Outdoor Autos in the Winter

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

@Darclinc hope all is well your side!

As you can see even a seasoned grower change their situations and products they use over time and just introducing a new type of water or a different nutrient product you can have quite adverse effects, specially if you don't research the product properly. 

I have also seen situations where the product itself does not match what the lable sais, sometimes it's marketing, sometimes a batch flaw and in all these cases you can contact who ever you got the stuff from and take it from there, but without tools you would have to let the products to the damage first before you can call it. in my opinion that's a waste of time and resources. I don't wana burn my plants to have to learn, I would rather just learn and have healthy plants  

I have a PH probe and a PPM probe. I use them both. however I use my PPM probe much more than the PH probe. There is quite a strong stigma around the whole "Don't panic, it's organic" bullshit... I've heard it everywhere from vegans to agriculture and everywhere in between... The horticulture community love this, I have heard it plenty of times, infact I have heard it WAY TOO MUCH, how people will demote the use of PH and PPM probes in organics simply because of the fact that it's organic. 

Well, I have learned my lesson, was left standing scratching my head.... did the advice givers actually really wana help me? or did they wana make me feel inferior, because I don't understand the plant as well as they do? or maybe they just didn't really understand it themself? 

could be any of those, but trust me when I say this, I have learned way more from using the right tools than from listening to people.

Back to PH / PPM.... even though all the talk here is about PH swings, it's much more likely to run into deficiencies or toxicities when working with living soil and slow release fertilizers that need to be broken down to become available for the plant, everything will be fine then one day you see heavy discolouration, what do you do? run to the forum and ask??? try to recall what you did last, did you feed it a lot, give clean water? and and and..... all this will cause more confusion and cost a lot of time and in the end more damage will have been done. 

what you should do, is get clean water with a PPM of 0 - 500 and a PH of 5.5 - 6.5 (very easy. most tap water and bottled water fall in this catagory, you can go to a local spar or pick n pay where you can fill up filtered water for cheap cheap and it will give you the PH and PPM of the water on the content list) run that water through your problematic soil very slowly to make sure you saturate all soil to get accurate reading, then you just dunk the PPM probe in the first bit of runoff you get. if it's too high you keep flushing till you in desired range and if it's too low you know you need to feed. there you go. no waiting for people to respond and hoping they get it right.

More people have PH probes than PPM probes so it's easy to get someone to swing by and test PH every once a month or so. you really just need to test your tap water or whatever water you been using, because it'll take a while for water with a super high or super low PH to cause living soil to swing. Organic living soil balances PH by itself and in most cases if you're only slightly off you wont ever really run into any issues. only when you're way out for a period of time will it cause a swing. 

Sorry for all the reading so early in the day!  

[ORGANinc.]

I don't pH because I don't use much fertilizers, if any. 

Also using rainwater. My soil PH at the beginning of a run is always at a desirable 6,9 noting the higher nitrate levels for a decent start to veg. 

Having one fixed number for pH is not always correct, as the Ph in the rhizosphere generally changes throughout growth periods, ending in a more acidic ph. 

If ever I was forced into a corner and had to use tap water, I would use it without pH'ing it and just letting it sit for 24hour, because your will notice the pH drop to a suitable range without adding any chemicals, if you are fertilizing, you are on your own.

I have my style of growing, and my soil is more than 3 years old, with consistent love and care it gets better by day. 

 

[ORGANinc.]

2 minutes ago, ORGANinc. said:

I don't pH because I don't use much fertilizers, if any. 

Also using rainwater. My soil PH at the beginning of a run is always at a desirable 6,9 noting the higher nitrate levels for a decent start to veg. 

Having one fixed number for pH is not always correct, as the Ph in the rhizosphere generally changes throughout growth periods, ending in a more acidic ph. 

If ever I was forced into a corner and had to use tap water, I would use it without pH'ing it and just letting it sit for 24hour, because your will notice the pH drop to a suitable range without adding any chemicals, if you are fertilizing, you are on your own.

I have my style of growing, and my soil is more than 3 years old, with consistent love and care it gets better by day. 

 

[ORGANinc.]

Also don't PPM anything. 

I've done a soil test twice. My CEC is always just under max after reamends  

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

17 minutes ago, ORGANinc. said:

I don't pH because I don't use much fertilizers, if any. 

Also using rainwater. My soil PH at the beginning of a run is always at a desirable 6,9 noting the higher nitrate levels for a decent start to veg. 

Having one fixed number for pH is not always correct, as the Ph in the rhizosphere generally changes throughout growth periods, ending in a more acidic ph. 

If ever I was forced into a corner and had to use tap water, I would use it without pH'ing it and just letting it sit for 24hour, because your will notice the pH drop to a suitable range without adding any chemicals, if you are fertilizing, you are on your own.

I have my style of growing, and my soil is more than 3 years old, with consistent love and care it gets better by day. 

 

lucky you guys with year round supply of rain water for all your plants! very few growers have that privilege 

would this be your advice to a new grower though? or are you just saying how things work for you? as this is clearly a thread started by a new grower wanting to learn how to do these things, cause no one ever mentioned use of rain water to our fellow newcomer till I mentioned tap water can be a problem, so all the while the standard was rain water? I must be living on Pluto! 

did you do this from the start and never had issues?

from testing my own rain water just collecting over night it's not always 0 PPM, I sometimes get between 0.1 - 1.0 EC, cause the rain collects shit on its way down. it hits the roof, runs through gutters, comes out with stuff in it. Sometimes cleaner than other times. Do you do anything to make sure the rain water is clean or you just collect and use without a care? 

During my first few months on the forum I was left scratching my head way more than I was after I just used the right tools just once.... because humans can be wrong sometimes, just like me, I can be wrong that's why I still use my tools 🛠  

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

31 minutes ago, ORGANinc. said:

Also don't PPM anything. 

I've done a soil test twice. My CEC is always just under max after reamends  

why did you need to test the soil  

[Ill_Evan]

[ORGANinc.]

29 minutes ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

lucky you guys with year round supply of rain water for all your plants! very few growers have that privilege 

would this be your advice to a new grower though? or are you just saying how things work for you? as this is clearly a thread started by a new grower wanting to learn how to do these things, cause no one ever mentioned use of rain water to our fellow newcomer till I mentioned tap water can be a problem, so all the while the standard was rain water? I must be living on Pluto! 

did you do this from the start and never had issues?

from testing my own rain water just collecting over night it's not always 0 PPM, I sometimes get between 0.1 - 1.0 EC, cause the rain collects shit on its way down. it hits the roof, runs through gutters, comes out with stuff in it. Sometimes cleaner than other times. Do you do anything to make sure the rain water is clean or you just collect and use without a care? 

During my first few months on the forum I was left scratching my head way more than I was after I just used the right tools just once.... because humans can be wrong sometimes, just like me, I can be wrong that's why I still use my tools 🛠  

Having the privilege or not, I decided after using tap water for sometime, more than a year and a half, that rain water would be better and from reading much literature, it is better, I slapped a small jojo under the pipe and zipp tied one of the 200micron filters ram filters so that the water doesn't have much debris. Plus I use blumats so I try to keep it clean, as this should come without mentioning. Things take time, mistake will always be made with new growers, getting everything right first time is almost impossible as we all know.

My advice to a new grower and the way things work for me are the same thing, I always say what works for me, and also what involves the least amount of effort for me, as I like my growing the be the least labor intensive. But that doesn't mean people will listen, people want to take the long way around, that's fine, we all did it at some point in time.

Then another thing we all know, is that there is more than 1 way to skin a cat. I'm only just learning that my way is not always the right way, even if the plants are happy, people can get happy plants with different methods. 

Edited June 8, 2022 by ORGANinc.

[ORGANinc.]

23 minutes ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

why did you need to test the soil  

Because i'm not happy with just good, where your ppm test tells you how many total dissolved solids, I want to know how much of each nutrient is available from each of those solids. 

 

[ORGANinc.]

If a new grower wants to grow successfully first time round. 

They can buy any potting soil and talborn green and red topdresses. No tools, no happy clappy dances. Just a winning formulae.

 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

1 minute ago, ORGANinc. said:

Because i'm not happy with just good, where your ppm test tells you how many total dissolved solids, I want to know how much of each nutrient is available from each of those solids. 

 

never the less, a test is a test. no funny business  

as a intermediate grower I would rather give advice that I would have liked to recieve when I started out, because the advice that circulates a experienced growers conversation and a learners conversations is also two vastly different things.

like I said, I was left scratching my head way more taking advice from people who advocate the "just know better" notion. infact it was infuriating listening to advice that doesn't help at all. 

3 minutes ago, ORGANinc. said:

If a new grower wants to grow successfully first time round. 

They can buy any potting soil and talborn green and red topdresses. No tools, no happy clappy dances. Just a winning formulae.

 

then scoop water from the dam?  

I think there is more than that to it? have you tried a cannabis plant in pure double grow potting soil? I've lost many many plants to generic potting soils. the biggest problem there is inconsistency. one bag has 0.3 EC, the next bag has 9.7 EC..... 

I wouldn't plant anything in generic potting soil ever. 

different strokes hey 

what would help, IF you wanted to go that route, is to have tools to test the soil to see what you need to do to it to get it in the right range. 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

wait, let me stop with my opinion before I get called out for arguing again  

just let the experienced ouens talk and keep my bek shut, looks like I still got tons to learn aswell! 

cards are on the table, next move is up to OP  

[ORGANinc.]

2 minutes ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

never the less, a test is a test. no funny business  

as a intermediate grower I would rather give advice that I would have liked to recieve when I started out, because the advice that circulates a experienced growers conversation and a learners conversations is also two vastly different things.

like I said, I was left scratching my head way more taking advice from people who advocate the "just know better" notion. infact it was infuriating listening to advice that doesn't help at all. 

then scoop water from the dam?  

I think there is more than that to it? have you tried a cannabis plant in pure double grow potting soil? I've lost many many plants to generic potting soils. the biggest problem there is inconsistency. one bag has 0.3 EC, the next bag has 9.7 EC..... 

I wouldn't plant anything in generic potting soil ever. 

different strokes hey 

what would help, IF you wanted to go that route, is to have tools to test the soil to see what you need to do to it to get it in the right range. 

There will always be inconsistencies potting soils, Okay let me say craft cannabis soils

but the person who is growing his first plant doesn't even know where to start, let alone test EC and PH and what is all means. I think just those 2 things are far over many peoples heads is what im saying.

Its the grow stores fault, always insisting you need every nutrient on the shelf, the best thing any person could do when starting out, is just get some CRAFT cannabis soil and water the dam thing. Hone in on how the plant grows, how the colour of the plant changes as it grows, then figure out where the needs are developing, we all want to be ahead of the curb and have fast growing plants from the start, but this is always brings about the deficiencies caused by excess. A backlog of nutrients is always the problem. 

Its just like our social food culture, we are never needing when it come to food lol and that shit comes to bite us in the end, when we all but prematurely withering away, luckily nobody has to smoke us. 

I always try preach the same thing to any new grower, just water the plants. if they need something, they will show it, if not post some pics and we can recommend some food stuffs. 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

that's just the thing, nail on the head, you can agree ALL soils will have inconsistencies.... 

growing weed is not a black and white, said and done, type thing. there are millions if not billions of variables and this is the reason for the existance of those tools. 

when was the last time you bought a fresh bag of FF? I got my buddy I built the LED for in fresh FF, bought about 5 bags and they all 9.0 to 9.9 EC..... only realised it once his plants where toasted, cz how could you know before? did a run off test, got the answer, fixed it right away. with his noob mind telling him it was deficiency cz he hasn't used nutes yet..... this all conflicts with the whole notion of craft soil + water = success.... that's major bullshit.

I can show you emails between me and Derek Van Zyl from Freedom Farms, it's not only generic soils that have inconsistencies. basically EVERY living soil is prone to inconsistencies literally because of the way it functions. 

you can't avoid it unless you move over to hydro.

you also stated that some "honing in on the problem" would be needed............. why not use a probe and get it over with, rather than standing there scratching your head and running around like a mad hare asking 100 people and getting 50 different responses and then you have to cherry pick and all that while your plant gets toasted?

I've had quite a few misdiagnosis' by experienced growers, even here on the forum, so I also don't trust that an experienced grower will know all visual keys right when they happen and much less so if I have to show someone and trust their word, cz they themself don't know what the soils read outs where before everything went wrong. 

now if you build your own soil, that's another story, but to tell a new grower he must start by building his own soil and trusting it fully with no testing, is like giving a 5 year old a racecar and expecting him to drift around the track and the car returning to you unscratched (I've noticed a lot of car related referances on the forum so I am tapping into those) basically, it's not gona happen.

this conversation can go on and on and on and on and on and a lot of points will contradict themself, the object will stay the same. having a probe will guarentee a safer grow experience. no doubt about it. 

to the point you made of a new grower not knowing what to do with the information the probes give them, I have to ask what in dear Sally's big juicy butthole will make someone think that that same grower who doesn't know what to do with the probe information, will know what to do without the probes? I honestly don't get it? You're not saying a noob is so much of a noob that they skip all the noob stuff and jump right to being an experienced grower? how does that make more sense than just using a probe?  

This might be petty, only because I believe you guys not to be petty, but this point I just feel like there's reluctancy to agree with me even though a lot of things said falls under the values of my opinions. like you said you tested your soil with a more thorough test than the PPM test, but you advocate new growers shouldn't test? they should just run into problems and deal with it. I don't get it man.

some people get their "clean water", for household and everyday use, from a borehole... usually with EC sitting pretty around 2.0 to 4.0 EC... and you never know what the water is rich in.... magnesium, calcium, iron all very common in boreholes around western cape with some areas higher in certain compounds and other higher in other compounds ..... meaning different things will happen. Mg can swing your PH easy peasy, causing lock out and showing signs of deficiency, but what's actually going on is a toxicity.... no way of knowing this without probes.

[Prom]

Just filled 100 10L pots with FF green bags.. had no issues with pH so far.. even I actually broke the 'biological' rule at the start. Stopped feeding the Silica... as is chemical. Run it without or till TopMax is back. I had 2 plants needing a flush.. they are fine and green again. Not sure what I do with the Silica now... should have used my head before I bought it.

For any lockout the plant shows a different sign. What ever pH you have, the plant will show you that and you could diagnose your pH level with those signs.. without using a tool. For that you need to know the signs. When i started 35 years with my first plants, you had the bible (Cannabis Grow Encyclopedia) and that is it. You found more or less all in that huge book.. but searching, reading and pictures made things not over all easy. Next person you could ask are friends, if they also grew, otherwise.. nothing, no help. Today with the internet, if I run into a issue I can't answer, i study what is different and simply look on the internet. You are never the first running into a hemp grow issue.. and loads of people already made a post somewhere about exactly your issue. Finding it is not always easy.. but is out there, trust me. The sites like this also helped to pool some knowledge together, is why I say run a grow diary on your first grow. More then enough people in here to help with the common issues first timers run into. Reading a few of those diaries before you start prepares you rather well. Buy tools when you learned it and want to go deeper into understanding. But first time grower i would still advise, buy a bag of FF Premium Classic, and grow just in that soil with water.. what ever water. Pot up like you should if not an auto and learn growing a plant in the first place  is not given to all out there. Winter just makes the outcome look less successful. 

For somebody to understand the importance of pH... this picture shows you what the plant can absorb in what ranges... and you see why stick to where you should stick

[Darclinc]

On 6/8/2022 at 7:31 AM, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

Sorry for all the reading so early in the day!

Not at all, I appreciate the valuable input! FWIW I have bought this combo Temp, PH and EC pen. Hopefully it does the trick.

I had another question which I've been meaning to ask, specifically since these are going to be outdoor plants: 

What do you do if it rains heavily? There's so much talk about over watering, so presumably when it rains for days on end (happens in CT frequently in winter), are you meant to take them out of the rain?

Also, does it typically flush all the nutrients from the soil and means you should replenish it?

D

[Darclinc]

20 hours ago, Prom said:

Finding it is not always easy.. but is out there, trust me.

I have no doubt, this place being a great resource already.

20 hours ago, Prom said:

run a grow diary on your first grow

Yes, my intention is to do exactly this. That way, if things go tits up, I can put something up in the sick bay and have some information to back it up.

20 hours ago, Prom said:

Reading a few of those diaries before you start prepares you rather well.

I have read some, but most on here seem to be indoors under much more controlled circumstances. The outdoor ones aren't typically during winter, so I am trying to glean the most appropriate and relevant information to my situation from each diary I've looked at.

Otherwise thanks for the all the other information, appreciated!

D

[Darclinc]

On 6/8/2022 at 8:42 AM, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

lucky you guys with year round supply of rain water for all your plants! very few growers have that privilege 

I have a wellpoint, but I don't intend to give my plants that water. I have a very old tank with rainwater, but it's several years old.

[Darclinc]

On 6/8/2022 at 9:22 AM, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

as a intermediate grower I would rather give advice that I would have liked to recieve when I started out, because the advice that circulates a experienced growers conversation and a learners conversations is also two vastly different things.

This resonates with me, which is why I have decided to PH the water, for example. It seems like a very simple and cheap thing to do and based on what I've read it's worth giving your plants water within a certain PH range.

If there are issues I wouldn't know where to begin the diagnosis or fixing since I have no experience, so in a way this removes some of the guesswork. At least that's how I look at it. 

[Darclinc]

On 6/8/2022 at 9:22 AM, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

I wouldn't plant anything in generic potting soil ever. 

I opted for the Orgasoilux based on a friend's recommendation. He's an experienced grower and has many friends here in CT that swear by it. Good enough reasoning for me.

also it's only R200 for a bag, which covers all 4 plants. For me it was a complete no-brainer to get soil formulated for these plants as opposed to potting soil.

[Darclinc]

On 6/8/2022 at 9:27 AM, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

cards are on the table, next move is up to OP

OOH THE PRESSURE

[Darclinc]

On 6/8/2022 at 9:36 AM, ORGANinc. said:

but the person who is growing his first plant doesn't even know where to start, let alone test EC and PH and what is all means. I think just those 2 things are far over many peoples heads is what im saying.

Its the grow stores fault, always insisting you need every nutrient on the shelf, the best thing any person could do when starting out, is just get some CRAFT cannabis soil and water the dam thing.

Sure, it's a learning experience. What you've said above is all I'm going to be doing, pretty much. Well that, basic water PH correction and I also have these two bottles of nutrients, but don't intend to use them or buy anything else unless I need to do it.

My biggest concern is heat and light. I'm going to be moving them around for a bit, at least in the beginning to get them in the full sun as often as possible.

I don't want to micromanage everything, as a novice grower this would be stupid anyway as I have no XP to back it up. But I'd rather have some basic plan and basic stuff on hand. Besides, it sounds fun to do some of the 'sciency' stuff too, so why not?

[ORGANinc.]

3 minutes ago, Darclinc said:

Sure, it's a learning experience. What you've said above is all I'm going to be doing, pretty much. Well that, basic water PH correction and I also have these two bottles of nutrients, but don't intend to use them or buy anything else unless I need to do it.

My biggest concern is heat and light. I'm going to be moving them around for a bit, at least in the beginning to get them in the full sun as often as possible.

I don't want to micromanage everything, as a novice grower this would be stupid anyway as I have no XP to back it up. But I'd rather have some basic plan and basic stuff on hand. Besides, it sounds fun to do some of the 'sciency' stuff too, so why not?

Please bud don't let me put you off getting the tools and having the information, its all learning curves and it will always be helpful, I've just gotten to a stage where the information in my scenario, isnt super helpful. 

If you using Orgasoilux, Make sure to wet the soil thoroughly before planting. until a bit of runnoff comes out, I would say around 25% watering. No plants in there obviously, then wait till that soil is ready to plant, in about a week or so, shouldn't be like wet wet, but moist-ish, then only water when pots are light light.... GOODLUCK bud! 

[Darclinc]

2 minutes ago, ORGANinc. said:

I would say around 25% watering

Of the pot size? i.e. in my case, with a 10l pot which is filled with approximately 7.5l worth of soil (and some pebbles at the bottom), about 25% of that in water?

[Darclinc]

4 minutes ago, ORGANinc. said:

No plants in there obviously, then wait till that soil is ready to plant, in about a week or so,

Pardon my ignorance, but what does this do?