OGKZ

[Grover Sativa]

Hello all,

 

I have been growing out some OGKZ seeds this summer - nothing massive, just 4 little plants in 17/18 litre pots. all completely organic and completely sunshine grown. The seedlings never saw an artificial light or salt fertiliser.

 

3 of the 4 are just finishing now and 1 is a few weeks behind as I let her grow a little more because she was a bit smaller and younger than the other 3.

 

I have to say that I am very very impressed with the plants so far. I got 3 distinct phenotypes from my 4 plants. 1 really short, really full flowered kush-type. She is very strong smelling and smells very much of pepper and also with sweet fruit. I have harvested her yesterday and the photos are below.

1 phenotype seems to be of the lebanese way. Thinner fingers and a more unusual, distinct smell. Also very fruity and sweet but with much less pepper but something else...

2 plants are very similar. They are taller than the short kushy one and have much wider leaves than the other girl. They are definitely pure fruit and sweetness in their aromas.

 

All 4 stink. With the exception of the Strawberry Surprise x Gift of Fire Keeper (no 3.) these 4 plants are by far and away the smelliest in my garden. I wish you could be in the OGKZ house for the aroma! It is just LOVELY. Based on the smell and plant quality alone, I would grow these again for sure. I can't wait to smoke them and see if the aromas carry through to the final product - I bet they do!!

 

Photos of the first to be harvested (shorty) and the OGKZ house are below

[Grover Sativa]

[Grover Sativa]

Any eagle eyes will notice that there are 6 plants in here. The other 2 are Strawberry Surprise x Gift of Fire phenotypes...

 

 

 

 

[AustrianToker]

Nice looking plants and so well developed for end of August.  Do you force flower them? 

[Grover Sativa]

I am force flowering these ones. If they were on a natural cycle they would be starting in about 1 to 2 weeks time in my location (it is always around Sep 1st, give or take a week for me)

 

I could go again right away but would need some vegging plants to swap over...but this year it is strawberry surprise x Gift of Fire just getting ready to start now...

Edited August 21, 2019 by Grover Sativa

[HSO-Mark]

On 21/08/2019 at 5:37 PM, Grover Sativa said:

I am force flowering these ones. If they were on a natural cycle they would be starting in about 1 to 2 weeks time in my location (it is always around Sep 1st, give or take a week for me)

 

I could go again right away but would need some vegging plants to swap over...but this year it is strawberry surprise x Gift of Fire just getting ready to start now...

 

 

The light dep tech has worked out a treat for both strains being showcased

 

Thanks for getting the OGKZ diary up my friend 

 

Looking in really good shape 

 

Roughly when did you start the light dep(12/12) buddy? 

 

Your harvesting some lovely, sun grown flowers 

 

Lovely stuff 

 

Kind regards 

 

Mark..

[Grover Sativa]

Oh - my reply went away. Sorry about that. Not sure what happened. Must have missed the submit button or something. It was more poetry than a forum reply. A lost masterpiece. You'll just have to put up with my second grade reply below instead:

 

 

 

I will try to find out when I started the light dip but I am fairly sure I won't know because this grow was really just for a bit of fun and not really a 'project' as it were....I will try to work it out, though.

 

They were great fun to grow, though! and a high quality finished product.

 

Organic and sunshine grown - in the UK!!!! - awesome, hey?

 

New to growing? want to try organic? these seeds are easy and fun to grow and you will harvest stinky buds without much effort or money spent.

 

[Grover Sativa]

I am smoking one of the sativa grade Strawberry Surprise x Gift of Fire crosses as I type this. It really is a rather tasty top notch smoke.

 

I really am quite fucked but in a rather pleasant way.

 

Off my head. And happy for it.

Edited September 1, 2019 by Grover Sativa

[Guest]

Beautiful i presume you made your own soil.

[Grover Sativa]

Thanks Icki, that is real kind of you. I did make my own soil! There is a lot of very well rotted compost and all sorts of types of poo in there! Other stuff too of course. I use a lot of seaweed extract when watering, as well and organic food if I feel it is needed (like Law's organic plant food that I use on my farm or Bat guano just after flowering starts...) it's all good.

[Thai Stick]

Beautiful healthy looking grow!
Whats the smell like outside? Surely its stinking out all your neighbors?

Would love to know a little more about your soil mix what extra goodies you throw in there.
With the bad guano, are you top dressing or making a tea?

Peace & Love
Thai Stick

[HSO-Mark]

On 01/09/2019 at 2:57 PM, Grover Sativa said:

Organic and sunshine grown - in the UK!!!! - awesome, hey?

 

Not to bad at all my friend 

 

Organic and sun grown, can't get no better 

 

Kind regards 

 

Mark.. 

[Grover Sativa]

21 hours ago, Thai Stick said:

Beautiful healthy looking grow!
Whats the smell like outside? Surely its stinking out all your neighbors?

Would love to know a little more about your soil mix what extra goodies you throw in there.
With the bad guano, are you top dressing or making a tea?

Peace & Love
Thai Stick

Hi Thai Stick. That's a really nice thing to say - thank you very much.

I don't really have neighbours (one couple who both use my weed/edibles medicinally)

Still, I try to keep the smell down because we have postmen and electricians and friends round and all the usual things...

Mainly it stinks in the greenhouses but outdoors isn't so bad, even right outside the greenhouse - it seems to get taken away by the breeze as comes off the plants.

I keep the plants in smaller groups rather than 1 big stinking area, which definitely helps.

There is a tall fence and tall trees and hedges and some buildings all around so the plants are surrounded on all sides but there is one sort of 'passageway' between two buildings that seems to suck away all of the smells. Luckily for me it leads to a huge huge field full of wheat or barley and no people at all. No pathways or footpaths. That keeps it away from our houses, too!

 

Despite all that, if I grow any skunk varieties and especially The Cheese there are problems. You must choose your varieties. No Cheese. None. (Funnily enough - I couldn't give The Cheese away these days. Nobody round here, which is actually, really close to the birthplace of Cheese.. wants it anymore. I guess it is just too smelly. It is anti-social.)

 

Bat guano - I add some to the mix with the other amendments and then just as flowering starts I add a little more as top dressing and water it in with plain rain water. Then again just as flowering goes crazy-mazy. But I have also used liquid bat guano before which you use slightly differently. Bat guano is just another organic matter. Don't get hung up on that - just get it into the soil anyway you can. It's all good.

 

The soil mix goodies - aaaah, the secret ingredients for good organic soil. All experienced organic growers know about that - the most important stuff in my soil is life. Living stuff. Like bacteria and fungi and tiny creatures that you can't see and little worms and other critters, too. Maybe a wood louse or 2...As far as the 'ingredients' that I add - there are no 'special' ingredients. What can I say? Organic stuff. I use whatever is available to me cheaply or free and that is what you will use, too. The thing is not to get too hung up on what you put in the soil (if it is organic and not toxic then cool) but understand the soil itself. It is all about the process or cycle. You just have to get your head around what you are trying to achieve.

 

Of course, the one thing you do need to buy is mycorrhizae (I use Old Timer's by Plant Magic because it is available locally and made in the UK.) Apparently it is in healthy soil naturally but only in tiny amounts and would take a long time to inoculate your roots naturally and other things. I don't know, I am not a scientist. Just buy it and add a tiny pinch to the bottom of your planting hole and make sure some roots are in contact with that. 

 

It is more about your compost than anything else. It must be well made, healthy and well rotted. What you put in is what you get out but yours won't be the same as mine. Kitchen waste compost is great but add lots of green stuff to the pile too, like grass clippings or leaves. You will use all the organic stuff that you can get hold of easily - maybe oak leaves or chicken poo or lots of food scraps. I happen to have access to spent grains and hops from brewing. If you can't do a compost pile (and it doesn't take as long as you think) then you will have to buy in your compost and it will be whatever is available locally and at reasonable prices. Again, it is all good.

 

The point is to get all the living creatures that make compost work into your soil so that it works as a compost pile. That way anything organic that you put in there gets composted down and ends up as nutrients for your myco which then feed it to your plant and also as nutrients that your plant can use directly. (Or something)

 

Once you have a living soil (50% soil / 50% compost) then all you need to do is add organic stuff to it that will eventually provide all the nutrients that your plant needs. Now, you don't need to feed your plant. If you have provided it's roots with enough space - and therefore enough nutrient rich soil - then it can just feed itself whenever it likes. You must keep that soil healthy from the minute you make it and throughout the lifespan of your plant. After that it will provide the base for your next soil.

 

- making living soil. This is easy. Take the soil from your last grow and cut it with your healthy, well rotted compost. 50/50. That's right - I use about equal parts compost and soil. If you don't have soil from your last grow you will have to buy some soil. Any light-mix will do. Also any compost based soil which has little or no salt based fertilisers added. If it has organic food added already that is great. Seaweed? Even better. If you don't want to cut the soil with compost then make a compost extract (compost and rain water. Mix it around a lot and filter out the compost bits) and water your soil with that, add organic amendments (see below) and let it mature for a month or two, keeping it moist.

 

- organic amendments. Once you have made living soil, the creatures in that soil must be kept healthy and also given lots of organic stuff to compost down for your plant. Mix in whatever you have easy access to or is available. You have to get a feel for how much of each thing to add - go easy at first and keep increasing each thing each time until you have worked it out because you can always add more organic matter to the soil throughout the grow. Remember that this is also a chance to replace what was taken out of the soil by the last plants and this is mainly NITROGEN!! All the other stuff is easily replaced by the compost or in stuff like seaweed extract that you can add to the water - and so is a lot of the nitrogen but you should add more. This can come in many form but almost all organic growers I know in this country do it one way. Worm Castings. Add 10 - 20% by volume. Chicken manure is another way (usually pellets) but remember that this is more long term as the nutrients take ages to get unlocked and available to the plant so I wouldn't use these on their own. I don't use worm castings as they cost money and there is tons of worm poo in my compost naturally anyway. As it happens, I have organic pelletised plant matter by a company called Law's, which I use it on the farm and I use these to replace the nitrogen. They have the same profile as chicken pellets (high in N) but are available almost immediately to the plant. When you add amendments try to have a balance of medium and short term (such as chicken manure/Law's pellets) and a balance of NPK (such as bone meal / bat guano)

 

- bacteria. You can actually buy friendly bacteria and things like trichoderma, which may be added to your myco mix or bought especially (such as bacter S-13 from The Nutrient Company online.) You can easily harm these things with water. See below.

 

Your soil is now ready for your plants!!

 

- water. IF YOU ADD CHLORINE TO YOUR SOIL IT WILL HARM YOUR BIOTA AND KILL YOUR BACTERIA so DON'T USE TAP WATER unless you treat it with the stuff that takes chlorine and chloramine and heavy metals out of pond/aquarium water. If you do this make sure you choose an organic one. They often add stuff like aloe vera to these which is organic and good for your soil biota. Collect rain water and use this. The moss and plant matter and bird poo and dead insects and all that organic stuff which collects in the rain water is all organic and great for your soil biota but keep your butts healthy and free or mosquito larvae and legionnaires disease, for your own sake.

 

- Adding stuff. It is perfectly acceptable to add more organic stuff to your soil throughout the grow. This is not cheating and in fact, if you don't do this you are missing a trick! You can use proprietary feeds out of the bottle, such as Plant Magic's Old Timer's range but don't go crazy. Only use the Grow and Flower. There is nothing else. Don't waste your money. Use them at minimum strength. I use 2 ml / litre of almost all things. This can keep your plants tip-top if they re very big and your pot is getting crowded but you may be flushing your money away, literally. I and so so may organic vegetable growers swear by liquid Seaweed Extract. It is amazing stuff and has everything your plants need except nitrogen. There is a very expensive brand out there but my local garden centre is doing version by other companies such as Mr Fothergills for just £1 a bottle. I use this with every water and throw in a handful of Law's pellets for easy access nitrogen every now and again and coupled with the odd feed of Old Timer's that is it.

 

- The pot. This is important to me. Root restriction is NOT it for me. This causes many problems. Don't be mean - my soil is very cheap to make, if not free! Minimum is 17/18 litres kush buckets but if you expect any stretch, like skunk, then 30 litres is better. Long term plants

? 50 litres Going out before June 21st for a natural cycle? haha 100 litres, please!!! In order for the plant to be able to access these organic nutrients we have made available it must always have access to enough water. The wet/dry cycle of plants in tiny pots is terrible for this. When the plant  goes for water it can't get any and when the plant goes for nutrients and there is no water it can't get these either. Not only have we missed out on potential growth and resin production and harmed the yield and the resin profile of the buds but we have caused the plant to go into shock so even when we add the water it won't immediately be able to respond with more growth and resin production.

 

- Shock. Don't shock your plants. No large swings of temperature or additions of hot or cold water or droughts or floods or light in the dark period or knocks or damage to the root zone (- keep your fingers out of there and only gently tease out the roots on the edge of root bound pots if you must.) If you can understand what shocks your plants then don't it. The is called 'having green fingers' and either takes years to work out or you just have it. You will never see me enter the Pot Noodle Challenge - I just couldn't stand to stress a plant in that way.

 

-mulch. Mulching works. It add new life to your biota and new organics to your soil and keeps your soil from drying out too quickly but keep it off your stem. Use the compost you used to cut your soil.

 

The natural state for plants if lush and healthy. If you are veering away from that then it is a stress that you have introduced or not mitigated which is causing yellow leaves or twisted leaf edges or necrosis, etc. The further away from natural growth you take the plants then the more the chance of getting it wrong and stressing your plants. Like using crappy water and adding this and that and having to alter the pH...why? Use the rain. Healthy organic soil is natural pH buffer anyway.

 

 

As it happens, I use:

 

Various composts

Fish/Blood/Bone

Bone meal

Bat Guano

Chicken manure pellets

Law's organic plant food pellets

Old Timer's Granules

Liquid Seaweed Extract

Well rotted horse manure

 

and if I must, Old Timer's organic Grow and Bloom by Plant Magic

 

but only because that is what is available to me. If I worked on a goat farm I would use goat poo...

 

That is it!

 

and I water using fish water from my fish tanks (which contains tons of organic stuff like fish poo and also great bacteria) or rain water. Both have a pH of about 6.5

 

I hope this helps

 

GS

 

 

Edited September 4, 2019 by Grover Sativa

[HSO-Mark]

@Grover Sativa Now that's what I call a highly detailed write up 

 

Thanks buddy

 

Kind regards 

 

Mark..

[Grover Sativa]

yeah, sorry - waffleonaguss, I know...I just wanted to get the whole thing down once, somewhere, so that everyone can see exactly what page I am on.

 

That way they can be smug about why they are getting better results than me - or if not then hopefully it will help somebody do a bit better. That sort of info can help people - not necessarily Thai Stick, who knows how to grow - but others who might read it.

 

Plus I really do want to make a point about sustainable growing (and I am as guilty as everybody else.) The secret to great weed is not in a bag or a bottle. No matter what that bloke in the grow shop tells you. He makes a living selling that stuff, remember?

 

Growing can be accessible but these days you are told that you need to invest in this and that and pay for all this stuff as you go along - those ways all work but you don't have to go down that road. It is like a tax you must pay before you can grow weed... tents/lights/fans/extractors/carbon filters/heaters/pumps/tables/reservoirs/coco coir/perlite/silicon/pk boost/pH up and down/RO machines/reservoirs/water heaters/6 feeds for every stage. Fuck me - I could honestly go on and on. That stuff costs money. It doesn't need to be that way. It is an industry that has invented a way of growing that requires investment at every stage and is extremely wasteful. Everything has been replaced...by something that costs money!  We are all being sold to! Drain to waste hydroponics? With heated water full of chemicals? Are we out of our minds? And why? The weed is not better (not necessarily worse but never better...)

 

Well I know I go on a bit but there is far more written about how to grow the expensive and unsustainable ways than how to grow organically and with what is around you so I am balancing the scales a bit. New growers should see the alternatives and not just be told to grow with all that stuff and that there is no other way. (People dragging bags of coco coir into farm fields full of amazing soil?!? I don't understand that at all. As if there is no other way than coco coir...)

 

Plus - and I know I will get my head bitten off for this - but I just fucking HATE coco coir. Buds grown in coco coir taste like coco coir. There - I've said it.

I don't care what anybody says - I can tell in 1 puff that it was grown in that. Whatever strain it is. There is plenty of amazing smoke in this country and that stuff is just not for me. I can't understand it. Why?

 

Now where is my soap box?