Oh No - It's A Green Hole! - Reverse Thrusters! - Dammit - Too Late!

[Weaselcracker]

Hey Sue it's just me-self I'm holding out on. There have been times I was making all my living from art and I was never happier. These days I'm 'too busy' to make it work. Or so I tell myself. It's kind of true actually. Surviving way out in nowhere turns a lot of people into multi-talented jack-of-all trades types. Our daily allotment of time gets sliced and diced into a jigsaw puzzle, or perhaps a Rubik's cube, by the dubious art of multi-tasking. I try to work enough artistry into my week that I can stay sane but every time I think about what I really want to be doing my insides do a flip-flop. I think in a few years when my kid is more grown I will go for it. I used to think I'd be a musician. I used to think I'd be a writer, or a painter, or a carver, etc. etc. Actually I dreamed for quite a few years about being a tatoo artist. The creative drawing part was easy, but I decided the actual process was probably too intimate and social for me.

Oops I think you hit a nerve...

I'm pretty sure you have that nerve too Sue...

 

[nivek]

Heya weasy,, interesting comments, the last few, to say the least. Art talk is so sexy,, to me anyway. I would enyoy hearing your story one day, and seeing some of how you made your living. I have made several attempts to make a living from my art over the years,,so far I have made plenty-o-art, but no living from it yet, yet, I am only pushing sixty or so, I just haven't found my voice/medium yet.. My latest 'passion', real passion, as I know the meaning, is painting,, and the last week or more I have been painting this

Terrible tablet pic. That photo was this aft and it was dern near done, now it is this eve and it is closer to done.

Actually, thats just a pic of the cool pot leaf,, neat one eh....?

Cheers weasy,, maybe i can post a good pic of the painting when it be done..?

 

[Weaselcracker]

Wow Nivek. That's gorgeous! I'm not one to say stuff like that just to be polite either. Thanks! I've glimpsed a few of your paintings over time in your journal. Please do post a 'good pic' when it's done.
PM'ing you soon...

 

[Weaselcracker]

That bud looks amazing Mr. Wheeze
I tell you wot, your bud producing skills have come far in the past 6 months

V

That's a very nice thing to say Mr. Putin. And you know, it just may be true when I think about it. I have continuing problems it's true. And I just found more tonight (groan). More on that later...
Still, things have gotten better. And the biggest difference is that I don't feel completely blind about what I'm doing. 50-75% blind sometimes. Or 90% at times, but not quite 100% My biggest problem in the past has been having no fucking clue what the fuck is going wrong sorry please excuse my Russian, but now I at least have some hope that there's light at the end of the tunnel, have grown a few plants to harvest looking half decent, and well... there's hope.

Thanks Mr P

 

[Weaselcracker]

Hello Weaselcracker, I check your journal every day. Sorry if I dont comment that much. You are a source of inspiration for me.

This is an incredibly flattering thing to say, especially coming from you Roach. My plants are suffering constant problems and neglect but wtf. Maybe that's part of what is inspiring to you? Ha ha. They're still mostly growing though and I'm hanging in there... I like that quote you put up.
I look forward to seeing those new strains going in your next journal. Soon? ish?

 

[Weaselcracker]

Here's a question for you guys. When I axed the Thai Stick last week I saved some immature branches and put them in a container of water to see if I could get them to keep developing and drop some pollen.
I tossed a bit of grow nutrient in there. I meant to make it weaker than I did, but when I tested the solution it was at 420 ppm. Why argue with that? I also thought after that it may or may not have made more sense to use the bloom nute instead of grow but figured it didn't matter too much either way especially since it's just an experiment. I put the container with the cuttings into a bucket in my wine room, supposedly to catch pollen. I'm seriously questioning WTf I am doing here though since I don't think I'm going to have enough pollen to 'pour' it out where I want it.
Anyway, a week ago they looked like this.

Now they they like this

excuse the crappy photo and are dropping a small but worthwhile amount of pollen on the leaves and into the bucket.

I'll try to save some for pollination of a future Thai Stick girl, if possible. How should I be collecting this pollen so I can use it? Would it make sense to put the container in a large paper bag maybe? Then I could put the bag over a MT limb and shake it around a little?

For now I want to pollinate a Mama Thai branch. Any good ideas on how to best get the pollen from where it is and on to the Mama Thai?
This is what the Mama Thai looks like.
She is way too awkward to carry to the wine-making area so I have to get the pollen to her somehow.

 

[Weaselcracker]

~VEG ROOM~

I transplanted into bigger pots last Monday, and fed them a bit. Also they got some Sunday tea.
Some plants are better. Others are worse. Malawis in the middle are growing very strong.

The two Blueberries are pretty happy.

The PCs are worse.

The MT is worser. Super small and droopy leaves and looks N deficient.

Any ideas? I normally feed the sativas just slightly less than the other plants but I know it's not underfed. It's not overwatered. Roots have been consistently happy looking and not rotten. Here are the roots.

This is a three gallon pot. These are new roots since it was repotted from a two gallon pot 4 days ago. How can a plant have nice active roots like this but be so sickly upstairs? This may be an ignorant question, but if you have any insight on this feel please free to lay it on me.
I suppose next to check is PH of the medium. But the meter is calibrated and working fine and water/solution ph has consistently measured in range.

What else is there? Strange diseases? Plant burnout? (I think this particular pheno is less than 8 months old)

Whatever it is, a couple weeks ago all five of these large veg plants had the mystery problem. They still all have purple stems. The BB is looking 90% recovered but the MT is worse, and both it and the PC are looking yellow and a bit stunted. Strange....

 

[Weaselcracker]

~FLOWERING PLANTS~

A fairly meager looking flowering room compared to a few weeks ago.
More trouble in the works. I found some disturbingly bad mold on the old Pineapple Chunk and chopped a bunch more buds. The most disturbing part was how far and wide how the mold was scattered. Most of it was just starting, but there were several buds with tiny traces of mold all over the place on the surface. It was/is growing on dead pistils. Imagine a fairly mature bud where every dead pistol basically appears made out mold and is fluffy and grey. This is radically different from any mold I've ever had before. Usually I get a few larger areas inside the buds. Not a billion little spots everywhere. I suppose I should have taken photos but I was busy trying to remove the worst of it.
RH has been better than usual. It got to a high of 70, which may shock some of you but trust me I think that is ok since I've usually had highs in the 90s and had less mold than this. RH low was 41 which I think is great.
I'm wondering if it's because of lack of airflow. My good movement fan quit, and the replacement one seems sluggish.
Time to spend more money I suppose, if I can find some. I am the not so proud owner of a large pile of screwed up oscillating fans and rather than shopping I usually try to get one of them working but I'm running low on options. Apparently they don't make fans like they used to. They are overpriced and constantly failing.
In other news.... The flowering BB, MT, and new PC are doing alright. PC and BB showing some signs of nute burn after the last feeding.
Here's the newer PC.

Still not flopped but buds aren't heavy yet so I wouldn't expect it to be.

BB starting to frost up. The blueberry smell of it is incredible. Up in the mountains where I live there are what we call low-bush blueberry plants. They grow only a few inches high but can be packed with teeny berries which make incredible pie. The smell reminds me of them.
So far the dried blueberry herb from last round doesn't seem to have this smell but maybe a few more months of cure will bring it out.

 

[Robert Celt]

Morning Weasel

I have yet to do any pollenating but have read a bit on it.

Some say to put it in a paper bag as you said, mixed with some flour so you can see it, and do as you mentioned with the bag over the limb you want to pollenate. Shake the bag, let things settle for awhile, then carefully remove the bag and then mist the limb with water so that no stray pollen gets to other parts of the plant.

Others collect the pollen in a jar, again mixed with flour, and store with a silica gel pack to keep moisture from killing the pollen. When they want to use it, they use a small artist brush to "paint" the pollen on the buds to be pollenated. And again misting after a bit as above.

Now the NuttyProfessor had the most interesting method I have seen. He harvested the bud off the plant he wanted to breed, leaving the popcorn bud which he then pollenated and let grow out to make seed

 

[welshpony]

Subbed been following your progress doing great and this thread is a great read!

 

[PotChimp]

I tried and (I think) failed at the same thing; collecting and storing pollen from a male Thai Stick plant. From what I'm reading here, my problem was that I didn't use anything to protect the pollen from moisture. I think I'd just be careful with a single male flower cluster and gently rub it on a single female flower if I were in your situation.

 

[Spitz]

Great update WC!

 

[Weaselcracker]

I tried and (I think) failed at the same thing; collecting and storing pollen from a male Thai Stick plant. From what I'm reading here, my problem was that I didn't use anything to protect the pollen from moisture. I think I'd just be careful with a single male flower cluster and gently rub it on a single female flower if I were in your situation.

I can try this Chimp, but it's actually a fair distance and difficult travel conditions to get the boy to the girl. It makes me think that these relationships may work out great on their own but once we start trying to manage everything it's a real headache. This should be do-able I think. I'm thinking a paper bag may be my best option. If it's big enough I can close it up for the trip and hopefully the boy is still in the mood by the time the lovers are united.

Edit- oh yes I completely forgot till now. I tossed a couple more T Stick seeds in to sprout. The thought of that crazy growth dampens my enthusiasm. It's the thought of Thai sticks that keeps me interested.

Morning Weasel

I have yet to do any pollenating but have read a bit on it.

Some say to put it in a paper bag as you said, mixed with some flour so you can see it, and do as you mentioned with the bag over the limb you want to pollenate. Shake the bag, let things settle for awhile, then carefully remove the bag and then mist the limb with water so that no stray pollen gets to other .....

Thanks Celt. Took me a while to figure out who you are! I hope now that you're a moderator we can still get along great. I try hard not to post things that get me modified but sometimes stuff just slips out.
Thanks for the pollination thoughts. I think my best option is a big paper bag to put under/around the container. It's a fairly humid environment even with a heater keeping things toasty warm, so I was trying to think of some way to keep the pollen in the bag dry as it falls, but not sure yet. Best I can think of at the moment is to maybe put the paper bag in the white bucket everything is currently in, but put a layer of dry rice in the bottom of the bucket, under the bag. That may help.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Subbed been following your progress doing great and this thread is a great read!

Hey welcome welshpony. Thanks! I can't help but feel that things are sliding backwards slightly at the moment but wtf... This is one of the few times I wish those veg plants were growing faster. And better. It's not so much that I need more herb, though it's going to suck later on down the road if the vegging Mama Thai doesn't shape up soon. But I'll be sad if I don't have many harvests coming up because of veg problems now. On the other hand, I'm fighting the temptation to start more veg plants now because I'll just have too many later. I wonder if an LED light in the veg room would help. I was thinking a blinking one that spelled 'GROW! BITCHES GROW!' and flashed over and over? Would this appeal to the girls you think? Oh I don't know... Maybe not? Females are just so hard to understand, even when I use plain English! So delicate and sensitive...

 

[Weaselcracker]

Great update WC!

Hey Spitz. How's it going? I'm going to pop over to your journal now to see what happening. I'm plotting to try and grow a couple plants that look like yours do- ie naturally lovely. I'm down to one light's worth of plants though I have two lights going still. Maybe I can grow those Malawis au naterel? Take clones while they stretch? I don't know what sex they are yet. Sounds a bit scary. I'll google that strain more, but maybe I'm better off growing the blueberries scrog free. Even though they've been topped already so it's too late for the look I'm going for.... Hmmmm....

 

[welshpony]

Im liking the sound of that LED light WC im just doing my first ever grow and using CFL's maybe you could throw some of them in amongst the plants for extra coverage?

 

[Robert Celt]

Thanks Celt. Took me a while to figure out who you are! I hope now that you're a moderator we can still get along great. I try hard not to post things that get me modified but sometimes stuff just slips out.

No worries mate I equate the position much like our Canadian Forces, more peace keepers than military LOL

 

[Weaselcracker]

Im liking the sound of that LED light WC im just doing my first ever grow and using CFL's maybe you could throw some of them in amongst the plants for extra coverage?

I would if I thought my veg plants needed more light, but it's something else going on causing them to slow down. Usually its the opposite problem and I dim that veg light to 300 or 400 and am constantly taking the machete to them and under fertilizing them to slow them down. The last few weeks it's been cranked to 600 to speed them up.
What I 'should' be doing is checking the ph of the sunshine mix they are growing in.
I don't have much enthusiasm for this because if the ph is off for some reason (and I can't see why it would be) there's not much I feel like doing to fix it.
It's ok. The young Malawi plants are coming on strong and soon I'll have my hands full again. I also have more Mama Thai seeds somewhere if this one fails, and perhaps it's time I looked for a new pheno anyway.

 

[Weaselcracker]

No worries mate I equate the position much like our Canadian Forces, more peace keepers than military LOL

Thanks, Well then I certainly expect you to apologize after you shoot me, eh.

 

[lexort420]

Hey weasel i was wondering what you use for nutes cause i just can't for the life of me remember lol