A grow diary.

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Kanzeon

Kanzeon

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So a few of the old heads on here said they were interested in a grow diary. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears!

You'll see lactobacillii mentions throughout, it's a great bacteria. To get some going, just fill a mason jar with cabbage and cover it with water and add 5% salt by weight. Make sure to check on it because it'll build pressure pretty quickly if it's in an airtight container, I've got dreams of a dual purpose fermentation and flower room with the ladies fed by the CO2 given off by the ferments and maybe bread starters, but that's a long way away.

Soil mix:

1 5g bucket sphagnum
1 5g bucket EWC
1 5g bucket coir, rinsed
2 5g buckets Perlite
2 cups dolomite lime
4 cups glacial rock dust
1/2 cup kelp meal (from kelp harvested from nearby beaches, rinsed/soaked for tea, then dried)
1/2 cup alfalfa and old fan leaf meal
1/2 cup organic 4-7-1 tomato fertilizer
1.5 cups crab chitin meal
1 gallon inoculated biochar
1 cup molasses dissolved in 1g water and fermented with sauerkraut juice for lactobacilli and a pinch of baker's yeast for 2-3 days around 75F in a sealed milk jug
1/4 c neem oil

Bug spray:

5 grams black peppercorns
1 cup boiling water
1 tablespoon Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap
1 cup lacto juice from the mother kraut (once it's cool enough) with a smashed clove of fresh garlic
1 teaspoon neem oil

Pour the boiling water over the peppercorns in a bowl, then add the soap and whisk or stick blend in the neem oil until it's emulsified. Then slowly whisk in the lacto juice. That all gets poured into a spray bottle.

Lights:

HLG 65 @ 4k (veg)
Feit C4000 @5k (veg)
HLG 260 @3k (flower)

Feeding:

Compost tea 1-2x/month
Alfalfa tea and old cannabis leaf meal 1x/month
Kelp tea 1x/month
EWC tea 1x/month
All teas have molasses and lacto juice added and are fermented for 2-3 days prior to using in a sealed container to carbonate the tea
All seeds are planted in soil and watered with willow water
All transplants have mycorrhizae dusted on roots

Ventilation: Window AC unit into room, sealed flower room inside that room, window fan for exhaust. External smell isn't an issue.

In addition to that, there are a few outside ladies that are in buried pots of the same soil mix. Hopefully by the spring they'll be joined by some honey locust and sea buckthorn bushes to keep , well, everything out.

Everything currently going:
Kalashnikov: AK Kush, Lavanda Cream, Kubanskiy Ubiyza, Katyusha, Siberian Haze
Humboldt: Black DOG, Blue Dream, Three Blue Kings, Gorilla Breath
Sensi: Hindu Kush (though I'm pretty sure that plant isn't HK, it's growing like a sativa) and Afghani #1
Dinafem: Dinamed CBD Plus, Purple Afghan Kush, Big Kush, White Widow Auto
G13 Labs: Blue Cindy, Double Black, C99
Dutch Passion: Frisian Duck, Bubba Island Kush
710: Hash 13 and Lemon Pineapple
Seedsman: Pink Kush CBD, Cream and Cheese CBD
Europa: Heavy Grapefruit
World of Seeds: Ketama
Barney's Farm: G13 Haze
Delicious: Critical Super Silver Haze
Greenbud: Lemon Pie Auto
Pyramid: Super Hash

There are some fun landrace genetics on the way as well, but I'll say more about that later. 😉

The last picture is of the germinator/cloner. It used to be a dishwasher, but after gutting it, sterilizing it, running a bulb through the top sprayer hole. and putting a heating mat on the floor, it's just like an ez-germ oven! 100% germ rate since I've started using it.

Thanks for the interest!
 
A grow diary
A grow diary 2
A grow diary 3
A grow diary 4
Kanzeon

Kanzeon

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Realized I forgot a few plants yesterday, and wanted to include some outdoor ladies.

The aforementioned lacto alfalfa/fan leaf meal tea on day two of the ferment.

Screenshot from 2019 09 21 18 19 20


These are tiny because they got started in July.

Dinafem's Auto White Widow, which is sooooo close to being done. It's harvestable now, but there aren't any amber trichomes yet and it's still throwing out a whitish pistil here and there so I'm gonna let it go another week and hope that the rain stays away and the wind keeps up.

Screenshot from 2019 09 21 18 19 39


Kalasknikov's Katysha is next, just starting to get frosty outside.

Screenshot from 2019 09 21 18 20 07


710 Hash 13, which has been a rockstar for me. Sorry for the shitty screenshot, haha.

Screenshot from 2019 09 21 18 20 29


Kalashnikov's Moscow Blueberry

Screenshot from 2019 09 21 18 20 24


And, yes, Crop King's Hash Plant, which has been surprisingly resilient. It is tiny though, it was planted a month ahead of the 710 one and is a good 5-7 inches shorter.

Screenshot from 2019 09 21 18 20 48


I also realized that the only thing separating my grow room from a water supply is a thin plywood board. Once funds allow, the next big project is to get an inline water filter, a splitter, and some tubing to set up automatic flood irrigation system in the flower room.
 
Kanzeon

Kanzeon

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Harvested about 75% of that white widow after seeing that the forecast for the next week is calling for lots of rain. Better to take the safe bet and get the 100g that I got than have it rot or get ripped.

It went from living to in the freezer in 15 minutes. Gonna make hash tomorrow! 😊
 
Kanzeon

Kanzeon

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So I've been dreading this kind of stuff. I know it's all literal and figurative growing pains, but that doesn't make it more fun.

I chopped most of that white widow before a STUPID amount of rain fell, and felt pretty good about it.

100g buds wet, which I was super happy with. They were nice and frosty with mostly cloudy trichs, so I threw them in the freezer, planning to do a bit of qwiso once they were frozen solid. Even better because I was OUT of medicine and it's been a rough go.

The next day, I checked them out and they were solidly frozen. I cut them up into small pieces with scissors and put them back in the freezer. 4 hours later, I washed them with 99% iso, three times. First for 30 seconds, second for 30 seconds, and third for 40 minutes in the freezer. Combined the first two washes and kept the third aside since, though the shade of green was beautiful, it was green. Evaporated off the iso in a metal bowl floating on a water bath at 135 degrees, with a fan on it.

I waited so anxiously, literally, as I watched it evaporate down to, like, nothing. NO. THING. I got less than two grams from the whole batch, and it's weaker than half ply toilet paper.

Maybe it was the genetics, maybe I harvested too early, maybe I just have a blind spot in my research, but it's a kick in the berries.
 
Kanzeon

Kanzeon

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Figured it's about time for an update!
Screenshot from 2019 09 30 18 59 17


That's a bud that I'm feeling better about. Europa seeds' Heavy Grapefruit. She's been a winner! Very hardy, smells like piney grapefruit right now. I wanna squish this stuff so bad!

Screenshot from 2019 09 30 18 59 33


I noticed some of the plants in the flower room getting light shock, so I raised the lights so the canopy is at no more than 15000 lumens. Turns out that also gives me a lot more room to flower!

Everything in there right now:
HSO Black D.O.G. and Blue Dream
Kalashnikov Kubanskiy Ubiyza, Lavanda Cream, and AK Kush
World of Seeds Ketama
Sensi's Hindu Kush (questionable!) and Afghani #1
Europa's Heavy Grapefruit
Green House (rolls eyes until they fall out of head) Pure Kush
Dinafem's Big Kush
G13 Double Black

Screenshot from 2019 09 30 18 57 39


Lavanda Cream (top left) is looking wonderful two weeks into flower. Kubanskiy is the one in the bottom center (next to the white bucket with Double Black in it), just flipped to flower a couple days ago.

The outside ladies are going into their second single-digit (C) night of the year after last night. I'm hoping they pull a Wilson Phillips and Hold On (for one more day), then the temps start to warm up again. Luckily there's zero rain in the forecast and about 75 gallons of rainwater stored from the last storm . Hoping they'll all be done in a few weeks, but whatever.

On Wednesday the plan is to water the soil from the top with 25% H2O2, then follow that with compost and ewc tea, then nematodes. Gonna not water for 4-5 days and try to deal a deathblow to the fungus gnats.
 
Kanzeon

Kanzeon

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Hot damn. Two nights around 40 degrees and they're all still going strong!

But first I wanted to show y'all a little friend that I found guarding the Hash 13. These are the kinds of things I love about farming.

Screenshot from 2019 10 01 11 34 29


Love having daddy longlegs around. I've given a free ride to a few of them and cute little jumping wolf spiders into the flower room as IPM.

Katyusha:
Screenshot from 2019 10 01 11 46 22


Hash 13 still loving life.

Screenshot from 2019 10 01 11 36 49


Moscow Blueberry is starting to feel the effects but I think she'll make it. You'll see my lovely American Bulldog mix in the background, making sure things are copacetic.

Screenshot from 2019 10 01 11 37 21


Even Crop King's stuff is solid.

Screenshot from 2019 10 01 11 38 26


It's nice to be alive.
 
Beachwalker

Beachwalker

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Hey buddy I'm growing black dog have been for about a year if you have any questions I could answer let me know I'll be following along, good luck!
 
Beachwalker

Beachwalker

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Haven't done it with that but it does take longer than the advertised 55 days to ripen at least to where I like it, it's one of my favorite smokes
Also no matter how low I dropped the temperature I couldn't get them to color up?! They stayed green start to finish :/ Mine smell kind of like black cherries in gasoline. Don't have any In Bloom now but I've got a few in various stages of veg I'll grab some pics later

you've got a nice list going! hoping to hear some smoke reports on a few of those
 
Kanzeon

Kanzeon

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Haven't done it with that but it does take longer than the advertised 55 days to ripen at least to where I like it, it's one of my favorite smokes

Oh yeah, I'm in the 60's right now and it's still throwing out white pistils. Maybe by Halloween. 😆

Everything in that room is my meds, so smoke reports will definitely be forthcoming!
 
Beachwalker

Beachwalker

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Oh yeah, I'm in the 60's right now and it's still throwing out white pistils. Maybe by Halloween. 😆
Dude no shit I think mine went 70 ish days in the summer and I think it was 83 days in the winter! I could not seem to get the friggin trichomes to Cloud up?
 
Kanzeon

Kanzeon

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Dude no shit I think mine went 70 ish days in the summer and I think it was 83 days in the winter! I could not seem to get the friggin trichomes to Cloud up?

Daaaaaamn. These ladies get down to the mid 60's at night, but I'm not gonna push it much further than that for the time being.
 
Kanzeon

Kanzeon

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Hell yeah man!

The Gorilla Breath was a weird pack of seeds. Two didn't pop and the one that did choked itself off with the shell membrane shortly after rooting. But, HSO being awesome, replacements are on the way,

Yesterday I popped Europa's Cheeselicious, IHG's Wild Cookies, and Barney's Farm's Ayahuasca Purple, and today I repotted Moscow Blueberry and brought her indoors. She doesn't do well below 50F, it seems.
 
Kanzeon

Kanzeon

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So the Barney's Farm Ayahuasca Purp that I was hoping to germ went 0/2 on popping. The Wild Cookies died shortly after shedding the seed coat, the cotes just stayed white and closed instead of opening up and then the whole thing fell over. Haven't seen that before except for the other Wild Cookies bean that I popped a few months back, but correlation and causation and all that.

So today I put down:
HSO Blueberry Headband
Kripple Shock
Dinamed CBD Plus (third one that I've started, the other two are doing well in veg)
Barney's Farm Phantom OG
Peyote Wifi

Cheeselicious, in the exact same conditions, popped and is thriving. Heavy grapefruit, also of Europa Seeds, is frostier than a Saskatchewan winter and only getting stickier. I'm thinking it'll get the chop in 2-3 weeks, maybe with Black D.O.G. if it's ready by then.
 
Kanzeon

Kanzeon

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Things are progressing beautifully in the flower room! Lavanda Cream, in the left corner, is just a fucking banger.

Screenshot from 2019 10 10 21 44 34


The trim game is getting better, I'm happy with the Dinamed CBD Plus (next to the pepper plant) and the HSO Blue Dream both exploding into stretch. I'm liking the line of LC/Kubanskiy/AK Kush that are all roughly the same height.

Screenshot from 2019 10 10 21 44 02

That's World of Seeds' Ketama, getting frosty in a hurry. Starting to get an badass saag paneer-esque funk to it, too. Really interesting.

Screenshot from 2019 10 10 21 43 29


That Black DOG is throwing out some fatass colas! Hasn't matured much in terms of trichome density or coverage, but there's no rush. That bitch is over an inch thick.

Screenshot from 2019 10 10 21 41 49


Hindu Kush starting to get frosty.

Screenshot from 2019 10 10 21 42 22


G13's Double Black in the white bucket, along with other angles of the Kalashnikov stuff

Screenshot from 2019 10 10 21 52 36


The veg area, now with a bunch of peppers. The plant that just sorta appears in the rear middle is an untrimmed CBD Plus. Pyramid's Super Hash (middle row, right, blue bucket) is rebounding spectacularly from an aggressive defo after being brought inside. Frisian Duck, middle left, got pulled from flower, she needed to bulk up more.

The peppers are Ancho, Aji Rico, Sugar Rush Peach, Scotch Bonnet, and Matan Nardello.

Screenshot from 2019 10 10 21 53 30


Another Double Black on the way, next to the super hash. Greenbud's Lemon Pie Auto is the dark green lady behind her.

Screenshot from 2019 10 10 21 53 46


Once I saw how frosty that Ketama got, I took the least mature one out and revegged it. Wasn't gonna do shit in flower anyway, so might as well.

This plant is incredible. It's like having a room full of miracles.
 
Kanzeon

Kanzeon

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The flower room is starting to take off!

Some bud porn of Lavanda Cream, she's sprouting trichomes all over. Essentially all of that has been since the last post, so two weeks. Also smells wonderful- piney and floral.
Screenshot from 2019 10 22 15 16 13


Kubanskiy has really been impressive. It's been flowering for a week and a half and just started throwing out trichomes like crazy.

Screenshot from 2019 10 22 15 15 40


AK Kush still killing it.

Screenshot from 2019 10 22 16 45 46


This is one of the lower buds of AK Kush. Hasn't seen that much light compared to the rest of the plant, but still frosting up. Plus I thought this looked really cool.

Screenshot from 2019 10 22 15 17 02


Ketama, getting sticky and staying funky.

Screenshot from 2019 10 22 15 13 02


Black DOG getting some fat colas, these are about 1.5" thick.

Screenshot from 2019 10 22 15 15 50


And the veg area. The enormous lady in the back is Dinamed's CBD plus. She was a slow starter for sure, but has really hit her stride.

Screenshot from 2019 10 22 15 12 32
 
Screenshot from 2019 10 22 15 16 03
Kanzeon

Kanzeon

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Sorry for the lack of updates, life has been a bit crazy and ptsd has been kicking my entire ass.

But, trying to push through that and become self-sustainable with my meds, I've developed a method for making shatter with isopropyl alcohol and some kitchen nerd equipment that I wanted to share.

It's essentially a refined quick wash iso technique, so it's still legal in Canada after the new hydrocarbon laws.

Equipment:
A French press (put in the freezer before starting)
99% isopropyl alcohol (also in the freezer before starting)
Coffee Filters
Clothespins
An immersion circulator (Mine is Anova)
A pot
Salt
Ice

Break up fresh frozen bud into small pieces and put them into the already frozen French press. Don't pack them in too tightly or else the isopropyl won't be able to reach all of the trichomes. Think of it like steeping tea, it's gotta have room to expand or else the alcohol won't be able to permeate the trichome membranes. When it's full and loosely packed, put it back into the freezer, uncovered, for at least 12 hours. This will dry it out a bit more and make sure that it's cold for the extraction.

Make a super saturated salt solution ( https://sciencing.com/prepare-supersaturated-salt-water-solutions-8559439.html ), cool it to room temp, and pour it over ice in the small pot to make a very cold water bath. Put the whole French press with the herb in it into the icy salt solution (decreases ambient temps), and pour the also as cold as possible isopropyl over the herb and steep that for 1:30. The colder the ambient temp at extraction, the less chlorophyll gets removed. I've got some other hypotheses for refining this that I'll post later after testing- nitrous oxide, dry ice, liquid CO2, and liquid nitrogen could all theoretically be used to lower the ambient temp, which would potentially mean more pressure could be applied to the extraction, potentially increasing yield.

Filter that out into a mason jar and winterize, then pour the alcohol solution out into a silicone baking pan. Place that on a water bath at 86.5 degrees F, and walk away. The evap process (which I haven't refined enough to recover the iso yet) depends on the surface area of the silicone pan and how much you're running.

It's done when it looks dried out. But don't just eyeball it, put the evap pan onto a hot baking tray and move the mixture around with a silicone spatula until there are no bubbles appearing to evaporate. Collecting it all into one place makes getting it out of the pan easier, as well. It'll cool to a hard candy consistency that's pretty easy to work with when cold. Dab at 620 and get medicated! 😊
 
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