Living Soil rocks!🤘🏼

SleepyChow After three days, all three girls have sprouted. Lemon Tree was the first and quickly developed a strong taproot, followed by the CBD Skunk Haze, and about 12 hours later Wappa popped up. A day later I placed the fabric pots in the tent and hooked them up to the prepared Blumat system. A few days before, I had watered the soil again with a total of 10 liters of compost tea. When planting the jiffys, it became clear how nice, airy and soft the soil is – and how fat my compost worms have gotten 😂. The soil is also rich in nematodes, springtails, and various arthropods 🤩. In the photos you can also see the fungal mycelium growing on the hemp mulch, as well as some little inkcap mushrooms that are popping up everywhere 🙌🏼. Unfortunately, moist, nutrient-rich soil also attracts pests. But thanks to the heavy use of predatory mites, nematodes, and yellow sticky traps, the fungus gnat population has been massively reduced. Now, however, fruit flies have increased, so since yesterday I’ve also added blue sticky traps (which turned out to work really well) and small pots with vinegar and apple juice granules – which have already proven to be amazing in the rest of the apartment. Way too early on, I added a tiny splash of fish emulsion to the compost tea, worried that the last run might have depleted the soil a bit. But of course that wasn’t the case 😅. LT and Wappa are growing every day, while the CSH is still stagnating. All of them are showing signs of nitrogen excess – or maybe the fruit fly infestation is stressing them. I’ll keep observing for a few more days. I also need to reseed some cover crop/green manure. If the symptoms persist, I already have two ideas on how to fix it. To raise humidity, I keep spraying the girls with water every few hours and pour a bit of water on the ground so it can evaporate in the unfortunately too high temps of the last days and weeks. But today I saw a tip from another grower: soaking clay pebbles in a tray of water inside the tent. Maybe I’ll try that 🤔. Actually, I should have transplanted the girls into smaller pots first, or at least replaced the nutrient-rich soil with a lighter mix where I planted them. But I don’t want to measure pH at all costs – I wanted to see if it would work without it. It worked just fine last run, so I’m not losing hope yet. And since LT and Wappa are still developing… 🤷🏼‍♂️ Oh yeah, I only use water that has either stood for at least 24 hours or has been aerated for 4 hours beforehand.

SleepyChow So, the suspicion of nitrogen over-saturation did not confirm itself as things went on. Maybe the leaves were just showing stress signs because of the quick “transplanting,” or maybe it was the fruit fly attack. But the Empire strikes back. The blue and yellow sticky traps, the vinegar + fruit concentrate traps, and a fly catcher above the lamp wiped out the population for now. As for the girls: the Force is with them. At least with Lemon Tree and Wappa. The CBD Skunk Haze took the transplant the hardest and is about a week behind. Nevertheless, she’s also developing 🙌🏼. In foresight, I didn’t sow any more Little Helper Seeds. I figured the girls should establish themselves in the pots first. Anyway, the cover crop is only now really starting to sprout. Here and there I trim it back so the companion plants don’t crowd or overshadow the girls. The fan has been running for a few days now, blowing gently around the girls. Since then, humidity has also gone up 💪🏼. I switched it off for a day as a test, and humidity instantly dropped. Maybe I’m just uneducated or dumb that this surprised me, but it was my revelation of the week 😂😂. I’ve now gradually turned the lamp up to 75% power. And I cut off the damaged leaves with sterilized tools, before they could become easy victims for mold or other issues.