Cottage 420's Organic Perpetual Indoor Garden

[36Gr0w]

For storing SST, you can freeze the blended sprouts, or just dry sprouts for future use.

 

[santb]

Cheers Bob.. Haven't tried SSTs yet; hard to get the ingredients where I am, except for the alfalfa, trying to track down some comfrey and nettle seeds... I was thinking that if some commercial "probiotic"-type products can keep for months, maybe theres a chance...
No worries though. Thanks for the help!

 

[Radogast]

Cheers Bob.. Haven't tried SSTs yet; hard to get the ingredients where I am, except for the alfalfa, trying to track down some comfrey and nettle seeds... I was thinking that if some commercial "probiotic"-type products can keep for months, maybe theres a chance...
No worries though. Thanks for the help!

SST can be as simple as alfalfa sprouts or organic popcorn and water.

 

[bobrown14]

SST can be as simple as alfalfa sprouts or organic popcorn and water.

I use both of them with GREAT result.^^^

Hey there Santb - don't waste your time purchasing comfrey seeds - they are sterile seeds won't propagate (thankfully).

Comfrey is sold worldwide for many uses mainly for livestock feed and also for composting you should be able to source it. Nettles grow wild pretty much everywhere!

I bought mine from:

Link - Comfrey, Russian Live Root Cutting (Bocking 14 Cultivar), 1 root bag, organic



You should be able to source

 

[santb]

Cheers again will look a bit harder.. maybe a horse feed store..

 

[ClosedCircuit]

So you were talking about yellowing leaves...

I get them with my scrog, but it seems like it happens because those leaves are not getting very much light. Is there a trick to telling why a plant is dropping its bottom leaves?

 

[bobrown14]

Update after vacation:

We are running down the back stretch here with the last of the Krystalica - Big Girl and Frosty are left with another little one I ran in a 5gal pot which I'm sure she's root bound. She's all fall colors and the other 2 are not so its the small pot that has her finishing and the buds are not that big. I've run them in 5gal no-tils and have pretty much transitioned to 10-15gal no-tils for the most part.

If I go to a large pot say 15gal the Krystalica plants think they are outside and want to grow to 7' which is way to tall for my flower room with a 7 1/2' ceiling. Oh well.. tie them down. I do not top plants at any time during the grow cycle. I had a brief discussion with the Coots feller and he talked me down off topping and fimming although I'm still not apposed to fimming if done correctly. Look up "Apical Meristem" for the science behind NO TOPPING.

I ran an experiment to see what the yield would be topped VS left alone. LITFA won out hands down not even close my yields for topped plant was less than 1/2 of her twin sister that was left alone.

OK so now onto the buds and the pics:

These are the 2 plants 1 is Krystalica and the other shorter one is Cash Crop hanging up getting ready to be trimmed and into paper bags. I'll go into detail on how I prepare the mostly dried buds for curing here.

Ok these plants hung up in the flower room which has a somewhat controlled environment with AC in the flower room. The RH is between 55-70% with the 55% the low during lights on and 70% with lights out. Outside the flower room the RH has been 80-90% constant so I cant hang them in that without the risk of mold setting in. So I hang dry in the flower room for 1 week, then pull them out and let then sit in the high humidity 80-90% for 1-2 days.

They were pretty dry but after 1 day in 90RH they are not dry at all and the stems are pliable and do not crack. What I do next after 1 day in humid condition is trim the buds and leave them on the stem. By trim I mean ready for the bag trim or very close to it but on the stem. Then I put them inside of paper bags like 3 branches to a bag, fold and staple the bags closed and label and into our drying cabinet.

They will stay in the paper bags for a few days depending on RH. Its all weather dependent. We are on the East Coast USA, the weather is supposed to change from 95F & 90% RH (yeah hot as hell) to high 70s and low RH. With the low RH I wont leave them long outside of a curing jar or they will get way too dry and we want to cure them not dry them out. Our goal is 58-62% humidity and then the THC in the buds will actually increase as well as the medicinal properties like CBD and so forth. I want the meds AND the stone = win win why I went with Krystalica strain. It's been working great for meds and also psychedelic, another win win. Yeah buddy!



Ok blah blah on to the pics:

hang drying in hot n humid conditions after a nice dry cycle. Sage stem is on the right there, we use that for a medicinal tincture:

Cash Crop is the shorter one, the other is Krystalica

Yummy ^^^ Krystalica is already trimmed and in bags


Next up is the bud porn - this in the big buds from Frosty - she really put out and I have clones of this one going now. Wow these buds are barely standing up... very very sticky OMG. With the no-til these plants are getting better and better with every round. These are all clones of clones of clones of clones of clones and we are going ...

Yellowing leaves is totally expected with this strain at this time in flower 70-75 days ready to chop.

Next up is the Big Girl - she's the one that took off - I put her into flower July 15th - so she's right at 57 days. Her size with that little time in flower she's a freaking beast!! Buds are going to keep getting fatter and fatter. This is a 75 day strain and I usually let them go 80+ days before harvest. So looks like the end of September. I'm pretty much harvesting 1or 2 plants every 2 weeks right now with this last run. Not to shabby.

Oh yeah Big Girl has fox tails all over the big main cola and the few other colas next under that one. This will get very interesting before too long.

Foxy Big Girl and her clone sisters!

And the next round.. will be getting more into detail with the next seeds and cuttings a little later when the last of this round is on the drying rack - actually I use a hanger and a paper bag then into jars.

I just spent 2 trimming sessions 1.5 hours for each plant. What I do is trim the buds cut off the laf/popcorn leaving them on the stem, then put the buds on stem into paper bags and into the drying cabinet... is there an echo in here.... I can hardly see straight after trimming the Cash Crop... I think I'm going to be very happy with those buds!!

 

[bobrown14]

So you were talking about yellowing leaves...

I get them with my scrog, but it seems like it happens because those leaves are not getting very much light. Is there a trick to telling why a plant is dropping its bottom leaves?

I actually don't worry about it at all in flower. The lower leaves and lower bud sites I usually trim up SOME just to keep the air flowing. With my setup the lower bud sites and leaves naturally fall off or brown up then I trim them off and use for mulch. Air flow is EXTREMELY important this time of year.

Just another reason why I'm not growing all the same strain and not all at the same time. If something bad happens I will have a better chance to finish and harvest something. I've been extremely lucky so far without much issue but I've had mold and lemme tell ya it ain't pretty and causes me to stress out big time if/when I see it again.

 

[SBG]

Subbed in for sure lots of good info to be had.

Couldn't agree more about good airflow around this time of the year, up here in the Pacific Northwest the dew is heavy now and the rainy season is just around the corner. I try to give them all a good trimming in the first week or two of flowering.

Great Journal.

 

[ClosedCircuit]

Are you in New England Bob? Or a little further south? Just wondering what kind of weather you been getting.

Here in the mid Atlantic its just been extremely high humidity but little lower temps in the upper 80s. I think we flip flopped with the folks up north because we have suddenly been getting enormous cold fronts rolling through with lots of wind and sporadic rain.

 

[UncleCannabis]

I ran an experiment to see what the yield would be topped VS left alone. LITFA won out hands down not even close my yields for topped plant was less than 1/2 of her twin sister that was left alone.

Interesting information about the difference in yield.


Thanks for sharing.

 

[UncleCannabis]

Congrats on the harvest!!


The remaining girls are looking really good heading into the home stretch.

 

[bobrown14]

Interesting information about the difference in yield.


Thanks for sharing.

I got into a "discussion" with Coots about topping. He told me it was a waste of time and of course gave me the science and I took that and ran with it and did side by side experiment twin sisters everything the same containers soil lighting. He was of course correct. I "possibly" could have bettered 1/2 the yield with another 2 weeks of flower! Not optimal for me to go 100 days flower time, big risk (hermies) IMHO. I've done 100 days but that's crazy way long.

Thanks for the thanks on the harvest.

Last night I trimmed the Cash Crop and put the buds into paper bags and I was stoned all day today.
Just a contact high ... oh and a spliff after ... the combo did me good! I got a great nights sleep.

Wow that was long lasting and just from breathing in the fumes (diesel smell) and handling the stems. The Cash Crop buds are a tad airy (for now) but they are WAY strong.

It's an indica dom strain which I've only really grown Sativa dom strains cause I like the uppity up buzz and visuals!! I couldn't focus my vision today until just about an hour ago... that was surprising.

I'm in for some strong meds next month. If its couch lock I'll give it to my friend from Cali, he's always trying to get me to go Indica.

 

[bobrown14]

Are you in New England Bob? Or a little further south? Just wondering what kind of weather you been getting.

Here in the mid Atlantic its just been extremely high humidity but little lower temps in the upper 80s. I think we flip flopped with the folks up north because we have suddenly been getting enormous cold fronts rolling through with lots of wind and sporadic rain.

We are in Philly where its sooo freaking hot and humid you'd think we are in south Florida but they get cooled off at night.

We were vacationing in Ontario - all the weather we get comes from up there a lot of it anyways. On vacay over the last week it was in the mid 90s and +90% RH, mushrooms were coming up all over the place, it was hotter up there than the 80s you all were experiencing. Then we came home and brought the hot weather with us. Ouch.... last time it was like this we got PM and mold after harvesting.

I'm extremely careful now. Choosing the right strain is important.

We finally opened up the windows in the flower room today after torrential rains all day yesterday and last night. Fall if its not in the air outside it sure is in our flower room - very very fall like colors. I'm gonna miss my girls...

 

[santb]

Sounds similar to my climate Bob... Coming soon are 100+F days with 70-95% humidity.. Yay! :icon_roll
Just built a shade house today (well, gotta finish tomorrow..), in anticipation....
How do you think crushed coral would go in/on soil? Found a couple of large bits in the yard (east coast of Australia, so not unusual, even tho' not really near the actual coast; also found a buried anchor) and read that it is good but alkaline... What do you think..?

 

[ClosedCircuit]

We just got some pretty intense rain fall for the last hour. We needed it honestly. The rain we have been getting has been like 5 minute showers, then it moves on. Not enough to really water the outdoor garden.

Can't say I am jealous of the heat up there All summer long we have to deal with upper 90's and sometimes over 100F and at least 60-70% humidity. Sometimes I feel like you lose the ability to tell how hot it really is because it just stays so hot and humid for so long. why can't it be fall all the time?

 

[UncleCannabis]

I got into a "discussion" with Coots about topping. He told me it was a waste of time and of course gave me the science and I took that and ran with it and did side by side experiment twin sisters everything the same containers soil lighting. He was of course correct. I "possibly" could have bettered 1/2 the yield with another 2 weeks of flower! Not optimal for me to go 100 days flower time, big risk (hermies) IMHO. I've done 100 days but that's crazy way long.

I've heard it said many times over that topping will almost always result in improved per plant yields but I've never found this to be true at all.
Even though I do prefer top my plants in most cases whether growing indoors or outdoors, I do agree that in natural conditions outdoors per plant yields are higher when grown au natural without topping.

When I first started growing MJ (outdoors) my plants were not topped or trained in any way. Back then it was pretty much sativas only so as you might guess, letting them go au natural ended up resulting in MJ trees that were 12'+ tall.
This was all good and a real ego boost but once the buds began packing on weight it became a real chore trying to keep those 12+ MJ trees from breaking themselves apart.
This caused me to have to spend more time than I wanted to at the grow sites staking and tying off to keep them from toppling over and having branches break off.
Even with all of the staking and tying I still ended up losing several plants due to storms and high winds late in the season just before harvest time, not including the ones lost to PM and bud rot late season.
To make matters even worse, 12+ plants are not an easy thing to conceal and are quite easy to see from the air.

All of this is what caused me to eventually begin topping. Topping and training solved most of the problems that I was having as a result of not topping but it did have a noticeable difference in the way of lower yields per plant come harvest time.
I didn't own a scale back then and never did weigh final harvest but it didn't take a scale to prove the difference in yields. There was a dramatic difference in yield per plant with un-topped being the clear winner when it came down to yield.

But....I didn't lose nearly as many plants or have nearly as many broken branches with the topped and trained plants as I did with the au natural plants.
So for my particular situation I was better off topping rather than continuing letting them grow au natural as this resulted in better overall harvest yield due to more plants and branches being harvested by minimizing losses due to storms.

Anyways, it was refreshing to see that you've actually done side by side au natural / topped grows yourself and have confirmed the same results.

 

[ClosedCircuit]

I've heard it said many times over that topping will almost always result in improved per plant yields but I've never found this to be true at all.
Even though I do prefer top my plants in most cases whether growing indoors or outdoors, I do agree that in natural conditions outdoors per plant yields are higher when grown au natural without topping.

When I first started growing MJ (outdoors) my plants were not topped or trained in any way. Back then it was pretty much sativas only so as you might guess, letting them go au natural ended up resulting in MJ trees that were 12'+ tall.
This was all good and a real ego boost but once the buds began packing on weight it became a real chore trying to keep those 12+ MJ trees from breaking themselves apart.
This caused me to have to spend more time than I wanted to at the grow sites staking and tying off to keep them from toppling over and having branches break off.
Even with all of the staking and tying I still ended up losing several plants due to storms and high winds late in the season just before harvest time, not including the ones lost to PM and bud rot late season.
To make matters even worse, 12+ plants are not an easy thing to conceal and are quite easy to see from the air.

All of this is what caused me to eventually begin topping. Topping and training solved most of the problems that I was having as a result of not topping but it did have a noticeable difference in the way of lower yields per plant come harvest time.
I didn't own a scale back then and never did weigh final harvest but it didn't take a scale to prove the difference in yields. There was a dramatic difference in yield per plant with un-topped being the clear winner when it came down to yield.

But....I didn't lose nearly as many plants or have nearly as many broken branches with the topped and trained plants as I did with the au natural plants.
So for my particular situation I was better off topping rather than continuing letting them grow au natural as this resulted in better overall harvest yield due to more plants and branches being harvested by minimizing losses due to storms.

Anyways, it was refreshing to see that you've actually done side by side au natural / topped grows yourself and have confirmed the same results.

Do you think the loss in crop after topping in your experience was because they were sativas? If you grew with a modern hybrid with lots of hybrid vigor and you topped just enough to make it bushy that end product would be lost? Seems to me like it would be based on the plant and growing conditions. But I haven't done a side by side like you.

 

[UncleCannabis]

Do you think the loss in crop after topping in your experience was because they were sativas? If you grew with a modern hybrid with lots of hybrid vigor and you topped just enough to make it bushy that end product would be lost? Seems to me like it would be based on the plant and growing conditions. But I haven't done a side by side like you.

I can't say for sure if the same would be the case with an indica or a hybrid as I've never tried it. I'm also curious about this as well.

Maybe bobrown or others have done side by sides with different varieties other than pure sativas and could chime in with their experiences.

 

[bobrown14]

Do you think the loss in crop after topping in your experience was because they were sativas? If you grew with a modern hybrid with lots of hybrid vigor and you topped just enough to make it bushy that end product would be lost? Seems to me like it would be based on the plant and growing conditions. But I haven't done a side by side like you.

My test run was with modern hybrids (Sativa dominant for sure for the high) from Mendala seeds. I chose them cause they grow organically so I figured the seeds would work well for me and they have in spades.

Funny thing tho I ran a mother (clone of the test pair) 2.5 months in VEG and could not control the growth without topping so I put her into flower instead and she quickly out grew the height of my flower room so a little lite training (LST) worked wonders and now the main cola I tied down is growing fox tails! Her clones I threw into flower after 3 weeks and they are in stretch right now and just showing pre-flowers @ 40" tall. I have all the stalks supported too ... so UC I feel your pain buddy! Each one of those stalks have a HUGE bud and side buds tho so not really complaining.


My test with topping compared to not topped was the topped plant fell WAY behind easily 2 weeks. In a perpetual grow like I do is basically a disaster of sorts. I adapted ... but the topped plant had to grow a new Apical meristem (2 of them actually) and figure out which one will be/was the dominant cola. Very difficult for the plant, and the stress involved to do all that heavy lifting causes the plant to divert energy from flower building to stem building. That's where the yield thing come in play. Plant building stems/stalks and NOT building buds. I just chopped off of the main cola and brains behind the biology, makes sense to me.