AKGramma's Perpetual Grow

[NorCaliwood]

Mites suck,,, bummer,,, GL I hope you wiped them suckers of the face of the earth.. Mites have cost me more plants that anything else. And if you have 2-3 room in different stages,,, next to impossible unless you do a complete clean up... I have these russet hemp mites last summer damn near killed everything off.. These are so small 20 of them could hitch-hike a ride on a two spotted mite. My eyes are kind of trained to IF they see a dark spot on the bottom of the leaf,, hardly ever goes unnoticed.. But these man and they are pale green with no dark spots.. Well best luck in the gardens looking forward to so prime buddage.. Keepem Green

 

[AKgramma]

All my ladies are under flower, since they are so big. The larger unit was switched early February, and I have wall-to wall flowers. I'm glad I chopped the sativas for its leaves and put the autos in there. Once both units are harvested, I'm going to pop 3 each of only 2 strains: a CBD (Critical) gifted me for my meds, and a high THC for the family (not sure which one yet). It's getting too confusing to try out too many strains all at once, and I just don't have the room.

However, I do want to clone the Critical, and stretch out the seed supply.

A family member made the first batch of brownies using my home-grown buds. We couldn't resist and shared one. In about 90 minutes from ingestion, I was totally stoned, and the high lasted a good 5 hours and lingered well into the next day! The hybrids I grow apparently are going to produce a dizzy, put you to sleep high.

Since I prefer to be awake and aware, My dosage of BAKED edibles will have to be 1/4 to 1/8 a brownie and taken before bedtime. I have gotten my powdered MJ leaf dosage dialed in for cooking. It doesn't take much for me, because I don't smoke or ingest in large quantities.

2 of my capsules (made from various parts of the plant + coconut oil) are enough to lower the arthritis pain a good 50%, and supplemented by OTC pain relievers, gets me by. It's tolerable and I can get around better with a walker. I purposely do not decarb before infusing the coconut oil, because I'm not looking for a high, just the healing-pain-killing benefits.

Almost time to make more capsules. Getting low!

 

[NorCaliwood]

I just finished a Critical Mass CBD plant.. yielded well. I have acouple people dealing with arthritis and they like it.. I also grew a purple orange CBD plant,, suppose to be like 5% thc and 10% cbd.. That didn't have enough thc in it to work well.. GL with they girls...

Keepem Green

 

[AKgramma]

I Spent 2 1/2 hours trimming leaves, cropping minibuds and raising skirts. It's been several weeks since I did a thorough inspection and clean-up of the ladies. So I "paid" for it today! LOL!

I learned a few things while cleaning up the garden:

1) I need to add more auxiliary CFL lighting to give more lighting all around. The LEDs at the top only feed the topmost buds. What I'm getting lower and inside the branches are only fit for grinding into MJ powder for cooking.

2) I need to reduce the number of plants in each unit. The 3 x 3 will adequately handle 4 mature plants, and the shelving unit only 2. This will allow me to tie down a few branches and open them up a bit.

3) I'm going to have to live with a higher electric bill. * sigh *

I had better harvests when I spaced the ladies out so they didn't touch.

11 weeks in flower, and the AK 48s are very close to harvest. Maybe another 2 weeks. The AK 48's tend to harbor mites and their leaves dry up and drop off more often. But, as ugly as my AK 48 harvest have been, my testers say the smoke is VERY good, and the buds make potent brownies.

The Autoberries still are not showing, but remain healthy and vigorous. The Jock Horror sisters both have flowers, but not many. The leaves seem to be a favorite with my kitty cat, and he doesn't barf them up. I didn't realize that the JH was Auto Fem. The label had a very tiny A next to the F! I had let the babies get rootbound before up potting them. NOT A GOOD THING!

Lessons learned for next grow.

 

[Lady G2HM]

Hi AKG, glad to hear you're moving right along. Would you mind sharing your brownie recipe? It's making me drool over hear...

 

[Morglie]

I Spent 2 1/2 hours trimming leaves, cropping minibuds and raising skirts. It's been several weeks since I did a thorough inspection and clean-up of the ladies. So I "paid" for it today! LOL!

I learned a few things while cleaning up the garden:

1) I need to add more auxiliary CFL lighting to give more lighting all around. The LEDs at the top only feed the topmost buds. What I'm getting lower and inside the branches are only fit for grinding into MJ powder for cooking.

2) I need to reduce the number of plants in each unit. The 3 x 3 will adequately handle 4 mature plants, and the shelving unit only 2. This will allow me to tie down a few branches and open them up a bit.

3) I'm going to have to live with a higher electric bill. * sigh *

I had better harvests when I spaced the ladies out so they didn't touch.

11 weeks in flower, and the AK 48s are very close to harvest. Maybe another 2 weeks. The AK 48's tend to harbor mites and their leaves dry up and drop off more often. But, as ugly as my AK 48 harvest have been, my testers say the smoke is VERY good, and the buds make potent brownies.

The Autoberries still are not showing, but remain healthy and vigorous. The Jock Horror sisters both have flowers, but not many. The leaves seem to be a favorite with my kitty cat, and he doesn't barf them up. I didn't realize that the JH was Auto Fem. The label had a very tiny A next to the F! I had let the babies get rootbound before up potting them. NOT A GOOD THING!

Lessons learned for next grow.

Good lesson there on squishing in plants. I think I've been putting myself in that same position and need to learn to pace my flower room a bit as well.

 

[AKgramma]

Hi AKG, glad to hear you're moving right along. Would you mind sharing your brownie recipe? It's making me drool over hear...

We use a Betty Crocker brownie boxed kit that uses oil. You substitute melted cannabudder for the 1/4 cup oil and bake as usual. (7 gm MJ)

The basic cannabudder recipe uses 1 oz (28g) of bud to a pound of sweet butter, then is stored in 4 oz disposable containers in the fridge or freezer.

Individual Dosage depends on how big you cut your brownies. We have a pan that makes 12 individual squares. So much neater, and you can use simple math to figure the dosage: divide 7g by the number of brownies you have. 12 brownies will have 0.58 g per brownie, which should put you to sleep in about an hour to hour and a half.

 

[AKgramma]

Good lesson there on squishing in plants. I think I've been putting myself in that same position and need to learn to pace my flower room a bit as well.

It is very easy to overcrowd them when they are small. You have to plan for when they are 30" in diameter!

 

[Weaselcracker]

Yeah... overcrowding... something I've been spending a lot of time dealing with lately as well. It's not actually greed causing the problem. It's just that the more strains I have going on,( and I think I have 18 strains at last count, with various different stages and clones of them all), the more difficult it is to manage the perpetual grow schedule. Knock it back to 6 or 10 strains and I think I can manage to not overextend myself so much. It's just hard/impossible to perfect the timing when things get so complicated.

 

[AKgramma]

WC: This is true! I think we need 3 dedicated spaces to keep a continual perpetual grow going. (flower, veg, and babies) I now have everything under flower, and harvesting a bit every day or two. Both areas are full and no place to start new seeds. So there def will be a break between grows.

I WAS planning just 2 strains, one for bud and one for medical edibles, but both are autos. So I guess I need to start a 3rd fem or regular to clone. I have White Widow fem seeds and a high CBD regular. maybe I should try to clone one of those. We'll see when I have harvested enough to get them all in one unit, and open the smaller unit for seedlings.

After thinking it over, I can repurpose a shelf, set it up with CFL's like in the old days, and start some new seeds.......YEAH!

 

[AKgramma]

Since I have all my ladies in flower, I need to either rejuvenate my 30 or so gallons of soil/perlite/vermiculite/sand or go in a completely different direction for the next grow.

Already tried hempy and the plants were 30% smaller in size and yield than soil. After 45 years of gardening in soil, I just could not make the switch.

The used soil has lots of roots with MYKOS bacteria, but I may have let the used soil dry out too much and let them die. I assume they are dormant, just waiting for me to soak them good.

Starting over with Doc's Kit will be expensive, but it is a last option. And I'm open to ideas. Simplest is best.

 

[SweetSue]

Since I have all my ladies in flower, I need to either rejuvenate my 30 or so gallons of soil/perlite/vermiculite/sand or go in a completely different direction for the next grow.

Already tried hempy and the plants were 30% smaller in size and yield than soil. After 45 years of gardening in soil, I just could not make the switch.

The used soil has lots of roots with MYKOS bacteria, but I may have let the used soil dry out too much and let them die. I assume they are dormant, just waiting for me to soak them good.

Starting over with Doc's Kit will be expensive, but it is a last option. And I'm open to ideas. Simplest is best.

Curious, I find myself looking at the hempy pot and asking myself why I bother with soil. They're smaller plants, but they take up a smaller footprint and require less effort on my part. They're less expensive to run than any soil medium I've used and there's no denying they weigh less.

Seriously, as I try to find a workable plan for maintaining the multiple totes of kit soil to get the garden through the three runs I can expect to get from the kit medium, knowing that I'll then have to purchase another bale of ProMix and start again, the hempy looks more inviting all the time. I live 40 steps up. Those bales are a PITA to get up here, and then there's the mixing.

If you're staying with soil, and can afford the shipping cost, I'd go with the kit. Dollar for dollar you won't beat the end result, and soil storage notwithstanding, it's incredibly easy to use. The plants you grow with the kit are outstanding. There's no better way to describe them. They give off an energy that's unique to the kit.

I guess I'm just getting tired of hauling around soil. I don't have any convienient place to dump my used soil, another point I neglected to take into consideration. Would you have a garden you could dump your used soil into?

PeeJay has a decent soil recipe that's water-only. Have you ever checked his out? Dennise, Cannafan and B A R all used his soil recipe to great success. Cannafan's still active, and I think Dennise may be too. Either one would probably be more than glad to help you out.

 

[AKgramma]

Good points, Sue. I cannot deny the up-side of hempys, esp the light weight part. but I didn't get the feeding schedule down, and so I think my ladies suffered for it.

Today I rejuvenated about 8 gallons of my soil mix with an organic dry all-purpose fertilizer, and mixed MYKOS into the soil with the roots, and moistened the soil. The buckets are now covered and "cooking". I figure the soil will be ready by the time half this grow is harvested.

My mix, being 1/3 perlite, and 1/3 vermiculite and sand, is def lighter than plain soil, and most of my tall bins are 3 gallons, which I can move around OK. I have a couple of standard 5 gallon pots I put on turntables for ease of trimming. These ar for the double-ups, when I run out of floor space. I'll work my way through the rest of the used soil, so it will be ready for the next grow.

The BBLs, Autoberrys, and Hazes, are around 4 feet tall and flowering nicely. I expect another month on those. The AK 48's topped out at 36" and have small buds. They struggled this time, which was why I decided to rework my soil. I'm getting small buds for edibles, but nothing the family will want for smoke. I should finish harvesting the AK48 topmost buds by this weekend.

The two Jock Horror Autos are already very frosty, but only the dwarf sister has any amber hairs. And no, I cannot see the color differences in the trics, even with a loupe. Old eyes. So I go by the percent of amber hairs and amount of frost on the buds and sugar leaves.

Comparison: The autos I planted into the tall bins immediately after sprouting have grown very large and vigorous, with a nice spread of flowers. The two JH's I left in the solo cups too long are less than 1/3 the size, with just a few decent-sized buds. I forgot they were Autos, and so goofed.

So, I am all fired up and optimistic about the next grow, having learned something from my mistakes and omissions this time around. I had a dip in quality after the seeding project, and so am getting my head back into proper growing techniques.

 

[AKgramma]

Went shopping yesterday and hit Freddys just right. They had just restocked the shelves and all their early gardening stuff was in! So I had a nice choice of fertilizer for the dormant soil. They are offering a whole lot more brands of liquid and dry fertilizer.(catering to us indoor growers) ;-)

But they only offer small bags of the amendments, so I'll have to pick those up at Lowes or Home Depot. Yes, we have a garden shop that supplies cannabis growers, but they are way too expensive for my budget.

 

[NorCaliwood]

You can just amend your soil with organics products and reuse over and over as a living soil.. I'm pretty sure higher heat will fry your micbrobials. I'm not sure what temps are too much for them,, so alittle reschearch might be in order.. Not sure what your looking for,, but alot of people use the living organic soil, LOS, for years,, these are gerneraly large 100+ gallon pots.. But they use that same soil over and over with just afew dollars of amendment per year.. And I don't see why it wood be the same on a smaller scale.. GL and Keepem Green

 

[SweetSue]

You can just amend your soil with organics products and reuse over and over as a living soil.. I'm pretty sure higher heat will fry your micbrobials. I'm not sure what temps are too much for them,, so alittle reschearch might be in order.. Not sure what your looking for,, but alot of people use the living organic soil, LOS, for years,, these are gerneraly large 100+ gallon pots.. But they use that same soil over and over with just afew dollars of amendment per year.. And I don't see why it wood be the same on a smaller scale.. GL and Keepem Green

I grew with LOS no tills for a couple years, and I found that once you get smaller than five gallons the soil doesn't perform as well. It was easy to amend and easy to run.

I think this run I may try two hempies. I felt like I got much more comfortable with the feeding, but this time I'm trying Osmocote Plus. I think I had an easier time than you because I only ran one pot at a time. Although I fought with it for too long, with only one to focus on it got easier to keep it going. If I'd run more plants and come up against the frustrations I'd probably have pulled the plug. As it was, I culled Emerald twice, but couldn't bring myself to kill her, and so she finished like a trooper. She went longer than any other plant I've grown.

Those autos are a finicky bunch. I try to get them planted in the final pot as soon as they break through. The roots are different and it seems as though the tap root hits the bottom and it changes something in the plant's coding. If you can transplant them immediately, or better yet, start them in the final pot, they seem to thrive, as yours did.

Good timing on the shopping. I love it when things click. Did you see I stumbled onto an expensive humidifier at 75% off?

 

[AKgramma]

Sue: Yes I did see that humidifier in your new (sorta) journal! Excellent find!

I only have to deal with very low humidity in winter, when we run our furnaces all the time. The colder the weather gets, the drier, up here in the North. I've seen it as low as 15! But the RH is now holding at 58 -60, which is just right for drying buds. I can them jar em with a boveda packet, put them in the fridge, and leave them be for a month or so.

When the RH gets real low, I mist the plants every couple days to bring the units up to 50%.

 

[AKgramma]

You can just amend your soil with organics products and reuse over and over as a living soil.. I'm pretty sure higher heat will fry your micbrobials. I'm not sure what temps are too much for them,, so alittle reschearch might be in order.. Not sure what your looking for,, but alot of people use the living organic soil, LOS, for years,, these are gerneraly large 100+ gallon pots.. But they use that same soil over and over with just afew dollars of amendment per year.. And I don't see why it wood be the same on a smaller scale.. GL and Keepem Green

This is what I had in mind. But I have no need for 100 gallons, and I'm too old and weak to move anything bigger than 5 gallon buckets. But I do mix them together, so that they are more uniform. I get the best texture when I break up the roots from a newly-harvested lady and mix it well back into the soil. The soil and roots always smell sweet and healthy, so I must be doing something right.

I'm going to look up various recipes for LOS in the organics forum. I feel like I'm missing something. I don't heat the soil, cause I want to save any microbes that might be living in it.

 

[Tead]

Crazy humidity issues this year down here too...

24 hr high/low outdoors. 88 to 16.... crazy. Even crazier to see 16 in the swamps! My skin was positively crawling that day.

Saw the "Freddies" reference earlier. Sounds silly, but I miss FM's. The old one on Barbur in PDX used to be my standard haunt.
Meh! Seems like a good trade for crawfish... but I still miss 'em.

 

[Tead]

But I have no need for 100 gallons, and I'm too old and weak to move anything bigger than 5 gallon buckets.

I try not to preach... but I'm just too tempted here. Been seeing great performance from the 2L Osmocote+ hempy runs. No muss with nutes. Light as a feather... even when full of water.