In this thread I will share some notes and pictures into the Trials & Tribulations of Creating & Expanding My Own Personal Seed Stash. Whew, how’s that for a title?
Most of my growing experience has been feminized seed. While fems taught me a lot, I want to learn to collect and create my own seeds using traditional methods(no more feminized seeds). In the transition to regular seeds I will be; hunting new mother plants, learning to collect and use pollen for the first time, create and maintain a very small selection of clones, grow my seed stash organically over time.
A quick and dirty of my flower tent:
4’x4’ tent with a single 2’x4’ no till bed. (planned upgrade - fabricated by me to fit bed and tray)
1 (3) COB Citizen 3500k fixture made by Timber
HEPA Intake, Carbon Exhaust & Two Oscillating Fans
My first documented journal is a run from a keeper I found last season. I don’t have pictures of it previously but these are the notes I jogged down.
Extremely Healthy! STRONG Orange Stem rub. Above average trunk with VERY THICK Stems & Hollow Pith! Week 7 Flower: Turns shades of purple. - Flavor: INSANE CHERRY CANDY MUSK WITH ONION UNDERTONES that ends with an orange bite. The flavor STICKS to palette and lungs for extended periods!
I expect another week of stretch where. I will add a second layer of screen to support any colas that need help.
I have one more picture to share but it says it’s over 13mp? These were all shot with the same camera. I’ll have to figure out how to change the resolution in Gimp for future uploads.
Edit: Lowered Image quality down on this one until i figure out optimal size.
Garden of Dreams Zoom:
Thanks @TrichomesToStun . I watched a few forums before I engaged much. I couldn’t hang with guys being nasty over someone’s grow skills. Never had problems with that here. why I stay.
I love your set up. I only have access on 2 sides. Makes a fixed screen difficult. But the 2x4 no til bed sounds cool.
I hear ya dude. Or any skills for that matter. Sometimes it boils own to “at least they’re trying”. From all that I’ve read here and the interactions that I’ve had and seen, this feels like a welcoming place to me.
Thank you for the compliment on the setup. I only have access to two panels as well. The blocked panels have a wall and one of my veg tents/hepa/humidifer contraption. But since you mention the screen, it truly is a PAIN to get them in and out. While I do have access to one side panel, those zipper window things are in an awkward place. they basically useless
Nonetheless, since switching hard pots, to fabric pots and now the bed; I probably wouldn’t go back. I am NOT looking forward to the day I need to move the bed. Even mostly dry, between winter seasons, it weighs a shit load.
I’ll be doing a IPM treatment on my veg tent today, which going forward I won’t talk much about since it’s the same basic process every time. I may as well mention the few top-dresses I use for IPM as well.
For the top-dressings. Before a cycle begins, and after amendments are added, I add a generous amount of mustard meal, neem & karanja mix, and although I don’t need them, I also add mosquito bits. This gets watered in and sits for a couple weeks to let the mustard do its thing. It’s stinks like hell.
For foliars. I do these one every 10 days or so and I tend to switch up my additives. The base will always be water and JWA or Jadam Wetting Agent. I made a 3gal pale of JWA and it goes A LONG WAY! I won’t post a picture, it’s liquid soap. The additives I rotate between are (Peppermint essential oil, 7-oil blend and neem & karanja dissolved in water)
And lastly my bug farm of: Rove Beetle, Hypoaspis miles (Stratiolaelaps scimitus), Oribatida mite and Springtail. I no longer add these to my bed but I keep them around just in case I need them again. Occasionally I’ll add them to the rose garden when I need to change the soil out of the bug farm.
I love those little bugs. For a few cycles I would find rove beetles in my buds, or the freakin springtails all over the floor in my tent. But now, they’re pretty happy I presume? I don’t find them on the floor or in the buds, but I see them when watering.
I have a worm bin as well. I never though I would have a weird attachment to a bug farm or a worm bin LOL
Before joining OG I popped a little over a half a pack of Paw Paw from SkunkHouse.
I’ve always used direct sow with soil taken from my bed when I transplant. That’s been causing me problems lately and I’ve since started using the paper towel method which helped dramatically. In the future I will go from paper towel into sterile pucks before going into cups of soil from my bed. Unfortunately I learned a valuable lesson and lost 8 seeds.
That left me with 6 Paw Paw seeds which were 100% successful in germinating.
I also scored a free pack of WARDAWGS from an order, which ironically lead me here. There were 5 in the pack and 4 of those are chugging along. They are almost exactly one month younger than the Paw Paw.
The Paw Paw are the larger plants in the half gals. The stemrubs on one smell like rank halitosis, I’m really hoping that one in a female! Another smells of that old school burnt rubber, I’m 99% sure that one showed balls today. The remaining four have no smell at all
In 3gal in my Garden of Dreams mother. Just below it, in the nursery cup, is the same cut taken at the same time. Rather than chop it, I wanted to see how long I can keep it in the small container and it’s been doing really well! When I take cuttings of the next round I will downsize that 3gal and begin keeping bonsai sized moms instead.
I did my final defoliation today. Actually, rather than go all at it at once this time, I just took a few leaves here and there throughout the week. Today I cleaned up what was remaining. I also watered with some ferments so I took the chance to snap some pictures.
The before and afters are pretty much how it’s been each time I’ve taken leaves off.
I was a bit worried since I was expecting quite a bit more stretch. When defoliating today I couldn’t help get constant recall memories from the smell. Now that this cut is isolated from the other phenos, I can detect what smells like an intensely strong apple blossom and orange musk.
Welp, that’s the update for this week. Tomorrow is brisket chili hotdogs, Hockey playoffs and of course 4/20! I wish y’all an awesome day and weekend!
Fast update for my vegging plants today. I will get an update on the flower tent in a few more days.
The plant I suspected of being male was indeed a male. I want to try collecting pollen but, if I were to be in the mindeset of ‘selecting’ a female, this one would have been culled anyways. So it got the chop. That leaves me with five more PawPaw. All of which have similar growth patterns. They all have a nice mild gmo scent, except the one I pointed out before. That one is definitely dominated by Donny scents. I believe of those five I have identified another male which I will be keeping.
Thank you. In that picture, the one on the right is the female reveal picture. That short stocky one in the middle I believe to be male. I’ll need a few more days on that one.
Side note. Have you seen a webbed leaf like that before?
Update on the Paw Paw. I had mentioned previously that I f’d up eight seeds and that left me with six remaining. Well… five were male which really throws another wrench into next seasons plans. I have four other seedlings going as well but they are not as vigorous as I would like/hope them to be.
For this very reason I always start more seeds than I needed and even now, nature was not on my side. Nonetheless, I’m happy to have the single female, but more importantly, I have a backup plan! I won’t share just yet, but it’s a doozie!
Stay tuned for some flower tent updates tomorrow(with pictures)
I was going to post these tomorrow but why not just do it now. Garden of Dreams - Day 28.
This is my favorite part. Things are coming together, smells are getting stronger and a lot less work required from this point on. I swapped the lights to 11/13 and the RH to 45%. In two weeks I’ll lower the RH once more to 40% and ride it out from there.
Pictures below are overall view and random shots of lowers and a top or two.
I have a pretty simple update today. A few a few days before my last update I turned the lights up to 100%. I noticed the tops of some flowers to be a lighter color recently so I lowered the light intensity slightly today.
Here are some updated images and as before I’ll update the veg situation in a few days.
I’m not sure why the forum compresses & resizes the first image of some of my posts. It makes em’ look like . I’ve tried resizing images, using different resolutions to help No biggie
I’ve been mulling over some things about this grow that have left me curious. After reviewing my written journal I believe I figured out what’s been happening with my flower tent. I’m not 100% sure?
What’s been happening: Everything is happening one week sooner than it should. Stretch stopped seven days short of expectation. In my notes, this cut turns (shades of purple at week seven). When I snapped the pics from my previous update, I noticed the purple. I looked more closely and sure enough… purple. I’ve also noted that the pistils are starting to brown and recede.
What I “think” happened: About 1-2 weeks before 12/12 I goto 16/8. This time I went one week 16/8 AND one week 14/10. Is it possible that my plants started their flowering under 14/10?
They we’re not vegging long at all. I let them fill their cups and they were transplanted in the bed. They vegged there for two weeks before doing the lighting wind down.
If that’s the case, the gradual 16/8 - 14/10 thing, I wont be doing that again. That made it hard to predict what was going on and I wasn’t really able to figure it out until 6 weeks into flower, IF that’s what it was.
. I’ve tried resizing images, using different resolutions to help 
No biggie