Southern's Little Garden Of Health & Healing

Southerncough

Well-Known Member
Greetings and welcome to my humble garden!
It's been a helluva year so I’m going to consider this journal a long winded therapeutic outlet as well as my extraverted self has been in lockdown for so long! Also, my phone case is pretty scratched up so my pics aren't always the best (sorry).

This is my 3rd attempt at a journal and we’ll see if I can keep her going this time!
Background:
5 years ago Mrs Cough was visiting a friend in Seattle and after a long cross country flight was in a world of pain, her friend offered her a MMJ lozenge and she said it was the best night of sleep she had since the injury happened years ago when she was in grad school! From that moment on I promised her that if she stayed away from pain pills that I would give her all of the weed in the world.

(side note: At the time I moonlighted with a transportation company who had several rehab centers as clients and I got to pick up opiate addicts at the airport from all over the world and hear their stories while driving them to rehab and did NOT want her to go down that road!!!)

Well, to my surprise she had quite a tolerance and fulfilling said promise was getting pretty expensive on the black market. Despite a LOT of concerns I was able to convince her that we should try to grow our own and she reluctantly agreed. (She's still not thrilled about the legal risk in our State). So, starting with a minimal investment we dipped our toe in the water with some brick-weed bag seed in a broom closet under CFL lights my humble grow journey began. (I still grow in a small space but am able to produce more than enough with it, so it'll do!)
LOTS of mistakes were made and TONS of knowledge has entered my brain between youtube videos, podcasts and especially this forum. Lots of changes have happened during this time as well from Legal Medical weed in our state (no more meeting "a guy who knows a guy" for our supply LOL), to huge advancements in LED's tech, to severe changes in her health, to a global pandemic AAHH!

My primary objective is to provide a perpetual supply of MMJ for her pain management as well as some fresh produce to limit our outings to the store as our community is getting the 'Rona pretty bad.
Also on the health side she may have to undergo some harsh treatments in the near future that may limit her ability to eat fresh produce from the store, but more on that later.
I've been meaning to start this journal for a while but have only gotten as far as taking some pics throughout. So we'll play catchup along the way.

Here we go!

What strain is it? (Multiple) Northern Lights, Purple Haze (G-13 Labs), Early Afghani, Mango (KC Brains), Pakistan 75 (The Landrace Team), and a White Widow x Big Bud auto
Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? What percentages? mostly hybrids and one pure Indica
Is it in Veg or Flower stage? Veg
If in Veg... For how long? Varies from seedling to almost ready to flower
If in Flower stage... For how long? n/a
Indoor or outdoor? Indoor
If indoor...Dimensions (L x W x D) of grow space? Veg=2x3x5 tent, Bloom= 2x4x6 home made cabinet
Soil or Hydro? Coco
If soil... what is in your mix? Coco + worm poo
If soil... What size pot? varies from 8 oz cup up to 10 gal
Size of light? HLG 100 multiple
Is it aircooled? NA
Temp of Room/cab? average in mid 80's
RH of Room/cab? varies
PH of media or res? don't check
Any Pests ? Have been fighting Spider Mites, White Flies, Springtail, Mealybugs
How often are you watering? Daily as needed
Type and strength of ferts used? Full Dynagro Line per feed chart, Recharge once weekly, Mammoth P in bloom, and Winter Frost at the end.
 
After a tough summer of battling pests and high heat stress I’m feeling optimistic about some new strains and even some old favorites starting over from seed. I have one plant from the summer fiasco that not only survived but is recovering very rapidly. After my last harvest I turned my bloom room into a plant ICU and was able to save one Early Afghani plant. After initial topping She had gotten a bit leggy in a crowded veg tent. Since she was so resilient I decided to wrangle the weird, leggy Afghani into some late LST action that turned out to be kinda stressful on her…at one point I actually split her main stem in two and had to wrap it up in electrical tape in attempt to stop the damage and she took it with stride. Now I’m just goofing off and practicing different training techniques using everything from bamboo stakes, to cotton twine to wire to pipe cleaners and binder clips to twist and turn and pull the branches into a somewhat even canopy and seeing if I can get the lower branches to catch up. Kind of making a net less SCROG so I can pull her out at any time to inspect and treat for pests or even move her if say the landlord is coming by!
She's really starting to fill out the whole cabinet! I'm still trying to decide if I should leave a gap to squeeze in another plant while she's in flower or just say heck with it and take up the whole space...hmm...meanwhile have had a tough time getting clones from her to root but they just may have been too woody and too soon after a heavy nitrogen feeding I have learned.

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Next up is a landrace Indica strain from Pakistan that I'm VERY EXCITED to try out!
Ordered 10 beans and germinated two to start since they're kinda pricey and will pop two at a time until I get a female plant.
I came across a breeder online who was very willing to answer my questions and even make suggestions for strains to best suit my garden and Mrs Cough’s needs.
She’s (supposedly) a "pure Indica" with ancient genetics said to relieve pain sufferers without the foggy-groggy morning-after weed hangover. Hey, I’ll take feeling groggy the morning after weed over a head splitting booze hangover ANY…DAY…(or worse opioid withdraw)

Hoping to get the timing right with veg, sexing, and flowering the plants to produce a nice bouquet of flowers for Mrs Cough come valentines day! LOL. Who said stoners aren’t romantic? LOL

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next up...FOOD! We go through a lot of basil. Was growing it outdoors but the summer really took its toll on our plants between the heat, LOTS of rain, pests, blight, you name it. Now that there have been a lot of recalls on salad greens and such I figured I'd pop some of those seeds I've had laying around too. Why not? We always have tomatoes going outside and probably 50 pineapple plants at any given time that bring us some nummies as well.
I started doing some kratky style passive hydroponic basil in a dollar store shoe box sized tub but learned an important lesson once they took off....basils drink a LOT of water in a growth spurt. I had four rockwool cubes with seedlings in the lid of the tub and they were drinking at a nice little rate and then all of a sudden they exploded with growth...and drank all of the water in the tub in a day! I was able to save some cuttings from the top of the plants but the roots were dried up and gone. Also got really top heavy for the 2" net pots so I may revisit with a lower slower variety, maybe some lettuces?
I picked up an interesting trick from a youtuber who was upcycling his juice bottles into kratky containers so I thought I'd give it a go since I'm tossing 2-4 of those a week. Just saw off the top, paint the bottle black (and go back and paint it white if you want but we're out of white) and use chunks of an old pool noodle as a collar to support the plant. So far so good!
I'm trying a little something of masking a vertical strip down the side of the bottle before painting to leave an unpainted slot to peep on the roots and water level. Figured it wouldn't let enough light in to cause too much trouble?
Whenever I pick a sprig or four of basil, I strip all but the top leaves to cook with and put the rest of the cuttings in my old bubble cloner and they've been rooting super fast! Usually getting root nodes within 36 hours, full white beards of roots within a week. For comparison some of the rooted cuttings have been going into pots of coco, some into the juice bottles, some go into a window sill and some are still under artificial light.

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Here's the failed kratky basil tub...and her rooted cuttings.
I know, the gawd awful blurple LED...the clones dont seem to mind it as much as the camera does!

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Next up...some garden staples around here and Mrs Cough's favorites:
Mango, Northern lights, and purple haze.
Lost a few seedlings to dampening, wasn't there for them during a crazy few work days and they were too hot and too wet, but i was able to start some more and keep them going.
So far so good! Might actually be time to decide how I'm going to grow the purple haze. She's got such a nice squat structure that i kinda want to either top her or let her grow into an xmas tree, or i could quadline...or on the next transplant start bending her sideways and see if her side branches will catch up?
Some of the babies accidentally got a heavy feeding and they were quick to show me that i messed up....STUPID me. Was just feeding away on the larger plants and thought "oh you look thirsty too, spash" then the next day i come back to find some gnarly leaves on them. Fortunately they've for the most part recovered, whew!
I know there's a lot going on in here, but it will even out in a few months and once the jars are stuffed with enough meds to last a while, I'll probably settle into a few strains and only keep clones of the hard to get ones. For example after this i may only run northern lights autos every once in a while because she only uses it right before bed and it's super easy for find NL auto seeds. No dealing with moms, clones, lighting schedules, etc. Just pop one and leave her in the veg tent whereas the other strains she uses all day and cooks with, i will be more on top of, etc.
BUT...we're waiting on some test results that may be quite life altering and put my little garden into full turbo mode to meet whatever the future has in store
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okay, last but not least on the garden roll call is a little White Widow x Big Bud auto that I randomly popped because I have A.D.D. and wanted something fast to play with.
She started out kind of slow, then her leaves got kind of messed up looking (again, probably accidental overfeeding) but coming back around.
I thought I'd try something different which hopefully doesn't backfire on me and put her in a pot from recently harvested plant and shoved her in the tent. I grabbed the stump from the old plant, gave it a few twists and removed it. Then I placed the sprouted seed off to one side with the intention of training her sideways for lots of LST tops from the get go. So, here she is. Thinking once the Afghani fills out I will move the WWxBB into the veg tent and see what happens. Not a lot of high expectations, just playing around with her and maybe there will be some decent product I can toss into some brownies or smoke before cleaning house, etc.

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So tonight I transplanted the Purple Haze and my biggest Northern Lights into some new pots that came in the mail today that have velcro down the side for easier transplanting. Honestly I love using fabric pots but often avoided them because of that reason when the plastic nursery pots are so easy to slip out of....BUT the plants get all root bound.
I was able to carefully shimmy the purple haze out of her old #2 fabric pot and into a new #5. Wow hear root ball looked great! Once both girls were in their new homes I decided to bend them a little and tie to one side and see what happens.
Also mixed in a little worm poo with the new coco and top dressed a little too. Will let them adjust and do some more bending tomorrow! All of the other girls are looking good, added more tie downs to the Afghani and hoping to flip her within the next few weeks.

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After literally a month and a half of attempts I finally found roots on two clones who have been hanging out in the cloner...stubborn little things! Most of the cuttings would start to show nodes or even white blister bits on the stems but never any roots.
Now i feel a little better about flipping the mom into bloom soon.
Did some more bending on purple haze and northern lights. Already starting to show some stretch from the lower branches and its its only been two days! Lettuce and basil are looking great

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Today I checked up to find all doing well in the garden!
Found some spider mites on a cilantro plant so it got tossed and then EVERY living thing got hosed with insecticidal soap. Fingers crossed...still finding occasional white flies but so far have been able to keep them from colonizing. They start flying around when I try to hit them with the soap spray so I found that putting stick traps under the branches works best because they often seem to fly down in a spiral when disturbed, then first thing I do every day is give the stem a good shake and watch them fly down and towards the yellow traps.

Lettuces an herbs doing well, was able to paint 7 more juice bottles this weekend and have some rooted basil cuttings ready to go in this week. Was able to add a coat of white to these so maybe they'll look decent in a window.

Lots of training on the big Afghani and the purple haze and northern lights are doing great.
The baby Pakistani and Mango seedlings are happy and slowly cruising along.

Picked up a cheap 40W LED fixture at an un-named store for giggles and to give the WWxBB auto a little boost.
If she reacts well to it I'll move that plant and light into the little veg tent when it's time to flip the bloom room.

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Tonight was more training on the big Afghan girl, lots of little shoots trying to pop out and still a few holes in the canopy i want to fill but she's getting really close! Northern lights and purple haze are responding really well to their training and soon their side branches will be getting tied down to start the spread and stretch! Very fun time. The baby mango and Pakistani seedlings are just sooo cute with their chubby little leaves!!
Also, i have gary the gecko working on the pest control. Gotta say these guys were a pain when i was trying to vermicompost and they ate all of my worms, but now they're welcome to eat ANY bugs they find near the plants!

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more training on the purple haze and northern lights with the addition of some pipe cleaners tied to the now stretched lower limbs! Getting exciting!
Meanwhile my salad and herbs are doing well. The juice bottle experiment is going pretty well, though I think I lost my sage plant. Oh well, time to start some more seeds!
The Afghani is still filling out and I really gotta stay on top of these darn white flies! Still finding individuals here and there...going to spray them down with neem oil soon and maybe some more insecticidal soap.
I have some baby garlic plants I sprouted from some extra cloves I had laying around. Maybe they'll help repel bugs? Hmmm.

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Wow this afghani is really coming along! Won't be long now!
Only about 4 open spots in the canopy about the size of my hand, well the biggest could probably fit 2 hands...
Anyhow, i started using the cotton twine when i ran out of pipe cleaners a while back and the dollar store didn't have any at the time and have really enjoyed being able to adjust the tension on the branches using my favorite sliding boy scout knot, the "double half hitch".
Now i can tighten up branches that are pulling up and i can add slack to the lines to slide the loop further up the branch (to pull down the newer growth) and then tighten up the line again to keep training the branches.
The little WW auto is putting out some cute little buds with a little frost on them already. Awww. I don't know how much she's going to yield but i don't really care, have had a lot of fun training her and watching her go. Should be done by mid January +/-

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Tonight I found gary the gecko back on bug patrol with the bubble cloner. Good boy!
Tied down some more branches on the LST purple haze and northern lights girls.

The Pakistani and mango babies are doing well. Not the fastest growth but very happy and healthy so far.

And then...after some head scratching and a few bong hits i figured out a way to train some of the afghani's outer branches down instead of pulling them back towards the pot (since the canopy reaches way past the rim)
I created a cantilevered bridge thingy by placing a bamboo stake horizontally across the fork in her stem. Next i secured the bamboo to the pot at each end with pipe cleaners.
From there i could anchor the outside branches straight down to the bamboo extension below and it worked perfectly!!
I've been trying very hard not to trellis her or anchor her to anything outside the pot so i could pull her out easily to inspect and treat for pests, etc.
She's getting very close to flower time!

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Tonight I found gary the gecko back on bug patrol with the bubble cloner. Good boy!
Tied down some more branches on the LST purple haze and northern lights girls.

The Pakistani and mango babies are doing well. Not the fastest growth but very happy and healthy so far.

And then...after some head scratching and a few bong hits i figured out a way to train some of the afghani's outer branches down instead of pulling them back towards the pot (since the canopy reaches way past the rim)
I created a cantilevered bridge thingy by placing a bamboo stake horizontally across the fork in her stem. Next i secured the bamboo to the pot at each end with pipe cleaners.
From there i could anchor the outside branches straight down to the bamboo extension below and it worked perfectly!!
I've been trying very hard not to trellis her or anchor her to anything outside the pot so i could pull her out easily to inspect and treat for pests, etc.
She's getting very close to flower time!

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That’s awesome do you set him free in there on your own!!? Haha was actually going to try ordering some Venus fly trap seeds to see if they would keep the gardens at bay with fly’s!! I always put frogs and tree frogs in my outdoor garden but I normally just grow the regular crops outside that don’t get smoked lol!
 
That’s awesome do you set him free in there on your own!!? Haha was actually going to try ordering some Venus fly trap seeds to see if they would keep the gardens at bay with fly’s!! I always put frogs and tree frogs in my outdoor garden but I normally just grow the regular crops outside that don’t get smoked lol!
Where we live the geckos invite themselves in. I've found them behind cereal boxes, shampoo bottles, paintings, on the ceiling, on the walls, in the garage!
Right now the cloner isn't in a tent, just sitting on a shelf in the garage and the light has been drawing moths, which have drawn gary LOL
 
Where we live the geckos invite themselves in. I've found them behind cereal boxes, shampoo bottles, paintings, on the ceiling, on the walls, in the garage!
Right now the cloner isn't in a tent, just sitting on a shelf in the garage and the light has been drawing moths, which have drawn gary LOL
That’s exotic my friend! I have more deer running around than ants here!
 
It was also 82° today!
We don't really have "seasons" just summer and diet summer LOL
See I’m not used to that kind of stuff lol!! Right now it’s 30 degrees out lmao! But honestly I love winters I have them Moto months and then I have my snowboard days to get me out of funks I tend to get into!
 
Tonight I figured I'd break in this new fangled silicone pipe thingy (that the guy at the local headshop talked me into trying) and get my mind right for some non-weed transplanting. One of my potted aloes sprouted a pup that I wanted to give its own home as well as a few root bound cilantros.
Also, preparing for the veggie shelf to make room for more plants and hung an extra cheap LED bars that I had laying around. My goal is to eventually phase most of them out of my grow and replace with nice QB's in the veg room. In the meanwhile they still work GREAT for clones and seedlings.

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