Methodanon's Second Grow- Bodhi Midnight Cowboy in Perlite-only Hempy Buckets

[methodanon]

Hello Gentlemen,

First post, first account, second grow. I welcome any advice so don’t hesitate. I’m growing in tents, 4x2 for veg with a 200W LED, 3x3 for flower with a 300W Bar LED.

The Hempy Buckets are just 1 gallon buckets filled with (rinsed) perlite. I went hempy style because I’m trying to keep my place clean, and the tents are sitting on carpet. I considered going with 2 or 3 gallon buckets, but I have 1 gallons on hand so we’ll see how she goes - seems to be working for my first plant which is in flowering now.

I’m just using GH Nutes in tap water that has sat out for a day. GH PH up / down came with the pH testing solution, so I’m using that to check the ph-in, I don’t worry about checking the runoff ph. I just shoot for that yellow color that tells me its about 6.0.

I bought Bodhi Seeds, as I had read that he has a good reputation. I have a few packs of his stuff, but this first run will be 4 Midnight Cowboys (Mendo Purps x Wookie,) along with a couple of clones I took off my first grow (which is bag-seed still in flowering, day 19.)

Ok, let’s get to it;

Midnight Cowboy Seedlings showed themselves on 3/12, so we are on about day 6 above ground. Bag-Seed Clones hit the perlite on 3/14 after growing some roots in an aero-cloner, so they are at about day 4 in the medium:

Think I should add a couple auto-flowers to the veg tent? Why not right?
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Like I said, first grow is/was 2 bag seeds, I figured I might as well include. 1 of them exposed herself as a hermie at the 2 week mark of 12/12, but here is the other. She’s currently all alone in the flower tent at day 19 of 12/12. I would never run bag seed again unless I had to, but I had told myself that I was just figuring out the hempy bucket thing. Turns out it’s easier than soil in my view.

Here’s hoping I get at least a female or 2 from the 4 Bodhi seeds I germed, and that my last bag seed gal doesn’t hermie on me. I’m excited about it, I couldn’t find any other Midnight Cowboy grows, let me know if one is out there!

[Mr.Christmas]

The plants look beautiful, amazing shots too. I’ve got a few Bodhi plants going right now, partly thanks to a few seed co-op runs here. Also, I’ve never seen anyone grow in straight perlite, so I’m very interested to follow along with you.

Welcome to OverGrow!

[TopShelfTrees1]

Welcome my friend! Everything looks great, especially for it only being your second grow. You definitely came to the right place. Big Bodhi fan myself. Awesome

[potpotpot]

Love to see a hempy grow anyway, but the bubblegum buckets put it over the top haha.

Plants look happy, congrats and welcome!

[Thurgood]

Nice looking grow! Thanks for sharing…

Where did you get all those double bubble buckets? I haven’t chewed that since little league. You must have a sweet comic collection! Wasn’t there a prize for a unattainable amount wrappers?

[methodanon]

Appreciate the warm welcome fellas, this place is great.

I suppose it is a bit strange that I have all of these bubblegum buckets lol. Long story short my brother helped out at a local festival and they handed out tons of candy/gum, he was going to throw the buckets away so I snagged them.

Not much has changed in the tents, it’s only been a day and a half, but since I’m posting I’ll include some pics. Plants are just working on roots right now. I’m watering seedlings and clones a couple times a day with 1mL Micro / 1mL Gro / 1mL Bloom (per gallon,) pH in of 6. Once they start growing up a bit I’ll increase the nutes to 1.5mL/1.5mL/1.5mL, then to 2/2/2 - at which point I’ll probably sit tight until I see the cotyledon leaves begin to fade to yellow, and then I’ll up the dose further. I have read that they don’t need any nutrition for the first 10 days, but this is pure perlite, and I figure soil has some nutrition in it from go. I’m just doing what worked the first time around.

Seedlings have been above ground 7.5-8 days.

Midnight Cowboy 1

Midnight Cowboy 2

Midnight Cowboy 3

Midnight Cowboy 4

Bag Seed Clones

Day 21 12/12 Bagseed reaching for the sky

[Organical]

Love the buckets! Great pics and welcome !

[LzBoy]

Welcome to OG growchacho
Plants look great, I tried a hempy my last round and it was beautiful but turned out to be a male so I had to chop it.
Lotsa luck

[methodanon]

Thanks man

[methodanon]

Hi everybody,

Just updating, Midnight Cowboys are about 3 weeks into veg and looking healthy:

Bag-Seed Mom is a little over 5 weeks of 12/12:

Bag-Seed clones grew so fast I grabbled 3 clones off of them and then moved them over to the flower tent. They get to join their mother for her final 30 days of life:

Let me know what you think. Have a good day.

[Organical]

Looking great, Bag Seed Mom is stout!

[CocoaCoir]

I see that the perlite is retaining its shape. The problem I have with this is that the perlite will break down over time and kick up into the air. It is not very good for lungs. I would advise to put a top layer of rocks or coco coir so minimize dust kicking up on your lungs and buds cuz perlite is very weak as you know. I do hempy with only perlite on the bottom 2" of the container.

[methodanon]

Appreciate it CocoaCoir. I do use a mask to get it out of the bag, and then I rinse it thoroughly outside with the hose prior to putting in the buckets. I haven’t noticed any dust issues, I do think rinsing it well seems to take care of that.

[methodanon]

You know I just might get some rocks to put on top of the perlite, it’s a good idea. Not just for potential dust, but the algae that tends to grow on top gets on my nerves lol, even if it doesn’t hurt anything.

[noknees]

@methodanon

Let me know what you think.

love to see a hempy grow!
bagseed lady looks nice and chunky!
which GH line are you running?

@potpotpot

the bubblegum buckets put it over the top

love the no-frills style of the hempy

[methodanon]

Hey thanks noknees!

This is what I use for nutes:

I pretty much work to get the plants up to 5mL micro/5mL gro/5mL bloom per gallon as early as I can, feeding in every watering. When I do this it lands my tap water right at a 6.0pH, so I don’t need any pH adjustment. My water comes out of the tap with a pretty high ph (8+,) so early on I need to add a little ph down.

Once I’m at 5/5/5, I simply keep it there until the plant shows me I should change something, but things seem to work very well there with this setup/medium etc. For the Bag-Seed plant in bloom I’m currently giving 4mL micro / 4mL gro / 7mL bloom, so I am trying to cut back on the nitrogen and increase the phos/K as the plant approaches late flowering.

[methodanon]

I topped Midnight Cowboy #3 tonight, she was a full node ahead of the others:

While topping, I think I may have spotted a tiny female pre-flower on her. I’m not certain, but that would be amazin!

Updates to come as things progress.

[methodanon]

Bag Seed clones are on-the-go and stretching. It’s looking like they’ll end up the same height as Bag Seed Mom, which is ideal! Should be about 30 more days for the mom maybe?

Larf pic through the jewelers loop;

Midnight Cowboys are thriving. They’ll move into the flower tent when I harvest the bag seed mother in about a month;

Happy Friday.

[methodanon]

Oh and I forgot to mention;
If photone is accurate, then the bag seed mother is getting like 1250-1300ppfd / 50-60 DLI at the top of the canopy. No CO2 but I often sleep in the same room as the tents lol.

[methodanon]

Well I found some great news tonight. The 2 healthiest & fastest Midnight Cowboys are confirmed females (MC1 and MC3, the 2 along the back wall now.) I’m pumped.

MC2 looking like a male but I’m not 100%, still very small parts and my jewelers loop is in the flower tent with lights off.

Like I said I’m super stoked that I’m going to be flowering this strain, first legit seeds I’ve ever popped, lets go!