Welp, I wanted something more challenging than popular strains and I got it. In this grow I will be 'managing' three Dr. Grinspoons and two Freakshows. My goal is to clone (lololol) each plant, keep the original plants in veg while I flower the clones. I hope to find a super freaky Freakshow and a rare 'string of pearls' Grinspoon. If I can find the phenotypes I'm looking for, they will remain as mothers. Anything not up to snuff will just get flowered.
Strains:
Freakshow is a unique strain that features palmatisect leaves, similar to dusty miller/silver ragwort. It looks nothing like your standard cannabis! Freakshow's true character only appears in flower when she should produce medium to large yield flower with apparently incredible sativa effects.
The breeder, Shapeshifter, started working with landrace sativas back in the day and while his 'job' was to hunt phenos for the general consumer that had better effects and yields, he started finding some weirdos in the process. Instead of tossing them and losing those freaky genetics forever, he began to hoard and breed them in search of something truly unusual. Additionally, Shapeshifter saw that in the process of bringing cannabis to the US and breeding just the tastiest, fattest, dankest, and most 'weed-like' weed, a massive part of cannabis' wild landrace genetic makeup was being lost.
The idea of growing something that has an offbeat beginning appeals to me, as does the idea of preserving 'less desirable' traits. I have this hope that one day cannabis will be descheduled and federally legal (with state's handling the gritty details like tobacco and booze), and we can all openly grow whatever we want. No need to hide, no need to be constrained to a 4x4 space. Perhaps one day we can have canna garden shows, much like roses and tulips where the entire plant is considered, not just the harvest. ANYHOO...yeah...she's a weirdo:
My second strain in this debacle is Dr. Grinspoon. It's 100% sativa and was bred in honor of its namesake. She's an incredibly fast plant so I'll be working to keep her as small as possible. I've read that she will easily get 3m/10' tall...indoors. She should be fun. Her freakiness comes from an occasionally-appearing trait know as 'string of pearls':
(image source Barney's Farm)
Hopefully one of my three Grinspoons will show this trait. Shapeshifter, the breeder of Freakshow, believes that cannabis is being outbred far too much and has stated that crossing Freakshow with diluted more modern strains isn't something he wants. Not going to lie, the idea of breeding Freakshow and Grinspoon together appeals to me, but as I read more about the preservation of heirloom/landrace genetics I may change my mind. Maybe I'll try to reach out to him for his blessing.
Anyhoo! The grow!
Soil:
I've been phaffing about with building my own soil. I've ran SubCool's super soil (expensive and frustrating to find all the components), Fox Farms Happy Frog and Ocean Forest, and a crappy attempt at Bugbee's simple mix (got screwed on a truckload of supposed 'compost soil' that ended up being fill dirt).
Subcool's was great, but again all the near-exotic crap needed to build it is gratuitously expensive, especially for 12 plants. In regards to bagged cannabis soils...meh. I feel too much amending and additional feeding is needed to push plants in these soils. They're not that cheap, either.
There's also something in me that feels I wont really be growing my own plants until I am lord and master of media and nutrients. This is silly, of course, but there's still that tugging nuisance of the idea that I doubt will ever go away so here we are.
I modified a soil mix I created this spring for my outdoor girls (which is near perfect for my needs and is working really well). This grow I wanted a hotter soil to help push tent plants through shorter growth cycles (4 months). It is indeed hotter and I've been tweaking the mix depending on what the plants are telling me. The basic mix is:
Pelletized alfalfa feed for N and growth hormones
Compost
Peat
Humus
Coco and perlite for aeration and drainage
Chicken shit from my chickens
Blood and bone meal
Dolomitic lime
Gypsum
Earth Alive mycos
Azomite
This last batch for indoor I upped the blood meal and ended up with some putrification. I don't feel this is terrible if the soil is allowed to cook for a couple months. I only gave this soil 3 weeks. There were still maggots active when I tried my first up-pot. It was of course too hot and I will use the larva in the future as an indication of soil readiness.
'Gross!' you may have thought. Maggots are definitely icky but their excrement, pupal shell, and corpses all provide some cool benefits for the plants so I consider them little helpers. If the soil that is to be cooked is wrapped tightly and left to sit (cook) long enough, you normally don't even have to interact with them.
WORD OF CAUTION: cooking soils and composts can get hot enough to catch fire. Keep your mixes away from buildings just in case. At one point about a week into cooking, the center of my soil reached 170f. Not combustion temps but the possibility is there so just please be careful. I hope safety is at the forefront of everyone's minds now. If you haven't joined in, I invite you to this thread on grow safety:
The Environment
The environment is buggered. 100%. Within days of starting this grow we had more strong storms roll through, brown outs occurred, and my dehumidifier crapped the bed. Temps had been in the mid 80's to low 90's with humidity ranging from 50% to 80%. Now the dehumidifier recall has it so that I'm not even bothering to find a replacement until I can do some serious research (sadly my unit wasn't on the recall list). So yeah...we'll just sweep my grow environment under the rug for now >.>
That's it for now. I'll be posting grow progress up to this point today (hopefully, unless more hurdles appear). I apologize for the less linear flow to this intro...the heat's got me kerfluffled.
Strains:
Freakshow is a unique strain that features palmatisect leaves, similar to dusty miller/silver ragwort. It looks nothing like your standard cannabis! Freakshow's true character only appears in flower when she should produce medium to large yield flower with apparently incredible sativa effects.
The breeder, Shapeshifter, started working with landrace sativas back in the day and while his 'job' was to hunt phenos for the general consumer that had better effects and yields, he started finding some weirdos in the process. Instead of tossing them and losing those freaky genetics forever, he began to hoard and breed them in search of something truly unusual. Additionally, Shapeshifter saw that in the process of bringing cannabis to the US and breeding just the tastiest, fattest, dankest, and most 'weed-like' weed, a massive part of cannabis' wild landrace genetic makeup was being lost.
The idea of growing something that has an offbeat beginning appeals to me, as does the idea of preserving 'less desirable' traits. I have this hope that one day cannabis will be descheduled and federally legal (with state's handling the gritty details like tobacco and booze), and we can all openly grow whatever we want. No need to hide, no need to be constrained to a 4x4 space. Perhaps one day we can have canna garden shows, much like roses and tulips where the entire plant is considered, not just the harvest. ANYHOO...yeah...she's a weirdo:
(image source Humboldt Seed Co.)
My second strain in this debacle is Dr. Grinspoon. It's 100% sativa and was bred in honor of its namesake. She's an incredibly fast plant so I'll be working to keep her as small as possible. I've read that she will easily get 3m/10' tall...indoors. She should be fun. Her freakiness comes from an occasionally-appearing trait know as 'string of pearls':
(image source Barney's Farm)
Anyhoo! The grow!
Soil:
I've been phaffing about with building my own soil. I've ran SubCool's super soil (expensive and frustrating to find all the components), Fox Farms Happy Frog and Ocean Forest, and a crappy attempt at Bugbee's simple mix (got screwed on a truckload of supposed 'compost soil' that ended up being fill dirt).
Subcool's was great, but again all the near-exotic crap needed to build it is gratuitously expensive, especially for 12 plants. In regards to bagged cannabis soils...meh. I feel too much amending and additional feeding is needed to push plants in these soils. They're not that cheap, either.
There's also something in me that feels I wont really be growing my own plants until I am lord and master of media and nutrients. This is silly, of course, but there's still that tugging nuisance of the idea that I doubt will ever go away so here we are.
I modified a soil mix I created this spring for my outdoor girls (which is near perfect for my needs and is working really well). This grow I wanted a hotter soil to help push tent plants through shorter growth cycles (4 months). It is indeed hotter and I've been tweaking the mix depending on what the plants are telling me. The basic mix is:
Pelletized alfalfa feed for N and growth hormones
Compost
Peat
Humus
Coco and perlite for aeration and drainage
Chicken shit from my chickens
Blood and bone meal
Dolomitic lime
Gypsum
Earth Alive mycos
Azomite
This last batch for indoor I upped the blood meal and ended up with some putrification. I don't feel this is terrible if the soil is allowed to cook for a couple months. I only gave this soil 3 weeks. There were still maggots active when I tried my first up-pot. It was of course too hot and I will use the larva in the future as an indication of soil readiness.
'Gross!' you may have thought. Maggots are definitely icky but their excrement, pupal shell, and corpses all provide some cool benefits for the plants so I consider them little helpers. If the soil that is to be cooked is wrapped tightly and left to sit (cook) long enough, you normally don't even have to interact with them.
WORD OF CAUTION: cooking soils and composts can get hot enough to catch fire. Keep your mixes away from buildings just in case. At one point about a week into cooking, the center of my soil reached 170f. Not combustion temps but the possibility is there so just please be careful. I hope safety is at the forefront of everyone's minds now. If you haven't joined in, I invite you to this thread on grow safety:
Fire Safety: How do you prevent a disaster?
Hello everyone. Here is my question. How do you prevent a grow room fire? Do not let this happen to you. For those of you who don't know I had a horrendous fire in my grow room. For those that do know, Thank you for all your love and support. Everyone here has been a godsend of love and...
www.420magazine.com
The Environment
The environment is buggered. 100%. Within days of starting this grow we had more strong storms roll through, brown outs occurred, and my dehumidifier crapped the bed. Temps had been in the mid 80's to low 90's with humidity ranging from 50% to 80%. Now the dehumidifier recall has it so that I'm not even bothering to find a replacement until I can do some serious research (sadly my unit wasn't on the recall list). So yeah...we'll just sweep my grow environment under the rug for now >.>
That's it for now. I'll be posting grow progress up to this point today (hopefully, unless more hurdles appear). I apologize for the less linear flow to this intro...the heat's got me kerfluffled.
