r/Rva_homegrown

I’ve completed my first grow ever and learned a ton. Just seeking feedback those with more experience can share. I’m mostly interested in soil type and pot size.

Here’s some background:
-Ethos Lilac Diesel Auto | 7g living soil fabric pot
-2x4 in shed with heat but no a/c
-Temp/RH/VPD/PPFD were mostly dialed in until the last couple weeks of flower where temp spiked; lowered PPFD and schedule to compensate
-Water only. I now know isn’t sufficient with 7gal living soil.
-In veg she was knocked over which likely caused stunting
-Quality turned out great but yield not so much…

For next time, I plan on sticking with autos & am now leaning towards Ocean Forest soil until I gain more experience (plus space). Is it true that 15gal min is best for living soil? I would love to grow organic yet need to keep it simple.

Barneys Farm Bruce Banner grown in Richmond Hydro nutes

Fight club farms royal kush vii x peanut butter breath f2 and a Cali connection strawberry og going to flower soon. Looking to get back started with a cleaned and quarantined tent. Learned a good lesson about keeping humidity in check and not vegging outside and bringing bugs in. Gonna be way more cautious this go about changing clothes and not going outside to inside checking on the plants. Back two are atlas orangutangie veg a month more.

My yard is 5' above street level so above the orange is where the posts become visible from the street. I've never grown outside before and I don't know how big these are going to end up. I do have a couple tomato plants on the other side of the fence in a raised bed that will help obscure view.

Throw away account because main has location. First outdoor grow ever, did a few indoor grows years ago but nothing major so trying something new. Get a lot of bugs where I’m at so I built an enclosure on the inside corner of my fence, fence is 6 feet high and it’s a 16 foot span. About 3 1/2 feet wide. Put in a layer of quarter inch hardware cloth on the doors and at least a foot up the sides and across all open ground and inside the pits to keep the critters out and a layer of regular window screen on all of the walls, doors, and roof to try to keep out the bugs. A little floating row cover on the side of the fence that I share with my neighbor for a tad more privacy. Polycarbonate panels for the roof as everyone is telling me that around here it's the rain that will destroy your buds so definitely want to control that. Have a big Vevor round exhaust fan blowing the hot air from the top across to the open side and getting another one delivered to put on the other side to pull that air out. Have two oscillating tower fans on either end to spread the air. the big exhaust fan is connected via a smart plug to the digital thermometer and will turn on automatically when the temperature gets above 80 and turned back off when the temp goes back down. The two oscillating fans are controlled by an app so I can turn them up or down as need be for air flow. The 3 plants are Apple Betty started April first indoors and moved out outside to harden off for a few weeks mid-May bringing them in at night and then fully outdoors 3rd week of May. LST and topped before moving out. They are in 15 gallon grow bags with fox farm ocean soil and fox farm basic nutrients Big Bloom, Grow Big, Kelp, Cal mag, and some general hydroponics silica. Tiger bloom for later. The bags are about 12 inches deep and are sunk into 20 inch pits with a few inches of breathing room around the sides and empty cans and lava rock for them to sit on so that they can drain if need be and so the roots stay moist and cool. The soil at that point is pure clay so it stays pretty chill and the pit walls are solid. I’ve been watching for bugs and whenever I see a little ladybug or soldier beetle outside I toss them in there for prevention, so far haven't seem much of anything so crossing my fingers I’m doing alright. What should I watch out for, what am I missing??? Super excited to see what happens!