Flower out the males and pick my favorite having never seen the girls in flower, and chop and toss the other two plus clones
Oh. Okay. Yeah, that’d be one way to do it haha. But yeah, I mean, if you can, it seems to me the best way to do it would be to keep them all around until you’ve got an idea of what they’re like. I’ve never made seeds, like I said, but I think that’s how I’d do it haha.
So this is really gross and annoying:
I’ve been dealing with maybe the worst fungus gnat infestation I’ve ever seen. Last night I watered with Gnatrol and both the OG Biowar Roots and the OG Biowar Foliar for the third time in three weeks. Also replaced those sticky traps. There weren’t quite as many flying around as there were a week ago, but there were still plenty of them. Super-annoying. Hopefully this third dose will take care of it.
Anyway, the Uplifts really, really stretched the past couple weeks. Two of them in particular got really big. Also starting to get a little proper flower development the past week, too. They’ve been praying their asses off for days now; I watered with a little TM7 about a week ago, that may be why. A couple of them have also started developing these really thin, narrow, Sativa-esque leaves. It’s weird to look at, actually, because the lower half of the plants have these just massive, Indica-looking fan leaves, bigger than my hand, but then these super-thin leaves up top.
Uplift #1:
Uplift #2:
Uplift #3 (this one shot up really fast, like overnight, and is easily the tallest plant in the tent):
And the Uplift #4:
The Purple NL2 didn’t stretch too much, but she is pretty bushy and unruly. That’s okay. She’s also starting to get purple. It’s hard to tell from these pics, but she is definitely gonna have quite a bit of purple in the finished flowers, I think.
Purple NL2 #2:
Not much frost yet. I should also mention that she seems to be the plant that the fungus gnats really gravitate towards. I mean, all of the plants have fungus gnats, but it’s noticeable both from the sticky traps and just from the amount that fly out when I water and shit, that the Purple NL2 is getting the worst of it. That may have something to do with the lack of developing trichomes, I dunno.
Here’s the Midas #2:
The Midas really grew out more than up, pretty different from the Moonshine Haze I grew last round. But I get a really good vibe from this plant. I think she’s gonna turn out pretty good.
And finally the Stardawg f2 #3:
She actually stretched a little more than I thought she would, but nothing crazy. She’s about the same size as the Purple NL2 now. Very branchy plant for sure.
Anyway, so yeah, day 26. Well, today’s day 27, but I took these pics last night, so day 26 pics. They’re coming along…
Those fungus gnats are gnarly… haha I hate those bastards. have you tried putting sand on top of the soil? I heard that can help with breaking their reproductive cycle? Plants are looking great though!
I don’t have any sand, but I do have diatomaceous earth. I really don’t like using it, just because it tends to form like a layer of concrete on top of the soil after a few waterings. Whenever I’ve used it in the past, after I chop the plants and recycle the soil, the whole mulch layer will come off in like one big clump, all matted together because of the DE.
Having said that, if the fungus gnats are still around next week, I’ll bust out the DE.
My last grow, I didn’t top dress with any kind of EWC or compost and I had zero issues with the fungus gnats. There may have been a couple flying around early on, but one watering with Gnatrol got rid of them. This grow, I top dressed with a LOT of EWC, pretty sure that’s the issue. I won’t be doing any kind of compost/EWC top dress ever again haha.
Do you make your own EWC/Compost or source it from somewhere? I’ve not used DE before, but heard that it messes up all the insects in your soil, so if you have worms or something in there it’s a big no-no. The fungus gnats really aren’t a huge issue most of the time, besides a huge annoyance… get some pet lizards or something and let them go wild
I use Agrowinn castings. I used to be able to get them from a landscaping place not too far from me, but they won’t order them any more because I’m the only one who bought it haha. I called them a while back to have them order more for me and they were like,”We still have six bags from the last time, you want those?” haha! I was like,”Those are eight months old. No.”
Just FYI, I did not ask them to order that many bags haha. I told them six bags and I bought six bags.
So now I have to order them from Agrowinn, which is in the San Diego area, myself. The shipping costs more than the EWC does. I really don’t ever use EWC, just because I recycle my soil, but I needed to mix up more soil since I increased the number of grows I do each year from two to three. I had like two gallons left over and just figured I’d top dress with it this grow, even though it was kind of old. That was obviously a mistake. I didn’t notice any gnats in it when I busted it out, though. I dunno.
I’d like to make my own castings, if for no other reason than I always feel guilty throwing away old lettuce and mushrooms and shit that we never get around to finishing eating. I just don’t know where I’d put the worm farm. It gets reeeeallllyyyy hot out here in the summer sometimes, last year it got up to 118 degrees for a couple days, so the garage is out. I was thinking I might put one in the bathroom of my grow room, but since I converted my little tent from a drying area into a veg tent, I use the bathroom for drying now. It’s also where I store my press when I’m not using it, along with various other little things. No room for a worm farm in there now. And I’m not gonna put a worm farm in our bedroom or in my girl’s office haha. So yeah, I probably won’t ever make my own castings, or not until we move, anyway.
Or maybe I could just move the press into the garage. There’s an idea. Yeah, maybe I’ll do that.
I don’t see much point in making your own castings in such a hot, dry climate. That’s like the opposite of the conditions they need. Have you considered buying from BuildASoil? They have free shipping on the 1/2cuft, which is a decent price. It’s better when there’s a sale, and I bet you’ll see a coupon or sale around 420.
What makes you certain they came from the EWC? Could also just as easily be the compost or the peat, and I know we have them in our houseplants as well. Heck, in Albuquerque during years it didn’t hard freeze outside, we had them year round. I also visually saw them coming in the house from the grocery store on fresh fruit and produce.
At this point, maybe you could get into the habit of doing 3 consecutive weekly waterings of gnatrol after you transplant into the final containers right around/before flip? I think it makes sense to use at least one gnatrol watering every time you transplant after the seedling stage, and the big 3x watering technique to get rid of any lingering infestation right around flip.
I forget if you recycle your soil, but one of the great benefits of reusing soil is the stratiolaeleps (sp?) aka hypoapsis miles (soil predator mite) blooms that always seem to happen - they eat fungus gnats and thrips larvae and live on the same stuff in the dirt as those larvae. They are amazing when combined with sticky traps and gnatrol.
That’s why I was saying I would have to put the worm farm in the bathroom of my grow room, not in the garage. It’s way too hot in the garage, but the bathroom would be fine. It gets dry in the grow room, but it never gets above maybe 80 degrees.
I have. I’m just sick of getting shit shipped to me from all over the country (even though I literally, just yesterday, received an order from buildasoil haha!). And I needed more than a half-cubic foot when I mixed up my latest batch of soil. I used thirty gallons of EWC, four cubic feet, so…
I actually needed to get just a little bit of EWC yesterday for re-amending my soil and found a really good gardening place in Canoga Park, which is maybe a fifteen or twenty minute drive from me. We had to take Siouxsie, our girl dog, to a place in Woodland Hills yesterday for like an MRI, so I said,”Fuck it, I’m gonna leave the house,” grabbed a mask and stopped by that gardening place (first time I’ve left my house in a few months). Picked up a bag of Bu’s (I know I said I’ll never use it again, but whatever) and a bag of Worm Gold Plus. I did some research on the Worm Gold before I left and it sounds good, so I’m gonna use a combo of the Bu’s and the Gold when I re-amend.
And that gardening place will me my go-to from here on out. No more ordering shit from across the country or driving to friggin’ Inglewood for pumice and shit. They had most of the basics. Although when I asked them, just out of curiosity, if they carry rock dust, I was met with blank stares haha…
Well, it’s not the compost, because I didn’t use any compost for this soil. Could be the peat, although I used a brand-new, unopened bag of peat for this particular batch. It’s probably the EWC.
I’ve been doing that since you turned me on to the Gnatrol. Did it twice this grow, once a couple days after transplant and then once right before flipping. But I used the minimum dose, one teaspoon per gallon of water. Clearly, that wasn’t enough, although I didn’t see any gnats until right after flipping, so why dose with anything but the minimum?
They’re almost definitely coming from the EWC top dress, just because every time I’ve top dressed with either EWC or Bu’s the last few grows, I’ve gotten a fungus gnat infestation. The one time I haven’t had to deal with it in the last four or five grows was my last grow, when I didn’t top dress with anything. So I’ll just be skipping the EWC/compost top dress from here on out.
Pretty sure from everything I’ve just written that it’s clear I recycle my soil, but in case it’s not: I do recycle my soil haha. However, this particular grow I’m using the new soil, so that may be part of the problem. I had to make new soil because I’m growing more frequently now and needed to get the plants in this grow log started while the plants from the last grow were finishing. So now the soil from the last grow is recycling, I’ll take the soil from this current grow and throw it in to Rubbermaids when they’re done, etc etc. I’ve got it all planned out. No big deal. But I did need some more soil, so I made some.
It’ll all work out, I’m not worried about it.
Maybe look into a local master gardner program in your area to source the castings from. Also in Paso Robles there is a vermiculture company called Black Diamond.
Paso Robles is about two hundred miles from me haha. Think I’ll skip that.
Took these pics last night, day 40 of flower. Here’s the Uplift #1:
Uplift #2:
Here’s the Uplift #3, the super-tall one:
And the Uplift #4:
Right now, they mostly have a sugary-sweet kinda smell going on. Nothing too overwhelming or anything, especially compared to the Purple NL2, which is pretty much overwhelming the tent at this point. I wish I’d have ended up with a few more females of the PNL2, just to see exactly how stinky it’d be in there.
Purple NL2 #2:
I’m actually getting big-time “artificial grape” smells off of her, like grape soda/candy. Maybe a little bit of chocolate and incense or something, too. She smells good.
Here’s the Stardawg f2 #3:
She’s a super-branchy and unruly plant, for sure. The flowers, to me, have a real “old-school” look to them. And I don’t know exactly what I mean by that haha, but when I was watering last night, looking at the flowers, I kept thinking,“These look like old-school flowers…” So there’s that.
And here’s the Midas:
The way the flowers on the Midas are forming really reminds me quite a bit of that Moonshine Haze that I grew last round. They look pretty similar. The structure is pretty much the opposite of the Moonshine, but the flowers look close to identical.
So, yeah, there are some pics. I watered with the Gnatrol, Biowar Foliar and Biowar Root packs one more time six nights ago; it looks like the gnats are all gone. I saw one single gnat fly out of the Purple NL2’s soil last night when I watered, but that was it. Hopefully that gnat died shortly after I saw it.
Anyway, not too much longer left to go. Maybe 25-35 days. One thing I’ve started doing to make flowering times seem shorter that you could maybe incorporate to make flowering go by faster: I water every other day, so I’ve started counting that way. Like let’s say I have 30 days left. I’ve started going,“Only fifteen waterings left…” That’s making it seem like there’s less time to finish. Or it does for me, anyway.
I 100% get what your saying! I have to agree for me that would make it seem shorter. I find myself doing that in the everyday for countless things! Like my new tent on its way. Lol
Also your plants are looking stellar! Well worth the wait of 15 waterings!
Yeah, I started counting like that maybe last week, mostly because I’m lazy haha. And also because my lights don’t turn on until 830pm, when I’m trying to wind down and I reeeealllyyy don’t feel like lifting a bunch of seven gallon pots in and out of the tent. Then I realized,”Dude, you only have to do this seventeen more times before you harvest,” haha. That seems to have kicked my ass into gear.
I think this winter weather and the short days and everything was starting to get to me. I’m definitely stoked about daylight savings and longer days and shit…
Me to, that time of year the gears get moving easier!
oh man, everything looks like some top-shelf for damn sure! Looks like the midas and pnl2 might be yielding the best out of everything? hard to get a real perspective on some of those pics, can’t really gauge yield on the uplifts at all, need a banana for scale or something Still though, it all looks great!
You’re pnl2 girl is kind of a wierd mix of my #4 and #5, looks like mostly purple buds but you’re getting purple on the outside of the leaves-in instead of the center of the leaves-out? Grape soda sounds exciting! I think I’m getting wet wood and incense smells off my 3, but its kinda hard to tell with the stinky FLC’s right next to them. You still have like one and a half pack left to pop tho right?
Yeah, the Uplift flowers are kind of small right now, especially compared to the PNL2, but I think the Uplifts are gonna take the longest, too. There’s still plenty of time to swell. The Midas buds look decently-sized, but I suspect they’ll be a little airy, like the Moonshine Haze. A nug of that Moonshine weighs like half as much as the same-sized nug of any of the other stuff I grew last round.
There’s definitely purple on the leaves, but the flowers themselves are purple, too. It kind of keeps changing, actually, almost on a daily basis. One day it’ll look super-purple, the next day it’ll be more green-looking. Could just be my eyes, I dunno. We’ll see where they end up. And yeah, I still have 20 seeds of it, so… Lots more to go through.
Ah, yeah I was wondering if that may be the case on the uplifts.
Sounds like we both have to just wait and see what happens then If you were at 40 days yesterday, you’re exactly 21 days days ahead of me on the Purple NL2’s. Mine just hit day 20 of flower today.
You means he’s ten days of watering ahead of you! Lol
Are you noticing any frost yet? The Purple NL2 is the least-frosty plant in the garden. It’s pretty noticeable. I’m not too worried about that, I’ve smoked plenty of great weed that didn’t have that “caked in trichomes” look to them, just wondering how yours are looking. I saw the post on your thread a second ago, but it was hard to tell from the pics.
Re: Uplift flowering times: I don’t know if you saw that post in the Bodhi thread a while back, can’t remember who posted it, either, but they mentioned that their Uplift took eighty days. I don’t expect mine to take quite that long, but they do look like they’ll take 70-75 days. You never know, though. I’ve had plants that looked like they were gonna take forever and then all of a sudden finish up in ten more days.