Okie Irie Clones- Northern Lights

My first time taking clones was rewarded with a 100% success rate by reading lots of articles and blogs; then purchasing everything mentioned in every article about cloning... jk:) I just followed the advice offered and remained vigilant. Notice I started with peat moss biodegradable starter pots in one nursery pic; they turned too soggy, then I replanted to good ole’ plastic starter pots.

Week two brought two surprises with it. The two GSC clones I took were from Mothers that had been in bloom for 6 days and each formed a premature bud with multiple hairs on it after about 9 days in the incubator. The 5 NL clones I took before the mother was placed into bloom.

Well I read a bunch about soil and making your own closed-looped, utopian-perfect, organic medium; then decided I was too busy for all that and just made my own from a bunch of crap I purchased at Lowe's. At this point in my gardening career... easy is better. I moved all the plants to the "growroom" underneath the house. This was during the first week of December, the same time I was supposed to harvest my previous crop (first harvest ever). Well....long-story short, I ended up in the hospital for several days, my harvest dried out, and the ladies in this journal almost met their maker. The girls spent about three weeks recovering. They looked so bad that I didn't bother taking a picture. It was too upsetting. In the meantime I purchased the biggest growtent that would fit in my office, and bought a bunch more crap to bring these ladies to harvest.

So in week 4 the ladies were finally back to health, minus 1 Northern Lights that looked like it wasn't going to make it. It was the last to rebound from the hideous amount of heat and humidity that they were exposed to when I was hospitalized. This is when I introduced the Mountain Mint clones into the garden. They were much lankier than the NL, and in better health than the GSC. There are no pictures for this period because I was unaware of the red/blue rule when uploading pics to this diary. It should also be noted that I have not fed the plants any supplemental nutrients.

At the beginning of the second week of flowering, I trellised and defoliated all the plants except 1, and the 1 weak NL I left alone- it had started making a comeback. This was my first attempt at trellising and defoliating, and my second real grow, so really I have no business defoliating according to every article ever written about defoliation. Both techniques are so awesome, I will use them from now on. So in this third week of flowering I started using the only nutrient I'll use this grow, Flower Stacker. My first grow I tried using all of the nutrients in the General Organics GO Box, maybe half the amount of what was suggested, and I burned or overfed every time. This time I am trusting that Ed Rosenthal knows what he's talking about, and I heavily fertilized my soil before the plants were even in it. All of the ladies have made a hearty comeback. I had one of the Mountain Mint clones really show her true self as a sativa dominant hybrid. I called and asked the dispensary where I purchased her from what other strain may have gotten mixed up with the Mountain Mint clones. The owner indicated there were no other plants they were working with at the time I purchased the Mountain Mint clones. So who knows what the hell it is... It has a strong orange smell if you bump a flower.

As the first half of flowering draws near, thus far all seems to be going well. I have several stains currently flowering, but I'm most excited about the Northern Lights. Everytime I think about dropping it from my next grow, I sadden. These plants are awesome... little bushes of flowers, with colas everywhere due to trellising. With the spread of auxin, heavy defoliation, and more light reaching the interior of the plant- each plant has 20+ cola sites. The first sets of pistils are turning reddish brown and the house is beginning to smell like urine/ammonia. I stopped feeding because the other strains were showing signs of overfeeding. Droopy tips with no discoloration- I'm thinking too much phosphorous. That's another thing, this strain can take Nitrogen and phosphorous overfeeds without showing signs of burn; whereas, the other strains let me know when I have overfed them. Additionally, this week I saved a seedling from committing suicide. It surfaced and the seed husk dried to the first set of leaves. In a last ditch effort I pulled the husk off with my fingers after rolling it between my fingers to get it to crack open. I mean I thought there was no way this thing was living.. so far it is making an epic comeback.

Roughly 3 weeks to harvest. Hopefully these last three weeks will see all flowers dense up and stack more. There is the unidentified sativa dominant strain, which is really beginning to stack colas. It will be exciting to see what this plant produces.

All was going great, then a spider mite infestation. I cross-contaminated. Another lesson learned. The windows in my office where my tent is located have been open and somehow the little bastards took a foothold in my garden. Luckily I caught them pretty early and I had neem oil on hand, as well as yellow sticky traps. My tent runs kinda warm during the day, but the humidity is at 35% and I always have two fans as well as my carbon filter air vent; so I have lots of air movement. The point is, it is not the ideal environment for most pests and I have several different methods I will be applying throughout the garden for the next two weeks until I harvest.