I am seeing some bad arse plants all over the place. ( Foreground, Background)
…
It’s Mantis egg laying season over here!
I was gathering up some totes to start dunking/cleaning the plants before going into the cure room. I noticed a Mantis was on the underside of one of the totes. As I love to observe them I carefully turned the tote over to have a better look. It turned out to be a female and she was laying eggs. This worked to my advantage as I was able to get a couple shots and a small video.
I would drop the video but have no idea how to post it to the OG!
During my last harvest Baby mantis kept crawling out of one of the plants. I kept getting them to crawl on my hand and taking them back outside. I stopped counting after 7 or so.
Yeah, if there’s one thing we’ve got around here, it’s plants! I’m usually just looking at the subject and don’t notice the backgrounds until later on…been noticing how shitty it looks in that LST area!
Great on the mantis egg case! I keep an eye out for them but have only found one this week and it was already hatched out. Likely the home of that little brown job. Gave everything a mist down w/ soap/seaweed/aminos today as it was pretty overcast all morning…had to keep stopping to shoe-off the baby mantis!
One of the Moby Dick feminized plants that I passed on to the rooftop gardener turned hermie. Probably the stress of being repotted and then subjected to that all-white rooftop with all day sun (w/o sunglasses!)? Got him to bring the plant back to me so it doesn’t ruin his garden up there. Was reading a thread here on pollen collection via a paper bag so tried my hand with some translucent drafting paper and tape. Made one with a window and realized it was a good thing this was ‘practice’! At least I’ll have a better idea of what I’m doing when I really need it! Will watch those lower parts and chop if necessary.
Well, some things the Universe just takes care of for us! Grabbing a bunch of ‘stuff’ in the local 50-cent shop I realized I’d just about blown out my flip-flops, so grabbed the only pair left in my size. Packed with the bottoms out in a plastic bag I saw they were basic black so fine with me. Opened them up this morning and here’s what greeted me;
Out in the early dawn drizzle for a quick look…Hit everything with an extra heavy watering yesterday with dose of Cal-mag and sugars. I was pleasantly surprised to find a shitload of new tip growth and fresh foliage has popped since yesterday. Girls seem to be filling in their centers nicely in response to the LST hoops & yarns. I’d been thinking to put up a SOG net on those three Karel Haze in the top row of the first picture…now I’m wondering if it’s worth the effort? They’ve managed to stay pretty ‘low to the ground’ (as intended, with monsoon likely on the way). Anybody with an ‘informed’ opinion please let me know your thoughts on if it’s worth doing the SOG.
@Budderton Thanks bro, looking like plenty of ‘tops’ this round, I wish they had more time as the 1/2" PE rings are doing a good job spreading things out, can’t wait to see what they can do in a long season! The PE rings have three downward & inward pointing tee’s which fit over short pieces of rebar pushed into the mix. Just tucking new growth daily.
Yobros, hope you (and your plants) are all doing great today! Pretty overcast and drizzling over here after a night-long rain. Just did a quick check and the girls seem to all be fine with it.
The new ultrasonic fogger clone unit is up and running! The box I had on hand, actually ALL the various boxes I had on hand!, have weirdly surfaced lids. Not the best choices, but with girls starting to flip I decided I had to make due with what I had! With only about 16 usable plugs, I can see I’ll be making a new one soon, but this’ll get me started. The ultrasound unit was ‘CHEAP’ at about $10 and despite that works great! I’ve ordered the specially-made ‘float’ that keeps it at the correct depth underwater ($3). The original ‘sprayer/aeroponic’ version just didn’t seem to get even coverage and without weatherstripping, leaked around the box edges. I’m impressed with the fog, let’s see how the rooting goes! (Humidity dome removed for pics).
Took a couple hours (and my foreman!) to help out a friend with the rooftop garden space. He’s a one-man operation and trying to secure both ends of an 8m. pipe alone is rough! We got the hard parts done and he’ll finish up the cross-bracing himself, then we’ll swing by to help with the netting and plastic. Found an 11m x 7m sheet of brand new (If I can call it that!) netting stored in a garbage can from 10-12 years ago when I was putting up big greenhouses! And have 90% of a roll of greenhouse film leftover so he’s gonna be a happy grower this monsoon! (Just wait until I OG him with a shitload of clones!)
That sure is an awesome setup! Rooftop covered garden.
Great to see so many mantises in your garden, I finally found one yesterday and was showing it to my daughter like I’d just discover perpetual motion. It’s entirely possible I’ve just not noticed them before, she was well camoflaged and big.
Very interesting cloner, I love the concept of the fog.
Well, 2.5 days running and we got roots! I’m liking the ultrasound fogging so much I decided to upgrade…and also ordered another set of everything to set up what I’m ‘pretending’ will be the backup system! Who am I kidding?
Found this attractive scarab beetle (I’m just assuming that’s what it is) hanging out on my porch this morning. Pics really don’t do the color justice!
Lots of overcast sky’s these days over here. Good chance to catch up on foliar sprays and LST. I’m quite liking the tripod solar-system rings for spreading the Karel Haze growth sideways…kind of a curvaceous SOG!
Ultrasonic fog cloner back up and running again! Burned out the first unit by letting the water level get too low! So much for the “Automatic Safety feature”! 33 of 35 spots filled already!
Popped some JPS beans; “FrankenBubble, Bloody Monster & Blue Tara visit Asia”! Got a mixed load of 1 gal airpots comin’ along for transplant next week. Okay, back to work here, have a great week!
Girls are all coming along…saw the first flowers starting on the Karel Hazes & Apricots about 2 weeks ago and now the Ghost Dawgs & Moby Dicks are starting. The LST’ed KH are just getting wider and wider every day. These are gonna be a bit of a strange grow…most are less than 3’ tall but 6’-7’ wide! Thinking I’m hitting the limit on how much time I can spend spreading 'em any more…lots of other stuff to deal with too!
Seed scores have been at an all time high for me lately with some ‘gifts’ arriving from the great people at OG & a couple orders showing up at the same time (of course, right AFTER I did some extra planting just “in case” they didn’t show up! )
A bunch of recent arrivals popping up & getting comfortable;
Hi Budderton, they are what I always knew/called Copelandia cyanescens, but which is now referred to as Panaeolus cyanescens. These were ‘leftovers’ from a few years back…I ‘misplaced’ them and after a thorough search just uncovered them. Even though they were inside a tupperware box w/a sealed lid they were filthy! Now, full disclosure, I am not in any way a mycologist! I learn as much as I can, but only very rarely turn anyone on to something I have “ID’ed” myself! Even then, not until I’ve tried them myself numerous times!
We are just starting the monsoon season, as a matter of fact it’s on my list to check the pasture today and see if anybody has popped up. We also get P. cubensis on buffalo shit and elephant shit around here so I keep my compost pile stocked with both.
If they start popping this season, I’ll be happy to first send you photos to confirm ID’s and if you want them, spores. I’ve done about 6 months of micro-dosing with the Panaeolus cyanescens twice now…passed a jar of honey-chopped bits to a group of friends who enjoyed them thoroughly!
I’m watching the mailbox closely, it’s been two weeks so expecting your letter any day now! Will let you know! Hey, so much more to discuss, but it’s 6:30 am and I have a ton of seedlings to check on before my crew shows up! Will be back in touch soon!
Very cool @Tlander . I haven’t grown any fungi for a spell, but I’ve got all the gear and definitely plan on getting back into it. I start on wild bird seed, then bulk up to blocks of straw to fruit.
I would love to receive some exotic spore prints. Thanks for the offer.
I sent two separate envelopes, two days apart. They haven’t been returned to me so I assume they are on route. Hopefully they show soon.
Cool! I’d be happy to do this. I’m really back-woods w/myco…local field explorations or my compost pile. I really should learn how to do this correctly from all the great people here, in all my ‘spare time’!
Did a little spot digging in my compost pile yesterday…best batch of scorpions I’ve ever raised! Damn, no bare-handed pot filling with this one!
Funny, back in the 1980’s, my neighbors were post-grad scientists who went on to start the whole Bio-Tech industry (became Stratogene, which went on to become Biogen). But we all enjoyed our weed and they got into a little side mycology…another one of those great missed opportunities I’ve had! Will let you know on post! Thanks again!
Happy Weekend to ya’all! Sun has set on another Saturday over here already. Everybody got a good soaking and then a feed today. Quite blown away that I’m not seeing much/any insect damage. Probably a combination of EM fruit sprays/Soap sprays/Good luck!
Today I remembered to take some shots of the non-lLST plants. It’s fun to actually have the comparisons to look at…they are so radically different you’d never guess they are siblings.
Sun is just rising on this Saturday morning over here @Tlander . Plants look happy. Did I read that you’ve pulled the supplemental lighting to kick these guys into flower?
@Budderton Hey Budder! Hope it’s a great one over there! The lights seemed to have tried as hard as they could, but I was asking a lot of them! The taller, ‘naturals’ are ‘behind’ the lights, so I tried to pick stuff that had already started flowering for there. The gray gravel area with the KH & Apricots got it’s lights pulled about 2 weeks ago as they had already declared…moved those lights into one of the old greenhouses where the next generation are pumping up (lots of cool MadDawg gifts, Durban poisons, and some odds and ends). The PVC hoop monsoon hut still has a 1,000 W light that runs from 6 pm sunset until 11 pm. it seems to be holding off the flowering on most things there. Guessing it gave me 3 - 3.5 weeks of extra veg time. I’m calling it a success!
