Grow #2

[OmittedGrower]

So I was late to watering my plants today cause . . . .reasons involving laziness. So I just now did it late evening time around 9pm. I took some EC measurements and some nice pictures I think.
The EC was in a respectable range however for that maximum plant growth ima going to add small amount more to get it closer to 1.4 constant runoff.

Since its dark outside and I can see like Velma without her glasses at night had to break out the shop lights for about 30 minutes to see, and it really amplified to buds that are being produced and I thought it looked cool and took some pictures. (And here's my EC runoff readings)

Thanks for reading and happy growing
-Zach

 

[OmittedGrower]

So today was a feeding day for my plants. Im still working through the learning curve with the EC meter. My main issue for me is dialing in the perfect amount to feed.

Cause today the EC for my blue dream was around .8 EC so I fed some and got around 1.3 EC to 1.5 EC for both blue dreams, the dogwalker was at .4 EC and I gave it about 0.8 to 1 cups worth, yet the EC run off was around 0.8 EC so I gave it another 1/5 of a cup and then the runoff was 0.7EC, I dont want to add a bunch more cause im worried the nutrients are still in the soil but the water is just running past it in some areas cause the soil was already wet. So tomorrow ill take some more readings and if its still low ill feed again the day after. (And thats my process for figuring out my EC meter amd fertalizer lol)

All 4 plants, are really starting to pack on some buds and tricomes. And emitting an intoxicating delicious aroma of pine, mint, gasoline, fruitiness and a hint of citrus. The tricome development is looking beautiful. The buds are already bigger and more frosty than last years plants ever were. And the smell is unreal to me.

I know I've got plenty of time till I need to worry about it, but I've been doing a lot of reading on curing procedures. (Last year I just over dried then put them in jars and messed up the curing process entirely) im thinking this year im gonna order 12, 1 gallon Masson jars and also get some humidity meters and 2 way humidity packs for my cure this year.

I do have some opinionated questions I hope some of you can drop some knowledge my way. When it comes to curing large amounts. Is using a bunch of glass jars the way to go? Or is there another effect container device I can use to hold larger amounts? (From my research people say u can get about 1 to 2 oz in a 1 gallon jar for comfortable curing room. Am I really gonna have to just have a bunch of jars this year? Lol. I've seen some say you can use plastic bags Or hard plastic tubs/totes. Any info on best containers for storing/curing large amounts would be nice. (Planning on doing 1 gal jars still, unless new information is presented to change my mind)

@Emilya i was going through my 1st grow journal and gotta admit you were very right about the whole super soil+outdoors combo. Has been so much more fun. And a lot "easier" dare I say.

Here's some pictures!

As you can see even the blue dream that was going defficient is putting back on some weight to those brnaches and establishing the colas nicely for being just about week 3 of flower id say .

Thanks for reading and happy growing!!!
-Zach

 

[Emilya Green]

Look into food grade sealable 5 gallon buckets for your curing... someone wrote up a thing on here showing an automatic curing/burping system for processing large amounts of product using them.

 

[OmittedGrower]

Look into food grade sealable 5 gallon buckets for your curing... someone wrote up a thing on here showing an automatic curing/burping system for processing large amounts of product using them.

Thank you. I'll look for the thread now.

 

[OmittedGrower]

@Emilya I found it, the "big burp bucket" looking into some food grade 3.5 gallon black buckets with airtight gamma lids. Its a 5 pack of the 3.5 gallons. Im thinking that should be enoigh for now for 4 plants. Great idea!!

 

[OmittedGrower]

Okay so being the type of person that I am, I went ahead and ordered up some 3.5 gallon FDA food grade compatible buckets and also ordered the fancy gamma lids. Surprisingly they were still much cheaper than the glass jar alternatives. I went with black ones to help with light penetration. I'm also going to probably order some hygrometers to toss in each bucket so when i burp them i can notate the humidity levels to get an idea of when i should burp them next.

Here's some pictures of the buckets that I ordered.

Thanks for reading and happy growing.
-Zach

 

[OmittedGrower]

So I can say now my plants are at the point in their life where they can use some extra food on the daily.

My EC reading have been slightly confusing to me, but still working through it. So I added some fertalizer to each plant today (except the blue cookies cause it was around 1.88 EC yesterday so I left it, and gave just water today)

My 1st bluedream yesterday was at 1.5 EC, Today I got a reading of 1.9ish EC. I gave about .4 cups of fertalizer (makes sense)

The other plants were at about 1.3 to 1.5 EC yesterday, and today I gave them all about .4 or .5 cups of fertalizer yet the EC run off was only about 1.1 (again I don't plan to give more fertalizer today)

I think that with time, the pallets allow my plants to sit at a slight angle so when water runs through it it will tend to drain primarily out of one side on the bottom (usually toward the middle of the pallets) causing the dry nutes that haven't gotten fully dissolved yet to get caught in the soil and allow the clean water to pretty much run through the soil without drawing all the nutes through the bottom. With that being said im assuming the plants that were at 1.1EC are actually closer to 1.3 to 1.4EC. idk for sure though, ill feed again tomorrow and measure. (Good part is, if the EC comes to high I can always just run more water through till I see that golden number im lookong for )

I will continue to measure EC with each watering and will probably feed all my plants again tomorrow (except the one that was 1.9 EC today, cause thats ideal for me) and just see how they hold up. They haven't shown any signs of deficinecies since the mag and potassium issues earlier so im not to worried about the EC reading 1.1 for a day or so.

Plants are looking amazing and smelling delicious. The blue cookies smells almost exactly how you would expect a blue raspberry skittles would smell <3 Even my local praying mantis group have decided to hang out on them and help me keep away the mites and unwanted bugs lol.

I forgot to mention yesterday too, I also went ahead and bought a 5 pack of humidity meters (aka hygrometer) to monitor humidity in my garage for drying and also for the buckets during the curing phase.

Here's some pictures of my babies, and my EC feeding chart thingy.

Thanks for reading and happy growing!!
-Zach

 

[OmittedGrower]

So last night I decided to clean up my Dog Walker OG and started to clean up the lower branches and well it lead into today aswell and next thing I know all 4 plants got trimmed up getting rid of all popcorn bud sites on the plants. And oh man do they look different. They look good though. And im still very excited. It was painful to cut off so much from each plant, but it will be worth it in the end. Im already expecting about a week of stunted growth due to the stress but thats okay with me, after that im truly expecting all those buds to start to really pop some more.

The main reason I did it, was because a friend of mine who has grown highly recomended it to help eliminate popcorn nugs and to help the main colas get even bigger. So i figured shoot why not, so i did it.

And here are my results.

For anybody who's curious the sativas are about 7.5 ft tall with each plant having anywhere from 14 to 30 main colas now, it took me roughly 8 1/2 hours to do this defoliation, I wanted to do it carefully and not just cut off every branch. (I follow each branch till I hit a split then follow it and ask keep or not, If I keep it I cut until I see my next stem or leaf or bud and ask keep or not, and I did this for every single branch, worth the extra effort though)

Also!!! My airtight buckets came in!! Wooooo!!!!!! (Rick flair voice) tbeyre pretty nice for the price! Im like the airtight, pest proof lids.

Thanks for reading and happy growing!!!

-Zach

 

[Emilya Green]

Because of the added airflow and new ability to concentrate energy to the top growth, I doubt you see any stunting at all.... certainly not a week of it.

 

[OmittedGrower]

Because of the added airflow and new ability to concentrate energy to the top growth, I doubt you see any stunting at all.... certainly not a week of it.

Yay! Thats what I like to hear! I was always expecting the worse and hoping for the best lol.
I still just can't get over how good blue cookies smells (smells almost like a blueberry muffin)

 

[OmittedGrower]

Good afternoon cannabis enthusisest alike.

Today was a day I honeslty didn't think I'd see. I used up that whole bucket of bloom nutrients already!! I'd say it was worth it, they like that brand of nutrients, and so do I so far.

I fed them again today and got pretty even results, for the big ol blue dreams EC was arlund 2 -1.7 EC for the smaller bushier DogWalker OG and Blue Cookies they were rifhr around 1.35 and I fed all 4 plants 0.8 cups. (The bushier ones are harder to get the first run off drips so I think the readings are just slightly more diluted than the other blue dreams, regardless, still perfect ranges for my situation)

One of the first things I noticed after heavy defoliation, its SOOOO much easier to water them, i can get in the base if the plant eith the hose no problems now. (I should of done this weeks ago lol)

The second thing I noticed was the most delicious smell coming from the blue cookies. I never really experienced this till now, but the plant smells spot on like a blue berry muffin. Its amazing, I almost want to take a bite out of it lol jk.

Over all, the plants and bud production for being less than the first month of flowering, are doing incredible in my eyes. Very happy so far with the grow .

Here's some pictires of how theyre looking today along with my feeding chart.

Thanks for reading and happy growing!
-Zach

 

[OmittedGrower]

Hello and good afternoon 420 community, and cannabis enthusiasts alike.

Today i fed my plants again and took my readings. I'm getting better at taking EC readings and got much more consistent results, however since I've been feeding more regularly, and 0.8 cups is starting to be a bit much (about 2.10 initial run off, so i water till run off is at desired reading of around 1.7-1.8) so I plan to dial back my nutrients to about 0.65 cups next feeding and see if my results are a bit better so I'm not wasting as much nutrients. With that being said, the DogWalker OG has shown light sign of some tip burn so tomorrow I plan to give no nutrients at all and just plain water and see what the run off is. Then proceed to feed the following day again.

I'm still spraying my organic pesticides on the plants every morning usually around 9 AM. Not many if any signs of pests now thankfully, with the exception of this grasshopper I found the other day.

The Blue Dreams are getting huge and looking good, and the Blue Cookies are doing amazing too, nice thick colas with amazing trichome production. I still can't get over the fact that they smell like a blueberry muffin. The Blue Dream and Blue Cookies are beginning to get some orange pistol tips but the buds still seem to be fattening up thankfully. Most are still white growing.

I will make a follow up post from my phone with some pictures.

Thanks for reading and happy growing

-Zach

 

[OmittedGrower]

Its another beautiful day today, the smoke has cleared from the sky, and the sun is shining bright and warm today, never realized how much I miss the sunlight.

Decided to not feed my plants and to just water them today. I lowered their dosage of fertalizer a tad bit or the frequency I should say.

I did this because the EC was in the 2.0+ in the run iff even with adding tiny amount of fertalizer which tells me its built up in the soil or its just finally kinda leveled out with the constant fertilizing.

The EC on one blue dream with no added ferts today was 2.4!!! To much!! So of course I added more and more water until I got a number I was comfortable looking at, which ended up closer to the 1.1 - 1.4 EC today. I will probably continue to fertalize, just now about every 3 days.

The blue dreams buds are getting bigger it seems like but man are the plumping up slow, however I have been hearing from a lot of people they pack on their weight in the last few weeks of flower so ive still got time.

The blue cookies are doing amazing!! Nice fat colas!! Amazing smell!! And enough trichomes to make a bag of sugar lol. The DogWalker OG has finally begun to get into flowering fully, the white pistols are looking long and stretchy and healthy!!!!

PS the blue dreams pistols hairs aren't growing as fast as the other 2 strains, and are having some turn orange. Don't think I should worry, probably just the strain and time alloted to them. Minimul nute burn on the plant if any tbh. (The discoloration was from the deficinecies earlier in life) the blue cookies colas are much fatter than the blue dreams ready (probably a strain thing)

Here's some photos for your enjoyment.

^blue cookies

^ blue dream

^ blue cookies

^ left dogwalker OG right Bluecookies

^ left blue dream #1 right blue dream #2

^Dogwalker OG

^Blue Dream #1

^Blue dream #2

^Blue Dream#1

^Bue cookies

Thanks for reading and happy growing!!
-Zach

 

[Emilya Green]

Looking great! Good Job Zach!

 

[OmittedGrower]

Looking great! Good Job Zach!

Thank you!!

 

[OmittedGrower]

Good afternoon everybody!

Hope everybody is doing well, and having a fantastic Friday!

Here in the valley of California were getting another heatwave tomorrow of about 109°F (42.7° C) so im going to put my sunshade back up tomorrow morning.

I ran out if my organic pesticide so going to get more today, one day off won't hurt them

I'm also going to pick up some "Ortho home defense insect killer" and start spraying down my garage inside and out over the next few weeks to ensure there are NO bugs, pests, or anything that could negatively effect the drying process of these amazing plants ( of course stopping at least 2 to 3 weeks prior to hanging and drying)

For extra support of those taller dense nugs on the blue dream I got some 6 foot bamboo steaks to help support the weight. The lower heavy branches will be tied to the cages with padded gardening wire or the thick twine.when the heat wave passes im going to take the shade screen off the support and use the support to tie buds up with string or wire if need be. (Gonna be a mix of all 3: cage, tying up to supports, and bamboo steaks) (support is not wide enough to do a full trellece netting this year)

My humidity meters came in and I wanted to test their accuracy. Fun fact putting salt in a container, then putting just enough water to cover the salt but not dissolve it (make like a slushy) and put it in a sealed container it will create RH of 75.4%. With that info I was able to then write on the side of each meter +/- how ever many percents the meters were off by. In my case most of them read about 77% to 76% so they were oy off by about 0.5% - 1.5%

The plants are all chunky, sticky, and oh so smelly the blue dreams are starting to pack on some weight in thise buds, the DogWalker OG has hit flowering hard and its going for it!! And the Blue Cookies, well, they still amaze me the fact they smell like blueberry muffin bread (even my brother and father are in awe about the smell lol). All 4 plants have such amazing trichome production.

Here's some pictures, hope you enjoy

^^1st Blue Dream

^^ 2nd Blue Dream

^^DogWalker OG

^^ Blue Cookies

^Hygrometers

^EC wand

Thanks for reading, and happy growing!

-Zach

 

[OmittedGrower]

Good afternoon everybody!

Hope everybody is doing well, and having a fantastic Friday!

Here in the valley of California were getting another heatwave tomorrow of about 109°F (42.7° C) so im going to put my sunshade back up tomorrow morning.

I ran out if my organic pesticide so going to get more today, one day off won't hurt them

I'm also going to pick up some "Ortho home defense insect killer" and start spraying down my garage inside and out over the next few weeks to ensure there are NO bugs, pests, or anything that could negatively effect the drying process of these amazing plants ( of course stopping at least 2 to 3 weeks prior to hanging and drying)

For extra support of those taller dense nugs on the blue dream I got some 6 foot bamboo steaks to help support the weight. The lower heavy branches will be tied to the cages with padded gardening wire or the thick twine.when the heat wave passes im going to take the shade screen off the support and use the support to tie buds up with string or wire if need be. (Gonna be a mix of all 3: cage, tying up to supports, and bamboo steaks) (support is not wide enough to do a full trellece netting this year)

My humidity meters came in and I wanted to test their accuracy. Fun fact putting salt in a container, then putting just enough water to cover the salt but not dissolve it (make like a slushy) and put it in a sealed container it will create RH of 75.4%. With that info I was able to then write on the side of each meter +/- how ever many percents the meters were off by. In my case most of them read about 77% to 76% so they were oy off by about 0.5% - 1.5%

The plants are all chunky, sticky, and oh so smelly the blue dreams are starting to pack on some weight in thise buds, the DogWalker OG has hit flowering hard and its going for it!! And the Blue Cookies, well, they still amaze me the fact they smell like blueberry muffin bread (even my brother and father are in awe about the smell lol). All 4 plants have such amazing trichome production.

Here's some pictures, hope you enjoy

^^1st Blue Dream

^^ 2nd Blue Dream

^^DogWalker OG

^^ Blue Cookies

^Hygrometers

^EC wand

Thanks for reading, and happy growing!

-Zach

 

[OmittedGrower]

Good afternoon everybody. Hope your day is going amazing.

Today I fed my plants again, giving them only 0.3 cups of food. 1 blue dream got 1.10 the other came put at 2.0 so I pretty much kept watering the ones that came out high till they got between 1.7 and 1.10 EC.

With today being 100°F + today I watered early morning and will probay water again this evening and double check my EC measurements, and make sure these gals stay hydrated.

I got up in time to beat the heat, and was able to spray down the plants with the organic pesticides before it got over 80°F. I love this pesticide I've been using called "Lost coast Plant Therapy". While using this product ive found little if any bugs on the plants. And the best part is its all organic (besides isopropyl alochol in the tiniest amounts, but that doesn't bother me) and is safe to use throughout the whole grow up until harvest day .

Either tomorrow or Monday im going to start spraying in and around my garage (my drying room) with my heavy insecticide, waiting for the heat to die down just a bit before I do so.

Your'e all caught up .
Last night i took some flash photos to really show off the trichome and bud production. (The plants are on abour week 4 of flower.

Here they are, enjoy .

Thanks for reading, and happy growing!
-Zach

 

[OmittedGrower]

Good afternoon everybody!! Hope everybody is staying cool today, lord knows im trying too lol. Its 106°F out right now in the California valley.

I watered my babies this afternoon cauee they needed it with this heat. I didn't bother to feed them, just gave them water to help cool off and stay hydrated. I of course took ky EC readings still, 2 were around 1.1 to 0.6 and the others closer to 1.5 so tomorrow morning shall be another feeding day for 2 of the plants!

I'm so upset with myself because I was watering with the hose and got the hose snagged on a branch on the blue cookies and cracked it :'(.
However, the branch wasn't broken all the way through and was able to still support itself most of the way. So, I got some padded wire and supported the branch back up to close the gap of the crack and wrapped her up in some green gardeners tape, and will let it heal for a few days. (Cant believe I did that, but I still am 99% sure the bud and branch will be saved, its just a good sized side branch, not a main stem thankfully, worse come to worse, im drhing tjat bud out early )

The blue dreams are getting chunky!!! And heavy! They are starting to bend over with the branches so im starting to put in my bamboo support steaks and will also be trying other branches inward to the cage for support.

Thags about all the new information I have for you guys right now, so here's some pictrues!!

Thanks for reading, and happy growing!!
-Zach

 

[OmittedGrower]

Well I'm highly annoyed to admit that I have caterpillars .

I found some weird browning on the inside if tmsome buds and found the little devils munchin away getting stoned and destroying my buds (mainly the blue cookies)

I had to trim up some of the flowers and decided to cut on bud off early. After deciding I didn't want to chop up most of the flowers I sprinted over to my local grow store and bought some caterpillar organic pesticide and sprays a full gallon on the blue cookies. Im waiting for it to dry and I will go out and pick off more caterpillars.

There's little pellets of what I assume is caterpillar poop on some of the effected buds along with some dead brown portions of the flowers.

Luckily the whole plant isn't lost yet, just a few good buds that had to get manicured, and will try to clean the stuff out of inbetween the buds once they're all dead.

Will definatly be doing the hydrogen peroxide bud wash this year during harvest.

Here's some pics of the damages.

Thanks for reading and happy growing!!
-Zach











(Me venting: just royally annoys and bothers me that I've been spraying daily and the one bug the slray doesn't kill comes and destroys some of my best buds, I knkw the plant will pull through and still produce, just bothersome that after all this work it gets tainted and ruined by a small green worm. Just *sigh*)