Grow Room amended super soil + small containers

[radguyjohn]

My past few grows have been a mix of 1 and 2 gallon fabric pots in a 30"x18"x36" tall grow tent, 2 plants at a time. I've been reusing a mix of random organic soils from the hydro store and amending between grows with BuildASoil products like their craft blend and top dress compost mix to get through veg. I've hurt my plants in the past with teas so I now just scratch or top dress BAS products as needed. I also alternate between bottom and top watering (bottom bottom top usually) and use powdered coconut water most of the time. In this current setup, I'm averaging about 1 oz of buds per gallon of soil and a plant height of 12-15" and getting within 9" of my QB-style 120w light.

Here are a few comments/suggestions based on my experiences in a similar grow scenario:

• I think that's feeding way too heavily. Between grows, I'll amend with 2 tablespoons (TBSP) of dry mix per gallon of soil max. During grow the inputs are reduced to like 25% of the recommendations. I don't add anything to the soil until flower.
• I'm not sure how you're able to go that long between watering in fabric pots with these low volumes of soil. At peak, I have to water a little bit twice a day; anywhere 16-24 fl oz at a time switching between top and bottom watering. I water through after top dressings.
• Despite what breeders say, all of my grows have been at least 80 days but then I also top, LST, etc. I'm pushing 90 days in my current grow and nowhere near the amber I'm looking for.
• I would transplant into the final container sooner, or sprout in it. I use the Ronin Method for germing and move the root cube to the final pot as soon as the first leaves are bigger than the cotyledons.

Hope that helps! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions and I'll give it my best!

 

[doubledankdoug]

My past few grows have been a mix of 1 and 2 gallon fabric pots in a 30"x18"x36" tall grow tent, 2 plants at a time. I've been reusing a mix of random organic soils from the hydro store and amending between grows with BuildASoil products like their craft blend and top dress compost mix to get through veg. I've hurt my plants in the past with teas so I now just scratch or top dress BAS products as needed. I also alternate between bottom and top watering (bottom bottom top usually) and use powdered coconut water most of the time. In this current setup, I'm averaging about 1 oz of buds per gallon of soil and a plant height of 12-15" and getting within 9" of my QB-style 120w light.

Here are a few comments/suggestions based on my experiences in a similar grow scenario:

• I think that's feeding way too heavily. Between grows, I'll amend with 2 tablespoons (TBSP) of dry mix per gallon of soil max. During grow the inputs are reduced to like 25% of the recommendations. I don't add anything to the soil until flower.
• I'm not sure how you're able to go that long between watering in fabric pots with these low volumes of soil. At peak, I have to water a little bit twice a day; anywhere 16-24 fl oz at a time switching between top and bottom watering. I water through after top dressings.
• Despite what breeders say, all of my grows have been at least 80 days but then I also top, LST, etc. I'm pushing 90 days in my current grow and nowhere near the amber I'm looking for.
• I would transplant into the final container sooner, or sprout in it. I use the Ronin Method for germing and move the root cube to the final pot as soon as the first leaves are bigger than the cotyledons.

Hope that helps! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions and I'll give it my best!

Your thoughts on frequency of feeding + watering are pretty consistent with what I've heard from others and seen in grow logs.

Re: feeding...yeah I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong...maybe the top dressings I'm adding aren't breaking down? The plants showed some burn, but also quite a bit of yellowing before things were all said and done, and never really got all that big. I also ended up feeding a bit with Neptune's Harvest Fish + Seaweed liquid fert (2-3-1) and RO HPK (0-5-4).

Re: watering...I don't really know. Temps inside my boxes never got much outside the 70-80F range which seems ok, but RH was often around 35%, because in winter we run the heat which makes the air very dry. Maybe that contributed to both slow growth and less water uptake? I'm not sure. In the end, I started limiting the waterings to about 150ml per plant per watering, which allowed me to water once every 3-4 days instead of once a week. Maybe I'm just waiting too long to water? Usually I'd wait until the soil was bone dry 1-1.5 knuckles deep on index finger. Does it need to be watered more often than that?

Re: your other points, yup, I'm aware now that I shouldn't transplant autos, and yes, actually two of the plants from my first run are still going (albeit limping along and more or less finished at day 98), so I know it'll be tough to get anything done in 60 days.

Maybe I should start a grow log for the next round so I can document all these mishaps and get some help making the most of my plants. Thanks for all the advice and keep it coming!

 

[BCBudlady]

Your thoughts on frequency of feeding + watering are pretty consistent with what I've heard from others and seen in grow logs.

Re: feeding...yeah I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong...maybe the top dressings I'm adding aren't breaking down? The plants showed some burn, but also quite a bit of yellowing before things were all said and done, and never really got all that big. I also ended up feeding a bit with Neptune's Harvest Fish + Seaweed liquid fert (2-3-1) and RO HPK (0-5-4).

Re: watering...I don't really know. Temps inside my boxes never got much outside the 70-80F range which seems ok, but RH was often around 35%, because in winter we run the heat which makes the air very dry. Maybe that contributed to both slow growth and less water uptake? I'm not sure. In the end, I started limiting the waterings to about 150ml per plant per watering, which allowed me to water once every 3-4 days instead of once a week. Maybe I'm just waiting too long to water? Usually I'd wait until the soil was bone dry 1-1.5 knuckles deep on index finger. Does it need to be watered more often than that?

Re: your other points, yup, I'm aware now that I shouldn't transplant autos, and yes, actually two of the plants from my first run are still going (albeit limping along and more or less finished at day 98), so I know it'll be tough to get anything done in 60 days.

Maybe I should start a grow log for the next round so I can document all these mishaps and get some help making the most of my plants. Thanks for all the advice and keep it coming!

Great place to post is in the new growers section. There are several experienced folks who will help you along the way.

 

[RustyStarbuck72]

TLDR; are there growlogs or a recommended formula out there for autos in low volume containers (1 gallon or less) with organic dry amendments?

Hi AFN, first post here - just finishing up my first tiny tiny grow and trying to do some research before I start in on number 2.

My primary motivation is to grow variety of strains, yield is a secondary goal I expect to work up to.

I'm working with a super tiny space (about 2.5sqft floor space split between two boxes, ~36 in height), running an HLG100 3000k on one side, and an HLG65 4000k on the other, both at between 45% and 60% strength at various points during the grow.
First grow, I went with 5 different strains in 1 gallon fabric pots. I used sohum living soil as my base soil, with 1tbsp/gallon Dr Earth Homegrown (4-6-3) as an amendment. First 10 days they were in 3oz cups with plain soil, then transplanted into 1 gallon fabric pots with the lightly amended soil. After that I started top dressing at every watering with approx 1tbsp of Dr Earth Homegrown until about week 4, when I added 1tbsp Dr Earth Flower Girl per watering (so total, 2tbsp / watering). Watering was approx once every 5-7 days with PHd charcoal filtered water, as it was taking a long time for soil to dry out.

3 out of the 5 plants made it to harvest, two of them, which seemed healthy, died for unknown reasons during flowering. All of the plants experienced mild to extreme deficiency or other stress at some point during the grow - for the ones that survived, it was mostly just yellowing and crisping / die off of fan leaves, which I see is fairly normal with these really small containers.

My plan for the next grow is to use 1/2 gallon to 1 gallon containers, with much more heavily amended soil - anywhere from 3 to 18 tbsp of amendment total, as some on other forums have suggested it's pretty difficult to burn plants with organic dry amendments. Based on the growlogs I've read in the micro sub of small container grows (from archie, spanglish, hairyman, etc), I don't really see anyone using dry amendments, and this is what the guys at my local shop suggested - it'll be much easier to push liquid nutrients into the soil with each watering, for a more hydro-style feed/grow. I've also seen some people just using Dr Earth to make a nutrient tea for every feeding as well. Can anyone point me in the right direction on this? Is there an accepted way of doing, or at least an example of anyone having success with the combination of autos + small containers + organic dry amendments? Thanks!

Hello mate, I grow all sizes of pots organically with amendments and am happy to help you out any time.
Heres one of my 16 x 2ltr grows in early flower and I have just recently started experimenting with 10 miniature plants in 1 pot.. I'll add the link to the grow

https://www.autoflower.org/threads/10-girls-3-strains-1-air-pot.81896/

 

[doubledankdoug]

Hello mate, I grow all sizes of pots organically with amendments and am happy to help you out any time.
Heres one of my 16 x 2ltr grows in early flower and I have just recently started experimenting with 10 miniature plants in 1 pot.. I'll add the link to the grow View attachment 1293323

https://www.autoflower.org/threads/10-girls-3-strains-1-air-pot.81896/

Those girls you've got going in the 2l pots look super nice! How much do you think you'll yield, or how much have you pulled in the past in that size container?

I've gone and done it btw, popped 3 autos in 1 gallon containers, a bit underfilled. This time around I've gone with a mix of 2:2:1 sohum living soil : EWC : perlite, with the bottom third soil + sides amended with 1 scant tbsp Dr Earth Homegrown and 1 scant tbsp Dr Earth Flower girl. Plants went for about 10 days before I had to leave for 5 days, at which point the two weaker ones promptly kicked the bucket. I've just put one replacement bean in the soil and one is soaking. The remaining one, at d18, is just barely past her second set of leaves, so I'm a bit worried, but gonna push on!

 

[RustyStarbuck72]

Those girls you've got going in the 2l pots look super nice! How much do you think you'll yield, or how much have you pulled in the past in that size container?

I've gone and done it btw, popped 3 autos in 1 gallon containers, a bit underfilled. This time around I've gone with a mix of 2:2:1 sohum living soil : EWC : perlite, with the bottom third soil + sides amended with 1 scant tbsp Dr Earth Homegrown and 1 scant tbsp Dr Earth Flower girl. Plants went for about 10 days before I had to leave for 5 days, at which point the two weaker ones promptly kicked the bucket. I've just put one replacement bean in the soil and one is soaking. The remaining one, at d18, is just barely past her second set of leaves, so I'm a bit worried, but gonna push on!

Sorry for not replying sooner mate, I missed the notification mate.... Fraid I don't really weigh much unless it looks like a clonker lol..
I don't really worry about yields too much.. I just like growing lots of variety and playing around with ideas.. I'm more about form/taste/smell n lots of frost. I don't measure pH, ec's or amounts... I pre amend with all organic chicken manure pellets, blood fish n bone, guanokalong bat powder. Seed into mychorizal funghi, foliar spray with seaweed and rainwater mixed.
And use bat boost and evothrive Biosys as suppliments.

Hope that helps mate
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