Quasi Ghetto Grow

[good2bkind]

Two pics of the lady. The first one seems to indicate wasted light. The plant is about 2 feet tall, it veg'd quite long. It looks like I barely have enough light for this plant. I may put some shrouds on some of those bulbs to better aim the light, and I may install a track at the back in the middle, to put lights along there or to just give more flexibility positioning the lights.

The plant is a little droopy and appears to be over-watered. The past two days have been at least 10 degrees lower than the previous, which were over 100... on those days I'd come home after watering in the morning and everything was bone-dry.

Now, putting my finger in the bottom, I can still feel moisture so unfortunately I can't water yet with my molasses mix (1 tbsp/1 gallon water) but I will, tomorrow.

I also have gnats and I don't know if they're just pests or they actually hurt the plants. In the past with gnats I've just sprayed neem oil solution on the soil itself, but not actually on the leaves-- I don't know if gnats eat the leaves or if they mess with the soil. Time to research.

Also gotta research cloning.

And I have some seeds, I may start a new batch of babies this weekend, but that will also require some serious trips to Depot to get new shelving and more lights, not sure if I wanna bother as I gotta do my Momma's b-day this Saturday, but we shall see.

 

[good2bkind]

pic1:
The biggest plant, formerly known as "Mr Stretchy." Decent rootage I guess, though they were smaller than I would have expected. And notice they have all fallen to the bottom, which indicates I maybe should have watered less but more often (a little a day) rather than every 2-3 days, as the roots were moving downward to seek water. Tough call.

pic2:
Same plant. I removed these yesterday and let them sit in my room before deciding what to do with them. You can see the various problems the plant had, and the very obvious balls at the top.

I just read on a grow that one guy threw his in the field where they lasted for 5 months.

So I did this. But I think I may get it back early tomorrow morning, I am worried that neighbors could have seen me. It's a slim chance, but...

pic3:
The other plant, not as big, similar root structure

pic4:
Full length. You can see the root structure is weaker but the plant was healthier than the last.

You also notice how damp the soil is, and it was on both, more so on the first plant.

They exited their containers easily, and you can see the whole shape is retained, but in both cases the soil was still obviously moist, even after not being watered for two days. So these had way more moisture in them than I thought.

This one, I threw in my ivy.

I know I shouldn't, but I can't bear the thought of breaking them up and trashing them.

"Be free," I say. "Go live in the wild!"

I think I also did this because I read of a guy who had hermies (these might be) and they self-pollinated themselves... so I guess I'm hoping for some seeds?

I think early tomorrow morning I may go pull that one weed and check things at lunch and if the vibes aren't right I will have to get rid of these boys. This is sad, but I actually put the one plant on the far side of the field nearer to my neighbors who I know smoke pot, but I realized they have a fence in front of the field unlike my opening, so it's unlikely anyone would think it was them. Which is actually good, who wants to getting your neighbors in trouble, eh?

 

[good2bkind]

Gotta post a quick props to Masta, just been reading your journal, on page 55 and lovin' it:

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/52984-mastas-ghetto-buds-2-a-55.html

Man, those are the trippiest-ass plants I ever seen. That bonzai thing is amazing, and your plant has a freaking trunk. Most of us are happy to get a green stem, you got a freaking tree trunk, that thing is brown, it probably has bark and sap, lol!

And the shiny dark leaves, I have never seen anything like that, I wonder if it's the genetics of the bag seed or the specific nutes, or the drastic change in night temps?

Anyways, I'm not even at the 'end' can't wait to see and thanks much for posting to my lil old grow, much respect. ::

 

[brendon420]

im only veggin this long because i dont want to flower with cfl's not worth the time or effort, i figure the sun will give me triple what cfls will

 

[mastakoosh]

haha wow man thanks a million dude. i can tell you do your homework too. not hard to study something we all love, wish i liked school this much when i was younger. those dark leaves were genetics mixed with some nitrogen from the soil and nutes. i had a few things i could have done different but it was my 2nd grow so i am still learning. i was really happy out of 6 plants they all turned female. this bagseed strain always stays so damn short lol, i bet an hps would make em bigger though. i bet you are gonna get some nice ass buds on that lady you got there too. haha i am glad you like the avatar too.

 

[good2bkind]

im only veggin this long because i dont want to flower with cfl's not worth the time or effort, i figure the sun will give me triple what cfls will

Oh yeah ma man, prolly hella more than triple, and think of the ambient light! MMMMM.... ambient light...

 

[good2bkind]

haha wow man thanks a million dude. i can tell you do your homework too. not hard to study something we all love, wish i liked school this much when i was younger. those dark leaves were genetics mixed with some nitrogen from the soil and nutes. i had a few things i could have done different but it was my 2nd grow so i am still learning. i was really happy out of 6 plants they all turned female. this bagseed strain always stays so damn short lol, i bet an hps would make em bigger though. i bet you are gonna get some nice ass buds on that lady you got there too. haha i am glad you like the avatar too.

No doubt man, I'm growing something called "Super Bud"-- whatever the hell that is. I still have 12 seeds of "Monster Bud" (whatever that is) and 4 more seeds of Super. I gotta get cloning and planting again to keep this stuff goin year 'round.

 

[good2bkind]

Anybody know what this leaf-folding stuff is? Like inverted canoeing.

Anyways, here's the girl:

pic1
pic2
pic3 closeup

(my sis left her camera here so quality is better than usual)

 

[good2bkind]

I just now thought, that could be heat? The closet gets about 100 degrees F on these hot days. I watered her yesterday with the molasses mix and today she was bone-dry, so I watered with the nutes mix, which is supposed to be 10-15-10 the reccomended amount but I may have added nutes to old water which already had nutes, so I'll need to watch carefully for nute burn.

 

[mastakoosh]

I just now thought, that could be heat? The closet gets about 100 degrees F on these hot days. I watered her yesterday with the molasses mix and today she was bone-dry, so I watered with the nutes mix, which is supposed to be 10-15-10 the reccomended amount but I may have added nutes to old water which already had nutes, so I'll need to watch carefully for nute burn.

cool, are you growing ed rosenthal "super bud"? if you are that would be bad ass cuz they are supposedly good genetics but they are so expensive i have never seen anyone grow them. if they are not, it is still cool. yeah i believe those temps are way too high. also what is the humidity like? high temps and humidity problems could cause your leaves to do that. you might see they liked the nute mix u gave and like you said keep an eye out for burn. harvest time will be like your favorite christmas as a little kid haha. bet you cant wait. smokin your own shit will hook u for life like me and everyone else on here.

 

[good2bkind]

Thanks as always Koosh, yeah the temps today were about 103-- they didn't seem to mind that in veg when they were smaller, but I think it's a lil harder on this girl and my outside fan was placed too far away, so I know that affected it otherwise temps would have been high 90's.

Soil was bone-dry and creeping from the container. Today is molasses, which the plant seems to love-- just today there are bigger and more white hairs than when I took the pics yesterday. Tomorrow is nutes, which the plant does not seem to mind getting at all. The green is a healthier color than it's been in the past.

I'm quite sure these are not Ed's Super Bud-- these were only $60! But it seems to be a damn hearty variety, whatever it is.

Yeah, I can't believe it I'm really growing my own, it amazes me when I open the closet and there's this gorgeous thing sittin in there. Harvest is gonna be fun.

August approacheth...

 

[good2bkind]

Forgot to mention, the humidity is "very dry"-- I wonder if I should put a container of water in there?

 

[brendon420]

i might have said this before but frozen water bottles work really well for me, you have to change them a lot but theyre effective

 

[good2bkind]

That sounds good Brendon, I'ma try it tomorrow, thanks!

 

[good2bkind]

So last night I put a 2.5 gallon thing of water in the freezer and this morning put it in the cab.

When I got home, the temps were about 97 degrees... a savings of about 6, from 103. Not enough to make a real difference, but there were some caveats: it was not opened, so I doubt that all of it froze overnight. And since there was no air hole, there was no way for water to evaporate-- my original idea being to get the humidity in the closet up.

So today I'm freezing one that was about 1/3 full of water and will try that tomorrow. And it has a vent hole, so evaporating water may add some humidity (though it's more likely the water will stay in the container as the hole is so small-- but I can always put an open container of water in there).

Here's the pics, finally a nice top pic and a side one. We can see some nice bud points and there are some smaller ones lower down, but obviously they get less light.

I'm noticing the upper part of the stem is a nice green though the lower half is still purple and then it's green again where it enters the soil.

I fed a little nutes today and a little water with molasses, and the bottom hole was still wet so no more water today but probably tomorrow morning.

Yum!

 

[good2bkind]

Cabinet temps in the past few days have past 100. I implemented a solution a couple days ago of two fans in the cab (used to be one), and a 2.5 gallon of frozen water.

My temps are nice, about 82, and my humidity is finally normal.

Before, humidity was way over in 'dry' and temps when I checked at lunch around 12:15 (it's 10am now) were about 92 degrees.

This was implemented yesterday, but the plant has not shown signs yet of de-stress.

As the leaves have been like this for at least a week, I am growing concerned.

About every other day I add nutes of 10-15-10 in a fairly small amount of water, about 1/4 gallon. I have not seen nute burn as such, though there is obvious light burn as at times the plant touched the lights and this is adding to stress.

I also water every other day with 1 tbsp molasses to about 3/4 gallon of water.

Normally one would not water so frequently, but because the cabinet temps have been so high, the soil dries totally, and pulls away from the container.

My last watering was yesterday morning, a little from the nute jug and a little from the molasses jug and putting my finger in the hole at the bottom today, the soil there is still moist from yesterday's watering, probably because I have lowered cabinet temps with the frozen water, otherwise, from experience-- it would be bone-dry.

Obviously the plant is rather emaciated, but I am not too concerned as leaf color is healthy, buds look okay. Plant stock is purple on the lower end, signifying some nute deficiency, but the upper half of the stalk is healthy green.

Water is tap water allowed to set at least a day.

I have no way at this time of monitoring pH.

The bottom leaves are yellowing but taking there time to fall off-- one cannot just touch them and have them fall, they are still secured to the plant and not totally dried out, I assume this is normal for a plant where most of the light is at the top giving power to the buds, if you will, so I will let these fall as they may.

The middle leaves are fairing okay, not that they matter so much but it should be noted that they are further from the lights.

Most lights except for one (farthest left, lit) are 42 watt floros at 6500k. There's an aberrent light off to the side that is of a warmer spectrum, which I unscrewed as it was not 6500k and was facing the wall anyway.

Soil is organic, there are no pest problems.

My concern is that this plant is looking limp. Many people would say "overwatering, NOOB THREAT!" but with cab temps reaching 100 in the past days and soil pulling from the container, I'm not sure about that diagnosis.

But anyways, whoever has seen this before and dealt with it successfully, please let me know any ideas you have on the subject.

 

[good2bkind]

pic1: Dave Lister, a character in Red Dwarf, tends to use the adjective "smeggin'" as in, "It's Smeggin' 'ot WTF"

pic2: Thanks to the advice of Brendon420, my cab temps are 92 and humidity is normal. This is too hot, but it's not the 100 degrees it would be. I put a frozen 2.5 gallon jug in here this morning, and it's no longer ice, but it's sweating has provided normal relative humidity and some cooling.

pic3: Folding leaves

pic4: Stealth at all times. No wonder it's so smeggin hot.

Getting ready to put another frozen stealth water bomb in the cab! Good thing it's the weekend and I'm not at work.

 

[good2bkind]

Looked at the thermometer pic, okay so my humidity is too dry. Working on it.

 

[good2bkind]

Added a little bit of nute water and a little bit of molasses water, couldn't resist. The top soil was totally dry though soil in the little drain hole was still moist.

 

[good2bkind]

Well. This plant has been suffering through a hot west coast summer.

I have not been able to correct the leaf curl, and I'm assuming it is related to what I cannot control right now: heat, dryness, and possibly bad water pH.

So!

About 6 days ago I asked for advice and someone said flush it, so I did-- but with molasses water. Molasses seem good and seem to have made my plant a vibrant green, but I don't think flushing with them was a good idea-- it was less likely to flush out excessive nutrients, and it may have created a salt-thickening.

So finally today it was dry enough for me to flush it out with tap water that had set overnight, and though the plant doesn't look much different (I flushed it on my lunch break, so this is about 5 hours later), it certainly doesn't look worse, and it did feel like the plant appreciated just clean water, no additives either of the molasses or the nutrient variety.

I am happy to see that while the plant growth has officially stunted (probably due to heat more than anything), the buds are still growing, albeit slowly.

The cab temps had been around 102 but I got them down to 95 by putting a frozen 2.5 gal of water in there.

I was switching it out though with one that was only about 1/3 full, and now I've filled that one and it's freezing as we 'speak'.

So now I will swap that one in at night.

The next time I do this (in a month or so) I am going to run the lights at night when it's cooler (der). This also has the positive effect of charging less electricity.

So:

Today is Thursday, Sunday will mark week 4 in flowering. If I remember correctly I need 7-9 weeks in flower and my buds are bigger than I would have thought (I know-- not that big-- but I didn't know what to expect, especially considering the stresses)

So here are the buds, at almost 4 weeks, under floros, with unknown pH water, 10-15-10 nutes, molasses, and love:

pic1
pic1 (zoom)
pic2
pic2 (zoom)