Etta's Farm 2015

[growbig789]

Watching from over in tehama cty! Nice setup and thx for the detail on your soil setup, amount of ammendments/etc.. good info.. sounds like you are setting yourself up for a great season, looking forward to following along and esp checking out that southfork gear! Def on my to do list to pick some of those up when I get the chc

 

[Bo Hasset]

Watching from over in tehama cty!

That would just be the greatest is you turn out to be the guy I'm meeting up with in Tehama (the town) tomorrow to pick-up an ATV and small dump trailer on my way westward through the treacherous and flat farmlands that stand between me and that west end of the county that sniffs up to Mendocino's armpit and Trinity's tail pipe.

I must be a glutton for punishment, or maybe I'm just spreading out the "odds" for the 2015 "Race to the Bottom" here in the North State... but I just half-assed entered into negotiations for a piece of property down around the foothills around Calaveras/Amador... I guess this is what they invented Red Bull and Ritalin for, baby.

I assed out last night and didn't sow any seed, so I'm actually wasting time on here for a minute in between flats.

I'll be back later with riveting pictures of the ordeal.

are those going to be full terms? or dep'd?

Those pics from the "hoopty" are out back of my place in town are are going to shortly be transplanted and tarp ready by the end of the week.

All full term stuff, at this place anyway, will be from seed.

sweet set up. will you sell me your dog?

Not enough money in the world to get her off me.

And since I kind of like you and this is the internet and I know you're playing around I won't be mean.

The last person that jokingly asked me that question got told the same answer, but I guess he thought he was being cute when he said something like, "Well, ain't no bitch worth that much any way."

He had to go on an Ensure diet for 2 months while his wired jaw healed, but he goes out of his way when I see him these days to be polite and mild mannered and always asks about my dog and my mamma. Some nuts are just hard to crack, I guess.

You're good though, Schrews.

 

[SappFire Seeds]

NICE!

 

[Backyard Farmer]

What's up

 

[Calidude]

i'm digging your style man. you got a sweet spot.

 

[Bo Hasset]

What's up

No rest for the wicked on this side(s) of the valley... I'm logging 300+ miles every 24-48 hours. I forgot exactly what your homie (cousin maybe?) said that night at dinner about "making it the Emerald Rectangle"... but I looked at my daily route the other day on Google Maps from start to finish and realized it was a damn near perfect rectangle and thought of that comment for some reason. Just making one big quadrilateral of chasing the almighty dollar and a perceived pursuit of happiness.

I realize that I haven't taken any shots or said anything since popping the seeds! My bad!

So the seedlings are technically 3 weeks old but look more like in the 10 day range... my stupidity. I've never, until this run, germ'd and grown cannabis seeds from start to finish outdoors... always have started them under 24 or 18/6 light... after everyone has reported for duty either drop to 18/6 if I was at 24 or immediately move them outside into a greenhouse/cold frame/whatever.

I was feeling a bit froggy this year, I guess and put them out as soon as I had plopped them into my seed start mix (5 parts Pro-Mix HP to 1 part EWC/Bu's Blend/Humus of some kind that's nice and mellow and then I add at 1/4 the rec'd dosage Dr. Earth's 5-7-3 or 5-5-5 or 4-4-4 or 2-4-2 or you get the point?).... So, that was the night of 3/31 which had an ambient temp of around 65 at the most, however they were placed on a warming mat to only come on at night... I spritzed the pots that night and then the next morning because I knew I wouldn't be back for almost 36 hours gave them another spritz.... 36 hours later I stop by this pad to check on and water the big girls who at the time were veg n' out (ha) for their big light dep debut this very evening!

I also checked on my seedlings while I was there, but saw nadda. Wasn't really worried at this point... if I'm good at only one thing in this vein of farming it's getting plant cuttings to root eventually no matter how stubborn they appear at first and rarely meeting a seed I can't germ, and I've seen crazier things than no helmets popping the crust at the 36h mark... the soil mix itself still felt moist on the surface, but not "wet", heating mat came on about the time I was leaving... no worries... now, for the next 48 hours I don't come back, but do have someone check on things and they gave another spritz and when I returned next I was expecting to see at least 1/3 of these future giants busting at the seams to flick that last remnant of seed, spread those cotyledons and soar like the rebel hearted lions of zion they're destined to be!

Not a fucking thing... soil nice and moist as it should be, but not sopping wet.... but what's this? Seedling mats were unplugged to hook up a simple tea brewer for the compost tea that was applied to the girls getting ready for the tarp of destiny? That's cool... no biggie... there's limited power and I'm not tripping on some bubbling for 45 minutes-1 hour while the tea is applied (brewed somewhere else and brought over in a cube). But not only does someone leave the brewer at the site, which I hate, but they neglect to plug the fucking seedling mats in and according to accuweather.com the temps those few nights I was gone were downright nippy and unseasonably cold! How I could just kill a man...

So, long story short.. I brought those little buggers back in hoping I hadn't done some sort of permanent damage and literally within 12 hours I had soil disturbance and by 24 hours about 20% had popped. I don't have the list near me, but I planted something like 25x WCD BX, 20x 2 Wave, 10x Royal Kush, 10x Red Hindu Kush, 10x In The Pines, 12x Trinity Cherry Bomb, 10-15x Maximus, 10x West Coast Witch, 8x Kaya's Dream BX, and a couple others.

I have plans to pop some of the 3 South, Margo, more DOG and some other stuff tomorrow.

I must say, my good internet friend and native soil amending life coach (haha), BackyardFarmer and his partner in crime the silent, yet deadly springfed along with their families and friends that make up the South Fork Seed Collective have impressed the sit out of me once more now that I've actually seen the vigor these seeds posses firsthand!

I'm not saying this to get cool points ( not that I need any ), but with the exception of 2 Kaya's Blue Dream (along with all 10x In the Pines and about 10-15x friends F2 creation he kicked me down a bunch of) everything else was a 100% germination success!!! I mean every single last bean popped and I even got 2 twins out of the 2 Wave Hold Down (which is incredible considering these beans take after the TW parent and are tiny as all hell).

Those 25 or so that didn't germ were 100% due to user error... like a dumbass I forgot to drill holes in the last half of a 50 rack homemade seed starting cell tray... and because I simply mist the seedlings and soil surface as needed I never noticed any sort of "backup". Most of them sprouted eventually, but would damp off within 48 hours... it was only when I was popping them out of the cells that I noticed why.... DUH!

As usual since then my clumsy giant hands have mangled a couple and my weed loving cat has sniped about 10 despite being locked up in a grow tent (the fucker was crawling through an untied exhaust tube!).... this is the third year he's gotten me... and just like last year, the man likes to go for those strains from Leo and Ele at Afficionado (I swear they're splicing catnip genes into their stuff... get the word out, y'all!)... I'm only kidding... Ele has been too cool to me and those guys deserve nothing but praise (and get nothing but) from me! If you're reading along out there... don't worry he only sniped 3 of the 20 seedlings I had left between Royal and Red Hindu! It was tame compared to last year's massacre.

But everything is finally upright and most are past the akward single blade phase... I watered them in with a low concentration of EM yesterday and they loved it. I've been using EM off and on for a while now, but yesterday was my first try with seedlings... I only did 1/2 at first (foliar and light watering)... but within 6 hours the difference was SOOOOO noticeable and positive that I had to go back and do the other 1/2.

Tomorrow will be their introduction to real sunlight under some 50% shade cloth for the time being... and tomorrow will also be the start of actual tarp pulling... though I could probably still get by for another 10-14 days without it... the girls all got transplanted into their final resting home inside 10x60 worth of carport frames with 22% shade cloth wrapped on all south, west and east sides about a week ago... which is 2 weeks later than I had anticipated, but I'm willing to admit I may have bit off more than I can chew this year.... Diversity?... The shade cloth really diffuses more than shades, but that's another thread entirely.

I'm going to the loathed Home Depot in the morning at 6am to grab some supplies and then my daily journey begins as I wind from county to county, smelling the smells, seeing the sights and as always... REPPIN' MY HOOD, Y'ALL!!!

I wish that would catch on for this year's catch phrase... it's much more positive and uplifting than this whole "race to the bottom stuff we've got going in the North State"...

I wrote myself a sharpie note to take pics.

 

[Backyard Farmer]

Been like a week and a half, anything new

 

[Bo Hasset]

Let's just say this thread died before it's time.

The garden was in Tehama County, who in March enacted a total outdoor ban with very few exceptions and even then by 1/1/2016 all cannabis would move indoors if you wanted to legally comply. I knew this, and chose to plant anyway. I planned for no more than 24 plants for full season and was only aiming for a spring harvest from my light dep carport set-ups. I purchased this property before the BOS issued their emergency ordinance, but because the property was located in Rancho Tehama, which historically has been a sort of "wild, wild, west" for legal and not-so-legal cannabis gardens, I figured that a few carports and 24 full season plants on 5 acres would fly way under the radar in a "scene" where if you look at Google Earth you can find many gardens well over the 99 plant threshold.

It was my choice to make and since I had purchased the place before the decision and had no interest in doing anything with it besides using it to grow I felt like it was the only choice, really.

I kept everything legal as far as state guidelines and had more rec's than technically required for the 48 plants I had put into 3 different carport dep setups. The carports were behind an 8 foot fence at least 150 feet past the parcel boundry at the road, to boot they were covered with 30% shade cloth and I sawed the legs off the carport so that they weren't sticking up above the fence line.

I never in a million years figured I would get a visit until later in the summer, if at all. My hubris certainly told me that the I would get the light dep off and if anything might have to play the appeals game with the board come late fall so that I could pull off the full season.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Not so....

I still don't know how they became hip to it because I wasn't running supp lights and nothing could be seen that 100% indicated cannabus was being cultivated, but they became "hip" to it and on May 6th I got the dreaded "visit"... a few deputies and a code officer parked at my gate while I was working in the garden, so I ran up to meet them before they could weasel their way in... no need to though since they had already been on my property 2 weeks earlier when I stepped out for the afternoon. They handed me a notice to abate or else appeal the decision or pay fines of $1000/day if the plants weren't gone within 5 days.

Apparently, in Tehama County (and others as I have since learned) if a code officer sees a blatant code violation (in this case, my un-permitted fence) they are allowed to enter the property at once to inspect the violation. A bunch of bullshit, but I've got too many irons in the fire to get bogged down with this petty bullshit.

The plants were 4 weeks into their 12/12 and were really starting to nug up and stack on some strains, but I was forced to chop and slash all of them in front of the deputies a couple days later when they came back while we were attempting to move them off-site.

So, I knew the risk and took it and this is how it played out... a solid $50K bare minimum thrown down the drain before the season has really even taken off. The worst part of all is that after I cleared all plants and took home all tools and locked the gate is that in the week I didn't drive by some of the local tweakers dismantled 3500 sq. ft. of new fencing, drained 2800 gallons at once from a holding tank thus ruining some of the terrace and hillside, stole every stock tank and water cube, all pumps and hosing and the close to 50 yards of soil I moved out here from my spot in Butte that was definitely not going to be tested this season due to Measure A and it not being near secluded enough. I moved the deer cams off the property when I moved all of my "important stuff" since in my non-meth addled mind I didn't see anything easy enough top be worth stealing. Big DUH! on my part.

So, if you're out in Tehama then keep your game tight this season and if you're in Rancho Tehama, then god bless you b/c I wouldn't wish a fortnight in that hellhole on my worst enemy. Call me naive, but in the years I've spent on my hill in Butte I've come to value my neighbors as one of the best security assets I have... we're a one-way in and one-way out kind of place and if anyone ever was stupid enough to try and steal it wouldn't take but a phone call to someone else a couple miles down the road and we'd have the road blocked off like that.

I like that kind of community. I like being able not to have to lock up everything I own every time it leaves my gaze for a minute or two. I went by one spot up there today after not going by in a coupler months... every pot, every pile of soil, every tank and every hose was right where I left it.

Rancho Tehama is not a place you want to grow unless you're the thieving type yourself or you happen to be in with the "foreign nationals" who seem to control the grow scene out there.

My season hasn't been a total loss and I'll be reviving this thread just as soon as we get everything set up at a new place with a much friendlier ordinance and only one neighbor within a 1 mile radius. Just thought I'd let other Tehama folks know that they're out in full force and warning anyone who thinks the cheap property and abunbdance of "growers" in Rancho Tehama means smooth sailing... think again.

 

[HL45]

Sorry to year about the turnout of this grow. Good luck on your future endeavors elsewhere.

 

[Bo Hasset]

Thanks, man. That sounds pretty depressing when I read it again, but it is what it is... already picked up another spot and I'm currently in the process of setting up a garden out of thin air at this spot. As long as I can have my starts in the ground no later than 6/21 I know I'll still be able to grow big, but it sure seems like an uphill battle so far this year.

 

[RckyMtRdnk]

Good luck man. Hope all is well. Keep your head up!