Bloom Journal.. two weeks into 12/12

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry for the long break. I know it seems like I've abandoned the journal, but I'm finally in a position where I'm ready to enter bloom, and complete a crop again ....this has been my longest grow-break in over 11 - 12 years, and the entire time I've had cuttings, rooted clones, and roughly 30 mothers in a semi-dormant vegetative state. Yes, for me that does still constitute as a break

I've been keeping my plants in lock-down with a lot of official business going on, my mothers (which were cuttings, taken from fully flushed harvested, dying plants), have been bonsaied in party cups since August, and at several points they were literally folded into 6 storage crates for well over a week with no light, or circulation, while I had contractors over and appraisals done on my property.

As far as how I deal with legality issues, Aja.. it's all about the brass balls I guess, lol. I've always planned wisely, behaved responsibly, and I've never had to destroy a crop prematurely for security risks or unforeseen reasons. In the past, I've had 10 x 15 ft bloom rooms that generate 9 - 14 lbs every 8 weeks, in full bloom, while inviting police into my home on a regular basis. That actually stressed me out less, than what I've been going through lately, lol. You just have to know your rights, and know what the situation is. In my case, I invited them in, and by doing their jobs they were doing me a favor. If they were coming in for any other reason, I'd absolutely have ended the project. The door was exactly next to the bathroom the officers used, at one point a fellow tried the handle, mistaking it for the bathroom. Fortunately I keep things under lock down, and I was able to casually let him know he had the wrong room. I behaved with confidence those six or eight weeks, and they never raised an eyebrow or had any reason to suspect they should worry. Relationships aren't an issue or at least haven't been in the x decades I've been practicing our hobby.

Growing aside, I'm very careful in selecting who I spend time with, I make sure they've been respectful and honest in the past with their own family and friends before even allowing them into my life period, and so, even though I've been in fewer relationships numerically than many people, I've almost never been single, and I've never had security problems. I've been paranoid for different reasons like anyone else, but in the end it was always unfounded. Being in respectful, longer term relationships has allowed me to part ways amicably the few times it was necessary.
Overall I'm a generally anti-social person except for those I care about most, which probably not only spares me legal trouble but it likely saves me a great deal of abuse, I'm usually too generous a host, and I tend to give the shirt off my back to the first stranger who needs it I'd be miserable if I didn't share what I can with those around me, I tend to leave too much room to be taken advantage of, that's just who I am and I enjoy it, so rather than change that, I tighten the restrictions on who I can share my life with, and the quality of my life in general has only improved by existing this way.

Anyway guys, sorry for the life story and thanks for stopping in, I suppose I'll mention to be on the look out very soon for photo updates on my 'Raggedy Annes' (raggedy, because of the conditions I've had to keep them in, and Annes as a homage to Anne Frank, where they've been locked up and hidden away from society for far too long ).

edit - Before that though, I'll be posting a few traditional herb and hash recipes which we've enjoyed for years, that I have finally, hesitantly, decided to share (trade family secrets, and all that ) I've been working on and taking photos of, in-process (when I remember to), since before the 2010 holidays began. Some are medicinal items that we make on a weekly-monthly basis, others are once-a-year, special occasion treats

 

Whether I'm growing for yield, breeding, or have numerous plants in smaller pots for variety in the same space, I let them grow almost naturally. The most I do for my plants in a multiple smaller pot or breed-grow, is throw in a few stakes and allow the plants to lean on them as they need to, occasionally bracing the stalk of a plant with large buds by tying it parallel to the stake. For bigger grows with fewer plants in larger pots, I put 7 - 10" netting over the canopy, anchor it down, and let the plants do their thing.

The bushing is natural, it comes from a healthy environment with good circulation, and from taking cuttings during early bloom when the branching hormones are going strong.. bud is compiled of rapidly tightening, shortening branch nodes, to produce the tightly forming flowers surrounding them.
When you take cuttings from the base of a flowering plant at around 20-25 days bloom, cutting above the stretch point of the branch and just below the little popcorn nugs forming, and then revert those cuttings to veg, you get a huge number of compact branches which are all roughly the same height/age, creating a more uniform canopy with numerous 'main' colas. I get the most out of them when growing a smaller number of plants, in very large 10 - 15 gallon pots, with overkill circulation and exhaust/ventilation.


I've been trying to sell my house for about a year now, usually I rent, and now I'm reminded why... when renting I can just get up and move in 24 hours if I need to, I always pay in advance, so for my landlords it's a free few months rent, double payments if they get someone else to move in soon enough. But this house due to some shoddy craftsmanship, without going into detail, unfortunately needs a lot of babysitting so I can't just up and leave like I would like to, and besides that I wouldn't feel right renting it to someone, I wouldn't be able to trust they'd keep up with what maintenance it needs on an almost daily basis. And of course, selling a house these days isn't all that easy, even under the best of circumstances.. when people hear something integral may be wrong with a house, they don't care if it's selling for 40-50% below appraisal, even when the problem was taken into consideration during that appraisal and would be cheap to fix. There are a thousand 'working' homes on the market they could buy.

So for the last few grows, each one is supposed to be 'the last' in this house, I've been operating in closet-like/stealth conditions, and for this grow I've had to increase the stealth even further:

No ventilation, no fans, we give tours of the home now and I've been showing the actual room I'm working in, to potential buyers, in-person, several families a day, practically five days a week. I can't go into detail how I have the room set up so that people are none the wiser, because I've had about 75 families through here in the last two months alone.. and not just that, but there are photos of the room up on about two dozen different realtors websites.

So no one knows what's behind that wall, and they won't know, until the day they buy the house And all they'll know then, is that the room is actually 'much more roomy' than they thought




Ok, here are the poor girls the day of the transplant from their little cups a few weeks back, ran out of small gardening pots, and left the crap plants that weren't taking it very well in their party cups for you to see, some of which are still now (weeks later) blooming away in their little cups Switched to bloom about a week after the transplant. Green Erkle, Devastating TrainWreck, POG 8, POG 9, White Widow, Atomic Fireball (spicy POG 8 Widow cross w/ red-purple hues), Feralocity/Aussie BigBud, ChocoGold (new POG/Chocolope cross)... I'm forgetting some......
There's NO room in there to work, and it kind of gets on my nerves.. actually it really gets on my nerves, I've been spoiled from working in anything from a basement to a warehouse with adjacent nutrient rooms, it's hard even being in there, and they wind up neglected. I've been temped more than once to just cut them down, and wait for calmer times.

But after I'm done here, I'll snap some current shots and brb, right now (as in now, not the photos below) they're now about two, two and a half weeks into 13/11 (on/off)... after seeing the difference a few weeks makes, I'm glad I kept them alive... that and I'm down to smoking tiny bowls of herb with piles of hash on top, and that just won't do. I miss my fresh buds.

These three photos are from just after transplant several weeks ago.. before now, these things have been literally folded in crates for weeks, and the mothers for months!



This is one of the smallest plants.. it didn't get a pot, I ran out of room, and out of small 2 - 4 gallon pots... about 15 plants around this size are blooming in SHARED cups right now, poor things.


It's a bit embarrassing even sharing these But it's a small-scale stealth grow, and prior to these photos these ladies had been crammed into crates with no light, and no fresh air, for weeks at a time while repairs were being made, and official persons repeatedly stopped over with no warning to roam the house, top to bottom, doing appraisals. Like I said earlier.. killing them was something I happily fantasized about often. And now, they're in a small hidden room, with no ventilation whatsoever. But they are improving....

 

And these are the ladies today, at about 16-18 days bloom.

I guess I'm kinda glad that I let them live Clones were cut the first week of Jan.





A few mothers, including this one, got cracked stalks and stems during their time hiding out, packed and folded up, in crates.. all healed up now