Aphotic's No Till- Indoor- Raised Bed- Experience & Pseudo Knowledge Emporium

[Microbeman]

I've seen this compost pile heating used effectively with black poly pipe. In the same greenhouse raised beds were elevated in plastic mesh bins (recycled fruit bins, bread and milk/pop carriers) and air from ventilation fans was channeled into tunnels under the beds. Anecdotal evidence showed increased plant vigor along with temperature adjustment.

 

[Aphotic]

I plan on making sand boxes basically on some of the benches and running the pipe through the damp sand, and once I have raised beds installed, which will be 3-4ft tall I'll run pipe through them. Everything will be controlled with a thermostat. The first greenhouse I plan on doing this with will be the one I built off our bedroom, the last couple of winters we just blew air from our bedroom into the greenhouse at night, we heat our house with wood stoves at the moment, we were able to keep that greenhouse above 50f even on the coldest nights, which was important because many of the cacti, succulents, and ferns we have can't take colder than 45f. If we build big enough compost piles we can heat with each one a month or more, so we'll need several piles to make it through the winter. And in the summer when things get too hot we can cycle cool water through the pipes. We also have a solar hot water heater, with panels on the roof we are going to use. I first learned of the idea from a French fellow, I can't remember his name, he used wood chips for all of his piles. I want to say he might have been one of Bill Mollisons mentors.

Eventually we will tear down part of our house and build a cob house, at that point we will switch to rocket stoves, and be able to grow our own fuel, and we plan on making biogas systems, turning our waste, and at that point our pigs waste into fuel to heat, cook, generate power, etc.

 

[Aphotic]

I transplanted the Afghan Kush seedlings two nights ago into 2.6 liter square pots, they were sold as being 1gallon pots, so I went out to check my other "gallon" pots to find that none of them are gallons, all of them are 2-3 liters. Anyways, the root systems looked good and had filled the cups. Some seedlings are showing more vigor than others, in the photo I placed them in order that they sprouted out of the soil, from left to right. Unfortunately due to the fungus gnat infestation I've chosen not to mulch the seedlings like I normally would, and on the day I reported the seedlings I had run out of silica sand, so each plant recieved an inch layer of silica sand, a layer of pumice, and topped with perlite. Below the silica sand I put some mosquito bits just in case.

In the photo above, starting from the top left, the 2nd and 3rd seedlings both had round tipped, first true leaves. The number 2 seedling had by far the biggest, healthiest looking seed. 5 and 6 have shown the most vigor, now that everyone's in their new pots growth should take off in the next few days.

Here's the White Widow seedlings, putting along nicely.

Here's my two new strains Frank's Gift, and Lamb Sour Diesel. They both passed inspection and where repotted the day after the seedlings.

I'm quickly running out of space in my mom room, until the fungus gnats are gone I'm putting bonsai moms on hold, so I'm going to kick on my second 600mh, I'll move the seedlings under it.

 

[Aphotic]

Tonight is the height of the Perseids meteor shower, pacific time, it should peak around 2am. This will be the biggest shower until 2027-28, so if you get a chance check it out. Their expecting 160-200 an hour, and there should be many fireballs!

 

[Aphotic]

It appears as though the mosquito bits are pretty ineffective for my infestation, I opened the door to my mom room today, and it's as bad as I've ever seen it, after multiple applications. The predator mites that I transferred in there from my flower room are multiplying rapidly, hopefully they can bring this pestilence to a stop soon. It gives me the sads to see my rooms in such a state.

 

[Microbeman]

Tonight is the height of the Perseids meteor shower, pacific time, it should peak around 2am. This will be the biggest shower until 2027-28, so if you get a chance check it out. Their expecting 160-200 an hour, and there should be many fireballs!

This old guy is going to try.

Sorry to hear about your gnats.

 

[Aphotic]

We were outside from 1am-4am, it was a good show, were a ways away from the nearest city, but the light pollution still contaminated a portion of the sky, along with local light pollution from farms and houses. Missoula Montana has actually been trying to pass a local light pollution ordinance, making it illegal to have a light without a reflector outside, including street lights and business lights. I wish our state would adopt I similar law. The majority of US citizens are robbed of the beauty of the night sky, in big cities your lucky to see more than a handful of stars most nights. Sometimes I feel as though this was done intentionally, to keep us grounded, like blinders on a draft horse.

Back to the show, we saw a good number of meteors that streaked half way across the sky, most were moving very fast, but a few looked as if they went any slower they'd drop straight down, those ones are really neat to watch. Still the show was nothing like the shower I saw 3-4 years ago, that was the most incredible meteor shower I've every seen, a sentiment many life long sky watchers agreed with. That shower was full of huge fireballs that arced from one horizon to the next, and the numbers blew away the estimates for that shower, it was the same year as the huge Russian meteor that had thousands of Russians crapping their pants. I wish I could have been there for that.

Well I hope you caught the show MM, it was funny, right after we went in, at around 4am, I went back outside and saw a 20min outburst of one every 30 sec or so, like a grand finale. I'll peak outside again tonight, I believe it's the last night of the 3day peak, maybe it will be a better show.

 

[Aphotic]

A couple of weeks ago I took some clones of a few strains and started them in soil, I usually use one of my cloners, but I wanted to see the difference between soil clones and water mist clones. You can't really call most cloning machines aeroponic, as they do not achieve a small enough water droplet size to be classified as such. If you've read the entirety of this journal you'll know that I murdered all the clones in my cloner, perhaps it was due to lack of sleep, or perhaps the ghost made me do it, we'll never truly know.

So now, what to do with the clones that survived. I think I'll mess around with grafting. I've always wanted to graft cannabis, and here is my chance. Ill start with this technique outlined in Robert C Clarke's book, "marijuana botany".

I'll use clones rather than seedlings of course, I can't wait to play mad scientist. At some point I'd like the have an entire grow room or green house dedicated to experimentation and tinkering.

 

[Microbeman]

I did not make it but I thought that after 2 was a no-show and I did awaken at 3 so could have seen something maybe. Although I am in the city now with light pollution.

When I lived in the wilderness we ran a camp for disabled kids and everyone slept out on the hay wagon over night to watch the meteor shower. It was pretty cool.

I did see a meteor once in the early 70s which lit up the sky and the ground all around me. I was on my way into the house and just happened to look up as it flashed across the sky. It looked like 1/3 the moon.

The most incredible show I've seen is a particular incidence of the northern lights (aurora borealis) while in northern Alberta. I've seen the lights many times but these blew me away along with my seasoned northerner compatriots. Red, blue, green, streaks shot from the northern horizon exploding into marble swirls at the southern limits of view, billowing back mixed as purple - turquoise - yellow - seeming every combination imaginable; over and over filling the entire sky with a psychedelic show equaled by none.

 

[Team Microbe]

I did not make it but I thought that after 2 was a no-show and I did awaken at 3 so could have seen something maybe. Although I am in the city now with light pollution.

When I lived in the wilderness we ran a camp for disabled kids and everyone slept out on the hay wagon over night to watch the meteor shower. It was pretty cool.

I did see a meteor once in the early 70s which lit up the sky and the ground all around me. I was on my way into the house and just happened to look up as it flashed across the sky. It looked like 1/3 the moon.

The most incredible show I've seen is a particular incidence of the northern lights (aurora borealis) while in northern Alberta. I've seen the lights many times but these blew me away along with my seasoned northerner compatriots. Red, blue, green, streaks shot from the northern horizon exploding into marble swirls at the southern limits of view, billowing back mixed as purple - turquoise - yellow - seeming every combination imaginable; over and over filling the entire sky with a psychedelic show equaled by none.

Wow, that sounds like a life changing experience to say the least MM...

 

[Aphotic]

I did not make it but I thought that after 2 was a no-show and I did awaken at 3 so could have seen something maybe. Although I am in the city now with light pollution.

When I lived in the wilderness we ran a camp for disabled kids and everyone slept out on the hay wagon over night to watch the meteor shower. It was pretty cool.

I did see a meteor once in the early 70s which lit up the sky and the ground all around me. I was on my way into the house and just happened to look up as it flashed across the sky. It looked like 1/3 the moon.

The most incredible show I've seen is a particular incidence of the northern lights (aurora borealis) while in northern Alberta. I've seen the lights many times but these blew me away along with my seasoned northerner compatriots. Red, blue, green, streaks shot from the northern horizon exploding into marble swirls at the southern limits of view, billowing back mixed as purple - turquoise - yellow - seeming every combination imaginable; over and over filling the entire sky with a psychedelic show equaled by none.

Wow mm, that sounds incredible, I've only seen the northern lights once, in Minnesota when I was a kid. You could barely see a little purple and green haze in the sky. I've always wanted to go further north to see the real show, for now I'll just have to hope for another massive solar storm, like the Carrington event. I've almost experienced a meteor like the one you saw, years ago, I was backpacking in the bear tooth mountains, on the Montana Wyoming border. My buddy and I were sitting across from eachother around a dwindling fire, when everything around us light up almost like daylight, only far more blue. My back was to it, my friends description was similar to yours.

 

[Aphotic]

I wanted to share something with you all that has changed my outlook on life, I'm sure some of you have seen these videos, or at least have heard of at least one of these people and what they do. The design principles contained within this system, are what we are using to create our farm, so far we've not been able to do much as far as earth works goes, as were still saving up for the equipment, but soon we will break ground and radically change this place, and turn it into something mind blowing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cK8Qdd0l9o

Bill Mollison and Geoffrey Lawton are my heroes!

 

[3rdEye]

I'm subbed up. Not much time to comment today, but i may yet. Like what i'm seeing so far and some of the observations on life and pest control.

 

[Coughie]

Thanks for sharing Aphotic, I don't think I've seen those videos..
(Subbin up at the same time)

Big P.A. Yeomans, Darren Doherty, Joel Salatin, Bill Mollison, Geoff Lawton, Allan Savory fan here..

 

[Aphotic]

Thanks for sharing Aphotic, I don't think I've seen those videos..
(Subbin up at the same time)

Big P.A. Yeomans, Darren Doherty, Joel Salatin, Bill Mollison, Geoff Lawton, Allan Savory fan here..

Thank you both, the videos are the lecture series for the permaculture design course. Very informative, Geoff and Bill have very different teaching styles, but both are very informative.

 

[Aphotic]

I found something incredible last night. We recycle, and compost, so very little ever makes it to the garbage can, because of this the garbage can doesn't get emptied very often. The garbage can got infested with fungus gnats, I didn't notice, and hadn't looked at it in weeks, until last night. I went to throw something away, it looked like the can inside and out had sand or something all over it. I took a closer look, it was millions of predatory mites, piles of them from the ground up, inside and out. I don't know how they got there, but they multiplied and decimated the fungus gnats, I'm guessing when they took care of the fungus gnats in the worm bin, they looked elsewhere for food. What I've observed is that the adults stay behind, and the smaller ones leave in mass. Anyways I now have a good supply for my mom room.

 

[Aphotic]

So..... It's been a while since my last update, I was pretty sick for a week and a half, then had to play catch up on all the work I missed.

Now I have an issue in my mom room, powdery mildew, which came from contaminated clones from a dispensary, of course. I should have dunked them, but I had checked them over with a magnifier, and put them in quarantine for a couple weeks, but PM needs the right environment to take off, and we had a few days of rainy weather, and a few days before that a power outage, the power outage reset my dehumidifier, and boom, the right conditions arose. Supposedly the clones all get inspected, and they carry stickers from the university saying they were, well the infected clone must have been covered with spores, because when it first appeared, it was practically covering the entire clone.

It's spread all over the room, I didn't have anything on hand, so I've been spraying with water mixed with apple cider vinegar, which has actually stopped things from progressing. I've since taken cuttings of everything, and dunked them. So I'll have a backup, hoprfully of everything. I also got an organic systemic fungicide, which apparently won't harm the microbial life in the soil, not even the microrhizal fungi. I can't remember the name of the product off hand, it's GL something I think. It's worked for some, and not for others, no surprise there, seems to be the case with everything. I also picked up a mix of bacillus to foliar spray with, and I have sulphur on hand if I need it.

Microbe Man suggested a possible tea recipie for PM, but I can't find it, so MM, if your around hit me up. There's so many conflicting opinions out there about how to deal with PM, and I'd like to hear what others have done to deal with it in a no till setting, I've tried several advanced searches of this site looking for notillers experience with pm. I'd like not to have to ditch my soil, or harm the life within it. I've always run a tight ship indoors and I've never had to deal with PM inside, so I'm a little freaked out.

If all else fails I suppose there's always gasoline and a match

 

[Aphotic]

Good news, most of the backup cuttings I took have rooted, I'm blown away, this is by far the fastest I've ever had anything root, 3 days wtf?!? The only thing I've been doing differently is that I've been spraying the cuttings down with a apple cider vinegar solution, 2 tblsp per quart of water, every day, and I dipped them all in a slightly stronger vinegar mix when I took them. At least somethings going right, I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed, there's so much to do on the farm to get ready for winter, and I'm super behind on everything.

All of my mother plants look super sad, like sad Dr Seuss trees, or like Charlie Browns Christmas tree. All the seedlings look sad, but clones were taken of them before things got really bad. It's too bad that it's so late in the season, or I would just throw everything outside and let it flower. At least my flower room is safe, knock on wood, I really need to take some pics of it, the cover crop has gone ape shit, and my amendment plants are huge! My aloe is the biggest surprise, I've never seen an aloe grow so fast, it's gigantic, and has started throwing out pups. I'll try to get pics up tomorrow.

After seeing how well the white widow, and afghan Kush seedlings did under the fluorescent lights I'm totally sold on switching my mom room over to all fluoro. The node spacing is very tight under the fluoros and the plants were very healthy before the PM. The one thing I noticed was a far slower growth rate, but that's a bonus for me, as I only need a handful of clones every few months. I'm also going to take my own advice, and use a metal storage rack to keep my moms and clones on. That will really help with my space issue, and hopefully be able to keep my milk crate pots, having the seedlings in gallon pots is a drag, I hate having to water every other day.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

[Aphotic]

As promised, here's what's been going on in my flower room during its downtime!

My aloes have gotten gigantic, as well as my borage, and comfrey. I'll be giving my cover crop a hair cut in the next couple of days, and chop some fresh comfrey and borage, let that mulch down a bit, then throw in the clones!

It'll be mostly the cuttings from the Afghan Kush, and White Widow seedlings, but I'll mix in some lamb sour diesel, Frank's gift, Jack herer, train wreck, and 9lb hammer. I can't wait!!!!

Until next time...

 

[SUVA]

Very cool nice work