Octopus' Garden

[Ennui]

Forgot I haven't updated this morning.

Nothing to report, never got to use the microscope yesterday. Still can't today unless I low-crawl into the tent, back's stuffed from the hard landing. Hurts to blow my nose. Bright side is I have no issues in the garden so I can relax today.

Almost signed up for some local seminars/ groups, decided against it. Don't want people knowing what I have and when it's going to be ready, they might mark their calendars and pay a well timed snatch and grab. Just don't need the hassle, be different if there weren't crime central right across the river from me.

The LED thread I was in earlier got me thinking it'd be a resource to physically see and feel different equipment, judging by a picture in an ad doesn't cut it. I don't buy guitars blindly, without playing them firsthand, it was rough for me to do it with the garden supplies. I'm going to look for an expo or the like where I can check different things out- broaden my horizons so to speak. Can't wait for replicators to be invented.

Trying to figure how tall I should let the plants get before the flip now. I'm in no rush, I want to reap full possible benefits for my expense, time and labor.

Guard Piglet's looking from the slop dish to me, firing WTF emojis from the eyeballs like daggers. I catch the drift.

 

[Ennui]

Well, can't find a taker for the clones so I'm going to have to sacrifice them in the name of science. I hate doing it, but "It's the Law of the West." (name the cartoon for a gold star).

I'm not giving up on finding a Vets' organization, but not being able to go through more official channels due to 'reasons of other's anonymity' is making it a little harder than first expected.

I've got the next grow sketched out, I'm going to do one mainline and split it two more times to end up with 32 colas. That's if the current goes according to plan. I've got plenty of light to do it in the big tent. I was just thinking, I went from seeing a picture and watching a couple of vids of the technique before I even planned a grow and here I am, no further research, flying by the seat of my pants and I haven't crashed into and prominent landmarks either natural like a mountain, or man made like a radio station antenna. I'm John Bonhaming wood, ATM. Amazed a dum-dum like me got this far, not a cockadoodledoo, like I said, that landmark could be lurking in the next fog bank and I ain't IFR certified. I'm not even VFR certified. People might get the idea I'm a pilot, sky-pilot, maybe.

I've got a couple of inventions going, you might get to see them, depending if I can find a new patent attorney in time. My old contact retired a couple of years ago. I'd like to find an outlet to sell the plans outright and let them deal with the patents. Deals would have to contingent on them getting the patents, but the improved use or modifications are so pronounced there wouldn't be an issue. Just have to find that someone. After seeing what's available as compared to how well it does an adapted use my head is bursting with ideas. Every time I look for something thinking it must exist, I don't see what I'm after. Already 'modified' a few things so I have working models.

 

[Ennui]

Oh, I'm building my own PVC or Aluminum frame for my big tent. It's going to have a solid floor that acts as ballast. I wonder how many people hung an air handler on one side of the tent putting the center of gravity so high and to one side thinking the fabric floor and weight of plants would prevent calamity? More than would admit it, I'll bet. I was just going to make a floor that sat on top of the bottom rods and put a couple of turn-buckles to brace it vertically, but seeing the cheese they make the frame out of, too much tension and it would fold like an accordion. Like I said, I can't wait for version A1 to be released, complete with forward assist (Vets will get it).

 

[Gaffle]

Parking a chair. Hello Nate, Dustin here. I dig the training. I've had no patience for that as of yet.

 

[Ennui]

Parking a chair. Hello Nate, Dustin here. I dig the training. I've had no patience for that as of yet.

Welcome aboard, Dustin. Very relaxed here, feel free to go as OT as you like. I always seem to take the roughest road I can find in everything I do/attempt. If you're going to get wet, might as well jump in the deep end, especially if you're diving head first.

 

[Ennui]

Got bored and gave the girls a trim this afternoon. I've got to stay on top of the fan leaves now more than ever. I've been twirling this stem in my hands for a couple of days and I'm more convinced I'm on the right path. I see the clipped fan leaf stems are way inside the bud and young when clipped, no way it was taken during finish trim. This is the tip of a large cola. Besides the fan leaf stumps, I looked at the growth node associated with it and there were small stem stumps there that were broken during use. I may not have painted a complete picture yet, but I can see the path to the final product. I feel the puzzle I'm building isn't missing pieces any more.

I don't care if it's ready to flip tomorrow, I'm waiting until I have 6-8" of upwards growth before I do it. I'll have the entire plant about 18" tall from top of soil. I can get the whole thing in ideal PPFD.

I wouldn't have to remove so many leaves if I had an HID, even as an addition to get more penetration, but I think the slower growth has allowed me to keep the internodal spacing as tight as tight could be and made me be more aggressive with the training/pruning. Even at this size, the top of what will be the cola looks like the stretched stem I have. Different strains, but enough for a ball park. Glad I pruned like I did, even before realizing what the Inverse Square Law meant. I knew my LED flashlight was dimmer than an incandescent when I was trying to fix someone's car at night and knew it dissipated faster, just never thought to apply it to this. I understand now.

I'm not seeing mature reproductive organs yet so I'm kind of right on schedule. Maturity and growth will coincide with each other.

I notice the fertilizer's effect, so I'm good there. It's not night and day different so they weren't starving. I won't feed again until I flip them and then I'll do the layer feeding and put them to bed. I'll only add more if the plants ask. I don't think I'll have to. If that's how it ends up, I'll have only fed twice, the rest was just water. My plants are smaller so they require less than others, so don't think you only need to feed twice. You need to use all your senses, even the common variety to know what you specifically need/ should do.

 

[Ennui]

Mainline Part 1

I'm going to try to provide instruction and explanation on how I got this far with the Mainline. First I'd like to cover the reason for it besides it looks cool. I'm convinced that any halfway decent LED on the market will grow an excellent crop, but it has to be used correctly. I may go into terms later, but for now I want to keep it simple so everyone can get it.

LED produced light 'decays' or 'dissipates' more quickly than other sources. When you hear the word 'penetration', it isn't referring to blasting through a leaf to get to lower regions, it means how much light, when filtered through cracks in the canopy, reaches the lower regions. Think of a flashlight outside at night. If you have a pen light you won't see very far, but a searchlight reaches much further. Same thing as the nozzle on your hose sprays farther the greater the flow, etc. Ok, first concept is 'force of spray/stream'.

Now, let's put away the flashlights and picture an adjustable shower head in the bath. One setting is Massage that has few streams that dump water on you, the next setting has more streams, but finer, but out of the same square area of the head, the next has even more streams, finer, same head finally you get to mist at the extreme finest spray, most streams. Get the idea? This concept is concentration. Now, remember the number of streams? They come out of the same square area at a certain distance apart, and the further from the source, the further apart they get. Think unchoked shotgun, the pattern spreads with distance. You can get more bb's to get a given target the closer it is. Everybody with me so far?

Ok, so we have force and concentration of a spray of 'X'. The tap controls force, the setting on the head the concentration. What's missing from our shower? Bueller? Temperature, of coarse. What is it as regards light? The spectrum, the color of the light which relates to wavelength. Plants like the temp to hit in specific spectrums referred to as PAR Photosynthetic Activating Radiation. You'll see it called Active, but they're wrong. :mrgeen: The temp is referred to as PAR. You'll see PAR used in all kinds of ways, I was guilty myself until someone brought it to my attention (Thanks Mr. Krip). This is what it really refers to.

So, now we have the force, concentration and temp set, let's hop in. The force is a set factor, determined by type/power/components that produce the light. Temperature is also a rigid factor determined by the spectrum a given source emits. Plants want light in the 400 to 700 nanometer range, this is PAR. Plants use wavelengths outside that range , but this specific range is PAR. That leaves concentration as the only factor we have control over. Concentration of a source of radiation is referred to as Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density or PPFD and is measured in micromoles per meter squared. There's another term PPF that deals with what comes out right at the source, the D is added to reflect what actually hits the plant. Ideal PPFD is 800 umole/M/2rd. Another term you might see is DLI or Daily Light Intergal which reflects how much light is delivered to the plant in a 24 hour period (the number of photons that hit it. This could be considered the force, in a way. I'll have to give it some thunking to make sure I'm right. Might fit the light cycle better.

After all of that, we only have one thing we can control after purchase and that's PPFD. We want to get the greatest mass of the plant in that 800 range without bumping our head on the showerhead, or it being so far away only one or two streams hit us. Also, we don't stick little cocktail umbrellas in our hair when we shower to block the spray. Too strong of a stream will destroy them, too weak will barely get hem wet, so they'll match your state. The correct spray might let some run off and actually hit you. If you remove some of the umbrellas, you get more water hitting you either through more streams or ricochet from hitting other parts of you and landing on lower parts. Same goes for leaves and how they affect how much penetrates into the nooks and crannies.

So, since LED light doesn't penetrate as well as other sources, combined with the fact you want the greatest amount of the plant in that 800 PPDF range added to the fact headroom is limited by the height of the tent and finally any heat produced by the source is considered how do we accomplish the mission? Train and prune plants. Train them to be as close to one level and prune them to get the penetration. A plant will grow sideways the same length as if it were stood up but allow you to achieve ideal conditions for the entire plant, not just hit ideal somewhere in the middle of the plant and having too much above and not enough below and that's if it will even reach the middle of the plant. That's not mentioning having to cook the tops to get the light close enough to achieve ideal. You can grow vertical plants with LED, but you'd need side throws to achieve the same PPFD over the greatest mass. More LED's mean more electricity, adding to per unit cost to produce a flower. If you took a plant and laid it over and got every bud site at the same level and the nodes were tightly spaced, just letting them get 6" long will produce a bud at least twice as long accounting for stretch and will always be in near perfect conditions. Even if that method produced a little less, the quality has to be close to uniform, no? Everything will be shorter, so less need for support. You have the headroom to make fine adjustments to the source to keep everything as close to ideal as possible. Less chance for things to hang outside the cone of light taking resources from others that are and reducing both as a result. Mylar can increase PPFD up to 25%, but it has to reflect something to achieve that number. If your plant blocks most of the reflective material you may get no gain. Proximity to the reflective surface is another factor that determines realized benefits.

So, what LED should you get and what power? Whatever fits your budget and delivers 800 PPFD to the area the greatest mass of your plant occupies in your space. Start thinking horizontal rather than vertical. All the pros do it, why? To get the best output/input ratio per unit. To get consistency of quality and quantity. What controls that? The combo of concepts I listed.

What are the differences between prices/brands/types? How efficient they are, fine tuning of spectrum, quality of build, feature set and form factor are a few. Does higher price mean better automatically? No, just like anything else. You need to do the homework to figure out what's right for you, from space to budget to a hundred other factors. Now, hopefully you now know some of the important factors you can't control after purchase and how to adjust the one you can control after. I'll go into it again through the process, just wanted to get this down while I felt I had a handle on it. Again, don't hesitate to correct, discuss or whatever. It will only raise you in my esteem.

Ok, now we know the reasoning we'll move on to the actual mainline in the next installment. Should hit within the next week, hopefully sooner.

 

[Ennui]

Filed under stupid human tricks:

So, my 4x4 came with pinholes right out of the box. I was extremely gentle assembling it, no rough handling, nothing. Got liquid electrical tape to plaster the leaks. All the while, going on three months, I fail to think about the power light on the power strip inside the tent that's been staring me in the face the whole time. At least it's red and was caught in veg. (I don't think it'd have done much.)

 

[Gaffle]

My lights aren't the best. Small tubes in veg and 2 LEDs in flower. I have to play with distance for elevated par. By doing so I can still have decent crops without spending the big bucks. Also, I am dictating height. I got rid of a 400w HPS because of heat and the inability to lift. The HPS cool tube was a PITA to move around, lift, or lower. In doing so, as of right now, I've optimized my lighting for mobility, par, and growth while being on the cheap. Now don't get me wrong, I would like to get more efficient/brighter lights. My problem is I never buy cutting edge due to cost. I wait for the price chilling or I buy used. Hell, the phone I'm using to yak in 420 and take all my weed pics is a 2 year old Google Pixel that was in "new" condition. I bought it on the Bay in August for $230, original retail was $700. So what if it's old, doesn't mean it sucks. I feel the same about my lights.

 

[Ennui]

My lights aren't the best. Small tubes in veg and 2 LEDs in flower. I have to play with distance for elevated par. By doing so I can still have decent crops without spending the big bucks. Also, I am dictating height. I got rid of a 400w HPS because of heat and the inability to lift. The HPS cool tube was a PITA to move around, lift, or lower. In doing so, as of right now, I've optimized my lighting for mobility, par, and growth while being on the cheap. Now don't get me wrong, I would like to get more efficient/brighter lights. My problem is I never buy cutting edge due to cost. I wait for the price chilling or I buy used. Hell, the phone I'm using to yak in 420 and take all my weed pics is a 2 year old Google Pixel that was in "new" condition. I bought it on the Bay in August for $230, original retail was $700. So what if it's old, doesn't mean it sucks. I feel the same about my lights.

Thanks for that, Dustin. Was starting to feel lonely in my beliefs.

 

[Ennui]

It's been a rough one outside the garden today. It's like when LaForge got kidnapped? "Make it work!" "We are not smart, he's smart!" If you know one thing about me it's that I don't consider myself smart. Smart people don't do the moronic things I've attempted in this life. I'm just the one who can't say "no", that I'm their only sharpest tool option in the box is on them. Worse when it's an in-law because the wife gets involved and next thing I know I'm a jerk for saying something's above my paygrade and they really require next echelon support which they're actually going to have to pay someone for. I mean I can absolutely replace my own water heater, if I goof, I suffer consequences. If it voids my insurance after a catastrophe, so be it. But someone else, I'd taxi them to and from my house to use my hot water before I touched theirs. It's a rule. Some of the stuff home owners have access to at the big box hardware joints scares me. We still haven't stamped out carbon monoxide poisoning and you still see gas explosions on the news. Have to wonder what lit the fuse.

Anyways, cousin came by and grabbed the clones so at least they went to a home, not the one I'd have preferred, but one. I'll have to settle. He's a chemical engineer and his garden is like Charlie Brown's compared to mine, according to him. I haven't seen it. There's someone running around locally charging by the hour to 'sort issue', my cousin said his record's pretty bleak. I couldn't do that, I'm allergic to cats. Looks like I just exited the gas chamber in Basic after 5 minutes in the house. I suffered this morning due to one.

Wow, can't believe what time it is. Need a shower, shave and some chow.

 

[Ennui]

I have to get this down before it's lost.

My Id and Ego go at it like Spy vs Spy. That's why I'm like I am. This is a major realization for me, been trying put a point on it for years. My Id and Ego are aware of each other and are trained just enough to get themselves in trouble, more often than not and the goal is control. Bingo!

Now I just have to remember where I wrote it. Doh!

 

[Ennui]

I have to get this down before it's lost.

My Id and Ego go at it like Spy vs Spy. That's why I'm like I am. This is a major realization for me, been trying put a point on it for years. My Id and Ego are aware of each other and are trained just enough to get themselves in trouble, more often than not and the goal is control. Bingo!

Now I just have to remember where I wrote it. Doh!

During said shower I realized I went off half-cocked. Should have followed it to the conclusion and I'd have gotten it the first time. See how that works?

In Spy vs Spy they end up taking each other out. Revision is it's Spy vs Spy w/ Spectator. In the short sighted version, there's no one left to drive the bus. It's Ego and Super Ego going at it and Id waiting to take over when they finally wear each other out. Right, got it now.

 

[Gaffle]

It's been a rough one outside the garden today. It's like when LaForge got kidnapped? "Make it work!" "We are not smart, he's smart!" If you know one thing about me it's that I don't consider myself smart. Smart people don't do the moronic things I've attempted in this life. I'm just the one who can't say "no", that I'm their only sharpest tool option in the box is on them.

A. Never sell yourself short! The only reason others are smarter is because they had extra time, and had progress or failure in said endeavor. That's called learning.

B. Accept the reality. Your fuckin smart so enjoy. I'm no goddamn mathematician, but I've figured ways of getting out of my box. Just following different paths, getting out of the norm, can breed knowledge. Acknowledge it.

 

[Ennui]

Yeah, just gobsmacks me how little common sense roams the planet. Starts to make me wonder how we got this far. I have theories, but that's for another place/time.

Wait one, just remembered a song.

 

[Ennui]

I come from a long line of school teachers (sciences) on one side and on the other a long line of mechanically gifted, both from a longer line of alcoholics. I joined the service while still in high school, it was the best ticket out of Dodge at the time. The Service honed my trouble-shooting abilities. Both experiences basically shaped me, both in good ways, I'm happy with the result. I can see things coming far enough off to get out of the way of trouble and when I don't I know to look next time.

I have a ton of working theories going, but I have to prove them to myself before I start on others. Results will speak for themselves, I'll either get the Mr. Greenjeans or Knucklehead award. Prepared to learn, either way.

 

[Ennui]

Every time I prune and train my plants, the more convinced I am that pruning and training is the way to go and I've made mistakes by not pruning more/strategically. I'm seeing how shade can be utilized to stunt/promote tight growth in a matter of hours. Every two days my plants look like I haven't touched them. If I'd been more on top of it I wouldn't have had to adjust, everything would be closer to equal.

To heck with penetrating a canopy or leaf, I only want to shine directly on every bud structure. Plus, it's endless what you could do, where you could take it. I'm thinking of another 4x4 for the next grow. I want to do a crazy mainline, 32 mains, in one and I'm going to lay a plant over and keep pinning it down to see how big it will get and just how much light it requires to produce. I'm going to get another 1200W (300W actual) of the brand I have to make it equal, too.

 

[Ennui]

Ahhh, finally got some sleep, wife says I was up like 37 hours straight and about 34 were spent under clothes dryers, under kitchen sinks, under hoods of cars (in the rain), under said cars (again, in the rain). And 2 of the 3 houses I was in had cats and I'm allergic. Try working on the 2nd biggest cat hair collector in the house after the furnace filter. Computer cases rank 3rd, only due to size otherwise they'd easily top the list. Add sneezing the a backbone who's Jenga blocks have been randomly replaced with Fluffernutter and it's been a rough weekend. Thank Someone it's Sunday, everyone's back to work tomorrow and I can finally get some peace. Calgon, Take Me Awayyyyyyyy!

On to the garden, big developments. I've chosen the 5 plants I'm going to flower when ready. The news is I'm going to flower them just under the Bloom switches of my lights, nothing else. Yep, you heard right. I think most have this figured all wrong. Had me fooled for a while, things I knew from planting a garden when I was a kid or watched eleventy two times on PBS weren't jiving with the status quo I see in regards to this plant, which is a weed and they make cartoons of people trying to kill weeds. There are men all over America that look forward to the weekend/paycheck when they can upgrade weaponry. I'm fully willing to take the possible eggsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss to the face, but I never shy from any challenge nor back from any word.

No one's fault, no one's stupid, just maybe don't know better and require demonstration via guinea pig. Squeak, squeak, I'm your huckleberry.

Even if the harvest is bleak, I can't have over 10 oz. of flower in a given 2 month period and I'd maybe use two. I can only gift one and the dispensary's a hop skip and jump away so I can take any hit and get right back in the saddle with the best rodeo clowns. First Grow, see above. First finger picking tune chosen to attempt- Jerry's Breakdown, first.... Starting to get the picture. How much follow through credit do I get just for Jerry's? And with a busted fist, no less. Who doesn't make excuses for anything?

Don't mind me, having a discussion with myself.

I've got to slow down and only have one ready to go at a time or I'll be inundated in no time flat.

The puzzle may not be completed, but I'm sure all the pieces are there and I have the picture on the box for reference.

 

[Ennui]

Cockadoodledoo

 

[Ennui]

Wait until we get to the chapter on penetration and what it really means.