHempy-style HB 'low maintinence'. DaliHempy himself claims that the 'best' way to run an HB is with all hydro nutes and no organics. This means that you have to feed the plants every day. That means you must either be prepared to hand-water the plants on a daily basis (hardly low maintenance) or set up an automated drip system (great, but didn't we go with the HB method to keep things simple?)

While doing it like DaliHempy recommends will net you very predictable results it is hardly the best way to take advantage of passive hydro. I think user Bass Akwards said it best:

Originally Posted by Bass Akwards

Whether his spelling is the result of a learnig disability, a lack of formal education, lousy keyboard skills, or a deliberate facade ( which is possible ), "Hempy" has made one thing crystal clear:

You can make something work, without knowing how, or why it works.

[EDIT] I THINK: DaliHempy doesn't really know what is going on inside this wonderful technique that he has created. When boosted by beneficial microbes and fungus Hempy Buckets are a force to be reckoned with and I have seen some truly spectacular results from this technique. Hempy completely lacks the understanding that organics and micro-life can far and away outperform straight hydro nutes.

Originally Posted by Dalaihempy

Best way is to start them in RW or Coco starters if you grow them in soil you infact stress the plant by washing of soil and infact risk taking over nastys to the hydro medium...

These supposed 'nastys' that he is talking about are potentially beneficial microbes. DaliHempy flat-out refuses to acknowledge that organic fertilization and strong micro-life are capable of taking his technique to a new level, even when other gardeners have done just that! He is convinced that the advantages of hydro lie with the usage of specialized hydro nutes and maintaining a 'sterile' (IRL this is impossible) grow medium.

Rubbish

The only real advantage that hydroponics have over medium-based grows is the huge oxygen levels they are able to provide to the root zone. It is well known that terrestrial plants need to "breathe in" CO2 in order to make their food, however it is much less popular knowledge that they need oxygen to carry nutrients into their roots. All forms of hydro, Hempy Buckets included, have design features that increase oxygen levels in the root zone compared to traditional soil grows. The hempy bucket uses its spongy pearlite based medium along with the suction made when water is added into the top of the bucket to get more oxygen in the root zone that usual. This coupled with an organic nutrient regime can yield terrific microlife. Wonderful, but many growers on this forum have failed in their quest to create organic Hempy Buckets. There are many examples of grows that didn't work. For whatever reason the gardener failed to get completely beneficial microlife and some kind of pathogen managed to work its way in and ruin their garden.

The problem with trying to get good microbes in a Hempy Bucket is that the technique was not designed with microbes in mind. DaliHempy, the technique's originator, is completely ignorant about micro-life and was giving it no thought when he stumbled across a method that is actually quite good at leveraging it. Many gardeners on this forum have successfully retro-fitted Hempy Buckets with provisions that made them successful at harboring beneficial microlife. But for every one of these there are many failures. Instead of experimenting on your own to get an organic HB you may want to try a similar method instead.

Organic Bubble Bath Tubs where engineered from day one to make the best possible environment for beneficial micro-life. It's medium consists of at least 20% organic soil which means that it can support aerobic bacteria in addition to Mycorrhizal Fungi. Now if you have been a good new gardener then you have already read all of the sticky threads at the top of the Organic Hydro Forum. If you did that you already know how important this fungus is. If not, start reading NOW! Mycorrhizae fungus and Aerobic Bacteria are two parts of a powerful team that works together to constantly adjust your soil chemistry. These combined pro-biotics complete a dizzying number of tasks. They buff the pH, fight off pathogens, add drought resistance, increase nutrient avaliability and decrease required feedings. The beneficial fungus and bacteria radically improve a grow's nutrient efficiency. What is not widely known about salt ferts and hydro feeding regimes is that they are incredibly wasteful! An all-salt-fert gardener will struggle to see more than 10% of the added nutrients actually being used by the plants. The vast majority of the nutes in, say, an ordinary non-organic Hempy Bucket are completely wasted as they are washed out and run through the overflow drain.

On the other hand, strong microlife and an all-organic feeding regiment can push nutrient utilization titillatingly close to the %100 mark. This is why my OBBTs use drastically smaller quantities of nutes at much larger intervals. Even the most aggressive OBBT grows only need to be fed about once every 2 weeks and watered on a weekly basis (sometimes even less!) This is true low-maintenance growing. You will never have to fight pathogenic infections, you will never see nute burn, you will never have to obsessively check Total Dissolved Solids or babysit the pH. Correctly tuned micro life will hold the pH at a rock-steady 6.5 and there is nothing (as far as I know) that the gardener can do to change it without harming the plants.

in summary: Going organic without taking the time to consider the needs of beneficial microlife is to miss the point entirely. To quote myself:

Originally Posted by DrunkenMessiah

Its funny how organic gardeners seem to think that their plants benefit from the fact that their nitrogen (and other nutes) is coming from a natural (organic) source. THIS IS NOT TRUE. THE PLANT DOESN'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT WHERE THE NITROGEN CAME FROM! NITROGEN IS NITROGEN, THE END. Its as if they think that the feel-good sentimental value that they get from using organics will somehow transfer to the plants. IT IS A PLANT. IT HAS NO FEELINGS. IT DOES NOT FUCKING CARE WHERE ITS NUTES COME FROM.

The plant couldn't give two shits that the nitrogen came from blood meal and not some urea-based chemical salt. This is not what make organics cool! Organics are awesome because it allows you to deliver potent nutrients to your plants without wrecking the micro-life present in the soil. Salt nutes kill microbes. Organic nutes do not kill microbes. This is the ONLY important difference between salt and organic nutes, period. In order to actually be getting any real advantage from organics you have to embrace the micro-organisms that will take residence in your soil.

I heartily encourage all cannabis gardeners to embrace organics, but you must embrace them for the right reasons. To ignore this is a recopy for disappointment. Since you seem interested in organic Hempy Buckets I would heartily recommend that you hit the link in my sig to check out the thread on my OBBT method. Even if you do not end up emulating my grow style there is a lot on that thread to learn about how to best construct an organic medium to get desirable micro-life. Good luck and happy gardening!

-DM

[MintyFresh]

Once more, thank you! I will be reading your idea, but not only because I am interested, but because I like to read everything I can get my hands on to best learn. I have read the sticky's and I love the idea of the microbial little guys taking care of my plants...I am mostly dubious about killing them off myself by accident! LOL....plus since I am so new to growing (I lived in a small apartment with not so much as a houseplant my entire life). Honestly I would prefer to go completely organic and stay away from everything else, I have even started to read up on creating my own compost pile and worm bin. Anyhow I will be going over to your thread and reading. thanks for pointing it out to me!

[DrunkenMessiah]

MintyFresh,

It is wonderful to see a new grower with such enthusiasm! As a newbie gardener you are at both an advantage and disadvantage. Your current knowlege of horticultural science is very limited and you have a lot to learn. On the other hand your lack of preexisting knowledge means that you have no forces of habit or otherwise entrenched modes of thought when it comes to growing cannabis. This means you are well positioned to embrace a whole new style of growing that I am attempting to popularize. Although I often suggest gardeners copy my OBBT style I really just want to get some momentum behind the idea of active oxygen injection for organic medium-based grows. The OBBTs are the best way I know of to accomplish this but there are surely others that will work just as well.

I'll tell you right now that 100% organic gardening is not the most n00b-friendly part of cannabis growing culture. The forces that drive purely organic soil chemistries are mind-bogglingly complex to the point where modern science still doesn't fully understand what goes on down there. Couple that with the fact that many all-organic instructionals you might find on this forum and others are generally written by growers who have developed their methods based on feelings rather than hard scientific fact and you have a dire situation for a newbie such as yourself. I have seen many many dissatisfied organic gardeners here on this forum. If you want to get started cultivating cannabis with good, predictable results right away then the world of pure organics may not be for you, it is a lot of work.

That said, organics and the microlife they subsequently generate can make for a grow that is much easier to manage than anything from the world of ordinary hydro. Active oxygen injection makes this low-maintinence state of being easier to achieve. Oxygen injection makes it very difficult for harmful microbes to gain a foothold in your medium and makes it equally difficult for the gardener to cock things up. As long as you use primarily organic ferts and don't do anything stupid like, say, add hydrogen peroxide then there is very little you can do to harm the beneficial microbes benieth. In a high-oxygen environment they will flourish in spite of you.

I am very glad that you are so enthusiastic about advanced organics. Active composting and worm bins are part of this world and are a great place to start. There is an untold quantity of knowledge and good instruction out there on how to do these things. Slightly more fringe in nature are organic teas. This is another technique that uses oxygen injection to rapidly multiply beneficial microbes. It is the primary method for delivering organic nutes in liquid form and is something you will need to study in depth. Even less common but most beneficial of all is producing your own aerobic bacteria cultures. Under many circumstances this can be difficult and requires high tech equiptment. However, one extreemly beneficial range of bacteria known as lactose bactilii are very easy to produce. Forum user jaykush has a wonderful thread on how to do this:

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=96325

Lactos Bactilii are a fabulous addition to any organic grow. I have started to use the stuff both in my medium and in combination with my usual foliar treatments.

Let me be the first to enthusiastically welcome you to the world of organic cannabis cultivation MintyFresh! Successfully being a part of it is going to take a great deal of research and familiarization on your part, but the benefits of it can be so great I personally see them as without an equal. It seems that you have the only things you really need to be successful in this realm: tremendous curiosity and a willingness to learn. Armed with these I have no doubt you will be another satisfied and successful organic gardener!

Good luck and happy gardening!

-DM