And They're Off!

One week into my new crop of Reclining Buddha, and 4 sprouts have been planted in soil, while several more germinate. Check out these photos of the progress - and my new soil recipe!

As shown a few days ago, I put about a dozen seeds in my "germination station"...

Yesterday (Dec 13, aka "day 6") I mixed up a fresh batch of soil, using a new recipe. I usually begin with a potting mix of some kind but decided to go from scratch this time. I'm keeping it REALLY simple:

I bought a huge bail of dried and compressed sphagnum moss (aka peat moss). This big tub is only about 5% of the bail, so it will last me for a while! It comes with clumps and a few twigs I didn't want, so I ran it through a sifter:

Fluffy organic material, which provides rhizomes (fungal threads that plants work together with), and soil structure, but not a lot of nutrition. For that, I'm adding...

Earthworm castings! Yes, worm poop. It's the correct pH for cannabis plants, natural and organic, and contains ALL the nutrients plants require, for the entire vegetative and flowering life cycle.

I added quite a bit - more castings than moss. I'm not transplanting this crop, so the plant needs to have all the nutrition it's going to require, up front. Luckily castings are gentle enough to use on seedlings.

I had an egg shell handy, so I crushed that up and added it, along with a scoop of crushed dolomitic limestone (extra calcium), and some crushed diatom fossils to prevent pests.

Those things are optional. It will work with just worm castings and a little filler (like the moss, or some perlite).

All mixed up and ready to be planted in!

The 4 sprouts are now VERY ready for soil.

That's last night just after planting.

Those 4 are now under 18-20 hours of light per day. Until I can upgrade to a nice new LED setup, I'm using my old ballast and tubes.

A few more of the remaining seeds are germinating now, so they'll need planting over the next few days as well. I've only got room for 7 max, but we'll deal with that when we get there.

The last photo is from just a few minutes ago. The first 4 sprouts are greening up, and beginning to turn toward the light.

I'm putting in a 5th now.

Hopefully when I update in a few days, I'll have several cute little Reclining Buddha seedlings! I hope they enjoy the soil mixture I made them.

If you're not growing, and you want to be, I hope you're able to start soon. Either way, join me as I show you the future of these little green symbols of hope and health, step by step as it happens, right here on the blockchain.

Good luck to all in the 5 gallon #WeedCash contest! I can't participate but I'm growing and following along with you. :)

DRutter