Total Noob using teas and I am a believer

I can get you a pair right up the road from me. What is it like to ship things from here to there? Will it get to you? I really need to get there someday. I have no idea in the world what it is like there other than what I have seen from the movie "Out of Africa". It's my wife's favorite movie of all time. My second son has a middle name that has ties to Africa. I chose my first son's names and my wife chose our second son's name, and so on.

Trousers said:

I bought a pair of $15 sunglasses that are made for hps lights.
I take pictures through them with the HPS lights on and they come out pretty good.

Cell phone pic through my HPS glasses.
?? (probably Ingrid) X Superpower loving the organic soil mix

Banana Kush x Blue Dream
This one sucks nutes and is a bit light colored. I hit it with some tea that day and it has regained some of its color.

I'll be trying out a new tea mix soon.


both plants are at 15 days flowering in the pictures

Click to expand...

Ever use tomato cages trousers? I noticed in your one pic you have some shoots that look to be a good 6" above the canopy. Those tomato cages are nice to just tuck shoots like that under. I believe it has to do with the plants auxins and what determines the merristem(s), but when you tuck them under the lower branches shoot up very quickly and give you a nice even canopy.

Just a thought

edit: Nice looking ladies btw!

GandalfdaGreen said:

I can get you a pair right up the road from me. What is it like to ship things from here to there? Will it get to you? I really need to get there someday. I have no idea in the world what it is like there other than what I have seen from the movie "Out of Africa". It's my wife's favorite movie of all time. My second son has a middle name that has ties to Africa. I chose my first son's names and my wife chose our second son's name, and so on.

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If you time it just right, I can get you in to play with some lion cubs, perhaps some tigers Ok they're not from here but still awesome.



South Africa isn't all that wild any more, I will come and show you some pics that truly represent it pretty well, though. Will send you a PM sometime this week. Great place for guys from the states to travel to, especially since the Dollar keeps on giving our currency a beating LOL. I'll give you the full info package not to worry, will be excellent to see you guys here. I'd offer my spare room but... you know... it's kinda full of plants right now ROFL If you ever do come over I have you covered with a beach-house for a while though

No problem getting stuff here, just shipping from USA is NOT cheap bro. Not cheap at all

Thanks Trousers I'll do some digging now I know what they are called, maybe demand my hydro store starts stocking them, they love me by now...

What an incredible picture. I love it. I bet she wanted to take the cub home.

Hey GandalfdaGreen, slick pics from your first batch. I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction for my first organic grow. I'm using fox farms HF growing 3x iced widows from seesd bought at femaleseeds. They're growing under a 400w HPS right now with my hortilux conversion bulb. Any noob recipes you could throw my way for my first grow?

Droy87 said:

Hey GandalfdaGreen, slick pics from your first batch. I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction for my first organic grow. I'm using fox farms HF growing 3x iced widows from seesd bought at femaleseeds. They're growing under a 400w HPS right now with my hortilux conversion bulb. Any noob recipes you could throw my way for my first grow?

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Know I am jumping the gun here but ol' Gandalf will probably only be awake in 6 hours or so taking time zones into account... But I'd say: Read the ENTIRE thread mate. Some very good ones are discussed and are there with full instructions. You won't be sorry you did, tons of excellent info dropped all over the show. And Rrog's alfalfa tea works like steroids for plants from all reports

It's Coot's tea, but yes great results.

About the glasses. I have a couple pair that work great with blocking hid light. Those special, expensive grow glasses people buy are just u.v. blocking or something of the sort. I've seen places charge over $100usd for em, and I got a pair for less than $5 that work killer. I got mine at a dollar store I think. Just make sure they are u.v. blocking, and not colored or tinted as that will mess up the color you see of course. I like em the most cause I can actually see my plants when I look at em with the lights on. It's how I noticed my Cindy99 was kicking out reddish pistils not brown. You can also see all the purples, and other colors that come out in your plants very easily. I always wear my sunglasses inside my house, and forget I have them on my head, and answer the door with em on, LOL. Not a dead giveaway, right? The Lumi's from Sunleaves or Hydrofarm or whoever sells em are alot cheaper than the Method sevens, but you can still find em even cheaper bro. Best of luck looking for a good pair. Peace, Light, and Love.

Droy87 said:

Hey GandalfdaGreen, slick pics from your first batch. I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction for my first organic grow. I'm using fox farms HF growing 3x iced widows from seesd bought at femaleseeds. They're growing under a 400w HPS right now with my hortilux conversion bulb. Any noob recipes you could throw my way for my first grow?

Click to expand...

Sure thing. Since you are in the HF I would wait a month to feed anything at all. Just give them plain water at a ph of 6.4-6.6. After a month you can give them some teas but I would keep these very simple since it is your first time using them. Since you will still be in veg at the time of your first tea I would give them the Alfalfa tea that Hamish and Rrog mentioned. There are so many great tea and soil recipes in these threads. I can't tell you enough to keep things very simple. I would get yourself a bag of the FFOF and another of the HF ASAP. I want you to cook these bags for as long as you can in the next month before the upcanning. I was taught this by a friend named Prosperian here on RIU. This will help get the soil alive for you so when you do upcan things will go smoother. I would recommend at the time of cooking to begin we water the soils with a nice tea to get things going in the soil. There is so much to pick up in these threads. Great guys who share. Some excellent info. I would recommend hanging around these two threads for awhile and post up what is going on in your grow as things progress. Teas will help you but you/we need to come up with a plan to incorporate them into your grow or we may cause damage from not using them right.

With the FF soils we can build a layered approach. The plants will go in the container touching only the HF at first. Right under the HF layer will be a combo layer of the HF and OF. The last layer will be the OF alone to tap into when the roots are stronger and the plants are bigger and can handle to OF. This is only the start. After you are comfortable with things this way you can move on to mixing your own soil and so on. It could end up with you never buying soil again and just reusing the soil over and over all the while getting better results along the way. Take your time too. This takes time to get the hang of. I assure you this way works. Ask any questions at all. This is a great group. I am glad you are here. Take care.

• Coot has been using his various teas and this is one he keeps using. This is a compilation of a few posts or emails.
  
  Alfalfa
  
  Alfalfa is often grown to improve poor or depleted farmlands. Being a legume it fixes Nitrogen in the soil and the root system is massive and goes very deep into the sub-soil - deeper than other legumes and certainly deeper than most domesticated tree crops. This helps to break-up the soil structure allowing greater aeration and water movement in the root zone.
  
  Plus it's up there with kelp meal, comfrey, stinging nettles and other bionutrient accumulators. If used correctly, as in the correct amount, it can add a lot to your garden's plants...
  
  A combination of kelp meal & alfalfa tea is one that I use on a regular basis in the veg cycle and especially a few days after transplanting - it's like steroids.
  
  1 cup of alfalfa meal (pellets) with 1/4 cup kelp meal to 5 gallons of water - bubble for 24 hours or so. This is the strength for watering the soil and dilute that 1:1 with water for a foliar spray.
  
  I do use alfalfa meal for making teas and then the material is then run through worm bins which is what I also do with kelp & neem meals. Even after making a tea approximately 50% of 'the stuff' remains so it's not worthless by any means.
  
  -CC
  
  
  Here is the direct link to the thread it came from. Read Rrog's whole thread. It will help you more than I can put into words. It is full of great links.
  
  https://www.rollitup.org/michigan-patients/583341-so-who-here-growing-true-99.html​
  
  
  
  

Hey guys. Lets all learn something here. It is a situation that has some controversy surrounding it. I have two Sun Maidens that are absolute beasts. They are halfway through flowering and just starting to show a N def. I want to be sure that they have the juice to finish without limitations. I was thinking of giving them some of Coot's Alfalfa tea. Some people believe that N this far into bloom is not a good thing. Taste issues, fluffy buds, etc can result some say. I am on the line about this. The SMs are praying 24/7. So perfectly healthy. I know my only option is to go through the soil if I do something. I was thinking that perhaps I will go with an all around tea instead. The only thing deterring me from that is the plants not showing a need for anything other than N at this point. How would you guys handle this situation? Thanks guys.

GandalfdaGreen said:

Hey guys. Lets all learn something here. It is a situation that has some controversy surrounding it. I have two Sun Maidens that are absolute beasts. They are halfway through flowering and just starting to show a N def. I want to be sure that they have the juice to finish without limitations. I was thinking of giving them some of Coot's Alfalfa tea. Some people believe that N this far into bloom is not a good thing. Taste issues, fluffy buds, etc can result some say. I am on the line about this. The SMs are praying 24/7. So perfectly healthy. I know my only option is to go through the soil if I do something. I was thinking that perhaps I will go with an all around tea instead. The only thing deterring me from that is the plants not showing a need for anything other than N at this point. How would you guys handle this situation? Thanks guys.

Click to expand...

Great post, and points Gandalf. I too find myself in this situation at times. I really try to get what the girls will need it that soil, but find some are heavier eaters than others, but don't want to burn many providing for one. My Green Poison just recently did this to me, and i went with some Botanicare, Nitrex I think it is, and an all around Bloom tea as well. I've been pretty busy, and would have maybe done things differently if i had more time, but it worked like a charm. The Green Poison is finishing up great, and has faded almost perfectly since. I'll probably do a flush on her which I usually avoid, but her bubblegum smell tells me that I should be doing this methodically. Her flowers were already a little fluffy so I thought I didn't have anything to lose there, but she's since plumped right up, and got quite dense for me. Hope this helps bro. Peace, Love, and Light

EDIT: I just think if your soil is good, and your plants are healthy a little N is NOT gonna mess up all your efforts in the end.

You know how I grow, all soil nothing else except a little molasses. One of the plants started getting that lime green look on the leaves. Dropped some 60-day cooked soil on top and watered it in. Greened right back up in three days and hasn't shown further issue.

I also checked the ph for the first time before adding anything to make sure it wasn't lock out. Tap water and bagged soil staying at a ph of 6.7, go figure

Anyway that's what I'm doing to keep things green. Not ecstatic about my harvest weight on the white lavender, just over 2.5 oz. I expected more, but the trichs are heavy and I guess that's what's important in the end. Good luck on getting the plant squared away, always a challenge isn't it?

GandalfdaGreen said:

Sure thing. Since you are in the HF I would wait a month to feed anything at all. Just give them plain water at a ph of 6.4-6.6. After a month you can give them some teas but I would keep these very simple since it is your first time using them. Since you will still be in veg at the time of your first tea I would give them the Alfalfa tea that Hamish and Rrog mentioned. There are so many great tea and soil recipes in these threads. I can't tell you enough to keep things very simple. I would get yourself a bag of the FFOF and another of the HF ASAP. I want you to cook these bags for as long as you can in the next month before the upcanning. I was taught this by a friend named Prosperian here on RIU. This will help get the soil alive for you so when you do upcan things will go smoother. I would recommend at the time of cooking to begin we water the soils with a nice tea to get things going in the soil. There is so much to pick up in these threads. Great guys who share. Some excellent info. I would recommend hanging around these two threads for awhile and post up what is going on in your grow as things progress. Teas will help you but you/we need to come up with a plan to incorporate them into your grow or we may cause damage from not using them right.

With the FF soils we can build a layered approach. The plants will go in the container touching only the HF at first. Right under the HF layer will be a combo layer of the HF and OF. The last layer will be the OF alone to tap into when the roots are stronger and the plants are bigger and can handle to OF. This is only the start. After you are comfortable with things this way you can move on to mixing your own soil and so on. It could end up with you never buying soil again and just reusing the soil over and over all the while getting better results along the way. Take your time too. This takes time to get the hang of. I assure you this way works. Ask any questions at all. This is a great group. I am glad you are here. Take care.

• Coot has been using his various teas and this is one he keeps using. This is a compilation of a few posts or emails.
  
  Alfalfa
  
  Alfalfa is often grown to improve poor or depleted farmlands. Being a legume it fixes Nitrogen in the soil and the root system is massive and goes very deep into the sub-soil - deeper than other legumes and certainly deeper than most domesticated tree crops. This helps to break-up the soil structure allowing greater aeration and water movement in the root zone.
  
  Plus it's up there with kelp meal, comfrey, stinging nettles and other bionutrient accumulators. If used correctly, as in the correct amount, it can add a lot to your garden's plants...
  
  A combination of kelp meal & alfalfa tea is one that I use on a regular basis in the veg cycle and especially a few days after transplanting - it's like steroids.
  
  1 cup of alfalfa meal (pellets) with 1/4 cup kelp meal to 5 gallons of water - bubble for 24 hours or so. This is the strength for watering the soil and dilute that 1:1 with water for a foliar spray.
  
  I do use alfalfa meal for making teas and then the material is then run through worm bins which is what I also do with kelp & neem meals. Even after making a tea approximately 50% of 'the stuff' remains so it's not worthless by any means.
  
  -CC
  
  
  Here is the direct link to the thread it came from. Read Rrog's whole thread. It will help you more than I can put into words. It is full of great links.
  
  https://www.rollitup.org/michigan-patients/583341-so-who-here-growing-true-99.html​
  
  

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AMAZING!!!
Thank you for all of the great info man Hope all is well on your end and keep smokin

So many cool options to fix it. EWC as a top dressing, peruvian seabird guano (12-11-2) as a top dressing, Prosperian's soil suggestion as a top dressing, etc. Thanks for the input. I am trying to run with the whole "less is more" mantra.

Hey Pros......did you see the shout out to you in the post above? The cooking your soil is a top five all time tip. I was thinking about your post. Do you think by adding a few teas or some other type of supplemental nutrition that you would have picked up your yields? I would rather have the quality you have verses a bit more weight and less quality. It is a fine line we walk to get what we want.

Galdalf: I get that issue on occasion too, personally I feel if a plant show a need, then satisfy that need. I doubt you'll get fluffy buds. Perhaps dilute the alfalfa tea a bit more than usual and see how that goes? I'm all for tiny tweaks, baby adjustments. Tiny steps. The guy that taught me how to grow always repeated that mantra to me: Baby steps, baby steps, baby steps! I agree, less is more. MOAR!!! is NOT better.

Prosp: Damn mate, I never thought of amending soil with soil. Personally I think it is the road I will go next time. Then a tea if that does not work. I think it's a brilliant tweak. So simple, and simple is usually good. It's the Engineer's Way, my dad believes with ANY issue, the simplest solution you can find will usually be the best. I usually have a bit of the neck open in my bags outdoors for adding dressings when I need to, I will leave a slightly bigger 'collar' for exactly this purpose from now on. Tip of the hat to you, Sir!

Rrog: I LOVE how you always give credit where credit is due. You're a stand-up kinda guy that's for sure. I'd trust you in business any day of the week. Guess we all have our gurus huh?! I tried Coot's tea on my mums roses over the weekend. They're already shooting like they've gone crazy. Really good stuff. I can now find kelp meal, but it also has added gypsum. So my tea is a slight little bit modified from the original, but seems to be working just fine. Roses just LOVE alfalfa, it's their favourite food, makes my piles of horse-manure compost pretty valuable, as my horses mainly eat alfalfa, I get people driving many miles here to come buy but I now refuse to sell...

Myco: Good point there. I actually need an eye-test soon. Perhaps I have my lenses UV blocked and polarised, or at least have a second pair around. I'll just tell 'em I'm getting back into surfing, hehehehe... Living in an outlying region of a third world country makes certain things really hard to find. No worry, I always make a plan. PS: My whole 'no smoking reefer I wanna show who's boss' idea backfired on me today. Hitting the bongs like there's no tomorrow now ROFL...

Always so much going on on this thread!

What's cool is that there are so many ways to fix things with organics. I love this stuff. I am more pumped on it than ever. You guys add to the whole experience more than I can tell you. We have such a great group of guys who all share. That is the key. Rrog nailed it when he said that passing on this info is crucial. People don't need to grow with chemicals. They sure can if they want to but they have other options that are way more fun. Growing organically has put me in touch with things that I never looked at prior. I feel way more alive and I look at things much deeper than before, no pun intended. Thanks for going on this amazing ride with me guys. I can't thank you all enough.

GandalfdaGreen said:

Hey Pros......did you see the shout out to you in the post above? The cooking your soil is a top five all time tip.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that man. It was my lazy way for a small grower to have the benefits of a super soil without the large shopping list, complicated ratios, and excessive amount of leftovers. One bag of soil for each plant thrown into a plastic tub with water. Pretty easy and hard to mess up.

GandalfdaGreen said:

I was thinking about your post. Do you think by adding a few teas or some other type of supplemental nutrition that you would have picked up your yields? I would rather have the quality you have verses a bit more weight and less quality. It is a fine line we walk to get what we want.

Click to expand...

Maybe teas or sup feeds could help. I felt like I was on the line with three of the four strains. Basically, anything more than what the soil was providing would cause Nitrogen toxicity. I have signs on the leaves that I'm pushing about as far as I can go. I did some math and for my 2' x 3' grow space I am running 1.9 grams per watt. Basically, I have tripled my efficiency by going LED. I'm confident that I will end up with over 10 oz. from the closet grow, that's pretty respectable for the space, I guess?

If I ran two plants and pulled 5 oz. per plant in the same space I would be prouder of my accomplishment. But, I'm new to this and I learn so much with every grow. Couple years I will have the closet walls lined with plants 10 ft. to the ceiling and led panels on movers going vertical! There is no end to the possibilities. Got to laugh, this stuff is fun!

Mad Hamish said:

Prosp: Damn mate, I never thought of amending soil with soil. Personally I think it is the road I will go next time. Then a tea if that does not work. I think it's a brilliant tweak. So simple, and simple is usually good. It's the Engineer's Way, my dad believes with ANY issue, the simplest solution you can find will usually be the best. I usually have a bit of the neck open in my bags outdoors for adding dressings when I need to, I will leave a slightly bigger 'collar' for exactly this purpose from now on. Tip of the hat to you, Sir!

Click to expand...

It seemed logical to me. The soil supposedly has all this micro business going on in there. I don't want to add something that isn't already in the mix. If anything, after four or five weeks the soil is just running out of what was working before. That's why I thought, hmmm, I will just add more of it as a top dressing. Not like I don't have it already lying around "cooking" for 60 plus days.

I think the hardest part about indoor growing is having the discipline not to do anything. Outside, there is always so much work in the garden, weeds, pests, weather, always give you something to do. I'm still not convinced lst-ing, topping, and scrog helped my grow, it occupied a lot of time though. I will keep trying different things, maybe mainline, until I find what works best for my setup, maybe doing no trimming like on my first grow. Thanks for the feedback Hamish.

Mad Hamish said:

UV blocked and polarised,

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Thank you, I couldn't think of the word polarized earlier. My old lady has shipped books, and all kinds of goodies around the world, and to 3rd world countries who you probably didn't think gets mail. I bet I could get you a pair of sunglasses bro. Seriously, I could find a pair for a couple bucks, and would spend more sending em to you, LOL. I would love to do it if you would want some quicker than waiting for your doc or something. Let me know, completely not a problem. I find mine to be quite indispensable. Peace love, and Happiness.

Wow. That is one hell of a gpw. Yikes. I guess that answers my question. I think that your statement to have the discipline to do nothing cannot be emphasized enough. I see overwatering destroying great grows all the time. What the hell is up with that?