SWICK & Organic Soil: A Continuous Journey

[lazylathe]

As promised, today was harvest day!
I am also finding that as I travel this road, I am constantly learning things.
Today, after the harvest of course, I read that the best way to dry a plant is to chop it off as close to the ground and hang to dry with all it's leaves on. This causes a slower and more even dry. And here is why...

When we cut off the leaves on a wet plant, you are exposing the cells to the atmosphere and this causes them to oxidize very rapidly which causes the harsher taste.
Live and learn! Next grow will be whole untrimmed plant hanging time!

Today was their last day in organic soil, this started on the 26th of October 2019 with making my soil, then the germinating disaster started on 1st November 2019 until 23rd November when I discovered the perlite cup method and had success!
They had about a month of vegging and were each topped once to produce 2 main colas and then flipped to 12/12.
On the SWICK bed since 4th January 2020 and watering was never an issue!

Trimming took a solid 5 hours as I kept the plants small for this test run, so it was not too bad.
They smell like gasoline and earth, just what I love!
All plants have been hung to dry in the grow room with a heater set at 18C and a small fan.
Temps are 18 to 19C and RH is 45 to 50%.

One down.... The first one always feels like a major accomplishment!
Surprisingly most of the Pink Kush plants actually had pinks and purples in the buds, hoping that is a good sign!

The one plant has developed this pretty dusty purple color and intense smell!
Buds were not very tight though but packed with resin!

Trimmers treats! A nice little load of scissor hash! I try and handle the buds as little as possible and hold the stem to do most of the trimming. You can see the pinky/purply color of the hash.

All hung up in the grow room to start the slow dry process. They should hang for 10 to 12 days, then into paper bags for about 12 hours and then into jars and burped etc....until cured!

And as always I seem to have a few casualties in the nug department...
Scissor slip deaths.... They get to dry in a box in my office and will be sampled first!

I will update again once they are dried and in jars. I might even weigh this harvest! LOL!

I have also topped up my worm bin with about a foot of used soil and added delicious food on top to get the worms to do their magic! I now also have a second bin of soil and worms... Will have to add more to keep those worms happy and thriving.
Next grow is going to have some amazing soil!

 

[lazylathe]

I let the plants hang dry for 7 days and on the 7th day, they were jarred!
It was a holy experience!

For the first few days, I leave the jars shut for 24 hours before burping them. This allows all the buds to equalize in humidity and I find the odors develop very nicely.
After 24 hours, I opened up a Pink Kush jar and took a deep whiff... MOTHERF&%$@^!!!
All I smell is cookies, straight up sugar cookie dough smell! It's amazing but NOT what I wanted...
Let's try a jar of GodFather OG! Again that Cookies smell!!!

So all the seeds were a variant of a cookie strain! What a let down...
The good part is that they all smell very strong and looks like it will be a decent product.

So as I thought from the start of this grow, this was just a test of the new system which worked very well.
I will give them a month to cure and burp for the first week or two.

This thread will now go silent for a few months as Summer is around the corner and yard work and outside is calling me!

I will be updating with a vape report in about a month's time! And more pictures of course!

Till next grow in the winter!

 

[lazylathe]

The winter grow was cancelled due to Covid-19 and myself being off work for 6 weeks so far and another possible month.

In my quest to find Pink Kush seeds I have tried 3 different seed vendors, 2 of which I would not recommend...
Pacific Coast Seed Bank and Old School Breeders Association.
PCSD gave me all the same seeds, orderd 2 different strains and all plants came out the same. They gave me an immediate refund and not more seeds, very odd and fishy smelling.
OSBA say they have Reeferman PK but the genetics are so weak, i smell fish again...

Having grown Barney's Farm gear before I decided to go back to him and try his Pink Kush.
I ordered Pink Kush, Tangerine Dream and Amnesia Lemon.
Germinating 2 of each of them today and will replace the weak seedlings with BF seedlings.

Soil has been re-amended, earthworms are regularly fed and the room was cleaned before starting again.
I have lowered the QB to around 4 feet from the seedlings and will follow the height recommendations this grow and see what happens.

Will update with some pics when it gets interesting!

 

[lazylathe]

10 May 2020:

Fimmed the one Alpha Dog that is the biggest in the first batch.
The others will most likely be done in a weeks time.
Going to FIM all of them to have bushy plants this time!

Seedlings have responded well to transplanting and their new soil and have grown since the transplanting, so looks like they should take off quickly!

9 May 2020:
Transplanted all the Barney Farm's seedlings into 1 gallon plastic pots.
Think I broke the tip of the taproot off the one Tangerine Dream...She is struggling but doing her best! Time will tell if she recovers.

Watered the first batch with Microbial Mass, EM-1, Kelp and a touch of organic cal/mag.
Seedlings received Microbial Mass, EM-1 and Kelp in their watering.

I have 2 suspect plants at the moment and will let them do their thing for a bit longer before removing them if the do not improve.
TD had the tip of taproot broken off and has been struggling to grow but putting out some tiny new growth. Don't really want to lose her as she is an awesome strain!
The last seed I sprouted of the Alpha Dog seems to be stunted and has not really grown in a while. Not too sad to lose this one as I have 3 other super healthy ladies!

 

[lazylathe]

The Barney's Farm ladies have all been transplanted except for the one Tangerine Dream.
She is still in the SOLO cup and struggling but not taking up any time, so she can stay for now. Same with the Alpha Dog that is growing at a snails pace. They may not stay for too long as the other ladies are growing like crazy since the transplant!

I have topped fimm'd all the Old School Breeders Association ladies, Reeferman Pink Kush and Alpha Dog (Tuna Kush clone).
Old habits die hard, I always top all my plants at least once.
Never done this before so let's see what happens!
The all received a watering today of Kelp, 1/4 strength compost tea, 1/4 strength cal/mag and Microbial Mass.

I decided to also give the seedlings a bit of that water and then some regular RO water to dilute it more.
They have doubled in size in one day since transplanting, so I figured they must be hungry!!

Temps are around 26/27 degrees Celsius and around 65% Rh with very good air movement at all levels.

Light is at 50% power and 4 foot above the plants.

First pics of the grow!
Just a quick side view, the back left AD is the biggest plant with hand sized leaves already...

A top view

My Big Momma Alpha Dog!

Reeferman Pink Kush

And this is the poor little TD who lost the tip of her taproot and has been unhappy since...

I love gently rubbing under the leaf and smelling what these young plants will grow up to be.
Nice and stinky already and only a few weeks old!

 

[lazylathe]

I seem to be suffering from cal/mag deficiency quite early this stage!
In the pics above, you can see slight lightening between the veins of the leaves. I also spotted a small rusty spot on a leaf.
Out with the organic cal/mag at 1/3 strength for the ladies and a lighter feeding for the smaller ones.

They seem to be very hungry for this stage of the game!
Seems like these OSBA genetics take growing quite seriously once they are comfortable.
That is the ones that germinate...LOL!

I also scratched a bit of Gaia Green Glacial Rock Dust and some All-Purpose Fertilizer into the top of the soil.
This was done after the cal/mag watering and it will be watered in about 2 to 3 days time, so as not to overwhelm them.

The ladies also receive a 3 times daily foliar spray with a kelp additive.

The QB was also turned up to 260Watts at the wall.

What would be the best organic soil additive to combat the cal/mag issues?
I am drying eggshells, grinding to a dust and adding to my worm bin/organic soil bin now to try and help.

 

[Nunyabiz]

I use this.

Ferticell Universal Algae
Oyster Shell Flour
Buildasoil Craft Blend
Langbeinite

But I am in 25 gallon pots.
In such small pots you'll need to basically bottle feed.

You could do this.

Ferticell Universal Algae
Ferticell calcium 880+
Buildasoil Buildabloom

 

[lazylathe]

Finally an update!!
I transplanted the Barney's Farm ladies into 7 gallon fabric pots using my organic soil from my worm bin.
About halfway up I added some Gaia Green All-Purpose fertilizer to give them some extra food when they get watered.

The Barney's Farm gear all looks amazing!! You can tell the seeds are fresh and the genetics are good.
The Old School broken gear looks sad and they have been troublesome since the start...
All are in the same soil from veg to flower, so not sure why they were so picky.

As you may also notice, my topping did nothing except create a few odd shaped leaves...LMAO!!
I topped a few and have left some to their own devices.

The two plants I was going to discard, have also been repotted but only into 3 gallon pots as experiments!
The Alpha Dog I don't really care about but it is growing nicely although it is 1/4 of the size.
The BF Tangerine Dream that I broke off about a 1/2 inch of the tip of the taproot is still surviving!
She auto topped herself and had one crazy leaf coming out of the split. I removed the leaf and have done some serious bending!! Lets see how she handles it!

The group. A Pink Kush is in the back right corner.

Side angle of the group

This is the Tangerine Dream mutant! She actually looks good but is the same age as the others, she is tiny!

I will veg them for another two weeks or so and then flip to 12/12.
They will all still be hand watered for the remainder of the veg and then i will fill the SWICK.
This is also the first time I am using hay as a top cover. The only hay available for hundreds of kilometers was Timothy hay, so that is my cover. Smells awesome as well and since I sprayed it down with water, the humidity is solid at 62%!

 

[Hash Hound]

nice job with the SWICK. I have a few ideas in mind but no one commented in the SWICK thread.
SWICK Watering Systems: Letting The Plant Water Itself
the last two posts...Any opinion?

 

[StoneOtter]

Hi Lazylathe, nice grow! I saw you grew some godfather og. I have two soaking now. How's the smoke?

 

[lazylathe]

Hi Lazylathe, nice grow! I saw you grew some godfather og. I have two soaking now. How's the smoke?

Unfortunately the seeds I was sold were NOT Godfather OG...
The whole grow turned out to be some sort of a cookies strain.
Utterly disappointed with the end result.
I would NOT recommend Pacific Seed Bank!

 

[lazylathe]

Small update for today.
Still vegging away and looking good. The Timothy Hay is starting to sprout patches of small green grass like leaves.

Since I purposely only filled the pots to about 3/4 full I have space left for more soil top dressing.
I added one bag of the Destiny Grow Systems Dark Matter and about a 1/2 bag of EWC and mixed well.
The hay was removed from each pot and the amount of earthworms was crazy!
I removed some of the lower branches and leaves to open them up a bit as well.
I added some Bokashi Pro Gro under the hay about a week ago and have a nice white layer of mycellium growing.
I broke this up and gently mixed the top bit of soil before adding some more Bokashi and then a nice layer of new organic amended soil.
The hay was packed around the top again and given a good spray down.

Tonight I will switch to flower and the SWICK will be filled in a week or so.

And this is the Tangerine Dream that I snapped half the tap root off when transplanting...
It's taken a bit but it is super healthy!

 

[StoneOtter]

Unfortunately the seeds I was sold were NOT Godfather OG...
The whole grow turned out to be some sort of a cookies strain.
Utterly disappointed with the end result.
I would NOT recommend Pacific Seed Bank!

Good to know thanks! Big disappointment after months of growing. I'm trying Weedseedsexpress.

 

[lazylathe]

Good to know thanks! Big disappointment after months of growing. I'm trying Weedseedsexpress.

Reviews look good, so you should be good to go!

I gave my buddy my last grow, all in labelled jars with strain names etc... Did not tell him they were all similar.
Calls me up the other day and asks why all the bottles don't have the same labels???
They all taste exactly the same...LMAO!!! Told him the story and he is cool with free weed that is fire!

Started to add water to the SWICK tonight at lights on. It will take a few days to fill to the required 4 inches but this slow way actually keeps the whole bed very slightly damp and the plants will explode in a few days time with more water.

At week 3 I will give the ladies a good strip and another top up with some Dark Matter soil and EWC mix.

Learning from the last grow, I started adding cal/mag very early on and have had no issues so far. They started at week 3 of flower last time, so hopefully I have corrected that now.

I also want to move my light further to the right of the room as that is the side the SWICK is mostly on...
Needs to go right and back a bit, so I will need to cut some 2X4 to fit between the beams and screw it in as an attachment point for the light.

And lastly I increased the power of the light to 350 Watts. Still 130 more to go!

 

[lazylathe]

Filled the SWICK tonight at lights on!
I think I may also be in for quite a ride... Some of the ladies have already started to throw out pistils and the one TD has shot up about 6 inches...
I don't really worry about height when growing auto's as I can usually keep them to about 4 feet +-.
Thinking there will be some super cropping happening at some point to try and keep the canopy under control.

 

[StoneOtter]

They look ready to lurch!

 

[lazylathe]

@stoneotter We be lurching...Out of space!!! LOL!


Around 8 days after flip. These girls are looking good so far!
The will be given a medium strip next weekend and a clean up around week 5.
At week 5 they will also be topped up with some more Dark Matter soil and EWC. I will also be giving them the odd top watering to add some cal/mag.
Otherwise only pH'd water in the SWICK and forget about them! LOL!!! They are my children and get looked in multiple times when I am home!!

8 days ago they looked like this...

Today they look like this...

Some of the leaves are bigger than dinner plates, see bottom right leaf.
After transplant a few showed these odd bright green/yellow blotches on some leaves and tips but they are all gone now.
I would imagine it was from the adjustment to a slightly hotter soil amendment. Will be doing the same type in a few weeks so they should have another big boost of growth!
Also had to turn on the exhaust and carbon filter, these ladies are super stinky!

 

[lazylathe]

6 Days after the post above, brings us to today!
15 days since the flip and they are monsters!

Each plant was removed from the SWICK and pruned!
Everything from the ground to about 6 inches was stripped as well as some of the larger fan leaves.
A vast difference from what they had grown into!

So far zero deficiencies have been seen, so I am very happy with it to this point.
Still 2+ months of flower to go...LOL!
I think the last topping with Dark Matter soil and EWC has done wonders for the ladies!
Roots are growing out of the bottom of the fabric pots as well, so the root system is good to go for full SWICK action.

So far I added 8 gallons to my SWICK a week ago and the perlite was still slightly damp and the pots had a damp line about 6 inches high from the bottom. Pots were dryish on top under hay but damp 2 inches down, worked perfectly for drawing the root system down!

Tonight at lights on after the prune, everyone was very slowly hand watered till run-off was seen from the very bottom of the fabric pot.
Tonight's cocktail was:
EM-1
Microbial Mass
Kelp
Compost Tea
Organic cal/mag
all mixed in R.O water and pH'd to 6.5

This was before the haircut and water
Canopy shot

Full frontal, these ladies are straight from the 70's!
Full bush mode...

After a few hours of work, the canopy looks like this.
Much nicer and more light penetration and better air circulation!

And I moved the ladies to the 20th century!
Full frontal is nice and clean now!

I also discovered that my earthworms are turning into eels!
They are escaping the pots and living under the pots and in the SWICK...
When I find them on the sides of the fabric pots, they seem to be glued onto the fabric and are difficult to remove.
They seem happy and the things keep multiplying in the pots, s o they must be happy!

And some of the Timothy Hay is starting to sprout!

And lastly I had to do all this with the pad of my right hand baby finger missing...
I sliced it off at work on Friday afternoon, oops! Damn thing would not stop bleeding for almost 16 hours.
100% would not recommend!

Next weekend will be week 3 of flower, so they will get their last soil based topping and first flower amendment then.
It will be a mix of Dark Matter, EWC and Gaia Green Flower Booster dry amendment.
They will continue to receive pH'd R.O water with EM-1 and cal/mag for the rest of the grow.
Towards the end of flower I may add another type of flower booster, not sure yet!

 

[lazylathe]

Around day 25 of flower now and they have just started to build buds in the last few days!!
The room was crammed full of plants with huge leaves! Something needed to be done. Their final stripping!
They were all removed one by one, the hay removed, Gaia Green Power Bloom, Bat Guano mixed into the top few inches of soil and then another top dressing of Dark Matter soil and the hay replaced.
They were individually watered with a pH'd blend of cal/mag, kelp, EM-1, a light compost tea and microbial mass.

All the lower small sites were removed. It's nice and airy down there now. This will change in 2 weeks again...

The canopy is still all over the place but everyone is happy and showing no deficiencies.

The buds are coming!!!
Tangerine Dream by Barney's Farm

 

[lazylathe]

Around day 33 of switch to 12/12 lighting.

All the ladies are doing really well and almost everyone is doing well! Two of the ones from the inferior seedbank threw some cal/mag issues on only 2 leaves...Gave that batch a bit of extra cal/mag to sort them out.

Also decided to add some Advanced Nutrients Nirvana to the mix! I know it is not certified organic but it is pretty organic...LOL!

I am also loving the odors starting to form in the room! Very sweet and skunky!

I cleaned up underneath the canopy again and removed any branches that were not receiving light, most;y thinner sucker shoots and some of the smaller fluff that forms on the stems. Looking nice and clean!

Up above, it is quite hard to take a pic of the entire grow due to how the room is designed, as well as the number of plants...
Next time it will be only 5 5 gallon pots!!

Tangerine Dream is bulking up nicely!

Supposedly Reeferman's Pink Kush...

And an Alpha Dog, Tuna Kush variety.

They are all starting to form resin glands all over the place which is a great sign so early on.
Around 2 months to go before harvest time.

I have also bought a HerbsNow herb dryer to experiment with.
There are some big plans for this harvest and for all future harvests!
When i get everything right, harvest time, dry time and the potency where I need it to be, I will be processing a lot of it into rosin as well as bubble hash that I will press into hash rosin.
I will also keep some for vaping of course!