Narnia Grow - The Lights, the Weed and the Wardrobe

[lordjin]

Thanks! We've got some new shots coming soon. Did a bunch of trimming and sacrificed some of the smaller branches for the cause. It was so depressing to cut off so many small branches, but, by now, if they aren't showing pistils, Then they go. Did a bunch of trimming to the canopy to let more light in. It seems that we're trimming about the same mass of plant material every big trim, so it's a little hard to keep up with...


LARGE pic update later tonight. Stay tuned! Some of these buds are looking mighty tasty. The doub/trip/quad tops that we have are incredible!

I totally know what you mean about pruning. No matter how many times you do it, it always kind of hurts, but you gotta do what you gotta do for the sake of the yield. With certain strains, I found myself pruning several shopping bags full of leaves throughout the flower cycle. I've found that more pruning is required with plants started from seed than clones, though (for me anyway). These current Diablo OGK clones I'm working with have shown me something I've never seen before. These clones are actually 'smart plants' or 'self-pruning' plants. As soon as I started with the flowering mix of nutes, they started shedding their weaker lower leaves on their own, diverting energy to the development of buds. I noticed many of the small leaves hidden in the shade of the plant just fell off or came off with a very light tug. The bud to leaf ratio is excellent so there really isn't that much shading foliage to contend with, but with the leaf-shedding this plant does, pruning has been next to non-existent thus far.

I could tell as soon as I got them that they were of a high quality, but watching them mature and do this 'smart plant' routine is starting to make me think that these clones came from a highly engineered mother plant. I think this is what they mean by 'designer marijuana.' Really amazing. I can't wait to smoke the stuff...but let's get through ripening first.

Anyway, enough about me. I can hardly wait to see your next update. And I can hardly wait to post mine.

Peace and love.

 

[Snickerdoodle]

Today was the big water/nute day, so we decided to give a few spotlight pictures of the girls while they were out of the box. We decided that it was time to stop the Veg nutes, so hopefully they'll focus on the important stuff, and less of the little branches.

Here they are in the tub.

This is MTF

AFG-A

AFG-B

AFG-S

MK-A

MK-B

Cali

This is our giant clone next to her momma Cali

BE

And here's some overviews and budporn.

Hey look! A threesome!

Hope you enjoyed the post. Today was exhausting, and I'm glad it's over. Unfortunately it has to be done in another 4-5 days. We'll try to get some profile pics next time everyone is out of the box again. Maybe not as many next time. My husband went a little pic-crazy

 

[MomaPug]

The pictures are great...but I must say in person they are even more impressive!!

Was great to see you, hope we can get together again soon

 

[beastcore]

good shit bro, love the pics man, good job.

 

[Snickerdoodle]

The pictures are great...but I must say in person they are even more impressive!!

Was great to see you, hope we can get together again soon

Thanks! I tend to think the pictures don't do them justice either. I'm glad you're impressed! That means we're finally doing things right, lol! I'm sure there's still things we can do better, but the girls are thriving, and that's what matters. Though we won't really know till harvest time, but so far I'm impressed with the rate of bud formation. 4 days ago we had next to nothing. Now it's bud-tastic

It was good to see you two too! We'll have to get together and BBQ or something now that the weather is starting to not suck!


So I have some more pictures to share. We did our first flower fert yesterday. We use Techna-flora btw, not sure if I mentioned that or not... It was cheap and got us going quick. We've stuck with it because it's easy to use and we haven't had any issues yet. We've even triple dosed with no problems, lol. A little bit of variegated leaves and twisting with MK, but nothing substantial enough to cause them real harm.

So, we noticed last night that Cali's preflowers are starting to orange up. The hue is off, it's more of a neon orange, but you get the idea. Living up to the Orange part of her name

We also noticed that the Matanuska is starting to orange up a bit

As well as this one, I'm pretty sure that's Brain's escape

And on with the obligatory bud porn =)


On of the MK Ultra girls

More of Cali Orange. I thought it looked like boobies, but I'm a pervert, lol

bud, bud everywhere. and not a bit to smoke..... yet!
Brainey

One of our afghooey girls, either A or B... not sure which, lol and it's ni-nite time for the girls so we'll just have to go with that.

This is our Dutch Passion Purple #1 seedling. She's not looking much like a seedling anymore. Low stress training from the get-go with her. She's taking it well and pushing up tops like mad. I'm worried she's going to be ready before we are and we might have to top her Though I'm sure we could find a home for some Purple babies *wink wink*

top view:

"TOP" view

And our Dutch Passion Orange Bud seedling... again not much of a seedling. They were both popped about the same time. More twisty twisty. If my research is right, this is a later, more potent version of our Cali Orange. Should be fun!

That's all for tonight. Might have to post some more bud porn tomorrow depending on how everything looks. They change so fast after feeding!

out, sleep well

 

[lordjin]

You're a real wizard...I mean sorceress? I don't want want to call you a witch. But if you are, you're probably a good witch who is fair and not foul...Lol.

But no, seriously, you're pretty handy with the plants. That's why I shudder to think what someone like you could do with hydro. I need to review your journal, but would love to know the actual dimensions and material (i think it's wood?) of your box. I'm sure whatever it is, you could make some minor adjustments and prep it for a low-pro hydro setup. I would love to assist you guys in the move to the water growing. I'm not as 'severely' expert as some of the other guys here, but I know a thing or two and can give you a jumpstart to bypass a lot of the early mistakes beginners (myself included) make. It's really a basic principle, and once you get a handle on it, you'll probably end up giving me advice.

Honestly, I'm not here to say that one method is better than another. The soil masters here are unbelievable and I know not a thing about growing in soil. But what I'm absolutely convinced of is the speed and vigor of hydro over soil. The plants grow faster, bigger, and more lush in a properly maintained hydro setup. Period. I know, I know the insane soil geniuses will argue different points about end quality and such, but even they cannot dispute that hydro is turbo and jumbo. Sometimes I think soil peeps have the patience of a saint. Remember, hydro means bigger, faster, and more precise control over your plants. I know someone like you will appreciate fully the depth of the plant science involved. I want to see you do it.

But don't get me wrong either. I love the nuances of a well controlled soil grow (again something I know next to nothing about), and I'm enjoying your lovely grow.

 

[Snickerdoodle]

LOL I don't know about that. I've had my fuckups too! Our first grow was full of newb mistakes. This is our second. What can I say, I learn fast That and I'm a nurturer by nature We still fuck up from time to time, but it's definitely a learn as you go thing. It's definitely not all me either. I would never be this far without my husbands help and advise. He works full time and I'm unemployed so I have more time to spend than he does for the moment. Though it seems that might flop in the somewhat near future! We make a good team!

I'll take some measurements of my box for you. It's a wood tv cabinet that we converted. It's funny you say that, because we bounced around the idea of hydro at the beginning. Then I read something that if the power goes out you can loose your plants in hours and got all scared and was like oh hells no! We're not growing these plants for months just to loose them in hours. I'm a worry wart though and I fret about everything. We're currently playing with hydro for our first time with a bubble cloner. Unfortunately I can't find my ph meter so I'm really stressing about that. I've got some ph strips, but I'm still not really certain they're accurate. I should have gone with a better ph meter too... mine is an aquarium one that needs to be calibrated almost every time I use it. It tried to tell me my water was a ph 12 once

We do want to experiment with hydro but the timing is just not good for us right now to convert. We can't really afford to throw much more cash into our grow until we're not having to buy every week. Plus we've got our clone box under our main box now (I'll take some pictures and upload them sometime later) and spilled water could end up in disaster! I currently take them out for watering.

We do have a bubble disk and a plastic coffee can that my hubby wants to mess with, so it is in the plans! I had to order some stuff from petmountain and added a few hydro necessities to get up to my free shipping BTW if you've never used petmountain, I highly recommend them, best prices anywhere! We use the digital reptile thermometers for our grow. They're like $6 and they have a waterproof probe. They had good prices on bubble stones, adapters and hoses too. Yay sleek black tubing! I also got a huge thing of activated charcoal for smells. Which reminds me, the inline fan came today! YAY! So we'll get to mount that this weekend. Which is good because a few of the girls are really staring to create a stink! As much as I want to smell it, I don't want the neighbors to! Working on my carbon scrubber today. It's based on this one but instead of two pencil cups, I've got a pencil cup and a solo cup basically turned into a screen pot.

I don't know when we'll be ready to switch over to hydro but I'm happy to take some advise from someone who's already gone through the trials and tribulations. Maybe you can convince me! And I'm sure my husband would love to pick your brain He's dying to go hydro!

Maybe I'll get around to some pics later

 

[lordjin]

Have plastic coffee can and bubbler, will travel. A small starter project is def a good idea to get your feet wet (but not your floors hopefully). And about the power, yeah... an outage would be a problem. I had an outage a couple of grows ago. It was off for a few hours...and yeah, I FREAKED!!! Luckily the plants that grow in my box are pretty difficult to hurt let alone kill. They didn't even seem to notice the outage.

Sounds like you have things pretty well sorted. I'm very interested to see how things go for you this time.

 

[Snickerdoodle]

We plan to leave some space in our next flower cycle to accommodate a 1 gal DWC. We should have different finishing times for our girls, but that comes with having 6 different strains. The Afgoos are rumored to be a bit on the slower side. So far they're our slowest to bud up. Though they are gooing up nicely! The last afgoo we had was harvested with cloudy trichs. I'm interested in seeing what kind of punch she'll pack with amber trichs!

Picture update in the morning with todays pics. Maybe double update tomorrow (today.... ugh!) Now it's Fullmetal Alchemist time, then off to bed. Happy Medicating!

 

[Nikolaj06]

Wow I love all those pictures! Very nice keep it up, Subbed!

 

[lordjin]

We plan to leave some space in our next flower cycle to accommodate a 1 gal DWC. We should have different finishing times for our girls, but that comes with having 6 different strains. The Afgoos are rumored to be a bit on the slower side. So far they're our slowest to bud up. Though they are gooing up nicely! The last afgoo we had was harvested with cloudy trichs. I'm interested in seeing what kind of punch she'll pack with amber trichs!

Picture update in the morning with todays pics. Maybe double update tomorrow (today.... ugh!) Now it's Fullmetal Alchemist time, then off to bed. Happy Medicating!

Full Metal Alchemist? Am I talking to an Otaku? I've been practicing some nerdy tendencies myself lately. Most notably, I've been glued to my computer playing all my favorite console and arcade games on emulators. I've been particularly addicted to this classis arcade shooter called Parodius

http://hardcoregaming101.net/parodius/parodius.htm

In addition to that, I've been frequenting my local Hello Kitty store. Yesterday I bought a pink solar-powered dancing monkey toy for one of my female co-workers and she turned just as pink as the monkey when I gave it to her. So cute!

A one gallon DWC, huh? Cool, cool. You'll dig the concept of growing without earth. A whole 'nother world of cultivation awaits. It'll be cool to see the side by side difference between water and soil development.

As far as harvesting, I've chopped at all trich stages and have this to report:

All cloudy and just a few or no amber: I've found that bud harvested at this stage is very 'speedy.' I find myself totally awake and I have to watch that I'm not being overly friendly and talkative to friends and strangers alike...Lol. Not good for sleeping, but smoke enough of it and you will pass out at some point.

Mostly Amber: The bud has ripened too long imo. The high from bud harvested at this stage produces the heavy stone that glues you to your favorite chair. I love this feeling, but it's not always the most practical if you have to get up out of bed every day and function in society.

Mostly cloudy and just peppered with amber: This is my favorite time to chop. The bud harvested at this stage will exhibit the best qualities of the above stages. Energetic flows through head and body, still able to walk around and talk, but floating around on a cloud. Sleep is easy and I'm often still high when I wake up.

 

[Snickerdoodle]

Happy Friday!! Who cares if it's the 13th. It's a freaking Friday and that's the important part. I like Fridays! It means the hubby gets to help me more with the girls. This weekends project: installing our inline fan that came yesterday, and home made carbon scrubber.

The carbon filter was super easy to do. I made mine based on this guys design. I was going to use a solo cup but it turned out to be too flimsy to hold up to the carbon, so now I've got a netted pot to try out

I ended up sacrificing a Slurpee cup instead

It did the trick

Here's my finished filter.

We're going to mount it above our box in the top of the alcove in the corner. There's a false wall at the top 12-15 inches or so for some reason. It should fit nicely. If it's too noisy we should be able to install some sound proofing up there. Hopefully the landlord doesn't need to come into my bedroom (he hasn't in the many years we've lived here). We're a bit past stealth now.

Though .... I suppose I could always install a curtain over it and pretend it was a closet.... might work. I'll try to take some pics once we have it installed so you can see what I mean. Installing involves taking out all our plants and pulling the box out of the alcove, which means flipping the bed up and out of the way, etc etc.... A lot of work

I'm going to separate the rest into another post. I don't care if it's double posting, this is my journal and I don't want too many pics on each page lol. My posts tend to be pic heavy. That and I'm long winded today

 

[Snickerdoodle]

Full Metal Alchemist? Am I talking to an Otaku?

ROFL Not exactly. That probably sounded way geekier than it should have, but I do love Fullmetal Alchemist! The story is great! I'm a big fan of a few other animes, but I'm not a manga loving, super crazy, japanime fan (is that even a word). I do enjoy a good non-alien hentai though. And that's totally geeky I think my geek really shows best in my love for documentaries though. I will sit through a documentary, no matter how monotone, just for the info and awesome b-roll film. I love history and nature! How's that for geeky?

I haven't done much for gaming lately. My hubby got Portal 2 for his birthday and we've played the coop mode together, but I somehow find that I just don't have time for gaming much anymore.

So, here is a picture of our grow box. It's not the prettiest thing, but it serves our purpose. It fits our space almost perfect. We have a little alcove in our room where the fireplace is downstairs. We hunted for weeks trying to find something to fit. This was perfect within a few inches in each direction. And I was even able to double stack Goodwill coupons for a total of something like 45% off.... yay!! I like being thrifty

And because you asked, Lordjin, the measurements of the actual grow space, as of right now are 32 h x 32 w x 20 d... the space goes up to 45 inches high but we need to take into account 2 inches or so for cords on top as well as 5 inches or so for our light mounts etc. Yay for being able to raise and lower lighting! We plan for this to be our flower chamber going forward.

Our "veg chamber" is our original wardrobe grow box. It measures 33 h x 14 w x 19 d.

and our lower space left side space on the main box is currently a cloning chamber. We've got some Pez, Sour Diesel and NYC Diesel cuttings that were tossed our way that we're testing the bubble cloner out on. This area will likely become a veg overflow as our current babies get too big It depends on how soon we're able to harvest some of our big girls. The right is storage. All sorts of good stuff in there!

 

[MomaPug]

I am looking forward to your cloning results..... knowing how those babies do soil rooting, I am excited to see the comparison.

They are looking great, all that nurturing will pay off

 

[Snickerdoodle]

And now for a spotlight on the ladies -

Cali looking plump! If you look close you can see her orange peeking out. I have a feeling she's going to be a sight once all of her pistils start to change color!

Afgooey, gooing up! yum yum! I find it difficult to resist the urge to lick her!

Matanuska: She's pouting because she's under watered and overfed. She's already looking happier today. She's over sensitive. Silly Alaskan native. She doesn't like it too hot either. I think next time we fertilize I'm going to water hers down a bit and see if she doesn't droop a bit less. Improve as I go!!

top, top, top, top, top,

Brain's Escape: I love the way she grows. She's like a little cyclone of tops lol

this is one branch

Box overview!!

Heres left side

And right

I think I'll update again before bed. I feel the urge to overload whoever's watching with pictures today!!

 

[ChairmanMaow]

Honestly, Lordjin, the anime is my fault. I'm a big fan of cartoons, and the fact that they're made for older generations is what makes them so awesome! (total nerd here)

It looks like my wife has posted all the information and pictures, so enjoy them!

I didn't have much to say, I was just looking to see if I had an account! Looks like I do

 

[Snickerdoodle]

Honestly, Lordjin, the anime is my fault. I'm a big fan of cartoons, and the fact that they're made for older generations is what makes them so awesome! (total nerd here)

It looks like my wife has posted all the information and pictures, so enjoy them!

I didn't have much to say, I was just looking to see if I had an account! Looks like I do

Oh hi!

 

[MomaPug]

Don't be too upset with the MTF.....that's how she got the nickname "Curly" there is no pleasing her...but she will still give you nice rewards for trying. So different in taste and effect that it's worth struggling along with her "prissy" ways

 

[Snickerdoodle]

I'm not upset with her yet. She's still growing okay. She's obviously unhappy though. I call it her "pout". She's definitely still pouty today, just not as bad as yesterday. I figure it's just a matter of dialing her in. With as often as she wants water, I think I can play with it a bit to see if I can appease this princess


lol

BTW, Mamapug, are you doing a journal yet?

 

[MomaPug]

No, haven't posted a journal yet. Started chopping down on Mother's day and will be continuing through this next week.... I don't mind the staggered timeline that comes with too many varieties, it's hard to trim the girls all at once!!

We are picking and choosing for the next round, need to do some topping and repotting...then have to give them some time to recover from the stress of having been in dixie cups "in waiting" for too long. I can't start from seed to finish, but may start posting when we get them lined up for the 12/12 swap.

I also have three new seeds vegging for next round...it's always exciting to try and new strain!! Barney's Laughing Buddha, Barney's Acapulco Gold and a Dutch Passion Blueberry.

I wish you the best with dialing in the MTF, we were never able to totally please her...she was always a little "pouter"