Hello fellow herbalists,
I am the mighty n00b known as Dank Gorilla.
I am attempting to start this grow journal to document my growing experiences for a reference for myself in the future and others.
As of today (Aug. 20, 2012) I am in the middle of my 2nd grow, Both outdoor in Northern California.
I had a great season last year (IMHO) and really enjoyed every aspect of the growing process. I'm not sure how much total weight I got last time but it was a crazy amount. I started the previous season with 6 outdoor plants, keeping in compliance with local laws, and I ended up harvesting 5...really only 4 as I had some issues with one of the plants toward the end. All plants last season were clones I picked up at a medical co-op.
Blueberry
Chocolope
Pre 99 Bubba Kush
Lavender
Purple Erkle
Green Thai Dragon
Looking at them now, I'm remembering that I chose some of my favorites that I had smoked in the past, I really had no idea what I was doing and was just picking from smoker memories from the past. I didn't take into account strain, indica/ sativa amounts for height or really anything. I asked the guy at the counter what his favorite of the bunch was and he chose the chocolope. In hindsight I owe that dude, Chocolope became my all time favorite smoke. Anywho a quick fast forward of months of truly falling in love with the process of watching my ladies grow into themselves and I ended with 8-1 gallon glass jars of sweet, herbal goodness that lasted me and the wife 7-8 months.
We ended up with 4 full jars from the Green Thai Dragon, this plant was amazing.
Like I mentioned before, this was only my first grow so I decided to be pretty hands off. I planted everything in some large half wine barrels I had around and pretty much used only EarthJuice GROW, fish emulation and a few rounds of pre made tea from the hydro store during all of the veg period and then switched to EarthJuice BLOOM for the flower period. I didn't use any type of training as I was scared and was really enjoying studying how the plants reacted to things on their own. This made for some pretty anxious feelings toward harvest when my dragon started hitting the 14 foot tall mark! Like I said, she was amazing.
I lost the Lavender plant pretty early on when one of my chickens decided to dig it up and eat the wormlike roots out of the rock wool. Down to 5. My wife came in teary eyed one day close to harvest when our garden hose sprung a leak and literally spray/cut the Pre 99 Bubba into shreds. This totally wasn't her fault, the pressure from the water coming out of such a small cut in the hose turned the stream of water into a lazer beam, the poor little Bubba was like a foot away, receiving the full force of the blast.. She never stood a chance. She was drenched and pitiful, I cut away a HUGE portion of wrecked flowers and did my best to dry the rest off, I ended up pulling about 4 ounces off her in the end but they had almost no buzz, tasted a bit minty but that's about it. I was super bummed about that one. The purple Erkle didn't perform to her best standards as she was in the worst spot of the bunch, very low light amounts gave me airy popcorn buds and me playing favorite with the feeding amounts for the bigger plants didn't help either.
Purp endded up giving me 8-10 ounces of some pretty good herb whose taste made me wish I had paid more attention to her. I'm sure givin the right light and a fair amount of food she would have performed better.
My successes were my Bluberry, the Chocolope and the Green Thai Dragon. All three of these produced well and offered up some excellent medicine. The blueberry was nice and sweet, strong buzz and my third best producer.
The Dragon was an amazing beast of a plant, producing like a machine. Peppery/ spicey flavor, very strong odor..again peppery and very strong buzz. Great painkiller. The Chocolope produced ok, but the flavor and smell were amazing. I have lived in nor cal and been smoking my whole adult life and I just absolutely loved this herb. Can't wait to grow her again.
So that was last year. I will try and find some pics to post from that grow.
This season I am growing 12 ( still compliant) clones outdoors in 30 gallon white aeropots.
Same as last year I am sticking with EarthJuice GROW/BLOOM. I am NOT using pure fish emultion because I was told it was not needed in a soil only grow, at least not the way I was using before. I am also using Earthjuice CATALYST throughout the entire grow...again I am using a nute tea from the hydro store biweekly. I know the tea has fish emultion, humus, molasses, castings, kelp, rooting enzymes..etc..
Do to some local government fuckery the local co-ops were shut down and I wasn't able to acquire the Green Thai Dragon clones or the Chocolope clones I had wanted to include again this year. Through a friend I was able to get a fairly good selection this year. I am doing 3 each:
Grape Ape
Blueberry Headband
Sour Diesel
Candy Kush
So far this year I am all about training. After witnessing how strong these plants do outdoor I was not scared to whip those ladies into shape this time around. I lollipopped (removed all lower branches to allow energy to focus on the upper canopy development and to get air to the under canopy) for the first time this year and i will never skip this step again, i could almost hear the girls thanking me after i did it. I have been using combos of Low Stress Training early on in their life, I topped all of them multiple times, split my kolas 4-5 times each and have been super cropping like crazy. All good things, don't be scared.
Not only did these techniques work well, the ladies seemed to really appreciate it, responding very quickly to each one. These methods have produced some bulky, full monsters this year and rather than being an unmanageable 14 feet are clocking in at a girthy 8-10 feet. I am very pleased with their progress so far this year. I just switched to their first bloom feeding this week and giving a half does of veg mix for the next 2 weeks combined with the bloom to taper off the nitro loss. I will also post some pics from this year soon. The Candy Kushs' are the big dogs so far this year.
I will post again soon....
Dank Gorilla[/QUOTE]
I am the mighty n00b known as Dank Gorilla.
I am attempting to start this grow journal to document my growing experiences for a reference for myself in the future and others.
As of today (Aug. 20, 2012) I am in the middle of my 2nd grow, Both outdoor in Northern California.
I had a great season last year (IMHO) and really enjoyed every aspect of the growing process. I'm not sure how much total weight I got last time but it was a crazy amount. I started the previous season with 6 outdoor plants, keeping in compliance with local laws, and I ended up harvesting 5...really only 4 as I had some issues with one of the plants toward the end. All plants last season were clones I picked up at a medical co-op.
Blueberry
Chocolope
Pre 99 Bubba Kush
Lavender
Purple Erkle
Green Thai Dragon
Looking at them now, I'm remembering that I chose some of my favorites that I had smoked in the past, I really had no idea what I was doing and was just picking from smoker memories from the past. I didn't take into account strain, indica/ sativa amounts for height or really anything. I asked the guy at the counter what his favorite of the bunch was and he chose the chocolope. In hindsight I owe that dude, Chocolope became my all time favorite smoke. Anywho a quick fast forward of months of truly falling in love with the process of watching my ladies grow into themselves and I ended with 8-1 gallon glass jars of sweet, herbal goodness that lasted me and the wife 7-8 months.
We ended up with 4 full jars from the Green Thai Dragon, this plant was amazing.
Like I mentioned before, this was only my first grow so I decided to be pretty hands off. I planted everything in some large half wine barrels I had around and pretty much used only EarthJuice GROW, fish emulation and a few rounds of pre made tea from the hydro store during all of the veg period and then switched to EarthJuice BLOOM for the flower period. I didn't use any type of training as I was scared and was really enjoying studying how the plants reacted to things on their own. This made for some pretty anxious feelings toward harvest when my dragon started hitting the 14 foot tall mark! Like I said, she was amazing.
I lost the Lavender plant pretty early on when one of my chickens decided to dig it up and eat the wormlike roots out of the rock wool. Down to 5. My wife came in teary eyed one day close to harvest when our garden hose sprung a leak and literally spray/cut the Pre 99 Bubba into shreds. This totally wasn't her fault, the pressure from the water coming out of such a small cut in the hose turned the stream of water into a lazer beam, the poor little Bubba was like a foot away, receiving the full force of the blast.. She never stood a chance. She was drenched and pitiful, I cut away a HUGE portion of wrecked flowers and did my best to dry the rest off, I ended up pulling about 4 ounces off her in the end but they had almost no buzz, tasted a bit minty but that's about it. I was super bummed about that one. The purple Erkle didn't perform to her best standards as she was in the worst spot of the bunch, very low light amounts gave me airy popcorn buds and me playing favorite with the feeding amounts for the bigger plants didn't help either.
Purp endded up giving me 8-10 ounces of some pretty good herb whose taste made me wish I had paid more attention to her. I'm sure givin the right light and a fair amount of food she would have performed better.
My successes were my Bluberry, the Chocolope and the Green Thai Dragon. All three of these produced well and offered up some excellent medicine. The blueberry was nice and sweet, strong buzz and my third best producer.
The Dragon was an amazing beast of a plant, producing like a machine. Peppery/ spicey flavor, very strong odor..again peppery and very strong buzz. Great painkiller. The Chocolope produced ok, but the flavor and smell were amazing. I have lived in nor cal and been smoking my whole adult life and I just absolutely loved this herb. Can't wait to grow her again.
So that was last year. I will try and find some pics to post from that grow.
This season I am growing 12 ( still compliant) clones outdoors in 30 gallon white aeropots.
Same as last year I am sticking with EarthJuice GROW/BLOOM. I am NOT using pure fish emultion because I was told it was not needed in a soil only grow, at least not the way I was using before. I am also using Earthjuice CATALYST throughout the entire grow...again I am using a nute tea from the hydro store biweekly. I know the tea has fish emultion, humus, molasses, castings, kelp, rooting enzymes..etc..
Do to some local government fuckery the local co-ops were shut down and I wasn't able to acquire the Green Thai Dragon clones or the Chocolope clones I had wanted to include again this year. Through a friend I was able to get a fairly good selection this year. I am doing 3 each:
Grape Ape
Blueberry Headband
Sour Diesel
Candy Kush
So far this year I am all about training. After witnessing how strong these plants do outdoor I was not scared to whip those ladies into shape this time around. I lollipopped (removed all lower branches to allow energy to focus on the upper canopy development and to get air to the under canopy) for the first time this year and i will never skip this step again, i could almost hear the girls thanking me after i did it. I have been using combos of Low Stress Training early on in their life, I topped all of them multiple times, split my kolas 4-5 times each and have been super cropping like crazy. All good things, don't be scared.
Not only did these techniques work well, the ladies seemed to really appreciate it, responding very quickly to each one. These methods have produced some bulky, full monsters this year and rather than being an unmanageable 14 feet are clocking in at a girthy 8-10 feet. I am very pleased with their progress so far this year. I just switched to their first bloom feeding this week and giving a half does of veg mix for the next 2 weeks combined with the bloom to taper off the nitro loss. I will also post some pics from this year soon. The Candy Kushs' are the big dogs so far this year.
I will post again soon....
Dank Gorilla[/QUOTE]
