ShLUbY's Garden

I hooked up my house furnace to the grow rooms last winter. So I can control heat but can't control humidity very well. Bought 3 humidifiers for the room and that didn't do much in the dead of winter. Every day they'd run out of water and I'd only be sitting at 35 percent humidity. Its always fun to upgrade and play around with new gadgets!

Here we go, Sunday already... Some shots of the new genetics in the veg side, so let's get to it!

Crop King's White Widow



Jinxproof/TGA Shangri-La



Sin City's Platinum Delight pheno #2 (GSC x Platinum OG). I also have two others I'll be sorting through. This one has my favorite structure so far. Another is very close to this one, and the other has very thin stalks.



Flipping this girl next week... the Pre-98 Bubba Kush... she's gonna be a Bubba Bush! I can't wait to cross this with some males later this year... Should be great fun!



I finally got a res (heavy duty trash can for now) and float valve installed... gonna be nice to have water without having to even think about it. I have it set to hold about 25 gal or so.



Next weekend I'll be chopping the Dairy Queen, and leaving the Gorilla Glue for an extra week. It's gonna be nice to have the DQ outta the flower room. They stretched out way more than I thought they were gonna. Sprawled out all over, taking up far too much room for 2 plants. Well, that's all the shots for this week! Thanks for stopping by and, until next next...

Saw this article this morning, haven't had a chance to fully digest it, seems to suggest minimal pH impact, but he doesn't explain what was done on the first day to raise the pH from 5.5 to 6.5 of the pure peat, while his 0% peat was stable the first day then continued to rise.

I don't think the author provides enough evidence to say it is a myth, but rather the impact of peat on pH is very much dependant on the original composition. He also does not state if it is percent by weight or percent by volume, I tend to think based on the results he did percent by volume.

SSGrower said:

Saw this article this morning, haven't had a chance to fully digest it, seems to suggest minimal pH impact, but he doesn't explain what was done on the first day to raise the pH from 5.5 to 6.5 of the pure peat, while his 0% peat was stable the first day then continued to rise.
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I don't think the author provides enough evidence to say it is a myth, but rather the impact of peat on pH is very much dependant on the original composition. He also does not state if it is percent by weight or percent by volume, I tend to think based on the results he did percent by volume.

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Honestly, Pavlis has been about my least favorite author when it comes to gardening. He's just trying to sell books IMO by "busting myths", but that's a different story altogether. It's going to take A SHIT TON of peat to acidify a limestone native soil, and if the native soil is relatively inert (more sand than clay), then protons are going to 1) neutralize or 2) be leached out quickly. So of course it's going to have a short term effect on acidity, especially when not a lot is applied.

But this all points to my hypothesis being that my peat has basically become neutralized after nearly two years. I'm going to cut my mixes that are older than a year with some more peat and aeration, and then amend as usual. I expect to see some results by doing that. But when you have a mix that is the majority peat (in our case the base mix is ~30% peat) then it's actually acidic for a relatively long term... but yeah, good luck getting a native soil to 30% peat composition. SO he makes no mention of how much he used... is the 100% component straight peat? or does 100% = a fixed value input?? Then he goes ahead and tacks it as a "myth" when clearly, the soil was acidified but then lost its acidity because a small amount of peat will not compete with the vast amount of alkaline native soil. Are there better things to acidify the soil with? Sure there are... but it does acidify mixes for potting soil that's no doubt.

This is not the first article that I've disliked by Pavlis and it won't be the last, I guarantee you that. Read his write up about vermicompost... lots of misrepresented details in that read. There are a few others of his I've read, some are okay, but most are less than desirable reads. As you have found, he generally lacks the in depth detail/evidence to back up his claims.

The more of the article I read the more I disliked the authors approach to stating things as myths, rather than as you point out correctly there are limitations to particular approaches. Thanks for saving me the time researching to confirm my suspicions. I do get some good ideas from the magazine but it is heavy on propaganda and light on detail.

I just see a bunch of lovely lovely plants there!
and some intriguing strains too!

Just a thought on raising acidity, possibly thinking fungal foods is a way to find other stuff that will lower the pH too?
somehow I have this acidic=fungal vs. alkaline=bacterial correlation in my mind - just conundering on the side though haha
cheers and have fun chopping that Queen of yours!

ShLUbY said:

Little flower room update... So here we go!

Dairy Queen day 46... quality has not suffered from the high pH that's for sure. I'm gonna check the pH of these no-tills tomorrow and see if they've increased in acidity at all after the peat extracts.

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Gorilla Glue day 46... high pH in this pot as well. Again quality doesn't seem to be affected...

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The three Confidential Cheese in 5 gal pumice SIPS. These are day 19. They also had high pH, but I have them a couple peat extracts last week and they seem to be dropping in pH. One measured 7.1/7.0 when last week they were 7.3/7.4... I'm gonna check the others tomorrow. Probably give them another extract tomorrow as well and then get back to SIP. I've been hand watering in the peat extract to make sure it runs through the whole medium.

I defoliated these pretty heavily today, wanted to really get some light penetration this round with the cheese. I've never done it this much with this strain... but man, they just grow so many leaves. I bet in a week you won't even be able to tell that I did it. I've seen some compelling evidence on a couple well known youtube channels. I didn't even defo as much as they did... but they were running CO2. Anyway, enough rambling.... they're looking good!

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Also not seeing any side effects from the peat extracts which is good... so another one for them tomorrow and hopefully they'll be good for a while!

I'll be back with some more on Sunday most likely. Show some of the new strains in veg. Veg room is full sip mode... every plant!

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Hey Shluby, i am running in to same problem with you regarding high PH, low productivity/vigor. I made some elemental sulfur "tea", basically just ground up epsoma sulfur in a mason jar, the ph drops a couple points a day, down to 6.3 now. I have been adding a little bit with each watering and hoping to see an improvement. It has only been 4 days since I introduced the sulfur but already I see the plants starting to perk up a bit.

Question, did you add lime to your initial mix? I did and I'm wondering if this is part of the problem. I'm just thinking on best way to avoid this situation for my next run/new soil mix.

Growitpondifarm said:

Hey Shluby, i am running in to same problem with you regarding high PH, low productivity/vigor. I made some elemental sulfur "tea", basically just ground up epsoma sulfur in a mason jar, the ph drops a couple points a day, down to 6.3 now. I have been adding a little bit with each watering and hoping to see an improvement. It has only been 4 days since I introduced the sulfur but already I see the plants starting to perk up a bit.

Question, did you add lime to your initial mix? I did and I'm wondering if this is part of the problem. I'm just thinking on best way to avoid this situation for my next run/new soil mix.

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if you're having issues with a new soil mix.... maybe you added too much lime?

IMO, the lime is not the issue and a peat based mix benefits greatly from having a liming agent. I feel the issue is that my peat has been neutralized after a year and a half. The weird part though has been that my vigor has been great, plants praying to the light 24/7 (yes even in the dark with some strains!)... and they look fine, no def or tox, stretching as they should in flower, but just small buds! I'm hoping that my new mix will provide some insight as to what is really going on here and give me a baseline to start with again. Also wondering if the cold temps are compounding the affects of the soil too. Looking to solve this mystery in the next couple cycles I may even send in a sample to a lab and see what the report looks like.

i've had issues with blumats along the way over the past year or so, with them kind of messing up and running too much water through the soil... so i've been leaching out not only nutrients, but protons very likely too, which could have reduced the acidic life of my peat in the mix.

but yeah like you, i've just started taking action. I'm dumping protons into the pot by making the peat extract teas, and I also topdressed a little elemental sulfur as well but I know it takes some time to start to break down and influence the pH of the mix. Only time will tell! And I did notice that rinsing the peat one time thoroughly, the 2nd rinse is far less acidic, so indeed excess leaching does reduce its acidity greatly.

ShLUbY said:

if you're having issues with a new soil mix.... maybe you added too much lime?

IMO, the lime is not the issue and a peat based mix benefits greatly from having a liming agent. I feel the issue is that my peat has been neutralized after a year and a half. The weird part though has been that my vigor has been great, plants praying to the light 24/7 (yes even in the dark with some strains!)... and they look fine, no def or tox, stretching as they should in flower, but just small buds! I'm hoping that my new mix will provide some insight as to what is really going on here and give me a baseline to start with again. Also wondering if the cold temps are compounding the affects of the soil too. Looking to solve this mystery in the next couple cycles I may even send in a sample to a lab and see what the report looks like.

i've had issues with blumats along the way over the past year or so, with them kind of messing up and running too much water through the soil... so i've been leaching out not only nutrients, but protons very likely too, which could have reduced the acidic life of my peat in the mix.

but yeah like you, i've just started taking action. I'm dumping protons into the pot by making the peat extract teas, and I also topdressed a little elemental sulfur as well but I know it takes some time to start to break down and influence the pH of the mix. Only time will tell! And I did notice that rinsing the peat one time thoroughly, the 2nd rinse is far less acidic, so indeed excess leaching does reduce its acidity greatly.

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Great info Shluby, along with the soil ph issue I have been dealing with low night time temps as well, all the way down to 59 on my floor thermometer. I turned up my heater a bit and put a seedling mat under the plant that appears to be most effected by said issues. Assuming you have raised temps, have you seen any improvements?

Growitpondifarm said:

Great info Shluby, along with the soil ph issue I have been dealing with low night time temps as well, all the way down to 59 on my floor thermometer. I turned up my heater a bit and put a seedling mat under the plant that appears to be most effected by said issues. Assuming you have raised temps, have you seen any improvements?

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i just picked up a temp controller for my exhaust fan last weekend, so i'm hoping to see some differences. basically i'm shutting off the air exchange at night now, and running the dehumidifier which makes so heat and keeps the room a little warmer from what i could tell, and during the day I have the temp set to about 73 (my room is not well insulated so it wont heat much more than that from just the lights surprisingly). So i'm exchanging the room air about every 5-10 minutes during the day to keep temps warmer. I'll see how they look this weekend when I get home (I go to school 3 hours away from my garden during the week).

I'm also considering getting a scrubber/fan combo to run at night while the room exhaust is off, just to keep the air from getting stale. I didn't notice anything off in the feel of the air by not having the exhaust fan run at night, just making sure to have that dehuey running! but scrubber wouldn't hurt anything!

Saw you grabbed some dynamite diesels and had to come subscribe as Im growing half a pack of them atm. Very nice setup you have going! I love the automation. Cant wait to see those diesels drop.. have a great day!!

Shark006 said:

Saw you grabbed some dynamite diesels and had to come subscribe as Im growing half a pack of them atm. Very nice setup you have going! I love the automation. Cant wait to see those diesels drop.. have a great day!!

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thanks for coming by Shark! How are you liking the dynamite so far? Still in veg, or have you flowered any yet? I'm excited to pop them! Not sure when I'll get to it... I also have texas butter, pioneer kush, the deputy, cookies n chem, jelly pie, and bodega bubblegum lol. So it's gonna be a lot of work getting through all of these beans!

I'm at over 70 days in and still vegging, life happened and I let them get a bit rootbound but they are bouncing back in bigger containers. I will start flowering right after I finish building a cloning device and take some cuts. Building 4 new light fixtures atm 2700k for flower. I didnt wanna light your log up with pics but they are on the forum.

Thats a lot of nice GPS gear!! I got a pk of chinook haze I'm not too sure about. I really dig all those strains if I were in your shoes idk what I'd pick but I'd either have to run the Cookies n chem and jelly pies first or maybe a couple of all of them.

Shark006 said:

I'm at over 70 days in and still vegging, life happened and I let them get a bit rootbound but they are bouncing back in bigger containers. I will start flowering right after I finish building a cloning device and take some cuts. Building 4 new light fixtures atm 2700k for flower. I didnt wanna light your log up with pics but they are on the forum.

Thats a lot of nice GPS gear!! I got a pk of chinook haze I'm not too sure about. I really dig all those strains if I were in your shoes idk what I'd pick but I'd either have to run the Cookies n chem and jelly pies first or maybe a couple of all of them.

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nice! i'll be looking for a report on the diesel from you in the future! I don't mind people posting pics as long as they are relevant and quality That's awesome you're building lights. I want to switch to LED before the heat of summer hits, not sure if i'll be able to or not. Probably going with the HLG 550s. Seems to be about the best value for the $. I just don't have all the tools and what not for building my own, so it'll honestly be cheaper for me to start off with quality manufactured lights. Maybe down the road I'll get into building some of my own to fit my space appropriately, but those 550s are all I need for now. been hearing lots of good things with the quantum boards.

what are you using for your builds?

Hey Shluby(or anyone else) any ideas on curing a phosphorous defiency with my organic grow? I have plant that is in a smaller pot than the rest(4 gal SP) and it is eating up it’s lower leaves pretty quick and at 4 weeks into flower, I believe it’s too soon. Any ideas to give it a quick P boost or am I too far along ?

Sorry to hijack your thread but your stuff looks great and it’s been tough getting help with an organic style grow in my sick plant thread. Feel free to pm if you don’t want to clog your thread

I will have a better report when flowering hits for sure! Funny you say quantum boards cause I'm currently building 4x 132 QBs for roughly 250 watts. (Im at about 230$ spent) I just have to drill the holes and I'm done! I like the QB132s because I can spread the watts more evenly throughout my 4x4. I dont have too much electricity to work with so I have to maximize!

And here are my plants as of a few days ago, the dynamite diesels are the 3 in front and 2 stunted ones in the back left. The back right is completely unknown.

Growitpondifarm said:

Hey Shluby(or anyone else) any ideas on curing a phosphorous defiency with my organic grow? I have plant that is in a smaller pot than the rest(4 gal SP) and it is eating up it’s lower leaves pretty quick and at 4 weeks into flower, I believe it’s too soon. Any ideas to give it a quick P boost or am I too far along ?

Sorry to hijack your thread but your stuff looks great and it’s been tough getting help with an organic style grow in my sick plant thread. Feel free to pm if you don’t want to clog your thread

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lol yeah i bet its been though from an organic standpoint trying to get help in the plant problems section lol

I looked at your thread and plants... honestly they don't look that bad. I'd just ride this one out unless they've gotten a lot worse. and anything you topdress is going to take some time to start becoming bioavailable. fine crab meal would be acceptable, as well as fishbone meal (better imo), mixed in with some compost, and topdressed... but you're already 4 weeks away from harvest... but if they're gonna run like 6 more weeks then yeah I would definitely topdress something. I think fishbone meal along with some dried and ground banana peels would be great to topdress if they are 10 week plants. I'd do a 2:1 fishbone to banana ratio, and not use more than 1/4 cup of that mixture total. the finer the particulate, the sooner it will break down and become available.

Thanks man, I’ll top dress some castings with some sea bird guano as I have no fish bone meal and let them ride. Next run I’ll be putting everything in 10 gal pots. Back to your grow, which is looking killer.

You get a cut of the GG?

Shark006 said:

I will have a better report when flowering hits for sure! Funny you say quantum boards cause I'm currently building 4x 132 QBs for roughly 250 watts. (Im at about 230$ spent) I just have to drill the holes and I'm done! I like the QB132s because I can spread the watts more evenly throughout my 4x4. I dont have too much electricity to work with so I have to maximize!
View attachment 4109584
And here are my plants as of a few days ago, the dynamite diesels are the 3 in front and 2 stunted ones in the back left. The back right is completely unknown.
View attachment 4109587

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those definitely have a nice classic diesel look to them! i do miss growing the sour D, i had a really fire cut that had been around for many years, but it became unpredictable after i learned that it had been infected with the tobacco mosaic virus (before i received the cut). the guy i got it from is a heavy smoker, so i'm not surprised it had the virus. my strawberry cough also had it (from the same guy).

Growitpondifarm said:

Thanks man, I’ll top dress some castings with some sea bird guano as I have no fish bone meal and let them ride. Next run I’ll be putting everything in 10 gal pots. Back to your grow, which is looking killer.

You get a cut of the GG?

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oh yeah i've run GG quite a few times. i have one at the end of flower right now, but bud development is less than ideal... frost is as expected, sparkly! I'm going to breed the GG with one of the Greenpoint males this year, and try and get something new and fun out of it