Mr Teddy's Greek Indoor Grow - Indicas - Soil - LEDs

[Teddy Edwards]

Καλησπέρα Mr.Teddy! great setup and excellent choise of strains. i am fairly new here and in the growing art in general, but my eyes are open wide and my mind is ready to soak up any valuable information i get from you PRO growers.

From one Greek grower to another, i wish you the best yields you can get with no trouble in your ladies whatsoever!

Subscribed for awesomeness!

YASSUS! and 420brother. My old eyes are certainly not going to have a problem reading your posts.

How good to have a neighbour. And one that knows how to use the cyrillic keyboard.

I am absolutely not a pro grower. This is only my second grow and my first indoors. (Do have a look at my outdoor journal, still in progress, for some Greek sunshine). However the crowd here is the finest a chap could ask for. And they do know what they're talking about. With their guidance and the info here on 420, I'll be trying some topping (or fimming if I miss) and some LST with these babies. So welcome aboard and learn along with me.

for coming by. Na'ste kala.

 

[Piranha]

You will really love the quality smoke you get from the mazar my main mother is mazar.

 

[OldMedMan]

What fine looking young ladies you have so for........and a another Greek Grower......Hooray!

 

[Teddy Edwards]

You will really love the quality smoke you get from the mazar my main mother is mazar.

Piranha. Thanks for the for Mazar. Little way to go yet.....but looking forward to her given all the recommendations I've read.

What fine looking young ladies you have so for........and a another Greek Grower......Hooray!

Hey Hey, OMM. Hope a rainbow is over your shoulder. so much for looking in. Still looking tickety-boo this morning before lights out. And I think Blueberry might be on her way up. You know when you stare at a pot and think "Is that bit of soil raised? Is it? Is it?"......or is such daft behaviour just me?

 

[Teddy Edwards]

THE 'AT LAST' UPDATE

This house is very hard to find. It's one of the things I love about it. Even if you knew the village where we live you wouldn't find the house without a guide. I don't think anyone is looking for me, but if they are, well good luck with that. The only difficulty is with deliveries. The courier company in the nearest town (40 miles away or so) called me today. I say courier company - they are based in a hardware shop where you can buy anything from cornflakes to concrete mixers. So I made a little trip. And after paying Greek customs 125euros picked up my Platinum P450 LEDs. (Actually what really annoys me is that money goes to Germany. The Germans are killing Greece. They couldn't do it with guns so now they're doing it with taxes and fiscal control. But that's a whole other off-topic rant.) So let's just take a moment and go:
.......because that's how it feels.

Let's look at the growing greenery first. I can't quite believe how healthy and green they're looking. And did they grow this fast outdoors...? Here's Mazar:

And Master Kush is right behind her:

And Blueberry has found which way is up and is almost with us.

Now, the lights. You know when you get a new piece of kit and open the box, you immediately get a sense of the quality? Last happened to me when a bought a new turntable. You do all the research, read the reviews, but you don't truly know until you get that tape off the cardboard and the packaging off the product and your hands on the thing. Well the P450 feels really solid, a serious bit of kit. So time to gingerly hook it up in the tent and have a little test to see what it looks like.

Full bloom spectrum on:

And just the veg lights:

Mrs. Teddy wants to know if she can get a tan with them.

Mark, the boss at PlatinumLED, deserves a proper plug here. He marked down the quoted cost on paper to reduce the German-imposed draconian import taxes, helped me with all the Athens customs paperwork and even phoned them - unasked for - to confirm that it met EU lighting regulations. If the lights are half as good as the service they are going to be terrific.

Home :: Platinum Grow Lights

So today, Ola Kala.

Yours, from a very-hard-to-find location,

Mr Teddy

 

[JadeLotus]

Hurray!!! You have lights!!! (With no officer escort attached)

 

[Teddy Edwards]

Good morning, JL. How's everything with you? Aren't you off to Amsterdam soon?

Yep, I'm the archetype kid with a new toy. They really look the business. Solid too, since they've survived quite a postal journey with zero problems. So bright - I can see why SoilGirl and others recommend CFLs for the seedlings. So I'll let the girls get a few sets of proper leaves before I turn the LEDs on. Maybe when I put them into the airpots, which I'm also excited about using. That will be another learning experience because apparently they dry out much faster than regular pots. Do you use them?

So I won't be able to blame any of the kit if I get problems. The most important thing next will be to get my veg soil mix right at re-potting. I'll probably replicate what Frisian Dew seems to have enjoyed so much outside, although that mix did include some of the lovely humus from the forest which I'm now a little wary about since that fat grub appeared and ate the Durban Poison tap root. I'd love to do the whole PeeJay soil/no need to add extra nutes thing but that's not going to be practical here, so I've got my organic nutes lined up and the lovely kelp spray.

Hey ho, must go and check on the girls quickly before lights out. Thanks so much for coming by.

 

[OldMedMan]

You will love the Air Pots Mr. Teddy. The roots will self trim themselves. I used them for years. Shame I can't grow anymore.

At least I can grow in my mind watching you.

 

[Piranha]

The mazar is a slow flowering plant so don't pull her to early if the others finish before her.

 

[Teddy Edwards]

You will love the Air Pots Mr. Teddy. The roots will self trim themselves. I used them for years. Shame I can't grow anymore.

At least I can grow in my mind watching you.

Kali mera OMM. Mrs. T has rather taken to the airpots. She thinks they look cool, so as I said on Lem's journal, she has already nicked one to use as a waste material basket in her quilting studio. I've got 5 so I can spare it. Until next spring of course.....

Do you need to put drainage stones at the bottom as in a regular pot? Or with that plastic mesh at the bottom, is it unnecessary?

Have a fine day, OMM

The mazar is a slow flowering plant so don't pull her to early if the others finish before her.

Thanks, Piranha. All new knowledge is good.

 

[OldMedMan]

Hello my fine friend. The main thing about the "Air Pots" you have to worry about is packing the soil very tight from the top. I do mean really press hard! Don't worry the roots will find their way. As for watering, I filled a large tub with water and sat the Air Pot down in it.
When the bubbles stop, it has been watered. Later as the plant grows, just water with a hose gently. If you want cover the soil with stones so watering with a hose will not make holes in the soil. In fact that's goes for all potted plants.

I shuddered when I thought about your shipping bill from Germany.....with all parties getting a share.....good old Greece.

 

[GrizzWald]

Mr Teddy, great start,loving the reviews of your light. I thought everything in Greece was cash? I haven't worked for a Greek person yet that hasn't paid me in a folded bundle, lol. Would Germany actually be collecting anything?

 

[Teddy Edwards]

Hello my fine friend. The main thing about the "Air Pots" you have to worry about is packing the soil very tight from the top. I do mean really press hard! Don't worry the roots will find their way. As for watering, I filled a large tub with water and sat the Air Pot down in it.
When the bubbles stop, it has been watered. Later as the plant grows, just water with a hose gently. If you want cover the soil with stones so watering with a hose will not make holes in the soil. In fact that's goes for all potted plants.

I shuddered when I thought about your shipping bill from Germany.....with all parties getting a share.....good old Greece.

And yassas and kali spera to you, Sir OMM. That's how I like my advice: clear, practical and from OMM. And yes, careful and correct watering of any pot plant is a skill because even a watering-can will expose roots. I did it to Frisian Dew outside this summer and popped a compost mulch on top. I've got a gravel mulch over most of my outdoor potted plants for watering, weeds and winter warmth.

All good nothing bad with you I hope.

Mr Teddy, great start,loving the reviews of your light. I thought everything in Greece was cash? I haven't worked for a Greek person yet that hasn't paid me in a folded bundle, lol. Would Germany actually be collecting anything?

Oh yes, GrizzWald, cash is certainly king here. One queues for ages to pay utility bills, and even those utility companies don't take cards. Yet the system is fixated about receipts. I mean really strict. But then when you get to know your local, say for example, mini-market owner, your garden nursery owner, even the bloke who runs the local petrol station, then receipts can stop and extras can start. And it becomes a mutual bond. I love the way the Greeks will always find ways to work with people not systems. This place is ultimately and wonderfully untameable. The generals couldn't do it. Europe certainly won't. Paradoxically, because it's in such a state, it is a model for how society can work better: where the people themselves universally value the people before the system. John Grey the contemporary English political philosopher is very good indeed on this neo-liberal, so-we-think-progress-is-inevitable subject. Highly recommended.

Meanwhile, to finally answer your question, yes the Germans get a lot. They impose draconian fiscal regimes called 'austerity' on the country. They then loan Greece money, with interest disguised in various ways. They then lead the EU to demand central payments from Greece - and as they did 2 weeks ago also from the UK and Holland - of, in the case of Greece, 600 million euros - on the basis of economic success and estimated figures which tax the black economy. The UK (from whom they want £1.7 billion) and Greece are both up in arms about it. Oh, and the German population get really cheap holidays in small and beautiful family hotels who are getting desperate because of the EU's austerity measures. Two years ago the Germans overtook the Brits as the largest nationality holiday-ing in Greece.

Now here's the Kafka-esque cherry on this all round rotten cake. Austerity leads to right wing extremism, as Germany herself experienced in the 1930's. Hence the rise of Red Dawn over here. Horrible thugs. But what regalia do they use? Only bastardisations of the swastika and Nazi regalia, the symbols which Greece fought as bravely and as fiercely any other ally from 1939-45. Somebody explain that to me.

You see, and here's the bottom line, when the UK voted to enter Europe when I was a teenager, the country voted for what was then called The Common Market. A trading agreement across Europe. Adam Smith, 'Wealth of Nations' 1776 and all that. A basically Good Idea. Today the EU is no longer just a trading ideal but a political ideal where power rests with the market leader. And nobody likes that. Unless you're the market leader. Which brings us back to Germany.

"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison" Thoreau

The people of Greece are that 'just man'.

 

[Teddy Edwards]

DAY 6 UPDATE

No drama. No crises. Just 3 little seedlings looking good and green.

Mr Teddy x

 

[Teddy Edwards]

DAY 9 UPDATE

Still green, growing and gorgeous.....

It's marvellous how sensitive they are - they all bend toward the larger 40W CFLs. I keep turning them. Stupidly excited about turning on the LEDs...but I think they should be rather more robust first. Mazar is growing particularly well, now onto her third pair of leaves.

Temperatures are 22-26C (71-78F) and RH constantly mid to late 40's.

I hope that everything is Ola Kala with you all. (The Greeks say that's where OK comes from. Mind you, it's also a universal belief here that there was a meeting when the world language was decided and Greek lost out to English by one vote. When however you press them about this extraordinary event, details are invariably unforthcoming. "Everybody know this". Yes. In Greece. )

to y'all. Pip Pip! Mr Teddy

 

[GrizzWald]

Coming along mr teddy
Most of us are just man, luckily we all aren't in prison

 

[Teddy Edwards]

Coming along mr teddy
Most of us are just man, luckily we all aren't in prison

Hi Grizz. Thanks for checking in. A little comment like that is most reassuring. Just now - at lights on - given them a watering. They seem to completely dry out a little faster in the tent than my outdoor experience this summer. I find a lot of this growing lark is about self-discipline. Don't water too often, don't put those exciting LEDs on too soon, don't let the Nazi Kittens in the tent...

It's like trying to be a just man. It's not about trying to do clever things - it's about trying not to do stupid things.

 

[GrizzWald]

 

[Piranha]

I used airpots last grow, i didn't like them found i was watering constantly because of side leakage and exposure to heat in the room. I found watering really slow was the key but is hard on your knees.

People may disagree with me on this method I use, I take a blade and slice the root down the sides before I transfer in to bigger pots this cuts away the root bound and triggers more roots to branch out from main root ball, my grandfather showed me this method, he uses it with tomato plants and produces some great tasting tomatoes , he also goes shit picking on farm fields for hes fertilizer.
Dirty Bastard

 

[Teddy Edwards]

Gabba gabba hey, Pirahna. Interesting - that's the first 'annoyed' review I've seen of airpots. I shall find out. As will my knees.

I'm a great fan of what grandfathers say. I had never heard of damaging (as opposed to pruning) roots deliberately, but what you say makes sense to me. Actually, when I planted a 6ft Magnolia Grandiflora tree last year, the nursery owner also advised me to cut the roots when I planted. It certainly worked and it gave us a magnificent display.

My great aunt used to drive around London with a bucket and trowel. She'd deliberately go past the army barracks in Knightsbridge and Regent's Park. Horses of course. Now I'm doing the same out here where there are many mules and donkeys used for carrying wood and building materials up the old stone paths.