Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

[Barry Manilow]

Greetings and welcome to my second grow. I hope it's better than my first one, that won't be too hard to do. I've been going at it since March and still haven't produced anything worth talking about.

However I think I've learned enough and made enough mistakes to have confidence this time around.

If there's a way to screw something up I can usually find it, so this grow is for those who like to keep things simple.

Hempy is a funny name, it doesn't in any way describe the method. What you do is get a bucket, drill a pencil-sized hole in the side 2 inches from the bottom, fill it with perlite (coarser is better) and grow some damn plants. Even I can do that. No expensive soils, no soil problems, no worries about over or under watering - you can't overwater with hempy. One of the posters I most respect on this site, DocBud, lays it all out with input from lots of other great growers here:

Hempy Thread

I'm not saying it's better than soil, most agree that great organic soil produces the most exquisite buds, but it sure is easier and it works.

For nutes I'm using Osmocote Plus (OC+), a controlled release fert (CRF) made by Scotts. There's lots of info on that product here.

You mix it into the soil before you plant. Then you water as needed. That's it! Again something I think I can handle. There is one thing to watch, if your water has high alkalinity you may need to ph it down. I'm just using captured rainwater which is about 6.8 in these parts. I bought about 5 years worth from Ace Hardware for $20.

I really like the OC+ because it gives your plants what they need when they need it. I did some horrible things to my girls during the first grow. Thinking that I should try to maximize their nutes to get bigger buds I'd cross the line with really unpleasant results. One of my 3 remaining plants is on life support as we speak.

CFL's are well known around these parts, not much to say about them except I mainly use the 26W (100 equiv) size, mostly 6500K for veg and 2700K for flower like everyone else. They definitely work.

I'm pressed for time right now, but I currently have one plant about a month old in hempy and doing great, sex unknown. I have 14 bagseeds from my first grow in soil now. The above plant is the only one to emerge from the first 30 seeds I tried so I don't expect much from them. But I also have 3 more femmed seeds now germinating - Bubba Kush from Green House, AK-48 from Nirvana, and a strain who's name can't be used on this site from Barney's Farm. I'll call her Leary in honor of Timothy Leary so you can probably guess the strain.

 

[Barry Manilow]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

I'm using Sunshine Coarse grade perlite. I found it at an organic nursery for about $17 for, I think, 3 cubic feet. It's a massive bag. I sifted it to get rid of the smaller pieces and dust. Then I filled the 5 gal bucket with it, mixed in a handful of OC+ and soaked it.

The bucket is probably larger than I need but I have a bunch of them. I didn't have OC+ at the time so I used OC indoor/outdoor. It's got the Nitrogen-Potassium-Phosphorus but not all the supplemental nutes that OC+ has and that our plants need. When the OC+ arrived I mixed that in too, but all in one place since the plant was already there.

Ok so the bucket is all set for the plant, which I had been growing for almost a month in soil. And she was just left outside without a lot of sun, only 4 1/2" tall with 4 nodes. I removed her from the soil and gently brushed off what dirt I could, it mostly all came off easily. I dug a hole in the perlite deep enough to take her roots, probably 6-7 inches, put her in and filled around her. That was on 9/29... here she was:

 

[Barry Manilow]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

I call the plant 'she' but I don't know if she is, hopefully so. She's been under a 26W 6500K light since then... 12/12 until yesterday now it's 16/8. She's grown a few inches and looks fine but I'm not sure if her roots have hit the res yet. She hasn't exploded like others say they do.

That's one reason to not have so big a bucket, you want their roots to reach the res asap. In the meantime I keep her watered.

I break out the watering can and give her about a gallon. She then pees out the hole for a while. That's it as far as maintenance of a hempy plant goes until you need to water again. You just lift the pot and when it feels lite in a few days its time to water again. If you water more often you won't hurt anything.

 

[Barry Manilow]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

I have the 3 good seeds and the 6 most promising bag seeds in mini-hempy cups. They'll stay there until they're big enough to transplant, DocBud says 6-7 nodes. You want a mini-hempy first so the roots hit the res soon after germinating.

These are 16 (20?) oz plastic cups with a hole about an inch from the bottom. The bottom half is all perlite. Then a 50/50 mix of soil and perlite, with about 1/4" of soil on top. Each cup probably has about 10 prills of OC+ mixed in. Then I put the pre-soaked seeds into the soil and covered them over. They're now sitting under a light waiting to sprout (I hope!)

You need about 1.5 tablespoons per gallon of medium. I just mix it around. The most important thing is that it's all placed ABOVE the hole.

 

[Barry Manilow]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

I panicked during my grow this summer and pulled 6 of my 9 plants early. One of them had quite a few seeds, which are what I'm trying to germ. Most of them are immature I fear.

6 sank during the soak, I put them in the mini-h's. These 8 didn't so I just stuck them in some soil. I doubt any will germ.

Lousy pic but they're in one of those cardboard seed starters they sell everywhere.

 

[Barry Manilow]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

I got these trash cans on close-out for 3 bucks each. They're 6 gal, which is more than I wanted, but otherwise I like the shape of them to pack the most plants under my lights. I may cut them down, have a few weeks to think about it.

They're rectangular, not sure if you can tell in the pic.

Not much to do now but hope my seeds sprout and that this one turns out to be a female.

 

[wifecaretaker]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

Cool another DocBud follower. Im also doing a 12/12 oc+ grow. Just started the journal and seeds tonight. Cant belive i spent so much time mixing foxfarm nutes and throwing money away. Ill be checking in on how ur doing. Sure hope we can get similar results like Docs.

WCT

 

[Doc Bud]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

Lookin Good!
Just remember to keep watering around the base of the plant so that perlite stays nice and moist. You may have to water 3 times a day to make sure that happens....but rest assured, the roots are headed down at a furious pace.

when they hit the bottom, it's like someone turned on the switch. Be patient till then.

also, make sure they're getting nutes. It might be kinda tough till the roots make it down there....could be 10 days to 2 weeks in a large bucket like that. If you have any more of that Fox Farms Grow Big, you might consider using a bit of it.

Just be very patient, make sure the plant has enough water in the upper layers of perlite....and it's gonna happen.

 

[Barry Manilow]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

Cool another DocBud follower. Im also doing a 12/12 oc+ grow. Just started the journal and seeds tonight. Cant belive i spent so much time mixing foxfarm nutes and throwing money away. Ill be checking in on how ur doing. Sure hope we can get similar results like Docs.

WCT

Thanks for stopping by WCT! I was looking for your hempy grow earlier, I'll definitely be stopping by. I hope we can grow Buds like Doc did too.

 

[Barry Manilow]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

Lookin Good!
Just remember to keep watering around the base of the plant so that perlite stays nice and moist. You may have to water 3 times a day to make sure that happens....but rest assured, the roots are headed down at a furious pace.

when they hit the bottom, it's like someone turned on the switch. Be patient till then.

also, make sure they're getting nutes. It might be kinda tough till the roots make it down there....could be 10 days to 2 weeks in a large bucket like that. If you have any more of that Fox Farms Grow Big, you might consider using a bit of it.

Just be very patient, make sure the plant has enough water in the upper layers of perlite....and it's gonna happen.

Thanks Doc! I was thinking she looks like she needs more water too, I'll step it up. She's not as dark green below but all the new growth is a deep lush green. Do you think the prills have started releasing ferts yet? I'll give her a diluted shot of nutes too.

I think I'm going to cut down the containers that I got for the new plants. I'd like to be about 4 gals, not 6.

I also forgot credit you for the germination and mini-hempy techniques spelled out in your MK-Ultra thread.

I'm really excited about this grow. I can't wait to get some sprouts, knock on wood!

 

[Barry Manilow]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

No new seedlings this morning I hope some pop today. It's nice and warm and moist.

I'm calling my new plant Sammie. Hope she doesn't end up as a Sam.

She's almost 7" tall now so it's time for some training.

Here she is, blissfully unaware of my plans for her.

The anchor string. Doubled up and not tight at all, the purpose is just to help her stem stay in place.

Bend over honey. Don't push it too hard, you can always come back later and tie it a little tighter. I just bend her gently until she starts resisting and tie her off. This was about 9:30am. She'll be righting herself very quickly.

And here she is back under the light.

Here's a better shot of the trash cans I bought. I'm going to fill one with 4 gals of water and cut it down to size.

 

[wifecaretaker]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

Nice looking LST job. Does that white bucket have any soil? Again nice work

 

[Barry Manilow]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

Thanks my friend. It's 100% perlite. Are you doing a soil mix on top?

 

[wifecaretaker]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

going to go hempy for seedlings then its off to FFOF and perlite mix. The red cups get half and half. bottom perlite,top soil. I havent had any seedling pop yet, only been a day though. going to wait until sunday and plant if cracked or not. we are both at the same pace. going to be great following You and Doc. Are you going to breed some seeds? im thinging about it. cant afford seed bank prices. Ill post tomorrow and check up on you. have a good night.

 

[Barry Manilow]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

I'd like to breed some seeds, but I need a male from this bagseed to cross with the high-priced women.

 

[Barry Manilow]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

Took this pic yesterday about 7 hrs after the lst, you can see how she's turned back up towards the light.

 

[Barry Manilow]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

Congrats to me I'm a new daddy

My Leary plant, aka Blot, has reared her head from the soil. I christen her Lucy. So Lucy Blot she is. Of all my seeds that's the one I most wanted to grow, so even if nothing else comes up I'll be happy.... kinda.

 

[Barry Manilow]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

Tonight the Bubba Kush has broken soil. Now I'm officially psyched.

Hope the AK-48 shows tomorrow and maybe a few of the bagseeds. 3 plants now and counting.

At the hydro store I bought a package of 50 Root Shooters. Has anyone used them?

I just saw on the package that it's for seeds and clones... duh. I'll try it on future seeds, but I also want to try cloning these plants.

 

[poker shark]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

Nice looking plant BD, and congrats on Blot too!

 

[OldMedMan]

re: Hempy - OC+ - CFLs & 3 Good Seeds

Hey Blue! Just caught up with this one. Looking good on all counts. By the way you have the Guru of Hempy helping you. There is no finer than DocBud! You are in great hands. You've got some very good strains going. Sure glad Lucy in the sky popped....better known as Blot!