This is my first grow. I've only got one plant. But it's already 22 inches high. It's out on my deck which is 15 feet off the ground with no ground access. I have other strictly ornamental plants on my deck with my pot plant. So it dosen't stick out like a sore thumb. It's still getting a little too high for my likeing. So I'm trying the LST method. The base of it, splits off into two main branches. They are both 22 inches high. I thought it might be too late for me to start training them, since they are pretty tall. But last night I tried it. To start I put for wooden Shishkabobs toothpicks taped together with some pieces of K'nex, lol as stakes in each corner of the pot. I tied each branch about mid length as the counter balance so the roots won't pull out, Then I tied the tops down at 45 degrees, and to my surprise, when I woke up this morning. The two top colas are already pointing straiahgt up towards the sun. So far this has acheived in one day, making my plants half as tall more bushy looking. I'm going for the bush look to avoid the classic christmas tree shape which is a dead give away. Hopefully tops will start sprouting from all over the stems fairly soon. I'm gonna try to readjust and make new ties ever 4-5 days. I want to eventually circle the branches in a spiral around the pot. I'm crossing my fingers I hope this works out good. Still sucks I have to wait till flowering to find out if it will even be a female. Any experienced growers have any advice, this is my first time growing? They are feminezed White Widow, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. The pics are in order, 1 front view 2 side view 3 back view I'll try to keep it updated every week or two.
It spent it's first 6 weeks indoors. It's been outside for about four weeks now and has tripled in size. Nothing beats natural sunlight. I'm pretty confident with the lst method working out pretty well, from what I've read on other people's experience with it. Whats wicked, is that it has two almost identical main branches, I should be able to grow a pretty symmetrical bush with that advantage.
it looks like you cut half of the leaves off for 10 weeks it should have allot more leaves mine is only about 2 weeks and 6 days and is about half the size of that plant i don't think i was getting proper treatment indoors thats why it is growing alot faster outdoors also i would add a bit more soil and get rid of that cerramic pot it sucks in water other then that it looks alright but i see there is a bit of yellowing or that my just be how the pic was shot gl neth
Yeah, I didn't have a very good light set up indoors. It's starting to fill out, tiny leaves are sprouting all over the stems.
Ugh, I've split the stem right down the middle where it intersects. It was a clean break, I just duct taped it back together, hopefully she'll keep on trucking like nothing ever happened.
Here they are after two weeks have gone by. She's had a split stem that I mended with duct tape, it healed up perfectly after four days, so I took the tape off. I took the retarded K'nex pieces out, and opted for tying it to weights instead. They are little 1 pound weight inserts that came out of an Exercise Arm band. I just taped a trashed bag around it, and used fishing line. Note*** I made sure to tie a big loop very loosely around the actual stem. I think she's been getting a little too much water, from the rain here. I've noticed a few aphids here and there. Think I'm going to try Neem's. Luckily I haven't seen more than 1 or 2 aphids at a time. I gave the plant a good shaking last night, to make sure any stragglers got jolted off. I'll still have to treat it though. This does seem to be a great example of LST though. It's an outdoor plant. I'm really nervous about trying to do any trimming. I've done as little trimming as possible. I'm still unsure about topping. But I do think thinning over growth so bud sites can get more light makes sense, and that's what I have been trying to do, but to a minimum. This is my only plant, if I had four or five, I'd experiment more. I've counted new growth sites, that will turn into buds. I've counted 20 for sure spots so far, and I see some other spots that look like potentials. I'll upload some new pics a week from now, after I treat it with Neem's, or maybe just some diluted dish soap and vinegar, I'm on a tight budget. The second picture, you can count about 10 growth sites, barring not the whole part of the plant is in the actual picture. Same as on the other side of the plant. I've experimented with different nutrients, I under dose it with nutrients, I don't want to give it nute damage, even though it's possible I already have. I've tried molasses, just 1/4 tea spoon diluted in half a gallon. I noticed the plant seem to do bad for a few days after the molasses. Could of been something else, though. I've used Peter's Professional All Purpose Plant food. It seems to keep the plants healthy. Miracle Grow Shake and Feed. Just nute balls that dissolve with water. Seems like prolonged time release type nutes. Plants seem to have no negative, or any appearance of positive reaction. I'm guessing they do o.k. Then lastly I've tried 1/4 of a teaspoon of epsom salt dissolved in water. We'll see how this works. I'm guessing it will help keep a few more pests away. Since salt seems pretty corrosive to things like slugs, I'm guessing most bugs don't like it. Just need to treat it with neems, or homemade solution. Which I'm gonna take care of later tonight. Hopefully this will get her looking 100% healthy. Instead of 75-80 % healthy. That and the rain has died down, so she won't be over watered so much anymore....
i would at least recomend using something other then miracle grow. look araound for something a little more sufficient. good work though.
Add in the humidity and the heat index, makes it feel like 115 degrees outside. It's hella dank and humid down here. I woke up this morning, and could see the water vapor, just hanging in the air, that's how humid it is right now. You step out side, and start pouring with sweat, after about 5 minutes, without even moving around.
I HATE it when 104 is foretasted. My neck of the woods(Phoenix, Arizona) is 115 regularly. But, you're humidity is shitty too. Well, weather fortastings sometimes do suck-I feel you there.
lol, yeah it's apparent I missed a typo on my post. Foretasted, lol = forecast, guess there's no 'ed, as past tense on forecast, I guess it's forecast either way. I am wondering what foretasted means, lol. Apparently with my automatic spell check, it's a real word.
the recent pic of that plant looks a thousand times better thant he first couple pics. THe sunlight has really helped that girl out. The only thing I would reccomend is using something a bit thicker than fishing line. It can slowly slice through the stem, and even if you cant see apparent damage right away, it could screw things up on the cellular level. The last thing you want to do is crush all those wonderful little plant cells!
Thanx, Mcar. On top of the heat, she's endured a monster hail storm about a week ago, , windy as hell, there's been a good 8 days combined in the past two months that she's endured wind gusts of up to 65 mph. On an average day, we get wind gusts up to 25 mph. This is one tough plant. I just hope all the stress dosen't turn it male or hermie. Current Temperature reading, 108 degrees. With the humidity the heat index, makes it feel like 110 degrees out. Hottest day here since 2006.
Updated pic. Here she is, about 2 1/2 weeks later from the last pic I posted up. Featuring the Jungle Cat. Who just so happened to stealthily sneak into the picture without me noticing. She's looking a bit bushier from the last pic. I took the ties off of her. So she dosen't have the LST stress on her anymore. She raised up a little bit, but still has a permenant S-shaped bend on both her main stems, which is good. Only means all the smaller colas that have grown on the stems from LST'ing are still growing straight up towards the sun. So I should get 2-4 giant colas at the top, and 14-16 smaller colas receding down the S shaped branches. Possibly even have 25-30 colas. Can't wait till my baby buds out. From the looks of it, and what I've heard about plants nearly doubling in size during flowering. She should be quit bushy, with lots of buds. Plus she's a white widow. This is the plant, I added a 1/2 teaspoon of dark cocoa powder diluted in 3/4 gallons of water. I let the cocoa powder set in the water for six hours, stirred up real good. Then watered her, with muddy looking cocoa water. That was last night. Right before I took this picture. So far, she hasn't suffered from sudden death, lol. Actually it looks like the young leaves on top have grown a noticeable amount since last night, "in a 24 hour period". I'm not going to chalk it up to the cocoa powder, unless it continues to have a growth spurt like that.
I have to say, adding cocoa powder diluted in water, as nutrients, definitely won't hurt a plant. I'd even say that my plant has experienced broader new growth all over, since I've tired out this experiment. I'm still gonna wait a few more days to take any pictures. It probably has about an average of four inches of new growth on it though. How much of it I'm willing to credit to the cocoa is still unclear. So far, it's looking plausible that cocoa as nutrients will help. At worst it won't have any effect on the plant.
I definitely think the Cocoa powder has helped some. Call me crazy, but I'm sure there is some logic as to why it would help. I'm not a scientist but, but I'm sure there could be some scientific proof to back it up. My logic is, that cocoa powder is going to have plenty of nutrients the plant needs, two it's organic, three cocoa is a highly complex psychoactive substance in itself. I have no proof, but I know there has to be some properties to cocoa powder that makes it a good fertilizer. Lastly it seems more like food that a plant would want to eat, or absorb. I imagine plants that live out in the wild, have to do with what they have on the ground, as their plant food. A plant will use whatever is available as plant food, whether it be just plain dirt, or a dead rotting squirrel lying next to it. Unlike chemical fertilizers, cocoa is organic, and I'm sure it also benefits the soil in some way also. I imagine it's also more quickly absorbed than chemical fertilizers. Bonus News. I can tell by the pre-flowers, that she is indeed a female. Soo happy. After I harvest her, this fall. I'm going to try to revege her. Think she's definitely worth the effort to try to revege. O.k. Well I'll renege on my comment about cocoa being absorbed faster than chemical fertilizer. I really have no idea what the truth to that would be. I imagine chemical fertilizers are engineered to be released or absorbed at a certain time. Wheres cocoa powder will just do, what ever it's going to do. I have seen a noticeable improvement in my plant since, I fed it cocoa fertilizer. So I think there's definitely something there, that leads me to believe that it may be a viable option to choose among fertilizers. Who knows? This may kick ass. For one, when I'm smoking people out with my homegrown, I can tell people that my plants were on a steady diet of chocolate. "technically not chocolate, just cocoa" but still. If it's some good ass smoke, I'll get a kick from telling people that I fed it cocoa. I thinking somebody should use 1/4 tea spoon of cocoa, mixed with 1/4 teaspoon of molasses, diluted in tepid water as a fertilizer. In fact, I think I'm going to try that. Except I'm gonna take it really easy on both the amount of cocoa powder and molasses I use. Just to be on the safe side.
I've researched the ph level of cocoa and molasses. Cocoa is at 6.8, and molasses is at 5.0. With the average of water being at 7. All three of those averaged out is at 6.2 on the ph scale. Slightly acidic, which marijuana seems to prefer a ph between 5-7. So if I fed my plant. With the size of pot it's in, 3/4 gallon of water, cocoa, and molasses solution every other day. It would slowly condition all the soil to stabalized ph level, probably over a week or two. This is ideal. As far as ph is concerned, with cocoa and molasses, The ph of the two of them fall between the healthy parameters prefeered by weed. So I'm in the green, as far as that area is concerned. I've also repotted my plant, into a much bigger pot. I'll take some pics here in about five days.
Thanx Joe. She's starting to bud. Today is the first noticeable day you can actually see bud growth. The previous few days just looked like pre-flowers.
I'm using all these, as tomorrows nutrient feeding. I'm gonna give it medium doses of nutes, every other day. 1 teaspoon Dark Cocoa 1 teaspoon Spirulina blue/green micro-algae 1 teaspoon Blackstrap Un-sulphered Molasses Diluted in 1 Gallon of tap water sitting out for 24 hours (The spirulina will degrade fast, and give the plant a nitrogen boost every feeding.) It conditions the soil, by chelation, absorbs excess water, and promotes the growth of microorganisms. in theory, we'll see. http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2765/2
Here she is. She's putting on lots of buds. You can't see them yet though, because I took the picture from at a distance, from indoors. It's an outdoor plant, and it's only into it's 2nd week of flowering. But there is well over 20 bud sites. Possibly even high as 35-40. I haven't gotten an official count yet. I used to bring her into the house to take pictures and examine her. Because I don't want to bring attention to her, outside, where it's in full view of all the neighbors, lol. But now I can't bring her indoors anymore. For one, the pot I replanted her in, is huge, which makes it quite a bit heavy, and super heavy if the pot still has a considerable amount of water in it. Two, she's in her flowering stage. So I don't want to disrupt that, by bringing her indoors at night, when flowering requires darkness. Another thing that irks me, is all the lights the neighbors have outside at night. Are porch lights, yard lights, and street lights, going to slow down her flowering process. Cuz this will piss me off, if it does. Do I need to throw a blanket over her at night? lol. Or a big box with some holes for her to breathe. IDK??????? Anyway, here she is. She's bigger and bushier. And looking beautiful. She looks so nice, like a little Tree, lol. She does, she looks like a tree, lol. LST'ing works pretty damn good.