Six lights for six plants. Organic No-Till 4400 watt indoor grow

Got my Biochar and bags of Earthworm Castings in also. Hate to purchase these castings, but they're a hell of a lot better than nothing! Back when I lived in California, I lived down the street from a local worm farm. Used to be able to fill up as many Home Depot buckets as I wanted at $10/bucket with freshly harvested castings. Since I'm in another state now, living in the middle of nowhere, I had to purchase them via Amazon. They certainly aren't the best, but they'll work in a pinch.



I started my worm bins 3 months ago in hopes of having some fresh homemade castings for my soil by the time I'm ready to start mixing it all up. I'm averaging about 10 gallons of castings/vermicompost for every 30 gallon worm bin. Got myself 2 30 gallon bins and started with 3200 worms in total, this was months ago so I couldn't even tell you how many worms there are now

Here's some photos of what I've harvested so far.







My first casting harvest, I sat in my living room for the entire day screening my worm bins to get this. Love the consistency of screening them, but man was it tedious! So my last harvest I didn't screen them as thoroughly.





I have a ton of newspaper scraps in the vermicompost still, I managed to remove most of them, but didn't feel it necessary to sit there for hours screening little bits of newspaper that will just end up decomposing anyway



Still have this bin to harvest, just a matter of finding the time to get it done.

Now I know a lot of people have strong opinions on not using newspaper as a bedding for various reasons, but I've got my reasons for continuing their usage.

For one, the only way I can buy peat moss is when I'm near a Lowes/Home Depot, the closest ones being 90-100 miles away. In fact, the only reason I even have the 4 bales of Peat that I do now is because the city I got my medical card in just so happened to have a Home Depot, so I made sure to pick up as much as my little car could fit

My worm bins have a small layer of shredded newspaper on the bottom, the worms seem to love chilling there when they aren't eating so I've kept going with the newspaper. I put another thin layer of peat on top of the newspaper as well, let the worms have the option of where they want to live. On top of the layer of peat is where they get their food, every so often I'll go outside and grab some finished compost from my piles and dump it straight into the worm bin. The worms seem to be loving my compost so far, they go crazy for it every time I dump some in the bins!

My compost pile isn't any thing too extravagant. Just a pile of peat with some kitchen scraps, cow manure, and weeds I've pulled from my yard. I've amended it with the staples of CC's mix; crab/neem/kelp meals, gypsum, oyster shell flour, basalt, glacial rock dust, and a little bit of Grower's Recharge.

The main reason I continue to use newspaper in my bins is because of the new compost pile I'll be starting. I have a ridiculously sized pile of weeds from my yard, and I haven't even pulled half of the weeds there are to pull! I'm going to have WAY too many weeds for the compost pile that I currently use, so I'm going to start a new one. Plus, with how quickly weeds decompose you want to be cautious about how much you throw in your pile so as to not throw the C:N ratios out of whack.

That's where the newspaper comes in. This new compost pile will just be layers of newspaper from my worm bin and weeds from my yard, all piled on to some cardboard. Newspaper takes quite a while to decompose, so using that in conjunction with my piles of weeds will compliment it quite nicely. Especially since the newspaper has already been worked by the worms, completely saturated/moist from all of the hard work my little worms have been doing.

My wife has been poking fun at me for finally being excited to pull weeds for once! Haha! It's pretty awesome to know that the best quality dirt/soil comes from scraps and trash and the humble little earthworm.

Almost forgot to mention my security, got myself an 8 channel surveillance system installed last week. Got it on Amazon for a mere $130, at that price everyone should have these set up, even if you aren't growing! Years ago when I had my greenhouse, my security cameras alerted me to two potential thefts. I was just about to get to bed when I noticed one of my cameras moving toward the ceiling. Talk about an adrenaline rush, grabbed my bat and ran out to my greenhouse to meet them. They sure took off in a hurry when they heard the bat clink, never had a problem after that. That setup back then cost me around $100, but I always wonder how much not having them would have cost me.. how much of my harvest would they have made off with I wonder?



So now I've got myself 8 of these bad boys surrounding the entire perimeter of my home, two of which are facing the shed at different angles. The quality is pretty amazing too considering the set up didn't even cost me more than $200. The system itself was $130, but I spent another $30 on some 100 ft cables/extension pieces. Also dropped another $40 on IR Illuminators, it's incredibly how well those things work at night and it makes a huge difference!

Unfortunately, this is all I've got in terms of updates. Won't have anything new to report until I get my package tomorrow and my seeds sprout. Only a matter of time now

I'm beyond thrilled to get this up and running finally. I haven't had any truly organic meds since my last grows. I've had a lot of meds that people claim as organic, but it doesn't have that distinct aftertaste that true organic meds do. My mother in-law works for a dispensary in the state so I've sampled a lot of their stuff. They used to have a guy that grew some of the best hydro I've ever seen/smoked. Guy was growing for 30 years and was nothing short of an artist from what I saw. Sadly, the dispensary got greedy and tried doing things on their own and the quality has suffered dramatically. Nothing but headaches from their smokes! Probably because of the pesticides and round up they're using! :/

So not only will I be able to provide my wife and I with some quality organic meds, but also the local patients in town as well! Most of which are vets with severe pain and/or PTSD. I hope to provide patients with better quality meds for lower prices, prices now are $45-55 an 8th still and $350/oz and that's just way too damn high :/

kratos015 said:

Almost forgot to mention my security, got myself an 8 channel surveillance system installed last week. Got it on Amazon for a mere $130, at that price everyone should have these set up, even if you aren't growing! Years ago when I had my greenhouse, my security cameras alerted me to two potential thefts. I was just about to get to bed when I noticed one of my cameras moving toward the ceiling. Talk about an adrenaline rush, grabbed my bat and ran out to my greenhouse to meet them. They sure took off in a hurry when they heard the bat clink, never had a problem after that. That setup back then cost me around $100, but I always wonder how much not having them would have cost me.. how much of my harvest would they have made off with I wonder?

View attachment 3916309

So now I've got myself 8 of these bad boys surrounding the entire perimeter of my home, two of which are facing the shed at different angles. The quality is pretty amazing too considering the set up didn't even cost me more than $200. The system itself was $130, but I spent another $30 on some 100 ft cables/extension pieces. Also dropped another $40 on IR Illuminators, it's incredibly how well those things work at night and it makes a huge difference!

Unfortunately, this is all I've got in terms of updates. Won't have anything new to report until I get my package tomorrow and my seeds sprout. Only a matter of time now

I'm beyond thrilled to get this up and running finally. I haven't had any truly organic meds since my last grows. I've had a lot of meds that people claim as organic, but it doesn't have that distinct aftertaste that true organic meds do. My mother in-law works for a dispensary in the state so I've sampled a lot of their stuff. They used to have a guy that grew some of the best hydro I've ever seen/smoked. Guy was growing for 30 years and was nothing short of an artist from what I saw. Sadly, the dispensary got greedy and tried doing things on their own and the quality has suffered dramatically. Nothing but headaches from their smokes! Probably because of the pesticides and round up they're using! :/

So not only will I be able to provide my wife and I with some quality organic meds, but also the local patients in town as well! Most of which are vets with severe pain and/or PTSD. I hope to provide patients with better quality meds for lower prices, prices now are $45-55 an 8th still and $350/oz and that's just way too damn high :/

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That security system looks like a good deal.

Are you just amending the soil and top dressings? Or do you do any teas? Seems like your setting up a bad ass organic operation.

Didn't mean to come off as a dick. Whitebb just been using that picture for awhile and he's active daily. But I'll drop it not my beef.

714steadyeddie said:

That security system looks like a good deal.

Are you just amending the soil and top dressings? Or do you do any teas? Seems like your setting up a bad ass organic operation.

Didn't mean to come off as a dick. Whitebb just been using that picture for awhile and he's active daily. But I'll drop it not my beef.

Click to expand...

For the price, you really can't beat it and it would be stupid of me to not have it.

My soil is just the CC mix, lots of great results from it and is tried and true. I'm using equal parts peat/EWC/aeration (perlite/lava rocks) and I'm amending that with kelp/neem/crab meals as well as basalt, gypsum, glacial rock dust, and malted barley powder. I try to just stick with top dressings and water, that way my worms and soil can do all of the work.. plus they're a lot better at knowing what they want than I am!

I try to stay away from teas personally, when I first started growing organic I found that teas just threw things out of balance.. but I was also making teas with guano and alfalfa meal at the time so no surprise there I do make an EWC tea for new compost piles and new pots of soil, just to kind of get things kickstarted. I like using the recharge too, has all sorts of microbes packed in it and does a great job of adding microbiology to the soil.

For the most part, I just use plain ol' water. Every week or two I'll mix a gallon of water with some liquid seaweed, TM7, Ful-Power, and recharge, all in small doses. I'll also be doing SSTs, as well as aloe/coconut infused water. I try to alternate every watering. Goes something like; plain water, TM7/etc water, SST, coconut/aloe water, plain water, etc. I'm also quite fond of foliar feeding with aloe, the stuff is just amazing.

And please don't worry about all of that. The last thing I want is to start an argument with anyone, no harm no foul. I was going to compromise and find a different Al Bundy icon to use because he has a valid point about it causing confusion, but I still feel that doesn't justify following me around and copy/pasting all of my posts.. Perhaps this is something I should take up with him in a PM, come to a compromise that allows everyone to be happy in the end. I read through some of his threads/posts and such, seems like a good guy but we just got off on the wrong foot. From what I was reading, it seems like if we rolled up a j then we could yak about organics for hours on end.

kratos015 said:

For the price, you really can't beat it and it would be stupid of me to not have it.

My soil is just the CC mix, lots of great results from it and is tried and true. I'm using equal parts peat/EWC/aeration (perlite/lava rocks) and I'm amending that with kelp/neem/crab meals as well as basalt, gypsum, glacial rock dust, and malted barley powder. I try to just stick with top dressings and water, that way my worms and soil can do all of the work.. plus they're a lot better at knowing what they want than I am!

I try to stay away from teas personally, when I first started growing organic I found that teas just threw things out of balance.. but I was also making teas with guano and alfalfa meal at the time so no surprise there I do make an EWC tea for new compost piles and new pots of soil, just to kind of get things kickstarted. I like using the recharge too, has all sorts of microbes packed in it and does a great job of adding microbiology to the soil.

For the most part, I just use plain ol' water. Every week or two I'll mix a gallon of water with some liquid seaweed, TM7, Ful-Power, and recharge, all in small doses. I'll also be doing SSTs, as well as aloe/coconut infused water. I try to alternate every watering. Goes something like; plain water, TM7/etc water, SST, coconut/aloe water, plain water, etc. I'm also quite fond of foliar feeding with aloe, the stuff is just amazing.

And please don't worry about all of that. The last thing I want is to start an argument with anyone, no harm no foul. I was going to compromise and find a different Al Bundy icon to use because he has a valid point about it causing confusion, but I still feel that doesn't justify following me around and copy/pasting all of my posts.. Perhaps this is something I should take up with him in a PM, come to a compromise that allows everyone to be happy in the end. I read through some of his threads/posts and such, seems like a good guy but we just got off on the wrong foot. From what I was reading, it seems like if we rolled up a j then we could yak about organics for hours on end.

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That's the great thing about having the worms in there I'm realizing. Soil sounds like it's going to be on point can't wait to see it in action.

Just kidding. Good luck with your respective projects, Al Bundies! I'm enjoying them both lol

Im lost.

So many bundy's. I like the setup.

Looks good.

Well my package finally showed up today! But I wasn't able to get as much done today as I thought I would be :/

My car decided that it was going to crap out on me today, so I spent the day getting that fixed up so that I could take it to the hardware store to buy more insulation. Managed to get the roof covered in the bubble wrap before I put the insulation over it as you can see from the photos I took for you guys.









Then I covered the bubble wrap with the R21 insulation I bought.







As you can see, the roof is completely insulated now and that's all done. However the room itself still has a few spots here and there that still require some fiberglass insulation. Gonna need at least one more rolls worth, maybe even two more. Unfortunately, the hardware store was closed by the time I discovered I would need more. So tomorrow after work I'll be hitting the hardware store to grab myself some more insulation so that I can finally line the room with the remaining bubble wrap insulation and be 100% done with getting the shed prepared

Once I get the bubble wrap covering the insulation the shed will be completely finished. The only thing that will be left for me to take care of after that is all of the wiring and getting my equipment all installed. Got 6 lights to hang up, a light controller to wire and hang, a CO2 generator to hang, as well as 9 different types of oscillating fans to arrange/hang. I'm starting to see the home stretch finally!

I'm not too concerned with time though as my seeds have yet to sprout out of their pots (only been 4 days), so even if the seeds sprouted tomorrow morning first thing then I still have to wait on them to be big enough to transplant in the first place. From what I can tell, that's gonna take me 4-6 weeks depending on the growth I get out of them. I have to take care of the following before I can actually get plants inside the shed.

- Finish insulating the shed and hanging equipment
- Mixing 150 gallons of soil and putting it in my 30 gallon pots (25g per pot).
- Building the moveable screens for the pots. The pots will sit on some 2x4s that have caster wheels on them, with the scrog being built into the 2x4s. This way I can move the girls around with ease.
- Vegging/training the plants in my 2 gallon pots to be ready for the shed, I wonder which 6 will make the cut?

My wife and I are also going to start a couple of no-till vegetable beds outdoors as well and try our hand at that again. We grew cucumbers successfully once back when I was running Subcool's Supersoil, you could smell the cucumbers from the next room when you cut them. Didn't even know vegetables could have that much flavor! So sad to know that I'm so used to crappy veggies/fruit that the smell/taste of organic veggies was such a huge deal. It's pretty easy to do too!

If I can do it then I don't see why anyone else can't do it too, because I'm certainly nothing special!

Will update you guys again tomorrow, in the meantime I'll be looking forward to any/all comments

Looking like I got my first sprout



This is what I was greeted by when I went to spray the seeds this morning, it's the only one so far and I wasn't expecting any sprouts for at least another two-three days!

Its one of the Amnesia Lemons, so seeing as it's the first sprout I'm sure this baby is going to surprise me when all is said and done.

Just thought yall would like to see Back to work on the shed now!

Well, got some good news and some disappointing news.

The good news is that I got all my fiberglass insulation installed, and I managed to install the entire roll of the bubble insulation as well!

The bad news is that it wasn't enough for me to finish the room

My mistake though, I made a stupid mistake when doing the math. The room is 10x15, so I accounted for 150sqft for the ceiling and 150sqft for the room. But I screwed up by not accounting for the fact that the room itself should have been measured in cubic feet, not square feet.

So yeah, I feel totally stupid to say the least. Not the biggest deal in the world though I suppose, I was just looking forward to at least having this done today. I did manage to get my wiring near 100% though, my cords are all wired to the room and now I just need to hook up my light controller and all of my equipment. I also managed to get my ducting holes for the 2 1000 watt air cooled hoods taken care of too, so now when I get those hung up all I need to do is connect my insulated ducting.







I'll be ordering another roll first thing tomorrow when I get my paycheck. I also need to get more staples and some white tape as well to make things more flush with the walls. Even though it's not as finished as I was hoping, I'm still stoked by the progress I'm making. Day by day the vision that I've had in my head for the last 7-8 months is finally becoming a reality.

Just check my seeds again too. Got 3 more sprouts!

Two of them are the Berry Bomb and the other one is the Purple Trainwreck, so happy the Purple Trainwreck was one of the first to pop because that strain was absolutely killer the last time I ran it. It grew so damn well that people thought I was lying when I told them it was outdoor. If these come out anywhere near as good as the last one did then I'll be one happy camper and so will my patients!

So today marks 7 days since sowing my seeds. Had 15 seeds and only 5 of them have sprouted, when I went digging I discovered them being decomposed by my soil mites. I got the seeds from attitude and this has been their second order in a row that they let me down with. My last order from them didn't have the most fantasy germination rate either. The seeds I got from them the last few times have all looked weak, like they'd never pass the squish test! Got myself a few freebies from my order so I'm gonna see how those do just for shits and giggles. Fortunately I've got some seeds from prior grows, but I was very much looking forward to running those strains as they were all new.

I got an Original Amnesia and a Critical 2.0 freebie, both of which were sown just now and are feminized. I happened to have a lone Green Crack seed from my last outdoor grow with it. I'm hoping it's a girl, because the Green Crack this came from had such a nice mango aroma to it. I also had some Girl Scout Cookie seeds from a prior harvest, as well as a handful of Jack Herer seeds from a friend at the local dispensary. The freebies looked just as weak as the other seeds from the tude did, but I'm quite interested in the possibility of having those strains pop so I figured why not try? I'm quite confident in the Green Crack, GSC, and Jack seeds to pop though. I gave them all a good squish and they didn't budge, nice strips on them too and much bigger than any of the seeds that came from attitude. It's now becoming quite apparent as to why people are moving their business over to Herbies instead.

The sprouts I did manage to get were looking a little stringy too, so I'm guessing the floros I had in there just weren't quite cutting it for them. So I hooked up one of my 600 watt lights in the tent and dimmed the wattage down to 300 watts. I have a 720 cfm fan pushing the hot air straight out and a 12k BTU portable AC hooked up so I highly doubt I'll have any problems with heat.







Kind of hard for me to get a good closeup of the seedlings, so I only took photos of two of them. The only 5 that survives included the ones I was most excited about so I'm not too bummed. The roster currently includes

- Amnesia Lemon (Barney Farm)
- Cluster Bomb (Bomb Seeds)
- Berry Bomb x2 (Bomb Seeds)
- Purple Trainwreck (Humboldt Seeds Organization)

So all in all, still stoked because I was hoping for at least one of each of these strains. I love a good haze strain, so the Amnesia Lemon should be something I enjoy greatly. Hoping it has a nice lemony hazy flavor to it, I mainly got this in hopes for a pheno with good terpine profiles for when I get some concentrates going. I got the Cluster Bomb because I'm curious to see if it truly yields as well as it says it does. The Berry Bomb should be interesting as I've always loved Blueberry, so I can't wait to see how this one comes out. And the Purple Trainwreck is what I'm the most excited about. In fact, I was so excited about the Purple Trainwreck that I'd still be excited if this were the only sprout I got. I grew the Purple Trainwreck outdoors and it was easily the best I've grown. It had this incredible piney purply taste to it and was just loaded in trichs. Way more loaded than anything I ever grew to this day. It was so amazing that a friend thought I was lying to him when I told him it was outdoor. It took me a good minute or two to convince him I was telling the truth So I'm hoping this one comes out as good as the last one

Hopeful newcomers include

- Green Crack (Humboldt Seeds Organization)
- GSC (unknown, got it as a clone when I first ran it)
- Jack Herer (unknown from dispensary buddy)
- Blue Venom (Dinafem)
- Critical + 2.0 (Dinafem)
- Original Amnesia (Dinafem)

As bummed as I am that 10 of my seeds didn't make it, I'm also somewhat happy and positive about it. Better that they never pop at all then for me to waste time on them only to end up with something mediocre. Only puts me a week behind and still gives me some unique flavors to try out. I'll post back when I get some new sprouts, or once I get some more growth on my current ones.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hey guys, not all too much to report on as of yet because I'm still in the seedling stage.

The 5 sprouts I got are all working on their second set of true leaves, however they got a bit stringy because of me starting them under a florescent bulb and not having it close enough to the canopy. Totally screwed up on that one. However, tomorrow when I get the time I'm gonna do a few things to remedy that. I have plenty of room for more soil in the pots, so I'm just going to rub some aloe all over the parts of the stems that will be buried under my top dress. Total amateur mistake, but in my defense it's been years since I've sprouted any sort of seedlings. Like, almost 5 years if not more.

This is also my first time germinating/sprouting seeds under a metal halide instead of a normal florescent fixture. Normally, the floro does me just fine. But normally I start seeds off in solo cups, not 2 gallon pots like I'm doing this time.. first time thing for me. Why did I start them in 2 gallon pots? Well, I knew that the solo cups would eventually be much too small and would definitely require a transplant before going to the shed. The problem with transplanting out of a solo cup is that there really isn't a good size for me to transplant into from a solo cup. Transplanting a solo into a 2g pot would be awkward, and transplanting a solo into a 5g pot would be too much room and it would be a hassle to transplant from 5g to 25-30g pots. So I decided that I would start with the 2g pots, filling them with a very light mix of peat/EWC/lava rocks as well as a very minute amount of kelp/crab/neem meals. I'll then simply top dress the 2g pots once the babies are ready to be topped.

I got new sprouts last night though! My freebies from attitude did much better than the ones I actually bought! I now have the Original Amnesia and the Critical + 2.0 at my disposal Not only that but 2/3 of my Jack Herer seeds have also sprouted! My Blue Venom and Green Crack seeds have yet to break the soil, but they've got tap roots going so it's only a matter of time! Still 0/3 with the GSC, but we'll see what happens there. However I'm still totally happy with what I've got because I have over 6 plants to choose from to go into the shed, all of which are amazing strains from the sounds of it.

Waiting until next payday to finish up the shed because I need more of the bubble insulation to cover the rest of it up. Sorry it's been kind of boring so far guys!

Don't be shy guys! Would love to hear any and all thoughts

What's up guys? Not all too much to report as of yet as nothing all too exciting has been happening over on my end. Pretty much just waiting for the seedlings to get established, but it looks like they finally have after a few weeks. Got myself ten seedlings ready to go, they consist of the following

- Berry Bomb (x2) [Bomb Seeds]
- Original Amnesia [Dinafem]
- Purple Trainwreck [HSO]
- Cluster Bomb [Bomb Seeds]
- Lemon Amnesia [Barney Farm]
- Critical + 2.0 [Dinafem]
- Jack Herer (x3) [Breeder unknown/bagseed]

I'm for sure going to be running the first 5 strains in the shed once it's ready, I just don't know if I'll be putting Jack Herer or Critical + 2.0 in as the 6th strain at this moment. I suppose at this point it just kind of depends on what strains look like they'll do best under the 1000 watters. I want my heaviest yielding/stretching plants to go under the 1000 watters because I know they'll cover a 4x4 scrog easily, everything else will go under the 600 watters in a 3x3 scrog. I know that both the Berry and Cluster Bomb strains are supposed to be pretty big yielders, so those will likely get the 1000 watt lights while the PTW/Amnesia/Lemon Amnesia get 600 watt lights. I'm thinking one of the 3 Jack Herer plants will end up under the last 600 watter.

I know the Critical is supposed to be an amazing yielder, but it's supposed to be like Big Bud in the sense that you get an enormous yield of mediocre quality. I'm thinking the Cluster and Berry Bomb strains will be a lot better in quality and almost similar in yield. I may end up flowering out the Critical+ in the tent I'm currently vegging in, but the problem with that is that I'd need to buy another light, another inline fan, more ducting, and then move the tent into one of the bedrooms with the swamp cooler in it for cooling. So unless I can save up another $300+ for the needed equipment, the Critical may not end up being flowered out at all.

However, I can still save it as a mom along with the rest of the strains I've got under my belt. I'm almost hoping that one of the Jack Herer seeds ends up being a male because I want the pollen to cross it with the Critical+ 2.0 and maybe even the Berry Bomb.

I'm waiting another 5 days until payday so I can get more of the bubble insulation that I need to finish up the shed. Then after that it's just a matter of plugging everything in and putting it all in their designated spots. Based on what I'm seeing in terms of growth from the seedlings, I have at least another 4 weeks to go before they're ready for the shed, maybe even 6.. depends on the growth they give me.





Just wanted to give you guys an update though was all. Been a pretty slow couple of weeks, but I'm attributing that to the fact that I started the seeds in 2 gallon pots instead of solo cups like I normally do. Takes the seedlings a lot longer to establish themselves in a 2 gallon pot as opposed to a solo cup, so that's probably why I'm not seeing the kind of growth that I'm used to at this point in the grow. I can't think of anything else, because at this point I'm not seeing any signs of problems. Temps never get over 78 and under 70, humidifier is set to 50-55% RH, soil seems legit too. Smells so good after every watering, plus if you look close enough at the soil you can see life. Only bugs I've come across are the good guys that come with quality soil. Everything that is usually an issue in a grow is not a problem for me at the moment, so I'm thinking my slow growth is because it took the seedlings so long to get their roots established. The last few days I've checked on them I've noticed significant growth above, so I think they're finally happy with where they're at

As always, would love to hear any and all comments and/or questions. And thanks for stopping by for today's update

kratos015 said:

Don't be shy guys! Would love to hear any and all thoughts

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Sick build!!!!! Hate the crop cover though. Would love to learn no till organics. Nice grow so far bro!!!