My Moby Dick.

[2Fat2EatThat]

Howdy people,

 

After a crappy life enforced break from growing Ive returned with a new DIY  space built with stealth in mind, pictures to follow, and fitted out with 200w act LED and 300w of CMH thats running a 6inch fan + filter for exhaust.

 

It's taken some tweaking to get the temps balanced during a week of dry running on 12/12 but its settled now so time for action.

 

I use standard Levingtons general compost with Guanokalong Guano mixed along side Guanokalong Grow/Bloom.

 

My germination/veg space is limited to a small cupboard and a single 35w CFL. I start the seeds and repot to 4.5ltr pots after 2 weeks, give them another 2 weeks veg and straight into flower. It's basically flowering from seed but I have no other option currently so expect hefty main colas and a star burst of surrounding bud action around the base.

 

It's a simple compost,small pot grow at heart but the secret with small pots is to keep the moisture levels consistent avoiding any over drying whilst flowering. My method of doing that semi automatically is a little different and will be explained more once it's set up.

 

I have germinated a Moby seed simply in a plastic tub lined with wet kitchen roll and sat in the airing cupboard for 24hrs. I popped it into a little pot of the compost and tied into a sandwich bag for humidity until it breaks the surface then it sits under the little CFL.

 

I have to figure the uploading out but will have some photos to post a little later to clarify some of my explanations above.

 

That's it for now, fingers crossed its a smooth journey on the road to sticky glory rather than a downhill slide to destruction.

 

Game on.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 22, 2019 by 2Fat2EatThat

[Dinafem-Mark]

On 22/06/2019 at 0:58 PM, 2Fat2EatThat said:

After a crappy life enforced break from growing Ive returned with a new DIY  space built with stealth in mind, pictures to follow, and fitted out with 200w act LED and 300w of CMH thats running a 6inch fan + filter for exhaust.

 

Welcome back to the crazy life as a grower and what a great way to come back

 

Nice sounding grow space and making your return with our flagship lady Moby Dick 

 

Best of luck my friend 

 

Let's do this!

 

All the best 

 

Mark..

[2Fat2EatThat]

Howdy people,

It's time to kick this of properly.

As I mentioned above my chosen Moby Dick bean went into an Ice Cream tub with wet kitchen roll and into the airing cupboard where within 36hrs it had stuck its tongue out looking for dirty compost love -

 

I popped that into some bog standard Levington compost with a dash of Mychorizal powder under a 35w CFL on 18/6 timing and it broke the surface 48 days later. Here she is at day 11 -

 

She's been sipping aired H2O with 1ml Guano Grow and .5 ml Bloom. I start Bloom early to get plants used to it before ramping up the dosage and as I'm basically flowering from seed they'll have a good start.

 

At day 15 she went into her final 5 ltr pot of Levingtons general compost with a small dose of Bat Guano and another teaspoon of Mychorizal well mixed and watered in with Guano Grow 1ml and Bloom at .5ml per litre. Here she is looking lonely - 

 

So here we are at day 19 and she'll spend another 10 days or so having a little veg before being put in to flower at about 30 days. 

 

That's all for now folks enjoy the sun or just swear at it until it fucks of and we can sleep sweat free (unless your feeling frisky and the wife's high/drunk again in which case feel free to sweat at will gentlemen) 

[botanics]

Looks good so far bud  

[2Fat2EatThat]

Thanks for popping in @botanics tis' early days yet so plenty of time for dramas. 

[Dinafem-Mark]

On 28/06/2019 at 3:44 PM, 2Fat2EatThat said:

Howdy people,

It's time to kick this of properly.

As I mentioned above my chosen Moby Dick bean went into an Ice Cream tub with wet kitchen roll and into the airing cupboard where within 36hrs it had stuck its tongue out looking for dirty compost love -

 

I popped that into some bog standard Levington compost with a dash of Mychorizal powder under a 35w CFL on 18/6 timing and it broke the surface 48 days later. Here she is at day 11 -

 

She's been sipping aired H2O with 1ml Guano Grow and .5 ml Bloom. I start Bloom early to get plants used to it before ramping up the dosage and as I'm basically flowering from seed they'll have a good start.

 

At day 15 she went into her final 5 ltr pot of Levingtons general compost with a small dose of Bat Guano and another teaspoon of Mychorizal well mixed and watered in with Guano Grow 1ml and Bloom at .5ml per litre. Here she is looking lonely - 

 

So here we are at day 19 and she'll spend another 10 days or so having a little veg before being put in to flower at about 30 days. 

 

That's all for now folks enjoy the sun or just swear at it until it fucks of and we can sleep sweat free (unless your feeling frisky and the wife's high/drunk again in which case feel free to sweat at will gentlemen) 
 

 

And it begins 

 

Good luck buddy 

 

All the best 

 

Mark.. 

[2Fat2EatThat]

Hope the Suns shining for you guys, 

 

I had some time to fill so thought I'd do a little tutorial on my DIY Octopot watering gizmo.

 

I know what your thinking "WTF Octopot?! what a fuckin' stupid name" but it was that or 'DIY wick based slow release watering device' so stuck with octopot.

An octopot is basically a 4pt milk bottle with 6 - 8 8mm nylon braids sat in water. Its an old school way of steady watering in a controlled way to stop any over drying which is essential when flowering in small pots.

You may be looking at this thinking its a bit way out there but it's essentially a life support machine for a cannabis plant in compost. If you need to leave your plants for a short break or a holiday set them up correctly go enjoy your time and your plants will still be alive when you get back. With a careful set up and maybe a reduction in lighting strength you could do 7 days away without to much worry.

To begin.....

You get your milk bottle and mark 8 holes around it. Then cross cut holes into each leaving the little tabs to help grip the braid like this -

 

 

 

 

Dont remove the top of the bottle to make it slightly easier to get the strings through it removes the structure and strength plus you need a lid to limit evaporation.
 

Cut your braids, mine are 90cm, push one end through and out of the lid, quickly measure the length needed to reach the bottom, mark with a pen and tie a knot there to stop it falling back out -

 

 

 

 

Go round and do all of your braids and it'll look like this -

 

 

 

Notice I went round the bottle with a black marker pen underneath any slight over cuts in the plastic to use a safe fill line. 

 

 

Once your done sit the bottle between your pots and coil each braid around the plant and the pot surface like this -

 

 

 

The braid will act as a wick drawing water out and into your pot.

To adjust the delivery rate you have to raise or lower the water level relative to the compost surface. It has two basic settings but is very versatile in between -

 

1 - above pot surface = faster.

 

 

2 - equal to or lower than pot surface = slower.

You can also change braid thickness to further control the flow. I settled on 8mm but try other sizes if you want.

 

To do a simple experiment just use 2 pots and a piece of braid in between to assess flow over a set time measuring the amount wicked. To test further raise the pot holding water higher or lower relative to the recieveing pot for the same length of time and measure.

Once you've got it sat right amongst your pots you feed each arm out around a pot, fill it with water to the line and your ready to go -

 

I fill it up each evening to ensure they have enough over night when they like it. I then don't have to water individually for at least 3 days dependant on ambient temps. So every 3 days they get fed Guanokalong.

Obviously you could use larger holding bottles/tubs/jars to cover longer periods and with the right containers, as mentioned above, will do a week quite happily, again id reduce lighting power if you can for extra assurance but It'll keep them alive until your return without asking anybody to come in and do it which is stressful!!! 

That's it done and I'm sure my Golden Blue Peter Cannabis Growing badge sponsored by Dinafem will be in the post soon won't it @Dinafem-Mark? 

 

[2Fat2EatThat]

It's Moby Time again. 

Here we are then update 2 after doing my ground breaking, hi tech and cutting edge Octopot tutorial earlier!

 

As in my Gorilla diary there's not to much happening other than some growth and filling out a touch as you'll see in the photos below. 

 

Here she is under nature's massive growlight in the sky - 

 

 

As shes about 3 weeks now she's gone in to flower. Incase your unsure plants will only start to flower after about 3 weeks old from seed.

Here's a close up of her first node and internode, looking peachy -

 

She's having 250ml Guanokalong 1ml grow and .5ml bloom every 3 days but she does have a braid from the octopot that's slowly delivering plain aired water 24/7 helping her fillout.

There's no evidence of any issues so far which is a bonus as I've never used this Levingtons compost before. It's 3 big bags for £12 at B&M, with a supposed 4 wks of feed in but I always take that with a pinch of salt and feed from day one at low levels.

 

So its a good price and is doing well so far but once she really starts eating up the feed later in flower I'll be able to make a better guess on its quality.

 

Its the end of the road for today. Have a great weekend and keep those cannabinoid levels up in the Sun people it's for your own good! 

 

Edited July 5, 2019 by 2Fat2EatThat

[botanics]

@2Fat2EatThat

 

Now I do like that wick idea with the bottle see, that's really useful tech there and do you find this a better way than capillary matting ?  

 

I'm thinking you'd get less evaporation this way than loading a length of matting into a bucket and sitting on a tray and a good idea ...do you think you could rig it so that the braids are incorporated into the medium at pot up ? 

[2Fat2EatThat]

@botanics hey thanks for calling in again and yeah you could, nice idea. 

 

You could layer them into the compost easily so you'd take an empty pot-

 

1 braid in, 

layer of compost, 

1 braid in, 

layer of compost, 

1 braid on compost surface. 

 

Or do you mean having them low down at the bottom only? also a possible and would help root development a bit by drawing them down for fluids as normal. 

 

I can feel a mad scientist moment coming on again. I can start 1 3 layer pot in the next day or two but a 3 pot comparison grow would be fun and could do that in a couple of weeks I think. 

 

The evaporation would be minimal compared to a lot of other techniques as you mention and of course you use all sorts of empty bottle sizes and shapes. 

 

@Dinafem-Mark is it ok to do a small test grow like that here in Dinafem towers mate? 

Edited July 5, 2019 by 2Fat2EatThat

[botanics]

@2Fat2EatThat

 

Yeah, what I was thinking mate is like some kind of hempy but with a variation so having a drainage layer of grit in the bottom of a tub, then these braids put in on top of that and finally the medium as per normal.

 

Could run it without holes but it would have to them, like a traditional hempy bucket and above the drainage bed if top watering is being done of course.  But it's really piqued my interest, this design of yours and practical for solutions in small areas or scrogs whereby hand watering is a pain in the arse, not to mention the holidays aspect you wrote about too.  

[Dinafem-Mark]

On 05/07/2019 at 4:43 PM, 2Fat2EatThat said:

is it ok to do a small test grow like that here in Dinafem towers mate? 

 

Sure, go for it mate. Really cool wick system design which I'm sure other member will find both cool and interesting 

 

Moby Dick looks super healthy, Nice vibrant green and growing at a steady pace

 

Looking on track in here

 

All the best 

 

Mark..

[Amo]

@2Fat2EatThat crazy cool idea with the wick system m8, I gonna have to try this as I’m away for 4-5 days on a regular basis. I thinking off using a 5ltr water bottle for the longer duration...

im sure with you an @botanics on the case you will get this even more fine tuned...

The lil moby’s are looking great so far dude, good luck an cheer’s m8...

[2Fat2EatThat]

Today I am the bearer of bad news for my lonely little Moby.

Over the last few weeks I thought I'd been fighting a deficiency in some form so was working through a few remedies.

Having had issues with similar symptoms, small shiny silver dots on all leaves, yellowing, browning and die back it just never occurred to me it could actually be bugs,namely Thrips, stupid I know but in this hobby learning never stops and I've learnt another lesson having never had anything bug wise before.

 

Here's a shot of the marks I misdiagnosed, you can see they're every where but the leaves are generally a good colour at this stage 

 

 

The issue for me was seeing the actual critters as my eye sights pretty poor at times so once I clicked I may have bugs I took a few leaves, photographed the underside and zoomed at which point I saw young ones merrily wandering around on each and every one of them which explains why every plant suffered the same as it was hardcore party time for Thrips!

 

Being in flower I had to treat without liberal application of anything on the buds so having read up got some Neem oil and Diatomaceous Earth. 

 

As I was thinking things out it occurred to me that less foliage could mean less housing for the bastards so I heavily defoliated every plant I had and then applied the Neem/DE mix by hand brushed around the buds and under leaves but by squirter elsewhere. I also sprayed a mix of Neem and DE absolutely everywhere in my space twice and let it dry to micro coat everything in it as a defence measure. 

Defoliating may have seemed viable at the time but in retrospect it may have over stressed an already heavily stressed plant that was fighting a large infestation on top of which it was adapting to all the extra treatments for the mis-diagnosed deficiency. Cut to today and sadly my poor Moby just hasn't perked up or done anything since and has given up the ghost over the last few days so it's all over for her I'm afraid.

As one of my first grows back I had high hopes as I went for a simple grow but perhaps my grow senses were a little rusty with my returning newbiness!

It may be over in here but my Gorilla grow has started recovery quite well and I can see new growth, shes still had a rough time of it and looks like she's been in a washing machine but I'm treating her like royalty and hope I can get some results from her at least.

Initially I thought the bugs had came from eggs in the compost but last week I remembered I actually started this first run of plants on my window sill as I was building my new space at the time and they sat there for a few weeks. Being in a very rural location with lots trees real close with bushes and other general countryside vegetation we have an excess of bugs and critters of all types at all times so wondered if perhaps they'd gotten in that way. 

 

I decided to test my theory. I already had a seedling that was a free bean found unlabelled in my freezer pot that had just gone in to flower so I put it on my window sill and waited.

 

When I checked yesterday sure enough it had similar leaf damage and marks so I'm pretty sure my theory was correct and it was all down to poor human planning, again. Here's the window seedling with damage, the silver marks are from big momma Thrip placing eggs within the leaf and as they hatch the babies move around inside eating all they want. 

 

 

Once mature they exit the leaf and you can see them wandering about shitting every where like this. 

 

 

 

Change of topic - 

 

As a side point its been an incredibly good year here for flying insects from Bees, Moths and Butterflies etc to every type of crawling bug you can think of so there may be a large rise in numbers across the board this year passing by my window.

 

Moths and Butterflies have been in numbers I've not seen for a long time, last year I literally only saw half a dozen butterflies and was genuinely shocked so I'm glad it's better at least and hope they continue to pick up for a few years as it's like a bloody desert out here sometimes and it shouldn't be so.

 

Here's a pic of one of our visitors this year a Poplar Hawkmoth - 

 

 

That's it in here but my Gorilla has a fighting chance still so will focus on her now,fingers crossed. 

 

@Dinafem-Mark I'm sorry about this one mate but thought it wouldn't be a total disaster if I put in a few shots that may help others in future. 

 

 

Edited August 14, 2019 by 2Fat2EatThat

[Dinafem-Mark]

On 14/08/2019 at 5:25 PM, 2Fat2EatThat said:

I'm sorry about this one mate but thought it wouldn't be a total disaster if I put in a few shots that may help others in future. 

 

It's not your fault mate, these things do happen and as you said hopefully others can learn from your mistake 

 

Personally if I'm doing indoor I keep everything indoors and away from outdoor as in the past I've found if I do let anything like soil or a plant outside of the indoor area it just causes bugs to come in on that one plant or bag of medium and the grows basically over 

 

Try keeping all equipment clean, indoors and away from any potential pest zones. Even indoor plant can house critters that will cause mayhem 

 

One of those things mate. Onto the next adventure 

 

All the best 

 

Mark..