AKGramma's Perpetual Grow

Yeah, another grower in Alaska mentioned what his cost per kWh is for electricity. I do not recall the exact amount, but it was crazy high. Me, I get nervous realizing that I won't see another $30 electric bill while the (grow) lights are on, lol.

I've always been a fan of deeper (than they are wide) containers for anything other than DWC hydroponic setups (for those, well... a 23-gallon container that's deeper than it is wide just wouldn't be feasible unless I parked it at the bottom of my stairway). I suppose much of that is just personal taste, but I think unrestricted depth during early development is good for encouraging a higher ratio of females.

Lol at your plant being in a hurry. Mine seem like they would be perfectly content to develop at the same rate that homo sapien does :rolleyes3 . But they're not autos and I have not tried to rush them.

Six weeks to two months? Speaking of not rushing things... Did I read that you scraped the stem? Throw in some mychos, maybe flood the container occasionally (yes, I know, if it stays flooded, the stem could rot - and with no roots sucking up moisture it will stay wet longer, but a flood and drain cycle might encourage rooting). Or try that with a second branch, IDK. Maybe even combine the flood cycles with an extra dry mother plant/container? So that it is "seeking" water at the time that you provide it in the cup. I'm just thinking out lo-- err... with my fingers.

Good idea locating the cup within the main pot. It might interfere with my idea of encouraging the plant to find moisture in the cup, though. Hmm...

It does seem unusual that your traditional cloning methods only give you a 1 in 10 success rate. That's really an area that I pretty much quit spending money on even before I got poor - it might have been worth it to shave a little time off the process, but I was no longer selling, so I did not require large numbers regularly. For just a few once in a while, I usually get by with (basically) just a cup, lol. And... I sure hope I haven't just jinxed myself. If I needed 16 to 36 clones per week, every week - and rooted in a week - I'd put together another aerated "floater" or an aeroponic unit (although the water that comes out of my faucet would probably clog a set of fogger nozzles in short order). In some ways, I like to treat cannabis like any (okay, most) other houseplant... and taking/rooting cuttings is one of those ways. If I end up doing it this Winter though... Well, Winter in my house is NOT conducive to such things, since the only warm spot here will almost certainly be in the grow tent. I suppose I could figure out who talked me out of my heating pad, lol. It's funny that you live well north of me - in Alaska(!) - and your home probably stays warmer than mine in the Winter. That reminds me - longjohns. There's always something to buy, doggone it, and it never seems to be for the grow room. Oh well. I should have bought a set or two of those last Spring when I realized the ones I had weren't really up to another Winter. But it's like the roof after the rain stops, I suppose - it's still important, but it has suddenly moved several spots down on the list.

I suppose I could stick a CFL in my oven - instant clone box ;) . It's always warm and moist in there because that pilot will NEVER again go out if I can possibly avoid it. Was a lengthy fight to get that SoB permanently lit, involved the propane torch and... some singing of hair. But I like to use the oven for cooking once in a while when it's cold in here, so IDK.

Maybe people who talk about one's attitude being important for success are not all full of... ah... anyway, I just sort of assume that cuttings will root. I don't really think about it. It's like assuming a car will start when you turn the key. Maybe that's a bad example (for me).

I forgot to mention, yesterday I was getting ready to leave and couldn't find one of my cats anywhere. Sometimes the other one likes to hang out near the plants (he hasn't messed with them since they became too big to swallow, so I don't generally pay much attention). I walked to the plants, turned off the big old oscillating fan, looked around, went to another part of the house, kept searching... Realized that I'd forgotten to turn the fan back on, so I went back in there and thought, "I must be losing my mind, I turned the fan back on." I got about ten feet and realized that I hadn't actually heard the fan - I had only seen one of the plants move like it does when the fan head swings to point at it. I walked back in and that little sh!t was somehow curled up on the soil in the pot! Could have been worse, lol - it hadn't just buried a present in it. But still. Removing the cat was like pulling teeth. I hope there was no claw-related damage. I forgot to check when I got home. Mom was having a bad time (kidney stone on top of the usual) and I wasn't walking too good, so I just pretty much parked the carcass afterwards. I'll have to look tomorrow (today). Probably have a cat stuck to it again :rolleyes3 . I guess I'll have to go through the old cat training process. Which, if past history is anything to go on, will end up with me moving the food and water dishes into the grow area <SIGH> . Cats: ya can't live with 'em - and there's no white meat on the things.
 
LOL, TS! Great story about the cat. It must be a strain that cats like, to want to sleep in the pot. I have mine trained. When I make a hissing sound, he KNOWS he shouldn't be in the grow room, and exits promptly. He just chews on the leaves, then upchucks it for me to clean up.

Moving a cat is easy. squirt him with the misting bottle set on stream. Mine flinches whenever I pick one up. :laughtwo: Comes from years of trying to break him of clawing the furniture or eating the spider plant. (Note: I said TRYING)

As for cloning, I've tried soil, perlite, water in a glass, and the float technique, and the only time I get rooted clones is in early Spring. So out of desperation, and with winter rapidly coming on, the only option open to me is soil layering. I know it works well outdoors, because nature does it all the time with the False Spirea bush I have in the front lawn. Works well with lilac bushes, too. The trick is to replicate the conditions in the mother pot. And that takes time.

I DID try air-layering once, but it was a half-assed job and it didn't take.

The oven sounds like a good option. Just take out the clones and the light when you need to decarb, or actually bake something in there. They'll be fine for the time it takes for the oven to cool down again. I store pots, pans, and baking pans in mine. I cook as little as possible these days. Too much standing on really bad knees.

I'm going to try and find time to up-pot a couple of the mystery Sativas I have, and tuck them in the back of the unit for the long haul. I only need to spray them now and then for mites and do a bit of grooming and LST to keep them in check. My sativas always seemed to be heavy feeders, so I can't forget the weekly nutes. :MoreNutes:

I probably should grow them separately from the indicas and hybrids, since they require a different regiment.

Re electricity prices in Alaska: Yes, they are very high, esp in areas not connected to civilization by a road. The state is HUGE and there are many remote pockets of humanity tucked here and there. So producing electricity is VERY expensive. Oil and gasoline are very expensive to fly into those areas, to run the generators that make electricity. I imagine our friend in Barrow has to sell to be able to afford it.
 
I guess it'll be even more expensive when the permafrost melts and everyone has to build on floats. It looks like we won't be around to see it, I saw estimates of 2070 - 2080 a year or two ago (but IDK if that took into account the likely huge amounts of methane locked up in it that'll get released and speed the process).

I was (eh... more or less) joking about the oven. I walk everywhere, but the legs are getting worse all the time. I have good days where they just hurt - and lots of those still, I guess - but bad ones where walking is more like hobbling. You come through the kitchen door after telling yourself over and over you're going to treat yourself to supper for the walk, lol... Turn on the oven to preheat, get the stuff in the refrigerator/freezer - and an hour later when you manage to get back to the kitchen, the oven is still on. A couple of times last Winter I found myself thinking, "Hey, it's warming up outside, cool. Oh sh*t, the oven is on!" I've baked seeds - and seedlings that way before. Those "peat trays," six or eight compartments for seedlings? Yeah, they really stink when they attain several hundred degrees. Smoke, too (I guess you'll have that when you open the oven and find something smoldering in it :rolleyes3 ) . But at least they don't melt like those plastic ones.

I'm better at using the oven for germination in the warmer months when that's about all I use it for, lol.

My "sativas" ... aren't. The Jack Herer is supposed to be 50%, and it might be; I've seen other hybrids that looked this civilized. But the Kali Mist is listed at 90% and when I grew it last the internodal spacing was much more spread out. But that was pre-2000 and it was changed a couple of times since then, I think. Maybe it won't flower for 14 weeks this time, though. I... guess that's good. I miss my sativas! I was lamenting that right before I shut down and went to sleep. Too much greed in the world - why plant acres of landrace sativas when you can order a sack of "improved" seeds and triple your production/profit? <SIGH> . I wish I had saved all those tiny little seeds I cleaned out of bought bud on double album covers back in the day. If I had to go through 200 of them to get one to sprout, well... I'd be ahead.[/RANT]

Have you ever tried tip layering with cannabis? Where you dig a hole 2" to 4" deep, stick a growing tip into it, and fill the hole back in? The tip will first start to grow downward, then make a U-turn and grow up through the soil - and roots grow from the bend. Advantage is that by the time you see the tip grow out and up far enough to produce pair or two of nodes, you know roots are in the ground. I think it should work with cannabis, but have never tried it. (Works with berry bushes, though.)

With air layering... It really works best if the wound site can get oxygen. But then it could dry out. It's kind of a balance, I guess. What did you use for a medium, damp sphagnum moss?

Ground layering is cool because you should be able to do a compound version, too - using a long flexible branch that you can bend into a "multiple-S" configuration with at least one pair of nodes above ground in between each. Wound the bottom of every underground section and you can end up with a set of rooted clones.

So many ways to skin a cat - but there's still no white meat on them ;) (I bet even a jaguar would still taste better than a coyote, though.) Lol, my cats are probably thinking, "Yeah, right. We'll get hungry before you will - and there are TWO of us." I tried that hissing thing the other day... one of them started purring and walked over to get petted, and I think the other one might be somewhat deaf. Most of the time when he "meows," there isn't actually any noise. Once in a great while, he'll make a noise but IDK if you could call it a meow. It's his "emergency" notification - and it works! But he's the one that showed up bleeding to death, dragging most of his tail and looking like someone had kicked him hard enough to break his hip - a few weeks after he appeared to have gotten all of his whiskers ripped out. So maybe he isn't deaf but has just learned to be very... very... quiet. IDK. Pets, friends, and women - all mine have been misfits <SIGH> .
 
I noticed a lot more node spacing when I grew my sativa-heavy OGKs, last year, but then I only had CFLs. I am seeing better balanced sativas among my mystery plants, (which I just today up-potted to the 3 gallon trash bins), now that I have 2 Mars 300's in each unit.

The AK 48's are so tightly packed, that there ARE no stems! I got those to replace my OGK's, because the AK 48 has the same kind of high and percentage of sativa/Indica that the OGKs had. They smell better, too! LOL! I expect when I up-pot them, they will stretch out more. I LOVE those thick, wrinkly leaves!

But, yes, Sativas do tend to be lanky. They do well when pinched and LST'd heavily early on. Mine stayed about 18" tall and 30" wide, with miniature leaves, in 1 gallon pots, but they gave good smoke. I'll get a lot better harvest out of them now that I've learned more about light and nutes. With the better lighting and bigger bins, I should see good leaf development and better harvest.

When I soil-layered the branches of the BBL, I only had about an inch of the tip poking out of the soil, The branches aren't flexible enough for a double loop. I had to bend them gradually, LSTing them as far as they would go each time, until I got them below the lip of the bin. You cant do it all at once, or they will break. And it helps a lot if you bend them when they are thirsty and somewhat limp and anchor them down good, or they will pop right back up when u water them.

I noticed that capsules made from a mix of leaves, trim and bud really help knock the arthritis pain down a few notches. So far, my recipe hasn't made me high, cause i make the cannabudder with coconut oil, and strain it as usual, but I only cook it for a few hours before straining and putting the warm oil into capsules. With the capsules and OTC's I can get around with my walker at about 50% of the pain I suffer without.

I could go on for hours about being a slave to cats, but I won't this time around. This window will expire and I'll have to copy n go to another page, come back, then paste it in.
 
AKgramma said:
I noticed that capsules made from a mix of leaves, trim and bud really help knock the arthritis pain down a few notches. So far, my recipe hasn't made me high, cause i make the cannabudder with coconut oil, and strain it as usual, but I only cook it for a few hours before straining and putting the warm oil into capsules. With the capsules and OTC's I can get around with my walker at about 50% of the pain I suffer without.
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I'd like to figure out something like that for Mom. She doesn't generally use her walker (I think she only has it due to one of the surgeries or some other trouble she had several years ago), but is in constant pain. I went with her to the grocery store today and noticed that she was a little wobbly, holding on to shelves and stuff when she thought I wasn't looking. And the "hasn't made me high" would be a requirement with her. Although if it wasn't, I'd suggest a righteous sativa; I fear cognitive function is pooched and she sometimes asks directions to places that have only been in their current location for 35 years or less (and this evening she swore up and down that she had seen one place at one location when it hadn't been there since the mid-'90s). Woman could use some of the finest kind, IMHO.
 
News on the autos! Since the last measurement a couple days ago, the Auto Diesel Berry shot up to 23 inches and has 18 flower clusters from top to bottom! That is about 5 Inches in 2 days! And no sign of alternating leaf pattern. I want more of these!

Auto Polar express is just veggin'. LOL! The mystery sativas (presumably photos) didn't even wilt when I up-potted them yesterday. They must be happy with their new homes. No sign of maleness among the survivors of the first culling. Will have to move a couple of the up-potted plants into the large unit so I can up-pot more. The Juvenile 48's roots are hugging the sides of their containers.
 
TorturedSoul said:
I'd like to figure out something like that for Mom. She doesn't generally use her walker (I think she only has it due to one of the surgeries or some other trouble she had several years ago), but is in constant pain. I went with her to the grocery store today and noticed that she was a little wobbly, holding on to shelves and stuff when she thought I wasn't looking. And the "hasn't made me high" would be a requirement with her. Although if it wasn't, I'd suggest a righteous sativa; I fear cognitive function is pooched and she sometimes asks directions to places that have only been in their current location for 35 years or less (and this evening she swore up and down that she had seen one place at one location when it hadn't been there since the mid-'90s). Woman could use some of the finest kind, IMHO.
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Now you have a reason to grow. My capsules do not make ME high, but they have an opposite effect on one of my family members. So if you go the capsule route, have her take them before bed. The 00 sized are very easy to swallow. She doesn't need to choke down a horse pill.
 
My Diesel Berry Auto Fem grew to 27" and was just 3" from the LEDs, so I carefully bent over the main stalk and tied it down. Will be interesting to see what an Auto does in early flower with the 90 degree change in orientation. The Polar Express Auto is up to 17", but no sign of preflowers yet.

Every one else is just veggin' out! LOL!

Did a little bit of grooming on them and sprayed the ladies with neem/dish soap. I saw a few tiny mites, and wanted to kill them before the population rose any.

I bought 3 more 3 gallon trash bins yesterday to accommodate the juveniles left in unit 2. Will up-pot them as soon as I can spare a half-hour.

The farms and dispensaries are about to open this month. At least 4 retailers/farms have their licenses and have passed all the regulations. Waiting for the testing labs to be inspected so they can begin testing what the growers have harvested. One grower has already invested over $350,000 in his shelter and equipmnet with out 1 penny compensation.. THAT is dedication!

Meanwhile one community in the Interior (North Pole) banned recreational within the city limits, and the unincorporated areas around Anchorage and valley voted DOWN a ban. Local Legislatures are still playing games with the People-Mandated vote for recreational.

Meanwhile both amateurs and professionals are growing, so there will be enough crop when it all opens up.
 
Arctic Bowl said:
What are the odds that North Pole had to ban the sale of weed in city limits. Hell the Santa up here is smoker and was a player getting it passed up here. Common sense really isn't so common now is it, lmao.

Blessed Buds our friend
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The operative word is "sell". You can barter pot for labor. I do. ;-) Plus u are growing your own medicine. Still sounds like a good deal to me!
 
A few pics of my oldest ladies. I pulled the Diesel berry out to give her some back-lighting to show off her shape.

Here is Diesel Berry backlit
Diesel_Berry_A-F_35_days.JPG


And a closeup of her terminal bud.

Diesel_berry_AF_cola.JPG


Left to right: BBL Mother with her 3 chicks, a mystery sativa, and Polar Express Auto Fem.

BBL-Mystery-Polar_Express.JPG


Nothing much to show in the other unit, except one sativa mystery took off for the lights and is showing alternate leaf pattern. All plants are still in veg.

I started some seeds 2 nights ago (4 AK48's, Two Arjan Hazes, one Polar Express auto, and one Bubble Bomb, all fems.) This pretty much cleaned me out, except for a few more AK 48's.
 
Tead said:
Ya know... this works with folks you know well, but it can be a dangerous thing.
Oh wait.... you live in legal world.... nevermind. I mean, still not a good idea with strangers, but I assume you're a sensible human being with a brain betwixt your ears.
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Well, yes. I don't barter with strangers, just family. And any edibles that family members make for sale from my grow, must ONLY go to legal shops. The grower (me) is not to be disclosed, for privacy, unless the law requires it.

My operation is so small, that I could not possibly keep up with public clientele.
 
Arctic Bowl said:
Hey AK things are looking pretty damn good around here :-). You having any issues keeping humidity up down your way yet?

Blessed Buds our friend. :circle-of-love:
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One would think that living close to the ocean would keep the RH levels high. NOT!

It seems that the best seasons for keeping a minimum of 50% humidity inside are Spring and Fall. Summer and Winter are too dry. It can drop to 30%! I have to spray the walls and leave standing water in the bins to keep it up to reasonable levels.
 
Four days and no sign of sprouts yet. My previous planting a couple months ago was almost 100% and within a couple days. They are under a CFL 24 hours a day to keep them warm, but I wonder if having stored the seed in the refrigerator ruined them.

Then, experience has taught me that I can't root clones this time of year, either. Must be the shortening days.

Since I don't like to crowd my plants, I may have to activate the closet to make room for a photo mystery plant that stretched a lot this last week. I bent all four branches over and it adapted well to its horizontal position. But it's crowding the smaller juveniles. It's lanky, but vigorous. I'm watching carefully for signs of maleness. but I won't know till I switch to 12/12. Seems a waste to fire up another units for just one or two plants, and I don't have any LEDs to spare for the 3rd set-up.

Do you think I can get away with only 1 Mars 300 in a 24" x 48" (8 SF) area. If supplemented with a dozen 23 Watt CFLs? If so, I can move one panel out of one of the other 8 SF units for the closet.
 
I moved things around a bit and left all the mystery plants, seeded on July 20, in one unit. This I switched from gaslight to 12/12. These mystery plants vary from small to large, but I think 11 weeks is long enough to nurse along mystery plants. I need the space for labelled seeds, so I know what I'm getting. Besides, some of the leaves don't look all that healthy, and I'm tired of trying to get them to look as good as the Indicas. I'll just force them to finish and get what I can from them.

All of the mystery plants are Sativas, or heavily weighted towards Sativa, so I plan to harvest them close together and store their buds together. Of course, Mother Nature may have other ideas, and they might mature months apart! We know that little goes as planned in this hobby!

I tucked the unsprouted seeds in their peat pellet kit into the veg unit, because it is consistently 80 deg F in there. I should see some progress soon.

I won't activate the closet until I am forced to do so. Past experience has shown that the closet, even on CFLs only, has the right atmosphere to bring a decent crop to harvest.
 
Moving the seeded peat pellets into the 80 deg F veg unit worked. I found a brand new baby AK 48 this morning! This batch of seeds is taking longer than the last. I expect it is the colder weather and the shorter days.

Now I just have to set the schedules on the two units so they are not on at the same time. Mostly to keep the heat level down in the grow room. Yes, I have fans blowing in and out, but I would like to be able to close the grow room door once in a while, esp when strangers come to my door.

I calculated that it costs me $39 a month in electricity to run each unit. So I have a baseline to go by.
 
AKgramma said:
Moving the seeded peat pellets into the 80 deg F veg unit worked. I found a brand new baby AK 48 this morning! This batch of seeds is taking longer than the last. I expect it is the colder weather and the shorter days.

Now I just have to set the schedules on the two units so they are not on at the same time. Mostly to keep the heat level down in the grow room. Yes, I have fans blowing in and out, but I would like to be able to close the grow room door once in a while, esp when strangers come to my door.

I calculated that it costs me $39 a month in electricity to run each unit. So I have a baseline to go by.
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I haven't had the courage to calculate the electrical cost, but the budget amount did go up by $20 a month when I turned everything on in Feb. It wouldn't stop me from growing anyway, although it might cause me to hesitate to expand. Thankfully, I have no room to expand. :laughtwo:

I admire you growing in Alaska. You have some serious challenges with cold alone. It's like Tead, growing in the heat of the swamplands. I feel priveledged to have such temperate climes to deal with.
 
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