Time for the Friday PROJECT 26 UPDATE!
Well, it's been exactly 13 weeks today since I pushed a handful of seeds into rooter plugs and look at the results...
GOD it's fun to get to this point in a grow! It's like every time I step into the room I'm literally stepping into a High Times centerfold.
I started smoking cannabis when I was 17 and I'm 57 now. It's still as enjoyable now as it was in those early years, in fact much more enjoyable for a lot of reasons, such as it's better now, there are a lot more flavors of it, and I can afford all I want... But I haven't forgotten those boyhood days of smoking bag weed that had seeds in the bottom and dreaming of being able to grow them into mighty plants someday. I would tape those amazing HT centerfold pictures up in my closet and my friends and I would put the fan in the window, twist up a fatty, then open the closet door and imagine it was a growing closet full of these amazing skyscraper-like colas, so colorful and so sticky with globules of glistening resin. We would talk about how fabulous it must be to grow weed like that and immerse yourself in a forest of pungent and sticky marijuana plants anytime you wanted. To have all sorts of varieties...Columbian Gold...Maui Wowie...that Thai stick stuff...okay, technically there were only a few varieties that we were even aware of in the 1970's and we lived in a world where pot was usually brown, or very rarely, gold or even green. Exotic things like Sativas and Indicas and all the stuff High Times talked about was so theoretical to us...it seemed so unlikely that we would ever see such wonders in the middle of the country and to be sure it was very rare that truly impressive buds showed up and they were the subject of much savory attention, and also ridiculously expensive. I remember paying $20 a gram in 1978 for what was represented as Northern Cali sinse...it was worth every stinking cent. We would surgically deconstruct it one tiny budlet at a time, ever-so-careful not to lose a scrap of the glistening trichome dust, an exotic feature of this kind of elite marijuana that we never saw on regular weed, and we did it up in single bong hits to maximize the life of the stash. Ahh, those days.
Now as I tended my secret garden early in the pre-dawn morning I was struck by how fast all that time went by, and also the realization that in the end I have truly made my boyhood dream come true. Someday is here. I let it sink in. I felt still-youthful and yet surprisingly old all in the same moment. Life's journey has been a challenging one, and every scrap of knowledge and life lesson has been hard won. At this point I'm wiser, a lot happier, and proud of my life. And I stand in my ultimate garden.
So why do I find myself wishing I could be that 17-year-old kid, who had nothing but dirtweed and dreams...once more...
All right, back to the update.
Now everybody is taking on the individualized forms of different varieties. It's so exciting to see their differences in the flowering stage.
The entire biomass is bulking steadily. Colas everywhere packing out as flowering wave three is in process. Interior development surprisingly robust.
The differences in the varieties is now so evident!
Amnesias looking pretty and ever-so-tall, especially the giraffe pheno which seemed like it would grow through the roof.
A close-up of the tallest cola...she'd make the cannabis WNBA for sure.
The Amnesia is so different from the Blueberry structurally but shows comparable vigor. In another three or four weeks what a cola this will be!
Meanwhile the Blueberry foursome is absolutely killing it over on the left side...
They LOVE the new side lighting and they have filled out spectacularly over there in response. The control group on the other side pales in comparison so I think additional application of supplemental lighting will be in order down the line. We will see what is ultimately produced but so far it seems to be adding a lot.
The close-up shows how frosty the side lighting is making things over there...
The Jack Herrer plants are now filling in nicely...they have a sort of bottle-brush cola shape. It's cool...
I like my women tall and pretty.
This next photo taken by my drone shows the very back where there are some trees growing, I just can't get near them so I have to look from a distance...That mysterious area back there that I never see until hack time looks like it might contain some really nice chunkers. Those are Hyenas on the right, a Herrer cola on the far left.
Finally, in the far back right, is a giant I have dubbed MOAC (Mother of All Colas). Look at that thing...
I stretched through a bunch of branches at great peril to try to shake it and get an idea of its mass...and it's massive. Heavy as it looks so I'm very excited. I think it's the rearmost branch on one of the Amnesia plants, or could be a Herrer, I'm unable to determine that because it's too tangled to get in there and trace the stem. I can't wait to see what happens with this one!
I ran the secret mid-air refueling hose down and filled all the reservoirs again. The biomass is consuming over 7 gallons of water...per day! I didn't add nutes because there's plenty still in there even though the water has been mostly used...plants take so little compared to what we put into the soil/water!
That leads me to my primary philosophy regarding growing...less is more!
Too often, people don't realize the fundamental fact that the mineral salts we put into solution are only partially used by the plants.
As we replenish the reservoir/continue to water soil, we often keep adding nutrients as if there were none left in there when in reality 80% of everything we have ever added is still in the remaining water/soil! SO many of the problems (especially later-stage) I see and hear about in this forum are caused by the inadvertent build-up of too many nutes IMHO. It's so often the reason why they get burned leaves and are hard to cleanly flush in the end.
This understanding leads to a gradual DECREASE in added nutrients as the grow goes on, NOT an increase! My developmental results are certainly adequate yet my total nutrient additions per gallon have been proportionately reduced each time I refill the reservoir to prevent excessive nutrient buildup. I don't rely on PPM as much as others because it can be misleading and also a higher PPM doesn't hurt the grow if the nutes are right. Perfect leaf tips everywhere are the best indicator that everything is correct.
We're buzzing up to the Northern Command post for three days so I will see them, and you, again on Monday. Have a great weekend and keep 'em green!
Peace, Hyena
