First Grow

[Limber pine]

Hello All,

I'm new member to this site as well as growing. I am growing strictly for my own personal use and right now just doing a single run outdoors. I'm dabbling in my new right to grow for my own personal use in the great state of Oregon!

I have been using this site as reference and have gained a TON of great information! THANK YOU! I will post some pics and would invite constructive feedback on what I may need to do next year to grow even better than I did this year. To be honest, I'm very happy with what I have right now, but like anything, honing my skills will make this hobby even more fun!

A little information about this year. The 2 potted plants are White Widow. I received them pretty late in the year and would say I put them outside in pots around mid August. I also tried the defoliation technique on them and to be honest I don't know if I would do it again. I also tried to crop them on the top, but again I'm not sure if I did it correctly or if my timing was correct. I will also go to 10 gallon pots next year for my potted plants.

The 2 larger plants( In ground) are supposed to be a Bubba Kush and a Trainwreck. For some reason, they both seem very similar, so I'm thinking I may end up with 2 of the same. The tags have been lost somewhere in the mix unfortunately. Maybe someone can tell from the photos? They did get RAVAGED by wind while I was out of town, so I would say I lost about 30% of the canopy. Which was a bummer, but they' seemed to have bounced back and look like they will produce a decent crop.

A little bit about nutrients:

My nutrients was a bit all over the place. While the Bubba and Trainwreck were in pots, I was using the general hydroponics line with cal mag. After I planted them in the ground, I used the EB stone 420 soil mix and then have top dressed them with worm castings once and then just soil today to help keep the roots covered.

I have also been using Earth Juice Bloom Master 0-50-30 ( which I think I overdid at one point, or my friend who was watching them did, because when I came back the plants leaves were very yellow and crispy), and a Bat Guano 9-3-1 a little later in the season. I think next year I may stay away from the Bloom Master as I would like to stay on the more organic side of things and I can't see how this is even close to organic!

I also tried to crop them on the top and do some light bending, so that they didn't grow above my fence. I would like to keep it out of the neighbors sight. I have also been plucking any fully yellow leaves from the plants as we go along and saving them to make butter or something like that.

One other general question: How old do the leaves or trimmings need to be before they are useful in some capacity I.E. Tincture or butter....?

If you have any other question please do ask and I will be happy to answer, so that it better helps you diagnose anything I may have done wrong.

Thanks!

P.S. Photos 1-5 are the White Widow and the prospective buds. 6-10 are the in ground plants and their prospective buds. and 11-13 are White Widow, Trainwreck and Bubba kush. I know 11 is the White Widow, but not certain on 12 &13.

 

[3N1GM4]

You can use the trim to make butter right away but it is best to wait until it is almost dry. Put it on a screen for 12 or so hours and it loses alot of the water weight.

 

[Limber pine]

Cool, I've just been drying per a drying and curing method I read about on here. Essentially about 50% humidity and about 60 degrees for like 2 weeks. I have noticed the trim dries very quickly though, so I haven't gone the full 2 weeks to dry it.

 

[Limber pine]

So, I just found a couple caterpillars on the buds. About a week ago, I noticed a small portion of one of the buds rotting and thought it might be due to rain, so I removed it. But now I see the caterpillars crawling around and have been removing them by hand. Should I be spraying something on them to get rid of them? I'm thinking I still may have 2 weeks of flowering left. Any help would be appreciated!

 

[3N1GM4]

Ouch, even beneficial insects take weeks to hatch. You could get some live mantis and have them shipped next day air. Some people spray neem up till the day of harvest but I wouldnt recommend it.

Edit, these are just cool..

 

[Limber pine]

Damn. I have some Neem I could spray. Why wouldn't you recommend spraying the neem? I have only seen one or two of the caterpillars, and have gotten rid of them, but I'm sure where there are 2 there are a ton? I may have more time than 2 weeks, but frost date is right around the 18th and then it's possible that the rains will start up soon too, so I'm just seeing if there is anything to be done before harvesting?

I guess I could harvest early, but I don't even know if that's a good idea?

Thanks for the link! They sure are sold out of a lot of the mantis! Must be that time of year......Haha!

Yeah, the second link is super rad!

 

[3N1GM4]

I use a vaporizer, I would taste it. Dont know about smoking it, when you combust anything it puts off harmful chemicals. It smells like plastic when applied so I imagine it would taste the same. If you do use neem I would use some bud wash after and I dont even like that stuff. I would rather harvest early than injest anthing non cannabis but that is just me. It says on the bottle you can use up to day of harvest but not all claims are about cannabis. They could be talking about tomatoes that are easily washed clean.

 

[Limber pine]

Cool. Well I'm going to keep an eye on it and if I have to harvest early I will. Just a bit of a bummer, cause I did some pruning and it really seems to have a huge impact on the swelling of the flowers! I was getting super stoked on seeing how big they could get!

So for the most part there are only preventative measures one can take to try and avoid this problem? Not really any reactive measures? Or are the reactive measure essentially just nasty chemicals?

 

[Underthesun]

Rad! Congrats on your first grow! Looks good.
-bigger pots are always better
-your topping probably didn't do much because it was so late, best to top early on like in June before the stretch. Same with pruning, dont take anything off the plant after flower has started unless its dead.
-If you want to go organic I thing it works best if you go full organic with zero synthetics.
-Buds are dry when the stems snap not bend. I have had good success using the mason jar cure for my personal stash. Don't underestimate the cure to get good bud.

 

[Limber pine]

Cool. Thanks for the info! Yes, next year will be full organic and no synthetics!

For the mason jar cure, do you just trim everything and then go directly into the mason jar, of do you trim, then hang for a week and then go into the mason jar?

 

[Underthesun]

Lots of info out there on harvesting and curing and probably best to take a few hours and read up on it, thats what I did and after a few years I feel like I kinda know what I'm doing. This is from some method maybe Subcool or Kushman...can't recall so I'm not taking credit for this method. It seems to turn out well if you pay attention to your buds a few times a day while drying. At first your stems (stems between buds not huge stalks) will be plyable and bendy. Over the next few days you will notice those stems become more rigid. The moment those stems snap (usually a week or two after chop) or seem like they will snap if left out drying for just another day I carefully put them in paper bags. Close up the paper bags down on the buds leaving not too much air in there. I open the bags once or twice a day for a week or so and move around the buds carefully. I then put in mason jars and burp the jars once a day until the amonia smell is gone. Then maybe open the jars once a week, then once a month. It can be time consuming but for personal stashes its worth it. It takes some time to get comfortable with the process it seems like. For example, I just chopped some of mine the other day and then realized I had to be at a wedding for 4 days next weekend...will my buds be too dry when I get back or should I bag them up before I leave and risk mold? Just things you have to think about.

I'm smoking sticky stanky buds from last years harvest this morning with this method. People often think its fresh green bud and I'm like nope, that's 9 months old.

 

[Underthesun]

As far as trimming wet or dry...I believe that is still up for debate. I do both, its just works out time wise best for me that way. Feels like a waste of time waiting for all my shit to dry before I start trimming. But if trimming wet its WAY easier if done within the first hour of chop. If I'm wet trimming I only cut off enough I can trim in an hour.

 

[Limber pine]

Nice. That sounds good to me! But I will also do some searching around on harvest and curing to get a fuller view of both process's.

Thank you for the information!

I did read something about chopping early in the the morning, before the sun comes up, to help keep water and minerals out of the bud. So essentially chopping it down, before the roots start pushing water and nutrients back up to the plant when the sun starts hitting it. And weight to this kind of technique?

 

[3N1GM4]

I hang dry mine untill the lower stems snap and then clip them from the larger stems and put them in a jar with a 12$ hygrometer in the jar to measure the humidity and burp it accordingly. If you skip this step your product will smell like hay.

 

[Limber pine]

So, I have been practicing with a couple of the smaller branches that I've cut off. The little buds smell amazing for the first couple days and then they get to a point where they smell like hay! I have them hanging in my basement with a humidifier on. I've made sure that the wind the humidifier puts off doesn't blow on them, but yeah, still getting the hay smell even when I transfer them to the jar.

Thank you for the Curing Guide!

 

[Underthesun]

Hay smell will go away after 3-4 weeks of curing correctly. I'm not really enjoying the full flavor until Xmas usually.

 

[3N1GM4]

I wouldnt use a humidifier, it could cause your buds to mold from drying too slowly. I would run a string through a big cardboard box and hang them from it with a fan circulating air in the room but not blowing directly on them.

 

[3N1GM4]

The more humid your air the slower your buds will dry,msome humid climates it is almost impossible to dry buds without forced air.

 

[Limber pine]

Cool. Thank you!

 

[Limber pine]

Just thought I would post some new bud pics, to show the progress. I'm fairly certain that both of the non-potted plants are Trainwreck. They both smell pretty much, exactly the same, and they appear to have the same bud structure as well.

I used some BT to control the bud worms, but haven't seen it working yet. I think I have at least another week, if not 2 before I will pull these down. Any input on that is greatly appreciated! I'm seeing 35% clear, 55%cloudy and 10% amber tricomes on one and about a 50/50 clear to cloudy on the other.