I was debating whether or not to start a journal this year since my time is lot more limited this year. Its been a crazy time with many projects, work, fitness, and weed growing that I thinking that I would skip a grow journal this year, but then I thought what the hell just do it. A warning, this is a guerrilla grow so this journal may end at any time for a variety of reasons including rippers, LEO, or just dumb fucking growing mistakes. So here is my grow journal for 2013. My work for 2013 started way back in March when I started buying soil amendments and nutrients. I also decided to plant in the soil this year instead of smart pots. At the end of March, I dug my first hole 3' by 3' and supplemented the soil with the following: 1 bag cow manure 1 bag mushroom compost 1 bag earth worm castings 1 cup neem meal 1 cup feather meal 1 cup chicken manure fertilizer 1 cup gypsum 1 cup lime 1 cup azomite ¾ cup sul-po-mag ½ cup sea min kelp ½ cup blood meal 1 cup bone meal 1 cup greensand 1 gallon course perlite As of today I've got one more hole to finish. The mix this year has many new items including azomite, feather meal, neem meal, mushroom compost and sul-po-mag. In addition this year I'm incorporating Bio-Ag VAM and Bio-Ag TM-7 into the grow. I started germinated seed on 4/19 by soaking them in TM-7 for 24 hours then into 20oz cups filled with ff ocean forest soil, and I inoculated the soil with the VAM. Out of the 7 seeds attempted, only one did not germ. The plants are: C99 (female seeds) Purple Maroc (female seeds) Sour cream (DNA) K-Train (GHS) Blue Dream (HSO) Original Amnesia (Dinafem) I kept the plants under the my t-5 lights, and moved three of the plants out the woods on May 17. Here are some pics after moving out the first batch.
Lookin good Benny. Looks like your pretty prepared. Never seen black solo cups! stay safe, I'll be watching
A few more pictures of recent activity. The first photo is of the holes I started back in winter. Then there is a picture of the Sour Cream and K-Train emerging from the T-5s and in 1 gallon pots that I got planted on Memorial Day. I still have the Original Amnesia that is still under the T5s. I'll tell you something, those weed plants are pretty damn strong. We had a really hard frost over the memorial day, and I lost all my vegetable plants but the 3 mj plants that I had in the woods did just fine. The final picture is of the C99 right after the heavy frost days.
Thanks Pot! The black solo cups I picked up right after Halloween at walmart and I got them on clearance for like next to nothing. I read that light is bad for the roots, so I thought the black cups would help cut down on any possibility of light getting to the roots. Anyway, the roots on all the plants look really good when I saw them when transplanted them to 1 gallon pots and the woods, and I think the VAM fungi does help.
Looking good benny! Just a word of caution, Be carefull and make sure you put your bone/blood in the bottom of your holes! Or have it well covered! I seen you chicken wired the tops of your holes, very good man i did the same. Just i didnt do it in time, and the damn wildlife dug up all 6 of my holes from the blood/bone! pain in the arse! Refilled them back up with the soil that was thrown around, and topped my holes well with ewc, and didnt have problems again. You got a few things i never heard of before like sul-po-mag, Bio-Ag VAM and Bio-Ag TM-7. Any insight u can give on these? noticed the sul-po-mag is very high in sulfur. Personally never heard of having that much sulfur. Does it effect taste at all? Best of luck man, im sub'd
so glad you decided to start a journal benny! would have been kinda odd not having you in the journal section this year. looks like your off to another great start. im subbed for sure!
Tweakz, I agree, you gotta protect your plants from the animals from day one. The blood and bone meal will attract them, but pretty much if you put anything different out in the woods the animals will come to investigate it. Its funny too, because the animals will leave the plants alone for a few weeks and you think you are safe, then bam all of a sudden the little fuckers will start digging again for no real particular reason. I also like to bait the area for slugs and snails with sluggo or some similar type of bait, which I did last week. Sul-po-mag = Sulfate of potash magnesia. Contains 22% potash (K[SUB]2[/SUB]O) and 25% sulfate of magnesia (sulfur and magnesium). Will not alter soil pH. Good for soils deficient in potash but high in calcium. Potash is good stuff, and IMHO magnesium deficiency is kinda common with cannabis grows. Some growers sprinkling epsom salt into their mix (I did this last year too), well epsom salts are magnesium sulfate = sul-po-mag, but without the addition of potash. I've read many good things about Bio-Ag products on GC. The VAM is similar to like Great White or ZHO product found in the grow shops. TM-7 is humic/falvic acid with some micro nutrients. It is like liquid karma sold in the grow shops, but at a much cheaper price. Hey ODG1 thanks for the kind words. Good to hear from you buddy!
I got to the plot today to continue prepping the last hole for my last plant. These last two holes are a little different than the first 4 holes. These last two holes have more promix and no manure and are less heavy on nutrients. I did this because I don't have enough time to let everything cycle through. So I topped 4 of the plants. The sour cream in the promix soil I did not top since it is growing a bit slower.
I am really tired tonight. I hiked out 80 lbs of manure and compost to the final hole and planted my final plant for the season, and it feels great. I made the soil pretty damn hot, so I'll so how the plant responds to the new soil. All the other plants look terrific. No pics as I got a late evening start to the project and I worked my ass off so I was not caught out in the woods in complete darkness. Man, when it starts to get dark out in the woods, that shit really freaks with me. I hear sounds all around, and then I start thinking about other people hanging out in the woods at night and it gives me the shivers. I don't know how other growers can do all their work in complete darkness - my hats off to them. I got some pruning to do next week on some of the plants, and I'm thinking about installing a battery powered watering system this year. I figure a 30 gallon water tote filled once a week would give each plant about and extra 5 gallons of water per week. That should be plenty, I think. Now I gotta figure out how to do it.
Awesome set up Uncle B! For those who don't know Benny, he's a very talented grower and a super cool cat with always great vibes. I'm subscribed my friend!
Hey Corto, thanks for stopping in. Now Corto is a real night stalker, a dude that grows in the dead of night out in the woods of Spain. Corto, you've got a set of bass balls on you buddy. I hope all is well with you, any little Corto's on the way? Btw, thank you for the kind words. I'm still learning how to grow, but so far I'm real happy with this years start. Last year I grew 4 photo plants, this year I'm trying 6. Promix - I like this spot a lot. It has easy access, and gets a good amount of sun. There is a stream nearby to the grow that I would like to tap for water this year. The problem is that it drys out during the dry weather to a trickle of water. I gotta figure out a way to collect enough water at the stream and then pump 30 gallons of water up about 40 feet to a water tote that would then drip feed the plants. As ODG1 suggested I'm thinking of using a car battery to run something like this to carry the water up:
Ya man with my experience if you damn up the creek somehow so that you get a decent reservoir of water to pump up to your tote. THTstonedGUY
Thanks - damn it up? Stellar idea, but there are no logs around to damn it. I could use something else, but it would have to be removable or totally hidden. I was thinking of using like a bucket with holes in the bottom or side to allow water to fill bucket then pump out 3 - 5 gallons at a time. Or maybe use a plastic tarp to temporarily damn the stream? Put the tarp across the stream, and have the water flow across the tarp to an area that I could suck the water from... I'm liking this idea unless someone has something better.
The stream near my spot, is almost as yours is. Although i dont know if it totally drys up in the middle of summer. First time in my spot. What i did to dam the water up was, Collected rocks from around the creek bed, then put them on each side of the creek. Instead of putting them the whole way across and blocking the water, i left the center of the creek empty. Then i used the soil i dug up out of my holes (water is within 4feet of one of my holes) and placed it over the rocks and all the way across the dam. I tried to damn the hole creek up to allow the water to go up in level, yet the stream im using is sooo small and sooo slow flowing, it wound up stopping the flow of water. The creek bends, and its a double bend.. mine is like an overflow off of the main stream, that flows right back into it after the bend. I got the water to about a depth of 10" from its normal 2" and dug a big hole in the middle of it. So that i can fill a milk jug up with water. Dont do what i did, and make the water stop. It made the water stagnant and it started to breed mosquito's and fill up with slim/slum. Whatever you do, make sure u keep the water flowing over the dam to avoid that. If you use rocks and cover them with dirt, dig some grass/plants and set the shovel full on top of the damn, so that it will grow and look likes its been there forever. If you wet the chuck of grass down really muddy and step on it, it will fill in the gaps in the rocks also. Personally i wouldnt use a tarp, as that would not look natural. Best idea you could use, is to keep the stream shallow and dig the center of it out and bury a 5gallon bucket, or a larger tote. Just big enough to put your pump in. Putting it under the water and holding it down with some sand/brick/rocks. If you dont want to go thru the expense of using a battery operated pump, check out a Bilge pump. Although they are manual, they are quiet and you can stash it somewhere. Its hard to hide a pump thats in the stream all the time and hard to hide a car battery in the middle of nowhere! lol edit: a Manual Bilge Pump.
Tweakz thanks for the stellar information! I really want to avoid damning up the stream on a permanent basis, as that may draw attention. The tarp would only be used when I'm collecting water and then it would be folded up and hidden away till the next time. I gotta think more about this. I ordered the pump last week, so I should get it soon and test it out.
No problem. Burying a bucket would be the easiest bet as long as your stream isnt solid bedrock down below. Basically you would be making a sump pump well, in the stream to pump the water out of.