InTheShed Grows Inside & Out: Jump In Any Time

I’ve got cuts that are just about ready of my Durban. How soon you looking? I’d kinda like to grab a Candida from you.
Growing cannabis is hard to do when the sun doesn’t come out lol. My Green Doc hasn’t been outside the tent in a week or so lol.
If you were in L.A. I have a 12" tall Candida in a 1 gallon you can have!
Just remember how nice it is to have a tent during shitty weather.
Or a shed ;).
You’re so right, I’ve got one plant out there and she’s just getting all this weather! :rofl:
It’s been getting pretty cool at night too and this AK47 is showing purpling, plus she’s revegging. It’s a been an interesting spring for me haha.
I am super thankful for the tent in times like these.
Cheers.
So it's just a different summer grow than you expected!
At that point the bugs are eating the concrete.
Everything is bigger in Texas!
I'm the opposite of y'all I don't like using pesticides and stuff so my plants are either in or out. I don't do crossover grows unless I'm going from indo to outdo!
Wimp! Anyway, no one likes using pesticides and I'm all organic with the bug killers.
 
The time is out of joint (oh curs'ed spite) at my house, so no pics today. Everything got watered except the Bedroom Cookies because it gets 2 gallons at a time. But I think it's time for the Skin Salve Update!

Let me start by telling you about the two different types of topicals I make.

The first is my pain oil. It's made from actual dried bud, as I want the oil to be at least 15mg THC/ml oil. That's the number I have found to be the minimum for pain relief. I make it with a 50/50 blend of grapeseed and pumpkin seed oils, and it's done in the MB machine since it's easy to fit the decarbed bud and oil in there as the machine grinds it for you as it goes. The resulting oil goes in a bottle in my nightstand, small roller bottles for pocket/purse/desk, and the rest goes in the fridge. I'm sure you've seen tutorials on that, but if not I can point you to a few.

The second is what I call my skin salve. It is not high in THC because it's made from the rest of the plant after drying. @SweetSue found information in Roger Pertwee’s Handbook of Cannabis that quoted historical documents where the hemp plant in oil is recommended for burns.

Before I even read that, I had made some a few years ago with the roots, and I found it excellent for hives, itching, bites, and abrasions. This time I decided to save every bit of the plants I was taking down, let them dry, and make a big batch in a crock pot.

As I harvested the plant I would cut the stems into about 1" pieces and leave them in a bucket to dry. I also rinsed the roots, let them dry, and cut them with a scissors into the bucket. I also dried the fans and put them in the bucket after they were dry (to keep them from molding).

I ended up with two boxes that looked like this:

That was way more than would fit in the 5qt crockpot, so I have loads left over for the next batch:

I had three 14oz bottles of organic unrefined coconut oil that I put in the microwave to liquefy, so I could pour it in the pot:

It did not come close to covering the material!

So I went back to the store and bought another 3 jars, liquefied them, and added that to the mix. That's 84 liquid ounces of coconut oil:

You can see that the plant material is not completely covered, but every bit is touching oil.

I put the crockpot on low cook, as I wanted it to be around 180º. It was never exact so sometimes I would turn it up and when it started to bubble I would turn it down again. Whenever I walked past I would take a slotted spoon and mix it up and push it back under the oil.

After 48 hours, the oil had been absorbed into all the material, so it now looked like this:

I continued the infusion process for 4 days to make sure that all the goodness from inside the stems and roots had a chance to get into the oil. Drying the stems eliminates all the water from the material but also makes it take longer to re-oildrate them.

At the end of the process, I used a straining spoon and removed most of the plant from the crock pot.

And put it in a metal pot:

I poured the crock pot oil into another pot and used a strainer to catch what the straining spoon did not. Then I scooped out the plant material and pressed it into the strainer to get out what I could.

I tossed out the leftover plant material and it was time to add the beeswax. I went with beeswax over soy wax because beeswax is supposed to have anti-inflammatory properties, which is a good thing to have in a skin salve!

Beeswax is harder to clean up, so I created a throw-away double boiler out of tin foil:

And I did all my mixing of oil and beeswax in large pyrex measuring cups because I find them easier to clean than metal pots.

Figuring out how many grams of beeswax to use per cup of oil took a long time, but here is my final recipe. I ended up with 25g beeswax/cup of oil, but I might go with 30g/cup for slightly stiffer product at room temperatures.

I had ordered what I thought were push-up dispensers from Amazon, but they turned out to be twist up like deodorant and much bigger than I thought. Still, they work fine:

I filled 12 of them and still had a jar and a half left over. I left them to cool on the counter over night and put them in the fridge in the morning. They're okay on the counter but don't leave them in a hot car or leaning on their side in warm weather. Even beeswax will melt as the temps rise. And for longer term storage, the fridge is best as coconut oil won't keep forever with all that organic material in it.

Oh, and it works. I got bitten by a mosquito last night right between my first and middle finger and it was driving me nuts. I rubbed this on and it didn't itch again until after my shower this morning!

I hope this helps :).
 
Been away from ya for a while Shed....missed about 200 pages so just gonna get on board here and see if I cant keep up.

Great looking family portrait back there a few pages brother. :popcorn:
 
Thanks Shed. Between all the work on the house and some severe pain in my neck/traps and shoulders, I rarely find the time or desire to get on here. The neck/shoulder/trap pain got bad enough I had to see a doctor about it. Anytime I would look down at the phone or computer I would lock up in all sorts of knots and burning sensation in the neck.

Funny thing, I was harvesting the BCP and while we were doing it we were listening to Joe Rogan podcasts on the Tube. We finished the one with Chris Stapleton and it switched to one with that tool Dan Bilzerian (total tool in my opinion). It was not a good episode...but for some reason a little voice told me to just listen to it. So I did.....and Joe got to a point where he was talking about shoulder pain to the point where surgery was needed. Thats when it got interesting. He said he found a trainer that had him start doing hanging therapy. Well needless to say I decided to start just trying to stretch that area a bit by hanging from whatever.

Holy hell dude...that stuff really works! I have only been doing it about a week, but I have to say my pain levels are probably down about 30% which might not sound like a lot but the neck/trap/shoulder area was actually hurting worse than my back injury. I don't even know if I am doing it right but I can tell you that I can actually sit on the couch for more than 15 minutes without that searing nerve pain that felt like I had a silver back gorilla sitting on my neck. Its been months since I have been able to do that.

I think I am going to put up a pull up bar out back so I can have an actual place to hang. Just thought I would share that.....if there is anyone else out there with pain in that area...maybe explore it. Its about as magical to my pain as cannabis is. I don't even know if I am doing the right technique (its hanging...how hard can it be right??) but its working!
 
It so funny that you say that, because I grew up with a chinning bar screwed into the door of my parents' bedroom. No one did any chin-ups or anything, but my dad used to hang from it every night. Just hang with his arms straight, and he always said the key was to let his hips drop. This would have been over 50 years ago! He's never had a back or neck problem in his life.
 
It no shit helps me man.....I am sold. Ironically Joe Rogan said he never had to have surgery after doing the hanging.

Thats all I do...hang straight. Man you should hear the cracking and popping in the shoulder/trap/neck area when I do it. My stuff never used to crack or pop and then suddenly it started and pain followed. Tons of knots up in that area too. I still have them but they aren't as big as they were a week ago Now with the hanging, the popping and cracking is getting less and when it does do it...its no where near as painful.
 
Without knowing anything about your history @Van Stank have you tried out massage therapy? Full disclosure - I’m a LMT so I’m totally biased, but sounds like it could help.

Thanks for the salve tutorial @InTheShed! Saved for sure and I can’t wait to use it. :thanks:
 
No I haven't.....and I am sure I could benefit from it. I keep telling Ms Stank she needs to learn that stuff! :p
I’d give it a try if I were you. Definitely try it before you have surgery!!! I think you’d be amazed how much it helps. I’m glad you found something that is helping already though, chronic neck pain is the worst. Ok, sales pitch over.
 
I got referrals for x-rays and PT from my Doc, but I learned about the hanging therapy the night I got the referrals and I started it that night. I have felt such a noticeable difference each day since then that last night I told Ms Stank that I don't think I am going to do the PT and if it weren't for idle curiousity, I wouldn't even waste my time with the x-ray. If it continues to improve at the current rate, I can't see it being an issue beyond another couple weeks.

7 days of less than 3 minutes of hanging per day and I feel amazing compared to where I was. I still want to have the x-rays done as long as they won't cost too much out of pocket (never been to the doctor outside of the military besides the workers comp with the back injury....so I have no idea what something like that will cost or what Tricare covers) just to see whats going on in there. I have had shoulder pain dating back to high school sports and the throughout years of combat sports in the Marines so I know there are some issues aside from nerve stuff that has been going on over the last 3-4 months. It would be kind of nice to know what sort of issues I have lingering up in there.
 
I’d give it a try if I were you. Definitely try it before you have surgery!!! I think you’d be amazed how much it helps. I’m glad you found something that is helping already though, chronic neck pain is the worst. Ok, sales pitch over.

Yeah, it sounds like tendon/muscle tension, doesn't it? The burning/stinging ...

You have a self-reinforcing thing going on Stank. The tension creates pain in your muscles, you hold them tighter, then tendons complain ...

Massage, and a conscious awareness of tensing that area will help a bunch. I had a milder case 10 years back, and once I knew what I was doing, it gradually stopped, over some months.
 
Yeah, it sounds like tendon/muscle tension, doesn't it? The burning/stinging ...

You have a self-reinforcing thing going on Stank. The tension creates pain in your muscles, you hold them tighter, then tendons complain ...

Massage, and a conscious awareness of tensing that area will help a bunch. I had a milder case 10 years back, and once I knew what I was doing, it gradually stopped, over some months.
I don't like that burning stuff. Only way I could get it to stop was to smoke and work. The minute I set back down on the couch I would feel my shoulders rising on their own (like I was flexing them) and the burning would start. Remember as a kid playing swimming pools...you put someone on your shoulders and try to knock the other players off their partner? Well it felt like I was playing that constantly....with a 500 lb gorilla my neck. It got far worse than my back injury itself. This wouldn't relent.....until I hung! Now it feels like I have 90 lb kid sitting up, but only every so often..not constantly.
 
I got referrals for x-rays and PT from my Doc, but I learned about the hanging therapy the night I got the referrals and I started it that night. I have felt such a noticeable difference each day since then that last night I told Ms Stank that I don't think I am going to do the PT and if it weren't for idle curiousity, I wouldn't even waste my time with the x-ray. If it continues to improve at the current rate, I can't see it being an issue beyond another couple weeks.

7 days of less than 3 minutes of hanging per day and I feel amazing compared to where I was. I still want to have the x-rays done as long as they won't cost too much out of pocket (never been to the doctor outside of the military besides the workers comp with the back injury....so I have no idea what something like that will cost or what Tricare covers) just to see whats going on in there. I have had shoulder pain dating back to high school sports and the throughout years of combat sports in the Marines so I know there are some issues aside from nerve stuff that has been going on over the last 3-4 months. It would be kind of nice to know what sort of issues I have lingering up in there.
Yeah, if it doesn’t cost too much, why not see what’s going on in there? But to me, it sounds muscular. High school sports can be really hard on a body. Overtraining certain muscles, etc. can lead to poor posture patterns, and then life in general. Looking down at phones, being haunched over a steering wheel or computer. Anyway, I could go on and on, but maybe give it a try and see how it suits you? And keep up with the hanging for sure :thumb:
 
Let me start by telling you about the two different types of topicals I make.

The first is my pain oil. It's made from actual dried bud, as I want the oil to be at least 15mg THC/ml oil. That's the number I have found to be the minimum for pain relief. I make it with a 50/50 blend of grapeseed and pumpkin seed oils, and it's done in the MB machine since it's easy to fit the decarbed bud and oil in there as the machine grinds it for you as it goes. The resulting oil goes in a bottle in my nightstand, small roller bottles for pocket/purse/desk, and the rest goes in the fridge. I'm sure you've seen tutorials on that, but if not I can point you to a few.

The second is what I call my skin salve. It is not high in THC because it's made from the rest of the plant after drying. @SweetSue found information in Roger Pertwee’s Handbook of Cannabis that quoted historical documents where the hemp plant in oil is recommended for burns.

Before I even read that, I had made some a few years ago with the roots, and I found it excellent for hives, itching, bites, and abrasions. This time I decided to save every bit of the plants I was taking down, let them dry, and make a big batch in a crock pot.

As I harvested the plant I would cut the stems into about 1" pieces and leave them in a bucket to dry. I also rinsed the roots, let them dry, and cut them with a scissors into the bucket. I also dried the fans and put them in the bucket after they were dry (to keep them from molding).

I ended up with two boxes that looked like this:

That was way more than would fit in the 5qt crockpot, so I have loads left over for the next batch:

I had three 14oz bottles of organic unrefined coconut oil that I put in the microwave to liquefy, so I could pour it in the pot:

It did not come close to covering the material!

So I went back to the store and bought another 3 jars, liquefied them, and added that to the mix. That's 84 liquid ounces of coconut oil:

You can see that the plant material is not completely covered, but every bit is touching oil.

I put the crockpot on low cook, as I wanted it to be around 180º. It was never exact so sometimes I would turn it up and when it started to bubble I would turn it down again. Whenever I walked past I would take a slotted spoon and mix it up and push it back under the oil.

After 48 hours, the oil had been absorbed into all the material, so it now looked like this:

I continued the infusion process for 4 days to make sure that all the goodness from inside the stems and roots had a chance to get into the oil. Drying the stems eliminates all the water from the material but also makes it take longer to re-oildrate them.

At the end of the process, I used a straining spoon and removed most of the plant from the crock pot.

And put it in a metal pot:

I poured the crock pot oil into another pot and used a strainer to catch what the straining spoon did not. Then I scooped out the plant material and pressed it into the strainer to get out what I could.

I tossed out the leftover plant material and it was time to add the beeswax. I went with beeswax over soy wax because beeswax is supposed to have anti-inflammatory properties, which is a good thing to have in a skin salve!

Beeswax is harder to clean up, so I created a throw-away double boiler out of tin foil:

And I did all my mixing of oil and beeswax in large pyrex measuring cups because I find them easier to clean than metal pots.

Figuring out how many grams of beeswax to use per cup of oil took a long time, but here is my final recipe. I ended up with 25g beeswax/cup of oil, but I might go with 30g/cup for slightly stiffer product at room temperatures.

I had ordered what I thought were push-up dispensers from Amazon, but they turned out to be twist up like deodorant and much bigger than I thought. Still, they work fine:

I filled 12 of them and still had a jar and a half left over. I left them to cool on the counter over night and put them in the fridge in the morning. They're okay on the counter but don't leave them in a hot car or leaning on their side in warm weather. Even beeswax will melt as the temps rise. And for longer term storage, the fridge is best as coconut oil won't keep forever with all that organic material in it.

Oh, and it works. I got bitten by a mosquito last night right between my first and middle finger and it was driving me nuts. I rubbed this on and it didn't itch again until after my shower this morning!

I hope this helps :).
Excellent tutorial, Shed -- thanks a bunch, I will certainly be giving this a try. :thumb:

Coincidentally, I just made my first batch of topical just a couple days ago. A very small batch of less than 2 oz. because I wasn't really sure how it would turn out. I followed your suggestion to make sure it was at least 15 mg/ml - I calculated mine to be about 17 mg/ml using 100% grape seed oil. I tried it out on my wife - she had what she thinks were a couple sprained toes. She said she definitely felt better after the application. I really like your push/screw up bottles - would make it easier and less messy to apply. Again, thanks! :thanks:
 
Thats when it got interesting. He said he found a trainer that had him start doing hanging therapy.
When you get a chance and if it's in the budget, check out zon for Inversion Therapy Tables. I hear they are the cats ass for stuff like that.
View media item 1682953
 
“Hanging therapy?” LMAO! Shut up! Do squats puss! :slide:

Hahaha! Just kidding! Hanging, right side up or inverted, has many therapeutic effects. I love the tutorial Shed. Thank you very much. Saving that one brother.

You guys are awesome! :circle-of-love:
 
When you get a chance and if it's in the budget, check out zon for Inversion Therapy Tables. I hear they are the cats ass for stuff like that.
View media item 1682953
Yeah maybe some day I will get something like that. In the mean time, I just head down to the basement and hang off the center beam. Its crazy, I go with a grip just a bit wider than shoulder width, and as soon as I have all my weight on my hands.....you just hear a massive series of pops, really loud pops, and it feels so good after that. I just do it for 15-30 second intervals, several times a day.
 
“Hanging therapy?” LMAO! Shut up! Do squats puss! :slide:

Hahaha! Just kidding! Hanging, right side up or inverted, has many therapeutic effects. I love the tutorial Shed. Thank you very much. Saving that one brother.

You guys are awesome! :circle-of-love:
Shut up old man!! I do squats already.....just with a kettlebell. No strain on the back that way. Don't you have some Ensure to go drink or something you old coot!
 
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