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World's Best Fertilizer - and it is NOT Gold Leaf! · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hi there, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily with me Dr.
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  Russell Sharp and today I want to talk to you
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  about the best fertiliser I've encountered in
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  over 30 years of growing plants and this is by
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  far the best fertiliser and even though I
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  am the inventor of gold leaf or as it's called
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  in the UK liquid gold this is even better than
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  that and the fertiliser is I can reveal
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  your shadow so getting your
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  shadow onto your plants is the best thing you
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  can do that's the best fertilizer just being
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  in your grow room your greenhouse your polytunnel in
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  your garden on your farm is the best thing
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  you can do it's better than not being basically next.
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  To your plants and that's for a number of reasons the
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  first being that obviously when you're in your grow room the more
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  often you're there the longer you're there the greater the chance
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  that you will see a problem before it
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  becomes a big problem so pests diseases weeds
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  physiological disorders they're always
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  far easier to deal with if they're
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  caught early a small infestation of
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  spider mites is fairly easy to control once
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  the webs are formed it's virtually impossible once a
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  disease like you know potato blight has taken
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  hold there's there's very little you can do to save your.
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  Crop and the same with calcium deficiencies and things
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  like that always better if you catch them early other benefits
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  of just getting your shadow onto your plant
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  is that you'll think of new ideas you'll have
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  inspiration for ways to improve your
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  growing or new grows you can do and another
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  advantage is it's cost-free you know
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  this fertilizer doesn't cost you anything in contrast.
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  To that i was joking with our team this week
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  that we should advertise and make make it
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  known that gold leaf is the most expensive base
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  fertilizer on the market not because
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  you know we it's just for the fact that it's
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  expensive it's it's expensive for a reason and
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  that's because it's premium premium ingredients and
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  also it does so many different jobs you know
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  like ph up ph down dechlorination boost and
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  base nutrients but in comparison you
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  know that i'm from the situation of producing the most expensive
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  fertilizer and i'm advocating the cheapest which
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  is your shadow so you can
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  run into problems in hydroponics when you you start to
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  automate your grow and you start buying tools and gadgets that take a lot of
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  the time away from being in the grow room so this is great because you can essentially
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  produce bigger grows and and and fine-tune things but if it keeps you out of
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  wherever you grow then you're losing an opportunity for.
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  Dial for monitoring your crops and tending
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  to them and things like this so be careful of
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  automation it cannot it's not always beneficial
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  so yeah automation be good if you don't
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  have the time and you're struggling to get into
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  your your your grow room but remember that there
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  can be a disadvantage and your plants might suffer the
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  other thing about automation is that you if you.
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  If you stayed if you automated everything and you just stayed out
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  of your grow room you wouldn't get any enjoyment out of growing plants so
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  you know you could have some sort of ai tool that
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  did everything for you but you know what would be the point
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  what would be the fun in that you might as well go and just buy
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  your produce somewhere else and you know grow everything that
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  you you wanted to consume from your grow room and and you
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  could just buy from the supermarket and stuff like that if you were if you're growing for your
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  own use if obviously if you're selling a crop that's a different matter and as
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  as i've said your shadow is the best fertilizer coming
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  in a close second is gold leaf or liquid gold
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  in the uk and the good news is both of those
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  are fully compatible with each other and the fact
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  that gold leaf saves time because you're not mixing ph
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  up ph down a's b's cal mags all
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  these and your boosters and pks that gives
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  you extra time you can spend in your grow room doing the things that
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  you enjoy and me personally i like
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  sowing seeds i love taking cuttings i
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  find it meditative pruning and changing the architecture of my plants and obviously
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  harvesting harvesting crops is is a fantastic obviously controlling pest and
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  disease is annoying but those are the things that they're the sort of things
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  i want to concentrate on i don't want to be mixing chemicals all day every day
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  and so the other thing to remember is that.
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  When we when in hydroponics we can also
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  we can always get into the situation where we think
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  that the answer always it's always going to come out of a bottle and the
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  solution to every problem from a grower when you go into a grow shop
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  is is going to come out from a bottle and that's
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  coming from someone who formulates products and solutions for growers that are
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  based on liquid additives so you know if that's coming from me and i'm saying
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  the answers don't always come from a bottle and the best options then you know
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  that's worth listening to so and also a counter to that is And when there is an issue,
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  it isn't always the nutrients that are to blame.
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  Even though most end users, when they go into a growth shop and they've got an issue, they,
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  either the grow shop or the end user will blame the nutrients and then that'll
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  be fed back you know we often get blame it's not often the led light manufacturer
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  gets the blame or the grow tent.
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  Manufacturer gets the blame the nutrients are always the ones that get the blame
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  first when actually it could be something to do with the environment that could
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  have been sorted by just being in the grow room for longer thinking about how
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  your plants are growing so things that often get skipped and will really benefit
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  from you being in there putting your shadow on your plants include.
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  Monitoring things like ph and but especially
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  electrical conductivity ec if there's
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  one thing that i think most growers are
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  messing up it's the electrical conductivity of
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  the runoff you've really got to be monitoring electrical conductivity
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  what should it be because that influences the
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  osmotic pull that the plants get
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  from the soil and in hydroponics that's that's
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  crucial and if it's too high you've been putting too
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  many nutrients in there your plants have just become almost droughted
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  and you don't realize that and they get toxic shock
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  from just too many nutrients and that's that's a real
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  problem with a lot of these high ec fertilizers that
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  have come onto the market in the last few years so if you're
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  going to put some extra time into your grow room get an ec pen get a
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  ph pen and monitor not just the don't just monitor
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  the stuff going in monitor the liquid coming out and make
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  sure there is some runoff coming out so that's critical that's
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  often overlooked and then just get down on your knees with a hand lens and look
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  on the underside of all your leaves for mites and thrips and fungus gnats and
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  aphids because that's never time wasted you can just stick your head in the
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  sand and pretend you think oh it all looks fine.
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  The crop can look perfectly well with a small infestation and you really do
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  need to monitor it to get in there and don't convince yourself that all is fine.
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  And obviously you can go too far with this.
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  Like any other fertilizer, you can spend too much time doing things and overcook it.
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  And I've got five examples here of where people
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  can overspend time and do things that just are
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  too much and the first one that I really dislike
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  is the paper towel technique for germinating seeds I
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  think it's pointless and I think it creates stress on the
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  plants so if you don't know what the paper towel technique
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  is it's basically germinating seeds
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  on paper towels in a closed system container
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  or in a plastic bag rather than planting them
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  into soil or the growing medium first and it
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  you then transplant the seeds the germinated
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  seedlings into the grow media after that however that
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  transplantation at such a young time period
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  is stressful and you'll cause damage to the root system
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  and the stem potentially and you you
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  far better just to sow it in place in the grow media that's going
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  to be the best option you'll be able the temperature won't fluctuate
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  as much and there won't be any the light signals going to the roots which will
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  mean they don't get the best development and the only reason that people do
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  the paper towel technique is because they paid a lot of money for their seeds
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  and it's peace of mind they can see the germination a lot faster.
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  You've just got to trust that your seeds are going to germinate.
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  And what's the worst case scenario?
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  Seeds and seedlings and cuttings can only do one of two things, live and grow or die.
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  That's all they're going to do. And by germinating them on paper towels,
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  isn't going to help that. So it's extra work.
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  It's extra faff. And I know people are keen when they really get their seeds
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  and they want to get growing and they want to start doing things.
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  But you've just got to be patient. put your
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  seeds in the grow media and wait for them to germinate and the
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  second time when people spend too much time in
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  the agrarian spending too much time over working the
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  plants is defoliation too early so they defoliate the crop they reduce the photosynthetic
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  area too fast and that can limit the yield later on that's less common than
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  certainly the other ones the third one is very common and that's harvesting too early.
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  Now harvesting early in an unripe state is sometimes advisable if you're growing
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  a crop for a supermarket that needs to be transported,
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  many miles or many thousands of miles then you're going to harvest early
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  you're going to harvest in an unripe state however if you're
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  growing produce for yourself or that's going to be consumed it needs to be harvested
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  when it's in a ripe stage or the flowers need to be at the right stage any trichome
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  based product you need to be harvesting at exactly the right time but people
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  are just so keen to get harvesting and and this is probably the most common
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  one is is harvesting too early.
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  You know you you can limit yield and quality by doing it
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  the fourth time that people go too far
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  and just over overcook it is sowing outdoors too
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  soon so either in a greenhouse a polytunnel or outdoors
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  things like sunflowers pumpkins tomatoes potatoes
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  they'll all suffer if you if you
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  serve them too early in the spring you know you'll have one or two hot
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  days in the spring we recently had.
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  You know we were hotter than the south of
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  spain in the uk last weekend and everyone out
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  there and probably sowed loads of seeds but you know tomato seedling
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  in the UK in March is going to die even a
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  potato if it gets frost pumpkins and sunflowers and
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  sweet corn exactly the same so make sure you
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  harvest at the right time for your area and with climate change
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  you might be able to bring it forward a week or two gamble but that's
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  very very common people just sow in too early and then
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  the fifth time that people probably overcook
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  it and do too much in their grow room is pinching out
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  too early and over pruning and overworking
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  and especially in auto flower strains of
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  plants so these plants only have a
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  certain number of weeks they can auto flowers only have a certain number of weeks they
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  can grow until they're set
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  to flower and so if you prune in
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  all the buds off trying to create the best architecture of
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  a plant you know that can limit the actual
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  yield and can be counterproductive but on
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  the whole just spending time in your grow room is fantastic as
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  i say your shadow is by far your
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  best fertilizer closely followed by gold leaf thank you very much that's been
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  hydroponics for hydroponics daily for today if you like this episode then share
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  it and review it all those things that every podcaster bubbles on about at the
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  end of every podcast. Thank you very much.