Grow Your Own Blog

Baklava Yamaka Yank my Stank chain

2009-12-04T17:39:00.003-05:00

Just had a huge lamb gyro, really into the gym at hugetalk, shoulda bought a v8 Anwar Sadat massive gains production estimate phenterimine

Guys should sack up and just leave long disconnected messages instead of harrassing the girls

Incredible Hulk, Babylon 5 spit on the ceiling targetspot.com cold cocked Mcaulay Caulking seagulls, infinite jest surely you jest best breast award winner Virgina Felsom

More bongload babes

2009-04-15T08:03:00.004-04:00

whats up rockers!

I've got some new BUDZZZ growin' so more pictures to come, in the meantime enjoy some new reefer babes:

Yes you guessed it, there is a new pot-themed adult feature out now, I believe it's called "Bongload Girls"

Sexxy Time

2009-03-12T09:26:00.000-04:00

Sup dudes and dudettes, I've been having a look and the new babies appear to be developing quite nicely -- having been through this before, I've thrown them into 12/12 light to begin the flowering process as soon as they had about 5 sets of leaves.

The next step in flowering is sexing the plants -- something that is key to successful bud growth and development.

If you look closely, you can see the fine white filaments coming out of a couple of verrrrry small pistils at the juncture, and while they may be hard to see, to someone growing with unknown seeds, it's a HUGE RELIEF:

Woooo!

Once you have determined that the plants are females you can start the flowering process in earnest!

I found a nice thread on the Grasscity Forums discussing the process.

Transplanting Day!

2009-03-12T09:12:00.000-04:00

After the stems have gained enough stregnth and the containing pot looks like it's getting too small for the plant, the seedlings are ready to be transplanted!

It's important to plan your grow to progress with a minimum of stresses to the plant -- in addition to light, temperature, humidity, proper transplanting and care of the root system will minimize a potential source of stress for your special friends and allow the move from a seedling pot/cube/tray to it's new home as gently as possible.

Obviously transplanting does not occur in the wild, but neither does such a controlled germination and early vegetative stage, so I look to that as an advantage over natural conditions when it comes time to transplant.

Ready to roll:

It's important to focus on protecting the root system when moving from the small pot to the larger and keeping it intact -- don't be concerned if you see all of the roots tangled up in the form of your pot, once they are in the larger container, they will spread out quickly.

I let my plants get a little dry, so I can gently work the rootball out without needing to run an object around the container to pop it out -- this is very dangerous to the roots and an uncecessary step which could also possibly introduce disease or worse yet damage some roots. In the next step, you'll be watering the plant fully, which is another reason why I let them dry out a bit before transplanting.

It's important to drop the rootball in deep enough into the pot to allow the roots to spread horizontally as well as vertically, here's a good shot of the little gal in her new home:

I make sure my rootball is flush with the level of the current top of the soil in the container, digging a deeper hole if needed. Once in the pot, you gently replace the soil around the seedling, gently patting the soil to regain it's firmness -- my soil mixture contains enough perlite and vermiculite so I am not worried about the soil being too compressed.

I add my usual large-container amount of tap water that has been run through the brita and sat out open for a few days to allow any contaminants to dissipate and we are all done.

With transplantation complete, I continue to have them on 24-hour light to maintain the schedule they were on -- changing lighting patterns soon after transplanting is not advised, it's a good idea to let everyone stabilize before moving on.

From the Harvest

2009-03-08T16:17:00.003-04:00

Hey what's up yo -- wanted to clear out some old pics from the harvest:

This baby was dried w.o. humidifier in the room which resulted in a harsher smoke and different taste, but the results remained the same.

Rest in Peace baby, thanks for all your help.

More grass girls and growin' coming soon!

Back on the attack

2009-03-02T22:48:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the delay ladies and gents, the Weedman has been dippin into a bit of the product as of late, but not to worry, I've dug up some items on the best formula for the Vegetative Stage of growth, which comes courtesy of www.marijuana-seeds.net, a new site I've just discovered which despite it's name is not simply a site to purchase seeds and has some solid tutorials on how to grow the reefer

Check it out!

Here's a glamor shot of one of the ladies, R.I.P. sniff...

2009-02-20T08:16:00.002-05:00

Hey what's up thanks again to 420 girls for today's ganja girl, Mallory Knots.

Not sure if she's in the adult industry as well, but I think it's a safe guess...

Interested in Hydroponics? I discovered a new site recently that has a lot of potentially useful information, the growing edge.com. I haven't looked in-depth, but if you're curious on low-budge hydro, this would be a good place to start.

Verizon stinks! more bud pictures coming soon!

2009-02-19T12:16:00.003-05:00

Sup Bros and Bro-ettes!

My apologies for the lack of updates, my DSL has been down for a week, and I took some time off this weekend to hit the slopes for some cool ridin in the halfpipe and took the opportunity to smoke out a large group of friends with the fruits of my first harvest, which was a great treat.

Unfortunately I did not take this photo, but you get the idea...

I harvested plant number two last week as well and the nuggitude is now curing in a newly-purchased airtight container.

I will update you all soon, thanks for reading!

The New Guys

2009-02-09T20:16:00.008-05:00

What's up partiers!

I mentioned earlier that I have a second crop readying for deployment and I'd like to share with you some pictures of the little fellas:

I have been running them on 24 hours of light with a 150W equivalent CFL (compact florescent) with a "blue" or daylight spectrum to maximize vegetative growth, such as you would find in the spring and early summertime.

This simple change has really made a difference, with no stretching towards the sunlight, extremely fast growth and nice tight leaf sets that puts me pretty much on schedule for placing these little mammas into the rig to begin flowering!

It's important not to over-water during this stage -- as one website states "most herbs do not like their feet wet". You can buy any number of moisture meters, or if you're cool like me you can use your finger to check to see if the soil is moist -- if it is, hold off on the watering until the top of the soil is crusty.

Also important is your water at this time, I myself take tap water, run it through the brita and then let it sit with a cap off for 24-48 hours to allow all hard water elements, chlorines and other unecessary byproducts to dissolve.

I will be updating you on their progress, stay tuned!

Cradling the Nuggitude

2009-02-08T15:20:00.011-05:00

What's up yo!

The big day came for plant numero uno, check it out and let me know what you think!

This would be the yield off of one plant with the bare minimum of money spent on the setup, for a first-timer, I think I learned a lot and I have new kids on the block getting ready to go into flowering soon!

BUDGET GROW EXTRAVAGANJAAAA

here's how it breaks down:

seeds: free, unknown strain
lighting: $40.00 2 150w equivalent compact CFL lightbulbs, w simple clamp fixtures from Home Depot, one ~100w equivalent compact CFL light from Ikea.

Soil/Nutes: each pot contained the following miracle grow products 1 part vermiculite(8bucks), 1 part sphagnum peat moss, 1 part Perlite (8 bucks), 3 parts potting soil. I did not add any nutrients until very late in the game, partly due to financial concerns, partially because I wanted to see what I could come up with without the nutrients. As the budes developed, I caved and bought some miracle grow (surprise surprise) Bloom Booster flower food to aid the bud growth. Being a rookie, I was concerned with the flush, so I only added these nutes for a few weeks before harvest, so I don't know how much effect they had.

My situation living on the top floor of a downtown apartment precludes the use of the high-wattage/high lumens lamps essential to huge yields (helicopters love HPS lamps) so I can only increase my soil and nutrient richness this time around.

Ventilation/Humidity was provided by a simple $10 holmes small box fan, I did not have any humidifiers running, but this is also something I have changed, I think this will help growth in general, my heating system in my apartment is very dry.

Air Filtration: with only two self-contained plants kept in a separate room/closet, I did not see a need to purchase any sort of filtration system -- but the aroma was pungent enough with just two plants, so if you're going to do even a small grow like this, invest or build your own carbon air filtration system, I may do a post later on how to craft a DIY one and save yourself the loot.

As the buds have been drying in their racks, made with some leftover speaker wire and a cardboard box, I have been checking them each day, but I'm concerned that there has not been enough humidity in the room, which causes the bud to dry to quickly, sacrificing some flavor and making it a harsher smoke.

This is plant #1, stay tuned for plant #2!

Peace!

HARVEST TIME APPROACHETH

2009-02-02T22:22:00.007-05:00

So after much scientific examination, I have determined that the time has come to harvest one of my baby girls.

After over nine weeks in flowering at 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness, adding nutrients for a few weeks of flowering and also adding molasses to the waster, I noticed that one of the plants had stopped bud growth.

At week 9, after a thorough watering with molasses water, I noticed that both plants growing more fan leaves around the bud sites, not sure why, but this also led me to harvest.

You can see that the bud growth is very mature

And so it begins

2009-01-30T08:29:00.004-05:00

So I am currently awaiting shipment on a lighted magnifier from the folks at Radio Shack:

This will allow me to properly inspect the trichomes on the buds to gauge their level of maturity -- I can see that the all appear cloudy on the top of the plant, with the stigmas all turned a beautiful shade of red, but plant #2 the tric's still look clear and the stigmas are mostly light in color. The recommended magnification is 30x, this unit cost me 12 bucks plus 6 bucks shipping (natch). You can use a jeweler's loupe as well, I recommend looking online rather than checking in shops, it's still a hard to find item.

Here's a good idea of where to look to determine the harvestibility of your stuff:

and this is something that turned up after a quick search on hot girl weed, the classic smoking through an apple move, which in my mind is the pinnacle of ingenuity -- well as far as pot smoking tech goes.

Don't forget to eat it!

What's the deal with curing?

2009-01-29T22:53:00.004-05:00

As mentioned, I've begun the process of trimming smaller "popcorn" buds from my first grow and had a somewhat unpleasent experience last week with some material that I trimmed, hung upside down for several days, then kept in a sealed container for a few more days and then rolled up -- it felt dry and smelled great, but the smoke was harsh and didn't really "work". I returned again to the sages at rollitup to see what was crackin' on the messageboards and I came up with the following:

Curing can seemingly affect potency because often the first time the buds feel "dry", they really aren't. Once they start to cure and sweat, you will see how much moisture is left.

Curing is mostly for aroma and taste, but the first week after "drying" will still have some effect on the potency as the bud fully dries.

If the above is not reason enough, here is a more scientific explanation:

Drying bud converts crude acidic THC from its nonactive form into a neutral pH psychoactive substance. Each THC molecule has to lose it's moisture content in order to become fully psychoactive.

[Editor's note: Starkes suggests up to 95% of the cannabinoids will remain carboxylized in dried and cured plant matter]

When the water exits the bud, the THC becomes slightly different in molecular structure. As Fatima mentioned (See this thread from overgrow.com), heating can make THC readily active by immediately vaporizing the bud's moisture content away. However, as Fatima also mentioned, aging is important too.

First the bud is "dried", but can still contain some moisture within. By using the "cure", the THC slowly becomes psychoactive. Curing builds a more uniformly dried bud with a better burn and taste. Almost all the THC converts to the usable psychoactive cannabinoid over the alotted time, without the degradation from drying the bud rapidly with heat.

Look out boys, Ganja Girl!

2009-01-25T02:17:00.004-05:00

Howdy pardners, did a small test last night, results were mixed -- I am confused by the curing process and will post info on how it works tomorrow.

I am also going to let you know about the possibility of trimming the buds that are mature and letting the smaller immature buds grow a bit longer.

Last bu definitely not least, I'd like to introduce you all to Ganja Girl:

Courtesy of Willamete Week Online

Week 8 bulletin board post

2009-01-21T23:38:00.004-05:00

Check out my grow journal message board post at Rollitup.org.

I've been adding molasses to the water I use, supposedly this allows the buds to fill out!

We are within range of harvest, I'm just getting to the end of week 8, so the nugs are bursting with trichomes:

I need to hook up a better magnifying glass to inspect the trichomes, I'm pretty sure they are getting cloudy by now!

Also I have trimmed the bottoms of both plants and I've hung the little scraggly buds up for a tasting this weekend, this of course will be the topic of an extensive post this weekend.

Check back tomorrow for more pictures of the girls!

Eye (and brain) Candy

2009-01-18T22:35:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of a site called Seedism in the UK, I've never used them, but it's a lovely picture of some fine-ass ladies...while we're on the subject, here's a close-up of my main girl:

another snap of a hot girl:

note: the pictures of girls here are usually always done on a random google search, the results of I post in bold in case you want to replicate the search to try and find more pictures and less clothing etc.

I Grow Chronic

2009-01-18T18:51:00.000-05:00

Hey thanks for checking in, hope you're having a fantastic weekend!

Here are two of the best online weed-groing tutorials, the first is not only incredibly informative, but really funny as well, Mr. Green rules:

As you know, I am a budget gardener growing in a fucking closet, so Mr. Green's video, while informative, is pretty high-tech for me which leads us to Stoned Free's classic 1997 how-to video "How to grow Cannabis" which is a fantastic resource:

I can't recommend both vids enough, be sure to grab a pen and paper while watching to jot down any notes that may be helpful.

Also thanks for voting on my poll! Woo!

Our first weed mama

2009-01-16T21:17:00.000-05:00

Okay, it's not from this site, but it's a hot girl chillin in a grow room with a huge spliff -- and she's also a porn actress.

Hmm, pretty serious combination -- she gets paid to have sex and loves smoking weed.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Charlie Laine!

Courtesy of 420 Magazine

Small buds? Ask Ed

2009-01-14T08:45:00.000-05:00

I have two plants that are on the verge of being harvested
and sadly, they are a bit spread out -- I am attributing this to the fact that I have used low-power CFL's for the entire grow, but I wanted to know for sure if this was the reason for a small yield. One thing I have read about is removing the smaller bottom buds in order to focus on the top buds, but Ed Rosenthal in Cannibis Culture explodes this myth.

courtesy of Cannabis Culture.com:

Will pruning during flowering increase bud size?

I have a White Widow plant growing indoors that is going into its final stages of flowering ? it should ripen in about two weeks. However, I think I made the mistake of allowing the plant to keep too many branches during the flowering process, and this one 16-inch plant has well over 50 flowering heads. As a result of this, the main tall branches have not budded out as fully as I would have hoped for, while the majority of the buds are small and relatively insignificant.

However, the plant looks very healthy, and is covered in crystals! What can I do to increase the yield at this late stage? The cycle is set at 11 hours of light (down from 12) and some of the hairs are just beginning to turn brown. If I cut some of the smaller buds off, will it help the larger ones grow?

Alex,
London, England

Ed writes:
It's too late to do anything to increase the size of the individual buds. The plant has already expended most of the resources it will use for flowering. Now it is filling out the infrastructure it has already built. Removing some buds now will not make much difference to the remaining ones because the plant does not have much more energy to spend on them. If you removed them now, you would be losing all the resources the plant has already allocated to them.

The buds may not be as cosmetically alluring as larger tighter ones, but you can see from the crystals that they will be potent when used.

On future crops you could manicure the plant a couple of weeks before flowering, two or three weeks after changing the light cycle.

This brings us to the obvious topic of pruning, which we will investigate tomorrow!

Don't forget to vote on our poll and send your home-grown pictures to us at growyourown @ gmail.com!

Welcome!

2009-01-13T09:34:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Grow Your Own!

Over the next several months I'll be tracking the development of some mongrel seeds, taking your questions, posting pictures and helping you grow the most potent and dankest nugs online!

I don't claim to be an expert, but I'll certainly post some fun pictures of hot girls, ganja and everything else a new gardener needs to keep going.

Our motto here at GYO is "The best high is a homegrown high".

Thanks for reading and come back soon!