Smacky grows stuff or life & death in Smacky's tents

[SmackyMcSmackers]

So this is a story all about how
I try not to kill more plants than I grow.

Ok…I promise no more awful rip-offs of Fresh Prince lyrics.

I haven’t been growing long compared to many people here, but I like to think I learn something new (or more than 1 thing) each cycle. I had a bit of forced time away from growing while the wife & I were having our kitchen remodeled, since there were lots of people in my house/basement running wire, plumbing, HVAC, etc. The good news is that we’re finally hitting final inspections so I can start up my grow tents again. The even better news is that part of the kitchen project included upgrading our 100A electrical service to 200A service plus a new panel with lots of empty space, so I can add the extra circuits I want in my grow area.

With all that said, I popped a bunch of seeds a few weeks ago. Here’s where I start in with the good news/bad news, though. Out of 12 seeds soaked & sowed, all but 1 made it above soil. And then all but 5 damped off. Serves me right for blindly opening a new bag of soil, putting some in pots, and directly watering in the pots rather than putting soil into a bucket and wetting it down, then adding to the pots. The more hands-on approach lets me get a better feel for how moist the soil is…and would have prevented so many damped off seedlings. Ouch. Serves me right for thinking I could skip steps.

And, oh yeah, the new bag of starter soil came with fungus gnats. Lucky me, right? There are some mosquito bits on top of the soil that were just watered in a few days ago along with some neem oil and a plant tonic containing some essential oils to get the fungus gnats in check.

On to what people really want to see…the plants.

Here’s where we are after 3 full weeks above soil.

Soul Axis from Bodhi
3/4 popped, 1 damped off after sprouting
Yep, one of them is still telling me that there’s too much water in the soil with that dark purple stem and light green leaves.

Monkey Princess from Fourwiseeyes (Kinetic Genetics)
4/4 popped, 3/4 damped off after sprouting

Banana Pebbles OG from Jaws
4/4 popped, 1/4 damped off after sprouting, 1/4 sent the tap root into the air and the seed head down into the dirt and never corrected. One of these isn’t really enjoying the over-wet soil. The other isn’t loving it, but is tolerating it a little better.

And…here are the confirmed ladies after the sex test results came back from Farmer Freeman. One of each is female, which works out pretty ok, since I have 3 available containers in my main tent right now.

I’m kinda digging the first set of 3 fingered leaves on the Banana Pebbles OG, looking a little more like a fleur de lis than a pot leaf. And I’m getting a Snow Lotus feel from the leaves on the Soul Axis. It looks really similar to my pics of Solo’s Stash and Superstitious around the same age.

Feel free to chime in with anything. I’m awful at staying on topic, but I’ll try to update the grow regularly with plenty of pics.

[DrGonzo13]

Welcome back from the little break…I’m new to the OG community and since joining in December I’ve gained so much knowledge and growing tips on here making my second grow become a lot more efficient than the first one that I grew I’m currently on week 5 of flower and I look forward to seeing you get started back up …Happy Growing (as soon as you can lol)

[Foreigner]

@SmackyMcSmackers

included upgrading our 100A electrical service to 200A

Ding ding ding! Lucky you man! I’ve only got a 15A line to work with.

[SmackyMcSmackers]

@DrGonzo13

Welcome back from the little break

Thanks! I was starting to get tired of living vicariously through other growers…and the seeds in my stash were starting to get restless too.

@Foreigner

I’ve only got a 15A line to work with.

Yeah, I started out that way…running everything on the single basement 15A circuit and probably running more continuously through that than preferable. I was able to run a 20A circuit before the kitchen remodel, but the old panel was maxed out. I think I’m looking at at least 2 more 20A circuits for the grow space to ease the load on the existing circuit. The wife actually pushed for the service/panel upgrades as hard as I did, but for a different reason. She wants to put a hot tub in the back yard. I’m not opposed to that either. LOL

[Rogue]

I kill all of my plants.
It’s called harvesting.

All kidding aside, seeds really don’t need as much moisture as generally assumed.

Overwatering is one of the most common mistakes, so take it easy with that.

These plants grow in deserts after all.

[SmackyMcSmackers]

So I haven’t killed them yet. In fact, they’re looking pretty darn healthy for the moment. Getting them into the main tent and their permanent containers was today’s task. Actually, I moved them into the main tent the other day to get them accustomed to the different lights, bigger oscillating fan, etc.

Soul Axis

Monkey Princess

Banana Pebbles OG

And a gratuitous tent shot just before transplanting.

[SmackyMcSmackers]

My original goal was actually to swap out a couple of these containers with earthboxes because I really want to try them, but it’s been too cold to mix fresh soil to fill them. So…that’s a project for the next cycle, I think.

[SmackyMcSmackers]

I know, I know…I’m way overdue on an update & pics. They’re still in veg, so nothing super fun to show.

Soul Axis is either unhappy about the amount of water she’s getting or wants a lot more Mg than she’s getting. I’ve been purposely trying to go easy on watering due to fungus gnats, so not sure it’s a water issue. Basically watering once or maybe twice a week with a little over a liter of water each time in a 20 gal container.

Monkey Princess and Banana Pebbles OG are getting chomped on by aphids, so I’m working on getting those under control before flipping. Haven’t really seen aphid activity on the Soul Axis, though. Also still have some fungus gnats flitting around, based on what I’m seeing on the fresh sticky traps. Guess who slacked on the IPM and is now paying for it? Yep, this guy.

[Rogue]

The watering is still very heavy, completely stop until they start wilting and you’ll get rid of the gnats. Without doing anything!

Sow some vetch in your pots, the aphids will migrate to that because they like it much better.
Aphids are only chewing on your cannabis because there’s nothing else to chew on!
Give them vetch and they will leave your cannabis alone.
Vetch is not only like a gourmet dinner for them, it also fixes nitrogen into the soil.
Chop and drop when they start flowering, that’s when a maximum of nitrogen becomes available, but let one mature so you can harvest the beans, then you don’t need to buy more beans.

Never battle anything, rather provide habitat and balance.
Feed your enemies and they become friends.

[SmackyMcSmackers]

I’m really trying not to let either aphids or fungus gnats have a permanent home in my tents. If they were beneficial, maybe…but since they’re not, I’m trying to escort them out ASAP.

[SmackyMcSmackers]

Sooo…death won this round. Root damage from the fungus gnats and allowing for extreme dry-backs to help get rid of them helped exacerbate deficiencies in the soil. I originally wanted to mix fresh soil prior to this grow, but I didn’t want to brave freezing temps to mix soil in the garage. Sadly these plants never made it to flower and were never truly healthy enough to cut clones. They went to the big compost heap in the skyyard over the weekend. The soil went to a different corner of the yard where any bugs still existing in the soil are less likely to cause issues in either my indoor or outdoor garden spaces. The tent is getting bleached before bringing in any new soil/medium.

Resetting and popping new seeds soon.

[SmackyMcSmackers]

So the tent is sterilized/reset and a new batch of seeds hit water yesterday and were planted today. I’m hoping I learned something with regard to the damping off issue I had. Since I lightly moistened the mix (squeezed into a clump, but not dripping) before planting the seeds, I think I did ok.

Here’s what I’m working with this time around. I dropped 4 seeds of each. A couple of these are packs that jumped back to the top of the list after either killing off a female or else only getting males the first time.

Monkey Princess - Kinetic Genetics
Grapefruit Bad Ass - Ice River Genetics
John Coletrane - Strayfox
Wookie Orgasm - Bodhi

I’m going in a bit of a different direction this time. I’ll be using Pro-Mix HP as the medium with the TPS Nutrients Complete line. Not sure why, but I’ve had a devil of a time keeping plants happy in 15-20 gal containers. So I’m also dropping down to smaller pots (either 3 or 5 gal).

[SmackyMcSmackers]

So I definitely learned something after my last seed pop. Out of the 16 seeds I soaked, 15 made it above ground and lived long enough to get Farmer Freeman sex testing. The 16th seed, a Wookie Orgasm, popped but appeared to fizzle before sprouting from the promix.

I ended up with 6 females out of the 15 seedlings. 1 Monkey Princess, 1 John Coletrane, and 2 each of Grapefruit Badass and Wookie Orgasm.

I’m still trying to get a feel for the TPS nutrients complete line and I think the plants might still be a little hungry. They didn’t get their first feeding until they were above soil for about 2 weeks, which may have been a week too late to start feeding. So far I’ve been using the scheduled amounts, but I think I’m still a week or so behind the needs of the plants.

[SmackyMcSmackers]

poof

Here we are almost ready to flip to flower. All plants were transplanted to their 3 gal final homes this past weekend. As I’m sure most will notice in the pics, they haven’t all led particularly stress free lives to date.

Now for some close-ups.

John Coletrane

This is a thirsty plant. It consistently likes to drink almost twice as much as any other plant in the tent. The only time I was finding the lower leaves not drooping was after particularly heavy waterings. But then a couple days later they’d be back to drooping and I’d find myself wondering if I’d dreamed that all the leaves weren’t drooping. Based on the genetics, I wouldn’t think this would be one of the tallest in the tent right now, but I guess the real test will be found over the next several weeks.

Wookie Orgasms

These plants are showing about the most positive new growth I’ve seen since they moved into the big tent. They’ve had a bit of a rough go at life in my tent. But I think I’d have a rough go at life if I lived in temps that were consistently higher than expected without sufficient humidity to make things bearable…and if I were consistently fed with food that was ever-so-slightly too sour. Turns out my tent and leaf surfaces were more consistently in the mid-high 80s than I thought. I ended up turning off my heaters altogether and just using the lights to heat the tent. I have a bit of an amalgamation of lights in the tent, with 4x QB96 elite v2, 4x ChilLED pucks, and an HLG QB 260 B-Spec. All drivers are outside the tent, but that combination of lights definitely doesn’t need any additional heat added to the tent when ambient basement temps are in the upper 60s.

Grapefruit Badasses

These have got some serious bushy vibes going on. I’m really impressed by the secondary branching. Some of the lowest branches have tops that have shot up and out and are just a little lower than the main top. As I was repotting these, I felt a little bad because I tore the roots a little. They had crept out the bottom and were coiling around in the tray–without getting air pruned under the stand. I also noticed these have a funky citrusy smell just as they are in veg, which was apparent even through the N95 mask I was wearing to keep the Pro-Mix dust out of my lungs.

Monkey Princess

After all my mis-starts and recent misadventures in growing, this is one of the ones I really want to see do well in flower. It’s a little hungry because all the plants got way dried out while I was out of town for the 4th of July…and I didn’t time waterings well enough. So, when I got back, I gave them all a watering with half-strength nutes so I wouldn’t fry the hell out of them. And now that they’re pretty much back to normal, they’re showing the hunger.

All in all, everything is settling into place to be primed for flower. I’ve got the tent temps & humidity where I want them now. I also shifted my light schedule from 18/6 to 16/8, which none of the plants seem to be complaining about.

I’m getting the hang of the TPS nutrients, and so far I’m liking what I see. Turns out in Pro-Mix HP, they want to be watered closer to soil pH rather than more like coco. So now that I’m shifted to adjusting them to 6.1-6.3 or so, I’m seeing very positive improvements in newer growth.

[Foreveryoung]

Great job dialling things in this round, plants are definitely responding positively.
That Monkey Princess has some crazy broad leaves, looking forward to seeing how she bulk up.
Thers nothing on that menu I wouldnt like to try, nice selection.

[SmackyMcSmackers]

@Foreveryoung

Great job dialling things in this round, plants are definitely responding positively.

Thanks! I’m glad to see the Wookie Orgasms and John Coletrane are coming around. The Monkey Princess and GFBAs have pretty much needed nothing aside from water & nutes at a higher rate sooner.

[SmackyMcSmackers]

Okay, time for an update. I’m going to post a warning now that if uneven canopies make you seasick or whatever, you may want to look away for the rest of this grow. I wanted to see how the plants in my tent would grow naturally, without any training, topping, bending, etc., unless they got too close to the lights and risked bleaching/burning.

Also, I’m finally getting my sniffer back online after covid took away smell & taste for a couple weeks. So now I’m able to smell everything my wife was complaining about when I opened the tent during/after covid. Also, luckily I wasn’t too bad off with covid, so I was still physically able to water the plants, even if I didn’t really feel like it. Right now the smell that smacks me in the face when the tent opens is kind of a sweet funky feet + sour milk.

The pics in this post were all taken on day 28F. So, depending on the plant we’re either about half or a little less than half done.

John Coletrane

I think this is probably the plant that surprised me the most so far. I’m pretty sure I was expecting something a lot less…tall/leggy. But that said, if any of the plants in this tent were going to be closer to an 8 week strain, this one would have the early pick. Continuing to want more water, more frequently than the other plants in the tent.

Wookie Orgasm #5

Wookie Orgasm #3

I’m pretty sure I considered chopping both of the Wookie Orgasms more often than I’d like to admit. They were all sorts of PITAs in veg–at least until I figured out the pH & temps that all of the plants could live with. #5 is the taller of the two and also has the bigger buds of the two. However, #3 currently has some sort of intoxicatingly sweet fruity funk going on. These are the first Bodhi plants I’ve grown using the Wookie 15 male, so as they get closer to the finish line, I’ll start comparing them to other progeny of the Wookie 15 male.

Grapefruit BadAss #1

Grapefruit Badass #4

These two plants are leafy. #1 has some of the longest petioles I’ve seen on a plant so far. It also had significantly hairy legs that needed trimming–more than once. Even after the last significant trim I did around day 21, fresh leaves & buds have popped out at the same points. Both of these have some snappy pine with a skunky citrus backend going on. Looking forward to seeing where they end up in another month or so.

Monkey Princess

I am seriously digging the amount of frost on this plant so far. I can’t nail down any specific smells on this one (mostly due to where it sits in the tent), but it seems like a pleasant smell so far. This plant has been notable in the tent because many of the fan leaves had a double serration. Just something unique I noticed that doesn’t mean much, but was interesting to note. I have to admit, after killing all the rest of the females in this pack by some method or another, I’m kinda rooting for this plant to be something special.