Wonder Pie

Well... we didn't make it thru the latest heat wave unscathed. The big girl caught a case of the wilts early on because she was the most developed girl on the patio but she recovered with adequate hydration in a couple hours. Then a couple days later we had actual thunder and lightning storms around here (which happens less than once a decade). I was out on the golf course (or rather - waiting out my first ever California lightning delay on a golf course) when the girls got drenched a bit, which I think led to damage to a couple of bud tops. Such is life. Trichome inspection led me to flush the big girl the next day, and I will harvest her tomorrow morning. I'd have done it today but my wife is leaving for an extended trip to Scotland this afternoon and this morning just wasn't that time. 😌 I'm not gonna pull the trigger on a harvest week diary until I harvest v2, and I figure she has at least a week or two to go. Everybody on the patio is starting to fatten up but I'm gonna guess v2 will be next in line. I'll get more into trichome inspection on all the other girls probably tomorrow after I harvest (and wash) the big girl... my wife will still be airborne somewhere. I have a LOT of backlogged stuff to mess with from my spring autoflower harvest. Still have hash to make from the trim and whatnot... I need to make another batch of butter for brownies. I'd been holding off on a lot of this stuff because my wife started working from home during the pandemic (like everybody else)... and that lasted until she was able to retire about a week ago... now she's off to tend to her aging folks, and I can monopolize the house again, and crank up the tunes. It is a bittersweet time in my life and I have to keep a smile on. 💪 ================ August 25 >> So today was harvest day for the big girl. Thankfully with all this smoke in the air recently there was a nice cool fog blanket this morning... so I wasn't in a huge hurry to chop this girl down. Actually took me about an hour to gather all my bud washing equipment and disinfect everything because this is my first bud wash of the year, so I'm glad the sun didn't come out. I went looking for some YouTube video and other references on bud washing (because the original link I used in a previous diary a couple years ago no longer functions because that user went away or whatever), and I found a nice article from another Netherlands outfit called Spliff Seeds (I grew one of their Purple Berry Kush's to great effect last year) that lays out some good info on bud washing... but of course I had to convert things from metric... not a problem as a retired engineer. 😬 here's the link... (I wish they would let you create clickable links in diaries, but it's probably somebodies anal retentive security issue)... https://www.spliffseeds.nl/harvesting-cannabis-with-bugs-or-mildew/ The sequence isn't exactly the same as I used to use but close. 3 stages is what I've always done. The first stage is listed as "anti-mold", but this is the first time I've seen anybody say that the idea is pH SHOCK, and you may not need to add the baking soda if your tap water pH is >8.0. Now... my tap water weighs in at like pH >9.0.... which is why I've been using a 35 gallon tank the last few years just to hold water that I adjust the pH down to 6.0 for use only with my cannabis plants (I also throw a fish tank aerator into that tank). For the first time I tested the pH of the water to which I added some baking soda and it was over 10.5.... so it's clear to me NOW that I don't need to add much baking soda for stage one at all. Stage two is lemon juice and hydrogen peroxide and is listed as "anti-bacterial and antiseptic", and this worked out to be very close to what I remember using as far as concentration levels go. It worked out to be basically one cup EACH of lemon juice and 3% Hydrogen Peroxide combined with 5 gallons of water (I use two 5 gallon containers for the first two stages and a 10 gallon rinse bin for stage 3). Those concentration levels I believe are higher than recommended in the referenced article but within acceptable limits. I learned something about pH reading the article. I threw in a few photos of what the water looked like AFTER washing was done - but the most noticeable effect was it killed a handful of small caterpillers which can be found in the stage 3 rinse bin dead. I found a rather large one of these critters alive as I was yanking off fan leaves this morning - I always freak when I find some living critter feasting on my girls. It was an ugly but swift death. Overall this mornings operation took me about 90 minutes from the moment I first cut the big girl until everything was washed and hanging to dry. That marks 20% of the work done on the front end (pre-trim) for this years outdoor crop. Long long way to go. August 29 >> Flushed v2 today. Will probably harvest her next week sometime.