Hempy questions

I'm certainly no expert, but i've been playing the Hempy game for about 4 years. I use 1 quart polypropylene cups for my little plants and short term (3-4 months) bonsai moms. When they're tiny, they like being watered three times a day until the roots hit the res, which takes about a week. I always give them a bit extra nute water as it doesn't seem to hurt anything. When the plants are larger, I water them twice a day. I've tried watering once a day, but the plants don't seem as happy with that.


Rinsing and re-using perlite works ok, though I seem guaranteed to get green algae on the top on the perlite if I do that. Don't try to sterilize perlite with bleach like I did. Too hard to get the chlorine out. When I transplant, I just transfer the small pot's perlite into the larger bucket along with the plant. There is no transplant shock with Hempy, if it's done carefully.


I use a 5 gallon bucket with about a hundred 1/4" holes in the bottom for perlite rinsing. Works great. Speaking of holes, I use 5/16" holes in the side of my 5 gallon Hempy buckets, 3 in a horizontal line, close enough together to be able to cover all the holes with one finger if necessary. I've run these outdoors, but they really need watering 3X a day from mid flower on. It gets tedious.


In my indoor cabinet, I use 2.75 gallon waste baskets with drain fittings that I cobbled together to allow me to attach an L to the side of the bucket. I am seriously considering using larger buckets in the cabinet next time.


For the 1 quart cups, I melt a hole through with a cig, about 1 3/8" from the center of the hole to the bottom of the cup. I tried 1 3/4" to see if I could water less, and I was less happy with that, but I don't recall why. I believe I thought it made the plants more likely to get root rot.


One thing that I learned is not to allow the buckets to become root bound as they become impossible to flush well. This is the limiting factor with my bonsai moms. After 3 or 4 months, the nute water can't easily penetrate the perlite and root mass, and weekly flushing become a long, unproductive process. That's when it's time to clone again. I use rock wool cubes.


I have been flushing the plants with pH'd water weekly, about 3X the pot's volume. I intend to try flushing twice a week as the plants really seem to perk up right after a flush.


I've always top fed. As far as I can tell, perlite doesn't wick moisture for shit.


Hope that helps,


OS


PS If any of you real experts see anything I'm doing wrong, I'd love to hear about it. Always room for improvement.

 

I use the course grade perlite. For new rooted clones and seeds I use the Solo cups.


Ive used straight perlite but it does dry out faster. You should use 3 parts of perlite for every 1 part of vermiculite. The vermiculite helps to hold moister.


Use the 3 parts of perlite for every 1 part of vermiculite mix and you will be very happy.


When I used the 3 gallon buckets they worked well and I had no problems with plants being to root bound or flushing.

 

I use RW for seeds, after a 24 hr. soak in a glass of ph'd water. (Both the seeds and the RW get soaked separately.) I don't sprout very many seeds, so I don't wait to see a tap root before putting the seed in the moist RW. (In 4 years, Ive sprouted exactly 4 seeds...)


I water until water comes out of the hole in the side, and a bit more, maybe 25% of what I dumped in the top comes out the hole. Watering lots more doesn't hurt anything, it just wastes a little nutes that need to be disposed of somehow.


Unless Mr. G has gorilla-sized hands, he is using perlite that is a lot smaller than my stuff. Maybe half the size. The first bag I got was that size and it worked fine, but when it was time to get another bag, the hydro store only had the larger stuff. I like it better, as it seems less messy and it was easier to rinse the dust out of initially. The larger perlite also seems less inclined to float, if watered too fast. (Bear in mind that the size of the perlite should determine the size of the holes in the side of the Hempy bucket and your perlite rinsing bucket.)


OS

 

Let's try some pics...


Big perlite





This bag has what I felt was the easily recoverable perlite out of three 2.75 gallon pots. I didn't work at it too hard.

 

fetch


fetch

 

$35 comes to mind, but it has been around here for a couple of years. 4 cu ft. The brand was "Mother Earth."

 

Just thought of something else: Since I've never used it, I'm not sure how vermiculite would behave with the larger perlite. There a fair bit of air space between the large particles of big perlite. It would be a bummer if all the vermiculite ran to the bottom of the bucket.

 

I clone with a bubble cloner. love it. The perlite is 4 cu ft and runs $39.00 a bag. OldSmokey, I've used both chunky perlite and the corse perlite that is about 1/4 inch The smaller perlite works best when mixed with chunky vermiculite. You can get it on ebay

 

I top water until it comes out the hole plus about 25% more. Adding more won't hurt anything; it just wastes nutes that need to be disposed of. I would transplant within a few days of the roots hitting the res if I was doing it, but then again I'm using quart cups.


One thing I'll suggest is to wet your (already rinsed off) perlite with pHd water before the transplant. No dust and the plants seem to be happier for it. Done right there is no transplant shock with Hempy, just another wait for the roots to hit the reservoir again. Watering 3 times a day is helpful to speed this along.


Something that I noticed with automatic watering of my Hempys is that it's best to water all around the top of the pot instead of just one place as straight perlite doesn't seem to wick nutes. At all.


OS

 

I've tried straight perlite and a 1 part vermiculite and 3 part perlite mix and the 1to 3 part mix works best.


I reccomend the course vermiculite over the fine stuff they use in seedling mix soil. Trust me on that.