Oregon Rec. Grow

I've sprayed my BST2's with neem a couple of times. They are on week 2 or 3, according to how you count. I haven't seen anymore worms, so I'm likely through spraying on them.

What I do with males, if you don't mind a little pollen in the air, is to cut the shoots off, but leave the plant. It will grow new shoots. I've done it twice with my BST2 male, and will collect pollen one more time before cutting him down. In a mixed patch where you don't want all the plants seeded, that would be a little risky though.

I think it takes 6-7 weeks for seeds to mature. So if you hit them on week 2, the seeds will be ready about when the flowers are. I don't see where washing the bud would be any different than rain.

the seasons are changing. my wife put some sunflower heads out on my scrog to dry in the sun...

The birds in my backyard would be all over those sunflowers!

We went camping this week: looking up and than looking down



I think pollination was successful: brushed flower on the left



and on the right



and I caught a pic of the hired help. She's a big girl, she must be working hard!

Coming along nicely @WV: Jetson - we had praying manti on our plants last year, but have only seen one in the garden this year. Since we've done so much planting in the last two years, a lot of birds have found us and made us a regular stop, they seem to eat all the bugs, good and bad.

I just put a cover over the girls I have in the scrog. I decided not to spray them again, too far along in flower, so I wanted to get plastic over them before any more rain comes. Hopefully they'll stay mostly dry. I don't plan on completely enclosing them, that traps in moisture and any opening makes the whole thing into a parachute when the winds come. Hopefully having some hoops over and some under will keep the plastic from tearing off.

I like the over under w/the hoops @Humanrob The market farmers down here do a rope X on the top of their hoop houses - you can kind of see it in this pic. Might not hurt to double down.


Your structures look good and sturdy and all that air flow will be good. My plan is to not cover and keep my fingers, toes and eyes crossed that the rain holds off until the crop is in. I went with OGS's seeds for the early finish. Seeing how far along my Swiss Strawberry was, I would guess she would have been finished before mid September.

I collected the last of the DK pollen from the colas I cut. The plan now (assuming successful seed development this year) is to pollinate more {I want more, I want more} and earlier next year. Seven weeks is almost October... That's about a 1/4 teaspoon. Anyone have any over-winter storage tips?

Wow, that is a beautiful hoop house, my 'dream farm' has a couple of those. I had to build my structure to be able to be disassembled at the end of the season since we're hoping to put up a greenhouse in that spot next year. I am counting on air flow, didn't have enough of that last year and that was a hard lesson.

Looks like I'll be heading to my brother's tomorrow morning, back home in the late afternoon or possibly after dinner. If there's any pollen there to collect, I'll get it and hopefully pollinate before the sun goes down. I hope to collect enough to do several branches on several plants. My understanding is that it doesn't take much. It's all last minute and poorly planned, I've got one shot at it and it will either work or it won't.

I've barely begun reading about pollen collection/pollination/pollen storage... I think I read its the fridge for short term, and the freezer for longer? I haven't gotten that far yet, so I haven't fully researched it. I might be thinking of coffee... lol... or maybe its all the same.

WV: Jetson said:

I like the over under w/the hoops @Humanrob The market farmers down here do a rope X on the top of their hoop houses - you can kind of see it in this pic. Might not hurt to double down.

Your structures look good and sturdy and all that air flow will be good. My plan is to not cover and keep my fingers, toes and eyes crossed that the rain holds off until the crop is in. I went with OGS's seeds for the early finish. Seeing how far along my Swiss Strawberry was, I would guess she would have been finished before mid September.

I collected the last of the DK pollen from the colas I cut. The plan now (assuming successful seed development this year) is to pollinate more {I want more, I want more} and earlier next year. Seven weeks is almost October... That's about a 1/4 teaspoon. Anyone have any over-winter storage tips?

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So I did the deed... it was like a drunk teenager who'd never even seen a naked woman before losing his virginity... quick, sloppy, inept, awkward... and I still had a smile on my face when I was done. I hope it was good for them too! Quite the little the orgy in my garden, almost everyone got some.

This year was just for fun, next year I'll plan ahead and up my odds of success.

I can just imagine the yellow clouds billowing up around you, HR! Did your hands get all sticky?

Humanrob said:

So I did the deed... it was like a drunk teenager who'd never even seen a naked woman before losing his virginity... quick, sloppy, inept, awkward... and I still had a smile on my face when I was done. I hope it was good for them too! Quite the little the orgy in my garden, almost everyone got some.

This year was just for fun, next year I'll plan ahead and up my odds of success.

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The Bag Seed Testers are a couple of weeks ahead of my Sidetracked: strain, so they have got pollen, but only one {the Slo2 in the BP patch} of my strain have been dusted. But they are ready now, and I have some pollen to chunk. So very soon I will be making lots of Sidetracked: seeds.

Well, I bet the GV1's in the 3DT patch have done it on their own. I haven't had the time to get back there to chop. But the GV1's were never high on my list. Only reason I ran them was the BIL gave them a much better rating on his smoke test than I did.

WV: Jetson said:

I can just imagine the yellow clouds billowing up around you, HR! Did your hands get all sticky?

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I read a beginners tutorial and then watched a couple of YouTube videos on the subject, so I'm sure I'm ready to pass the Pollination Certification section of the Master Horticulturist's Exam. Yah. I'm a pro now.

Back in reality... no clouds of pollen... thank god. I think/hope I kept it under control LOL. Of course having rushed the research I was left with a bunch of conflicting internet "wisdom". I averaged the various methods I came across, and for this year that's as good as it gets. As things could go wrong, I'd be happier to have no seeds rather than too many... but its up to nature to do what it can with my unscheduled and irregular interference.

I think I read that I should know within a day or two if it took? The flowers will start to turn brownish? I also read -- but only once, and anything read only once on the Internet is suspect -- that I should wet down the plants because that will sterilize any unused pollen before the wind spreads it? Fact or fiction?

Humanrob said:

I read a beginners tutorial and then watched a couple of YouTube videos on the subject, so I'm sure I'm ready to pass the Pollination Certification section of the Master Horticulturist's Exam. Yah. I'm a pro now.

Back in reality... no clouds of pollen... thank god. I think/hope I kept it under control LOL. Of course having rushed the research I was left with a bunch of conflicting internet "wisdom". I averaged the various methods I came across, and for this year that's as good as it gets. As things could go wrong, I'd be happier to have no seeds rather than too many... but its up to nature to do what it can with my unscheduled and irregular interference.

I think I read that I should know within a day or two if it took? The flowers will start to turn brownish? I also read -- but only once, and anything read only once on the Internet is suspect -- that I should wet down the plants because that will sterilize any unused pollen before the wind spreads it? Fact or fiction?

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Many people wet the rest of the plant when you are only doing one branch. Water does kill the pollen, so it's an effective way to keep from picking up stray pollen.

And the white hairs will turn brown in a day or two. But you will be seeing seeds grow soon.

Larry {the} Gardener said:

Many people wet the rest of the plant when you are only doing one branch. Water does kill the pollen, so it's an effective way to keep from picking up stray pollen.

And the white hairs will turn brown in a day or two. But you will be seeing seeds grow soon.

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Thanks Larry! good to know.

Yeah, you'll be able to tell shortly if the pollination was successful (and how could it not ) My dusted buds are pistil bare now; having done their job they've withered away...

I had company in the garden a few nights ago

WV: Jetson said:

Yeah, you'll be able to tell shortly if the pollination was successful (and how could it not ) My dusted buds are pistil bare now; having done their job they've withered away...

I had company in the garden a few nights ago

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That's cool...where's the pellet gun?

in the building behind the plants...

We planted one girl amongst some big logs from a tree we had taken down. In the end they were in the way of traditional supports, so I used them as part of the support. I was afraid that if the plants blew back and forth in the wind, rubbing up against rope would end out sawing them down, so I covered the rope in cheap flexible plastic irrigation tubing. I went through the middle and around the outside, so hopefully this will give it enough support to stay upright -- this is the plant that blew half way over the first time we got wind this year. I've also trimmed it up a lot, its hard to tell, but there is less leaf mass to catch the wind than there was before.


This is my Jillybean, and damn, I'm really loving the shape its taking, looks like some well defined colas on their way.


Lastly, a morning shot of the ever-frosty Mystery plant.


Bonus points: can anyone identify these eggs?

Your plants are lookin' nice HR! I dig that it takes two logs to hold down that one girl - cause it looks so bad assed. I get the real, practical reason though, too...

I'm not a fan of killing insects: just because. I would be making an exception here and suggesting you dispatch 'em. The vaguest answer I came up w/ my 10 minutes of Google research is moth eggs and that would be all she wrote.