The capabilities of a simple soil (Outdoor edition)

What's up everyone? Finally getting some tomatoes ripening, mostly the cherry varieties as you can see, but I actually pulled a beefsteak today (3 days after this picture).



Black Cherries from the volunteer and some Gooseberry tomatoes. The larger yellow tomato is still unidentified. Looks nothing like any of the seeds I bought, result of cross-pollination, I considered, but all the fruits from this plant in question have looked like this.

It may be the Green Zebra, looks similar when it is on the vine, so perhaps they are past ripeness at this yellow color? I'm sure I'll figure it out soon enough, but they taste pretty good. Like a combination of the Black Cherry and Gooseberry, in fact.



Cold weather is here, been a lot more lazy than I'd care to admit to because of the weather. As long as I had constant ice water, I had zero issues building these beds and digging these holes in the 115+ F summers. 40-50F, in a dry and arid environment, is brutal. Body feels like its struggling more now than it ever did in the summer. Makes sense, people I know with arthritis avoid the cold for similar reasons.

Anyway, bring that up because this bed was a project I started damn near a month ago. Having since dug up this bed, my plan has changed.

As I was digging through this bed, I was absolutely shocked at how many roots there were in this bed from just the tomatillos alone.

But the biggest issue with this bed? It is directly next to one of the mesquite "trees" in my yard. The root mass those tomatillos had, I should have had way more bountiful harvests. Not to imply I'm not thankful for what I got, but the point is that there is clearly an issue with this space.

Not only is the tree sapping the light (tree's leaves literally absorb the majority of the light, right? So, anything beneath the canopy gets little to no light), but on top of the tree sapping light from this bed, the trees roots are growing into this bed.

I am in the process of digging this bed up entirely, and will be using this space for an experiment. Mesquite trees are technically not trees, but in fact legumes. If they fixate nitrogen into their surroundings via their roots, and their roots grow into this spot, what if I buried a ton of wood chips in this bed and covered it with native dirt?

The native dirt covering the woodchips would hopefully be a vessel for the N being fixated by the trees, allowing for more effective composting underground. What I'm hoping for is that by March, I'll be able to dig this bed up again and it will be a legitimate soil mix. I will then be able to repurpose this soil mix, and re-fill the now empty hole with more woodchips and native dirt to repeat the cycle.

Literally nothing has grown well in this spot/bed, nothing. Doesn't matter the plant, nor the season, the results are mediocre at best. This tells me, I'm not using this location properly and need to think outside the box for other possibilities.

Sure, its a pain in the ass to dig up all this dirt and repurpose it. But, it has to be done, and that's all that matters.



The cucumbers didn't do quite as well in that spot as I thought. However, as you can see, the tomato plants are so large they likely removed a good deal of sunlight from the cucumbers.

I can't even believe how insanely large these tomato plants got in such a short time. I am literally overwhelmed.

I am currently in the process of looking for suckers on them to clone. I'm hopeful that many of these plants will survive the winter, but I don't want to assume. Prepare for the worst, and hope for the best.

If nothing else, these plants are so huge, they need to be pruned regardless. I can't imagine tomato plants that size going into the spring, then I'd really be overwhelmed.








Middle of December in the low desert, and things are looking far more green than I'd expect them to. The lima bean plant looks pretty spent, but that was mostly the result of not training/pruning it properly. Many of my seed pods dried out due to my inability to see them, haven't seen any beans since. But, I got seeds out of the deal to start over again!



Some of my Chinese broccoli are finally starting to make their appearances, same with some of the broccoli seeds I planted weeks ago. Hoping that some of these radish sprouts go to seed for me, I'd love to have more of them. They're amazing on sandwiches.

Imagine those little sprouts you get in your sandwich, but they have a radish flavor to them. Amazing. I'd love to have more seeds of those, so I can continue the genetics without the need to purchase.


So, the month of December is that of simple survival. I'll be starting seeds and clones for the spring garden this month, and in January as well. I will be harvesting what I've grown thus far, while simultaneously hoping and praying that the tomato plants don't die. Depends on how cold things get. I know full well it is possible I can wake up one day, and the tomato plants will be dead. But, the opposite is also possible, and I've always been hopelessly optimistic.

As for the medical side of things;

Medical side of things is seemingly uneventful compared to summer, but the genetics I'm running are much better.

That said, I've noticed something. The "Bruce Banner" phenos I have produce some decent smoke. Its good, but it doesn't slap you in the face when you open the bag. Same with the Banana Sativa.

Meanwhile, the Zkittlez pheno of Maltezers, LA Confidential, and Purple Wreck, barely stretch in flower. The Purple Wreck is interesting. When it flowers, the top literally stops growing, and the side branches even out with the top. I've witnessed very little plants that grow like this. But, perhaps this further emphasized how "compromised" the marijuana seed gene pool is.

Why I went with DNA, no doubt with them. They aren't pollen chuckers, and have literally never disappointed me. Ever.

Even more interesting, the Zkittlez, LA, and Purple are all the fist to show Mg deficiencies. The "Bruce" and "Banana sativa" from "Crop King Seeds" have never shown Mg issues.

You'd think, that's great there's no Mg issues, right? Well, maybe. But, the LA, Purple, and Zkittlez are "heavily" feeding on the Mg, while simultaneously not stretching much in flower compared to the other strains.

Just interesting. Its literally a choice between 1lb of something "standard", versus 1/2lb of something so loud that the smell lingers in the room minutes after you've closed the bag.

Genetics are crucial.

For outdoors, here's where I'm at now.



The plants you see in the row on the right were all put outdoors on 11/1. So, they have 3-4 weeks left.

You can somewhat see how I've "sectioned" off the plants on the left. There's the top "row" of 8 plants, and the bottom "column" of 6 plants. The top row was planted on 11/15, and the bottom row was planted 12/1.

They're performing as expected. Yields are certainly going to suffer due to the stresses of the overnight weather this time of year, but the flavor will be incredible.



Purple Wreck doing its thing in the ~50F nighttime weather out here. In fact, I'm surprised it hasn't been purpling up even more.

For those with the extra observant eye, you can see why I'm giving these girls Langbeinite. This strain is a heavy feeder.

The cilantro is crazy, I legit planted those cilantro seeds in June in the first batch of woodchips I procured. Now, they are finally starting to sprout, and you can see where they're thriving. You can also see one of the lima bean shells I tossed onto the chips, I'll just munch on the beans, and throw the pods into various places in the garden as I see fit.

In the case I outlined above with plants stretching. As you can see, the "Bruce" plants grew to 2-3x their size. While the Zkittlez and Purple Wreck barely stretched, if at all. I can tell you right now though, the "Bruce" is only decent smoke, while the Zkittlez and Purple Wreck are in a whole other category.





Veg room still doing it's thing. As you can likely already see, I've got 12 plants in the process of replacing the ones I'll be harvesting in another 3-4 weeks.

The large amount of seedlings in those pots isn't quite impressive. I got those seeds from Greenpoint Seeds, so I'm not sure just how well they'll perform.

Pretty much, the only things I'm putting in the ground for flower are DNA Genetics gear, and the one Zkittlez pheno I got from a G13 freebie. Nothing else.

Everything else is an experiment. I'll be seeing how the "Cheesilicious", "Super Shark", Citron", "Lemon Tree Punch", "Sweets" and "Banana Dance all do individually (Citron, Lemon, and Sweets being Greepoint). I need to test and confirm all of those seedlings before I invest too much into them.

Not DNA Genetics though. I got some freebies from them when I ordered my LA Con and Purple Wreck seeds, Holy Grail Kush. I've heard great things, we'll see, but if its DNA then its legit.

Why am I dropping DNA Genetics name so much? Genetics are legit. No question. Can't tell you all how many times I've been burned with shitty genetics.

And that was back in the day; fact is, the market for quality genetics is even more flooded today than it was when I started.



So, pretty much, business as usual here. Things still happening, but the bone chilling winters are here, and I'm doing what I can in this period of time. Thankfully, my tent not only has a 1000w DE light, but a propane CO2 generator as well, so even if its 50-60F these days it is still 75-80F in my veg tent.

Happy New Year man,show us some pics of the garden.Its minus 25c here, need a garden fix lol.

Hi guys!

Forgive me for not posting, life really got a hold of me. Won't bore anyone with the details, but in short; family, holidays, the bone chilling cold on my bones, and how much work its been with all the seedlings I started that I listed above.


These past 6 weeks haven't really been anything truly exciting, but now that things are warming up I've got more projects I'm getting underway.

Most of the vegetable garden is done, as you can see. Winter got me. I could have easily built frames to attach to the raised beds, and wrapped the frames in visqueen so that the plants wouldn't have died from frost. However, the cold this year affected me differently than it usually does. Felt like just having bones was painful, moving around wasn't painful but "annoying" if that even makes any sense. Not sure, guess I'm just getting old and my body isn't getting any better. Temps only got to 28F at the lowest, I'm sad I couldn't help save the plants by simply using visqueen, but man it just hurt to move.



Depressing as it looks now, it definitely isn't a total loss. I'm going to have tons of seeds, and harvested a good amount of stuff before the frost even came. Surprised we managed to harvest stuff, actually. The most valuable things harvested would be knowledge of how various vegetables (and their different kinds) react to winter. Some did great, others hated life. Similar to weed strains. I now have seeds from plants that have grown in this environment, so I'm hopeful results will be better this year. My misses has been kind enough to take over the vegetable side of things, leaving me to pursue my medical projects. As you can see from all of the plants above, I overwhelmed myself a bit lol.

Those seedlings that were in solo cups in the post above this one? That's all of them. I've harvested most of the plants that were flowering 6 weeks ago, I pulled between 1/2-1oz a plant, totally just shy of 1.5lbs. Not the best, but way better than nothing, especially considering I didn't even follow through with my hoop houses.

All the plants you see outside right now are the seedlings I started in the post above, 4 Sweets, 6 Citron, 6 Lemon Tree Punch, 2 Cheesilicious, 2 LA Confidential, 3 Banana Dance, 2 Bruce Banner, 2 Purple Wreck, 1 OG13, 2 Holy Grail OG, and 7 Maltesers (Zkittlez pheno). Not including the Purple Wreck, Malt, and LA (personals), all of these strains are outdoors for pheno observation purposes.

I am going to watch how the react to the outdoor weather, how they taste, and what their effects are. I've taken 2 clones from all of the above strains, and am in the process of rooting them now. I suspect I will be culling at least half of the clones I took once I see the final results of the strains above in 2 months when they finish flower.


But, the biggest thing for my recent winter harvest is noting how the various strains I have react to winter. As you'd expect, with such low temps, flower stretch was almost non-existent. Furthermore, bud growth was also stunted. The one strain that was the exception to this would be this "Bruce Banner" pheno (#3 for me). I use parenthesis because the seeds came from "Weedseedsexpress.com" and I highly doubt the authenticity. It has a cotton candy flavor to it, which is nice, but I'm pretty sure that isn't Bruce Banner. I've never tried the "real" deal, so I cannot say for sure.

Weedseedsexpress and Cropkingseeds have both disappointed me greatly, hopefully Greenpoint will not disappoint me also, but I'm not optimistic. The seeds produce decent enough smoke, and some of them yield great, but the quality was average. Tons of sketchy seed banks out there these days praying on ignorance of newer growers that have entered the market.

I know what Strawberry Cough, Green Crack, and various other strains are supposed to look and smell. With some strains, I can spot a fake before the plants even start flowering because I've grown them so much. Unfortunately, not many others have the same experience that I do. For anyone like that reading this thread right now, don't buy from these crappy seed banks.

Herbies and Attitude are still good, but even they have lots of "new" seed banks out there. Until proven otherwise, I'll be sticking with things like DNA Genetics, Crockett Farms, Rare Dankness, etc.

Every single seed I get from those breeders is always top notch fire. G13 and HSO are pretty good breeders too, genetics just don't seem as stable as the aforementioned breeders. G13 and HSO seed packs have inconsistencies with phenos and results, I've noticed. They're either mediocre, or amazing.





That large plant is the "Bruce Banner". While I doubt the authenticity, it grows like a mother fucker, and yields heavy. The smoke is good for sure, but you guys know we don't want just "good". We want loud. We want the absolute best of the best. Unfortunately, people like cheap, so this heavy yielding and heavy stretching plant will likely be a staple.

This plant (BB#3) has been in this pot since 11/1 (top left), but it spend a little over 6 weeks re-vegging, as this clone came from a flowering plant. I'm going to put it into a larger pot, and flower it out indoors.

The other plants you see in the 2g pots are between 4-6 weeks old. I went a little crazy with cloning, as you can see. I definitely do not need more plants outside, and right now I'm sitting on a surplus.

Furthermore, it is almost spring. I won't really need a dedicated veg room anymore once spring time hits, so I plan on transitioning this 8x8 tent into another indoor flowering project.

Strains in the 2g pots are mostly Purple Wreck, with a couple of LA Confidential, and a couple of the Maltezers.

I have enough plants to fill every single square inch of my light's footprint, I want to see just how much I can yield from this single 1000w DE. I'm going to attempt 3+ lbs from this one light. I don't have mediocre strains anymore, and I now know to dim my light down to 600w during the last 4 weeks of flower. I can yield 4oz minimum from 5g pots, and I have 12 in pots as I type this. I believe that with enough fine tuning and dialing in, a 1000w light should be able to yield 3-4lbs.

The 1000w covers roughly 48 sqft (6x of growing area, more than enough room to fit 16 plants.

Here are some of them that have been transplanted.



I plan on filling every square inch of the 6x8 light foot print that I have, and allowing the plants to grow to ~2-2.5 ft tall before I trigger flower.

Until the vegetable garden gets established again, there won't be any photos or updates concerning the vegetable side of the garden for a few weeks or so.

For the time being, this journal will still be about the capabilities of a simple soil, it will just be with my outdoor medical plants and my new indoor project I'll be working on.

As always, thanks for stopping by, and I hope this find you all well.

kratos015 said:

Hi guys!

Forgive me for not posting, life really got a hold of me. Won't bore anyone with the details, but in short; family, holidays, the bone chilling cold on my bones, and how much work its been with all the seedlings I started that I listed above.


These past 6 weeks haven't really been anything truly exciting, but now that things are warming up I've got more projects I'm getting underway.

Most of the vegetable garden is done, as you can see. Winter got me. I could have easily built frames to attach to the raised beds, and wrapped the frames in visqueen so that the plants wouldn't have died from frost. However, the cold this year affected me differently than it usually does. Felt like just having bones was painful, moving around wasn't painful but "annoying" if that even makes any sense. Not sure, guess I'm just getting old and my body isn't getting any better. Temps only got to 28F at the lowest, I'm sad I couldn't help save the plants by simply using visqueen, but man it just hurt to move.

View attachment 5078561

Depressing as it looks now, it definitely isn't a total loss. I'm going to have tons of seeds, and harvested a good amount of stuff before the frost even came. Surprised we managed to harvest stuff, actually. The most valuable things harvested would be knowledge of how various vegetables (and their different kinds) react to winter. Some did great, others hated life. Similar to weed strains. I now have seeds from plants that have grown in this environment, so I'm hopeful results will be better this year. My misses has been kind enough to take over the vegetable side of things, leaving me to pursue my medical projects. As you can see from all of the plants above, I overwhelmed myself a bit lol.

Those seedlings that were in solo cups in the post above this one? That's all of them. I've harvested most of the plants that were flowering 6 weeks ago, I pulled between 1/2-1oz a plant, totally just shy of 1.5lbs. Not the best, but way better than nothing, especially considering I didn't even follow through with my hoop houses.

All the plants you see outside right now are the seedlings I started in the post above, 4 Sweets, 6 Citron, 6 Lemon Tree Punch, 2 Cheesilicious, 2 LA Confidential, 3 Banana Dance, 2 Bruce Banner, 2 Purple Wreck, 1 OG13, 2 Holy Grail OG, and 7 Maltesers (Zkittlez pheno). Not including the Purple Wreck, Malt, and LA (personals), all of these strains are outdoors for pheno observation purposes.

I am going to watch how the react to the outdoor weather, how they taste, and what their effects are. I've taken 2 clones from all of the above strains, and am in the process of rooting them now. I suspect I will be culling at least half of the clones I took once I see the final results of the strains above in 2 months when they finish flower.


But, the biggest thing for my recent winter harvest is noting how the various strains I have react to winter. As you'd expect, with such low temps, flower stretch was almost non-existent. Furthermore, bud growth was also stunted. The one strain that was the exception to this would be this "Bruce Banner" pheno (#3 for me). I use parenthesis because the seeds came from "Weedseedsexpress.com" and I highly doubt the authenticity. It has a cotton candy flavor to it, which is nice, but I'm pretty sure that isn't Bruce Banner. I've never tried the "real" deal, so I cannot say for sure.

Weedseedsexpress and Cropkingseeds have both disappointed me greatly, hopefully Greenpoint will not disappoint me also, but I'm not optimistic. The seeds produce decent enough smoke, and some of them yield great, but the quality was average. Tons of sketchy seed banks out there these days praying on ignorance of newer growers that have entered the market.

I know what Strawberry Cough, Green Crack, and various other strains are supposed to look and smell. With some strains, I can spot a fake before the plants even start flowering because I've grown them so much. Unfortunately, not many others have the same experience that I do. For anyone like that reading this thread right now, don't buy from these crappy seed banks.

Herbies and Attitude are still good, but even they have lots of "new" seed banks out there. Until proven otherwise, I'll be sticking with things like DNA Genetics, Crockett Farms, Rare Dankness, etc.

Every single seed I get from those breeders is always top notch fire. G13 and HSO are pretty good breeders too, genetics just don't seem as stable as the aforementioned breeders. G13 and HSO seed packs have inconsistencies with phenos and results, I've noticed. They're either mediocre, or amazing.

View attachment 5078559

View attachment 5078563

That large plant is the "Bruce Banner". While I doubt the authenticity, it grows like a mother fucker, and yields heavy. The smoke is good for sure, but you guys know we don't want just "good". We want loud. We want the absolute best of the best. Unfortunately, people like cheap, so this heavy yielding and heavy stretching plant will likely be a staple.

This plant (BB#3) has been in this pot since 11/1 (top left), but it spend a little over 6 weeks re-vegging, as this clone came from a flowering plant. I'm going to put it into a larger pot, and flower it out indoors.

The other plants you see in the 2g pots are between 4-6 weeks old. I went a little crazy with cloning, as you can see. I definitely do not need more plants outside, and right now I'm sitting on a surplus.

Furthermore, it is almost spring. I won't really need a dedicated veg room anymore once spring time hits, so I plan on transitioning this 8x8 tent into another indoor flowering project.

Strains in the 2g pots are mostly Purple Wreck, with a couple of LA Confidential, and a couple of the Maltezers.

I have enough plants to fill every single square inch of my light's footprint, I want to see just how much I can yield from this single 1000w DE. I'm going to attempt 3+ lbs from this one light. I don't have mediocre strains anymore, and I now know to dim my light down to 600w during the last 4 weeks of flower. I can yield 4oz minimum from 5g pots, and I have 12 in pots as I type this. I believe that with enough fine tuning and dialing in, a 1000w light should be able to yield 3-4lbs.

The 1000w covers roughly 48 sqft (6x of growing area, more than enough room to fit 16 plants.

Here are some of them that have been transplanted.

View attachment 5078564

I plan on filling every square inch of the 6x8 light foot print that I have, and allowing the plants to grow to ~2-2.5 ft tall before I trigger flower.

Until the vegetable garden gets established again, there won't be any photos or updates concerning the vegetable side of the garden for a few weeks or so.

For the time being, this journal will still be about the capabilities of a simple soil, it will just be with my outdoor medical plants and my new indoor project I'll be working on.

As always, thanks for stopping by, and I hope this find you all well.

Click to expand...

Glad you're moving around, was starting to wonder!

Hasn't even been a week since putting these 2g pots outdoors, and already some are showing signs of weakness. As suspected, the "Animal Cookies" dominant phenos are struggling out here, and likely will continue to struggle.

All of those plants in actual pots are Greenpoint Seeds. Strains are

The Sweets (Fruity Pebbles OG x Animal Cookies)
Lemon Tree Punch (Lemon Tree x Purple Punch)
Citron (Clementine x Animal Cookies)

I bought these seeds mostly hoping for some FPOG and Clementine dom hybrids; I have absolutely no interest in the "Animal Cookies" strain. If a cookie pheno survives outdoors, and is good smoke, I'll keep it around. However, my main focus is FPOG and Clementine; Lemon Tree Punch sounds like it'll be good regardless of what pheno it is. I've got 3 different phenos out of the 6 plants, so I'll see what happens.

Also came up on a pack of regular Pebble Pusher (FPOG x Stardawg) seeds. While I'm sure there is great potential for a quality female in that cross, I mostly wanted the pollen. I'm hoping to backcross the FPOG into something stable, and breed it with other strains I currently have.


Would love hearing about anyone's experiences with these specific strains, or even simply Greenpoint as a seedbank. Reviews seem mixed; some say they have some great genetics, others say its mediocre at best.






As you can see, many of the Greenpoint seeds in the 2g pots do not look very happy. Not a good sign. Hoping that this is just a phenotype thing, and not a seedbank thing, but I'm pretty pessimistic until proven otherwise.

Case in point, in the photo above, the 2 plants on the top row buried in the ground are called "Banana Dance" from Freedom of Seeds. Not quite sure about Freedom of Seeds either, first time running any of their stuff too, but the growth has been quite robust and healthy. Especially when compared to the Greenpoint genetics. I'll wait to cast judgment until I'm smoking it though.

The one on the bottom is my Zkittlez pheno of Maltesers from G13 seeds. I've had hit or miss results with G13, lots of mediocrity, but this Zkittlez pheno of Maltesers is great smoke. Nice sour grape candy flavor and smell to it. Perhaps I just hit the genetic lottery with this freebie.

Why I'm annoyed with so many seed banks, you have to pretty much pay the lottery to find a good pheno.

I remember when you could buy a 10 pack of seeds, and the crosses were stable with little to no genetic variation at all. Now, most seeds on the market have loads of variation in a 10 pack. And this isn't for the best either. Seems like you're lucky to get 1 winner out of a 10 pack these days. Buying seeds should not be a lottery, especially with what these assholes are charging.

DNA Genetics is the only bank I know that still does things right, like they used to over a decade ago when I first discovered them. The LA Confidential, Purple Wreck, and Holy Grail are amazing smoke with little genetic variation.



The 8 plants in the top of this photo are non-Greenpoint strains. Top left and bottom left are LA Confidential. The two plants to the right of the LA Con are the Holy Grail. The 2 to the right of the Holy Grail are 710 Genetics "Super Shark" freebies, and the 2 on the far right hand side are Europa Seeds "Cheeslicious".

Super Shark is some random White Widow cross from 710 Genetics that was a freebie. Cheeslicious were also freebies. I'll see how they do; I've already cloned them, so if any of them give me good smoke I'll be keeping them around.

Important that I know what strains grow best out here, and provide the best smoke, prior to the summer season here. I don't want gigantic plants of mediocre buds because I didn't know anything about the strains.



Nice to see which strains are picky during the winter, as they'll likely be the same during the summer time.

With light dep, these plants should be finished in around mid-April, so I'll know exactly which plants to keep outdoors during the summer.






These are all plants that I could not put outdoors at this time. As I was explaining in my earlier post, I plan to veg these out for the rest of the month and get them flowering in this shed. Going to see how much I can pull with a single 1000w DE light this time, now that I know what errors to look out for.



Bruce seems to be enjoying its transplant quite nicely. That is a 25g pot, however i only filled it up with ~15g of soil. This plant grows like a literal weed, insane root growth, so I'm confident it will fill out at least 10 gallons out of the 15 gallons I put the plant in. We'll see. I will only be allowing this plant to receive indirect light; otherwise it'll take over the entire grow room, as this thing will stretch to nearly 3x the size.



And here I am still fucking taking clones lol

I just clone everything out of habit now. Any time I remove a branch from a plant, I attempt to clone it. Once it roots, I observe its growth, and decide whether or not I want to cull it. I figure that if I'm going to remove branches, why not give them a new chance at life first before composting them?

Besides that fact, the clones in the domes right now are all clones from the Greenpoint genetics. Once they root, I'll be leaving them in solo cups for 2 months, doing the bare minimum to only keep them alive and nothing more.

Then, once I smoke all the different phenotypes, I can start culling clones based on which ones I didn't like. I have 40 clones in those 2 domes; 2 clones per strain/phenotype. I anticipate that I will be culling at least half of them, but time will tell.

I don't really have much exciting going on at this point and time. Growing in the winter, or light dep from last frost-spring, you really don't see much flower stretch. So, yields are mediocre, and the grows themselves aren't super exciting.

That said, even if the plant yields are mediocre, that doesn't matter. The plants have been working the soil, keeping the soil alive throughout the slow season of the year as opposed to being left barren and wasted.



Despite the fact this journal isn't the most exciting at this time of year, it still demonstrates that you can get great results without spending loads of money.

All of the soil in my pots is recycled; the only no-till I have is the soil that is in the ground itself, otherwise it is simply recycled.

I do very little to maintain the soil; no-till and ROLS. I only use a 4-6-4 blend and Langbeinite for my top dress, and that's pretty much it. I combine diluted urine with both aforementioned ingredients during vegetative growth, as well as coconut water. The 4-6-4, Langbeinite, and diluted urine provide me with all the nutrients I'll ever need.

TM-7 is used for the micro nutrients. I spend less than $150/year for amendments that covers all of my soil. Some of this soil I've been recycling for nearly 5 years now.

The only soil I purchase is a 2cuft Coast of Maine bag of soil I can get shipped to me for $23 on eBay. I use the soil for seedlings and clones; ensuring the young roots can easily move through the fluffy CoM soil. Once the solo cups start to get rootbound, the roots are old enough to where they can move freely through my recycled soil.

I've pretty much spent no money in the past 3-4 months or so. $20 for a new bag of Langbeinite, and $40 for a 1 gallon bottle of Ful-Power. I bought a quart of Ful-Power for $20 around 4-5 years ago, and it finally ran out. Grabbed myself the 1 gallon bottle due to how many more plants I'm growing, but that should last me years easily.

Having only spent $60 for 2 harvests worth of growing is definitely what I care about the most here. I'm done spending money on stupid shit, and each season I get closer and closer to pure self-sufficiency!

Thanks for reading, all the best everyone.

Everything rooted and is now in solo cups, this has been my project over the last 3-4 days as they rooted one by one.

Tons of clones, but I estimate around half of these will eventually be culled in a few months, possibly more. Depends on what I see and observe come harvest time.

Growth and vigor: Always worth observing, but can be deceiving. Vigor in growth does not always translate to potency. Or, simply does not have what you want in a strain.

High: Something may yield amazingly, and be some of the dankest you've ever grown. But, maybe it doesn't have the high you're looking for. Or, perhaps it is a redundant high to another strain already in your garden, and is not worth keeping around.

Hardiness/resistance: Even if the smoke is not amazing, this is certainly a quality worth keeping around should you continue to breed. Everything else about a strain is pointless if it doesn't survive, right? Hardiness is much more than just pests, mold, and the like. Its seasonal too, if you're outdoors. Like anything else, some prefer winter, some summer, others are indifferent. Identifying this is key to dialing in an outdoor seasonal grow.

Flavor: Most important for me, I value taste and smell over everything.

I've already begun the process of culling. I took 2 clones of each strain, the ones I already didn't like got tossed into the compost pile. Many of the clones are for continuing strains I already like as staples; LA Confidential, Purple Wreck (DNA), Maltezers (Zkittlez pheno), and Bruce Banner.

The rest are all new strains I am experimenting with.

Holy Grail Kush: I had 2 plants, cloned both of them for 4 clones total. I'm not noticing many differences at all so far, just like DNA's other genetics. No pheno variations whatsoever. Not good if you're pheno hunting, but amazing if you're looking for uniformity and consistency in your grow. I am expecting this to become a staple, simply because DNA has never let me down, and HGK is supposed to be their "flagship" strain.

Banana Dance: Had 3 seedlings, 2 grow like a sativa dom, the other one grows short and bushy like an indica. Priority is whatever smalls and tastes like bananas, ideally accompanied with a euphoric sativa buzz. Anything else will be culled.

OG13: Not really crazy about OG strains, truthfully. Unless they come from a reputable breeder, I avoid them as a rule of thumb. Very few quality "OG" seeds in the market, just my opinion. This was a freebie, and G13's Maltezers is pretty good. I'm giving this one a shot, we'll see if it becomes a staple.

Citron (Clementine x Animal Cookies): 3 different phenos with this one; 1 like Clementine, 2 like Animal Cookies, and the other 3 look like Citron. Greenpoint's seeds are definitely not as stable as DNA's, but that is typical for feminized seeds this cheap. I was wanting pheno variation anyway; staple strain selection and eventually breeding.

The Sweets (Fruity Pebbles x Animal Cookies): Also 3 phenos; 2 Animal dom, 2 FP dom, and 2 looked like a perfect cross. I am not interested in Animal Cookies, so I culled those. I'm mostly interested in the Fruity Pebbles OG, I adore this strain and have been searching years for it. I got a 10 pack of regular Pebble Pusher seeds (FPOG x Stardawg). My hopes is that I can get good pollen from Pebble Pusher, and hopefully breed enough seeds that I can eventually backcross the original FPOG. Could take years, but I'm willing to put in the work.

Lemon Tree Punch (Purple Punch x Lemon Tree): You guessed it, 3 phenos. 2 Lemon Tree, 2 LTP, and 2 Purple Punch dom. I'm interested in all of these phenos, so I will be hoping for good results.

Cheeslicious: Europa Seeds, no experience with them, but they were freebies so why not. OG x Cheese, I believe. 1 is short and stout like OG, other is tall and lanky. I imagine like Cheese, but I've never grown Cheese so I cannot say. I'm calling them Big Cheese and Little Cheese for now, we'll see if this becomes a staple or not.

Super Shark: 710 Genetics. Never heard of them, but another freebie that has White Widow in it. Willing to give it a try and see what happens.


Once I've chosen my keepers from all of the above phenotypes, then I can really start having some fun and begin breeding. I have 12 regular Ethopian landrace seeds, and 10 regular Pebble Pusher seeds. Once I'm able to extract pollen from these strains, I will be able to cross them with everything above to my hearts content. Eventually, I will find multiple keepers.

Unless you know a reliable clone source, this is the only way to get the "best of the best" weed. Impossible otherwise.

Think about it? The best of the best strains are the results of growing out 100s, if not 1000s of strains, then finding the one keeper. Very few people breed this "keeper" reliably, often resulting in F1 crosses that are often not "true" to the "keeper". Unless its a reliable clone, or a reliable breeder, you will often have no consistency due to the genetic lottery associated with F1 crosses. Hence my bias for DNA Genetics; there is no lottery as their product isn't F1 crosses.




Plants are looking decent overall for the most part. One with all the yellowed leaves has already been harvested.

I do not really care about the size or yield of the 2g pots; I want to flower them out ASAP, because then I'll know what is worth keeping around by mid April. This will be valuable information going into the true outdoor season.

Beyond excited to finally have consistency in my grows. I've never been able to have a dedicated veg room until now, so this has been game changing.



I've converted this raised bed into the compost pile, I will go into the reason shortly. Now I have tons of soil to re-use, and a more efficient compost pile set up. The compost pile is divided into two sections to make composting more efficient. Rather than mixing a single pile, I can now throw it into the soon to be empty side of the bed. This will result in more efficient aeration and mixing than simply turning a pile will.

Remember, with living soil, your results will only be as good as your compost. Poor compost, poor soil. Amazing compost, living soil.

So, why did I dig this bed up? See that big ass tree next to this bed? It provides too much shade to allow this bed to ever be useful. When I first built the bed, the tree was not this big. Now that it is, nothing grows here anymore. So, the soil in the bed will be recycled into other pots and beds, and the space will be used for my compost pile.

Furthermore, that's not actually a tree, but technically a "legume" like the cover crops used. Mesquite and Palo Verdes are in fact actually "legumes" and not trees. So not only does this "tree" prevent this bed from getting sufficient light, but it has been fixating nitrogen into my bed. Incredible for taking normal dirt and giving it a charge of Nitrogen, but detrimental if you're trying to grow plants next to it that do not like excess N.

And, since this is such a huge tree, it is capable of fixating much more Nitrogen than a simple bean plant or clover.

Pretty fascinating how the native legume "trees" here can actually turn the desert ground somewhat fertile; it is only the lack of consistent water that is missing. Native plants can go months without water, rain being their only source of water. The rain water trickles down into the sand/dirt, and eventually forms a "pool" of water underground. The Mesquite and Palo Verde plants grow such deep and massive roots they can drink the water stored underground. These large roots, in turn, are exuding the nitrogen fixated from the "trees" making the land somewhat fertile. Then, the tiny leaves blow all over the place. Decomposing into the native dirt, making it a little more fertile.

You'd be surprised at how well things grow in the desert, so long as they are provided sufficient shade and water.

Anyway, for the time being, that is about all I have going on outdoors. Just waiting for plants to harvest so I can determine what I need to cull.

In another month, it'll be about time for me to start taking clones for the outdoor season. Looking forward to that, growing monsters never gets old.

My indoor project is coming along nicely, once I'm able to veg outdoors I will be able to trigger 12/12 inside the tent.

The tent will be used as a flower room for the duration of the outdoor season; so 2 grows.

All of the clones I take for the outdoor season will stay in veg until late June, so I will have until then to take clones to keep my staple strains around. I will also be able to veg new plants to replace these indoor ones I will be flowering soon.





Canopy is coming along nicely, I may have to put some of these outdoors, but we will see.





That is my Maltezers clone that I trained down due to being 2ft tall, don't want it getting too tall in flower, so I bent it down. Lots of tops starting to come in nicely, definitely could use a pruning though. Its overdue.







I normally do not do big pots, however this is a rare occasion where it actually isn't a waste of time or resources. This plant has been vegging in my veg room for around 3 months. It only had 3g of roots, but this Bruce Banner is one of the most vigorous growing plants I've seen in a few years. This is a 25g pot, filled with ~15g of my usual soil mix. This plant will effortlessly fill 15g of soil, in a very short time. As you can see, its already grown quite a bit and has taken quite nicely to its new home.

I'm going to keep it way over here, away from the light. Bit of an experiment to see how well it yields without being directly under the light.

Besides, look at this thing, it would grow into the light for sure. I could train it to fill the entire canopy as a single plant, but I want the strain variety, so I'll be keeping this one off to the side. Going to be fun to see what this one yields.



Just to re-iterate, this soil is absolutely nothing expensive or complicated.

Peat moss, compost, and perlite. That's it. I amend with a simple 4-6-4 and Langbeinite, using urine for my Nitrogen when I need it. TM7 provides the micros. Then the bi-weekly coconut water application. That's it.

Simple is key to success, in so much more than just soil and growing.

Thanks for reading.

Let me reiterate this fact; I am doing nothing special. Nothing special at all, and that is the point! I am doing nothing special whatsoever, I am working with what already works. I cannot emphasize enough, I am nothing special, the only thing that makes me "special" is that I realize the truth of growing, and life for that matter. Nothing more.

Unfortunately, being "special" isn't about buying a laundry list of ingredients for your soil.

Think of your soil like that of a pot of gumbo. Gumbo is amazing if it is nothing but chicken and sausage, but gumbo gets better when you add seafood to it. It isn't that you were "wrong' or "bad" making this gumbo, its just that the gumbo tastes better with "seafood" in it.

Gumbo is amazing because of what you make it out of, not the ingredients in gumbo, but what YOU make it out of.

My thesis statement of my threads is this; if I can do it, then you can. Believe that, please!

Hey RIU, I'm still around, just incredibly busy since having undertaken so many new projects. I'll attempt to post more, but can't promise it will be as often as it used to be.

Thankfully, the bulk of the important information has already been posted. A simple base soil of peat/perlite/compost combined with 4-8-4 and Langbeinite is all I need. Less is more.

Since getting more caregiver licenses and increasing my plant count, I've been busy taking advantage of that. Here's the indoor I started last month. I officially triggered 12/12 on 3/7/22. This puts me at a little over 2 weeks in 12/12. I've been so busy I haven't even taken many pictures. I will do that when I go out in a bit.

These photos are from 3/9/22 as the file names show.







I've never filled this tent with so much canopy, let alone with a single 1000w DE. This should be a fun ride, looking forward to it. I'll take current photos today when I go outside.



I just transplanted 5 of my 2g pots into 5g pots and LST'd them. I'll be putting them in the ground in another 2-4 weeks when they fill the 5g pots fully.

Why so many transplants, you may be asking. From peat pellets > solo cups > 2g > 5g > final container/ground. Why so many?

Well, the truth about transplant shock and stressing plants from too many transplants is one of the many "half truths" that circle the growing, and even gardening communities.

The reason I transplant so often is because it provides me better control of the roots, the most crucial and important part of the plant. No roots, no results. Period. As with many things in life, if something has no roots, it is destined for failure. Root mass is key to success, with transplanting, and your overall results.

I start peat pellets for seeds and clones. Clones, of course, we wait for good enough roots, then into solo cups. Same with seedlings, good enough roots, then into the solo cups.

They remain in the solo cups for around 2 weeks. After 10 days, I take the plant out of the solo cup and inspect the roots. If it doesn't leave the solo cup easily, stop trying, because it isn't ready and you'll break the roots. After around 10 days, you should be able to remove them from the solo cups with ease and observe the roots. Are they white and healthy? Any signs of rot? Have they grown enough? Or just barely enough roots to hold the dirt together? You want to see roots everywhere, but not root bound.

So, now that the plant has enough roots, it'll fill a 2g pot in no time. 2-4 weeks, depending on the strain (looking at you, LA Confidential). Same with solo cups. You can gently agitate the sides of your fabric pots, or use something like a shimmy around the soil in between the pots. You should be able to yank the plant right out. Once you can do that, it's ready for the 5g. Same as before, once you can yank the plant out of the 5g pot by the stem, its ready for the ground/final container.

What we want from the solo sized root mass is just before the point of root bound. Root bound is too late, but just before that is perfect. Now, the entire mass of your solo cup is filled with roots, instead of


We are visually confirming the roots at every time, and ensuring they are at the perfect point of transplant. If done right, not only will the plants not experience shock, but they'll grow better than normal. This is because we never transplant too late or too early, and carefully observe the root growth to ensure that the plant has enough roots to warrant the transplant.

Try for yourself, throw a solo cup plant straight into the ground/final container. Then, do the method I've outlined above. You'll notice this way results in great root development, because we've effectively eliminated any potential points of error, namely overwatering, and roots being strong enough to grow through the soil.



I have learned a lot in the past couple months, in that time I've made well over 200 transplants of various sizes, and I've observed all of the above in that time.





In fact, on today's agenda is transplanting 39 solo cup clones into 2g pots, they're way overdue if anything.

16 plants will be going into a light dep, the rest will be getting prepared for growing into monsters for the summer and fall. Why the light dep?

Well, typical outdoor cycle is March-Sept/Oct if you start early enough, right? That's 8-9 months of waiting! In that 8-9 months, with the power of light dep, you can get 3 smaller harvests while you're waiting for your big fall harvest.

My greenpoint seeds look like they'll be ready on the 1st week of April. Those will have very small yields, but yield isn't the point, I want to know which strains to eliminate ASAP. So, I'm willing to sacrifice yield in favor of getting that information faster. I'll be sure to post reviews for them, on the off chance someone else finds that information valuable.

I won't be culling any of the clones I took, instead, will flower them out and simply not continue cloning them. Every grow puts me closer to amassing the perfect army of strains in terms of flavor, yield, and potency.

My indoor should be finished some time in the middle of May.

My light deps I'm aiming for mid June, then another between mid August and early September.

Then, between mid Sept-early Oct I will be having the big fall harvest. I'll have another smaller fall harvest going into November.

Then, start all over again with winter.

It takes a while to get dialed in by the season, but with enough patience it can be optimized. I have sacrificed yields on many plants by putting them outdoors in the extremities of Summer and Winter. However, as a result, I have gained valuable knowledge as to what does and doesn't do well. Certain strains can handle any season, others, only one.

Thanks for reading. As always, forgive the wall of text. This is the first time I've ever been able to get a project like this going, I'm a little excited, finally growing how I've dreamed of since I started growing in 2008. I've learned a lot in the last 14 years, but what is incredible is how much information the community has been sharing and discovering these past few years. I remember when information was scarce, now its become common knowledge. Because of this, it is possible for anyone to become skilled at growing and cultivating a living soil in a couple of years time.

Posting these walls of text with information and personal experience is my way of giving back to the community that so freely taught me, and allowed me to get to the point where I am today.

All the best everyone. I'll make a point to update tonight.

kratos015 said:

I've been working on a project since mid-June that's been keeping me pretty busy. Had a blast with my last journal, and I've been realizing that I was much more organized when I had a journal on here as opposed to the multiple notebooks I've been using.

As always, my goal is to show how simple and affordable it is to cultivate plants in a living soil. There is a lot of poor information out there concerning not just "organic" growing, but plants in general.

Many "organic" websites thrive on ignorance. I feel that living soil is widely misunderstood, mistakenly associated with "organic" and as a result is sometimes viewed as "difficult and obscure". The reality is that this is the way things were designed to be. Building a soil shouldn't cost hundreds of dollars, and neither should maintaining it or anything else.

Here's what I got started on for pennies on the dollar.

6/20

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9/12

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9/24

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I have been using this product (https://www.lowes.com/pd/Kellogg-3-cu-ft-Organic-Garden-Soil/3026867) for the past 1.5 years now, amazing stuff if your native dirt is sandy like mine.

$9 for 3 cuft of composted forest products, chicken manure, guano, castings, and kelp meal. Literally cheaper than peat moss, its insane. Just dig up some of your native dirt and mix it with this stuff and you have cheap and effective soil.

Soil

5 3 cuft bales of Kellogg (112.5g) = $45
1 4 cuft bag of perlite (30g) = $25
8 cu ft native dirt/sand (60g)

$70 for 1 cubic YARD (27 cuft/202.5g) of soil, about as cheap as it gets. That same $70 will only get you 4-6 bags of soil at your local hydro store.

Nutrients

Veg

I don't buy anything for veg nutes anymore. I drink coffee, so I have a shit ton of coffee grounds readily available at any time. I also haven't pissed in a toilet for over a year now. I either piss into a bottle and dilute it with water for a boost of N for the plants, or I piss on the compost pile to help break things down in very short order.

Literally zero reason to buy Nitrogen when we literally piss it for free.

The only thing I spend money on during veg now is Coconut water, one 16.9oz bottle per gallon of water. No more Neem Meal, no more Fish Emulsion, just coffee grounds and piss. I do use a little of whatever flower blend (4-8-4 or 4-6-3) in combination with the grounds and urine. Veg is handled for damn near free now.

Flower

Just as simple, I run whatever blend of bloom blend products happens to be on sale. I like Down to Earth's 4-8-4 Rose formula, or Dr. Earth's 4-6-3 Tomato and Herb formula. However, my local hardware store has a 4-8-3 bag of G&B fertilizer, 12 lbs for $17 as opposed to $15 for 4 lbs. I tend to use that as often as I can, 3 times the product for a couple bucks extra.

I top dress weekly with this stuff in flower, every 2-4 weeks in veg.




The only things I buy on a consistent basis are the organic bloom blends, TM-7, spinosad, silica, and coconut water. Extremely cheap.

Pest control is rotations of Spinosad and Habanero Pepper spray in combination with companion plants and the predator bugs that have taken residence here.


Each of the holes the plants are in are only 2 cuft (15 gallons). I only need and use 15 gallons of soil to grow plants even larger than this.

My native dirt here is sand, once a plant fills the soil I make and becomes a 15 gallon sized root ball, it can easily penetrate the sand and continue to grow roots through it. I get massive 50+ gallon sized root balls with only 15 gallons of soil, saving me even more money.

I started doing this in 2019, as I had an epiphany when I was staring at the desert across the street littered with various bushes, cacti, and mesquite trees. I was zoning out and staring at the plant life in the desert, wondering how they manage to even survive out there. I got my answer during monsoon season, where the rainfall is capable of making literal rivers and lakes, only for it to completely disappear within 24 hours.

I theorized that all of that water follows the path of least resistance underground in the sand, so there's likely somewhere underground where the water completely pools for the plant's roots to intake water. My property even has a well on it, so clearly there's water pooling underground on a massive scale if wells can be dug in the middle of the desert.

So, I had a theory. "What if I only use enough soil to create a root mass that is strong enough to penetrate the sand and grow outside of the soil and into the sand like the cacti and trees?"

I dug a ~2 cuft hole in the ground and filled it with the soil I made and planted my weed plants in them in April. The plants got to be the size of my roof. Not only did the taproot continue to grow outside of the 15g of soil, but the roots even spread out the sides. I had massive rootballs with only 15g of soil.

No, not only did I prove my theory as correct but I also learned more than just that. A "living soil" isn't restricted to soil that we make, everything happens around the rhizosphere as we already know. The rhizosphere exists wherever roots are, be it soil or sand. Once rootballs get to a certain point, it becomes a waste to keep using soil. We only need enough soil to establish roots that are strong enough to penetrate and grow into our native dirts.

Since then, I've only used 15 gallons of soil. The holes are in fact no-till, simply planting new plants into the holes/beds without messing with the soil.




I now finally have a veg/mother room after so many years without one, I'm finally able to run things consistently. For all plants, not just the weed!

Strains I'm growing now are Bruce Banner #3, BB #5, Zkittlz, and a finicky Banana sativa. Purple Wreck and LA Con will be added to the list once their respective mothers get large enough to clone consistently.

Veggies I've got going right now are tons of different tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, cucumbers, various greens and herbs, and some jelly melons. Peas and green bean seeds will be sown within the week.

I have some banana tree starts and some 2 year old blackberry and raspberry canes that should be here in another week or so. They'll stay indoors in my veg room until around Feb-March, then go outside.

The idea is to attempt to create a mini-oasis microclimate within my backyard. I'm pretty stoked about how well things look in only 3 months time, and can't wait to see how things look back here this same time next year.

I plan on keeping this thread going indefinitely, just like the garden. The last time I did this there was some solid discussion and it was unbelievably simple for me to just look at my thread and look back for information instead of flipping through notebook after notebook.

Thanks for taking a look. Gonna be awesome to look back on these photos in another year or so.

Regards.

Click to expand...

How did I miss this thread, lol.

Kratos fertilizing his garden.

PadawanWarrior said:

How did I miss this thread, lol.

Kratos fertilizing his garden.
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You know it! I mostly just piss into my 2g water jug and dilute it with water, then apply my free liquid Nitrogen to the plants as needed. If nothing needs Nitrogen, I'll either piss on the compost pile, or I'll piss on some of the woodchips to help them decompose faster.

I guess you could say, I piss excellence

The newly transplanted 5g plants look happy enough. Node spacing is a little lackluster, but they've been under shade for a while. I expect this to improve with a combination of their new home, and coconut water. I LST the plants instead of topping. I only top if I'm going to make it a clone, otherwise the delay in growth that comes from topping just isn't worth it. LST always provides better results in my experience, you aren't removing any of the plant, nor stunting growth.







Now I know it is officially spring because I have to water daily. Why the plants look so droopy, I got used to only watering every 2-3 days. Now its back to daily waterings from the looks of it. These are going to be huge in another month when I put them in the ground. Having a full 5g root mass will ensure that transplanting into the ground is a resounding success.



As you can see, I went a little crazy with clones and now I have my work cut out for me. I took 2 clones of each strain/phenotype on the off hand some died or didn't root. Every single one of them rooted, so now I have 39 clones to work with.

As stated above, they'll be going into 2g pots. Half will be for light dep, the other half will be for monster fall plants.

Now that winter is over, my yields can finally get back up to par where they should be. I learned a lot this winter, namely, what strains are able to handle the 25-35F winter nights. All of these plants were put in the ground in the middle of January and were harvested last week, and some a few days ago. I'll be harvesting the Greenpoint strains in another 10-14 days from the looks of it.

Check out the difference in strains here; Purple Wreck (DNA Genetics) and Bruce Banner (CropKingSeeds).



Huge difference. You can see just how much the Purple Wreck was struggling, tons of super tiny buds, and more purple than any plant I've seen in my life. Thankfully, this will just be personals. I had very fond memories growing Purple Wreck in SoCal summer weather, great yields and smoke. Out here though, while the smoke is still exceptional in flavor and potency, the yields suffer dramatically. This plant did not like the winter, at all. Thought the Purple Urkle genetics in the Purple Wreck would do good in the winter. The potency and flavor is amazing, what you'd expect from DNA Genetics.

But, you can see the difference in yield. That Purple Wreck only pulled 9 grams, where as the Bruce next to it pulled 40 grams. Very respectable considering the average outdoor winter yield is ~1oz, give or take. Not bad, considering the 25-35F winter nights they survived uncovered.





The Maltezerz (G13 seeds) did pretty well in the winter weather. These nugs don't look as fluffy as the Bruce or Purple Wreck. This one, and the Bruce are going to be what I grow during this coming winter. They yield decent and can survive the harsh winters.

Abysmal yields. But remember, weight is weight. Even if yields are mediocre, no reason not to grow outdoors in the winter if it yields something. Weight is weight my friends.

All of the plants above were vegged for 4 weeks in 2g pots. The idea was to get a quick veg, throw them outdoors to the wolves, and see what happens. Now winter is over, and the fun can truly begin.

Here is what is currently flowering outdoors, showing all of the beat up and stressed plants first.





The plants in those 2g pots that look stressed are the Greenpoint seeds. These results are because of actions I took, and not at all the fault of Greenpoint seeds, nor a proper representation of their quality. I did this intentionally.

Think about this. You learn so much more about a strain and/or phenotype by stressing it out as much as possible, rather than growing it perfectly. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it is impossible to grow plants perfectly without knowing their stress factors. Some love cold, others hate it. Some love heat, others don't. Some are heavy feeders, others are not. On and on and on.

I put those 2g pots outside in February when we still had 35-45F weather at night; not quite freezing, but still cold enough to hurt plant growth. As expected, most of the Animal Cookie dominant phenos hated me for that, however others don't look so bad.

All together, I have 20 different phenotypes of 6 different strains. I will be testing all of them individually, and writing down my thoughts and opinions on all of them for anyone curious about how the strains grow and smoke. I'll take clones of the phenotypes and/or strains that I like, and simply phase out the ones I'm not a fan of.

Now, one thing worth considering about all the strains I have out there. Most of the Greenpoint strains did get stressed, however other seeds didn't seem to mind at all. Holy Grail Kush (DNA Genetics) didn't seem to mind the weather, nor did the Super Shark (710 Genetics), Cheesilicious (Europa Seeds), or Banana Dance (Freedom of Seeds).

In fact, judging solely on looks and resin, the Banana Dance looks like it is the best performer by far!







Always love seeing spider webs on the buds; always happy to let spiders make their home on ANY of my plants. All you can eat buffet for them!

I love everything about the Banana Dance so far. I've never heard anything about Freedom of Seeds, but this strain is awesome so far. I like how it grows, I like how it can survive brutal temps, I like the coloring, the resin production, and the 2/3 of the phenos have a slight banana hint to them. I'm sure it'll be better once its in jars. I've searched years with various different "Banana" strains and this is the only one that has done well for me. This strain has ticked all of my boxes, and will be a staple in my garden for years to come.

I'm going to look into other Freedom of Seeds strains in hopes that they grow as good as this. I'm surprised at how amazing the quality is, considering it was only ~$28 for 3 seeds. I'll have a final report once its been in jars for a bit.





Those cilantro plants got big once they started bolting; I'm hoping they'll seed my yard and I'll continue to see volunteer cilantro for years to come.

As you may have already noticed, you'll see that the non-Greenpoint seeds seem to be doing much better. All of these plants were put out on the same date (2/1/2022), and were exposed to the same stressors, growing conditions, nutes, etc.

Going to be nice once I'm done pheno hunting and I'm finally able to 100% optimize the outdoor garden. It is time consuming, but pheno hunting and breeding is mandatory if you're looking for the best smoke.

I'm so stoked that its spring. Going to be so nice staring at monster plants again, though I'm thankful for what I've been given through the winter.

Next up is what I have going on indoors.

Canopy indoors is filling out nicely; been in 12/12 since 3/7/2022, so barely even a few weeks. Can't wait to see what this yields. Not looking too shabby for a single 1000w DE bulb.







This is the Bruce Banner plant I put into the 25g pot filled with 15g of soil. It is only receiving indirect light from the DE bulb, but is still growing like a monster.

I am beyond impressed with the DE lights. I only have a single 1000w DE bulb in there, and not only is it sufficient for the 5x8 sqft area directly underneath the bulb, but it appears to even be sufficient enough for this plant that isn't even in the light!

This will be finished around mid-May, gotta say, I'm pretty excited to see what happens with it.



This is pretty much all I've got going on. Everything you see in the photos is from the same soil I've been using for nearly 2+ years now. I just continuously recycle it as needed, hit it with top dresses, and water. That's it. Nothing special, though the results I get are certainly special to me!

Thanks for tuning in. Time for me to transplant more of the solo cups into 2g pots.

Spring is officially here and I'm just as stoked and energetic as these plants are about it. I'm only half way through transplanting all of the solo cups into their 2g pots. Lot of work to do by myself, especially when my body doesn't work like it used to. Regardless, still thankful for what I have and what I've built.






The 5 plants that were in 2g pots are absolutely loving their new 5g homes; look how much the one on the right (Purple Wreck) has grown since I transplanted 5 days ago. Incredible growth in just 5 days, shows just how crucial timing your transplants is when it comes to ensuring growth and success.

These are going to be monsters before they're even put in the ground! If they keep growing at this rate, I'll be able to put them in the ground in 2 weeks instead of the 4 weeks I initially anticipated. These plants will be monsters, but trained monsters. I will be keeping these as low as possible via LST.



The two photos below are a bit of an experiment to show just how crucial it is to transplant into the right sized pots at the right times; ensuring that there are zero negative effects from transplant and they hit the ground running.

The two clones pictured below are the same phenotype of the same strain; Citron #2.






The roots are just a tad past where I'd like them to be. As you can see, they were just beginning to get root bound. I should have transplanted these 2-3 days ago, but the roots still look perfect to me. If your solo cup roots don't look like this, do not transplant until they look like this.

Why? Consider how little time it will take for these root masses to fill a 2g pot. Now, consider the same 2g pot, but the solo cups barely have any roots and the root mass does not look like the photos above. If your roots do not have as much mass as the photos above; you are asking to have overwatering issues because there aren't enough roots to absorb the water yet. Root rot is all but guaranteed.

Side note; mycorrhizae can combat root rot if it isn't too severe. Simply put your mycorrhizae on the roots showing signs of rot, then transplant into the new pot, and err on the side of underwatering instead of overwatering. Remember, underwatering can be fixed in hours, if not minutes. Overwatering takes weeks to fix; if you're lucky. More often than not, overwatering spells certain death for plants.



So, as for the experiment? These 2 Citron #2 plants are being transplanted and LSTd at the exact same time, as you can see above. One is in a 2g pot, the other in a 5g pot. I will be demonstrating the growth on both of these plants to show just how powerful it is transplanting multiple times as opposed to just once.

The 2g pot will grow at a much quicker pace than the 5g pot. I will be transplanting the 2g pot into a 5g pot long before the plant currently in the 5g pot establishes itself.






The flower stretch is officially complete, bud sites are manifesting themselves everywhere. I am beyond excited to see what I yield from this 1000w DE.

Nearly every square inch of the 5x8 sqft area is completely filled with canopy. Not to mention that huge Bruce Banner plant in the 25g pot that is roughly 3x3 sqft in size all by itself.

I have actually dimmed my light down to 750w yesterday, in fact.

I'll get into why I dim the lights in another post, though some of you may remember me talking about it in other posts/threads. I need to get back outside soon. In another 2-3 weeks, I'll be dimming the light down to 600w. Tomorrow is the start of week 4 of 12/12.

Thanks for stopping by, as usual. Feel free to post any comments or questions. Once again, nothing too expensive, fancy, or elaborate. Just a simple soil that only consists of the base soil; 3 ingredients every 1-2 weeks, TM7 every 4 weeks, and Coconut water every 2 weeks in veg. Simple as it gets!

All the best everyone.

Sorry about the lack of posts everyone, I'm still doing quite well, just incredibly busy with less spare time than I was afforded in the past. I'll make a point to post an update tonight once I find the time.

Now that I've got tons of stuff in jars I'll be able to do reviews of all the seeds I grew.

All the best everyone.

Lot been happening the past few weeks over here for me. I haven't been posting much because in the past few weeks since my last post, I've done the following:

- Harvested, trimmed, and jarred all of the 2g pots (Greenpoint seeds and various Attitude strains I'll review later)
- Transplanted clones into 2g pots, some in 5g pots. Over the past few weeks, they ended up flowering for reasons I'll explain later in the post.
- Many of last fall's vegetables have come back to life
- Maintaining the indoor grow
- New seedlings for fall outdoor

I'll go into all of those in their own individual posts. Then I'll review some of the strains I harvested for anyone curious. I know I hate it when I can't find any reliable reviews/journals of a strain I'm curious about, so hopefully this helps someone.

Pretty much, all of my clones I transplanted ended up flowering. I believe it was due to the abnormal amounts of shade they were receiving, due to my mesquite and palo verde "trees" growing and blooming better than ever before in the 7 years I've lived here. I've always been able to put plants in the location I had them, using my porch light at night to prevent them from going into flower. That single porch light has worked for me the past few years, preventing flower from happening prematurely.



Is what it is, so I just started my light dep early and ghetto rigged a hoop house for them to simply finish flowering. Good opportunity to just buy more seeds, because many of the strains were mediocre for me. Where as others really stood out. These trees are the happiest I've seen them since I've lived at this place. Only a few seasons of wood chips, composting, and plants "working the dirt".

Consider this about a "useless" plant, or even a weed. The roots are working the land, and any leaves/stems/etc. that you compost on top of the dirt/soil will result in your land becoming more fertile after just a few seasons. I don't pull weeds unless they're absolutely in the way of something, otherwise I leave them be. The more roots moving underground and the more decomposing plant matter, the more soil you'll get.

For me, my desert dirt is loamy with loads of rocks. I dig a hole, and sift the dirt I dug up and remove as many of the rocks as possible. Then, I mix that dirt with soil from my pile and fill the hole. Usually 1 cuft (7.5g) in size. With plants that grow large and have huge roots, eventually, those roots will grow out of the 1 cuft hole you dug up, and expand into the native dirt. Either your plant will grow out of the 7.5g and into the straight dirt, or it doesn't need more than 7.5g of soil.

Regardless, the main point is that large enough root masses underground can result in your rhizosphere expanding far past the 7.5g hole you dug. This means that, over time, as more of those dead roots and other organic matter decompose then your native dirt will be enriched with compost after many seasons. I've learned that with living soil, its more about what you can't see than what you can see.

This assumes you're outdoors, but by digging 8 individual 7.5g holes, instead of a 4x8x1 raised bed, we get the exact same results but save LOADS of soil.

- 4x8 bed = 32 cuft = 240 gallons of soil
- 8 individual 7.5g holes = 60 gallons of soil.

Literally the same results, and for only 1/4 of the soil.

I've observed this for many seasons now. Many of the plants I yank out of the ground have roots that go outside of the predug holes and straight into the native dirt.

"But what about the microbes and the soil web? Won't they be individual soil webs instead of a large one like a raised bed?"

Nope, it'll be the same. Remember, its the roots that the microbes build webs around, not the soil. 8 individual holes that are dug up in the same 4x8 space you'd build a bed will result in the same exact soil web. Unless one has 240 gallons of roots in that 240 gallons of soil, it is wasted soil because the roots are where it all happens. Only 50 gallons of roots in 240 gallons of soil is inefficient.

So, if your native dirt allows for it, try experimenting with digging holes instead of using huge pots or beds outdoors. You'll be surprised to find out that 7.5g is a large enough root mass that is capable of penetrating through many types of dirt. It has worked well for me for a little over 3 years now. I'll be sure to display it again in the fall when I harvest. You can find photos of root masses I uploaded from last fall using this method and see for yourself. Growing is way more affordable once you realize you only need 1/4 the soil you thought you did. I used to dig 30 gallon holes, now I dig 7.5 gallon holes an get the same results.



Concerning revegging, I avoid it like the plague. If a plant flowers prematurely on me outdoors, I either put it under light dep, or indoors. Whichever has enough room at the time. You may be thinking "but what about monster cropping?" Problem is, outdoors the plant doesn't get enough time to recover, so it isn't a "monster crop" but rather a stressed plant.

A monster cropped clone takes months to turn back to veg properly. 2-3 weeks for monster crop clones to root. Then another 2-3 weeks to reveg, then another 2-3 weeks observing it in normal veg. Then it goes into flower. But in my experience, flowering out plants that have flowered, revegged, then reflowered have almost always been fluffy garbage. For that reason, I just throw premature flowering plants into the light dep or the tent.

The plants you see outside of the tent will be staying there until they reveg, then I'll be turning them into moms indoors. Super Shark, Banana Dance, Bruce Banner, and Holy Grail Kush. I'll be throwing a Cheesilicious out there too, because that one had a pheno that came out really good.







Like I said, pretty mickey mouse, but it's functional and only cost me $30 for the tarps so I'm happy with it. Penny saved is a penny earned.

Indoor is pretty standard and chugging along rather nicely. Had a little bug infestation a few weeks back, but nothing too serious, just white flies and leaf miners. Habanero spray took care of that in no time. Fortunately I caught them prior to week 3, so it shouldn't effect my yields too badly. Got too caught up in projects and didn't remove leaves and branches during week 2 like I should have. Bugs likely wouldn't have taken over if I did that. Oh well, its dealt with now.





















Going to be super fun to see what the weight of this grow is. The light is still dimmed down to 750w, and has been since the beginning of week 4 (little over 2 weeks ago). Last time I used this light indoors I got bleaching and light stress around week 5 when I left it at 1000w, I don't see many signs of light stress so far, so I plan on leaving it at 750w. This DE light is an absolute workhorse, especially for only $200.

That one light has enough of a light footprint to not only fill a 6x8 sqft area, but also the 3x3 Bruce Banner plant in the back row as well. 57 square feet of light coverage for <$200 is definitely not going to be beat. It would have taken me 3-4 individual single ended bulbs to grow this much back in the day.