Emeraldo's 2020 West-Facing Balcony Grow

[Emeraldo]

I also much like the idea of having a variety of jarred bud so I can choose the effect I want and to minimize developing a tolerance.

Whatever I grow I can't help feeling the drive to maximize the yield, when it would make some sense to perhaps grow more and smaller plants to get a variety. Part of the mindset to maximize a plant's yield is because here in NZ the law judges on the number of plants the grower is caught with, so there is that incentive to grow out a plant fully rather than grow out lots of plants just a little.

Maybe the referendum on Oct 17 will bring good tidings and you won't have to be so... stealthy anymore. Are new rules contained in the referendum description? How many plants per household would be allowed? If it passes, could municipalities, towns, cities, provinces with self-regulation still override the referendum and preclude or limit growing cannabis in their respective areas? In California, some towns don't allow even today. Or allow only indoor growing.

I got to a point where I realized my yield was way too much. I give a lot away to friends and neighbors, I cannot possibly use all the weed from my grow. So this year I have three plants in 5-gallon pots (WW, GL, G13H) and germinated in May. They will each produce much less than the plants in 15 gal pots germinated in March. I am happy to have those smaller amounts because invariably I end up not using some of the larger yield, particularly if I grew out a strain that I ultimately do not like as much as one of the others. There are strains I grew out but wouldn't want to grow again.

In your situation, more strains in smaller pots = smaller yield = more experimentation, more variety? You could have 4 or 5 smaller plants in the same grow space.

 

[Stunger]

Maybe the referendum on Oct 17 will bring good tidings and you won't have to be so... stealthy anymore. Are new rules contained in the referendum description? How many plants per household would be allowed? If it passes, could municipalities, towns, cities, provinces with self-regulation still override the referendum and preclude or limit growing cannabis in their respective areas? In California, some towns don't allow even today. Or allow only indoor growing.

I got to a point where I realized my yield was way too much. I give a lot away to friends and neighbors, I cannot possibly use all the weed from my grow. So this year I have three plants in 5-gallon pots (WW, GL, G13H) and germinated in May. They will each produce much less than the plants in 15 gal pots germinated in March. I am happy to have those smaller amounts because invariably I end up not using some of the larger yield, particularly if I grew out a strain that I ultimately do not like as much as one of the others. There are strains I grew out but wouldn't want to grow again.

In your situation, more strains in smaller pots = smaller yield = more experimentation, more variety? You could have 4 or 5 smaller plants in the same grow space.

My impression is that the referendum is looking grim. Our Prime Minister the other day in a debate admitted smoking weed 'a long time ago', I believe she will vote Yes, but so far she is refusing to say which way she'll vote which is a pisser because I feel the Yes vote needs people like her to stand up and say they are voting Yes. It seems at the moment the Yes vote is hovering around the 40% mark. If it fails I would imagine it will be a long time before it comes around again. However, what will be done if the No vote wins? If 40% vote Yes it seems to suck if the No voters are free to jump into booze which is more harmful while telling the Yes voters they can't have a toke. Actually, I think by all metrics, health, economy etc, that the Yes vote is the best smartest option going.

If the referendum passes it would allow 2 plants per person with a maximum of 4 plants for a household. As I understand, it would be for the whole country without any exceptions. Whatever happens I'll still grow but I'd sure as hell prefer it to be legal without the stress of having to go stealthy. But who knows, maybe the Yes vote will pull a rabbit out of the hat.

 

[Emeraldo]

My impression is that the referendum is looking grim. Our Prime Minister the other day in a debate admitted smoking weed 'a long time ago', I believe she will vote Yes, but so far she is refusing to say which way she'll vote which is a pisser because I feel the Yes vote needs people like her to stand up and say they are voting Yes. It seems at the moment the Yes vote is hovering around the 40% mark. If it fails I would imagine it will be a long time before it comes around again. However, what will be done if the No vote wins? If 40% vote Yes it seems to suck if the No voters are free to jump into booze which is more harmful while telling the Yes voters they can't have a toke. Actually, I think by all metrics, health, economy etc, that the Yes vote is the best smartest option going.

If the referendum passes it would allow 2 plants per person with a maximum of 4 plants for a household. As I understand, it would be for the whole country without any exceptions. Whatever happens I'll still grow but I'd sure as hell prefer it to be legal without the stress of having to go stealthy. But who knows, maybe the Yes vote will pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Maybe she has other reasons for not wanting to overtly push the yes vote. She already made a great case that I saw written up, wasnt' it an op-ed of some kind?

Yeah and it isn't a given that it will pass, you're right. I'd think the Yay-sayers would be more motivated than the Nay-sayers, simply because if you like cannabis, you've got a lot on the line here.

It still isn't completely legal in Europe, though most are leaning pretty strongly in that direction. Here in the US, there are like 26 states with legal cannabis but it still is not legal under federal law, leading to all kinds of confusion, like growers mostly having no bank accounts, having to hoard cash, no credit card, etc. Yeah, it can be a long process of cultural change... So the countdown is running.

 

[Emeraldo]

Update: Will chop Gold Leaf tomorrow. You can see why she's called Gold Leaf, lol. She is in her 10th week of flower, and while Robert of 420 recommends 9 weeks I've let her go a bit longer because she did not look quite ripe yet. Now she does. Besides, I've got 5 more plants to go after I've harvested Gold Leaf: Dream Berry, White Widow, Blackberry, Super Lemon Haze, and G13 x Haze. Today I was looking closely at the various breeders' notes on the estimated harvest times, and checking the calendar and it looks like the order of harvesting will proceed exactly in that order.

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• Emeraldo
• Oct 5, 2020

Gold Leaf, Oct 5

The photo below is of Gold Leaf (I mislabeled it as Dream Berry because her calyxes look a bit similar)

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• Emeraldo
• Oct 5, 2020

Dream Berry calyxes, Oct 5

Dream Berry's bud structure is lean, but just full of calyxes. Her trichomes form mostly on the calyxes. I smoked DB again today, weed cut from the plant 3 days ago was dried on the water heater. In grinding the bud, the calyxes were plentiful. Ground down into a nice green weed for rolling. Will chop DB on Saturday in about 5 days.

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• Emeraldo
• Oct 5, 2020

Dream Berry calyxes, Oct 5

White Widow also almost ready.

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• Emeraldo
• Oct 5, 2020

White Widow, Oct 5

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• Emeraldo
• Oct 5, 2020

White Widow, Oct 5

Super Lemon Haze needs a few more weeks (as do G13 x Haze and Blackberry, not shown).

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• Emeraldo
• Oct 5, 2020

Super Lemon Haze, Oct 5

 

[Stunger]

Update: Will chop Gold Leaf tomorrow. She is in her 10th week of flower, and while Robert of 420 recommends 9 weeks I've let her go a bit longer because she did not look quite ripe yet. Now she does. Besides, I've got 5 more plants to go after I've harvested Gold Leaf.

Their buds are all looking lovely. Please post any preliminary toke test findings on the Gold Leaf. I have decided on 3 of my next strains already (Mexican Sativa, Godfather OG & CBD Express Auto) but I still haven't decided on a 4th. I have read reviews of folk who really like Gold Leaf so I want to grow it but I may leave it for a another time darn it all!

 

[Emeraldo]

...Please post any preliminary toke test findings on the Gold Leaf. I have decided on 3 of my next strains already (Mexican Sativa, Godfather OG & CBD Express Auto) but I still haven't decided on a 4th. I have read reviews of folk who really like Gold Leaf so I want to grow it but I may leave it for a another time darn it all!

Will do Stungi. Will dry some on the water heater tomorrow and try her after a few days, post my impressions. She really does have sativa-like buds, a roundish flowers at each node up the branch. Very nice aroma, not pungeant at all. She would likely make a stealth strain. But more later

 

[Emeraldo]

Harvested Gold Leaf a half hour ago. She has a wonderful mild aroma, lemon and sweetness with a dash of turpentine. Not a pungeant odor, ideal for a stealth grow. I germinated her in early May, grew her in a 5 gallon pot, the yield is about 1/4 of the Acapulco Gold (16 full jars of AG are curing), I expect about 4 quart jars of GL. Enough for a first time.

It was a clean, easy harvest, really. Sativa-style buds compact, nicely spaced, leaves not intertwined, mostly big leaves easy to pull off, trimmed a bit as well. Washed and hung in the shower with fan on, light from the open window blocked with a black plastic bag. Hygrometer in the shower to monitor temp and RH.

Put the popcorn in the bag on the water heater.

Smoke report coming in a few days...

 

[Emeraldo]

Smoked the Gold Leaf twice in the past few days. Very smooth taste, no harshness, despite the fact it was quick-dried on the water heater. Deeply relaxing. My wife says it lets her sleep very well. I am pleased about that, of course. If a cerebral sativa high represents the violins in an orchestra, Gold Leaf has the effect of the contrabasses.

 

[DonkeyDick]

Sounds nice, Em’o ♪♫
Congratulations on your mini harvest!

If an excess of biomass is an issue you can turn what flower you don’t want to smoke or share into rosin and freeze it.

You can then use it for capsules, edibles, oils, all sorts.

Just a thought.

 

[Stunger]

Smoked the Gold Leaf twice in the past few days. Very smooth taste, no harshness, despite the fact it was quick-dried on the water heater. Deeply relaxing. My wife says it lets her sleep very well. I am pleased about that, of course. If a cerebral sativa high represents the violins in an orchestra, Gold Leaf has the effect of the contrabasses.

That sounds like a very useful thumbs up for Gold Leaf. I have been putting off popping some beans because a) I want to grow more strains than last year, and b) because by popping them later they wont be quite as big to contend with on my limited balcony space (even though I feel greedy to want them to grow as big a root base as possible so they can hopefully support lots of fat colas).

But last night I decided that the time was now, so I scuffed and pre-soaked 5 seeds, which this morning I've transferred to wetted paper towels and now have them sitting on the warmth of my power amp.

 

[DonkeyDick]

That sounds like a very useful thumbs up for Gold Leaf. I have been putting off popping some beans because a) I want to grow more strains than last year, and b) because by popping them later they wont be quite as big to contend with on my limited balcony space (even though I feel greedy to want them to grow as big a root base as possible so they can hopefully support lots of fat colas).

But last night I decided that the time was now, so I scuffed and pre-soaked 5 seeds, which this morning I've transferred to wetted paper towels and now have them sitting on the warmth of my power amp.

OK yeah, nah. Two things. Power amp? Can you mansplain?
And firstly - come on Koro! You’ve started prenups on germinations?! Put us out of our agony and tell us the strains you’ve gone for?

 

[Stunger]

OK yeah, nah. Two things. Power amp? Can you mansplain?
And firstly - come on Koro! You’ve started prenups on germinations?! Put us out of our agony and tell us the strains you’ve gone for?

My stereo has separate components which sit on a layered stand with an air gap between them so I pop a container with seeds/wet paper towel onto the poweramp (but actually I was wrong) they're sitting on the preamp! Which is what I have done for previous grows, I measured the surface temperature at around 27C, it seems to have worked fine previously.

The 5 strains I have started off and which I'll keep fingers crossed for popping are:
Mexican Sativa
Godfather OG
Grandaddy Purple
Mango Sherbert
CBD Express autoflower (up to 21% CBD)

 

[Emeraldo]

Sounds nice, Em’o ♪♫
Congratulations on your mini harvest!

If an excess of biomass is an issue you can turn what flower you don’t want to smoke or share into rosin and freeze it.

You can then use it for capsules, edibles, oils, all sorts.

Just a thought.

Thanks DD, for the thought. Gold Leaf is curing, in the burping stage. Gold Leaf was an easy and simple harvest.

Am moving from one harvest to the next now. Today I spent about 4 hours harvesting Dream Berry. The buds are just covered with calyxes. Her thick trichomes on the calyxes looked exactly perfectly ripe yesterday evening, just all opaque, cloudy, no clear. I had been waiting for that. It was a difficult harvest because of the many many vertical stems, but I managed to cut, trim, wash and hang them all in the shower to dry. It is a very nice sativa high.

 

[Emeraldo]

That sounds like a very useful thumbs up for Gold Leaf. I have been putting off popping some beans because a) I want to grow more strains than last year, and b) because by popping them later they wont be quite as big to contend with on my limited balcony space (even though I feel greedy to want them to grow as big a root base as possible so they can hopefully support lots of fat colas).

But last night I decided that the time was now, so I scuffed and pre-soaked 5 seeds, which this morning I've transferred to wetted paper towels and now have them sitting on the warmth of my power amp.

Yeah, it's hard to wait. I germinated the four plants (in 15 gal pots) that I let get big in March and they are ripe now in October. I also started another three plants in May (in the 5 gal pots), and they are getting ripe, e.g. Gold Leaf is already harvested, but of course there is less weed. 16 jars of AG vs. 4 jars of GL. It's the perfect way to try a strain out, especially if you don't know whether you want a whole truckload.

 

[Stunger]

I'd be rapt if I could get a few ounces of each strain to jar up and add to the variety of my reserve stash. Next year if we have the house painted I probably wont be able to do a grow (unless it is really hidden amongst the vegetation/hedge which I imagine wont be the greatest for good light). This time last year I had no female photo seeds so I grew out 4 regular photos of which 2 ended up being pulled for being male. So this year with 4 female photos I will have to investigate supercropping/crimping/pinching the growth to try and kept the plants from getting too unwieldy, which I'll be hoping wont cause any of the girls to hermie. I'll have two plants in 13 gallon pots and three in 8 gallon pots.

 

[Emeraldo]

Now that the grow is headed into its last few weeks, I'd like to do my job for a change and document this grow, which has been moving along rapidly into harvest. So the next few posts will comment on the latest stage of flowering, as they are all very close now, a matter of 2 weeks maxium.

I've harvested 3 of the 7 plants, and the grow has taken on another feel. More manageable, lol. But inevitably, this grow is now going to come to a close in a few weeks. The photo below shows White Widow on the far left in the shade at the railing looking west. It's about 3:30 in the afternoon, and WW still didn't have any direct sunlight yet today. Above her, to the right, is G13 x Haze, her cola-branches stretching to the sun, bending out, away from the house to get more sun. On the right, Blackberry, and, on the left Somewhere Over the Raingutter, is der Spitzenreiter et la Corona de Cannabis, Super Lemon Haze by Franco from Greenhouse Seeds, R.I.P.

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• Emeraldo
• Oct 12, 2020

October 12

 

[Stunger]

It seems like only yesterday when you were starting this grow. With all the fires and shitstorms going on in the world at least now you've got most of your buds successfully harvested with the remaining few to shepherd home. They look wonderful, nice heavy sticky colas. It'll be cool to see how you find them all comparatively.

 

[Emeraldo]

Oh yeah, it's a bit early to be making dramatic pronouncements about SLH, which I haven't really had a chance to try. Goes to show I guess I had some expectations about Super Lemon Haze, the comments I read said she would be quite lemon-skunky stinky but not the case here.

So far I've harvested
- Acapulco Gold (Barney's) and enjoyed its hybrid feel, nice head and body buzz
- Dream Berry: good daytime strain
- Gold Leaf, a mostly indica, good for evening use and sleep

I have two stinkers in the grow, Blackberry and SLH. It seems for both of them flowering takes quite a while, though it was predicted for both that they be ready around Oct 15. I don't think that will hold true here, maybe by Oct 25.

Continuing on my late-flowering tour through the remaining 4 strains

Am expecting to harvest White Widow next. She's not looking like the breeder photos, not oozing with resin. But given the microscopic view, she's looking quite close, much cloudy though also some clear still. Her wonderful aroma is getting stronger and heavier, as the buds droop with weight. Seems to take longer than it would if she had had a great amount of sun. This is the effect of the shady side of the balcony, ripening is later and longer. It will get there, with a little more time, another week...

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• Emeraldo
• Oct 12, 2020

White Widow, Oct 12

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• Emeraldo
• Oct 12, 2020

White Widow, Oct 12

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• Emeraldo
• Oct 12, 2020

White Widow, Oct 12

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• Emeraldo
• Oct 12, 2020

White Widow, Oct 12

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• Emeraldo
• Oct 12, 2020

White Widow, Oct 12

 

[Emeraldo]

G13 x Haze was my favorite strain in 2019, so I was happy that one of the seeds germinated this Spring. This is G13, the strain the U.S. Gov't was said to have developed for military use of some kind, which Neville at one point said had been "liberated". Barney crossed her with their Hawaiian Haze. So no wonder the plant threw a silhouette that looks like a pineapple! She's on the shady side of the balcony but has grown upward and outward to get more sun, and has been succesul at that, getting sun most of the day, even now that the sun is lower and the daylight shorter.

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• Emeraldo
• Oct 12, 2020

G13 x Haze, Oct 12

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• Emeraldo
• Oct 12, 2020

G13 x Haze, Oct 12

 

[Emeraldo]

...Please post any preliminary toke test findings on the Gold Leaf.... I have read reviews of folk who really like Gold Leaf so I want to grow it but I may leave it for a another time darn it all!

Gold Leaf has now been curing in the jars for about 10 days. The buds were an easy harvest, they are compact keep their shape even after drying. I ground up two smaller buds and rolled a fat long doobie.

The smoke last night was oddly a bit harsher than the pre-cured smoke we had off the water heater quick-drying. But the effect is immense, so strong, my wife and I were both plastered and had only smoked about 1/4 of a nicely endowed joint. This is the freshest it gets. Aroma is a wonderful citrus, earth, with a spritz of turpentine, a mouthwatering aroma. The heavy buzz does wear off in an hour or so, but if used in the evening, this is a weed that will help you sleep all night long...