First attempt at an Organic grow with self watering system

(Comments and questions are welcome)

Decided to give organic growing a try. Mixed some soil a few weeks ago and transplanted my seedlings last night. Soil is a mix of:

Peat Moss
Earthworm Castings / Compost
Perlite
Oyster Shell/Lime
Rock Dust
Kelp Meal
Alfalfa Meal
Organic All Purpose fert

Have 4 strains going Coast 2 Coast (7x), Floja(6x), BioDiesel (2x) and Lost Tribe (3x). All are in 1 gallon fabric pots.

The self watering system consists of 2 resevoirs, some 1x4's and capillary mat (felt).

I topped all of the plants above the 2nd node on Friday.

Here is pic from today. The genetics of the strains:

B= BioDiesel
C = Coast 2 Coast (NYC Diesel x Tahoe OG)
L = Lost Tribe (Kosher Kush x Jamaican)
F = Floja (Flo x Double Purple Doja)

Diagram of plants:

L C F B
L C F B
L C F F
C C F F
-- C C --





The felt has worked well so far, keeping the soil nice and evenly moist. I stuck my hand down the side of a couple of pots to make sure the soil wasn't too wet at the bottom. It was a little more moist than the upper soil, but nothing to worry about.

In 1 week, the amount of water in the resevoir has dropped about 1". Will be interesting to see the water usage of the plants on a weekly basis.

I harvested 3 Lost Tribes that I had going in a non-organic grow. Here is a shot of the bud shortly after trimming (still very wet). First one is no-flash, second pic is flash turned on:

The soil was staying a little too moist for so I replaced the big pieces of felt with a 3" wide strip for each pot. The fabric pots are 6" across so theres much less contact with the felt. Hope this will allow more airflow and the bottom of the pots to not be quite as wet.

Some pics from today, plants are starting to grow much faster. Still see some small leaf curling on a few of the plants, but most have adjusted well to the new soil and are looking really healthy.

The wick system seems to be working well so far. The soil isn't too wet anymore after I reduced the size of the felt under the plants. Its been 2 weeks and I haven't done anything other than top them and make the felt strips smaller.

Plants are exactly 6 weeks old today from the time I started germination of the seeds. They were topped above 2nd node about 1.5 weeks ago.





I started my next batch of seeds (actually started them last Friday). 1 strain from Rare Dankness and 3 from 14er Holistics:

4 x Jennys Kush (Amnesia Haze x RD1)

4 x GAT (Grape Ape x Tahoe OG)
4 x Tangerine Sandies (Girl Scout Cookies x Tangerine Kush)
4 x 14er Special (Girl Scout Cookies x Tahoe OG)

In keeping with the self watering set up, I came up with a simple self watering system for my seedlings. We'll see how well it works or if it works at all. I dont keep the water level very high, no higher than 3/4 of an inch of water sitting at the bottom at any time.

The system is using:
4 plastic shoe size storage containers
4 x 3" net cups
hydroton
perlite
solo cups w/ bottoms punched out.

For soil, I used equal parts peat moss, perlite and earthworm castings. Then I mixed in a little Oyster shell flour. Watered them with some aloe juice and silica added to the water.

I put 4 of the 3" net cups in each of the shoe containers and placed hydroton around them to hold them in place. I filled up the net cups with perlite and took a solo cup and pushed it down til the bottom 1/2 inch or so is down in the perlite:





Then I filled the cups up with soil, watered it and put the seeds in:



Its been just about 5 days and so far 9 of them have sprouted:

Some updated pics, will be switching these in to flowering in the next day or 2:

I flipped to 12/12 last monday so plants have been flowering for a week now. Found 2 males, so pulled them. Found another 3 plants that look like they will be male but want to give another day or 2 to confirm. Hoping at least 10 of the 18 will be female.

Plants are 18-20" tall for reference.

Love the setup man thats a wicked idea if u had height limits u could do a absolue wicked screen of green such a good idea

weedenhanced said:

Love the setup man thats a wicked idea if u had height limits u could do a absolue wicked screen of green such a good idea

Click to expand...

Thanks, its been working well so far. Definitely the best looking plants and are growing much faster than any of my previous attempts. We'll see how they hold up as they go later in to flowering.

I am probably gonna try 2g pots for the next group of plants to see if they work better.

Was able to identify sex on all plants today. Ended up with 10 females out of 18 so not too bad. Both of my biodiesels were male again, so had terrible luck with those....all 12 in the pack being male. Ended up with:

4 x Coast 2 Coast
4 x Floja
2 x Lost Tribe



The 2 tallest on the right are the 2 Lost Tribe plants around 2 ft tall. The Coast 2 Coast plants are on the left side and Floja in the middle.

Plants are 9 weeks old today and 16 days in to flower. Tallest plants are 30" and shortest are around 22". I rearranged a couple of them so that they tallest plants are on the outside.

Plants are 10 weeks old and 23 days into flowering.

I added a second 250w light to give the plants a little more light to work with. Other light is a 600w.









Closeup of one of the Floja's. Started turning purple after the 1st week of flowering.



One of the Coast 2 Coasts

Plants are 11 weeks old and 31 days in to flowering.

Lost Tribe:



Coast 2 Coast:



Floja:





Here are some new pics of the seedlings I posted awhile back. Strains are:

14er / homebrew 420:
Girl Scout Cookies x Tangerine Kush
Girl Scout Cookies x Tahoe OG
Grape Ape x Tahoe OG

Rare Dankness:
Jennys Kush

They have all been topped once above the 2nd node. 4 of them were topped a 2nd time:

Recent pics, have some plants that are 2 weeks in to flower and some that are 44 days. The Jennys kush plants have stretched a rdiculous amount. They are close to 45" tall now (only vegged for 6 weeks).



Floja:



Lost Tribe:



Coast 2 Coast:

Some updated pics. I had to move the plants around cause the newest plants were getting too big for the tent.



Tallest ones are just over 5ft from the top of the soil. Plants on left are in 2g containers and were given 6 weeks of veg time. Ones on the right were 1g containers and 7 weeks of veg. Planning on going 3g containers on next go round.

Some closeups from 8 weeks:

Decided its time to chop down the Lost Tribe and Floja plants.

LT:






Floja: