2011 Outdoor Year 1 Medical Grow

I have been lurking around on these forums for quite a while now and the amazing people before me have provided me with so much knowledge that I feel I must pay it forward by telling my story as well!

My husband and I always enjoyed smoking pot. We were together for about 10 years when he woke up one morning paralyzed on his entire right side (August 200. When it first happened we were in the hospital for about a month and my husband was CRANKY. He made me go out and get a joint and put him in a wheelchair and get permission for him to talk a walk. And we did and we were fucking AMAZED when he could wiggle his fingers! It never lasted for very long, but it was amazing! We discovered he has Multiple Sclerosis. Not only does cannabis enable him to physically walk, but it also calms muscle spasms and .... makes him happy! It makes ME happy too! We are so thankful that the thing that helps the most is something we already had a place for in our lives.

My husband is now on disability, but has regained his ability to walk. He's left with limited mobility in his right hand and a good right-legged pimp limp and his medical cannabis card.

Since we started in April we've come a long way, but I will do my best to catch anyone up that gives half a shit. Also have photos going back to baby plants almost every other day.

Our backyard is at the top of a hill that faces south with a giant tree of shade that moves across the plants mid-day for about 45 minutes for some much needed shade in the summertime heat. Other than that they get sun from sunup until just before sundown when they move behind some trees that line my neighbors property.

I have only two neighbors that butt up to my property. One only touches my property at the back of his property which is almost 5 acres, so he doesn't even come near my property line ever. The other neighbor is on the far side of my property and is a very good acquaintance of our family for 2 decades now. So even though we are outside and things may get a bit stinky we are at ease with the climate of safety, though I don't know if I can stop my husband from sleeping with those other ladies once their's all ripe and randy for fear of ANYTHING happening to them. Our home is never empty and we keep a tent next to the plants so nobody ever knows whether someone is there or not.

The greenhouse is made from mostly stuff on hand. Wood, nails, pvc pipes and old tent poles from a ripped tent we threw out.

My husband and I are putting what little money we have and all of our love, time and care into our whole garden this year and it seems to be showing. It's been one of the most unifying and rewarding experiences we've had together. Downright fucking romantic. We made a rule that only he would feed and water them, "Too many cooks" blah blah.... It's just wise to leave it up to one person so there is no confusion concerning waterings and/or feedings. The therapy of gardening is amazing for both of us and I am so proud of my husband for all of his amazing work and how far he's come.

6 plants in 18 gallon pots, all given to us as clones and claiming to be-
* Medicine Woman
*Afghan Mango
*2 White Widows
*OG Kush
* Unknown pure Indica strain that we've christened "Indicunt"

2 plants in 2 gallon pots, also given as clones and claiming to be-
*Batman
*Trainwreck

3 2" tall clones in 2 gallon pots Rooted about a week ago
*Medicine Woman, my first attempt at cloning. Done Grandma Style: in a glass of water with a willow branch in the kitchen window, shit if it didn't work!

We've been keeping organic for no other reason than that it makes sense to us to put plants in soil and that soil should be a living thing. We aren't TOO hippy, but to use this makes sense. The only /product/ that we've used is the Earth Juice Bloom for the ladies in flower. Before that it was just compost teas. We are looking into the possibility of following the entire Earth Juice line next year... but we have some more research to do.

They aren't that tall because of a combination of LST and an unusually cold summer in the Pacific Northwest. The bulk of the growth has been in the last month, we've had PERFECT garden weather all of July.

The Medicine Woman, Indicunt and Trainwreck were all received as a clones at the cardholder's meeting at The Cannabis Cafe in Portland, OR last spring. My husband knows the exact dates, I'll ask him tomorrow.

Medicine Woman was a very small clone when we got her, but she was the first and it's hard to not show her the kind of extra attention that you find yourself showering on your first born.

Indicunt was Barely Legal when she was given to us. She was a tight little, unkempt ball of beautiful leaves. Like someone bonsai'd her into a globe. She had some powdery mildew and yellowed leaves and was just being STRANGLED by her own beauty.Notice how HEALTHY and happy she is in the photo now that we've spread her open with LST!

Trainwreck was small and spindly and NEVER adapted in her youth to the outdoors, we had to set up the HPS and quick ready a closet for her. (We'll get to that eventually)

Batman, White Widows, OG Kush, and Afghan Mango were all donated to us by an amazing fellow Budbooker who responded to my husband's call for clones. <3 Thank you to the amazing canna-community worldwide!

The Batman and Trainwreck in the 2 gallon pots are spending the warm sunny days in the garden with the other ladies, but spend from 8pm to 8am in our grow closet. They COULD spend all day in their if we weren't there to move them around, but when we are there we know how they like to sunbathe! They've been going at 12/12 since July 1st and, though it's been a bumpy ride, OMG THAR'S POT GROWING ON THAT MUTHAFUCKIN' PLANT RIGHT THERE!!!!! MWHAHHAHAHAAHAH! Ahem... as such we take photos of those ladies at least every other day to track the growth.

The bumpy grow so far shows in these two ladies.

Trainwreck initially would freak out and start to fall over every time we brought it out into the greenhouse no matter how perfect the conditions seemed to be within 30 minutes of coming outside. For a while she was a lonely lady in the closet until she got mites which seemed to come from nowhere and explode overnight. Since we have such an amazing population of ladybugs we just brought her outside to spray her down and try to work out her issues in the sun and it worked. It's amazing how fast the ladybugs cleaned up that lady! We upped our neem'ing and sterilized the grow closet and haven't seen any of them since.

As soon as we got her all pretty again we decided to start budding her because we didn't want to wait for the big outdoor harvest to smoke, and we knew we didn't want to flower just one plant, so we chose the Batman as the other indy.

I've tried searching for a strain called either Batman or Bruce Wayne... but I can't seem to find anything. Maybe someone just made it up? If anyone knows anything about this strain, please tell!

So into the closet these two ladies go. Everything is so amazing, just like when I was pregnant, we'd sit around and stare at these newly forming calyx and dancing green hairs just like the books and forums said would happen! Stretching out, but not too bad because of temp controls (75/80 night/day), but still we knew we just wanted to give more light to more buds so we tried a hand at supercropping and it WORKED! (thank you rollitup forum goers! It was only with your help)

And then, one day we heard a CRASH coming from the closet and ran in there to see that the light had fallen and broken some branches on the Trainwreck!

And THEN powdery mildew showed in the closet ::sigh:: So we treated then with a single instance of a potassium bicarbonate foliar spray. Ended up getting rid of the mold while really punching these ladies in the face. Their leaves all dried and browned around the edges quickly. We haven't done it since.

I call them the snaggled tooth neighborhood whores. They are just starting to look so gnarly as their buds fill in!

I don't know how to specify this post my "journal".... Did I just put this all in the wrong place? That would be ballz.

Woke up this morning and the Batman had some trich dumps in the middle of the night. It looks like sparkles on the bud in the sun. They tinkle like cartoon teeth! ::bling:: ::bling::

My husband moved some plants around in the greenhouse because some plants have gotten too big for their current exact locations. We are pretty happy that we chose not to actually put them in the ground!

Awesome setup. This should be a great grow, good luck!

Thank you very much! We are really enjoying ourselves with this grown and with all the learning!

As the sun gets hotter and hotter the ladies get drier so much quicker. Tomorrow we mulch! Also picked up some Earth Juice PH up because we are hovering around a ph of 5 at the current moment (ouch) with everyone except Medicine Woman. And while there grabbed a bottle of Earth Juice Meta-K, just because it was givin' some stink-eye.

Also was gifted 2 8" clones of an Afgooey. People are so nice to cripples

All day out of the house and not as much garden time as I'd like. My husband and I are exhausted. Didn't even have any time to sit and stare at Trich's today. There's always tomorrow.

This is a cool story. I think it'd be great to share it with as many people as you can. I do not have prescribed use for medical marijuana, but stories like this can and will help communities around the nation understand that not only can marijuana help those with legitimate medical issues, but it brings people together! I know that sounds cheesy for sure, but your experience has been similar to my own in the aspect that there is such a high percentage of people in this community who want to help. More so than in my regular community... If people could exchange information, ideas, and advice with the kind of respect and amicability that persons do here, this nation has hope after all!

Best regards - and happy growing!

TheGreenHornet - We are absolutely aware of that. And I DO tell everyone. EVERYONE. I'll start telling the lady at the grocery check out! My husband is one of those few people who's relief is visible and indisputable and does make everyone just shut the fuck up about a little bit of weed. Ya know?

As for the ladies, I haven't posted any photos for the current moment, but I am going to get out in the garden and do that today. The calyx's all seem to just be PILING on top of each other for the Trainwreck and Batman in flower. Ever morning I think "DOGPILE!" as I see them get taller and taller with crystally calyxy goodness! You almost want to LICK them or just eat them straight off of the plant. But I won't... meh.

We are in to week 5 of budding with those ladies. I can't believe that we are about halfway done. I can't wait to see them just continue to get bigger. I sit for about 30 minutes each day staring through my jewelers loupe at all those trichs! They are all still clear and rigid, like a crystal dildo, I can't wait to see them change in color in another 3 weeks so.

Been doing some rearranging in my house that has nothing to do with our gardening and everything to do with parenting.

We've been caring for the ladies and I've been taking photos, but I am too tired to make full, interesting and witty posts about it. I did, however, take this amazing photo today. ::gush:: I want to smooooooooke you little friend.

Fucking good shit. I love hearing about how Mary Jane actually helps peoples lives. To hell with that bullshit our "higher ups" feed the general public about pot. I'm a first time grower myself and I will be watching your grow journal, maybe I'll learn a thing or two.

Good luck with you and your grow. I'll go check your journal out right now! I hope we all continue to learn, cannabis has so much to offer and I don't feel like we can even know all that it does. Maybe one day with more research!

Thanks, I appreciate that. I definitely have much more to learn in the upcoming weeks, but this is just to see how good my grow box will grow with the least amount of work on my part on setting it up as best as possible and with what I got. Then if I cant get away with growing in a half ass box I'll fix it up for when I get some good ass seeds, gotta wait until I get some money first. :s