PeeJay's Neophyte Breeding Adventure

[SweetSue]

I've used Wiggle Worm, some other generic one I can't recall at the moment and my own homegrown. The homegrown was my preferred, but I keep killing the worms and I don't think that's fair to them. I went looking on line for vermicompost that would amp up my soil and I found Worm Power. Yes, expensive, but fabulous quality.

Homemade is best, local is next up IMHO, and I put Worm Power next in line on my list. I find it worth the cost of shipping. I try to use it carefully and not waste a bit of it.

How many have you tried PeeJay? Do you have a preference, or have you found a certain homogeneity in what's offered? I confess my experience with EWC is limited by my general inexperience in growing at all, so I'm still curious about it all.

 

[PeeJay]

I listed what I've used above, Sue. I like the local one best mostly because I can go down and see the worm dude and load poo in the back of my truck and it is very affordable and way more enjoyable than a trip to the big-box or hydro shop. I can not honestly say that I see a big difference in plant performance with one over the other. It's not like I can say that I have grown clones under identical conditions in different soils where the only variable was the brand of castings because I haven't - and would be really surprised if anyone on here has done closely controlled worm castings experiments. I've definitely noticed aesthetic differences between the different castings. The wiggle worm was the least appealing but if it was what I could get and afford I wouldn't hesitate to use it.

I really like dirt. A lot of making the best dirt you can is dependent on the situation at hand. Someone who lives in a third-floor walk-up with limited storage or space, no yard, and is largely reliant on public transportation does not compare with someone who has multiple compost piles, worm farms, a chicken coop full of poo, a pile of dolomite lime chunks leftover from preparing a weed resistant driveway track, and a pickup or large SUV... For example, there is Reg who lives in the city (uber-urban). Canna who has lots of stuff around that can be utilized, is physically capable to do some heavy lifting but is on a budget. Denise who struggles with the physical end and needs to recruit help for the heavy stuff and doesn't need to worry if she buys ingredients for her soil that she will go hungry before the next check comes in, Mr. Teddy who lives in Greece and can comb the woods for nettles, has a spring that spouts magic water (when the Germans up the hill don't poach the water with an irrigation line,) but has a very difficult time sourcing any of the specific products and amendments mentioned in discussions. I still want to see Teddy make his own fish emulsion sometime. Last time I brought it up Mrs. Teddy nixed it for sounding way too yucky and smelly to mess with. I think Teddy should reconsider. Last time I brought it up he wasn't in the cat farming business. DIY fishy ferts would be even more fun with a passel of cats supervising the project. Hey, Canna. That would be a fantastic project for you, too. You could have a regular raccoon and and coyote fiesta!

A thought, Reg. Do you have a breakfast place you go to in your neighborhood? I bet you could ask them for eggshells and carry sacks full away from the back door. Reg has done fine in dirt he made without any castings at all. If he can get some he should. If not, he'll do the best he can.

 

[SweetSue]

It's one of the reasons I buy my EWC and have it delivered. It's enough to carry it up the 40 stairs. LOL! I wish I'd figure out how to keep the worms alive outside of my no-till because for my small garden it'd be the perfect solution. I like the idea for the DIY fishy frets. I have a tutorial saved to my home screen and just realized that my concern that the smell would bother Dale is no longer valid. Wow! Those moments hit without warning! Whew!

I'll have to give that further thought. Do you have a favored method you'd like to share? I'm game. I was just thinking about fish frets. Maybe this was why. No cats to deal with either.

 

[PeeJay]

I've never actually made fishy ferts... Pretty much you layer up fish scraps and sawdust in a bucket and add water to cover. Then you let it rot. You can cover the bucket if you want but you need to burp out the gas frequently. I don't think I would do it inside. The best would be a bucket with a lid and a vent hose. After things have gotten superbly ripe in the bucket, strain off the juice.

 

[SweetSue]

I've never actually made fishy ferts... Pretty much you layer up fish scraps and sawdust in a bucket and add water to cover. Then you let it rot. You can cover the bucket if you want but you need to burp out the gas frequently. I don't think I would do it inside. The best would be a bucket with a lid and a vent hose. After things have gotten superbly ripe in the bucket, strain off the juice.

I have a balcony, three floors up. That should spare the neighbors, don't you think? Then it's a matter of burping. Hmmm. More thought needed. I do need to consider the daughter. This sounds like something best done in a shed.

 

[Lady Cannafan]

I laughed and I laughed....at the thought that a raccoon/coyote fiesta could actually happen here.....it really could.

I could probably give the fishy ferts a good test, plenty of fish in the pond (a couple of catfish that need to come out of there) and there is certainly plenty of sawdust around here. LOL

Just what I need, another project.

My indoor worm farm is underway. Huge night crawlers to give me huge poo....

Someone said recently, I can't specifically say who it was, that they use their aquarium water on the plants. Lot of fishy poo if you use the bottom of the tank when cleaning it.
Any thoughts on why that wouldn't be a good thing PeeJay?
I sold my very large aquarium to my brother, I could ask him to save the "drippings" after cleaning it. LOL

 

[SweetSue]

Good laugh Canna. Just what you need. Not just another project but a right smelly one. You brave woman.

 

[PeeJay]

Aquarium water is great from what I hear Cana. I'm not sure what would happen to the drippings if they sat around for a while after your brother harvested them. It's in a bubbled environment in the aquarium sort of like a compost tea. No idea what happens when it goes anaerobic. Would your brother rush it right over like it was a fresh liver ready for transplant?

Sue, if you do burping then... Well then you could just carry the sucker downstairs and chuck it in the nearest dumpster. For God's sake don't drop the bucket in the stairwell!

 

[B A R]

I've never actually made fishy ferts... Pretty much you layer up fish scraps and sawdust in a bucket and add water to cover. Then you let it rot. You can cover the bucket if you want but you need to burp out the gas frequently. I don't think I would do it inside. The best would be a bucket with a lid and a vent hose. After things have gotten superbly ripe in the bucket, strain off the juice.

I think I can do that on the roof of our building. I'm pretty sure no-one will take it. If someone happened to go up there and open it they'd be like "WHAT THE F@#K !" close it back up and continue about there business.
I'm serious, can you use just the heads and tails of the fish? That's what we always tell them to throw away when we're getting our fish cleaned at the fish market.
I'd probably have to let the Super know it's mines in advance so he won't throw it away.

 

[B A R]

PJ, I just ordered this from Cramazon but only a 1lb bag for $5.99 + free shipping & handling. It should be enough for at least this batch. You can almost say it was free of charge since I still had a few bucks on my debit card from my last order.

I was also thinking I have over a lb of fresh trim I've been saving for cannabutter in the freezer. Could I just use some of that for my dried crushed leaves?

 

[Dennise]

Broke Ass that is what I used in my last batch of PJ soil cause I didn't have enough left of the Red Bud Farms EWC... and you know me... Ms. Energy... so I ordered the same thing you did and they are fine.... PJ is correct they are not as big and pretty... for lack of a better word... but my girls that are in it are the auto Sugar Mango and the baby Blue Blood and the 2 baby auto Ultra Lemon Haze and IMHO they look amazing... the best round yet actually so far.....

 

[PeeJay]

That will be plenty for one batch, Reg. Sure you could use the trim if you want. I don't know it's value for edibles. If it's nice trim then eat it! If it's meh trim then add it to the dirt.

There are quite a few YouTubes about making fish ferts. The roof sounds like a plan. Apparently you have to stir the goop every couple of days after the first week. If you don't mind going up on the roof every couple of days and stirring the stink then go for it. I have a hard time believing you'll be able to convince anyone to go up there and stir it for you.

 

[Lady Cannafan]

This may have been covered before, but how often are the worm castings added as either a top dressing or mixed into the soil? Do they have a limit of time on when they are no longer of use in the soil?

 

[PeeJay]

Indoor Update

The plants are both in close proximity to the 8 week mark since they started setting pistils under the 12/12 schedule. The Cheese, according to the breeder, is a 9 week strain and the DarkStar is a ten week strain. It took the DarkStar several days longer to start setting pistils. Looking at things I still expect the DarkStar to finish a couple of weeks after the Cheese. Will the Cheese be ready in a week? Hard to say. It is still making plump juicy calyxes. Both plants are slowing down in the pistil department. The Cheese stinks to high heaven. The DarkStar indoors has the same evergreen and fuel smell as the one outside. There is some leaf burn on the buds closest to the lights but the lights can go no higher. It's doesn't appear to be hurting things badly. I'm not seeing much in the way of fade on either plant. Sure, a lot of leaves yellowed and fell off in the understory, but there is not much in the way of traditional fade going on. Cheese didn't get a treat this week. DarkStar got 2tsp / gallon of 2-3-1 fishy ferts.

Blurry whole tent view.

A variety of Cheese pics. The colas remind me of fat Buddha's

Some DarkStar porn.

 

[SweetSue]

Loving the High Brix nature of the entire grow. The leaves are so luscious. I have such a soft spot for healthy leaves. Thanks for the upbeat start to the day PeeJay. Mmmmmm.

 

[Lady Cannafan]

Now there's some true Yum Yum

 

[Graytail]

Beautiful plants, PeeJay! Big fat buds, gorgeous dark shiny leaves - mmph!

 

[B A R]

Now there's some true Yum Yum

 

[PeeJay]

Breeders Update

And then there were three. Another one of the four Panamas went male on me. It was the tallest and lankiest of the lot. I'm not wanting to make rope so I kilt him dead. That left me with two female Panamas and two female Chitrals. One of the female Panamas looked at me funny, I kilt her too. I kept the nicest female of the lot. I would have liked to keep the other one but space is getting to be a concern.

From 16 plants I've selected down to three to make seeds with. They like the PJ v2.01 just fine and are all over 4' tall. Just water. I've decided not to reverse any plants this time. I want to explore phenos more before I feminize anything. There is no rush.

I harvested the pollen from the two male Chitral last week but I think I'm going to only use pollen from the shorter of the two. One was out of control with HUGE node spacing and grew skyward like Jack's bean stalk. It was also the one that had the most purple coloration but I seem to have enough color going on elsewhere...

It was quite easy, simply cut the stem and walk away with the bag sealed portion of the plant. Once in a remote location I shook all the pollen into one corner of the bag, tore it off, dumped the pollen and flower bits out onto paper, separated out the flower bits, folded the paper and slid the pollen into a container with a few grains of rice. Easy money. I did this over at a friends house so flying pollen wasn't a concern.

The Panama stud is at all boys school doing his business into a sack. In a couple of days I'll collect his pollen and then go defile the girls.

There are four clones in the mini bubble cloner. One of each of the two female Chitral, and one of each of the two female Panamas. The clones are showing roots. I'm going to grow them out indoors and see what they do. If the Panama from the mother I kilt turns out to be special I'm going to be sad...

Before I could even get back in there to take photos I needed to set the Sage 'n sour in order since she was falling all over the Panama. I said some not such nice things about the Sage 'n Sour the other day. My opinion of her is improved now that she is leash trained.

Here's the Panama. As mentioned I like it because it stayed fairly short and branched nicely once it got up to decent light. Bugs left it alone. The other one was chomped on more and just not as healthy all around.

This first Chitral is the taller of the two and probably the branchier one as well. There are some very colorful phenos of this strain and I do believe I'm seeing a little purple.

The second Chitral is shorter than the first one. No question about seeing pretty colors on this one...

By selectively polinating I'll end up with:

Panama Male x Chirtal 1 & 2.

Panama Female x Chitral Male

Panama Female x Panama Male

Chitral 1 x Chitral Male

Chitral 2 x Chitral Male

That should be plenty for the time being...

 

[PeeJay]

This may have been covered before, but how often are the worm castings added as either a top dressing or mixed into the soil? Do they have a limit of time on when they are no longer of use in the soil?

Canna, you can mix the castings right into soil mix. I'm about 15% castings by volume in my mix but less is fine. More might be overkill.

Lots of people like them for tea as you know. I don't mess with teas figuring that I can feed the microbes directly in the soil and they will thrive just fine. For top dressing I mix them with an equal amount of new soil and a handful of Yum-Yum. If you make the mix a day or two ahead and make it slightly damp it will get very bioactive. Then I scratch the mix into the top couple of inches of soil and water it in.