In TLO growing, the soil mix we use is literally alive, no joke. Much like the delicate balance of life on Earth in, say, the African plains, there is a delicate dynamic in your container’s soil mix. There are the big guys who throw their weight around (the lions and the zebras of your soil) and the little guys who aren’t as obvious but are just as important (like those all-important bees). TLO shows you how to bring in and harness all of these microbeasties to work for you. I’ve never had higher quality cannabis than the stuff you get from a TLO grow, and I am a 40-year veteran smoker, so, as you can imagine, I’ve smoked some weed in my time. In addition, all the most impressive genetic traits of different cannabis strains really stand out in TLO, and the aromas, flavors, high-type and colors for which we choose any particular plant are all made that little more amazing. It is the best of the best for smoking, especially for the medical and connoisseur communities.
In TLO growing we use our own organic teas in place of synthetic nutrients
What TLO doesn’t include is synthetically chelated nutrients, most pesticides, and many fungicides. It does not include heavy chelation of nutrients with the use of ascorbic, fulvic, and humic acids at all. Instead, organic teas are “brewed” and in this process, the amount of microbial life increases dramatically. Such teas are applied to the plants at least once a month. I use them about twice as often, myself. This helps to bring in life that, if we were growing outdoors, would already be in the soil, but because we’re growing indoors, we have to provide for the plant. Once the tea is applied, all the life goes to work processing organic matter and breaking down mineral elements in the container soil mix.
REV’S TIP
Chelating nutrients is a pretty straightforward process, and to spare you a lot of techno-babble, it basically means you can encase nutrients within the chelating elements, which are then easily (or rather, forcefully) absorbed by the roots of plants, along with any nutrients trapped within. Chelating goes way beyond our purposes here in this book, but suffice it to say that we want natural chelates from the microlife to work for us and our plants. We do not force-feed through excessive chelation using the TLO style, because it isn’t natural, and only serves to piss off or kill the microlife that TLO soil relies upon.
Growing a little team of indoor TLO plants
TLO growing can almost be considered a “Just Add Water” growing style. Rather than buying pre-made mixes, in TLO growing you prepare the soil mix yourself. This allows the container soil mix environment to stay relatively the same over time as far as pH and nutrient levels are concerned, and this in turn is conducive to the microbial life and allows them to reach the equilibrium of a delicate and balanced soil food web. This is much like the food chain of the African plains in many ways. This has several added benefits for the grower: you don’t really have to worry about adding liquid nutrients with every watering, and you don’t need to concern yourself with balancing the pH of your water, as long as the water you use is of good quality. In fact, as a TLO grower, your primary objective is to take good care of the soil life so the soil life will take very good care of your plants.
Learning to grow your cannabis TLO-style will most likely result in you growing the finest, top-shelf marijuana that you will ever cultivate. At first your yields might be lower, but by applying some of the techniques that I will show you, you can increase your yields over time. It can be difficult for some people to lose the synthetic mindset of using liquid nutrients in excess to force-feed the plant, but I ask that you try. Your yields and quality can both be much better if you refrain from pouring on anything except an organic tea a couple of times a month. In my experience, getting bigger and better yields is all about getting a perfectly balanced soil mix, and the simple addition of water.
These buds are TLO-grown Shadow Haze from my own Kingdom Organic Seeds
What you learn here, when applied, will result in both a gift and a curse. You will actually experience smoking totally natural cannabis, maybe for the first time in your life. Many of you think you have already done this, but in reality you probably have not. Once you see how elegant, or smooth, naturally grown herbs can be, you will never look back.
Just one more note: get over any phobias to “bugs” you have right now. The L in TLO stands for Living, and I’m not kidding around. When you look at your soil mix closely, it should move. You know you have achieved Druid Status in TLO growing when you can both recycle your soil and have it work primo—and when you find yourself with your ear to the soil trying to listen to all the little critters in there. A hard-grained synthetic mindset can be difficult to overcome, but it’s important to remember that pouring unnatural liquid food onto your plants is not what TLO is about at all. Keep trying to lose that mindset; be tenacious, and you will prevail!
You can find out all about TLO in the following pages, and I want to keep this book as trim as possible, so let’s get cracking, yeah?
ALL THE ELEMENTS CANNABIS REQUIRES
None of these elements are in reality more important than the others. Nutrient elements are like everything else in nature’s design; they all work together. Try and avoid the whole perception that there is some kind of “magic bullet” within special nutrients only, because they are all important. Another important aspect of TLO growing is never forgetting about the living soil microbeasties. They require all these same elements themselves, especially oxygen, nitrogen, and calcium in my experience.
Carbon and oxygen are absorbed from the air, while other nutrients including water are obtained from the soil. Plants must obtain the following mineral nutrients from the growing media:
•Primary Macronutrients: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K)
•Secondary Macronutrients: calcium (Ca), sulfur (S), magnesium (Mg)
•The Macronutrient: Silicon (Si)
•Micronutrients: boron (B), chlorine (Cl), manganese (Mn), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), molybdenum (Mo), nickel (Ni), selenium (Se), and sodium (Na)
Carbon forms the backbone of many plant’s bio-molecules, including starches and cellulose. Carbon is fixed through photosynthesis from the carbon dioxide in the air and is a part of the carbohydrates that store energy in the plant.
Hydrogen also is necessary for building sugars and building the plant. It is obtained almost entirely from water. Hydrogen ions are imperative for a proton gradient to help drive the electron transport chain in photosynthesis and for respiration.
Oxygen is necessary for cellular respiration. Cellular respiration is the process of generating energy-rich adenosine triphosphate (ATP) via the consumption of sugars made in photosynthesis. Plants produce oxygen gas during photosynthesis to produce glucose, but then require oxygen to break down this glucose.