Grow medium/method with least upkeep?

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chico1st

Active Member
I am super not into things that have daily upkeep. I want to grow for a bunch of reasons but I would like to use the medium/method with the least daily upkeep.
What would people recommend for the least daily upkeep?
  • In my mind growing in super soil would be the easiest because everything is just supposed to be in there from the get go. I'm super interested in making super compost too, I grow normal stuff and it interests me there.
  • Hydroponics sounds easy because there's always enough water but I know you have to keep checking various metrics, and I imagine it gets complicated. Although I don't know how often you really need to do this.
    • Plus there are lots of types of hydro which makes that a bigger can of worms
  • Coco/rockwool seems like more daily checking than the other 2.
I'm not super concerned about the money but I plan to phase myself into growing to make sure I like it before I spend tonnes of money.
 
Inthelantana

Inthelantana

Member
Drain to waste coco is very, very easy in my opinion. I hand water mine each day, takes 15 minutes and i have 36 plants. You should look at your plants for a minute once a day anyway to check they are ok and pooring a big cup of liquid on them while you are there isn't much extra effort.
I mix my nutes up once a week in a 220 liter drum and check the ph when I water ( you will have to do that with any hydro style system) but it takes 5 seconds and that's most of the work done.
 
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1212ham

Well-Known Member
Saysayno said:
I like coco perlite hempy buckets. They don’t dry out as fast as traditional drain to waste because the reservoir created at the bottom of each bucket. I always get healthy plants with great roots!
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I like hempy buckets, even I can't screw up the watering. :wink:

Are you transplanting into that bucket? Where's the perlite, you don't mix it with the coco? Most use about 25/75 coco/perlite.
 
TreeFarmerCharlie

TreeFarmerCharlie

Well-Known Member
I'm currently doing an organic grow and I'm using a blumat system for watering. It's been so easy that I almost feel like I'm cheating. I top the reservoir off each morning (but it can also be plumbed in so you don't even have to do that) and I mix up a small batch of compost tea once a week for the plants. Every now and then I'll give them a top dressing of earthworm castings just for the hell of it.
 
manfredo

manfredo

Well-Known Member
TreeFarmerCharlie said:
I'm currently doing an organic grow and I'm using a blumat system for watering. It's been so easy that I almost feel like I'm cheating. I top the reservoir off each morning (but it can also be plumbed in so you don't even have to do that) and I mix up a small batch of compost tea once a week for the plants. Every now and then I'll give them a top dressing of earthworm castings just for the hell of it.
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How do you like your Blumat system? I bought a drip irrigation setup about a year ago as i was going on vacation and didn't want to have to rely on anyone to water ...but my plants finished in time so I never used it...But it's a cheap system and I'm skeptical, and don't want to flood my home.

Can you still turn your plants? That's one thing i love about growing in 10 g soil bags....I can rotate them often so they get even light. I imagine you can as long as your lines are long enough.

and to the OP, I would agree that organic is the easiest...and while hydro /aero is easy, a lot can go wrong, and fast. Everyone has their favorite though.
 
TreeFarmerCharlie

TreeFarmerCharlie

Well-Known Member
manfredo said:
How do you like your Blumat system? I bought a drip irrigation setup about a year ago as i was going on vacation and didn't want to have to rely on anyone to water ...but my plants finished in time so I never used it...But it's a cheap system and I'm skeptical, and don't want to flood my home.

Can you still turn your plants? That's one thing i love about growing in 10 g soil bags....I can rotate them often so they get even light. I imagine you can as long as your lines are long enough.

and to the OP, I would agree that organic is the easiest...and while hydro /aero is easy, a lot can go wrong, and fast. Everyone has their favorite though.
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With the exception of the new light I recently built, it was the best investment I've made for my grow tent. If you have it hard plumbed, then any type of failure could cause a flooding disaster, so anyone who hard plumbs them really should get a water sensor to put on the floor of the tent that is connected to an emergency shutoff valve. I'll probably plumb mine in, eventually, but I don't mind topping it off each day because I'm learning a lot about how much the plants are actually pulling out of the pots and how it relates to the temperature and humidity.

You can turn the plants as long as you leave the lines long enough.
 
TreeFarmerCharlie

TreeFarmerCharlie

Well-Known Member
manfredo said:
Yes, I have a water sensor next to my 33 g RO tank and it has saved me countless times...So easy to get distracted while filling buckets stoned and the next thing you know, the sensor is blaring.
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Yup! When I had a 125 gallon reef tank I built an auto top-off system for it and totally forgot to build a fail-safe for the electronic float switch I was using. I woke up one morning to to a living room carpet that was under about 3/4" of water and water running down the hall into the bedroom. The wife was pretty pissed :wall:
 
Nappertunity

Nappertunity

Well-Known Member
Renfro said:
Large reservoir flood and drain. I used to only check my grow houses once a week and had stellar crops.
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I don't know why, but I feel like 3 months with you would be similar to a couple years of classes on agriculture.

Still have plans to open a facility? Cause I might have to apply...
 
Renfro

Renfro

Well-Known Member
Nappertunity said:
I don't know why, but I feel like 3 months with you would be similar to a couple years of classes on agriculture.
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Well I have 30 years of experience under my belt but no former schooling. Classes on agriculture would bring something to the party for sure but when it comes to growing fire then nothing beats experience.
 
Wattzzup

Wattzzup

Well-Known Member
Renfro said:
Well I have 30 years of experience under my belt but no former schooling. Classes on agriculture would bring something to the party for sure but when it comes to growing fire then nothing beats experience.
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If you had to guess how many tons have you grown? :weed::weed::weed::weed::weed:
 
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Saysayno

Active Member
1212ham said:
I like hempy buckets, even I can't screw up the watering. :wink:

Are you transplanting into that bucket? Where's the perlite, you don't mix it with the coco? Most use about 25/75 coco/perlite.
Click to expand...
Hello, I do use chunky perlite. I’m transferring from a one gallon to a 3 gallon there. The one gallon has a lot of perlite in it already so I didn’t bother adding any to the 3 gallon besides the bottom cpl inches to create the reservoir. I’ve been experimenting with less perlite the last two grows
 
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