This is my first time not only growing GSC, but also consuming it. It is very much like 8 Ball Kush in terms of final jar-cured smell and also the high itself! The high does not seem to last as long as 8BK though, and oddly enough it's more couchlock than 8BK (weird considering GSC is part sativa), so I can't give GSC a 10/10. However I'm happy to give it a well-deserved 9!
It was easy to grow. The only problem I recall having is needing to flush one time during the veg cycle or something like that because of nutrient lockout. Otherwise it loved my environment and nutrients etc. It even soaked up the Bud Blaster in the flowering phase with no complaints!
Lots of beautiful trichomes everywhere, fast flowering period, nice stretch... Hardy plant with some nice looking calyxes and buds. Can't go wrong with the Durban Poison x OG Kush mixup, that's for sure. Nice thick stems and strong structure. Yielded about the maximum bud I can probably get from my setup, and gave me about half an ounce of hash to boot, plus enough potent tincture to make a few rounds of edibles :)
I'm always happy with GHE. The pH up and down do exactly what they should, MaxiBloom has everything your plant needs to go all the way from veg to harvest, MaxiGro has that added kick for veg, and you can never go wrong with CaliMagic to fortify for a strong, healthy plant (and to balance out PK boosters so you don't get lockout). I've been told you can grow an entire plant from start to finish with nothing but MaxiBloom and pH up/down -- and I totally believe it. Good stuff, and I get three or four grows out of their 2.2kg bags!
PK booster made locally to me in beautiful British Columbia! I ordered it online, but I could've driven 45 min up the road and bought it in person. Gotta make sure to add a healthy amount of CaliMagic or you can get nutrient lockouts from all the extra PK -- but otherwise, amazing stuff. Worth the $90 a jar -- one jar has taken me through 3 harvests and will easily last for another 5 more, if not longer.
Within hours of every water with Bud Blaster (at least for the first few weeks) I swear I see bigger buds. My wife had a look too because she thought I was full of shit, and now she's a believer.
Plus it comes in some neat packaging that's fun to look at when you're stoned off your rocker...
For a 2x2x5 foot Secret Jardin DS60, this is all the light you need and a little more than your plants can use within that amount of space! I've been growing with mine now for almost a year and it still works like the day I bought it, and doesn't put off much heat at all (temp at the very top of the tent is only about 5 degrees Fahrenheit more than the temp of the room the tent is in).
This was an interesting harvest. Everything was going great and the buds/trichomes were still piling on, when suddenly almost overnight plant "C" shifted to about 20% amber trichomes. So I harvested it, and because the other plant wasn't ready yet I decided to try water curing the first one for 7 days. Then at the end of the 7 days, I figured I'd hack down plant "D" and dry them both on the racks in the tent at the same time before moving into jars.
The water curing was a huge success! After the first day, the water was cloudy with a slight green tinge. Second day was about the same. Then the water was just a little cloudy each change, no green tinge. Compare it to the diary I just opened around water re-curing some cannabis I bought from the government store, where the water is diarrhea brown :O On day 7 of my water cure, the water was perfectly clear so I decided to hack down plant "D" and get them both drying on racks in the tent together.
While water-curing plant "C", I had its trim sitting in a bowl in the freezer. When I hacked down plant "D", I put its trim in the same bowl. After my typical wet-trimming, I hung up Plant "C"'s water-cured buds on the top rack, plant "D"'s buds on the 2nd rack for an old fashioned cure, and random trim from both plants spread out on the bottom 2 racks.
The water-cured buds dried within about 24 hours and went into a jar with a 58% humidipack. The buds are SUPER dense and potent! Nice clean high, doesn't kill my throat. The downside is that the taste is really weak and not that great. But everything has pros and cons. Almost no trichome loss in the bucket during the water curing as well -- I was really worried about that!
The other buds dried in about 36 hours and went into a jar with a 58% humidipack, where I burped it many times a day for a week. The smell and flavour are much more potent than the water-cured bud and it's a little harsher on my throat, but otherwise I'm not sure there's a detectable difference.
However, you can SEE there's a sharp visual difference between the water-cured buds and the jar-cured :) Of course the jar-cured will mature more with time as well.
Once the trim was completely dry, I put it in a bag in the deep freezer and dropped it to about -20. I didn't need to use a grinder this way -- I could just mash it all up in the bag with extreme ease! Sifted it through the kief screen, and pressed down 17 grams of lazy-man's hash!
After processing the trim through the kief screen, I decarbed in the oven at 200F for 1 hour (this converts THC-A into THC or something to that effect -- if you don't do this, the edibles won't get you very high). I put the trim into a big mason jar and back into the freezer along with my bottle of Everclear. Once they dropped somewhere down around -20, I poured in the Everclear, put the lid on, and shook as hard as I could, as often as I could, for 5 minutes or so. I noticed that as I shook it around, the contents inside would alternate between solid and liquid which was kinda cool :) Shake it one way and it freezes, shake it the other way and it thaws... or something to that effect, anyway. I was able to use a double-coffee-filter to extract about 2 cups of dragon tincture!
I threw everything in the coffee filter out -- next time I'm going to do a better job of it as there's a little pile of trichomes that forms at the bottom of the filter which I could put to use. Once I get that down next harvest, I'll have around 99% efficiency milking every last drop out of my harvests!
White chocolate is so yummy, as are candy canes... I wanted to combine the two to make some edibles. Looking around for candy cane crush, I decided to check out Amazon. They had the same candy cane crush I was looking at from popular stores, for only a couple dollars more, so I figured sure why not have it delivered. I was planning to get some white Baker's chocolate, but on checkout of the candy cane crush I got a deal for adding on white chocolate Lindt bars for $1.25 a piece LOL! So I bought 10 of those.
When the Amazon package arrived, I slowly boiled down 1/2 cup of my dragon tincture in a pot, then used a double-boiler setup to melt down 4 of the Lindt bars in the same pot. Once it was mixed well with the hash oil, I set it aside to cool for about 3 minutes before stirring in 1/8 cup of candy cane crush (plus I ended up adding maybe like a tablespoon more), pouring into a pan lined with parchment paper, and putting in the freezer for 30 minutes.
So now I have a nice big chunk of white chocolate candy cane crunch stuff where a piece the size of my thumb gets me super high for like 8+ hours; 17 grams of lazy-man's hash; and 88 grams of bud :) And still enough dragon tincture left over to make 3 more rounds of edibles -- not sure what I'll make next!
From now on I'm going to water cure a large portion of all my buds -- not just the ones I grow myself, but ones I buy from the Gummint too!
@Jwjoh, looking at the pistils I don't think they will stop anytime soon. I have a feeling it will be well worth the wait! They are looking like straight Durban Poison.
@Wicked_Stix, yes 6 weeks in and still stacking calyxes! The 8BK was done filling out and ready for harvest around this time. I can really see the difference that genetics can make in growth patterns, smells, even the look of the pistils coming out of the GSC are different than 8BK.
@Jwjoh, im going to do my next grow in either coco or soil, might use biobizz light mix. definitely within the next few months i want to learn how to make one of these buckets! so cool man :)
@JuicyFruit, once the taproot reaches the water shelf down by the nozzle they will start to grow faster, and then once I put them in the grow tent with the REAL light, they will really take off!
@ILoVethisPlanT, No, it's called Low Stress Training (LST) which opens up multiple colas to the light. I continue to do this even after they are in the tent. It provides similar effect to ScrOG without the net. Right now, I have the net in place in the tent mostly for structural support or the colas would fall over. LST does not stress the plant nor stunt its growth. I love LST, it's my favourite training method.
Also I have a wife and kids, plus a full time job to support them and my in-laws. Each plant gives me 10 to 15 minutes per day of alone time and quiet. That's why I try to keep growing 4 at a time even if I'm growing 2 under a desk lamp. Then I have about 1 hour per day to myself, and that's all I get.
Google Translate:
No, si chiama Low Stress Training (LST) che apre più cime alla luce. Continuo a farlo anche dopo che sono nella tenda. Fornisce un effetto simile a ScrOG senza rete. In questo momento, ho la rete installata nella tenda principalmente per supporto strutturale o le cime cadono. LST non sollecita la pianta né ne rallenta la crescita. Adoro LST, è il mio metodo di allenamento preferito.
Inoltre ho moglie e figli, oltre a un lavoro a tempo pieno per sostenere loro e i miei suoceri. Ogni pianta mi dà da 10 a 15 minuti al giorno da sola e tranquilla. Ecco perché provo a continuare a crescere 4 alla volta anche se sto crescendo 2 sotto una lampada da scrivania. Quindi ho circa 1 ora al giorno per me, e questo è tutto ciò che ottengo.
@ILoVethisPlanT, they grew under a 13 watt LED desk lamp for the first 5 or 6 weeks of veg because I only have one tent and had another pair flowering in it at the time I started these. I can only legally grow 4 at a time, I only have 1 grow tent that's 60cm x 60cm. So at all times I have 2 flowering in the tent, and 2 vegetating under the desk lamp waiting for the tent to be empty.
Google Translate:
sono cresciuti sotto una lampada da scrivania a LED da 13 watt per le prime 5 o 6 settimane di vegetazione perché avevo solo una tenda e ne avevo un'altra coppia in fiore al momento in cui le ho avviate. Posso crescere legalmente solo 4 alla volta, ho solo 1 tenda da coltivazione che misura 60 cm x 60 cm. Quindi in ogni momento ho 2 fioriture nella tenda e 2 vegetazioni sotto la lampada da scrivania in attesa che la tenda sia vuota.