saint0192
Active Member
I said a quick 'hi' in the introduce yourself post, but didn't formally introduce myself yet. Anyway, I started writing a quick reminiscing post somewhwere else and it turned into this... Some laughs and a lot of memories... As well as an introduction to me 
So I was looking at the photocopied image of the Polaroid picture of an old grow I kept - image below, So I blew that picture up big tonight to gauge if it was my first full soil grow from very good bag seed - I'm pretty sure it was. It was a Polaroid Instant camera, and while it's faded and the colors are off, it still looks decent.
That first crop was the beginning of a love affair with growing... It was a pretty auspicious start though...
Those flowering plants all climbed into the light and burned to shit, that's why they're all the same height with no visible cola. The one in the back grew taller but not into the light, so I left it be and then it curled sideways and grew into the light, I ended up cutting it down to size later. It's bad to cut the top 6"-8" off flowering plants of that size, m'kay. The grow took way longer than expected to finish after I cut the tips down so they wouldn't catch fire. Before that I fought with white flies the entire veg cycle. I got Neem oil towards the end of the veg cycle and finally kicked the flies and I gave them a really good gentle sponge bath in my tub and put them back to work. I fertilized with an organic tea because I was a purist and wanted the best taste possible. My wife was very unhappy with the organic tea. When I opened the door you could smell it. All natural organic fertilizer tea. It smelled like someone had shit a turducken. Yum.
It was a terrible crop, like maybe an ounce of super fluffy air bud. It tasted very carrot-ey from probably not flushing well enough and/or drying too fast . I did worry once or twice if I was actually inhaling organic fertilizer directly because it tasted so bad, it was tough to take more than a few pulls from a pipe. I experimented with the oven and a food dehydrator to dry it quicker. What terrible ideas those were. Anyway, the taste was very off-putting and it was 100% my fault.
But it was strong. Really, really, strong. It had a good Sativa high. Like I said, once or twice I worried I was inhaling something dangerous like some new form of plant-based meth. LOL. No shit, I actually had a paranoid moment or two, and that never happens to me. But mostly it was amazing, fun, and energized, and creative for a good while from just a couple yucky hits. LOL. Anyway, it was that strong.
The original planting was a bunch of seeds, like 75 or 80% were male, and I got 2 females. I smoked the males. No go. The plants in the veg chamber were the survivors of a brutal "Highlander " (THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!) style cloning process for that first run to discover which length and thickness of stem, and how many leaves and what size, would survive best when carefully prepped with a crappy bottle of well-aged rooting powder from a local nursery. I remember buying that bottle and being slightly scared of what was in it because it looked old and it was filled with a chemical I didn't understand. I read stories about choline and polyploid strawberries. I was afraid I'd wake up with double thumbs or chemical burns on my hands. I washed my hands like I was having an OCD episode all the time because of that stuff and the organic tea. LOL. Anyway, I carefully prepped them and lovingly stuck them into vermiculite and perlite mix in a nursery tray in an upside down rubbermaid clear container with a deep white lid so I could add a little water directly into to regulate humidity. Because back then they were also the only things I could find locally, in a normal nursery or store.
Surprisingly, most of them survived for several days, good thing I slammed like 16 of them from 2 plants into a too small container very badly labeled with paper printer labels under actually very good fluorescent lighting and other conditions. That many clones right before flowering is also bad for yield on plants that size, m'kay. The labels got moist and ran, there was never any way to tell which was which after that first day. I guessed and re-labeled. I really did get most of it right from a lot of reading from an actual book, though, also the only thing I could find in a local book store. The loss of labeling haunted me a little. For the rest of the time I grew from those plant's clones, I always wondered if I ever had both plants or just one that survived. Ugh.
My final count was 5 or 6, IIRC, and they grew pretty well through the whole process, taking a few weeks to show roots and only showing a little stress the first couple of days. The ones that survived were the slightly bigger 3.5" to 4" branches pruned down with just 2 smaller leaves maybe 2"-2.5" each long and a tiny bud of growing tip between them that survived. The stems were almost woody, maybe 1/4" thick, and still mostly green. Into that clone crop I had also mixed in very thin/frail branches and some thicker woody ones, even barky ones, with bigger leaves, a few had 3 or 4 leaves or a couple small internode leaves, IIRC. They all died horrible deaths for various reasons in that gladiator pit.
Anyway, from that point forward clone selection was pretty precise and I didn't lose too many over the year and a half I kept that plant running. I always plucked 4 from each plant abut a week before flowering while I flushed them, and labeled well and kept the best of each type. They always looked remarkably similar, and tasted the same, and all of them from that second batch on had a hermie branch a few weeks into flowering. Neither of the mother plants had that happen, or maybe they did and I was too dumb and missed it. I was very green and still learning and mesmerized when I saw trichomes with my loupe, also locally sourced at a Rado Shack of all places. It was like a 20x or 30x IIRC. Not quite enough to tell if trichomes are cloudy, but great for looking at trichomes and drooling.
Anyway, I always just plucked the hermie branch and let the plant grow every time after that, and learned when to look for it and yank it quick. I got a slightly bigger yield for that second crop and had learned to flush-flush-flush and let them finish for a couple weeks to taste much better. I drove myself nuts taking so long to dry it. When it was getting close, after about 10 days or so, I remember I tried a pinch. It still had a little carrot-ey taste, I was mortified. I waited, terrified it was going to taste like shit again. It was awful. I contemplated just scrapping the whole grow and start over. ROFL.
A few days later, the taste was remarkably mellower, but still slightly veggie tasting. It was definitely sweeter. I let it go another few days. Total dry time was almost 3 weeks, IIRC. The final smoke, though still not a lot of quantity, and still quite fluffy, not dense, had a sweet taste that was amazing and the buds were super frosty. The reason I decided to keep growing those plants even though they were hermies, was the taste. I mean the strength was great, but that taste... I don't even remember the bag it came from tasting that sweet. Of course, every batch I worried I was gonna see a huge rush of male flowers and have to just dump it, but that taste... The taste from that plant was reminiscent of juicy fruit gum. There was very little of the acrid skunk smell or taste to it. I mean, it was weed, there is always a little of that, but the burst of fruit juicy taste was amazing.
Everyone who tried it recognized it as a fruity flavor, and the high remained remarkable crop after crop. My favorite type of high... One of my friends named it "musician shit" and that name stuck. It was so good. I eventually built a pair of homemade DWC rubbemaid buckets using carefully (suspiciously) measured miracle grow mixtures that worked well from the first run, and a DIY bubble cloner that brought me up to 100% success in cloning, and for the last couple grows I switched to GH nutes. I learned to stagger the plants so I could harvest two plants per month, roughly 2-3 ounces of very good small buds. Every step after the first was more successful, and I continually tuned it for each iteration. It was my favorite hobby.
I was eventually forced to get rid of the whole setup and vowed to start up again, and here I am...
So I was looking at the photocopied image of the Polaroid picture of an old grow I kept - image below, So I blew that picture up big tonight to gauge if it was my first full soil grow from very good bag seed - I'm pretty sure it was. It was a Polaroid Instant camera, and while it's faded and the colors are off, it still looks decent.
That first crop was the beginning of a love affair with growing... It was a pretty auspicious start though...
Those flowering plants all climbed into the light and burned to shit, that's why they're all the same height with no visible cola. The one in the back grew taller but not into the light, so I left it be and then it curled sideways and grew into the light, I ended up cutting it down to size later. It's bad to cut the top 6"-8" off flowering plants of that size, m'kay. The grow took way longer than expected to finish after I cut the tips down so they wouldn't catch fire. Before that I fought with white flies the entire veg cycle. I got Neem oil towards the end of the veg cycle and finally kicked the flies and I gave them a really good gentle sponge bath in my tub and put them back to work. I fertilized with an organic tea because I was a purist and wanted the best taste possible. My wife was very unhappy with the organic tea. When I opened the door you could smell it. All natural organic fertilizer tea. It smelled like someone had shit a turducken. Yum.
It was a terrible crop, like maybe an ounce of super fluffy air bud. It tasted very carrot-ey from probably not flushing well enough and/or drying too fast . I did worry once or twice if I was actually inhaling organic fertilizer directly because it tasted so bad, it was tough to take more than a few pulls from a pipe. I experimented with the oven and a food dehydrator to dry it quicker. What terrible ideas those were. Anyway, the taste was very off-putting and it was 100% my fault.
But it was strong. Really, really, strong. It had a good Sativa high. Like I said, once or twice I worried I was inhaling something dangerous like some new form of plant-based meth. LOL. No shit, I actually had a paranoid moment or two, and that never happens to me. But mostly it was amazing, fun, and energized, and creative for a good while from just a couple yucky hits. LOL. Anyway, it was that strong.
The original planting was a bunch of seeds, like 75 or 80% were male, and I got 2 females. I smoked the males. No go. The plants in the veg chamber were the survivors of a brutal "Highlander " (THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!) style cloning process for that first run to discover which length and thickness of stem, and how many leaves and what size, would survive best when carefully prepped with a crappy bottle of well-aged rooting powder from a local nursery. I remember buying that bottle and being slightly scared of what was in it because it looked old and it was filled with a chemical I didn't understand. I read stories about choline and polyploid strawberries. I was afraid I'd wake up with double thumbs or chemical burns on my hands. I washed my hands like I was having an OCD episode all the time because of that stuff and the organic tea. LOL. Anyway, I carefully prepped them and lovingly stuck them into vermiculite and perlite mix in a nursery tray in an upside down rubbermaid clear container with a deep white lid so I could add a little water directly into to regulate humidity. Because back then they were also the only things I could find locally, in a normal nursery or store.
Surprisingly, most of them survived for several days, good thing I slammed like 16 of them from 2 plants into a too small container very badly labeled with paper printer labels under actually very good fluorescent lighting and other conditions. That many clones right before flowering is also bad for yield on plants that size, m'kay. The labels got moist and ran, there was never any way to tell which was which after that first day. I guessed and re-labeled. I really did get most of it right from a lot of reading from an actual book, though, also the only thing I could find in a local book store. The loss of labeling haunted me a little. For the rest of the time I grew from those plant's clones, I always wondered if I ever had both plants or just one that survived. Ugh.
My final count was 5 or 6, IIRC, and they grew pretty well through the whole process, taking a few weeks to show roots and only showing a little stress the first couple of days. The ones that survived were the slightly bigger 3.5" to 4" branches pruned down with just 2 smaller leaves maybe 2"-2.5" each long and a tiny bud of growing tip between them that survived. The stems were almost woody, maybe 1/4" thick, and still mostly green. Into that clone crop I had also mixed in very thin/frail branches and some thicker woody ones, even barky ones, with bigger leaves, a few had 3 or 4 leaves or a couple small internode leaves, IIRC. They all died horrible deaths for various reasons in that gladiator pit.
Anyway, from that point forward clone selection was pretty precise and I didn't lose too many over the year and a half I kept that plant running. I always plucked 4 from each plant abut a week before flowering while I flushed them, and labeled well and kept the best of each type. They always looked remarkably similar, and tasted the same, and all of them from that second batch on had a hermie branch a few weeks into flowering. Neither of the mother plants had that happen, or maybe they did and I was too dumb and missed it. I was very green and still learning and mesmerized when I saw trichomes with my loupe, also locally sourced at a Rado Shack of all places. It was like a 20x or 30x IIRC. Not quite enough to tell if trichomes are cloudy, but great for looking at trichomes and drooling.
Anyway, I always just plucked the hermie branch and let the plant grow every time after that, and learned when to look for it and yank it quick. I got a slightly bigger yield for that second crop and had learned to flush-flush-flush and let them finish for a couple weeks to taste much better. I drove myself nuts taking so long to dry it. When it was getting close, after about 10 days or so, I remember I tried a pinch. It still had a little carrot-ey taste, I was mortified. I waited, terrified it was going to taste like shit again. It was awful. I contemplated just scrapping the whole grow and start over. ROFL.
A few days later, the taste was remarkably mellower, but still slightly veggie tasting. It was definitely sweeter. I let it go another few days. Total dry time was almost 3 weeks, IIRC. The final smoke, though still not a lot of quantity, and still quite fluffy, not dense, had a sweet taste that was amazing and the buds were super frosty. The reason I decided to keep growing those plants even though they were hermies, was the taste. I mean the strength was great, but that taste... I don't even remember the bag it came from tasting that sweet. Of course, every batch I worried I was gonna see a huge rush of male flowers and have to just dump it, but that taste... The taste from that plant was reminiscent of juicy fruit gum. There was very little of the acrid skunk smell or taste to it. I mean, it was weed, there is always a little of that, but the burst of fruit juicy taste was amazing.
Everyone who tried it recognized it as a fruity flavor, and the high remained remarkable crop after crop. My favorite type of high... One of my friends named it "musician shit" and that name stuck. It was so good. I eventually built a pair of homemade DWC rubbemaid buckets using carefully (suspiciously) measured miracle grow mixtures that worked well from the first run, and a DIY bubble cloner that brought me up to 100% success in cloning, and for the last couple grows I switched to GH nutes. I learned to stagger the plants so I could harvest two plants per month, roughly 2-3 ounces of very good small buds. Every step after the first was more successful, and I continually tuned it for each iteration. It was my favorite hobby.
I was eventually forced to get rid of the whole setup and vowed to start up again, and here I am...
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