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ALOHA & welcome, friends!
I'm starting this journal at week six since germination began because, well, this is where things finally start getting interesting!
STRAINS
I titled this grow Gas Basket because everything in this line up has some fuel in the lineage. I'm a fan of Humboldt CSI after my last grow of T1000 -- that was my favorite strain out of the 8 I grew. I was sitting on more of Nspecta's seed stock and decided to keep his gear rolling. I moved to Hawaii from the PNW in 2010, so I lost a lot of access to clones of my favorite strains. Only recently have some of those clone-only outliers become available in seed form from reliable breeders. Humboldt CSI has earned a reputation for quality and accuracy with respect to genetic heritage -- it is what it says it is. All of the below are S1.
Chemdog '91: I've been desperate to have some great Chem around, so this was an obvious choice. I smoked this frequently '07 - '10 as it was easy to come across and it's still some of my favorite herb. I just haven't had a good sample since then! This is my most anticipated grow in years and I look forward to being transported back a decade+.
PHK x T1000: I LOVE a good indica. I'm a big fan of both of these strains. I always try to include a knockout, sleepy-time indica with each grow and I'm hopeful this will fill that place in the medicine cabinet.
Lemon Party: This is supposedly a select phenotype of Lemon Tree, which is itself a select pheno of Lemon Kush x Sour Diesel. I've never had an intense lemon strain before, so this one is mostly for fun. But I'm also curious how the experience turns out -- Lemon Tree is a coveted cut for a reason and I'm eager to discover why.
F-13 x (Sour Diesel x Bubba Kush): This technically isn't an S1. This was an accident that's, so far, proving to be very fortunate. A couple of years ago I grew out a pack of DJ Short's F-13 from stock I purchased way back in '07 during its initial release. At the same time, I was running some Sour Bubba (Sour Diesel x Bubba Kush) from Katsu Seeds. Well, one of the Sour Bubba girls decided to drop a few pollen sacks and... voila! It very lightly pollinated the F-13 girls next to her. So here we are! And I'm stoked about both of these phenotypes. The mutant is especially intriguing. She looks really weird but she's got vigor and is keeping up with her sister.
BACKGROUND
I aim to keep things as simple and effective as possible while producing the highest quality medicine. I've tried all kinds of growing methods -- DWC, rockwool, flood & drain, DTW, chemical soil -- and throughout all of it I've found I achieve the best results with a well-prepared organic soilless blend, plain water and compost teas once per week. During flowering, I supplement with a bit of top dressing (if needed) and some organic liquid bloom booster (usually HPK by Roots). I hope what I've learned can help others simplify their set up, decrease inputs, remove confusion, reduce mistakes/problems and, ideally, produce a better crop.
Here's my go-to general base substrate. I use it for everything from seedlings to clones to full size transplants.
- 5 parts soilless mix
- 3 parts perlite
- 1 part castings
- 1 part coco coir
NO amendments for seedlings or rooted clones going into 4” pots.
For the amendments below, it's important to WEIGH your inputs because that's how the ratios are calculated by the manufacturer, i.e. a 10-0-0 contains 10% N by weight (not volume). Precision pays, people! Down to Earth is the source for all of the amendments.
VEG BLEND
For this, I made a balanced blend of quick and slow release amendments to achieve a 3-2-4 ratio. You can define "1 part" however you wish. I like easy, round numbers so I use 10 grams as 1 part. But it all depends on how much amending you plan to utilize.
Langbeinite @ 1.75 parts
Bone meal @ 1.5 parts
Alfalfa meal @ 3 parts
Kelp meal @ 1 part
Blood meal @ 1 part
Feather meal @ 1 part
TOTAL = 6.2 - 4 - 8
***Use 10g VEG mix + 1 tsp azomite per gallon soil
BLOOM BLEND
Soybean meal @ 1 part
Feather meal @ 1 part
Bone meal @ 1.5 parts
Kelp @ 2 parts
Langbeinite @ 2 parts
Shrimp meal @ 3 parts
TOTAL = 7 - 7 - 8.3
***Use 12g BLOOM mix + 1 tsp azomite per gallon of substrate. This will be supplemented with compost teas + Roots HPK + top dressing w/ bat guano as needed.
My program starts with seedlings/cuttings in 4" pots (no amendments). They get transferred to 1 gal pots with the VEG BLEND added to the base substrate @ 10g + 1 tsp Azomite per gal. Once they've sexed and cuttings have been taken, they're transplanted to 3 gal pots with the BLOOM BLEND added to the base substrate at 12g + 1 tsp Azomite per gal.
Throughout all stages of growth, I use the following compost tea once/wk. Otherwise, it's just plain water.
5 gal batch:
4 cups compost or castings
1/2 cup alfalfa meal
2 T molasses/fruit juice/cane sugar to the water to encourage bacteria growth
2 T EM-1 (if you have it)
Aerate/bubble for 24-36 hours. Use immediately.
Compost is the base additive (Worm castings can be used as a substitute). Put the compost/castings & alfalfa meal together in a strainer bag (paint strainers, pantyhose, cloth bag -- anything to filter and keep the airstones from getting clogged). Cannabis likes bacteria-dominant substrates and teas. Mycorrhizae are less common in soils used for vegetable growth.
I'll be back in 2 weeks with updates!
Greetings, fellow humans!
It's been an exciting 3 weeks since the first entry. The kids are now 12 days into flower, 9 weeks total since seed germination began. I wish I had better photos! They're functional, at the very least, to get an idea of what to expect if you come across these strains. But they don't do the plants justice. They're all thriving and looking great. I'm so eager to see them mature and develop their unique attributes.
All were transplanted into 3 gallon air-pot containers and filled in with the base substrate + bloom blend outlined in the first journal entry. They were watered with plain water + em-1. Over the next few days, they exploded with growth. I was gone the first three days after transplanting and they'd grown 3" in that time. I initiated flowering as soon as I could and it still may have been too late... they're overgrowing the tent!
The tallest of the bunch is the PHK x T1000 #2 at 35". All the Lemon Tree are at 18". Chems are at 22-24".
Coming up next week: Pruning, staking and neeming 😄
Aloha fellow gardeners!
I thought I'd give the diary a break until there was some noteworthy progress and I had time to take pictures to do the plants justice.
Week 6 today. The kids are developing beautifully. The compost tea + HPK has been treating them very well. It's almost hard to believe they still have another 3 weeks or more until harvest time!
Check out the pic comments for more details. I'll be back once they're ready for the chop!
Happy growing!
Harvested on day 66. I lost my record of the actual dried yield weight but it was between 5-6 oz for both. Not bad for 3 gal pots and dealing with heat stress.
Got two distinct phenotypes that were both easy to grow and showed good vigor. One I called “hippie’s armpit” because it smelled like sweat, pine, funk and fuel — you know, that danky-dank rank smell some herb just hits you with. I loved her stature as she produced uniform, golf ball sized buds all over the place. Sturdy stems and a pleasure to watch develop. She produced a lovely, cuddly indica high that helped ease me to sleep at the end of the day. Not a knock out, couchlock high but I definitely wasn’t productive an hour after hitting this. Very relaxing, soothing. A good stress reducer, not a daytime smoke. Loved the flavor too, very similar to the aroma.
The other pheno I dubbed “sour patch gas”. She was very sour and citric with some strawberry/watermelon notes + fuel, just like opening a bag of Sour Patch Kids at the gas station. She was a lot more stretchy, lower yielding, had smaller but denser buds and was a bit more prone to mold. She was more potent with more psychoactive stimulation. Body high was there but less soothing/relaxing. I could get some work done but nothing that required much complex thinking 😆 Could be a daytime strain for some but I found it too potent and distracting to be so for me.
I had no mold issues with the “hippie’s armpit” pheno and just a small amount of loss from mold on the “sour patch gas” pheno.
My tent got way too hot during week 7, hitting 95-100 every day. That definitely vaporized some terps as I noticed a significant drop in aromatic intensity once I got the temp under control in the mid-80s for the remainder of flowering.
Overall, I’m very pleased with the results and look forward to popping the remainder of these some day. I have quite the collection of genetics, so while I enjoyed this cross, it’s not outstanding enough to keep me from exploring others in my catalog first.
Harvested on day 66. Lost record of the dry weight but it came in around 60g each.
Two phenos, both pretty close in overall stature, yield, growth pattern and response. One was straight lemon and pine, the other was like sweet lemon and corn tortillas— very interesting. They were the most resinous plants in the tent and stayed very squat. No mold issues with them but they were a bit more picky with nutrition.
While I was initially not very impressed with the high, after about 3 months of curing I found these to be my favorite of this grow. It was very balanced with a clear head and good potency — I knew I was good and stoned. But I was also functional. Only slightly stimulating initially, then it tapered off cleanly and left without any sense of burnout. The corn tortilla pheno was more potent with a more psychoactive component. Both were lovely analgesics that made me feel well rested the next day, which is how they won me over as my favorites. Good medicine all around. Didn’t have any hangover effects smoking these. My head and body always felt good the next day.
Overall, the effects definitely draw me back to wanting to grow this one again. But it’s not a significant draw — while the strong lemon aroma and flavor is enticing, I’ve got other genetics to explore.
Harvested on day 66.
The top 2” of the top buds got hit with mold in the last week. Not a big loss. Lost the trophies, not the medicine.
This girl was such a pleasure to grow! BIG spears for colas, very vigorous, always looked happy and thrived the entire cycle. Other than the mold, she was fantastic. Very interesting aromas while flowering — quite nuanced/subtle chocolate, florals, tart berries, bubble gum. Just lovely.
Smoke-wise, she’s on the light side. Definitely good for daytime. Very clear, clean head buzz but you’re definitely high 😄 Tapers of clean, no burnout/drag feeling. Not that potent or long lasting. Perfect for beginners but could produce anxiety for some. But I generally find this a very approachable herb. It’s not for the OGK/high potency crowd. Just a nice, floral-chocolate sweet strain with a good clear head high and a subtle, warm analgesic effect on the body. Cures well for the long term.
MedicineHouse
