My Barely Grow

[FailingForwards]

Thought I’d introduce myself and maybe try to figure out how to use this place with a little photo journal of my first couple grows.

Here’s my first set of girls that were some dispensary bagseed, along with my basil because I thought I’d be clever calling my ‘herb’ garden so I could avoid having to talk to my parents directly about my strange new hobby. They’re still a bit stuck in the past. I believe the strain was called white cake, not sure on the parentage.

Here they are with everything flowering, including the basil, because I didn’t know how Basil worked until then.

First harvest! Turned into just about 5 ounces with a couple ounces of trim.

A glamour shot of how they looked once cured. I didn’t dry them properly (because there’s so many lessons I have to learn the hard way) so they didn’t smell great, which was a huge bummer. Still got me and some other people really high, but that’s definitely the learning experience of the grow. That and don’t leave the cat alone with the plants.

I made a batch of cannabis oil with the trim and then cooked a batch of pot brownies and THCrispies which then got distributed to friends and I ate an awful lot of chocolate.

I upgraded the recipe, putting the THC oil in a peanut butter mixture, freezing that, and then putting it in the center of my brownie mix.

Showing off my White Rhino that I started growing next

Sherbet Cookies in full fade

Quick post cure shot of some of the buds, including my fasciated cola (far right).

Anyways, that’s probably enough for now. Feel free to say hi back.

[Purple-N-Hairy]

Hello, @FailingForwards - and welcome to OG!

Do you make pesto with all that basil?

I’d be curious to know your method for making cannabis oil, if you don’t mind.

BTW - if you got 2 oz of trim from a grow that gave you 5 oz’s of bud, something’s a little “off” with that. It seems like you’re getting too much trim from that amount of weed, but perhaps it’s because you throw all the smaller buds into the trim pile?

[FailingForwards]

We did not make pesto, but we gave a bunch to a friend who made a bunch of pesto and it was great. Made some amazing Garlic bread.

My oil recipe is super simple. We decarb at 240 F covered for 35-40 minutes, and then into the crockpot on low for 3 hours with your preferred oil. If you want a total extraction but don’t mind the extra planty-ness you can run it again for 3 more hours. Let cool and strain through cheesecloth.

But I think we’re going to start using an alcohol reduction so that way we don’t have to fiddle with trying to add so much oil to recipes like our gummies.

And yeah, I counted all my larfy buds with my trim, had a fair amount on my first grow because I was really apprehensive about cutting too much until I was already pretty far into flower and by then you don’t want to do much cutting.

[ReikoX]

Welcome aboard, thanks for sharing. You mentioned doing an alcohol extraction. Have you seen my Tincture Thread? It discusses doing just that and also covers using it in recipes.

Not Just Another Tincture Thread

Introduction Before prohibition in the 1930’s, many of the medicines used were tinctures derived from cannabis and other healing herbs. A tincture, by definition, is a medicine made by dissolving a drug in alcohol. When I make a cannabis tincture, I will refer to it as a Green Dragon tincture or simply GD for short. This is Not Just Another Tincture Thread. This thread will be devoted not only to the Green Dragon tincture recipe, but also on how to use the tincture for edibles and topicals. T…

[FailingForwards]

I had not. I’ve just perused around a half-dozen recipes and built of rough draft of my plan so a little in-depth material is much appreciated. Thanks. I think we’re gonna be making some before this weekend so I might have results to report back soon.

[MyrtleGrounds]

I second that! @ReikoX . Your Tincture thread is what lured me into OG in the first place. Awesome thread with many twists and turns along the way. Full of info
Oh - and hi @FailingForwards Welcome to OG!! Great looking plants.

[Purple-N-Hairy]

@FailingForwards

But I think we’re going to start using an alcohol reduction

That’s what I’ve been doing for quite a while (since late 2014). I think you’ll like it once you get it dialed in. Definitely read up on @ReikoX’s tincture thread - lots of good info there.

[FailingForwards]

Hey back and thank you. My plants have all been slightly-to-moderately tortured but they’ve endured in spite of it.

[misterbee]

W-E-L-C-O-M-E!!! And a ty CONGRATS to you, excellent harvest!!! You came through the OG-Door with Swat Team vigor. Do stick around, it’s obvious you have much to contribute. It’s members like yourself that keeps “The G” going strong. Do continue to stay safe, take special care, and be well…mister NOTE: When the far right corner clears, I’m calling “Dibs”!!!

[Rogue]

Hey man, off to a great start, welcome!

Feel free to share your soil mix and what you amend with.

I decarb my dried ground bud dry in a covered pot that’s sitting on top of a bigger pot filled with boiling salted water for 3 hours. Make sure the water is touching the bottom of the pot on top and check every half hour, add extra water as necessary. Works really great for me. I believe decarbing at lower temperature preserves more of the good stuff. Once cooled off I start with eating half a teaspoon before a meal and go from there.

I’m also gonna start harvesting only a couple of branches at a time, a few days apart each time and mix them all together and all the different strains too. As well as include some raw dried material which also has beneficial compounds which otherwise get lost during decarbing. It all seems to increase potency.

And I’m with you on having to learn the hard way, haha. Take it easy!

[Soonami]

Hey, I’m new here as well. Looks like you’re off to a good start on your first few grows, keep it up! PB brownies sounds prettty goood

[corey]

Welcome to overgrow! This is a great community, and I think you’ll fit right in! Please keep us updated.

[FailingForwards]

Thanks a bunch. I just did quite a bit of research (and still somehow was mostly unprepared) but fortunately these plants just love to grow. You take care of yourself as well. Hopefully we can all stick around and learn from eachother for a while to come.

[FailingForwards]

My soil mix is a bit hard to nail down because I initially started with some halfway decent bagged potting soil and then I added some local compost, worm castings, and then I took the rootball and plant matter from that first grow and added it to the bottom of my new pots, added some worms and built the soil up a little further with rice hulls and some sand. So I have some light composting layers at the bottom of the pot. And I picked up a bag of build-a-soil dry amendment pre-mix because it has basically all the stuff I have on my amendment list and it was super convenient, but I’m going to be building my own amendment mix here soon as well for the cost effectiveness and I feel like a lot places just add a lot of superfluous stuff.

I don’t have a double-boiler but it looks like I’ll have to pick one up at some point.

As far as mixing strains together, I’m basically a newbie when it comes to experiencing different strains, I have maybe a half-dozen that I know and maybe a dozen that I’m familiar with. I just started smoking right about 2 years ago. So I’m really still just trying to find what I like. Trying to find strains to deal with pain that but also don’t mess with any of my other chronic issues can be a bit of a challenge, but I reckon that’s also because I’m a headcase. =p Hoping this bubblegum that I just (sorta) popped will help.

I hope we can both learn to learn better for the sake of our sanity and blood pressure, hah. Take care.

[FailingForwards]

I’m telling you they’re excellent. All you do is warm up the peanut butter, melt in a handful of chocolate chips, sprinkle in some powdered sugar and stir in your oil. Combine thoroughly, pour into your baking dish lined with wax paper and put it in the freezer making sure it’s level. When you go to make the brownies, just mix the brownie mix as normal but split it in half. Pour half in, carefully add your peanut butter mixture (It will lift out easily but you can’t handle it for long), and pour the other half of your brownie batter on top. The first time I made them (the photo up there) I just winged it on halving the brownie mixture so you can see some of the peanut butter bubbled through the top but that doesn’t happen if you sandwich it properly. I was thinking of adding some cream cheese to this recipe next time because why not, but I’m actually on a fairly strict dietary change for the moment so I won’t get to try that out very soon.

Best of luck around here, the people seem really nice. Take it easy.

[FailingForwards]

Thanks for the warm welcome, and it seems like a wonderful place. I think I’ll be glad to be a part. And I will work on updates.

[Rogue]

I just do it like this, it’s also called “bain marie”. There’s all kinds of variations that work fine, probably you already have something in your kitchen that will work. Gotta cover pot on top with a lid though.

[FailingForwards]

We might be able to do something like that, but a lot of out pots also have plastic handles and that might sit on the metal, so I’m not entirely sure. But thanks for the tip. Definitely see if I can work that out.

[Canofbusjoe]

Welcome! Well you sure hit the ground running here didn’t you nice thread! Great job with the plants so far and don’t sell yourself short you’re a good grower already

[FailingForwards]

Haha thanks! And I’m a little hard on myself, but it’s mostly in good fun. I don’t mind being an example from time to time. But I am happy with my results. And at least I’m mostly making new mistakes all the time so that’s kind of a good thing.