Hi all! I'm starting this journal just to keep track of things to hopefully improve next time. My 76-year old mother decided to grow marijuana for the first time lol. So I gave her some advice and have been checking on the plants and helping when I can. She found a book called Cannabonsai by Manuel Oyarce, and was intrigued by some of the ideas and photos. The pictures are pretty dope. But the book said to use autoflowers, and to grow them in containers that are 750-1125 ml (.2-.3 gal). I convinced her to buy a mix of autoflower seeds and photos, and I convinced her to bump up the pot size to at least .75-1.5 gal, especially for the photo. I tried to tell her about living organic soil (LOS), but it was too complex and foreign to her lol. She pretty much only grows plants in the ground, and has never really had a hungry container plant like cannabis before. So everything used in this grow has been / will be organic, but it's not a true LOS. We started the autoflowers first.... she chose a Critical Purple and a Hindu Kush. The Hindu Kush she decided to call Bhumi (the Hindu goddess of the Earth). The Crit Purp we decided to call Sahasrara (the Crown Chakra, also known as the Purple Chakra or Violet Chakra). We popped them in wet paper towels, and planted them on April 14th or 15th. The soil is a mixture of: some Cactus mix soil my mom had laying around; sphagnum peat moss; worm castigs (EWC); and lava rock. Theres a small layer of just lava rock at the bottom of the pots. The only pots she'll grow in, pretty much, are clay pots lol. We counted on the EWC to get them through, nutritionally, the first few weeks. Then she started feeding with Dr Earth Tomato Liquid Fert (3-2-2), very lightly. They looked good and healthy, but the growth seemed sluggish to me. I am not 100% certain whether to attribute this to cold temps (April was unusually cold here, often vacillating between highs of 40F and 80F, and lows of 30F and 65F. She brought the plants into her house any time the temp was below 50F) or the small pot size. They grew straight up; she felt weird about topping or LSTing them like the Cannabonsai had suggested. And there is essentially no branching. They started showing pistils after only about 25-28 days. I have never grown Autos before, so I have no idea, but that seemed fast to me. I had started to talk her into topping one of them, the taller one, but by the time she agreed, we were already seeing pistils so it was too late. The photoperiod plant is a Mazar (she only wants indica-dominant). Unfortunately, we can't remember the exact date we planted it in soil.... I want to say it was just after the Kentucky Derby.... so I'll guess May 10th or so. Same soil mix, but it got the biggest pot (still only about 2-2.5 gal). We do plan on topping it. I got her to finally top her curry leaf tree, and now she wishes she'd done it earlier, so now she's on board with topping lol. I'll post some pics, then I'll add another post describing how I topdressed them today.
The first two pics are Bhumi... she's in the smallest pot (~.4 gal). She's very compact and stout and short lol.... she's also the furthest along, I think, as she has a lot of crystals already on her sugar leaves. The third pic is Sahasrara... she's much taller than Bhumi, but neither of them seem to have branched at all really lol. She's had some yellowing on her bottom leaves. I'm not too worried, though, because the new growth looks good. My mom refuses to pH her water, so it could be that, or just that they're getting hungry as they start to flower. That is why I decided to topdress them today, give 'em a kickstart as they start flowering. The final 2 pics are the Mazar.... we call her Fawzia after Fawzia Koofi, the Afghani activist. She looks quite good, except a few lighter spots here and there... I don't think it's anything much.
So today I did the topdress.... the photoperiod, Fawzia, she got a sprinkling of Mycos too. I dredged up all my old garden supplies lol... figured I might as well use 'em. I figured it was too late to get much myco growth in the Autos. The topdress was EWC... a good sprinkle of Alfalfa Meal; a sprinkle of Rock Phosphate; about 1.5 tsp of BioAg Cyto Plus Seaweed Extract and Micronutrients; and some Malted Barley I ground up in a coffee grinder. As I was mixing it up, it dawned on me that the Rock Phosphate will not have enough time to break down and supply much nutrients... I'll have to think of another way to give a bit of phosphate boost. At this point, after that topdress, the plan is to give them just water, silica, and some Buddha Bloom nutes the rest of the way, along with a Kelp and Aloe foliar at some point. Hopefully that should do it! Thanks for reading along!
Outside Cannabis has two real threats that you must fight. Powdery Mildew. For this we use Potassium Bicarbonate. (preferred) Or Sodium Bicarbonate (household baking soda) 1 tablespoon per gallon of water applied once a week every week start to finish. Caterpillars. BT Thuricide. Apply once a week every week in flower. BNW
BNW, great to see you here and to see you again in general, thank you. I of course have baking soda, but do you think potassium bicarbonate is that significantly better that it is worth purchasing? I live in the Midwest, not exactly a heartbed of PW. And my mother keeps a Bacillus Thurengensis trap for mosquitos on her back deck... a bucket with BT discs and some putrifying compost liquid or something to attract bugs... I don't know if that would work for caterpillars or not, but it does work wonders to keep mosquitos down. FWIW, I havent noticed any problems with either PW or caterpillars yet. But this is a first foray in this geography.
It is a different subspecies Of BT for caterpillars. Gnatrol is Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies israelensis.
ahhhh, yeah I seem to remember that now. I wonder if a different disc would work in the same trap… prob not. Hmmm.
I'll take a stab at your question regarding sodium bicarbonate as well. Potassium bicarbonate works to draw moisture out of the mildew hyphae. It can be a very effective contact fungicide. Mildew cannot easily develop resistance to desiccation. In addition, some of the potassium is absorbed by the plant. This makes it a better product than sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) as too much sodium is very bad for plants. HTH.
The moth larva/caterpillar need to ingest plant matter sprayed with the BT in order to kill them. So, I don't believe your moms mosquito trap would work for them.
What pests does B.t. control? B.t. is effective against the larvae, or immature stages, of insects but not the adult stages. There are many strains of B.t., and each is most effective against certain insect pests. Some of the strains include: B.t. var 'aizawa' - for control of larvae of wax moths and other moth species B.t. var 'israelensis' - larvae of mosquitoes, black flies, and other flies B.t. var 'kurstaki' - many types of caterpillars B.t. var 'San Diego' - larvae of elm leaf beetle B.t. var 'tenebrionis' - larvae of elm leaf beetle+ It is the Kurstaki variant that is effective against Caterpillars. BNW
Well, I swung by today and the plants look great, other than being further along than they should… it was either the cold temps or the small pots. But the cereus (aporophyllum) my mom gave to my girlfriend is finally starting its first two blooms… 6 years in the making, cacti are slow lol
lol I'll be honest.... the malted barley I used.... I wasn't sure exactly what it was, but I was pretty sure it was malted barley from Build A Soil... anyway, I didn't grind them up enough, and now lots of them are sprouting in the topdressing I made lol. From now on, I'll sprout them in wet paper towels, then blend them up, them topdress with them. Lesson learned. I thought once barley was malted, whatever that is, it wouldn't sprout again lol
It shouldn't be able to sprout after being malted. Could it have been barley seed that wasn't malted? I remember sprouting all kinds of different seeds when we were all looking for the highest enzymes. Then Coot figured out that commercially available 2 or 6 row malted barley hit all the bases. Also, Malted barley will lose a lot of it's enzymes after a year or so even if stored properly. Edit: I just purchased 6 row today and because they ran out some distillers malted barley which has higher enzymes than the other 2 row they had. Here's a photo. Distillers malted barley on the left and 6 row on the right.
Heya Gandalf good to see you, dude. Awesome you're getting to share your hobby with yer mama. Hope all is well in middle earth
I suppose it must have been barley that wasn't malted lol. It's gotta be at least 6 years old, I just couldn't remember what I ordered back then. BAS used a bunch of Coot's recommendations, so I'm sure it's good stuff. I didn't know barley can lose enzymes over time... does unmalted, unsprouted barley do that too? I mean... if it's still capable of sprouting, it must have SOME meaningful level of enzymes lol. And if I throw it in my mom's compost, it'll just start sprouting I guess lol.... so I might as well sprout it in paper towels, blend it up so it doesn't grow, and water with it. The grow looks great still... the autos are starting to get some density to the buds and some hairs are getting orangish-reddish color... the photoperiod Mazar (Fawzia) is still in veg, but growing like a weed, and we finally topped her today.
If I recall correctly, this is why we don't grind our malted barley in advance. It starts losing enzymes after ground. I also remember reading not to purchase more than 1 years worth of malted barley at a time. Again, I believe it is because even when properly stored it loses enzymes over time. Yeah, I'd agree you must have had enough present if the seeds still germinated.
Just some bud porn, if it can be called that, given how small they are in .3-1.2 gal pots lol. They seem happy though. Quite an experiment.