Zephyr grows and creates

[zephyr]

I’m about to post some pictures of my first grow ever. Those plants were crazy.

Here is some background about how I learned to grow.

I was able to get a ton of grow cycles in just a few years because of San Francisco’s unique Mediterranean climate. Everything flowers all year round there, including cannabis. Cannabis flowers as soon as it reaches maturity, not in the fall when the photoperiod changes.

My first ever grow yielded some truly hilarious results, for some reason I thought weed was different than other plants, and that I couldn’t harvest it until fall. My plants flowered over and over again, making thick layers of bud, it was nuts. This is a local seed line of Shaman skunk.

When I was learning to grow in San Francisco, I was mostly growing clones, and a few local seed lines.

After that I learned my lesson, and got about 4 to 6 large harvests per year. I grew clones from local growers and Harborside Collective in Oakland. I would get clones, root them indoors under fluorescent lights, and then plant them outdoors in 5 gallon pots. Everything would flower when it reached sexual maturity, or grew to its maximum size for its root space.

(It’s rare to see grows like this documented online, one of the best journals to show this type of Mediterranean climate perpetual outdoor grow is Brassnwood’s grow journal on grasscity.)

I was growing a ton of weed. My friends hung out with me all day and we just smoked it all as fast as I could grow it. We had a lot of fun while we were all still living in the bay.

I lost a lot of the photos from those intermediate years growing in the bay before I moved to the PNW, but I still have pictures of my very first grow in my backyard in San Francisco.

edit- I think about my grow mentors all the time. they were many diverse growers from communities all over the bay. I won’t mention any of them here because they were all underground in one way or another.

[zephyr]

And here are the photos from my first every grow. It’s kind of funny, I learned to grow with the best genetics I’ve ever seen. By the time I really got good at this, none of these lines were available anymore because cookies had become popular. Ever since then, I’ve just been trying to find genetics that were as good as what I started with, before I knew what to do with them.

These are the Shamans, which is an old skunk seed line given to me by a local dealer. As I was saying, everything flowers all year round in SF. All of these pictures were taken on the same day, and you can see that they are ripening in the order that I started the seeds.

These were taken in late july.

This was the first seed I ever planted. This plant smelled exactly like lemon skittles. As you moved further away from them, you could smell skunk. If you were on the sidewalk which is down a steep hill from my house, you could smell skunk. If you walked up the hill and stood at my front door, it reeked of skunk. That smell was only around while the plant was growing, and you could only smell it from a distance.
Sounds weird, but I since then I have heard this description of old skunk lines many times.

And now, may I introduce you to Cousin It-

This is fully ripe, maybe even over ripe. If I had harvested it on the day I took this photo, I would have gotten a perfect harvest on the first try.

That’s just the top of the smallest cola on the lowest branch.

Look at those frosty fan leaves and sugar leaves.

it’s perfect! harvest now, you young fool!

This cola was as wide as a regulation football, and several feet long. to this day I have never seen anything quite like it.

the monolith…

or is it a rocketship?

[zephyr]

Continuing with photos of my first grow ever…

This is another Shaman pheno, the second seed I ever planted. This one was huge and bushy, with a nice sweet and skunky herbal smell like basil and oregano. My friends said it tasted like rosemary ham, and gave me a lot of shit about it haha. This one would have been ready within a week or two after I took this photo. Unfortunately, I didn’t know when to harvest. I let it go too late lost a lot of bud.

All part of the learning process of course, you can’t improve without failing.

As you can see, these had amazing genetics. Another pheno with frosty fan leaves.

[zephyr]

Continuing with photos of my first grow ever…

This is the third pheno of the shaman. I planted this one later than the others, so you can see it is the least mature.

This one ended up being my favorite, probably because it had the best growth characteristics for my foggy San Francisco microclimate.

The guy who gave me the seeds thought this one looked different, and that it might be a fluke accidental hybrid with an OG clone that got light burn and hermed near the shaman.
As you can see its branching and over all structure look like the shaman, but its leaves were smaller, and it threw 3 finger og-like leaves when it flowered.
To me, it just looked like the shaman. This was some of the most impressive genetics I have ever grown in terms of resin coverage, resinous leaves, flavor, smell, and potency.

it smelled like a sweet fresh basil version of OG.

I gotta take a break now, but I will continue and post the rest of the pictures from my first grow tomorrow.
so stay tuned for
Part 2 - elite clones

[nefrella]

Looking good! Can’t wait to see the additional pics!!

[nube]

Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Isn’t it funny how far you’ve come personally and, in that time, how much the scene has regressed? Cookies really set the industry back a few years. IMHO. Such is life - things change.

That’s very cool you kept pics from that long ago. What year was this?

[zephyr]

These were taken in 2010.
2021 will be my 12th year growing.

In some ways I’m still a rookie, but as my health declined I really had to dedicate myself to the plant in order to stay alive. It helped that I had a lot of great mentors encouraging me, and sharing their knowledge and unique genetics with me.

And it worked too! I’m doing a lot better now than I was 5 years ago. I may be more physically disabled than I was when I started growing, but my health is more stable, I am not losing function any more, and I am in a lot less pain.

Looking forward to 2021 and beyond, I am hopeful that now that I can manage my condition effectively with cannabis, I will be able to start working up to more physical activity and slowly gain back some of the physical capabilities that I lost over the years.

[dequilo]

wow!!!wow!!!wow!!! what a great thread and read so much good info

I will be rereading this one a few hundred more times

thanks for your time in posting all this and putting it all together

be safe and stay free

Dequilo

[zephyr]

@nube
in 2012 Cookies had just hit the bay area market, but at that time it was only in one dispensary in the sunset neighborhood, one dispensary downtown, and in the hands of a few black market dealers (who were actually growing the bagseeds, which were basically girl scout cookies sisters, and later girl scout cookies s1’s).

I grew a few of those sisters and pre-cookies versions, the best one was durban pie, although like cookies itself, they were often herms.

It really started to gain traction in 2013 and started to become more widely available.

Berner got cookies as bag seed from a dispensary supplier. He named that batch girl scout cookies, and he called the bud from the s1 herm bagseeds girl scout cookies as well.

That grow seemed to be poorly maintained, they grew the girl scout cookies alongside a bunch of old bay area cuts which kept herming from light burn or other stresses. Knowing those stress herms would produce females every time, they started growing out all the hybrids as well. When Berner realized it was selling well, they grew out more bagseeds and selected their keeper which they called the “thin mint” cut.

Berner would never have had a platform to market girl scout cookies, if it wasn’t for Jacka.
Jacka (rip) was a beloved rapper, artist, and philosopher, and the nephew of Huey Newton. Berner was jacka’s weed man, and jacka put him on his Drought Season album in 2008.

In my opinion, Berner owes everything he has to Jacka.

“I put a truck full of reggie on the highway”
-Berner, 2009.

Now that’s the Berner I know.
Just trying to move some shitty midgrade bud that won’t even sell in California.
That’s closer to Berner’s comfort level.

[lefthandseeds]

It’s cool that you kept a log of your beginnings. My very first plant was in a 2x2 tent in an apartment. I think other people were growing in that building, because I had aphids within 3 weeks. My plant stagnated forever and never finished. Humble beginnings…

I’m glad you are enjoying the Lebanese so much. In my head, I’m so fixated on it, I think I’m going to have to grow it again next. I’m looking for something with the mildness and light hashyness of the Blue Hemp Lebanese, but I’ve been working on bringing together several of the lines I had so I can do selections and hopefully get some vigor back.

[zephyr]

Thanks dequilo! that really means a lot. I know you’ve been at it for a long time.
I always really enjoy reading about your experience with large scale grows, and chatting about music and stereo gear.

[zephyr]

Yeah the lebanese is so unique and special as a line that was isolated from the standard breeding process of the western black market, which selected only for high thc and commercial viability.

The lebanese has a totally different story to tell.

[lefthandseeds]

I think so too. This coming year, I might take a hiatus from potent strains and spend time on interesting low potency stuff. Right now, I’m really digging this Bodhi Acapulco Gold… it’s probably like 5%. I think I’m realizing that I tend to prefer that except for a nighttime smoke.

I felt the BH Lebanese was maybe the best anti-anxiety strains I’ve ever grown. It was hardly even psychoactive, but it brings a wave of well-being over you. Such interesting genetics to explore…

[zephyr]

Continuing with photos of my first grow ever- part two, bay area elite clones

These are the first two clones I ever grew, and the first clones I got through the old harborside medical collective in oakland.

Deadhead OG

chem 4 x OG – this one must have been the selected offspring of a femenized hybrid breeding project.
This plant had really nice genetics. Excellent branching with rock hard OG nugs (so dense they made a “clunk” sound if you dropped one). The nugs were slightly larger than a pure og. This one had beautiful pink pistils as it ripened. The smell was pure earthy soil. Extreme knockout indica potency, very high medicinal value for pain relief.

Harborside was great because they had a consistent supply of clones from nurseries and large scale commercial medical growers, as well as unique clones from the private medical gardens of collective members. These were unique privately held strains, and some were true diamonds. It was rare for these ones to appear more than once, and some were truly amazing genetics. I hope some of them are still held in private gardens in the bay area.

In the collective system, any patient who could produce good enough products could sell to the collectives they belonged to. There was no limit to the number of collectives you could join. It was a really really great time to be involved with cannabis.

[MimirKush]

Harborside was legit years ago… Are they still around? Man every time i see your pic i just wanna go back to H.I.T.W. miss that beach

[zephyr]

Oh man, harborside was the best. I think it’s around but it’s a lot different now, at some point the collective system was changed and mmj patients can’t sell directly to clubs anymore. I think harborside is a recreational dispensary now.

[MimirKush]

That sucks thats where i found blood diamond og years ago. If you wanted the best that was the place… Pricey though

[zephyr]

little guava update-
I told you these made funky seeds. Conjoined triplet seed - f2 b#2 ix f1 male.

Like a star anise pod.

I shuck my seeds into the lid whenever I pack a bowl, there was also a twin in the same nug. Before I shucked it that twin might have actually been conjoined with these as well. an additional twin attached would make it a quintuplet seed.

edit-
Just for fun,
What’s your speculation about the genetic outcome of this triplet?

I haven’t grown a triplet yet, but I’ve seen a lot of variations of twin cannabis.

For conjoined seeds, sometimes you will get a forked plant with two stems, both the same pheno. Sometimes they are the same pheno but one outgrows the other, and the small one becomes like a branch. Sometimes it’s two different female phenos. Sometimes it is a female and a male.

Single seed twins usually produce two of the same pheno, with one being dwarfed and turning into a branch.

[Pawsfodocaws]

This seems very intriguing I would like to know the outcome of said growth of this triplet.

[zephyr]

Continuing with photos of my first grow-

Purple Urkle
Mendocino clone only. unknown genetics from a family farm, the mother plant was held privately for many years before they shared it as a clone.

very complex sweet smoky smell like pipe tobacco, raisins, and hard candy. Very sweet mild smooth smoke. The purple comes in evenly, not like a blush or in streaks like grandaddy and other purple strains. Produces tons of tiny dense nug berries on the branches, and a compact ultra dense top cola.

this will be the last part of this series.

I actually had even more plants in this grow, you could grow a lot in San Francisco with a medical card. I had some bagseed and some standard seed bank seeds from a dispensary. Those plants just weren’t as interesting and special as these unique bay area clones and shaman seed line. I might post a few shots of those if I revisit my old photos again.

If I find more photos from my other bay area grows, I’ll post some of those. I had a pretty sweet greenhouse for a while, and grew a ton of the classic bay area clone lines using my perpetual outdoor method.

For now, here is the final photo from the San Francisco garden.
A ganja guardian pumpkin spider. It’s cool that these always show up in my outdoor grows.

Check out that detail, you even can see a tiny dewdrop on the back of his funky spider knees