Green

37 minutes ago, Weskush said:

Probably in-house bred seeds and not In-House Genetics.   Grow them out. Maybe they surprise you after all

hahaha exactly, they are kinda small, reddish and kak looking. But I already sprouted two of them, I'll put them in the ground outside and see what happens...

Wow, this really sucks. I wasn't going to blast them online after my bad experience, because they did refund me after all. But after seeing this maybe I should share. 

After ignoring me for a week, they contacted me via whatsapp (personal, non-business account with no profile pic...sus). They apologised and explained that the seeds were stuck at customs (but its in stock on their website...sus). They refunded my money and said they would send free in-house genetics seeds to compensate for the stress and massive delay. It took me another 2 weeks of following up on this promise and eventually just gave them a polite fuck you, blocked them, and gave up. Totally unexpectedly I get a package from courier guy yesterday, its the free "in house" seeds. I'm VERY skeptical of what these seeds actually are cos they sent me 16 of them and I highly doubt they will just give away over R5000 worth of free stuff.

I still managed to find the 6 pack of 24K seeds I was looking for at Natural Highs.co.za. I had the complete opposite experience with them, really really great service and I got my seeds a few days later with constant updates via whatsapp

Wow thanks for the replies, that is a MASSIVE relief. Here I thought I just got scammed out of R1400 

I guess now I just wait...

Has anyone had any experience with Terp Council? 

https://terpcouncil.com/

Some random shots to conclude this diary. Still curing so I haven't sampled any yet. GZ is getting some smell back in the jar after having zero smell after drying. The lemon cheese STANK from mid flower all the way to now, you could smell it outside my front door while it was drying in the bathroom.

Gorilla Zkittlez after drying for 10 days, just before trim and jar. Ended up with 48g.

Franco's Lemon Cheese just after harvest. Dried, I got 50g of decent sized tight buds and 40g leafy tiny buds

Ok cool, I will give it the last flush today and aim to harvest towards the end of week 10. Thanks @PsyCLown 

3 hours ago, PsyCLown said:

How long ago since all the pistils were white? When did the bud stop fattening up?

Around day 40 I would say, which is about 3 weeks ago. Thank you for the feedback, I thought I could wing it but its kinda stressful trying to figure out exactly when to harvest without proper magnification. I will definitely prioritise getting a 30X loupe before the next harvest.

Update for day 62.

I harvested the GZ on day 60. The plan was to let the medium dry out then do 48 hours of darkness, but she was completely done drinking a week ago I think, it took 5 days before I felt any difference in the weight of the pot. So I think she kinda died and I should've harvested on day 56 instead of giving it the final flush.

The sad root ball in the pic below explains the stunted growth, it basically grew in 2 litres of soil, inside another 15 litres. I'm guessing this strain's roots are just more sensitive to colder temps, and/or sensitive to over watering and soil compacting. Next time I will add a little more perlite and not water so much immediately after a transplant. Funny because the LC received the exact same over watering and cold temps and seems to be 100%. I guess that's where the real experience and art of growing comes in, knowing why, when and how to deviate from the textbook.

I'm paranoid about losing the harvest to mold or rot because ambient room humidity in the cape right now is 75-80%. So I have them hanging in a dark bathroom right next to a slightly open window and there is a desk fan in the corner making sure there is no time for one mold spore to settle! (fan is not blowing directly on the buds, but they do sway in the wind slightly)

Franco's Lemon Cheese is coming along nicely. I don't get much lemon smell at all, there's a little bit of fruitiness but mostly just sweet, earthy, CHEESE.

From what I've read this strain usually goes well past the breeder's minimum of 9 weeks. But maybe because of the cold and this pheno leaning towards the cheese/skunk side it might finish asap? My total noob guess is that harvest is 4-5 days away, which will be the middle of week 10. I know the best way to tell is to look at magnified trichomes but I don't have one of those loupe things and budget is tight as usual. I appreciate any advice that can be given here, based off these shitty pics. (already bad quality then it gets compressed again when uploaded)

Bottom buds, these are very soft and squeezable still. Apologies again for the kak pics.

Day 56. Last update before harvesting GZ this week. The top buds look so much more ripe then the bottom ones, I considered harvesting them separately but I think I'll just leave the whole plant for 4-5 more days. Low night temperatures making everything go dark purple, lowest so far has been 13.6 degrees.

Lemon cheese:

Gorilla zkittlez:

Every winter I enjoy my neighbors' outdoor harvest, he grows one big plant each of 6-8 different strains. This year the highlights (and what I'm currently smoking) for me are:

Critical Silver Haze by Delicious seeds - not the most potent but has an extremely bright fruity smell and the taste matches it really closely. Great all day smoke.

Purple Wreck by Reserva Privada/DNA Genetics - strongest of the lot by a decent margin, the buds smelled 100% like ripe litchis, took an extra 2 months for that litchi smell to come back in the cure, but it did come back. Amazing smoke, light body blows with a knockout punch to the temple, I would love to try growing this strain indoors, but its soooooooo leafy

Thanks for the positive comments everyone  

I would love another go at GZ, with only LST applied and no supercropping, and vegging to a good size before switching to flower. I'm beginning to rethink my 2-strain scrog strategy, I want variety in my harvest but getting an even canopy with two very different plants is a challenge. Maybe after a few grows when I'm more familiar with different strains. My plan for the next grow is to scrog out a single plant, which will be Tutankhamen by Pyramid Seeds...

Regarding flush, I use the term a bit loosely I guess. I don't run massive amounts of water through the pot, just enough for a small amount of runoff (enough to soak up with a towel afterwards), works out to about 3 litres every few days.

Day 43 since I flipped to 12/12, beginning of week 7. According to the breeders, GZ has 8-9 week flowering time, and Lemon Cheese 9-11 weeks.

The GZ will get water only now till harvest, and the LC is on its last week of feed (no major nutrients, just molasses and activera)

I plan to flush the GZ with 3-5 litres every few days, starting this week

As a beginner, I found FF premium classic very forgiving. It seems to have the perfect balance of everything. In combination with a fabric pot it handles over and under watering very well. It says on the bag 'not recommended for germinating seeds' but I've had 100% success rate so far with paper towel method straight into Freedom Farm soil. 

So far I've always added liquid nutrients after a month. This year's outdoor grow I'm going to try it amended with Dirty Hands elemental blend (and mycoroot), a few top dresses and pH'd water.

One note on this soil though, it is MOSTLY coco and perlite so it can dry out VERY quickly outdoors in fabric pots, especially in smaller pots and in the middle of a hot and windy summer **cape town** I've heard you can line the inside top half of the pots with plastic, to retain moisture while still air pruning the roots.

Hi everyone.

This is my first 'real' grow. My pilot grow was bag seed and under only 60W for most of veg.

Strains: Green House Seeds - Franco's Lemon Cheese. Barneys Farm - Gorilla Zkittlez

Setup: 2 x 15 litre pots in a 1m x 0.5m cupboard conversion with a 240W QB from @Light It Up. I have the dimmer set to 120-180W through veg and then 240W during flower.

Soil: Freedom Farm, green bag. Amended with Dirty Hands elemental blend and some extra goodies, kelp meal, insect frass, mycoroot and some earthworms from the garden. Mulched with alfalfa straw/hay.

Nutrients: During veg I use Kelpak (first few weeks only), Biobizz Biogro (half-strength), Biobizz Activera and calmag(alternate weekly with Biodyne). During flower, I include Freedom Farm's Fire Juice, replace Biogro with molasses and give calmag more regularly. pH adjusted to 6-6.5 (shout out to @The_StonedTrooper for the pH pen!)

Currently on day 32 of flower. I topped the zkittlez once and lemon cheese twice. I was hoping to fill out the screen but the zkittlez is much smaller. It didn't respond as well to supercropping and took longer to recover from the transplant. Also, I think I topped it a bit early and could've used another week in veg. Could be the strain, could be the seed, could be me. Can't complain too much though because those flowers smell and look amazing :)

Flower day 12:

day 26:

day 31:

Last update. They were harvested about a week apart. Two of them are jarred, one is still hanging, and one is still in the pot outside finishing up.

@The_StonedTrooper Haha yeah some interesting smells. One smells super earthy and kinda like poo, another smells exactly like a freshly opened packet of orange sherbert. 

Wow! What an awesome surprise, I just logged on to post some pics and see this!

Thank you @The_StonedTrooper and anyone else that contributed. This will definitely come in handy for the next grow.

My phone managed to take half decent pics of trichomes. I don't know if these are clear to enough to give any useful information though?

4 hours ago, The_StonedTrooper said:

Okay thanks, and for your next grow after this one, do you have something in mind?

As far as I can tell I haven't had any pH problems, and I thought I might because I experimented so much with different nutes over the whole grow. I think the soil buffers the pH? I've used nitrosol, seagro, kelpak, activera, biogro, biodyne, silica, calmag, epsom salts, molasses, vermipure tea and freedom farm fire juice. And then theres still dry amendments...

Next grow is 2 weeks in, I'm trying to overlap grows so there is always a cupboard with flowering plants. Bought proper seeds this time, Franco's Lemon Cheese (Greenhouse Seeds) and Gorilla Zkittlez (Barneys Farm)

10 minutes ago, The_StonedTrooper said:

Good day sir, did you ever get that pH meter / pen?

Hi, No I didn't 

@Stinger96 Yeah I'm thinking the middle top plant (bud pic 3, the flower on the right) and middle bottom plant (bud pic 2) will be 8-9 weeks and the plant on the left (bud pic 1) and right will probably be 9-10 weeks. I'm going to start flushing the two middle ones and checking trichomes next week.

Week 6 pic update. 

Flower week 5. They seem happy except for the one on the right, showing burnt tips and black spots. I'm not too worried though, that one was always fussy.

The next grow is in a veg cupboard next door, 5 days old, in 2 x 1.5 litre pots. After I harvest in 3-5 weeks, I will transplant them to 15 litre fabric pots and flip to flower.

Flower week 4. Nothing to say really, just keeping the weekly updates going. I have 2 seeds soaking for the next grow, Franco's Lemon Cheese and Gorilla Zkittlez :)

End of week 3 of flower. The one on the left is still stretching. I'm using Activera and Fire juice only now.

Can't help but start planning the next one already :) I'm thinking 2 x heavy yielding autos in 15 litre pots...

Thanks guys :)

On 3/15/2021 at 9:35 AM, PsyCLown said:

You will likely need to defol again in 2 or 3 weeks.

Yeah, the plan was to defol in week 1 and week 3 of flower only, but they're in week 2 now and could maybe use another?

The cupboard is now 99.9% lightproof, does it have to be 100%? I've read a few articles that stress the importance of having NO leaks, while it doesn't really come up in most sources.

Humidity steadily at 55-65%. This has brought some tiny bugs out of the pots. I think they are springtails, apparently they're completely harmless and live in humid conditions feeding off mold and fungi. Hundreds of tiny jumping dots: