The Hexapus's Garden

Well this time around is about the shittiest my plants have been in quite awhile. I mean- they're still going to produce, but they're pretty shabby. No doubt they look better in the photos.
Re the soil- Not at all, I'm growing in Sunshine Mix, which is peat moss with some perlite. I've grown in soil my whole life in my outside gardens- but never with much thought- just throwing in whatever comes to mind. My veggies and whatnot do fine but i don't want to just fill my cannabis pots with it. I want to find a nice proven mix to grow in, then reverse engineer from there while I'm enjoying the experience and the smoke- not screwing around making more trouble for myself.
I do have compost and a small worm bin and stuff. I've just never tried to put much effort into a soil mix and am a total newbie to the mixes I read on this forum.
Just going to try and get a little sleep before 4:20 am catches up to me. :thumb:
 
No worries. Well, when you get some valuable free time, have a smoke, grab a beer, and mix up some homemade! It's more relaxing than it sounds! Good night..
 
In my short experience growing, shitty-looking plants, if left untrimmed, is par for the course. Mostly, your grow looks so much better than mine, it gives me something to strive for.

WC: Once you clean up the scrog some, take another pic. You will be pleased at how much a little cleanup improves their appearance AND the light penetration.

In my case, because my eyes aren't as sharp as they used to be, a digital pic brings all the little details, good, bad, and ugly, into focus for me. The brain "sees" what it wants to. A camera sees and shows all.

As for the soil mix, mix with your hands. When the soil feels right, it will be good for the ladies, too. There is something very soothing about running your fingers through well-balanced soil. No lumps, lightweight, a nice earthy-loamy-smell.
 
Thanks AK. Well I will try to get a picture that shows the full shittiness of the Pineapple Chunk. It's about a 4 out of 10 on the shittiness scale. Nothing to cry about I know.
After that I am keen to move on and try to revive this wasteland of a journal. To that end I will be ordering new seeds, planting new ones from the personal stash, and trying new mediums. Coco is the obvious first choice, while the soil mix situation evolves.
I'm looking forward to seeing a room full of happy vigorous plants. Unscrogged if possible. :thumb:
Thanks for sticking around!
 
Good Plan, WC!

Early on, I gave up on the scrog because of access issues. I had to cram my 2 2'x2' screens into a 4'x2' closet, and I could not reach the back side. I much prefer moving one pot or one lamp at a time and LSTing each branch as the ladies grow.

One of my plants has so much going on, that I wove the taller branches around and under the slower branches. A living scrog, sort of. Unfortunately, that one turned out male, and so it is gone, having given up its pollen and relegated to the edibles bin.

Edit: Your shitty will be my best! Looking forward to the pics!
 
Weaselcracker said:
My garden is obviously in a state of disruption and change right now. Almost every aspect of it, from cloning to veg to flowering, seems to be either having some sort of problems, or is up for review while I ponder whether or not I want to completely change some of my methods. All this is done kind of half-assed, at breakneck speeds as usual, while I dream of having a few days at home to really get my head around things.
This isn't to say I'm unhappy about the situation. I'm not really. I've got enough smoke still, and I know that what goes down must come up- I appreciate the opportunity for change. What's more- I'm used to it.
But it makes it harder to find things I'm happy to take photos of for this journal. Throw in the fact that my photos look crappy under the new bulbs, and it doesn't leave much wriggle room. I've always disliked the look of unfiltered photos under Led or Hps lighting.
I didn't even start a journal on 420 till I finally got a camera filter, in the form of hps sunglasses. Now that filter option seems to be no more, or at least...uhhhhh.... less more, at least till I figure out whatever my next trick is ;). Yes, such awesome grammar. If I'm taking photos of shitty looking plants, I would much prefer having good photos of shitty plants over having shitty photos of shitty plants.

So when Spitz asked me to do a tour of the grow- I felt kind of like -it's six in the morning after a party and my house is trashed, garbage and empties everywhere, dirty socks and underwear hanging out, the girlie's cat gone psycho and puked and crapped on the floor (again, the bitch), and I have to be leaving to work in 20 minutes and I'm waking up to a knock on the door with a bunch of honored guests looking for a tour of the house. Uhhhh... Maybe next week?

Yes I know... I understand. You want photos of all that stuff. You crave those photos. Sickos.

I'll try. I'll see what I can come up with, if I ever get a chance to actually be in my own grow when the lights are on.
Here is one photo of something I actually do like the look of.


image37004.jpg


The mystery plant in veg- which I'm guessing is a Mama Thai/Thai Stick cross. Very nice shaped leaves on him/her. This is probably what Nivek is talking about. I'll have to scroll down and see. I haven't properly replied to his post yet anyway.
Click to expand...

This had me tickled more than it should have lol, great stuff.

As for you growing plants without a scrog? :thedoubletake::lot-o-toke::high-five: Can't wait to see that side of a grow, it just won't feel like I'll be reading the same person's journal, but I'm really looking forward to it! BTW your eyes are much better than mine, the pinkish tint is really hard to see unless you're looking for it, I never was a great Photographer though, too much haziness in my vision :ganjamon:

Garden's is looking great, and I'd rather be taking shitty photographs of good looking plants like those ;)
 
The scrog keeps the plants restrained, and I do rely on it to help keep things under control when I don't have a lot of time for fiddling around tying the plants back. Some of the idea behind the scrog is the usual- lighting/use of space/ efficiency thing. A lot of it has to do with keeping the plants trained and spread out to reduce the jungle effect I used to always have to deal with. I can keep the mold away much more easily in a scrog compared to an overcrowded jungle- which I used to get a lot especially with sativas.
I may still have to scrog the sativas.
But- The main- #1 reason is - am always having fits of jealousy when I see natural, untrained plants. Yours included.
When I see that a Critical Cheese in a solo cup, grown 12/12 from seed, with a total lifespan of 101 days (about the same as just the flowering phase of my other plants) yielded almost half as much as a scrogged plant in a ten gallon pot, looked beautiful, and was hardly any effort to grow, this tells me it's ok to rethink things a little.
 
I used to train the crap out of my OGKs to keep them low. None of my OGKs were over 24" tall, but all the stress did something I wasn't prepared for. They didn't stretch during flower. They stayed miniaturized. So did their leaves, and their colas.

I was able to do this, BTW, because the Sativa-heavy OGK's had flexible stems all the way up through mid-flower.

The BBLs are a whole different story. They grow so fast that I have to LST them more often, and if I am going to tie anything down, I have to do it when they were wilting from needing water. When they are turgid they are VERY brittle! Only the tips will bend. At three months, horizontal tiedown is impossible without splitting the stem right off the plant.

So what you're seeing in my current journal looks wild and natural, even tho they HAVE been tied down and LST'd. The most I can do with an over-active branch is to pinch the tip off, or pin it to the wall. But it recovers almost overnight, with two overly-vigorous sprouts.

Just so you can judge your space requirements, the lady in flower is just 31" above the soil. I think, if I had not trained it at all it would be closer to 48".

Under your LEDS, they should grow much bushier, and possibly taller. If you were just growing one plant at a time from seed to maturity, with a 3 - 4 moth veg, my guess is it would take about 6 months. If you stagger your ladies in flower, and keep taking clones, you'll have more BBL than you know what to do with.

My nickle-sized buds are because I grow under CFLs. You'll get a lot more and larger buds with your set-up. The bud production is insane! Far more than the OGKs. IN a scrog you shape to force a canopy. My one lady is blooming all over. And I attribute that to having lights down low as well as above. 6 low and 6 high. I let the plant grow right around the upper lights. You can't really stop them in a limited space like mine! I could easily let her go to 48".

The next BBL in line, the one with very Sativa phenotype has two equal and very bushy arms. I plan on putting it to 12/12 soon to see what I get.

Just to show you what one can do on the cheap, their final pots are really 3.5 gallon (14 quart) storage bins, with holes burned into the bottom for drainage. I use the lids to catch the runoff. If memory serves, they were about $3.99 each. And being only 7" high, I get more head room. the 6 gallon bins are only about 8" deep. I have to remember, when I up-pot to try one of them.

Geeze, I should have put this in my own Journal and not hijack yours. But you got me started with just a tiny bit of praise. :laughtwo:

(I can move it if you wish)
 
Geeze, I should have put this in my own Journal and not hijack yours.
Click to expand...

Lol! Hijack? This journal? I'm just out wandering around in the desert here. Go ahead and hijack me, please!
Where will we be going today? Will you be serving lunch?
Seriously- that's what this journal is- a scrap book/heap. It's probably going to end up being a journal of transition while I get to wherever I'm going next. And what I'm trying to say is- you're all welcome to post here.
 
I meant to say the other day, Weasel re your photos.. If you have a camera capable of changing White Balance settings, get a "Grey Card", or go to a paint shop and get a colour card in the most neutral grey they have. Take a pic of the card under the LED; go to camera settings/ White Balance settings, select "custom", then choose the pic of the card. 'Click' or whatever on the centre of the card in the pic, done.. Then shoot under LED freely..
I know what you mean about the scrog, AK.. I would love to do a nice big scrog, but in my 2' X 3' cab; seems like too much trouble.. Drainage is my main concern there. I like to soak my plants, and for this, I need to move them.. Thinking of making a large drip tray for the bottom of my cab for the future.. LSTing individual limbs is time consuming but you can customise as you go...
With more space, though.. Yes I would love to have a crack at a nice big scrog.... They just look awesome!
 
Thanks Santb. Kriaze has a thread on that subject and mentions buying a gray card. When I read through it I had the (eternal) question pop into my head ' can I Diy the card? '. But I never asked. I'm using Hid lights by the way, not led but I'm sure the same process applies.
I mostly use an ancient scratched up iphone for my crappy photos. But I do have a new iphone somewhere I just haven't gotten around to using it much or set it up to connect to internet, since the love affair between the phone and I is often on shaky ground.
I often want to fling it in the ocean.
Anyway- the new one has white balance options. I ran a bunch of photos of my grow through it but couldn't find any way to balance them into looking good. Keep mumbling about it, meaning to try the new phone out more. Every time I dig the thing out I'm in a hurry and find the battery in the thing has died. No other working digital camera options at the moment - at least no way to connect them to internet.
Thanks for the tip! :thumb:
 
Wow, Heya weaseley,, just a Heya,, you nailed the plant type, mine, the mama thai/Thai Stick,, that is a beauty,, indeed,, no other plant I have or have had has such skinniness,, to the leaves,, hopefully not the buds,, a waiting game now,, long one probably too,, the mama thai reg I have flowering is in week eleven now,, this weekend maybe, chop time,, not much trichome coverage yet on er,, maybe does not get smothered??dunno

Have a good one weaseley,, nice to see you and the journal around more agin,, cheers friend
 
Good morning Nivek. I usually flower the Mama Thai for 12-13 weeks. The breeder says 11. It gets a little bit sticky, and you can see some frostiness under certain types of lighting, but in general it's not a frosty and sticky plant. More green and dry and fluffy looking.
I think that goes for a lot of landrace sativas. At least the stuff I used to buy in the old days in the BC lower mainland - Jamaican and Thai and sometimes Mexican, was always just like dry brownish stuff with no frost. Ditto most or, actually, all of the stuff I got travelling in Asia, and some of that stuff was crazy strong- though most of it wasn't. Part of it was no doubt the curing methods which involved kind of a stewing fermenting thing- turning the bud brown. Frost hadn't been invented yet when I first started smoking, as far as I know. I don't know how it relates to strength but I do know that some of the most crappy looking bud I bought in Thailand was some of the most amazing I ever smoked. (I threw all the seeds to one side, sigh...).
Having said all that- I find the Mama Thai to be fairly weak. I like it though- it's nice and clear and is a good example of what Thai weed is like. Worth experimenting with varying the harvest times for less or more 'zing'. It probably has potential to be a lot stronger depending on growing conditions.
The flowering time for the Thai Stick is 18 weeks or so.
Have a great day.
 
santb said:
I know what you mean about the scrog, AK.. I would love to do a nice big scrog, but in my 2' X 3' cab; seems like too much trouble.. Drainage is my main concern there. I like to soak my plants, and for this, I need to move them.. Thinking of making a large drip tray for the bottom of my cab for the future.. LSTing individual limbs is time consuming but you can customise as you go...
With more space, though.. Yes I would love to have a crack at a nice big scrog.... They just look awesome!
Click to expand...

I bought a washer drip pan. They come in two sizes, to fit large or smaller washing machines. And they are only about $40 at Lowes. They are not perfectly flat, but hey sure do the job. No more saucers in the veg unit! They are plastic, so wont rust.
 
A bill I was facing suddenly got revoked, so I ended up with extra money under the mattress, and spurred on by my envious pangs over Tead's latest seed order, I hit up the Ace website. I've been plotting this for ages, and some of these strains will be part of the grow/journal makeover. Ace has one seed options for most of their strains so I pretty much got one fem seed each of the following strains, except for a couple strains that are multiple seeds.

Panama
Zameldelica
Bangi Haze
Golden Tiger
Peyote Purple
Snow Moon
Violetta

I got an email back from them literally within five minutes of making this order, clarifying something, replied, and they instantly got back to me to say they were putting the package together 'right now' and sending it today, Spanish time. Very cool.
 
Weaselcracker said:
Well this time around is about the shittiest my plants have been in quite awhile. I mean- they're still going to produce, but they're pretty shabby. No doubt they look better in the photos.
Re the soil- Not at all, I'm growing in Sunshine Mix, which is peat moss with some perlite. I've grown in soil my whole life in my outside gardens- but never with much thought- just throwing in whatever comes to mind. My veggies and whatnot do fine but i don't want to just fill my cannabis pots with it. I want to find a nice proven mix to grow in, then reverse engineer from there while I'm enjoying the experience and the smoke- not screwing around making more trouble for myself.
I do have compost and a small worm bin and stuff. I've just never tried to put much effort into a soil mix and am a total newbie to the mixes I read on this forum.
Just going to try and get a little sleep before 4:20 am catches up to me. :thumb:
Click to expand...

i understand u absolutely...i feel similar..we not diappointed and keep going...:thumb:
 
Weaselcracker said:
A bill I was facing suddenly got revoked, so I ended up with extra money under the mattress, and spurred on by my envious pangs over Tead's latest seed order, I hit up the Ace website. I've been plotting this for ages, and some of these strains will be part of the grow/journal makeover. Ace has one seed options for most of their strains so I pretty much got one fem seed each of the following strains, except for a couple strains that are multiple seeds.

Panama
Zameldelica
Bangi Haze
Golden Tiger
Peyote Purple
Snow Moon
Violetta

I got an email back from them literally within five minutes of making this order, clarifying something, replied, and they instantly got back to me to say they were putting the package together 'right now' and sending it today, Spanish time. Very cool.
Click to expand...

yes..this sound great idea...u r doing nice...:bravo:
 
did u find out what goes wrong with ur plants?
my opinion is ...is not as bad as u describe,.looks they got problems but i see a nice grow...
what causes the problem?:thanks:
 
Thanks solareclipse. Yeah my plants are fine. I'm just being perfectionist. I've been growing for quite a few years and am still making beginners mistakes like overfeeding, underfeeding, wrong ph- and getting issues like cloning troubles, slow growth and deformed plants, stuff like that. I think the main cause is lack of time spent with the plants so everything suffers.
I actually shouldn't have talked about it as much as I did. Just getting tired of the issues which seem never ending. As it is now, a lot of the plants are a bit sickly looking and stunted, I have my veg room about 1/4 full and flowering room 2/3 full, and I have no rooted clones of about 1/2 my favorite plants. So that's what I was bitching about. Could be worse. What I want is - rooting clones and happy, pretty looking plants (duh!).
But I resolve to stop my complaining about this because it always comes back to bite me. This will be a journal of change in mediums and strains.
 
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