Dude Grows BlackBerry

Welcome to the 2018/19 indoor grow season!!! I am totally psyched to be growing Blackberry from FastBuds as one of the first strains this season. I was fortunate enough to have won 7th place for my Tangie'matic diary and won seeds from FastBuds. When searching the FastBuds website for a strain to choose I was looking for something purple and fruity. I think I found the answer here in BlackBerry. One of the seeds was started a couple of days ahead of the other. The first seedling is looking pretty good, the second not as much, but I'm confident it will grow out of its funk. I am seeing some signs of burn, I guess the soil must be too hot. I started to try to flush through with straight ph'ed water, but then I started seeing signs of overwatering (rookie mistake, I know). Now I'm just trying to keep a little water on the bottom tray so it generates some humidity in the dome. There's also a heat mat under the tray I have the heat mat on a timer also, 30 min on/30 min off cycling all day. It seemed to get too hot on 24/7. I'll be transplanting and moving to my 2'x4' tent in about a week. They will live there during veg, then I'll be moving to a 4'x8' tent (not purchased yet) for flower. I'm also planning on adding some COB LED's in the flower tent. Then I'll dedicate my 2x4 tent to mothers, clones and seedlings. Its going to be a little different this season with both photo period and autoflowering strains going at the same time. But I'm looking forward to it! 👍 Stay tuned...

Week 2 and the girls are looking more yellow and funky than I like. I'm pretty sure my soil is just way too hot. I tried flushing it through, but that just seemed to lead to general overwatering issues. I'm planning on transplanting to larger pots with more neutral soil this weekend and hope that will help straighten things out.

Transplanted into larger containers with fresh soil. The soil is a blend of Peat Moss one Perlite. I then mixed some older soil with the new Peat/Perlite blend. After the transplant I watered with Recharge to help get some healthy microbes starting to develop in the soil. In addition to transplanting the 2 existing Blackberry's I also planted a fresh seed. It should be interesting to compare the new seeds growth started in fresh soil compared with the girls who struggled in the old soil. I'm hoping to see some nice improvements over the next few weeks. Stay tuned...

Things are starting to turn around. The girls are looking much better overall. Starting to see some nice color and growth from the older girls and the new seedling is looking great. I've beed watering mostly with plain ph'ed water. But I've also started adding a little Cal-Mag (from Symbys) and Recharge once per week.

The 2 older BlackBerry's still look like they are struggling. They are growing, but I'm not seeing the branches starting to develop as I would expect by this point. The newer BlackBerry seedling looks fine. We'll see what happens over the next few weeks.

The first 2 Blackberry’s are stretching and developing bud sites. These 2 are a bit small, but the purple in number 1 is coming in nicely. I think the 3rd will be the champion of the bunch and outgrow her big sisters. My fault for trying to get a head start by a few weeks on the first 2 in less than ideal conditions. Live and learn. I’m going to keep all plants growing so everyone can see the good, the bad and the ugly. (I bet the ugly still gets me high as fuck!) 😜 New tents coming soon too. Another 2x4 and a 4x8. 👍

New tent is up! YAY!!! I have my 3 FastBuds BlackBerry Auto’s in the new 2x4 tent along with 2 Cherry seedlings and 3 freshly cut clones. The new tent is actually a used tent that was given to me. They did not have the support poles, so I had to build the frame out of wood. I’m happy with the way it turned out. Back to the plants…. I’m starting to call this Flowering now, instead of Veg, because 2 of the 3 Blackberry’s are well into bud development. The first Blackberry is smallish and only really showing one main cola, instead of many branches. But her color is really nice, I love the purple. The second Blackberry is taller than the first even though she was started about a week after. She is developing more branches and is starting to show some nice bud sites also. Blackberry number 3 is the youngest, about 3 weeks old now, she’s still small now, but I expect her to start growing and stretching out any day now. Ultimately, I’m betting Blackberry number 3 grows bigger than either of the first two.

I’m baaaaack!!! Sorry I’ve been away for a while. I’ve been busy getting everything together for the next phase… Welcome to the Dude Garden 2.0! I now have 3 grow areas. Two 2x4 tents (one for clone/veg, another for mothers) and a large 10x12’ish flowering area (its actually larger than that, but I’ll be conservative). The tents are running 300w LED’s and a T5 for the cloning/sprouting station. The flowering area has a 1000w HPS!!! I’m totally psyched to see how the HPS does with flowering for me. From all the research I’ve done It seems to still be undisputed that HPS is the best for flowering (but not so good on the electric bill). I moved all plants from the tents to the new flowering area under HPS. That includes 3 Blackberry’s (FastBuds), NYC Diesel Auto (Barney’s Farm), DinaMed+ and Critical+ (DinaFem), Cream & Cheese CBD (Seedsman) and 3 Cherry Hemp (Elevator Supply Co). You’ll see the first 2 Blackberry’s are getting close to harvest, but looking a bit funky due to the issues they had early on as seedlings. The 3rd is looking much better and will probably yield more than the first 2 combined. I do love the purple and the aroma is insane. Note: The HPS gives much more of a yellow wash on the pics than I was expecting. I tried to color correct the pics the best I could and tried to get to the real colors, It should be pretty close.

Happy New Year!!! Over the past week I cut down 2 of the 3 Blackberry’s, they are hanging and drying now. The 3rd is definitely looking better than the first 2. I think the first 2 will probably be turned into edibles, rather than smoked. The 3rd is looking much better overall and especially in terms of bud development, she will probably be smoked. The lights went off before I was done taking pics, so some pics will look a little different. The pics with the lights on I had to color correct, they still look a little more on the yellow side than in reality, but much closer to reality than the pre-color corrected versions. Once the lights went off I turned the flash on for my camera, those pics did not need any color correction. You can see the differences in the pics of all plants, the first 2 are color corrected with the lights on, the last 2 are taken with a flash and no color correction. I read several books on cannabis over the past few days, some good, some not so much. One that I liked was “Marijuana Cultivation Reconsidered: The Science and Techniques For Huge Indoor Yields” by Read Spear. This book is available on Amzon’s Kindle Unlimited service, which costs $9.99/month, but they offer a free 30 day trial (which is what I’m using at the moment). Reed’s book is broken down into 3 sections, the first and third go fairly deep into the science behind growing, he does a pretty good job at breaking it down in easy to understand terms, but I had to read several sections 2 or 3 times to really get it (or just move on with as much understanding as I could digest). The second section is the nuts and bolts of growing. Most was a review but there were several topics he touched on I hadn’t thought of in a while. And again its well written. He also offers the section only in a separate book called “Small Spaces, Big Yields”. If you are not interested in going deeper into the science behind growing, “Small Spaces, Big Yields” is what I would recommend (if interested in reading books on cannabis). I took some notes while reading and I’m going to add some of these notes in my dairy updates over the next few weeks. This week I’m going to include a note on electrical, this should be a fairly basic concept, but it is super important IMO… “Electrical Items In a sealed grow room or in a tent, you will have water pooling on the floor from time to time. There is no avoiding this. Mop it up when you see it, and never put your electrical gear directly on the floor. Never. Not even for a moment. In fact, let me stress this point in bold capital letters. ALL ELECTRICAL GEAR MUST BE MOUNTED SECURELY ON A WALL OR TENT POLE.” -Read Spear I’ll add more did bits like this in my diaries over the upcoming weeks. If anyone has any good book recommendations please let me know in the comments. I’m looking for books that might not be as popular as the ones by Jorge Cervantes or Ed Rosenthal (I’ve read those). I did just order “True Living Organics” by The Rev which I’m looking forward to reading. But I’m looking for more. I really want to step it up and learn as much as possible. Your comments, feedback and recommendations are very much appreciated! Until next time, Happy Growing! Stay Positive! And have an amazing 2019!!!

Hello everybody! Here we are a week later and I’m starting to see some nice improvements and developments. This week I fed all plants pretty heavily with Recharge and Dolomite Lime (and a little Cal Mag). The plants seemed to like it, the color is really coming back to a nice shade of green instead of the pale yellow’ish green. The FastBuds Blackberry is a beautiful shade of purple. I’m going back to my normal nutrient routine for one more week then I'll flush for a week before cutting her down. The 2 Blackberry's I cut down last week were kind of scrawny, but I did smoke one of the main cola buds and it was tastier than I expected, very fruity. It also got me HIGH AF!! I'm looking forward to how this last one finishes up. One negative is I seem to have inherited some bugs from my wife. She asked me to put one of her outdoor plants in the room so it would survive the winter, well it looks like that plant was infested with bugs. The little f’ers had a feast on some of the leaves. My wife gave me the OK to toss the plant, so with the plant removed it should be fairly easy to irradiate any remaining bugs with some sticky paper. I’d like to say thank you to all who answered my question regarding recommend reading on cannabis. I’m selecting the answer for the Grow Bible by Greg Green because I was actually unaware of that one. I’m familiar with the Cervantes and Rosenthal versions but not Greg Greens. I’ll be ordering that book after I receive and finish “True Living Organics” by The Rev (should be here tomorrow). This week I have a new question for my GD friends…. CO2? I have not been using CO2 but EVERY book I read recommends using it, I’m not prepared to go out and buy a CO2 tank, regulator, etc… at this time. Has anyone ever used one of those CO2 bags? Or do you have any DIY CO2 solutions you can recommend? I’m looking forward to your answers on CO2. I’ll leave you this week with another interesting excerpt from “Marijuana Cultivation Reconsidered: The Science and Techniques For Huge Indoor Yields” by Read Spear: “I prefer to use high-pressure sodium lamps. With the exception of LED's, HPS lamps are the most efficient source of light you can buy, both in terms of light output and light spectrum. Having read nearly every book on the subject of growing pot, I feel that their authors tend to overemphasize the importance of light spectrum. You do not need to alternate between metal halides (for growth) and sodiums (for flowering). That is an oversimplification of the plant's light requirements. You may do this if you like--it certainly won't hurt--but I firmly believe that the gains are just not great enough to justify the cost of the extra MH lamp.” -Read Spear

January 16, 2019 Everything is moving along nicely now. The last Blackberry is just about done. This week I fed some some Espoma Organic Bloom (available at most big box stores). I’ve had it kicking around since last season and figured I should use it up before it goes bad. I’m looking into more organic nutrient options for the future. I’m not sure I’m ready to start making my own organic compost teas yet. But BioBizz seems like they will take care of what I’m looking to accomplish without needing to make my own teas (fingers crossed). I removed the house plant that brought in the bugs and everything is back to normal now, no new bug damage. I finally received and read “True Living Organics” by The Rev. Its a good book, but growing the “TLO” way is vastly different from other growing methods I’ve read. I’m going to have to read this one again before making any comments. Thanks to all of the answers on CO2. Seems like its more valuable with larger setups than I’m running.

January 24, 2019 The girls are doing WELL. My autos (Blackberry and NYC Diesel) are mid-flush now and will be chopped down this weekend. The Blackberry is a beautiful purple and smells lovely. This week she's been getting water only as a flush. I'm going to flush her one more time tomorrow, then chop her down over the weekend. 👍 ***January 26, 2019 update*** Cut down the FastBuds Blackberry and Barneys Farm NYC Diesel today and added a pic of the hanging branches. The NYC Diesel buds are much more dense than the Blackberry. The Blackberry buds are pretty loose and airy. I'm curious to see what they look like after drying for a week. Stay tuned...

So I have harvested the 3rd FastBuds BlackBerry as well as the Barney’s Farm NYC Diesel Auto. The Blackberry was very loose and airy with not much density to the buds. Made it difficult to trim without just putting 90% in the trim pile. I had a taste of one of the buds from Blackberry #2 and she was much fruitier/sweeter than this one is. I can still taste some sweetness in #3, but she also tastes bit more harsh than I remember from #2. I yielded 16 gr from the 3rd plant and never weighed the first two, they just went straight to my edibles pile, but I’ll guess they may have yielded another 16 gr combined, which would total 32 gr for 3 plants.