1st indoor grow organic soil

FreakyFarmer · Dec 28, 2025

Alright first indoor grow winter 2026.
Im using my own compost blend of organic and living soil. Years worth of fish remains, wood chips and leaves. With how well it grows tomatoes, this should be an interesting test.
- vivosun everything
-200 watt luma
-3x3 tent all the goodies tied into the controller
SourDeisel clone
72-75°
58%-60% humidity
Holding a vpd around 1-1.1
18-6 light at 80%
Day 1

DAY 8

DAY 10

Smokey_LaFleur · Dec 28, 2025

Two in the same pot is not a good idea. Looks like some kind of ph or nutrient issue too. I would guess magnesium, maybe calcium too. There are others here who are way better at diagnosis than I. Hopefully someone will chime in.

Budtirement · Dec 29, 2025

Your soil mix sounds good but;
Turn your light down to 40%. Always keep it 24" above plant. She's too young for that much PPFD./DLI. You want about 250 to 300 PPFD in early veg. Do you have a light meter or phone app?

FreakyFarmer · Dec 30, 2025

Smokey_LaFleur said:
Two in the same pot is not a good idea. Looks like some kind of ph or nutrient issue too. I would guess magnesium, maybe calcium too. There are others here who are way better at diagnosis than I. Hopefully someone will chime in.

Theres only one in the pot.

FreakyFarmer · Dec 30, 2025

Budtirement said:
Your soil mix sounds good but;
Turn your light down to 40%. Always keep it 24" above plant. She's too young for that much PPFD./DLI. You want about 250 to 300 PPFD in early veg. Do you have a light meter or phone app?

Everything i read with with sour deisel said to keep it steady around 500-700 ppfd the entirety.

Smokey_LaFleur · Dec 30, 2025

My bad, looked like two!

crimsonecho · Dec 30, 2025

FreakyFarmer said:
Everything i read with with sour deisel said to keep it steady around 500-700 ppfd the entirety.

but its not in prime condition so it can’t utilize that much energy and it makes her stress out. i’d guess your wood chips may be making your compost acidic depending on the type of wood and wood uses the nitrogen from the soil as it decomposes so either case not so good also not including perlite makes it heavy and not oxygen rich enough for cannabis.

tomatoes are fine with having their roots wet all the time its even beneficial to prevent the fruit from cracking at the end. cannabis is different it doesn’t handle constant moisture that well except when in coco. even then some aeration is beneficial.

so if you can replant this baby in a better more aerated mix i feel you will have much better results.

FreakyFarmer · Dec 30, 2025

crimsonecho said:
but its not in prime condition so it can’t utilize that much energy and it makes her stress out. i’d guess your wood chips may be making your compost acidic depending on the type of wood and wood uses the nitrogen from the soil as it decomposes so either case not so good also not including perlite makes it heavy and not oxygen rich enough for cannabis.

tomatoes are fine with having their roots wet all the time its even beneficial to prevent the fruit from cracking at the end. cannabis is different it doesn’t handle constant moisture that well except when in coco. even then some aeration is beneficial.

so if you can replant this baby in a better more aerated mix i feel you will have much better results.

Im gonna run it and make adjustments. Preciate the insight but ill do my own trials.

FreakyFarmer · Dec 30, 2025

crimsonecho said:
but its not in prime condition so it can’t utilize that much energy and it makes her stress out. i’d guess your wood chips may be making your compost acidic depending on the type of wood and wood uses the nitrogen from the soil as it decomposes so either case not so good also not including perlite makes it heavy and not oxygen rich enough for cannabis.

tomatoes are fine with having their roots wet all the time its even beneficial to prevent the fruit from cracking at the end. cannabis is different it doesn’t handle constant moisture that well except when in coco. even then some aeration is beneficial.

so if you can replant this baby in a better more aerated mix i feel you will have much better results.

Mind you, this "compost" has been actively breaking down over the past 15 years it continously gets added to the wood chips at this point have all but most broken down. Majority of what you see laying on top is fish bones. Im not raising princesses, I prefer to see some stress on the plants and see what they can take. Im not growing lab cannabis.

Budtirement · Dec 30, 2025

FreakyFarmer said:
Everything i read with with sour deisel said to keep it steady around 500-700 ppfd the entirety.

You have every right to follow your own drummer, I'm just saying in the day 10 pictures above, I see pretty advanced chlorosis between the leaf veins and brown areas too, indicating those leaves are dying. A healthy cannabis plant at that age should have light to medium green leaves with the older leaves being a little darker than the newest, but each leaf should be one color. So if she gets worse and you want to save her I still suggest you give her less light until she greens up and then increase very slowly.
I couldn't find online anywhere that says the Diesel strain needs 500 to 700 PPFD through their entirety. A Google query result;

"Sour Diesel seedlings require a PPFD of around 200-300 during the early stages, increasing to 400-600 PPFD by weeks 3-4 of vegetative growth. For the flowering stage, a PPFD of 600-1000 is recommended for optimal growth."

All my best fellow THC Farmer!

FreakyFarmer · Dec 30, 2025

Budtirement said:
You have every right to follow your own drummer, I'm just saying in the day 10 pictures above, I see pretty advanced chlorosis between the leaf veins and brown areas too, indicating those leaves are dying. A healthy cannabis plant at that age should have light to medium green leaves with the older leaves being a little darker than the newest, but each leaf should be one color. So if she gets worse and you want to save her I still suggest you give her less light until she greens up and then increase very slowly.
I couldn't find online anywhere that says the Diesel strain needs 500 to 700 PPFD through their entirety. A Google query result;

"Sour Diesel seedlings require a PPFD of around 200-300 during the early stages, increasing to 400-600 PPFD by weeks 3-4 of vegetative growth. For the flowering stage, a PPFD of 600-1000 is recommended for optimal growth."

All my best fellow THC Farmer!

The brown is from lipids right off the bat. I gave it a good shot of spinosad, hasn't been an issue since. Im definitely not on here for lab quality cannabis. I like to see stress results for personal knowledge over taking somebody's word for it. This soil is very live and full of bugs im very curious to see the ups and downs with the plant. I will probably keep it in veg for significantly longer than most do. This is more or less an experimental grow.

FreakyFarmer · Dec 31, 2025

DAY 14
-72°F
-58% humidity
- Light 45%
-vpd 1-1.1

Budtirement · Jan 1, 2026

FreakyFarmer said:
The brown is from lipids right off the bat. I gave it a good shot of spinosad, hasn't been an issue since. Im definitely not on here for lab quality cannabis. I like to see stress results for personal knowledge over taking somebody's word for it. This soil is very live and full of bugs im very curious to see the ups and downs with the plant. I will probably keep it in veg for significantly longer than most do. This is more or less an experimental grow.

Oh! Right, you got your mad scientist hat on. My bad. Mind if I watch? I see the quick recovery. How long did it take to go from that yellowing to green again?

FreakyFarmer · Jan 1, 2026

Budtirement said:
Oh! Right, you got your mad scientist hat on. My bad. Mind if I watch? I see the quick recovery. How long did it take to go from that yellowing to green again?

100% lol, absolutely. Im gonna run 4-5 days an adjusment and see what she does. Within the first 2 days, most of the new growth didnt have much or any color difference. So they just darkened a smidge. I definitely noticed my older fan leaves relaxed a bit from the light intensity. The old damaged ones just darkened up on thier outer edges, they still show the light green fade through the centers. Definitely seemed like she popped up a smidge in height after the first day from the cool down.
However one thing I do like about an Intial stress like that, the roots really grab quick, looking for water fast.(similar to our double crop soybeans, if its dryer they root deeper quicker, if its wet year they dont root near as deep) ive noticed with most plants the roots tend to stay stagnant if you baby them a bit from the start.
Im going to run a soil test probably in a week and see how the nutrient levels are looking.
I also have a 20 gallon water barrel that i filled with pond water after it was froze over. So as far as nitro levels we should be money the entire stretch. The pot ash and phosphorus levels are what im most curious with I may have to add some 0-53-42 when I decided to flower it out.

Budtirement · Jan 2, 2026

FreakyFarmer said:
However one thing I do like about an Intial stress like that, the roots really grab quick, looking for water fast.

I see. So your using both water stress and light stress at the beginning of veg to encourage a response. Your looking for increased root growth from water stress. What response do you get from light stress?

Also, I don't have any experience with composting. I started a pile last summer and the only thing I know is that it's a disappointment so far. You mentioned you use a fare amount of protein in the form of fish remains as greens, yes?

Hossgrows · Jan 2, 2026

FreakyFarmer said:
Im gonna run it and make adjustments. Preciate the insight but ill do my own trials.

Best way of learning IMHO. But insite from others that have grown for years, is a big help.

Hossgrows · Jan 2, 2026

Hossgrows said:
Best way of learning IMHO. But insite from others that have grown for years, is a big help.

BTW...I'm a big user of fish n critters, lawn clippings and my fall leaves. Been burying them in my garden for 26 yrs. now. It's not as loamy as I'd like , so I added peat moss and perlite to it .

2025 was the first time I've grown weed, instead of vegetables. As u, it was a trial to see how the plants took to their location, and available nutrition, though I did add a small amount of bloom nutes just to see if it made a difference between the two plants I had....it did, and taught me a bit more about what to do better, this year....I hope. Genetics play a big part of it, respectively.

So I ended up with a 10' & 8' plant and just over 2 1/2 lbs. of dried bud to smoke, and plenty of popcorn and trim for oil, edibles, hash, ect.

Good enough for a first run, and enough weed in back-up, that will allow me to experiment more this year, and still have weed to smoke should I have a bad year, this year.

Just haven't decided on how many I want to grow this year, being one strain I'm planning on trying this year is supposed to be a "BIG" plant possibly yielding several pounds. ( Of course...under prime conditions) which I'm not, being in NE Ohio.

A line from Harry Callahan ( Dirty Harry ). A man's gotta know his limitations

Grow on brother, she's looking

FreakyFarmer · Jan 2, 2026

Budtirement said:
I see. So your using both water stress and light stress at the beginning of veg to encourage a response. Your looking for increased root growth from water stress. What response do you get from light stress?

Also, I don't have any experience with composting. I started a pile last summer and the only thing I know is that it's a disappointment so far. You mentioned you use a fare amount of protein in the form of fish remains as greens, yes?

Durability. But also helps with that initial water stress root growth. Hit it with heat. I started with frozen soil and let it thaw in tent at OP settings so I had a solid deep moisture level to start instead of watering right after potting.
I own and operate a marina/campgrounds so we have been composting fish and all our grounds trimmings (leaves,mulch, etc) for 40 years. So mass quantities of walleye and perch, especially in the spring durring the spawn. I know how well it works with the garden but, it is very very saturated. 40 years of decomp that continously gets added to.

FreakyFarmer · Jan 4, 2026

DAY 17
72°F
58% humidity
1-1.1vpd
16" light height
45% intensity
15" top hieght of plant
Probably do an intensity increase starting tomorrow. +10%
Giving bout 2/3 of a 1/2 gallon of water every 3 days.
Suspecting some of the cholorsis might be from high nitrogen levels. Going to run a soil test and see what im working with after 2 weeks of growth. Noticing a bit of possible nutrient/light burn on the edges of some of the larger fan leaves.

Your browser is not able to display this video.

Hossgrows · Jan 4, 2026

FreakyFarmer said:
Durability. But also helps with that initial water stress root growth. Hit it with heat. I started with frozen soil and let it thaw in tent at OP settings so I had a solid deep moisture level to start instead of watering right after potting.
I own and operate a marina/campgrounds so we have been composting fish and all our grounds trimmings (leaves,mulch, etc) for 40 years. So mass quantities of walleye and perch, especially in the spring durring the spawn. I know how well it works with the garden but, it is very very saturated. 40 years of decomp that continously gets added to.

It's hard to beat fish...the real stuff, not the bottle of so called concentrate.

My garden is small, but like u, it gets a bunch of carcasses each year. Buckets of bluegill are buried around each plant I grew last year.

A dig with a shovel always reveals fish scale's

1st indoor grow organic soil

1st indoor grow organic soil

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1st indoor grow organic soil

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Self-Proclaimed Don Quixote

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