I would like to start my blogging journey, like many other journey's start, at the end of another. My blogging journey will begin as a medical cannabis grow journal. I will post (as best as I can) a weekly update of my indoor grow tent. Once the weather gets good enough to plant outside, I will be doing a combination of both the outdoor garden and indoor. I will also preface that I am not a professional grower, I am still an amateur that is learning and trying to advance my techniques. I do work at a cannabis farm and am a grower 2 level, but still have many harvests to put under my belt to be considered a seasoned grower.

***LEGAL DISCLAIMER*** I currently live in a state (OR) in which medical cannabis and recreational cannabis is legal.***NOTHING IS FOR SALE EVER***

I WILL however, answer questions and provide knowledge to the best of my ability.

Today January 17th 2023 is harvest day, roughly 10 days ahead of projected schedule. This was an unlikely turn of events, but a somewhat welcome one. I have been growing anxious about harvesting this last week or so. Parts of each plant were showing signs of being ready to harvest, while others were not. My projected harvest date was based on when I flipped the plants to a 12/12 light schedule. I flipped the lights on Thanksgiving and estimated about 9 weeks or so to harvest.

My theory for the early finish, is that I started these plants under a smaller light Vivosun VS1000E. Then switched to a larger light to accommodate my tent and plants better. I went with a Viparspectra XS2000 which had almost double the output of light as my other one. So I think the intensity shocked the plants a little into finishing early. I have no way of confirming this theory though

Before harvest, I like to water the plants, and defoliate the large fan leaves, and then let it sit in darkness for 36 - 48 hours. I then water again the morning of, and let the plants drink for about an hour or so, and then chop them for harvest.

A few issues I ran into were trying to get the humidity and temperature balance and not fluctuating too much. Big fluctuations can cause powdery mildew to develop, especially from a clone, because PM can be systemic. So if the mother of the clone had PM at one point. It's already in the clone, it a mater of keeping it in check and not let it develop. One reason I prefer seeds over clones, though not as convenient as clones. I also had a small issue with fungus gnats so I put small stick traps along the dirt to capture them. They still seem to be around,

Cannabis cultivars in tent;

Roasted Garlic Margy (Photoperiod) (Garlic Juice by GMO) Clone

So very savory smelling, smells like fresh stew or a pot roast to me.

Stardawg (Photoperiod) (Chemdog 4 X Tres Dog) Clone

Funky gas is the best way I can describe the smell of this cultivar

Grape Runtz Cake (Autoflower) (Double Grape X Runtz Cake Auto) Assorted Seed

Light sweet berry candy smell with subtle hints of cake badder. 

I do apologize, I didn't get any good pictures of this cultivar. It was very stunted and wasn't growing well from the beginning. So I just threw it into the tent with these other two. I didn't expect much, and it didn't provide much. I'll maybe get enough for one joints worth out of it. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, that's farming.

Post Harvest:

After cutting down the plants I will let them hang dry for roughly a week. Give or take some time, depending on temperature and humidity conditions. After drying I will trim up the flowers, and put into jars to cure for three to four weeks. I tend to burp the jars once a day for the first week or two, and less frequently.

My grow tent will get a cleaning, but since I'm running living organic soil, I will be adding some amendments to help boost the soil and microbe activity, to prepare for the next round of growing. I will probably start by adding Bokashi scratched in, and then watered in with water containing EM-1 and molasses.

Next in line to go into the grow tent will be a clone of Gold Dust (unknown lineage), and an Assorted Chocolates seed. Assorted chocolates could be any of the chocolate strains from Purple Caper Seed. There is also a chance that it's a male, so maybe I'll create some random seeds out of this run and see how they do. We shall see, maybe I'm lucky and it will be a female, and I won't have to worry.

Hopefully y'all made it this far in my first blog. I'm trying to cultivate an old hobby into a new adventure, and hoping it can be fruitful, like my cannabis grows. Peace, love, and understanding. Until next time. 

- The Nordic Buffadillo