Pandemic Garden: sativa, indica, blends.

Hi folks. I hope you are all safe and not spreading SARS-CoV-2.

First, some back story. I use to grow indoor/organic compost. My last harvest (Little Hands, sativa from a UK breeder) was from 2011. I’m still smoking/vaping that. It’s rather nice. Not all off the jarred buds survived/did well, but those that did are nice.
That was my first series of serious attempts to grow indoors. I did okay, but my lighting intensity was not where it should have been (I was close though) especially as I was growing sativa.

Around that time frame I was gifted some seeds from a friend who worked as a trimmer for an outdoor Northern California (NorCal) cannabis farm. I’ll mention those strains in my next post.

So given that I had harvested far more (oops) bud than I could smoke and that the electrical cost was just way too much for me, I stopped growing and focused on my day job and my art. Also, it was a lot of work and took up a lot of my free time.

Over the past 10 years, I never lost my desire to grow. It’s a great hobby. So I spent a lot of time rethinking my goals and desires for a future cannabis garden. Given the legal climate for cannabis these days (recreational is legal in my state), coupled with stay at home orders I decided to implement my 2020 cannabis goals.

Those are:

1) Utilize the organic compost I have been storing over the past 10 years. I had accumulated a lot of organic soil amendments, and have been enriching the compost accordingly.
2) Save on electrical costs by growing plants in my south facing window.
3) Transplant sprouted beans into medium pots.
4) Sex my sprouted beans by placing them in a grow tent (under fluorescent tubes).
5) Pick most vigorous male for breeding, cull the other males.
6) Transplant best females into larger pots and place back in south facing window.

Here we go!

 

Step one:

Let’s pop some seeds! 17 seeds attempted. All plopped into compost on 4/17/20 except for the purps which I planted 4/18/20

All seeds (mentioned in the first post) are from harvests around 2007-2008. I was very concerned about viability. I choose the best looking seeds, with an attempt at variety.

1) Little Hands. Hard core sativa strain developed by a UK grower. I have two strains, I call LH2 and LH10.

The rest are from a NorCal cannabis farm. I have no idea how good their QC on breeding was. Nor am I the one who labeled the packages each strain came in.
I doubt the QC was perfect, but here are the names of the “strains” I was given and am attempting to germinate. I used these as I wanted some variety in my cannabis pleasures.

For those unfamiliar with NorCal cannabis history, it was traditionally an area rich in indicas, due to the compatible grow season. Over the years that has changed. There are more than a few sativa pollen grains floating around in NorCal.

2) Purps. I’m assuming these are indicas, but goddess only knows. These were the biggest seeds in my collection.
3) BB (I am assuming this is a blueberry) cross Sugar Loaf. Or BBxSL.
4) BB cross Malana. BBxM

 

GREAT SUCCESS

So on 4/27/20 (10 days later) two had poked their head above the compost.

 

So I highly recommend to all the folks new to this hobby to keep journals. This will help organize your thoughts and processes and go a long way to long term success in this hobby.

My journal. It makes me smile when I look at it.

 

Thanks kindly BZARLUCIANO. Your well wishes are heartfelt.

So sadly, although, not entirely unexpectedly, no more beans have popped.
Yet.
I just put another seed of each strain into each pot that remains plant-less at the moment, except for the LH10, of which I have no more seeds.

My main concern is propagation/seed generation, so the maturity of the plants, in regards to yield, is of a secondary concern.
If I am lucky, my first two will be a boy and a girl, however, I prefer to not rely on luck, hence the 2nd round of seed planting.

As you can see in the picture the seedlings are doing well after 6 days. The LH2 is already exhibiting sativa like stretch where as the BB x SL is looking more stout.

 

Thanks kindly. They seem to like their environment.

 

So, I’m going to share my “compost farm”. This is where and how I have been making organic compost.
My first concern was keeping the situation tidy and under control as I have limited space to work with. This is how I mix and primarily store my compost.

These are compost tumblers, easily found online. They are shipped disassembled. I love the big one a lot but corrosion is taking its toll after more than a decade being outside.

 

Note above that I have bags of organic store bought compost. To which I have added amendments.

 

Additionally I have used fabric bags to store leaf mulch, which is well over 5 years old, probably close to 10 years old. I had two of these bags full, and it’s all broken done and mostly gone in the bigger tumbler shown above. The bag shown here in the picture is about 1/3rd full. My tumblers are full so it stays until I have more room.

The small tumbler gets replenished by the bags of organic store bought compost. I usually put in some soil amendments (seen in my garage picture) when I do that. The smaller tumbler also gets reused compost/potting soil and occasional greens.

All containers, from seedling pots on up are filled from the big tumbler. I pot up twice (3/4 gallons and 3 gallon pots) and each pot up will get a top dressing of earthworm castings.

When the big tumbler empties out a bit, I’ll add a 50/50 mix from the small tumbler and leaf compost in the fabric bag, to top it off, give it a bunch of rotations, close the door and let it sit.

It’s time to go fill my big bags with more oak leaf droppings come this fall. I’ll post pictures when I fill both bags.

 

CHUNKY!

It’s been a month of sundays as Jerry Garcia use to say.
I’ve been super well! Still doing the same work career wise, which I love, so enjoying the seniority that comes with that. Still have my lovely home since last I was here so stability, a novelty in my life, has been a delicious lifestyle to savor.


This pandemic has been pretty fucked in some ways, and a blessing in other ways. I’m trying to use the time to get over my exhaustion, get caught up on house chores, catch up on my reading as well as my crafts and arts.

As soon as my new dryer gets installed, I need to get my planter garden (food and herbs) sorted.

I am super stoked grass city is still here and it is sweet to see you again.
I hope you are well!

 

oh gawd no, I don’t mind. Can I do that myself and save you the trouble?? A link to a page on how to would be awesome. I’ve just been uploading.

 

OH HAPPY DAY

Another bean popped over night. Bottom center.
The first two are looking really good. Definitely showing sativa/indica growth characteristics.

 

And another BBxSL popped today!

 

So when I transplant, I’ll be first going to the 3/4 gallon buckets on the left. After getting over transplant shock and filling out a bit, they’ll get sexed in a tent.

The lucky gals, will then move into the 3 gallon buckets on the right, then back into the sunlight they go.

As of today I have 4 popped beans, so I feel pretty good about being able to breed for more seeds. I really hope that more Little Hands pop out as I really want to keep that strong sativa line running.

 

So I still have only 4 popped beans.. I replenished with a fresh set of beans where I could, making this the 3rd set of bean popping attempted this year.

In the mean time I have to fill two more 3/4 gallon buckets so that they are ready for transplanting. Give the soil microbes a chance to wake up.

if all my plants turn out male (shudder) I’ll just go to a dispensary and buy a female cutting or three to breed.