Variety Grow - Perpetual, "Mini" ScrOG's, DWC in a Cabinet (First Timer)

jsgamber

Active Member
sucks to hear about the bugs again :( but you got the right idea going now :hump: kill them f'ers :twisted:
Well let's look at it from a Warfare standpoint. These fuckers are like fucking terrorists living and hiding in caves. I know about where they are and all is well as long as I can keep their containment perimeter extremely small. They prefer eating the new roots and leave the big thick main roots alone. All of the plants have very well established main roots deep in water and those roots are producing just fine! :)

So my little SM-90 flood is kind of like "carpet bombing". I wipe out a huge percentage of them and at the same time energize new root growth in the netpot. This new root growth provides enough nourishment for the remaining bugs forcing them to stay local (and not try and migrate somewhere else). Now the bugs think they are smart staying put (not knowing the real feast down below), trying to mobilize new forces. But damn if I don't come and top off the tank. They are living Sisyphus' nightmare pushing that damn rock up the hill only to have it roll back down and have to start over.....forever! :fire:
 

jsgamber

Active Member
Let's talk again about Nutes, especially the TechnaFlora nutes. I'll tell you right now the total PPMs in my full strength nutes is 3200 and this includes the starting 480PPM from my tap water.

I see many posts from people killing their plants trying to push their PPMs up to 900 when they are growing just fine at 400. Why? Because they saw another grower getting fabulous results at 900PPM and thought he'd take advantage with the same push. The problem is different growers use different nutrient products which all have their own formulations. READ YOUR LABEL!

My basic NPK bloom nutes alone at full strength mix is 1700PPM!


Do you see the line on the label? "EC & PPM values based on metric measures. Values may differ across testing devices." I get 1900PPM on my tester. After adding in full strength Cal/Mag, Awesome Blossom Micro-nutes, SM-90 and pH down I'm now up to 3200.

Now this high PPM may be what allows me to keep stable pH because of all the buffers! Who knows. So if the label on your Bloom Nutes gives you a full strength recipe with a PPM of 900, do not try and push your tanks up to 3200 just because jsgamber could do it.

Deal? :)
 

hobart

Well-Known Member
you can never go wrong with sour diesel so, so smokeable... and of course white widow. How could one go wrong?
 

jsgamber

Active Member
you can never go wrong with sour diesel so, so smokeable... and of course white widow. How could one go wrong?
I'll tell you I've seen some kick ass beautiful grows with white widow and it's on my bucket list! :D I might have to get my third cab up and running a bit sooner!

I just had an 1/8 of Sour D a couple weeks back and it was great! Oh so much weed, and so little time!!! :)
 

oOBe RyeOo

Active Member
I'll tell you I've seen some kick ass beautiful grows with white widow and it's on my bucket list! :D I might have to get my third cab up and running a bit sooner!

I just had an 1/8 of Sour D a couple weeks back and it was great! Oh so much weed, and so little time!!! :)
Sour D is one of my favorite strains. I have a Raw Diesel seed for another time. I just love diesel strains.
 

jsgamber

Active Member
Diary of a bud.

This bud sits at the right front corner of SOG#1. I've been taking pics of it as my "reference" bud. Here's the timeline over the past 4 days. Damn, I'm getting horny again!

2/13


2/14


2/15


2/16
 

jsgamber

Active Member
Nothing much to say here. pH and temps stable at 5.9 with no adjustments needed for the past two days except to top off 2L in each of the SOG tanks. All of the SOGs have all caught up with each other.

Notice in the second picture how much they've stretched. I'm not sure how much more they are going to go up, but I've changed my mind! Who cares!?! :mrgreen:

Two nights ago I went ahead and cut the fan leaves coming off the top bud sites to make more light for the lower bud sites. Kind of scary but as you can see no ill effects!

Enjoy!







Blue Dream


 

jsgamber

Active Member
So in the first pic above, how many colas do you think you see in there?

At this point I'm sitting beyond 100% of my expectations for this grow. Even if a major disaster were to strike, you would have to still call this a successful grow because that's what it's going to take to stop this harvest. It's dialed in and takes very little work which means more time to do other things like stare at them!!

It's crazier than I imagined. Flowers look more amazing in real life than they do in photos.

So with that, I'm going to introduce you to my other garden....
 

jsgamber

Active Member
So just for fun and a bit of off topic, I thought I'd show you guys what my new found gardening skills have put me into! :bigjoint:

Since Spring is around the corner, I'm no longer working 80 hour weeks, I'm now solid in my MJ grow, I thought I'd stretch my legs and go outdoors.

I've never been much of a gardener and really didn't know much about how plants grew until I started my MJ grow just over a year ago. What I've discovered, especially through ScrOG'ing, the importance the base of the plant has on it's overall health. I've seen grows in both hydro and soil where the plants had grown far too large for their space, were randomly weaving around trying to find light in an overgrown canopy and most of all the litter of crap and debris that lie at the base of the plant. A perfect place to grow mold, mildew, rot, bugs, etc.

For years, I could never understand why the fuller bushier plants in my yard would never grow "up", but would instead grow out and along the ground. The outer 1" of the bush would look pretty decent, but as soon as you got 2" into the plant it was just littered with dead leaves, mold, swarms of sow bugs, spiders, piles of snails, etc. Basically the plant was composting itself to death. And what's recently dawned on me was in the way I was pruning, no let me take that back, HACKING at the plants always with the thought of making them smaller. A branching nightmare was I creating (in your best Yoda voice)?

Two years ago, we re-landscaped our yard with Southern California native plants, mostly desert flowering shrubs such as rosemary which attract hummingbirds, butterflies and bees.

Well after two years of my old style of gardening, guess what's started to happen? Especially in the rosemary. So without doing much reading, but rather taking lot's of bong hits, thinking back through posts about pruning, topping, fimming, defoliation, main stalks, main branching stalks, and lastly overall plant support. I looked at each plant closely to see how the plant have been reacting to the ways I was pruning and started looking to the ways it should be pruned.

Next I had to consider two different types of plants in regards to their bases. I have plants that have a single thick stalk and then I have plants that have more "reedy" stalks where 100's of stalks want to start from the bottom, however the stalks still have nodes and the nodes branch when you prune.

Based on my personal intel, I developed a pruning plan which had the following requirements for me:
  • Have a minimal number of main stalks at the base
  • All mature plants will no longer be allowed to produce any new growth between the ground up to 8" to 12", depending on the stature of the plant in order to give access to air, avoid creating a home for bugs and crap, and to stop blocking the spray head of my sprinklers.
  • NO SPRAWLING! Bushes should go UP! Let the ground cover do the sprawling!

Here was the approach I took:
  1. Stood over the plant above the main stalk and drew a mental circle around the plant a bit smaller than the final diameter I want it to be, then used the old style hacking method to get every part of the plant inside my mental circle
  2. Went down low to the ground and starting from the bottom cut anything back to the main stalk that was growing horizontally. I also cut out any branches that didn't have at least 4 solid nodes of growth counting from the base. The goal is to have only 10 or fewer main stems coming off the base of the plant at no less than a 50* angle, depending on the type of plant
  3. Starting with the most outward main branches, cut stems back down to the 4th node or 6", whichever provided the stem the ability to stand upright and not droop under it's weight
  4. At this point, continue to prune any main stalks that are still sagging under their weight, one node at a time until it stand upright
  5. Lastly go back under the plant and pinch off any new growth below 10" that isn't considered main stalk

So watch out all of you POT growers. You might find you can do more than just grow weed! :bigjoint:

Going to upload PICS now!

peace
 

jsgamber

Active Member
Hey Daniels is this any of the stuff you cover in your classes? Just curious as I'm just making a lot of this shit up as I go, basically off common sense. In any case, I hope you or the HG, comment on what I'm doing.

I'm trying my best to organize these in before/after sequences but some of the plants changed so much I might mix a few up :bigjoint: bongsmilie

I haven't gone back to relearn all the names of the plants so feel free to shout out if you know one! Hey I'm a game show too! :lol:

Let's start off with an after pic. This is where I got the idea to do this post. ;) Don't know the name.


Same species, different plant before/after. This plant looks pretty good at first, but inside it was twisting up on itself. Note that I won't allow anything green to grow below the green currently their. Up or out!!



If I remember, this plant has big white flowers. Look how top heavy it already is so how is it going to hold any flowers? Hopefully I've given it some structure to continue to grow upwards and support it's blooms.



Here's one of my rosemary plants all twisted up within the ground cover which happens to get only indirect sun



This is one of my plants that has a "reedy" base. Note the tons of new growth sprawling out from the bottom as well as the dead shit everywhere! This one was a tough one to figure out. My goal is to try and minimize the amount of new growth coming from the bottom in order to keep the plant sitting "up" off the ground. But you can see it also has nodes, and those nodes do branch, so I think I'll get the upperhand.



A couple days later I moved out to the front yard. The next pic shows a good example of a zero lot line. I'm standing on my neighbors driveway while working in my yard. Pretty cozy neighborhood.

This plant was a nightmare for me. My wife and I are still disputing this one because she like how big and spread out it was (she's been pruning this one). ;) This was one of those 2" looks good but underneath I dug away about 30 snails and was having a mass exodus of spiders, sow bugs, little red bugs. Pretty horrific. Nothing about this plant was growing up and you can see all the 3 foot long branches that didn't have anything growing on them except for the last 2". But I stayed my course and cut everything away growing horizontal and you can see what I'm left with. But look at all the great compost that got left behind!! Now it can truly feed off of itself without killing itself. :)



This the before pic. The after pic has this plant near the back and a second in the foreground, both pruned.



Here's an after pic but the dirt circle and the soon to be dead snail pretty much tell you what it looked like before.


I love these plants whatever they are. The flowers are really cool! But it's a tough one to grow because of it's "reedy" nature and this plant doesn't have much in the way of nodes. The before pic was of one plant and the after plant is of a different plant that was much larger but had consumed the sprinkler head.



An after pic of one bottle brush and a before pic of another



Another after of a reedy plant


More work to be done. the far right plant almost out of the pic is the reedy plant I just showed above with two of it's cousins side by side to the left.


Hopefully you guys found this entertaining and a bit educational. Time will tell how badly fucked up I did. But I'm hoping to go from ZERO to HERO with that one plant my wife is mad about! ;)
 

jsgamber

Active Member
I like the first one thats a pretty Teal color =)
I do too!! What I want is for it to look like the before pic, just starting 10" higher off the ground. :)

nice garden, looks like you have gotten a lot accomplished. great job :clap:
I actually like all of them, with the exception of the reedy ones 'cause they are a pain in the ass. Gonna be tough keeping them cleaned out below.

I was just out there and did another 3 plants. Funny when you prune them the right way, it sure take a lot longer than HACKING them. :bigjoint: I've spent about 15-30 minutes per plant!
 

Danielsgb

Well-Known Member
They all look better. I recognize some of them, but here in MT we are Zone 3. My guess is you are Zone 6/7. Maybe 8 or 9. I can't grow most of those, but my class will get into pruning later.
I do know it is better to prune in fall after leaves drop, when they are prepping for dormancy. Also it is better to do it gradually over a few weeks, since it can weaken them to a vulnerability to pest/diseases.
If it was my yard I would rough up the top soil for a foot or two around all shrubs. ( 1"-2") Then put a layer of peat moss down. Once it breaks down it is great organic material.
Usually I prune shrubs so branches are spreading out not intertwined, but you know this.
Where is the soil with too much clay? Changing soil structure is kinda tough. Changing pH is even harder if not near impossible. (lasting change) I can look up what amount is needed to make less clay soil, but I know Sand, Perlite, & Vermiculite all work, but could be spendy. Peat moss works good too, but again if it was mine here's what I would do. Call a local landfill and see if you can get cheap compost. Compost is Carbon & N which makes more great organic material. In a season (even more so for you) it will make the soil drain better.
Kinda a stoned rambling. I'm jealous, since it snowed again yesterday.:mrgreen:
Danielsbongsmilie
 

jsgamber

Active Member
So my buddy's dispensary opens on Monday! It's called PinkWeed and it's located in Garden Grove, CA. All flower 1/8's are capped at $35 as long as you are a member. In order to become a member you will have to pay $45 for your first eight with the $10 going towards the fight for Women's and Men's Breast Cancer.

Below are the strains available. I'm testing them all myself personally. :bigjoint:

They are all greenhouse grown in Mendocino County, CA.



So the simple review?

"For a stoner who smokes 3/8's per week, I have to say I'd pay top shelf prices for every one of these. They get me way high and make me feel way good!!!" :eyesmoke:

A bit more indepth.

Even though these buds aren't as tight as you'd normally see in an indoor grow, don't let that stop you. All of these buds are potent. Under the glass, the buds are covered with dark amber trichomes showing these plants were allowed to go to full maturity. Just breaking open the bud caused a cloud of trichs to fall off onto the table.

You can't help smiling when you open up the Strawberry Kush and it smells like ice cream. Both the Sour D and Purple D smell like a line of Mac trucks just drove by. The Blue Dream smells like a rose garden.

All strains smoked in a glass bong with an ice cube in the smoke chamber.

The Snow Kap has an extremely distinctive taste. You'd think it was diesel with an after taste of lime sherbet. This strain fucked me up! Almost a "couch lock" but with the itch to do something fun. ;) ;) ;) Very sexy.

The Master Kush was my first strain. The best way to describe it is it's "traditional" pot. Roll up a few joints of this, you and your buds can hang out on a shady Saturday afternoon and talk on into the night. Fucking smooth taste and very mellow high.

Sour D = Couch lock! :eyesmoke: Strong powerful smoke with a wonderful taste that could only come from a good flush. Good night! Wonderful sleep.

Purple D = Couch lock! Hang out, eat, watch TV, have a Sour D nightcap, good night! :)

Strawberry Kush. It smells like Strawberry ice cream. WTF! :D Smoke is smooth and fruity. This was my most euphoric high yesterday afternoon, the type that makes you feel like a man and feel alive and conquer just about anything. I got a lot done yesterday. :)

Blue Dream. I'm still trying to put my finger on just what I like about this strain. But all I can say right now is EVERYTHING. If you blindfolded me, I would have been able to pick this bud out of the pile with my nose. Distinctive, just like you want! The smoke? Distinctive as well. Very nice! Not "too" anything.


Can you believe I haven't made it through the rest yet? :D :D More reports later.
 

gumball

Well-Known Member
in your quality review, you may want include the medical benefits you observed!! I am so envious, can I just call you and listen to you smoke it :lol: if you need an assistant... :wink:
 

jsgamber

Active Member
in your quality review, you may want include the medical benefits you observed!! I am so envious, can I just call you and listen to you smoke it :lol: if you need an assistant... :wink:
Revised....plus a new review is in for the Purple Kush! ;)

As an MMJ reviewer, I'm in a position to require the pain relief and muscular relaxation of Indicas for my Schleraderma while requiring the uplifting natures of Sativa's for my Severe Depression. Basically I go both ways.

Even though these buds aren't as tight as you'd normally see in an indoor grow, don't let that stop you. Under the glass, the buds are covered with dark amber trichomes showing these plants were allowed to go to full maturity. Just breaking open the bud caused a cloud of trichs to fall off onto the table. All strains smoked smooth giving evidence that everything was well flushed before harvest. All of these buds are potent!

All the strains, lean towards the indica and I believe 3 of them are 50/50 hybrids. Overall pain relief is high among all of these strains with the choice of the hybrids being best for patients suffering from depression related illnesses. Most experienced MMJ patients will already know what works best for them as they venture through their journey. You just need to know where your general needs lie in the spectrum of:

Indica ==> Indica/Sativa ==> Hybrid ==> Sativa/Indica ==> Sativa

In the past, for me, there have been a very few Indica strain purchases from a dispensary that hasn't provided a level of comfort and relief for my arms and hands. If its bad weed due to lack of care during the grow, I just have to smoke more and frankly no pain is no pain and that's good!! Pain relief always comes to varying levels for me regardless of my tolerance to the "high". That's where I get very particular to the "heady" affects and again that becomes a bit of personal taste.

All strains were smoked in a glass bong with an ice cube in the smoke chamber.

You can't help smiling when you open up the Strawberry Kush and it smells like ice cream. Both the Sour D and Purple D smell like a line of Mac trucks just drove by. The Blue Dream smells like a rose garden.

The Snow Kap has an extremely distinctive taste. You'd think it was diesel with an after taste of lime sherbet. This strain fucked me up! Almost a "couch lock" but with the itch to do something fun. Very sexy.

The Master Kush was my first strain. The best way to describe it is that it's "traditional" pot. Roll up a few joints of this, you and your buds can hang out on a shady Saturday afternoon and talk on into the night. Fucking smooth taste and very mellow high.

The Purple D once ground up almost looks black! I would say this would give you a euphoric couch lock! Hang out, eat, watch TV, read a book or do a crossword puzzle, then have a Sour D nightcap and good night! Otherwise Purple D mostly just feels good, a lot like Blue Dream.

Strawberry Kush. It smells like Strawberry ice cream. Wow! Smoke is smooth and fruity. This was my most euphoric high yesterday afternoon, the type that makes you feel like a man and feel alive and conquer just about anything. I got a lot done yesterday.

Blue Dream. I'm still trying to put my finger on just what I like about this strain. But all I can say right now is EVERYTHING. If you blindfolded me, I would have been able to pick this bud out of the pile with my nose. Distinctive, just like you want! The smoke? Distinctive as well. Very nice! Not "too" anything.

Sour D. Strong powerful smoke with a wonderful taste that could only come from a good flush. Good night! Wonderful sleep. The Sour D seriously knocked me out..."too much". No way I could use it during the day. If you need sleep, this Sour D is for you! Otherwise go for the Purple D instead because it helps me get close to sleep and then I can take it from there. ;)

Purple Kush. Are you looking for that great “wake and bake” perfect start to your day? This is the one! I’m writing this review aren’t I? Great motivator! Crack this bud open and my first thought was Welch’s Grape juice. Very smooth smoke. Great with Coffee, Tea or Orange Juice! Good Morning!



So now if you were looking for a strain to increase sexual desire, which one would you choose? :)
 

gumball

Well-Known Member
to answer your question, I would say the snow kap with or without the strawberry kush :D very nice write up of them all.
 
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