Beautiful babies you got goin on there my friend. They look dense and plump.
looks very tasty, organic growing is the best method by far. Giving the no till a go this next season
Excellent! I have been more than pleased with the taste and potency of these buds.
Let me know if you have any thoughts, questions or ideas you’d like to kick around! Would love to get some organic discussion going on here.
I certainly can keep y’all updated on the outdoor garden, but it will be all tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, etc… no outdoor cannabis for me at this location.
since we are talking about soil, and the organic route, i would welcome a discussion about bug control. as I work in the garden I am seeing red spider mites in the soil…and I know the small white moths are not far behind. Can we talk about that here?
For sure… I can’t reply now, but I will soon!
Ok so i have a question @BlackShirt wouldnt say i no til but i grow outdoors and dig the hole about a foot across and a foot deep i then filled the bottom third with peat moss worm castings and perlite put my plant in fill the remaining with the soil mix but i leave the grass and everything else around the plant and hole the plants are in i have to use a weed wacker around my plants scary yes but im super careful and leave the cuttings on the ground along with leaves from trees and everything else that falls on the ground lol but i use nutes as an addition without the nutes would that be close to no til
@Josh1126 It sounds like you are using some excellent soil to feed your plants! The higher the quality of the EWC you can use in your mix the better!
The weed whacker sounds terrifying 
I have a couple of questions for you:
- do you dig a new hole each season? (if you reuse the same hole season after season, without disturbing it - that would be “no-till”. You can grow organically without strictly no tilling any of your soil. Lots of growers who far exceed my abilities dump out their recently used soil and re-amend it to reuse (recycled living organic soil). I may end up doing that if this soil begins to perform worse over time instead of better. I’m really blown…hope this helps and is coherent.
EDIT: lots of other growers exceed my abilities who use every other growing method under the sun: organic or otherwise. I respect growers of all kinds. I’m just really glad I found the way that works for me.
- what kind of nutes are you using?
@BlackShirt this is my first grow in this locatation but i planned on when i harvest cutting the entire thing down then taking an axe to the holes to break up any big roots they are a b***h to dig through or around and leave it that way yes its the perfect grow spot in my mind sun hits from around 930 am or a couple hrs after the sun first starts showing until a half hr before its gone down and im using the gh trio micro grow and bloom. But i also ordered some stuff from extreme gardening for the soil next year
And the weed wacker is terrifying to say the least especially when i have to do it with my kid around. I would link my grow but idk how
I cannot specifically speak to the red spider mites (do you have a picture?), but I can tell you what I do for IPM.
Most importantly, I give my ladies a neem oil foliar spray once a week right before lights out. I do this from seedlings all the way through the 1st week of flowering.
Adding neem meal as a top dress is also helpful as it creates a “neem tea” every time you water.
I have used a product called “Spinosad” (marketed as Captain Jack’s Deadbug and sold at hardware stores) - it is a bacterial product that targets many types of harmful micro-beasties.
http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/spinosadgen.html
In addition, I regularly brew up a botanical tea of thyme, rosemary (especially potent - use care with rosemary), spearmint, and/or cilantro and water the plants with this tea. Those specific plants (and others) have unique pest repellent properties.
I also top dress once every 3 weeks or so with some Mosquito Bits or crushed up Mosquito Dunks. These contain a bacteria that ruptures in the gut of mosquito and fungus gnat larvae and ends their miserable little existences.
If any of the specific recipes for any/all of these would be helpul, I’d gladly ablige.
Thanks Blackshirt.There is good information here.
I have no picture of the red mite, but it will be easy enough to snap one tomorrow. I will tag you when I do.
I have read I think that neem oil has an impact of the final taste. have you found that to be true?
I will read up on the products you mentioned.
The teas sound interesting.
I am aiming for the least chemicals in the garden I can have, but I lost so much last year and I am determined to take as much action as I can stand…
@BlackShirt
I’ll be following along … sounds very exciting!
I have experienced NO taste from the neem oil foliars - but that is because I stop them after the first week of flowering. If you were to continue application, you could most certainly affect the taste of the final product (although I have heard of people in dire circumstances using a very diluted neem oil spray right up until harvest).
From experience, neem oil does taste horrendously bitter. I am anti-chemicals as well. I have ingested everything I use regularly as inputs in the garden. Neem, kelp (even feed kelp to my dog and my sister’s chickens), coconut, aloe, malted barley… there is a food grade fulvic acid on the market, but what I use isn’t considered food grade.
I have a document of all my recipes I am going to try to upload. Or copy and paste.
Neem Oil Foliar Spray
● 1 T Neem Oil
● 2 tsp AgSil (or Protek)
○ Stir until emulsified, add to…
● 1 gal warm water (~80 F) (or herbal tea)
● ¼ tsp aloe powder
Shake/Stir/Magic Bullet until oil is thoroughly blended (add more silica as needed)
Herbal Foliar Tea
● 1 C leaves (cilantro, mints, holy basil, thyme,etc. easy on rosemary)
○ Ground herbs = 4x chopped herbs
○ Blend into paste
● Soak in 1 gallon water for 24 hours
● Dilute to 3 gallons (or dilute 5 C tea to 1 gallon)
● Strain
● Add Aloe/Fulvic/Silica (1/4 tsp/10mL/5mL per gallon)
Great. Thanks for the recipes BlackShirt.
I have started bringing my girls in and out everyday until I can put them outside full time, so this is very helpful right about now.
@BlackShirt
Here they are in all their glory.I found em munching on my mango kush last year. My garden is their home…
@BlackShirt