Ugly Dude Trimming Weed

The last two Seedman Lemon Auto-flower are in the short rows. I've moved them outside to finish flowering, freeing up the big tent for the four remaining Photo-period plants to have room for finishing their cycle. The Trichromes of the Lemon Auto-flower are "cloudy", over 50% of the Stigmas have turned brown on one of the plants. It is ready to harvest whenever. The other Lemon plant is a few days behind.

Trimming and inspecting Cannabis Plants:

Life is good. Coffee cup on the wall, sitting on one of the "shop made" stools, low 90's in the back garden, and a Cannabis plant almost ready to harvest.

This being an Autoflower plant grown in a crowded tent it will not be a heavy producer. I expect at the most a couple hundred grams per plant maybe 500g of dried flower from both plants, if I'm lucky.The good news is most of the buds are tight with few "popcorn" buds so most of the harvest will be usable for smoking.

BTW, have I mentioned how much I love living in the Desert. 

See you on down the road,

ken

Harvested Second Plant of Current Grow

 Harvested a Seedman Lemon Autoflower today. A really quick turn, potted Jan 19, 2022 and harvested March 20, 2022. If my math is correct that is 60 days from potting the seedling to harvest.

I did a whole plant harvest for a couple of reasons: First, I need the room in the big grow tent and second, most of this plant will go to tincture and gummies and the "popcorn" buds are fine for that use. From just looking at the plant hanging there is at least an oz or two of prime bud for smoking in addition to the popcorn buds. 

I'll let it hang there and dry for close to a week. Here in the desert it doesn't take long to dry 'em. After it is dry I'll cut and trim the buds, then put the trimmed buds in Mason jars to cure for several weeks before smoking. The popcorn buds will go straight to the Ardent for Decarboxylation and either oil infusion or Alcohol Tincture. 

Funny thing about growing Cannabis indoors, Less is more. To have more product, grow fewer plants in your tent at a time. Robert Bergman (ILGM) posted a chart showing the relationship between square footage of your tent, watts of light, number of plants and weight of flower produced. I wish I could remember where it was but the bottom line takeaway was grow fewer plants for more production.

I'm not totally sure why I grew so many plants this year other than I had several different genetics I wanted to give a go and ended up with twelve plants (the legal limit in AZ) spread between the two grow tents.

Ten plants to go with ten weeks left before leaving for Oregon. Six of the plants will be no problem, the four Photoperiod plants may run right up to the deadline. I was about a week or so late changing the big tent from a vegetation 18/6 hour light schedule to a flower schedule of 12/12.

Whatever, with or without the four Photoperiod plants I should harvest enough bud to keep me in weed until the next grow's harvest. I can't ask for more.

Some Notes on Equipment For Growing Cannabis Indoors

I'm going to ignore growing Cannabis outdoors in the Sun and build out grow rooms. This post is about setting up a "grow Tent". 

My AC Infinity 4'X4' tent:

Bad photograph but you can see one of the nice features of AC Infinity tents, the external mount for the ventilation controller on the upper right corner. Some of the advantages of having a tent are: The ability to seal out light if you grow photo-period plants. Photo-period plants need at least 11 to 12 hours of total darkness to flower. The inside surfaces of the tent are highly reflective maximizing the available light, and a tent with a ventilation fan can help control the temperature in the tent and smell of flowering Cannabis.

Everything you need to grow Marijuana indoors in a tent, except seeds or clones, is available from Amazon and is for the most part affordable. The major decisions are: Make and size of the tent, Type and power of the light source, ventilation and "smell" control.

As a rough estimate you need ~2sq feet of tent floor space per plant. A 2'X4' tent is good for four plants per grow a 4'X4' tent will hold up to eight plants. How tall depends on the genetics of your planned grows, 60" will work if you are growing mostly Autoflower plants and/or some of the smaller Indica plants but 80" is better. Vivosun makes a good inexpensive 4'X4' tent (~$145 USD), a step up is an AC Infinity 4'X4' tent (~$170 USD) or a Gorilla 4'X4' tent ($235 USD).

A 4'X4' tent needs a 6" or greater ventilation fan. A 2'X4' tent can get by with a 4" fan. AC Infinity makes good fans with a bluetooth digital controller, a 6" duct fan will cost about $150 USD. In addition, because flowering Marijuana can have a very strong smell, you may want a carbon filter at ~$70 and ducting ~$25 USD.  

Other than genetics, the two factors that most impact the quality and quantity of your grow are the lights and the size of your pot. The pot is pretty easy, bigger is better if it fits and fabric is better than hard wall. I like the Vivosun grow bags 5 gal minimum, 7 gal or 10 gal is better if you have room in the tent. Price for 5 Vivosun 10gal grow bags is ~$30 USD.

Lights are where it gets sticky. You can use MH, HPS, T-5, LED and I expect many others. As with most things in life there is no "best", only tradeoffs and "yes buts". LED lights have fewer "yes buts". LED lights also have the widest range of prices and while usually you pretty much get what you pay for it is not always true.

Vivosun lights are good and cheap, a little over $1 USD/watt. You need a minimum of 200 watts for a 2"X4' tent and 400 watts for a 4'X4' tent. Or you can go whole hog and go with California Lightworks SolarSystem 1100 with controller for just under $2000 USD and never worry there is something better.  

Local Tucson, AZ retail price of Cannabis is $250 USD to $300 USD per oz. The amount of time and effort to take a plant from seed to harvest is pretty much the same if the plant produces 2oz. of flower or 16oz. Genetics aside, the difference between a 2oz. harvest and a 16oz. harvest is the quality and amount of available light with input from the nutrients and grow pot size. I'm sure a better mathematician than I could figure out the sweet spot cost/benefit between the cost of light and power vs. flower produced.  As a non-commercial grower all I'm interested in is can I produce enough weed from the legal number of plants to last from one harvest to the next.

I hope this helps,

ken   

Seeds on Hand

 The 2022 season grow is in the short rows with plants maturing almost weekly until we leave Tucson for the Summer on Memorial Day May 30th. Our planned return is the first week of October.  

Some of the reasons for the staggered harvest this year, the maturing of the plants over a couple of months, are the mix of Photo-period and Auto flower genetics, the different Sativa/Indica mix of the hybrid plants, and some of Auto Flower plants were started before the Houston holiday trip and some after.  There were no "Land Race" plants grown this season.

Next years grow will be a little different in I expect to have a small outdoor grow to go along with the indoor plants. Because some of the plants will be sprouted while in Oregon I need the seeds in hand before we leave Tucson. 

My current seed inventory:

    Photo-period:

        6 Blueberry

        10 Amnesia Fast

        10 Peyote Gorilla

        10 Durban Poison (Sativa Land Race)

        10 Banana Kush     

        10 Sour Diesel

 Auto Flower:

        10 Lemon Haze

My plans for the 2023 grow are four plants outdoors, two Durban Poison and two Sour Diesel. I have no experience with either but both are reported to be heat tolerant. I expect to find out if that is true. I will also grow both a Durban Poison and a Sour Diesel in the large tent as a control to see which is better indoor or out. Some combination of the other Photo-period plants will fill out the rest of the large tent. The small tent is for Auto Flower plants, the Lemon Haze seeds will work. 

See you on down the road,

ken

              

  

Pi Day

 Mincemeat:

 Waiting for it to cool,

ken

Stigmas Changing

 Two of the Seedman Lemon plants are approaching harvest time, best guess is in a couple of weeks. The Trichomes are mostly cloudy (you can't see in this photo) and the Stigmas are changing from white to brown which you can see if you "click 'em to big 'em".

Once most (over ~90%) of the Stigmas turn brown and ~10% to 20% of the Trichomes have also turned from cloudy to brown the Cannabis plant will be near peek THC and the plant is ready to harvest. Because the grow tent is near full The two Lemon plants will be a total harvest with the plant cut down and hung to dry. That will allow room for the remaining plants to be harvested a cola at a time as they mature if I wish. Although with the time constraint of leaving for Oregon the last week of May all the remaining plants will likely be cut down whole as the main cola matures to allow time to dry and finish processing before we go.

The Lemon plants were potted Jan 19th and started flowering  Feb 17, at the time I estimated harvest the first week in April. That time frame should be close.  

Product of First Harvest 2022

 On December 10th, 2021 I potted the first plants of what will be the 2022 grow, Three White Window Photo, One Wedding Cake Photo, and one Gorilla Cookie Auto. Only later did I realize that four of the plants were Photoperiod. 

Because we spend the hot months on the Oregon Coast I'm usually under time constants and when I don't screw the pooch and fuck up most of my short grows will be Autoflower genetics. I give up some production for faster maturing plants. I really did screw up this year because we spent seven months in Oregon instead of the normal four and I potted four Photoperiod plants. I may end up having to harvest the photoperiod plants early or leave them for a friend to harvest. It will be down to the wire.

The Gorilla Cookie Auto plant got "stressed" and went into early (even for an Auto plant) flower. By harvest on 02/16/2022 the plant was small and only yielded 54g of flower. Not much yield but it made 200/~5mg oil infusion gummies,  200/~10mg tincture gummies, 20g of bud soaking to make tincture, and 4g to smoke.

 The reason the buds are brown is I decarbed all the flower from the Gorilla Cookie plant. Even with the short cure and decarb the smoke was very smooth and effective.

The three Seedman Lemon Auto potted 01/14/2022 are approaching late flower and will be the next to harvest around the 1st of April. 

Later,

ken

 

AZ Cannabis Law

 AZ allows six growing plants per adult in a household. My 2022 grow currently has twelve plants in the flower stage, six for me and six for MsBubba.  Our main grow tent is 4'X4' with an overflow 2'X4' tent. The lights are LED, two 300 watt Platinum brand and two 100 watt Vivosun lamps. The Platinum lights are in the 4'X4' tent and the Vivosun's are in the 2'X4'overflow tent.

The main tent just before moving four of the plants to the overflow tent:

 

Included in this grow are three WhiteWindow photo, one WeddingCake photo, three JackHerer auto, two SeedmanLemon  auto, and three OGKush auto,  Because the WhiteWindow and WeddingCake are photo-period plants the main tent is on a 12/12 hour light/dark schedule. The overflow tent has all auto plants so it is on a 18/6 light/dark schedule. 

My best guess is the Seedman Lemon will be ready to harvest the first week of April, followed by the three OG Kush and Jack Herer near the first of May. The White Window and Wedding Cake will push right up to our departure for Oregon the last week of May and may need to be harvested early or left behind for a friend to harvest.

While some of the flower will be dried and cured for smoking bud, most will be used to make Tincture. Tincture has several advantages over smoke, in a dark bottle and kept in the freezer it has an almost unlimited shelf life and it is ready to make gummies when needed or can be used directly. Both Tincture and gummies work well and do not require inhaling smoke. Used together a Tincture high can be almost as fast as smoking and a gummies high will last longer than smoking, kinda the best of all worlds.

BTW, I'm already planning my 2023 grow. My current thinking is a three plant Durban Poison (Sativa Land Race) outdoor grow with a nine plant tent grow. The tent grow will be all Photo-period unless there is a time constraint on the grow and the shorter cycle time of autoflower plants is needed... 

See you on down the road,

ken

 

First 2022 Harvest

The initial five plant 2022 grow was potted on 12/10/2021. Because we were booked to visit the kids in Houston over the holidays I had to rely on friends to care for the plants during early vegetation. Early vegetation is critical for plant size and production. The plants did well until just before we returned to Tucson on 01/10/2022. They got a little dry at the end and the Gorilla Cookies plant was "stressed" enough to go to early flower. Because of that early "flower" it is ready to harvest much before the other plants. The other four plants, three White Window and one Wedding Cake, entered flowering on 02/10/2022 and should be ready to harvest last of March early April. While they are a little small, I expect when they are ready for harvest the amount of flower will be close to normal for indoor grown autoflower Cannabis.

In spite of the plant being small when all is harvested and dried there should be over 30g of flower. 

If you "click 'em to big 'em" you can see most of the Stigmas have turned brown and the Trichomes on the Buds and Sugar leaves are cloudy with some turning brown. You can tell from the thin Fan leaves this is a mostly Sativa plant. If Indica genetics were dominate the Fan Leaves would be much wider. BTW, this sucker is ready to harvest.

Once the plant is cut down today it will hang for a week or two to dry. after drying the buds will be cut and trimmed of extra leaves then placed in sealed "Mason" jars to cure. If smoking is the final use the buds will need several weeks of curing to develop taste and smoothness. For tinctures and eatables once dry the flower/bud is ready for decarboxylation to activate the THC so it is psychoactive and usable as an eatable.

Because Cannabis plants produce so much flower I will give the stems and "trim" to a friend who uses it to make very good Marijuana "Brownies" just like in the "old" days.

ken

 

Introduction Post

I spent most of the late 60's and early 70's at the University of Houston's school of Economics. It was a life changing time for this dumb old West Texas farm boy, one that I still live. I went from a Goldwater Republican to somewhere left of Bernie. In the process I was introduced to weed, reintroduced to my family's progressive roots and became, at least to my mind, a much better person. I expect I'm one of the few old hippies that still keeps the faith. 

With Reagan and the war on drugs, drug testing was established for many occupations such as flying for hire. That ended my use of marijuana, not a big deal, beer and whisky work almost as well but without the health benefits. With booze, as long as you stopped drinking eight or so hours before the next flight you could pass any of the drug tests. You might be "hung over" and suffering the after effects but you were "legal". Pissing in a bottle became part of the pilots life but every time I did it I felt violated, and was. My last year at Flight Safety I was "random" tested four times.

One of the first things I did after retirement was smoke a joint. Damn it felt good just to know it was legal and no one could require me to piss in a bottle. 

Marijuana is now legal in most of the Western United States. I'm not familiar with all the rules but here in Arizona I can have six mature plants plus six more for MsBubba. Last year I grew 4 plants and I have had flower, tenures, and gummies from that "grow" for the whole year. This year I'm growing seven plants, six I started before we went to Houston one did not live, three more were started once we were back, two germinated . Of those started, the current seven are growing, forgive me :-), like weeds.

 

 

A couple of things about Marijuana, it is almost as enjoyable to grow as it is to use. The other is it's health benefits. I've had a couple of dislocated bones in my right foot for close to three years that make it painful to walk and causes me to limp which leads to other problems. To fix the bones requires surgery and no weight on the foot for three months, the surgery can be done, the no weight for three month is a deal killer. Since retirement and use of gummies I can walk without limping or pain in my right foot.  When I lace up my hiking boots I invariably think of Peter Sellers' last scene in "Dr. Strangelove". 

See you on down the road,

ken