The Hexapus's Garden

[Kriaze]

Thanks man. just a little necessary venting, lol!

Cheesy, a day after being watered. She's a crispy critter. Anything I touch on her crumbles to dust.

Except way down at the very bottom there....

A tiny little mostly-alive leaf.
One tiny leaf left, at the very bottom. That's pretty funny.
It's a bloody cliffhanger.
We will see if if she clings on.

It might just be enough for a reveg. See how much she can really take

 

[Weaselcracker]

It would be a funny twist to the story of this plant if she goes through this and survives. She's about as close to dead as a plant can get right now.

Here are a couple pics of the roots from the solo cup grow. The black and white ones are of perlite-grown plants.

The difference in root structure between the perlite grown ones and the coco cups was consistent among all the six plants, with three containers of each type of medium used. I don't know if the larger 'hydro roots' on the perlite plants were caused by the little hempy reservoirs at the bottom of each container, or from the large grain size of the perlite, or both.
Does that sentence make sense? Anyway the difference was interesting. The coco plants all had web-like structures of very fine roots as they do in this picture of Cheesy's roots which I already posted but will bore you with again.

 

[AKgramma]

I got a laugh out of Cheesy's pics. That is how my OGKs look at the end of their flowering. Dry on the vine! Bud on a stick! At the very least you can crush them for use in cannabudder, in tea, or as a condiment. There's trics in there SOMEWHERE!

 

[Weaselcracker]

Those buds are full of nice sparkly crystals. I left all those lower buds intact because I thought I would let her reveg with dignity instead of taking every last crumb. Then I went and completely toasted her, lol. I'm leaving the buds on for now- I don't know why exactly, but I'll use them if she doesn't make it. I'm intrigued by that one little half a leaf that still not dead.

I've been pondering the idea of getting my plants to grow roots from the stems. I think roots would develop (?) from almost any point on the stem if I was able to find a way to keep that area encased in some sort of growing/rooting medium for a couple weeks- and figure out how to keep it moist. If it worked it might be a good way to make a clone- possibly quite a large one if I wanted.
I'm sure it's been tried.
I guess the simplest and most obvious way is to just bend down and bury a section of a branch's stem in the container and wait.
I'll do that tomorrow.

I haven't discounted your plastic bag/cfl method AK. I may try it- and I have tried various things similar to that in the past. I usually hit problems when I enclose things though- they tend to rot.

 

[cbgb]

everything ok with you weasel ? this too shall pass

 

[STIHL LOGGER]

Wease!

 

[cbgb]

weasel , my buds, although they always come out beautiful and super frosty are light and crispy ....... someone had said not enough light. i am a small grower just for myself and friends and use a simple cfl lighting system 150watt/40watt feit daylight spectrum bulbs and use 8 bulbs 4 on top and 4 surrounding the sides for a total of 22,400 lumens per plant with a reflective tent. depending on conditions i usually dry for 5-7 days or until the stem snaps and at least a ten day cure w/ a burp a day.......it was a learning curve at first but now have great plants / harvest . i prefer regular seeds... the photo is of highway man x tang tang that i took a leap of faith .... 60 day veg, lst and topped once will be harvested at 75 days (may 10th) photo is 2 weeks old...................next is working with that strain blockhead and using the 12/12 method all the way thru the grow. she is doing just fine ..

 

[AKgramma]

I haven't discounted your plastic bag/cfl method AK. I may try it- and I have tried various things similar to that in the past. I usually hit problems when I enclose things though- they tend to rot.

You have to leave some ventilation holes, or be around to open the bag for a few minutes every day. My RH in the clone jar stays pretty much at 90% until they root, then I acclimate them to room humidity. I've cloned the tops off a plant that dumped all its leaves except those at the tips. Large clones, but So far they're healthy.

 

[AKgramma]

weasel , my buds, although they always come out beautiful and super frosty are light and crispy ....... someone had said not enough light. i am a small grower just for myself and friends and use a simple cfl lighting system 150watt/40watt feit daylight spectrum bulbs and use 8 bulbs 4 on top and 4 surrounding the sides for a total of 22,400 lumens per plant with a reflective tent. depending on conditions i usually dry for 5-7 days or until the stem snaps and at least a ten day cure w/ a burp a day.......it was a learning curve at first but now have great plants / harvest . i prefer regular seeds... the photo is of highway man x tang tang that i took a leap of faith .... 60 day veg, lst and topped once will be harvested at 75 days (may 10th) photo is 2 weeks old...................next is working with that strain blockhead and using the 12/12 method all the way thru the grow. she is doing just fine ..

I grow the same way, and end up with larfy, but potent buds. On the advice of a family member, I wet them down and press them into a bud shape in the corner of a baggie, then set them out to dry. I've done this both right after harvest and trimming, and after 3 months cure. It works either way.

 

[SweetSue]

I grow the same way, and end up with larfy, but potent buds. On the advice of a family member, I wet them down and press them into a bud shape in the corner of a baggie, then set them out to dry. I've done this both right after harvest and trimming, and after 3 months cure. It works either way.

I'd think you're leaving a significant number of smashed trichomes on the inside of the plastic baggie. Ouch!! Why not just use them the way they are? You're going to bust them up to consume them anyway, aren't you? It's potency we grow for.

Sorry, my BIL lives in my building and he occasionally grows too. He once harvested some White Widow that he raved about and he gave me a bit to try. That bit was inside a little baggie that he'd smashed the hell out of. There weren't any intact trichomes left. I've never looked at a baggie the same since.

But it's a valid question. What difference does it make how they look if they're potent?

 

[AKgramma]

I'd think you're leaving a significant number of smashed trichomes on the inside of the plastic baggie. Ouch!! Why not just use them the way they are? You're going to bust them up to consume them anyway, aren't you? It's potency we grow for.

Sorry, my BIL lives in my building and he occasionally grows too. He once harvested some White Widow that he raved about and he gave me a bit to try. That bit was inside a little baggie that he'd smashed the hell out of. There weren't any intact trichomes left. I've never looked at a baggie the same since.

But it's a valid question. What difference does it make how they look if they're potent?

That's a good point, Sweet Sue, one that I put before the members of my family who smoke. They crush it up anyway! I don't press THAT hard, tho, and do most of the shaping with my fingers. But they are young and think there is something special in pressed buds. Since they do chores for me for pot, I give them what they want.

For myself, I use the larfy buds and the leaves to make cannabudder for my capsules.

 

[SweetSue]

That's a good point, Sweet Sue, one that I put before the members of my family who smoke. They crush it up anyway! I don't press THAT hard, tho, and do most of the shaping with my fingers. But they are young and think there is something special in pressed buds. Since they do chores for me for pot, I give them what they want.

For myself, I use the larfy buds and the leaves to make cannabudder for my capsules.

Tell me more about these capsules.

 

[Weaselcracker]

The only other time I heard of this before now was in India. I was chatting with a fellow in a village who was packaging it up into tholas (a thola is a measurement - which is about a half ounce if I remember right) in homemade paper bags or envelopes. He would put them between sheets of paper with a little board on top and kneel on them. He told me that the 'grass' had to be squeezed and compressed this way before it was sold. There was no clear answer on why it 'had to be done' this way , but then that was India. Not many clear answers on why anything was done the way it was. I was under the impression that people were used to getting buds that were compressed during transport, and they just thought they should look that way. Who knows... The so called grass was always very dry brown stuff full of seeds and stems and generally in poor condition. Almost always very mild, not that I didn't enjoy it. It hardly seemed worth the extra trouble to squash the stuff like that before putting it in a paper envelope where it would tend crumble into dust eventually anyway.
Anyway... To return to the dry and crispy subject which caused this interesting tangent- I repotted cheesy tonight into a bigger pot- to avoid any chance of crisping her again. She has a few roots growing out from her root ball, and the little half leaf is still green.
I won't be broken hearted if she dies. I'm glad I have this little second chance though. Last week just seemed a little too final for me.

 

[AKgramma]

Tell me more about these capsules.

Pretty easy, really.

1) Make your cannabudder with real butter or coconut oil, either one will be solid at room temps.

2) Melt cannabudder in microwave till liquid, but not cooking.

3) Using a dropper, fill 00 sized gelatin capsules and snap together securely

4) Store in freezer.

Each capsule holds 0.25 grams.

The nice thing about these is that you can take a few at night a couple hours before bedtime, and then get a good night's sleep without getting high. If you get the burps from the capsules, eat a cracker afterwards.

 

[Weaselcracker]

everything ok with you weasel ? this too shall pass

Things are fine. Thank you! This is just the upcoming battle in a somewhat epic struggle in my life that's been going on for well over a decade now. I have mixed feelings about mentioning shitstorms, but just don't feel like I'm being honest if I don't bring it to light a little. It's part of processing things and then moving forward. I find that it is a lot of work glossing things over, I'm just not skilled at it, and (I imagine) it takes more and more layers of gloss if I start down that path. I just feel much more comfortable and grounded if I note the presence of the shitstorm before proceeding to talk about unrelated stuff.
Sometimes you walk into a room and there's an especially nasty elephant in the corner. I'll always be the one to say 'Hey, look. An elephant!' I notice that some people don't like it when you say that stuff, but it just seems better to me somehow.


Not much going on in the grow these days anyway. Annoying gremlins and mysterious forces of rot and stagnation seem to be trying to gain a foothold and the plant collection is shrinking. No biggie- this is always the way it goes- it can't be up without the occasional down, for reference.
I bought two new brands of cheap hps sunglasses for flower-room viewing and photography. I was going to write up a review of them like I did with the last pair I bought- but so far they both seem equally crappy for photography purposes so I haven't bothered. I'll run a few more photos through both of them though, to confirm their crappiness, when I get time.
Furthermore- my plants were subjected to a lot of silly mistakes and torture last week and aren't looking too great anyway, with or without good sunglasses on.

I couldn't find a branch in the veg room long enough to safely bend down into the pot to try out my rooting experiment with.
Clones still not rooting...
To break this uninspiring lull, I am considering sprouting up some new seeds. I'll have to get something going here pretty quick or I'm going to have an empty flowering room after next harvest.
I think one insight I gained from the solo cup grow- using perlite and coco, is that my growing medium is fairly crappy. Mainly I think it needs better drainage. I would love to be adding a bunch of perlite to the sunshine mix but the only perlite I can get here is in tiny little bags and quite expensive. Maybe I'll have to break down and order a big bag or two by mail. For some reason it always seems wrong to me to order a ginormous fluffy bag of perlite through the mail. Not sure what my concern is with it though- I haven't even checked shipping rates- it's probably a non-issue.

 

[lexort420]

Perlite is a garden supply no need to be paranoid about that one just gotta tell yourself it doesn't mean crap that you order perlite, nothing wrong with it lol. Why did the hexapus get taken down? i forgot lol.

 

[Tead]

... and the bags of perlite will probably arrive in a box. You do know that you can easily bleach and re-use your perlite.... yes?

Man... seems like "the funk" has been running amuck lately. I'm blaming the change of seasons.

But they are young and think there is something special in pressed buds. Since they do chores for me for pot, I give them what they want.

Literary wisdom!

 

[Weaselcracker]

Thanks Lexort. Yeah there's probably no good reason for me to not go ahead and order a giant box of perlite or two and get it shipped across the country, even if the psychotic post office lady gives me funny looks. She does that anyway. I'll check out shipping rates and see how they charge for large packages.
When I first started up with this sunshine mix stuff I did have a bunch and I would mix it in. I just stopped doing it when I ran out. But when I see how well most of the DTW plants did, and how borderline my other ones sometimes are, I feel like something needs tweaking. I think I should try perlite to aerate the mix better. If that doesn't work, I can always fall back on blaming ph and my feeding techniques. But really, I think that my plants should be doing better than they are.
I know I post the occasional picture of some happy plants- but all too often I feel like they're not nearly as good as they could be.

EDIT- Oh yeah- I took the Hexapus down simply because all the plants under it were harvested and I was in too big a hurry to contemplate starting more right now. As soon as I get a free day to regroup though, I'll consider what to do next and whether to set it up again.

As you can maybe tell, I'm fishing around for a new growing medium if I can't whip the sunshine mix into shape. Seems like I've been at this for a few years now and things should be going more smoothly than they are. There are still constant little issues that have me scurrying around double checking ph and feeding mixes. Maybe that's normal. But I saw the dtw plants go fairly effortlessly the first time I tried. And I see organic soil growers running a dozen strains in the same mix with little or no feeding at all, and no ph testing, and producing beautiful plants.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Tead- I was talking about mixing it with the sunshine mix (peat moss based stuff). So it would be hard to recycle after that. The way I would end up recycling it is by adding supplements to the used sunshine mix at some point down the road and turning it into soil.
Is this what you do with your perlite, bleach it out? I suppose you must. Either that or your outside gardens must very well supplied.

I would blame the general funk on the change of seasons too. Problem is, that's what I did in the fall, lol!

 

[Tead]

I bleach... but I just do pure perl, so it's easy to clean up.
I've got plenty local sources to purchase as well... I guess I'm a spoiled grower. Sometimes I spread it out in the outdoor veg garden... it cuts down on my insane snail problem really well.