BJ's 38 degree NorCal backyard grow-The trials and tribulations of a moron

[BigJon]

Thanks for the love ABM, how you been? Haven't seen you in awhile.

@WiFi Good luck! Dont get tempted to let cut that Blue Dream early. I did and it got me high but I know it coulda been better. I rolled up a joint of my homegrown BD on a bus. The whole bus started complaining and then as I left, the driver told me I need to not smoke on the bus. Haha! I didnt light shit!

@Jazz'sGirl-I cant see the pics. That's so awesome that your community allows you face time with the actual breeders. Breeding is another venture I want to get into. I have a male blueberry and blueberry is a great breeding strain, I hear. Im gonna cut him down, repot, and maybe try to keep it under a one gallon water jug with the bottom cut out and holes for ventilation. Oh, and GDP is Grand Daddy Purple, Purple Urkel's most popular daughter.

 

[BigJon]

The great thing about starting a garden (besides harvest) is all the different beautiful life it invites to your home.

By biggs34 at 2012-06-29

 

[angryblackman]

I have been a little under the weather and just recuperating. I should be back to normal soon.

 

[konagirl420]

Garden is lookin great Big Jon and I hope you feel better abm!

 

[angryblackman]

Thanks Kona.

 

[BigJon]

Yeah man, take it easy, but I know you already know that. You (and most folk on this site) are a healer after all!

 

[Jazzman's Gal]

Eeeek! Sorry BigJon! I wonder what happened to the pics? When I first uploaded them, they looked just fine although a little smaller than yours. Now, I see that they're gone and that the highlighted Attachments won't open. I'll see what I can do.

And thanks for explaining GDP. As soon as I read it I did a mental forehead-slap (the blonde high-five, you know). I'm very much a newbie to the whole cannabis culture here on the West Coast so some of these strain names are still completely new to me. We have a medical marijuana program in New Mexico, too, but it's run much differently. Mostly that NM is her own dealer: she hooks up her patients with her growers and supervises all transactions from seedling to consumption. NM is very interested in quality control and, I understand, is aiming to actually dispense to her patients herself from her growers. In some ways that's good as it helps prevent some of the blackmarket stuff and is a fabulous way to protect patients and growers, both. In an important way, it's bad; when I left a little over a year ago, NM was running out of growers. I don't know how well the program's doing since I moved to Oregon. And NM accepts PTSD as a qualifying condition. Oregon doesn't. Too bad with all of the veterans from our Asian conflicts and Gulf wars still out there, my partner being one of them. He much prefers Sativas because of his PTSD but Indicas for his arthritis, which is his qualifying condition here in OR.

Everything I've read or seen, as well as the fact that I have a "Smurf" garden this year, says that your Blueberry could be a gold mine. It's apparently the #1 parent plant in Oregon. Or, at least, there's a specific Oregon variety that's a favorite parent plant When you cut him down, do you really CUT him down? And then what, re-pot and re-root like a clone? The milk jug will make a mini-greenhouse for him: good idea!!

I like OR's program and I like the openess of the culture. It's nice to casually go to a friend or a resource center for information instead of secretively; I even took a grow class in May at the resource center we go to. It was good for getting my clones the best possible start but now what?

So, off to learn a better way to upload pics. Probably going to have to use PhotoBucket or something, aren't I?

Wish me luck!!

 

[Jazzman's Gal]

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Did it work? The Smurf Garden about 10 days ago. See the yellowish BCD's on the right? And Blue Kush, kinda catty-corner to the left from the orange crate right at the top left corner of the bed, was the caterpillar favorite, as you can see She was almost killed, I think, and is just now putting out some real leaves.......................

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Baby Smurfs. Planted 4/23 on the left and 5/1 on the right. Pic is oriented to the south. See the bank in the background? Lots of trees blocking sun there and the hillside probably goes 200 feet higher. The sun barely peeks over the top in winter.

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He's vicious!! Don't stir him up!! He'll take your toe off!! Behind him is The Unknown (left front) and a Blue Haze (right rear).

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Last year's crop 4-6 weeks before harvest. If you look close on the right, you'll see one of the squatty Indicas. The Girls are not as tall as they look The raised bed was about a foot taller last year than this year. The girls are actually about 5' tall. I broke the old garden bed down into the two halves in the pics for this year's crop so I could spread them out wider. Next year I think I'm going to add about 18"- 24" to the right side of the right bed to put all my plants further from the house but still be able to reach all of them for maintenance. See the little green plastic greenhouse in the background? The plants you see were started as seeds in the little greenhouse with an over-the-kitchen-sink-type CFL--one tube of about 150 watts It worked but I want better lighting next time.......

[/IMG]

And this year's problem children will be the Blue City Diesels, I guess. This is the potted one I want to play with under lights. It actually did great being planted in the garden and then dug back up again to go into a pot. This one is, by far, the worst of the yellow BCDs. You can still see the signs of the caterpillar herd on the leaves. The ones in the garden are actually greening back up and I'm not sure why. Maybe I got a variegated variety

So, did the pics work this time? Later, all. Time to go do bug Patrol in the Smurfs.

 

[Jazzman's Gal]

Seems my homemade insecticide doesn't work well with bigger bugs. Saw signs of snail/slug damage this morning. No caterpillars, aphids, spider mites, etc. at least Saw some spiders, one lone Ladybug and a huge (pregnant?) Praying Mantis, though, so I held off spritzing with the chili powder/dish soap concoction. If I get enough predators in there, I'll stop spraying altogether and go back to picking them off with Q-tips and alcohol. Don't wanna kill my hunters Guess I'll buy some beer or slug bait along with my lights this weekend. Any other advice?

 

[BigJon]

About Friday morning I hit them all with a nrich/castings compost tea and sprayed all of them with it as well. Everything shot up so I think Mikey liked it.

Alaskan Ice #1 is revegging after it got root bound. Bonemeal in the bottom of the pot was a bad idea. Alaskan 2 coming along slowly recovering after a fim. If I grow it again next year, I'll stick to bending.

Bubba Lavender is looking lush but it has weird 4 finger leaves.

Jack Herrer is in a 7 gallon pot. I wish I had bigger pots! It looked plenty big at the time.

Can you guys figure out what's wrong with my GDP? Leaves are curling. Heat stress?

The babies are looking nice and will be transplanted soon.

 

[MellowFarmer]

Hey everybody! I'm a longtime lurker, but it's been a long time since I've been involved in an online community where I'm semi-anonymous so I decided to make this official and offer my electronic handshake. I try posting about my meds on FB, but I get very little "likes." And that sucks, because I know there a muhhfuhhs in the world who appreciate some good ganja talk!

Just like everybody else in California, I get super super excited when the sun comes out in February/March. I stayed patient, however. I watched. I waited. I blankly stared off into empty fields fantasizing about the potential until my wife wakes me up with a slap to the back of my bald head.

A little background: I'm a Prop215 medical patient living in NorCal, around 38 degrees. I have had success in the past doing what I thought was "living organics." My soil consisted simply of 50/50 FFOC and Kellog brand compost. I fed it nothing but machine dispensed reverse osmosis water and I top dressed it with some high quality bat guano when the flowers started to form. I had a wonderful harvest. The tastiest herbs my buddy's ever had. But in the few years since then, we had went from a house, to an apartment, to a trailer, to an apartment, back into a nice house.

I grew about 4 Purple Urkel clones and 5 Jack Herers. I know that seems out of my legal limit, Jack matures in my area around late September. So while the 5 are maturing, the 4 urkels can still pass as an immature plant that "may be a male." Of course, despite constant helicopters, I was left alone. I love California.



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I really live in a cave near Pakistan but my RIU ego lives in the north bay also and like you I also have gone from a house to a duplex to a cabin to motels/camping to an apartment x2 and back into a very nice house again myself. Feels great

I wanted to ask if you realized that CA struck down plant limitations to what is necessary for the patient? Before that yes, in the BS counties it was the SB420 limit of 6 but now it is up to your lawyer and medical witnesses Seriously though, you are fine! Looking good!

 

[BigJon]

I really live in a cave near Pakistan but my RIU ego lives in the north bay also and like you I also have gone from a house to a duplex to a cabin to motels/camping to an apartment x2 and back into a very nice house again myself. Feels great

I wanted to ask if you realized that CA struck down plant limitations to what is necessary for the patient? Before that yes, in the BS counties it was the SB420 limit of 6 but now it is up to your lawyer and medical witnesses Seriously though, you are fine! Looking good!

Yes sir, I recently read that just last week. My area is a little bit of a special case because the county has deemed anything federally illegal to be illegal. Although that is what the literature says, I predict that law enforcement wont be bothering too many people. I hope my new neighbors dont complain when the smell starts coming in!

I'm tempted to just turn the grow into a free for all but Im still keeping my count at a "reasonable" number.

 

[BigJon]

Seems my homemade insecticide doesn't work well with bigger bugs. Saw signs of snail/slug damage this morning. No caterpillars, aphids, spider mites, etc. at least Saw some spiders, one lone Ladybug and a huge (pregnant?) Praying Mantis, though, so I held off spritzing with the chili powder/dish soap concoction. If I get enough predators in there, I'll stop spraying altogether and go back to picking them off with Q-tips and alcohol. Don't wanna kill my hunters Guess I'll buy some beer or slug bait along with my lights this weekend. Any other advice?

The evening of July 3rd, I had a little warfare myself! These little red bugs fucking on my collard greens turned out to be "Harlequin bugs!" They're stink bugs that birds dont like to eat, have very little natural predators, and suck the juices out of leaves. I pulled out a bunch of my kale greens that they pretty much destroyed and they started migrating onto my Grand Daddy Purple!

Oh hell no!

I sprayed my whole garden down with water, neem oil, and dish washing liquid. I also picked off every...single...stink bug that I could possibly find. I have 1 in the garden on the 4th and we'll see again when I come home but apparently neem works as a neurotoxin that causes them to forget to eat, mate, and they even forget they can fly. The one that I picked off yesterday I was able to let crawl on my hand until I threw it into a bowl of cayenne pepper, water, soap. The ones the day before flew whenever I tried to touch it.

So it works!



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[angryblackman]

I see those guys crawling around my area but haven't been touching my plants. I have wonderful grasshoppers this year. Only a few so far but I haven't spayed in about 3 weeks because of my Mantis. I may have to take them out if i see too many more popping up.

 

[BigJon]

I see those guys crawling around my area but haven't been touching my plants. I have wonderful grasshoppers this year. Only a few so far but I haven't spayed in about 3 weeks because of my Mantis. I may have to take them out if i see too many more popping up.

When I googled them with cannabis, there aren't a whole lot of complaints. They prefer plants from the cabbage family, kale, collards, broccoli but I had to take precaution because you never know! When I removed the kale, I took out their whole eco system and they needed a home. I would hate to be the mothafucka responsible for breeding a generation of stink bugs that realize how delicious cannabis is.

Yes...it is delicious and supposedly filled with healthy enzymes.

 

[MellowFarmer]

I really live in a cave near Pakistan but my RIU ego lives in the north bay also and like you I also have gone from a house to a duplex to a cabin to motels/camping to an apartment x2 and back into a very nice house again myself. Feels great

I wanted to ask if you realized that CA struck down plant limitations to what is necessary for the patient? Before that yes, in the BS counties it was the SB420 limit of 6 but now it is up to your lawyer and medical witnesses Seriously though, you are fine! Looking good!

Yes sir, I recently read that just last week. My area is a little bit of a special case because the county has deemed anything federally illegal to be illegal. Although that is what the literature says, I predict that law enforcement wont be bothering too many people. I hope my new neighbors dont complain when the smell starts coming in!

I'm tempted to just turn the grow into a free for all but Im still keeping my count at a "reasonable" number.

It is always wise to stay low key but damn it is hard! Yeah, my county voted a 2 pt plan in Jan that 1. Immediately capped dispensaries to an obscene amount and 2 start implementing this summer some sort of garden crack down that will create enough revenue (or much more than that) to cover the crack down estimated start cost 1/4 of a million. They're all dirty crooks!

 

[drdavegreenthumb]

wait... my county was a 6 limit... now i can grow as many plants i want per year to cover my allowed amt. of dry weight per year? is that right BJ?

 

[Jazzman's Gal]

The evening of July 3rd, I had a little warfare myself! These little red bugs fucking on my collard greens turned out to be "Harlequin bugs!" They're stink bugs that birds dont like to eat, have very little natural predators, and suck the juices out of leaves. I pulled out a bunch of my kale greens that they pretty much destroyed and they started migrating onto my Grand Daddy Purple!

Oh hell no!

I sprayed my whole garden down with water, neem oil, and dish washing liquid. I also picked off every...single...stink bug that I could possibly find.

OK, bought beer just because it's supposed to work and there's no poison in it. We don't drink so I had to decided if there was a brand that slugs and snails preferred. Decisions, decisions!! Seems Keystone works fine. I've had two slugs and a snail in the pie pans of beer I nestled amongst the Smurfs. Ugh!

I looked at Neem oil but I don't know anything about it, really. Thanks for the info; I think I might try it later in the summer when the bugs get REALLY bad.....................................

Also, I have my "laboratory" partially set up and the potted Blue City Diesel moved in. It's not really right, yet, but it'll do while I gather up things to make it more efficient. I'll get some pics posted eventually. I'm running my lab experiment under 24 hours lights right now to see how she veg's for me while I hunt down the tools and supplies I'll need to properly experiment with my subject. I believe I'll name her Igorette. Maybe Igora? Igorina? Any suggestions on what to do to her first? Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

BigJon, did you find out what was making your leaves curl? They looked like they weren't flattening out all they way when they opened, didn't they? The yellowing problem I'm having with the BCD's seems to come and go. I'm pretty sure it's nutrients; the yellow seems to fade after I feed. So, off to a decent garden store next time I get some money and see what they have for me. Obviously, what I used last year isn't making the BCD's happy even though everyone else seems to be doing very well with it.

I haven't seen any of those Harlequin bugs. Are they as small as they look? Kinda like fancy-dress Ladybugs, eh?

Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th!!

 

[Jazzman's Gal]

I see those guys crawling around my area but haven't been touching my plants. I have wonderful grasshoppers this year. Only a few so far but I haven't spayed in about 3 weeks because of my Mantis. I may have to take them out if i see too many more popping up.

I had hoppers last year, also, but they barely touched the girls. They went after the houseplants I had outside, first. They never got bad enough to cause real concern but I didn't let them hang around, either. I also had deer (I always have deer!) but they never bothered last year's crop. They nibbled around the edges a little bit just before harvest when they were bulking up for the winter but it was obvious they didn't like the taste.

The great bug event here seems to be caterpillars and I don't know how to keep them off without some sort of bug repellent or picking them off by hand. I'm usually in the garden several times a day and I pick them off if I see them. What concerns me the most is that I haven't seen my Praying Mantis in a couple of days. I hope she's still around............................I haven't sprayed in a couple of weeks because I don't want to annoy her. I'm really watching for aphids and that kind of thing right now. I had aphids on the roses and some other things last year but never found them on my crop. I imagine it won't get bad this year either but you never can tell so I'm trying to be prepared.

 

[Jazzman's Gal]

It is always wise to stay low key but damn it is hard! Yeah, my county voted a 2 pt plan in Jan that 1. Immediately capped dispensaries to an obscene amount and 2 start implementing this summer some sort of garden crack down that will create enough revenue (or much more than that) to cover the crack down estimated start cost 1/4 of a million. They're all dirty crooks!

I really live in a cave near Pakistan but my RIU ego lives in the north bay also and like you I also have gone from a house to a duplex to a cabin to motels/camping to an apartment x2 and back into a very nice house again myself. Feels great

I wanted to ask if you realized that CA struck down plant limitations to what is necessary for the patient? Before that yes, in the BS counties it was the SB420 limit of 6 but now it is up to your lawyer and medical witnesses Seriously though, you are fine! Looking good!

I didn't realize CA was still so topsy-turvy about growing your own. Like OR, they've been doing it for so long! So, lemme get this straight: if you have to fight a charge of manufacture/distribution/possession over the limit because of the number of plants you have, you need to have witnesses/medical testimony that can attest you need that number to treat your qualifying condition? Wow. There's your free-for-all, BigJon. You just have to convince the court that you are one sick puppy

For comparison, each patient in OR can have up to 6 mature plants and 18 "seedlings" at the same time. My partner and I could have 12 mature and 36 seedlings all going at one time if I had the room to stagger them. Wouldn't that be great? With a decent indoor set-up, you could grow year round!! The fly in the ointment is what OR considers "mature": a plant at least 12" tall and/or 12" around. Or is it 12" diameter? I forget. Either way, a plant that size growing outside is still a baby, in my book. I don't think any plant is mature until it can reproduce, right? That means flowering, doesn't it? I guess an inside grow could be different depending on how you're growing. Other than that, it seems only the really big operations are getting busted. Or the ones taking 10 pounds back home to Idaho I've seen news reports about gardens with 300-400 plants being raided around Grants Pass and Medford. I don't know: you can be designated as a grower for an unlimited number of patients but 400 plants is a pretty damned big backyard operation. I have to wonder if that person really had that many patients None of it should be illegal but playing the game by the "rules" means I have a lot less to worry about with my little garden in the front yard.