A11g/Lien Huanh, Cali-O & Bubblicious grow

[pokernaut]

OK, i tried all 10 of my SADP X skunk #1 freebies and none of them rooted just like the first batch. (seedboutique freebies). none of the bagseed i tried to grow popped either, so i dug into my seed collection and pulled out the last 5 each of my nirvana california orange & bubblicious seeds and 4 of the last 7 (A11g X lien huanh) X A11g beans to get SOMETHING happening.

i really want to do my C99 splashes, but i only have 3 of those left so i'm saving those for my first "real grow" when i have HID lights. i'm not using any of my other beans that i'm low on or my expensive kali mist & buddha's sister beans until i'm really set up either.

i'm going to start this grow out as a shoplight SCROG and might turn it into an HID SCROG by buying one fixture at a time instead of waiting until i've saved enough to buy everything at once.

this will be a test grow and i'll look for keepers, particularly in the gums which have several phenos.

pics to come

[pokernaut]

i decided to add 4 burmese & 4 lowdown mystery beans to the grow last night and will plant them tonight after their 24 hour soak. i came here to post pics of the grow so far, but GC won't let me upload them and it's been too long for me to remember my photobucket password so i can't upload them there either and don't want to create an entirely new email address to replace the other one i've forgotten as well as an entirely new photobucket account.

i'll have to try and find the password and post the pics onloine tomorrow.

the original SADPs are still not sprouting nor are the bagseeds so it's looking like those are all lost causes.

hopefully i'll have pics tomorrow.

[pokernaut]

OK, got my password sorted out

i started this grow on april 8th with the (A11g X lien huanh) X A11g, bubblicious & california orange skunk beans pictured. i used all 5 each of the remaining nirvana strains and 4 of the last 7 A11g beans because they are "extinct" now after spice brothers went of the seed business.
ffice

the next pic is those beans soaking on the same day.
>

after digging into my seed collection for this grow, i decided to add some more variety to it with 4 of my 10 burmese beans and 4 of the 7 lowdown mystery freebies i got from doc when i ordered a pack of buddha's sister.
>

here are the next batch of beans soaking overnight.
>

after i got the next two strains soaking, i planted the first batch of beans in some inexpensive "nature's finest" soil (peat moss, compost, forest humus & pearlite) soil. once i sex the plants and take cuttings, i have high grade organic soils, earthworm castings, compost, and chicken & steer manures to use but this soil should be fine to get things started i think. i'm still not liking forest by-product based soils though. i'm used to east coast topsoil based potting soils with pearlite & vermiculite. the organic composts are more nutrient rich and aerate better, but the also dry out quicker and don't bind worth beans. hopefully they'll make the plants happier in the long run though. i'm just not looking foreward to transplanting anything until it's rootbound enough not to fall apart. the last time i tried transplanting early with these soils, all i got was a plant and it's roots! the soil totally crumbled.


a day and a half later i see that the bubble gums are the first plants to root. 4 out of 5 of them are already digging in and later in the day i see that one of the cali-Os is also sprouting. i expect all of the 1st batch to root as all of the others i planted before were 100% viable.
>>

sadly, 2 of the 4 burmese that i soaked have shell damage. i don't know if it's bad enough that they won't pop, but one of the other two already has and is looking healthy. the lowdown mystery beans were the fastest poppers out of all of the beans i planted this week. 3 out of 4 of them were poking way out of their shells after just a day and a half soak! i bet they'll be sprouting tomorrow for sure. regardless of their THC profile, these beans don't waste any time growing so far.
>

finally, here's the burmese & lowdown mystery beans just after they've been planted. if the two cracked burmese don't sprout, i'll soak a couple more of the half dozen i have left. i hope none of the rest are damaged. at least they only cost $55+ but who likes buying busted beans? the only other damaged seeds i've gotten were 2 of the A11s. none of the spice brothers' C99 splashes were damaged though. i only have 3 of those left so i won't do those until i have a real grow room set up.
>

i'm just winging it for now but hopefully by posting this grow in public i'll FINALLY get past the "prune everything daily for leaflet trim to smoke RIGHT NOW until all of the plants stress out and die" syndrome of all of my previous shoplight grows. if anything, i'll create a side grow for that purpose when i get to the cloning stage and/or use the males for leaf trim.

way back in the mid 90s, i had a shitload of awesome strains in a bagseed collection with AT LEAST 20 different varieties from awesome mexican commercial that wasn't bad even in brick form to straight up skunk. sadly, i only had TWO extremely cool sativa seeds that i called "spicy" after the really nice peppery bud that was alot like kali mist but wasn't cared for as well as a good grow.

i had about 40 plants growing under a pair of shoplights and just couldn't resist the temptation to pluck each day's new leaves and eventually got into a great rhythm where i'd only pluck one of each leaf pair for more growth the next day. for the better part of two months i was getting LEAF to smoke that was actually better than MOST of the couchlocking indica bullshit that became the ONLY thing you could buy where i was after thai disappeared. the buzz wasn't the strongest in the world, but it was totally clear headed and alert even with 1/2 of the collection being indies & hybrids.

around the 3rd month though the plants couldn't take it anymore and stressed out and died within a week or two of each other. i lost alot of great genetics with that grow. i had 3-4 other great mexican commercial strains that i called gold (acopulco), red (panama), & purple that i lost to that grow and to time. the "red" strain in particulars had to be pure sativa as it had really thin leaves and stretched like a mofo. it was pretty good even in brick form.

last year i tried to pop what was left of those 90s beans and nothing was viable anymore. this time around, even the late 90s stony bagseed that used to be really viable didn't pop so that's why i'm using seedbank beans now.

i might put some cttings outdoors too if i can find any good grow spots. i don't know my way around this new town yet, but i traded up to an entire extra bedroom for growing over the 4.5" X 4.5" walk in with pesky neighbors that i used to have. i used the money that was GOING to buy my 400w halide & sodium to get here instead of starting a grow in an apartment where i'm at war with my neighbors.

this concludes my first OFFICIAL grow report. i'll update this thread as soon as anything of interest happens. i'm arguing with myself about popping some kali mists & haze skunks too. i might end up transitioning right into the "breed EVERYTHING to a C99 splash male" grow that i intended for my walk in if i can get a single metal halide before sexing and cloning and then add a sodium & light rail later. maybe i'll add kali mist to this grow as i originally intended to do a KM breed on my seconds harvest after the C99s but now might do that first because i can spare the beans. if i do that though, i'll have to pop some buddha's sister too then as i'm dying to see how spicy X cherry tastes.

if nothing else the ball is rolling now. where? don't know yet. i can't wait to do some DETAILED smoke reporting and COMPARISONS because THAT'S really the important shit as far as i'm concerned, especially after this 3 year long fucking dry spell!

anyone need to pass a piss test? LOL

[pokernaut]

oh, fuck it, i'm growing everything i have. 1st i decided to pop 3 each of kali mist, haze skunk & troublemakers but after that and deciding i would do the kali mist breeding i intended to do on my second harvest that i might as well throw in the remaining 2 each i had of nirvana pure power plant and sativa seedbank mixed sativa too and then popping the last 3 of the C99 splash i'm most interested in to begin with became a no brainer.


this is going to be the C99 splash breed i always intended. once i get through this one, running out of beans won't be an issue. trying to test them all without losing originals is another problem.

these are the last of the beans i soaked friday night. check out those tiny seeds in the top right cup. those are the mixed sativas. they take the longest to sprout out of anything i've ever planted. it takes them at least a week to show, but once they get rooted, they take off like crazy. i think those puppies are gonna stretch!


all of the bubblicious beans have sprouted, they're the ones on the round pots except the one on the right, that one is a lowdown mystery and the two square pots are cali-Os.


i'll be planting the last batch of soakers later tonight. it looks like i'll need to get the light in my closet tomorrow. i'll be starting the grow there while it's still small to avoid light leakage until i prep the growroom by covering the large windows with reflective silver plastic insulation. basically, it's just bubble wrap with mylar coating apparently. i'll put the insulation inside my curtains so as not to draw attention to the window from outside. stealth is a growers best friend, no?

now lets hope that i get at least one male & female each of C99 splash and that the male pollinates long enough to fertilize the late bloomers. i originally planned on staggering the grow with the pure sativas first and the quicker hybrids catching up but i didn't start this one out the way i originally intended.

here's to hoping that the lights i'll be getting don't turn my apartment into a sauna this summer, but at least i'll FINALLY have some fucking bud to smoke! YAY! i'm planning on lighting at night and ventilating through my apartment. hopefully the cool air i start blowing into the growroom will keep the air that exits through my livingroom and out through the kitchen will be cool enough to not show up as hot on infrared. it gets chilly here at night even inthe summer which ain't bad.

this summer's menu?
C99 splash - C99 with a little bit of extra trippy pure vietnamese sativa lien huanh
(A11g X lien huanh) X A11g
kali mist - spicy, energetic and way happy buzz similar to shrooms
haze skunk
pure power plant - african sativa hybrid including some durban poison
mixed sativa - originally thought it was a MIX of STRAINS including mexican sativa, but it's the name of a specific hybrid. it should be 100% sativa anyways and i'm all about sativas & hate indicas
buddha's sister - yummy tart cherry flavor. i hate the taste of blueberries
bubblicious - hope i get a tasty sativa pheno or at least some kind of keeper
california orange
troublemaker (hindu kush X masterkush) - potent and skunky freebies
&
lowdown mystery (lowryder #2 X ???)

if you ever wanted to know about any of these strains, stay tuned. i'll give good description of everything about how they grow, smell, taste and smoke as the details are revealed.

man, i'm DEFINATELY gonna need carbon scrubbing now!

P.S. now i'm creating updates in notepad because for some reason doing it in wordpad creates screwy hypertext and formatting when i copy & paste. it's a pain having to re-edit and get rid of all the >>s etc.

i'll put the next update off until some of the sprots break open and get under my shoplight. it would be redundant to keep showing planting & sprouting for every strain. the next time i update, you'll be seeing GREEN, leaves that is, although some might envy all of the different strains i have. that makes us even for the last 3 years i've envied all of you that were toking while i was pissing cleaner than a newborn baby!

[AugustWest]

good luck man.. i have some c99 x leiu hahn seeds as well from spice bros. Looking forward to see what they do for ya!

[Fatt Daddy]

a few months back i was thinking about buying some spice brothers Vietnam black x c99, waited too long and theyre gone now. I really wanted those.


anyways I'm tuned in.

[pokernaut]

if you want something similar to C99 X vietnamese black, check out reeferman. he has a strain that's called bodhi sativa that's cambodian crossed with burmese! that sounds like the shit! i would have considered it if i didn't already have pure burmese for that kush hybrid i have in the back of my mind down the road. it would be fun to build a strain from the ground up with nothing but IBLs (especially ones no-one else is using) although troublemaker is a little bit hybridized. just the leaf trim i got from the 1st 5 troublemakers was potent ass shit! it was the strongest strain i had. it was stony as heck, but not in the tired couchlocking way, it was more of a numbing happily stare at the wall buzz. i bet it would make a killer 50:50 with "too much energy to sit still" kali mist. why doesn't anyone ever use that in their crosses?

as to C99 X lien huanh, i wanted that one too originally, but went with splash which has only a little bit of LH because it's closer to C99 and i wanted to try cindy "as is" first. my A11g beans have 25% LH though. what i REALLY wanted was 100% LH for breeding purposes. i don't know though. i've heard one report stating spice brothers sucks so i might end up trying another bank's C99 & A11s down the road if that's true. fortunately, i have plenty of other strains to cover the sativa end, but i haven't heard of any of them being trippy. i know KM wasn't. it's only my second favorite strain because i really like sativas that fuck with reality. THAT'S what you smoke when watching crazy SFX & comedy movies or listen to trippy music. i really miss that "thai buzz". that's the most important goal i have.

another interesting sativa sounds like barney's mekong haze, but i've only been able to find a delta 9 knockoff. the cannabible describes it as extra trippy shit. THAT'S what i want for my kush hybrid, the trippiest pure sativa i can find. all of the african sativas are getting harder to find by now sadly. i couldn't find anymore pure malawi gold. whatever you do if you're looking for malawi, DON'T get the seedsman version! i got a PM from someone who bought it and said it totally sucked and he was an experienced grower.

i just finished planting the rest of my beans today. the ones i had under the shoplight were a little dried out today because i put a 9" fan in the closet and even pointing away from the plants, it moved enough air to dry the soil out. i hope it didn't kill any of the beans that haven't sprouted yet. i still might soak another couple burmese to make up for the two ones with damaged shells too. as small as burmese is for a "pure sativa" (looks like it has indica in it to me) it would make a great building block for any kind of sativa hybrid for indoor grows. that's what i intended to be the last 50% of the kush hybrid.
(trippy IBL sativa X troublemaker) X burmese

this grow will definately give me a better idea of which strains to use for breeding and which are merely OK.

the ones that sprouted yesterday opened up today and 2 more lowdowns sprouted and 1 more cali-o. now i've put cardboard sheets in front of the light except the last foot with the fan blowing next to them so it gently pulls air out at the end. hopefully that will let the pots retain enough water for 24 hours. if not, i'm going to have to transfer everything to 16 oz cups ahead of schedule which will be a pain in the ass with soil that doesn't bind at all and that would rather stick to the inside of the containers. you have to be extra gentle transplanting like that so as not to damage the roots.

i went to 4-5 department stores trying to find little starter pots like the ones in the photos to no avail! not one store had them and by the time i got to a garden center, they were closed. i went back today though and they had the best kind for just 10 cents each! they're square like the ones in the pictures, but without the rim on top making it so much easier to gently pat the soil down before planting. square pots don't waste any space in between each other for more soil per plant.

i tell y'all, posting my journal here is making me keep focused on the finish line better. i'm not even thinking about pruning for leaf smoke. if i did that now, i'd publicly embarrass myself! LOL

[pokernaut]

saturday, 4-12-08
all of the bubblicious sprouts, the 1st lowdown mystery & cali-Os were out of their shells and ready for some sunlight. i decided it was time for phase 1 of lighting.
i put my shoplight in my bedroom closet with 1 philips 40w cool white bulb and 1 philips 40w daylight bulb for a full spectrum. the daylight bulbs have a slightly more orange bulb whereas the cool whites are more balanced and have more blue to encourage compact growth.

i simply used some CD cases as a base to prop the light up. in the past, i've used larger books but this closet is only about 8 inches over 4 feet so i wanted to block as little of the end lighting as possible as the space under the light fills up with more plants eventually transplanted into 16oz. cups. using stackable items like CDs lets me raise the light up as needed as plants get taller.


as the grow continues and some plants stretch taller than others, i'll continually roatate the plants with the tallest ones at one end and the shortest ones at the other as i've done before, and try to keep the lights as close as possible to the plants with at least a quarter inch space to prevent burning but i've seen leaves crash into flourescent tubes and still survive.

once i start getting plants on their 2nd leafsets, i'll put them on the $3 timer i got at a second hand store. i'll split the grow and keep all of the plants that are still sprouting on a 24 hour cycle with another shoplight. then, once plants show their sex, i'll revert them back to vegetative with 24 hour lighting and start taking cuttings as needed. i'd like to figure out a way to keep at least one female of each strain in vegetative until harvest so i'll already have sexed clones ready to go for my second planting.


i hope to have enough money saved up by cloning time for my 1st light, a 400w metal halide. as soon as possible after that, i'll add a 400w high pressure sodium too for more coverage and flowering stimulation. if heat becomes an issue, i'll stagger the light cycles with 6 hours MH and 6 of HPS to cut power use in half. i'm also considering digital ballasts with 20% dimming for heat control too. in the winter, i intend to run both lights flat out for 12 hours when heat is no longer an issue.

now i just need to figure out how i'm going to handle all these plants. i'm thinking i'll mix SCROG or LST for the taller sativas with sea of green for the compact hybrids. i really wish i knew how many square feet per plant i'd need to scrog. it would make planning the space easier but i've never been able to get a solid answer from anyone about it, just vague "it really depends" type answers. if i overgrow my space, i'll just have to prune plants back or overlap them.

monday, 4-14-08
even with the cardboard shielding i had set up on the side of the shoplight, some of the flower pots, especially those closest to the fan were drying out. the suction created by the fan pulling air out at the far end was strong enough to also pull pieces of cardboard to the shoplight. today i raised the fan over the top of the light so hopefully it still pulls heat from the light fixture but still moves some air inside too, but not so much that i'll need to water all 41 plants twice a day. that's the insulating mylar i'm going to be using in my growroom window to block light leakage and heat radiation once i start that room up.


speaking of watering, this is what i'm using, a soda bottle with three little holes punched in the top. so far i've been giving each plant 3 squirts about 1 to 2 seconds long but if they keep drying out, will do a 4th round before putting them back under the light. i'm going to need another light too. i have to stack some of the pots at the high end as there isn't enough room under the light.


here's the plants that have sprouted today. as you can see, the bubblicious ones started popping after the cali-Os, but they're taking off faster now. i'm really jazzed that 3 of the 4 A11s i planted have sprouted. those can't be replaced. hopefully the C99s will do well too. they're still dry in this photo as i'm watering in the closet and i've raised the soil levels as much as possible as some of the 1st plantings were only 2/3 - 3/4 full.


i probably should have just started everything in 16oz. cups from the start. if i do that before flowering though, i'll need a 3rd shoplight. i think you can only fit 36 plants under a pair of shoplights if i remember right from my 1st half assed grow. i should measure some cups to see how many i can cram under a light. i actually might not even be able to totally fill the space as the CD cases are still eating about 3-4 inches of lighting real estate. then, again, instead of doing 4 rows with 1 plant directly under each tube, i can add a 5th row in between the two fixtures. all i need to do is grow the plants large enough to flower, then i'll end up with about 20 plants.

[JuicyJBB]

Originally Posted by pokernaut

if you want something similar to C99 X vietnamese black, check out reeferman. he has a strain that's called bodhi sativa that's cambodian crossed with burmese! that sounds like the shit! i would have considered it if i didn't already have pure burmese for that kush hybrid i have in the back of my mind down the road. it would be fun to build a strain from the ground up with nothing but IBLs (especially ones no-one else is using) although troublemaker is a little bit hybridized. just the leaf trim i got from the 1st 5 troublemakers was potent ass shit! it was the strongest strain i had. it was stony as heck, but not in the tired couchlocking way, it was more of a numbing happily stare at the wall buzz. i bet it would make a killer 50:50 with "too much energy to sit still" kali mist. why doesn't anyone ever use that in their crosses?

as to C99 X lien huanh, i wanted that one too originally, but went with splash which has only a little bit of LH because it's closer to C99 and i wanted to try cindy "as is" first. my A11g beans have 25% LH though. what i REALLY wanted was 100% LH for breeding purposes. i don't know though. i've heard one report stating spice brothers sucks so i might end up trying another bank's C99 & A11s down the road if that's true. fortunately, i have plenty of other strains to cover the sativa end, but i haven't heard of any of them being trippy. i know KM wasn't. it's only my second favorite strain because i really like sativas that fuck with reality. THAT'S what you smoke when watching crazy SFX & comedy movies or listen to trippy music. i really miss that "thai buzz". that's the most important goal i have.

another interesting sativa sounds like barney's mekong haze, but i've only been able to find a delta 9 knockoff. the cannabible describes it as extra trippy shit. THAT'S what i want for my kush hybrid, the trippiest pure sativa i can find. all of the african sativas are getting harder to find by now sadly. i couldn't find anymore pure malawi gold. whatever you do if you're looking for malawi, DON'T get the seedsman version! i got a PM from someone who bought it and said it totally sucked and he was an experienced grower.

i just finished planting the rest of my beans today. the ones i had under the shoplight were a little dried out today because i put a 9" fan in the closet and even pointing away from the plants, it moved enough air to dry the soil out. i hope it didn't kill any of the beans that haven't sprouted yet. i still might soak another couple burmese to make up for the two ones with damaged shells too. as small as burmese is for a "pure sativa" (looks like it has indica in it to me) it would make a great building block for any kind of sativa hybrid for indoor grows. that's what i intended to be the last 50% of the kush hybrid.
(trippy IBL sativa X troublemaker) X burmese

this grow will definately give me a better idea of which strains to use for breeding and which are merely OK.

the ones that sprouted yesterday opened up today and 2 more lowdowns sprouted and 1 more cali-o. now i've put cardboard sheets in front of the light except the last foot with the fan blowing next to them so it gently pulls air out at the end. hopefully that will let the pots retain enough water for 24 hours. if not, i'm going to have to transfer everything to 16 oz cups ahead of schedule which will be a pain in the ass with soil that doesn't bind at all and that would rather stick to the inside of the containers. you have to be extra gentle transplanting like that so as not to damage the roots.

i went to 4-5 department stores trying to find little starter pots like the ones in the photos to no avail! not one store had them and by the time i got to a garden center, they were closed. i went back today though and they had the best kind for just 10 cents each! they're square like the ones in the pictures, but without the rim on top making it so much easier to gently pat the soil down before planting. square pots don't waste any space in between each other for more soil per plant.

i tell y'all, posting my journal here is making me keep focused on the finish line better. i'm not even thinking about pruning for leaf smoke. if i did that now, i'd publicly embarrass myself! LOL

Your growing Cinderella 99 x Vietnamese Black? Holy shit. I read about that, sounds amazing.

Vietnamese Black X C99

Offspring of this cross has produced a range of outcomes from the trippiest to soaring highs while others can bring on paranoia, racing heart beat and hallucinations for those not used to it.
The most early finishing phenos are around 10+ weeks, which is the fastest pheno I’ve found to date.
A large majority will finish around the 12 -14 weeks while the rarely some will try and push past the 15 week .
Recommended for only experienced growers if attempted indoors.
For indoor grows I highly recommend flowering direct from seed and provide ample light to achieve maximum results.
A good curing period is essential for a quality smoking session.



Vietnamese Black
Description

Donated by Anonymous (check Private Breeders Stock) Heritage: ---------- Nam F1 (Vietnamese sativa hybrid, aka Vietnam Black, aka NAMweed) -Original F1 cross: -Male Northern Vietnam/China Boarder (indica influence) -Female Southern Vietnam outskirts of Saigon (truebreeding pure Sativa NAM) Breeder's description: --------------------- Originating from Vietnamese genetics brought back to North America in 77, she's an extremely potent exotic sativa. NOT RECOMMENDED FOR MEDICIAL USERS: usually resulting in shortness of breath,
difficulty breathing, raised blood pressure, leans towards paranoia. Her sweet tropical ripe mango scent and sickly sweet taste will speak for itself. Vigorous strong brancher and top heavy - support recommended. A very heavy yield compensates for a longer flowering period. Indoor
Specs: Flowering time: 9+ weeks, Height 150 cm, Yield: 1+ gm/watt

[pokernaut]

no, not legendary vietnamese blackseed. lien huanh which, if memory serves me right is vietnamese black X haze and is really trippy, but the C99s only have a tiny bit of LH so for all practical purposes it's really just a C99 knockoff. it's really a shame that the whole commercial grow thing (i hate indicas for thisreaon too) made so many IBL sativas extinct... columbian gold, panama red, acopulco gold, thai, vietnamese blackseed, cambodian & kerala among others. imagine the trippy shit that we could all be growing now if all if the GOOD strains still existed instead of most sativa strains being based on watered down mexican sativas (haze). shit! i just tried to go to reeferman because i couldn't remember cambodian and now see that all of the sativas he had just a few months ago are gone! FUCK! he had some awesome sounding cambodian and vietnamese crosses. man, someone should create a seedbank just selling the sativa IBLs for us amateurs who don't know anyone with rare cuttings.

anyways, onto my update

tuesday 4-15-08
i'm starting to stress a little bit. in the past two days, not one of the later batches of beans has sprouted except possibly a C99. i'm hoping that they didn't die from the soil drying out two days ago. i've taken all of the plants that haven't sprouted yet out out from under the light & fan where they'll retain water better.

so far, these are the plants that have sprouted OK. the cali-Os, bubblicious & lowdown mysteries were all 100%. the A11s are 3 for 4 and i have 1 each burmese and kali mist. i hope to see the rest of my strains show up soon. if i don't see any new sprouts by next week, i'll soak some more beans.

thought you might like a higher res pic here

actually, two burmese sprouted, but one of them looks like it could be waterlogged. it doesn't look healthy. maybe that was one of the cracked shells.

i'm hoping that maybe the beans that haven't sprouted are just thirsty. i soaked the first batch a full two days and poked the seeds to the bottom on the 2nd day while the rest were just soaked 1 to 1 1/2 days and plucked from the surface. i was worried that 2 days was too long and that i was drowning the beans, but now i remember that the proper technique IS the 48 hour "soak & poke" method. all i can do now is keep the soil moist and hope that eventually the stragglers pop. i bet a nickel the mixed sativas didn't dry out. they take a good week and a half to pop even with 48 hours of soaking.
i just have to let nature take it's course and stay optimistic.

i'm guessing that the 1st sprouts will be ready for flowering in just a couple weeks, if that. i bought a second shoplight yesterday and prepped the spare room's window. i can't flower in my bedroom closet because of massive light leakage. even with the 1st shoplight mostly blocked by mylar, the closet lights my bedroom up like a nightlight.
putting the mylar up over the window was a major pain in the ass! i thought i could just tape it up with 2 inch masking tape. nah-uh. the damn walls have a speckled texture that the tape won't stick to worth shit!

i ended up having to prop the mylar up with boxes after i created a crease in the top to go over the curtain with boxes. tacking it up was a real job. i had to use a thumb tack about every 3 inches for a piece of mylar that's 4 feet high by 8 1/2 long! because it's basically bubble wrap, it didn't want to let the tacks go all the way in and spit a few dozen of them back out.

i backed each tack up with a little square of 3/4 inch masking tape hopefully to keep the mylar from tearing. it weighs practically nothing, but it doesn't like bending or flattening. between some tacks getting spit out, others breaking and some that just didn't want to go in where i wanted them, my thumb was freakin' sore by the time i was done.

it was worth it though. when i checked it from outside last night, i saw no leakage at all and the curtains looked normal. this morning i went back to double check leakage with more powerful sunlight and saw only one little leak that i fixed with a tack in the gap. other than that, there were only the tiniest hairline leaks and those are probably from light being reflected back and forth between the mylar and white wall to the seams which are all at least half a foot over the window frame. to be safe i'll just go over the seam either with the 2 inch blue masking tape i originally bought to tape the mylar up or see if i can find some black tape. i could also use low tech tin foil if i have to.

i don't think light leakage will really be an issue. what little light that might escape would be so dim as to not even show up against the city lights. i'm just hoping that the mylar settles to it's new shape and doesn't push any more tacks out. with a few hundred tacks pushing it in, i think it will hold. if nothing else, sealing the perimeter with blue tape should give it an extra bit of holding. i'll get pics of the setup before i move the grow in there. right now my thumb is sore and i don't want to look at that cause of a couple hours of misery just yet. LOL

now, i think it might have been better to build the cardboard lightbox frame i had considered. i could have just hung it on the curtain rod and easily pulled it down if the landlord ever comes by. hopefully if he does now, i'll just tell him that i'm trying to insulate the room from cold with the heat off and he'll by it. i have a ton of boxes of stuff to put in there to make it look like a storage room if necessary. in fact, i need to move those same boxes out of the way when it's time to use it for the grow.

BTW here's where all of the beans in the grow came from:

Spice Brothers
C99 Splash $30-$35
(A11g X Lien Huanh) X A11g $55

Serious Seeds
Kali Mist $105

Soma's Sacred Seeds
Buddha's Sister $110 (possibly crossed with G13 Haze per the little note on the package. SHIT! i wanted PURE Buddha's Sister for my own breeding even if G13 haze is ass kicking shit too)

Vancouver Island Seedbank
Burmese $55

Sativa Seedbank
Mixed Sativa $20 one named strain and not the mix of several that i thought it was. i REALLY wanted their mexican sativa and thought i'd get a couple of those. it's all good though. they only cost $20 and this strain is DEFINATELY a sativa)

High Quality Seeds
Haze Skunk $25

Nirvana
Bubblicious $17
California Orange Skunk $17
Pure Power Plant $17

Doctor Chronic
Troublemaker (freebies with 1st C99 Splash order)

Flumpy's
Lowdown Mystery (doc freebies with Buddha's Sister order)

both batches of durban skunk (SADP x skunk #1) freebies that i got with my nirvana & kali mist orders from seedboutique were 0% viable. i'd read somewhere that they are over 10 years old. i got good deals on the beans that i bought and fast shipping, but it would have been nice to get some compact 87.5% sativa. after the 1st batch failed, it inspired me to place the haze skunk order with doc.

i got the burmese from kindseed.com. they had the best price i could find and neither doc nor gypsy had it. got my beans in 9 days there.

[pokernaut]

thursday, 4-17-08

4 more beans popped this morning. that leaves only 7 out of the 41 i planted that haven't so far and i imagine that the last burmese is the other damaged one that's not going to sprout leaving only 6 out of 41 to go. surprisingly, one of the tiny mixed sativas popped before the other stragglers. kali mist in particular is taking it's time except for the one that's already opened up.

the C99s & A11s that i'm most interested in were 100%. if i don't get any C99 males, then plan B is to use an A11 male. as the A11s are nearly 50% C99 and 25% pure sativa, i expect that they'll be pretty similar to C99. it's the 50% genius (jack herer) in A11 that tames C99s raciness and paranoia and i'd expect 25% trippy pure sativa to bring some of it back.

here's a nice little family portrait of everything out of the soil. you can't really see much in the front row as they're still in their shells, but there's starting to be some green in the photos besides the pots, flower pots that is, not actual pot. hey, i bet that's where it got that name.


the 1st shoplight is just about packed now. as always, the organic mulch soil is always thirsty, but it's easy to see which plants need more water than the others as the soil really lightens when it's dry as you can see in the corners of the pots in the photos. i'd DEFINATELY use a topsoil mix for any outdoors grows i did or would build a wick system. i'm just not keen on hauling several gallons a day a mile or two through rough terrain.

i can't wait to start seeing some leaf shapes. then it will be time to set up the second light and timer in the spare room. i'm starting to think instead of getting an HPS after i get an MH, i might just get a light mover instead as the roughly 20 females +1 C99 male i expect to flower shouldn't need much more than 4 square feet as i was originally going to cram about 36 plants in just over that space when i had the walk in closet plan. as i'm planning on SCROGging the big plants, kali mist, haze skunk, mixed sativa, pure power plant & maybe buddha's sister, i'd rather all of the plants get the same lighting balance to make smoke testing a level playing field.

when i can afford it, i can always add an HPS later. i'm not really that keen on getting one anyways as i'm not a big fan of rock hard nuggets. fluffy buds are easier to break apart for toking/vaping and as i'm growing for seeds too, it makes sense to have buds that are easier to break apart. despite what many claim, you CAN grow bud under just halide according to some homework i did at the high times Q&A forum and the best bud i ever smoked was fluffy thai and some of the worst has been rock hard pure couchlocking skunk fart.

ever since i 1st researched grow tech back in the 80s, i've always wanted to stay close to the blue-UV end of the spectrum which is where THC is produced and stay away from the red-infrared end where heat breaks it down into those canniboids i despise so much.

if i could find them, philips makes a really bright and orange 40w tube under it's "hi-vision" line. it almost looks like an HPS. an apartment building i lived in had them and they were definately brighter than the cool tubes i had. the high vision cool tubes were brighter too. i just haven't been able to find them in any stores. if i could, i'd run the MH for 10-12 hours and run the orange shoplights 1-2 hours to simulate the sunsets that trigger flowering. either that, or i could put some amber or red filters over the lights, i bet craft stores have clear tinted plastics for making easer egg baskets etc.
it still isn't time to flower yet anyways so i have time to plan and get grow room feedback from experienced growers.

[pokernaut]

friday, 4-18-08

nothing spectacular to report except the scorecard maybe. C99, A11, pure power plant, mixed sativa, troublemaker, cali-o & bubblicious were all 100% viable. kali mist is stil 1:4, haze skunk 2:3, buddha's sister 2:3, burmese 2:4 and lowdown mystery is 3:4.

i soaked 2 more burmese to make up for the 2 no shows. yet another one was slightly damaged so i soaked that one for sport but the other looked healthy.

i'll have to soak another buddha and haze skunk and a couple more kalis if they don't show soon. to be fair, they were the last ones planted so they might still be on schedule. if not, the worst performing seeds i've bought have been the most expensive ones. 2 out of 10 $55 A11s were cracked, at least 3 $55 burmese and POSSIBLY 1 buddhas sister and 3 kali mists weren't viable. everything else has been 100% now and in the earlier grows.

last night the fan was getting noisy and possibly riling some butthead neighbors, who actually make way more noise than i ever do, because it's cord was touching the wall so i 1st tried to isolate it by putting it on sponges and it wanted to tip over so i rolled up a towel and put it on that and put the cord out in front and it quieted back down.