New Grower Bay Area Backyard Grow Take TWO :D

[sapphire420]

I LOVE Family Guy - Quagmire is a RIOT!! And about the names, I know right - Haze-l just screamed at me, obviously... LOL It is SO much easier to reference them now though truly, and a side benefit is that since a few of them are my friends' names I'll be able to say things like "Pamela's getting PHAT!" and we ladies can crack up... Good times... :booya:

I have to say, overall I AM feeling better about yield... I have a goal per-plant-average that I'm shooting for, but time will tell if I'll reach it. Steep Hill Labs is local in the Bay Area, in Oakland! I'm definitely planning to have some testing done, not sure how much yet, but I'm familiar with seeing the "scores" for flowers and concentrates at the dispensaries... I remember a few years ago when 20% THC was considered high, I'm not sure what they are doing to get it so much higher now but I also enjoy taking a mind trip for an hour while outwardly appearing catatonic and staring at the wall. :eatmydragon: I can spend afternoons on the deck in the summer gazing at the garden for hours that way. I can't WAIT for the weather to be a little more consistently warm!

I'm going to get my photo thread started sometime later today, I hope, now that I can see how things are sorting out... So much drama... :roflcry:

Hope you all are having a great day!

 

[Waira]

Heh heh! Alll-riiiight!

I LOVE Family Guy

Oh that is rich! Me too, at least the older stuff; the last couple seasons are lacking, period...Sadly, I think it's time for them to wrap that show up..... ********* You'll get plenty of goodness off your 'honey bunch'! I think you'll hardly have made a dent in your stash before the photo queens come down Yeah, Steep Hill is where I got the better testing quote from as well,... and no doubt, anything in the 20+percentile is still considered "premium", and just plain fierce strong; the only thing I see that moderates the THC intensity is a higher that usual CBD %; honestly, from what I've tried, when CBD gets over 2% I feel it starts anti-synergistic effects on the THC, flattening out the 'soar' in the high. One of my favorites for aroma and flavor is the so called Green Crack (or - Dragon), often very potent, but also often has 2+% CBD, which I feel takes away something from this strain, so I don't get it very often, as much as a flavor/aroma slut as I am,... I agree with what notable MJ people say about MJ's potency these days: Mj is not an stronger now that it was back in the late '60's and '70's; many of the founding Mother super strains, like skunk #1, haze, thai, were well known and established then by various seed banks and the like; I think what has changed is the how more common it is to find such high potency strains, and ease of access to it.... I read that Indica var. were very uncommon back in the day as well, coming to the forefront only after all these breeders started gathering quality genetics form around the world to use in hybridizing. Some of the oldest land race types are still the best, I can attest! I grew that one Pure Afghani from a single lucky seed last year, and while it's not 'premium', it's plenty strong, and has a wonderful unique high to it, and ditto for the flavor/aromatics... I'm still nursing the last several grams of it :smoke: Oh yeah, here's a link to a great article on potency https://www.autoflower.org/f41/potency-widely-misunderstood-concept-20600.html More on this later, luv...! I'm off to work.... :joint:

 

[Captain Howdy]

Tag, your it!!

 

[A4]

 

[sapphire420]

Goooood Monday morning to you all... Coffee's on :cough:, box vape is warming up , and I have pics of my girls from yesterday!

Pretty sure this is day 54...

So we have my little babe Hazel front left, MamaBlue center rear, Julie front right. Hazel is clearly a different pheno from the other two. Wow, not the best pic I've ever taken, eh? Well anyway, I took some heights - Julie is 20 in, Mama is 19, and Hazel is a very squatty 10 inches. LOVE her tho! Haze 2.0

Here are Jessica and Charlotte filling out a little. Not a huge difference in the 5 days between pics (and weird angles...) but I'm so pleased with them!! Jessica is also 20 in, Charlotte is 14 in. Orig Amnesia

True story - Anne and Ayesha are two of my slimmest friends... And their namesakes are so PHAT!!! :roflcry: And they stink!! Anne is 19 or 20" Afghan Kush Ryder

Here are Pamela on the left, Princess right rear & their mutant little sister Sarah front right. Princess is the tallest of the autos at 21". They smell so fruity and delicious already! Pineapple Express

They look taller to me (esp. in photos) than they really are - I was shocked they aren't even 2 feet!

My friends in Denmark who grow autos indoors told me they should have told me to trim the extra branches from the lower part of the plant before they started flowering, so more energy goes toward the top, main cola and buds. I'm not sure I would have cut branches from my first grow here, but I DID do some clean-up of the mini-budlets growing along the branches for the same purpose. You can see best on Pamela from the pics I posted.

That's something we haven't talked about much here, but I have a friend that works for a commercial grower (why I grow in smart pots now!), and part of her job is trimming the little buds from the lower branches. I remember trimming last year and being frustrated with all the little "popcorn buds" that grow along the branches - too small to trim and with so much bud available I wasn't going to smoke those little things. I ended up tossing them in with the trim and using them for edibles.

I haven't seen much around here about trimming those buds off, at least in the threads I've visited. I DO notice that all the BOM pics seem to have bare stalks with pom-pom buds on top, so probably folks are doing it. Good strategy to get larger buds on top!

Gonna be a GORGEOUS day here in the Bay Area... My husband is off to go crabbing on the coast. Last week he caught two, and on the ride home in the cooler, the larger one removed a leg of the smaller one... :jaw: Nature is brutal, man, but deeeeelicious! :twist: :thumbs:

Hope you all have a marvelous day, catchya later!
:group:
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[A4]

That's something we haven't talked about much here, but I have a friend that works for a commercial grower (why I grow in smart pots now!), and part of her job is trimming the little buds from the lower branches. I remember trimming last year and being frustrated with all the little "popcorn buds" that grow along the branches - too small to trim and with so much bud available I wasn't going to smoke those little things. I ended up tossing them in with the trim and using them for edibles.

I save all of mine for hash but edibles work as well. Waste not, want not.

 

[Waira]

Gooood eeeevening, Mrs. S' I trust you had a nice toasty day up there? It was just right down here, with the usual ocean breeze,... typical! Things are coming along rather nicely, luv! Great job :five: I really like how they're holding their forms, reached good heights (LOL! mostly,.. Hazel looks like some of my fire hydrant crew! They're almost unrecognizable as pot plants, huh!), and building up juicy goodness! These next few weeks they should all blow up like inflatables Fun fun fun!! **** LOL! tell me, do your skinny A's know that their green twins are squat and stanky?! You know, I kinda spaced on the fact that Sarah is in fact a Siamese twin,... shouldn't she have a second name, maybe,..? :brow: **** Observing how the aromas develop is one of the best parts! When the trichomes start forming, the aromatics start to intensify and become distinct... I'm getting some of that on my girls now too,.. the runty Red Dwarf with the skinnier build is maturing fastest of all now, and smells wonderful already,... Height is deceiving, huh! Pics don't help either, unless you have something to scale them by... **** How cool to have friends that are pro's, Sapphire! You must be bending their ears clean over! :smoke: And of course they're spot on about the 'judicious' pruning,... I thinks it's something of a Bonsai skill, depending on the strain, and the individual plant. I know some of the auto breeders recommend this on certain strains as well... I think I can see on some of mine where it might have been beneficial, but like you, I didn't want to mess with things with so many unknowns about the grow... I'm positive some folks here do this, maybe just don't say it; certainly the pre-harv' porn shot usually have the scruff trimmed away, just to emphasize those chunky tops!..... ****Smart pots! I wanted to ask you how they compare for water loss vs. reg's; do they dry up faster in the smart pots? They get recommended to me often, and your pro' posse says :thumbs:, so I think I'll check'm out next time I'm at the 'shop' ... **** So, did you have a lovely fresh crab dinner? LOL! your comment made think of this great bumper sticker I saw once: 'I love animals!.... they are delicious!!' It's so wrong, yet so true! :twist: Anyway, there's a response for you at my thread too,... :buds: 'Night,.......

 

[sapphire420]

Hey waira! :smokebuds:

Yeah, the ladies are plumping right up - looking forward to that "inflation" period! It IS funny how Hazel and her Cobra twin in your yard barely look like weed... :dance2:

I'll tell you what, my friend lives in So. Oregon, and they grow mass quantities outdoors there. She has been working for growers (commercial and uh, not... LOL) for years. Last year one of them grew in 200 gal (YEP) smart pots and grew what looked like small fruit trees! HUGE trunks, bare for 2 or 3 feet up then bushing out - they get so big that every week or two they added more netting to hold the branches up. It's a really cool gig to have, obviously! When she feeds she prepares the solution in huge troughs... And she also does pruning and other caretaking while they are growing, and when it's time to trim - she's busy for 4 months - takes home a 1/2 lb at a time. One of the drawbacks to that kind of business (besides no healthcare LOL) is that you get paid when the harvest is sold. Last year there was SOOOO much weed in her area that the price bottomed out so she got a little screwed - along with everyone else...

So about Smart Pots - yes, they definitely dry out MUCH sooner than regular pots. The fabric is breathable I guess, and wind makes them dry out even more. More watering, but fewer drowning/overwatering issues from that aspect. But it's all about the air pruning and superior root development with Smart Pots...

Hubby only got 1 crab this time, I think we're eating it tonight... It's funny about food - I lean toward eating vegetarian mostly because I'm just super-picky about gristle and tendons and crap that freaks me out, but I was never able to give up BACON!! hahahahah!!

I'm going to post some pics and then head over to your thread! Have a great one!
:booya:

 

[sapphire420]

Couple of pics and a question for you all today...

Here is a shot of the garden, not all the girls in it but I like watching the view change over time!

Here are a few tops just to get something posted for later comparison



Julie (haze) Charlotte (amnesia and feeling fiesty and not posting upright! hahaha) and Ayesha (AKR)

Do you all see how the leaves are kind of folding up a bit? I have looked and looked and I believe it's due to low humidity here, rather than a deficiency of some kind. However I'd be foolish not to ask all the experts here to make sure there isn't something else the ladies need.

Ayesha's pistils are already turning a peachy color! :thumbs:

What do you all think about the folding leaves?

:group:

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[gradolabs]

You should be fine - what are the high and low temps though, along with RH? I needs a weathr ripoort!