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Maria's Subtropical Outdoor Guerilla Grows with Connoisseur Genetics (Perpetual Journal)

hyposomniac

Well-known member
Veteran
I have actually. Don't why I didn't think of it this time.
Will need a couple of extra bottles.
Though, a liter or two will still only give a couple of extra days.
Do you only put holes in the top/cap?
What size hole would you suggest to last another day or two of slow drip feeding?
Thank you!!
I think the discussion here answered some of your questions, but yea the hole only goes in the cap, but I don't know any technical details. I believe multiple small holes are better than making the hole bigger
 

Maria Sanchez

Well-known member
I made a quick visit this morning and watered.
Its been hot and sunny, and not sure when I can visit next during the week.
Better to get ahead on things.
Sure enough, it promptly rained this afternoon!
At least that should keep them happy until the weekend.

All plants looking very happy and healthy.
Though, a few getting caterpillars are making tacos with some leaves.
I turned the SSSTN and Grail plants to let the other side face south.
Though, these days, the sun is passing almost directly overhead at noon.
So it won't make a lot of difference to their growth shape.
 

Maria Sanchez

Well-known member
Made an attempt to visit the garden, but there was activity near the entrance point, so called it off.
Was thinking of going back later, but weather says it'll rain a fair bit later today, so I'll wait and see.
If the rain doesn't come or isn't much, tomorrow is still a possibility.

Need to up-pot the little seedlings, they are far too crowded and neglected.

Edit update:
The rain was a good amount, and will keep them going for a while.
Still think I will try to visit tomorrow, just to check up on them and see all is well.
Last top-dressing was June 6, so that will be 24 days as of tomorrow.
Although I gave them a lot of potting soil with that top-dressing, a small top up may be in order.
 
Last edited:

Maria Sanchez

Well-known member
Spring-Summer Grow -- Maria among the Hazes!

Day 100

Happy day 100!
As just mentioned, there was a fair amount of rain yesterday.
But I still wanted to visit and check up on things.

Those dogs are now sometimes spending the hot days inside the bat cave.
I think I scared them more than they scared me.
Clapped my hands sharply a few times, and they scurried off out the other exit.

On site, the plants were happy in the sun, and the pots were about 70%-80% of water capacity.
I had brought in a few grams of Peters 5-12-26, to mix on site.
I put that in about 8 liters of water.
Far less water than I usually give them, but they only needed a little top up.
I watered to run off in the working area behind the balcony.

Coming back, there was activity just outside the bat cave exit.
So I had to stay inside for a little while before it was safe to come out.


Family pics


PXL_20240630_013329029.jpg


Top pot: one L'n'L Jones female (right edge), two female Grail (fast pheno) x ThaiFrican (back left and right)
Right side pot: one revegging Grail lady, NLD pheno

Bottom pot: two revegging SSSTN girls, Sticky and Fluffy (looks biggest because closest to camera)

PXL_20240630_014551032.jpg


:Left: two revegging SSSTN girls, Sticky and Fluffy
Middle: one L'n'L Jones female (center front), two female Grail (fast pheno) x ThaiFrican (back left and right)
Left: one revegging Grail lady, NLD pheno


One L'n'L Jones female (center), two female Grail (fast pheno) x ThaiFrican (back left and right)


PXL_20240630_014130163.MP.jpg


PXL_20240630_014605936.jpg


The taller Grail x ThaiFrican lady
PXL_20240630_014138747.jpg


The second (still fairly tall) Grail x ThaiFrican lady
PXL_20240630_014149557.jpg

Lovely shape on these two girls, perfect Christmas tree.
Leaves showing clear narrow leaf structure.
Lots of branching coming off both of them.
Though the taller girl is just more vigorous and so takes up most of their space.

Tallest one is up to my chest already, and the second one over my hip.


And Miss Lemon 'n' Lime Jones
PXL_20240630_014156536.jpg

In any other company she'd look like a nice sativa girl.
But next to her two pot-buddies, she's darker, more hybrid looking.
The branching off the main stem stays close to the stem, rather than spreading out.
She may be switching to flower, as she's thrown a three-leaflet leaf or two.
But otherwise no sign of stretch or flower build up at all.

Peace and Love,
~MJS

🦇🦇🦇
 

Maria Sanchez

Well-known member
Spring-Summer Grow -- Maria among the Hazes!

Day 101

One revegging Grail lady, NLD pheno

PXL_20240630_014112736.jpg

PXL_20240630_014557476.jpg


PXL_20240630_014122949.jpg

Still keeping herself fairly short and small.
I guess the fact that she's in the smaller pot is the biggest limiting factor here.
But looking very happy and healthy.
Her stems are now green, whereas before they were purple.
So maybe there was some nutrient imbalance, pH issue, or the cooler temperature that caused that, not genetics.

As the original grow was a tiny rather stunted bud-stick out of the ground,
it's really lovely to see how she looks when she can grow a little first.
If she was in a bigger pot, then we'd really see her potential.

Two revegging SSSTN girls, Sticky and Fluffy

PXL_20240630_014204974.jpg

I still think this lady is the prettiest.
Deeper green, branches everywhere!
I really can't tell any difference between the two plants.
And I'm not 100% sure which original plant stump is which phenotype!
The leaves on both of them are near identical.
They should differ a lot in flower, though:
Sticky has long frond like flowers with large calyxes.
Fluffy has big round balls and tiny calyxes.
This is going to get interesting soon.


PXL_20240630_014610778.jpg


A couple of growing tips, which I think are from both the plants.
Can't tell any difference between them, can you?
PXL_20240630_014215188.jpg

PXL_20240630_014222168.jpg


I brought the very early L'n'L Jones flower home.
Became an ugly bud -- full of seeds, untrimmed, tiny bit of mold.
Smells are great, though. Fresh and slightly fruity.
I will need to give her some time to find her final palate.

I already poked out a dozen seeds from her, and there are plenty more.
Seeds are large, medium brown, and only slightly mottled.

Such a different flower formation than these near full sativas.
Can see the hybrid shape, very large calyxes.
Stickiness is there though!

Bats!!!

I know you're all only here for the bat cave pics.
Now that you've been patient reading my journal update.
I'll show you the bats!

PXL_20240630_015411447.jpg

Cameras on night mode.
It's very dark in there!

Up to the light above!
PXL_20240630_015903167.jpg


Peace and Love,
~MJS

🦇🦇🦇
 

Maria Sanchez

Well-known member
To be honest, these are almost certainly going to be the largest plants I've grown.
@ojd -- Do you have any advice or pointers at this point?
Things to watch our for in particular?
What NPK ratios should I be doing now? At the start of flower proper?
One thing I've been thinking of is whether to top those Grail x ThaiFrican girls?
Really want to do a great grow, show my gratitude for your generous gift last year!
 

ojd

CONNOISSEUR GENETICS
Vendor
ICMag Donor
Veteran
To be honest, these are almost certainly going to be the largest plants I've grown.
@ojd -- Do you have any advice or pointers at this point?
Things to watch our for in particular?
What NPK ratios should I be doing now? At the start of flower proper?
One thing I've been thinking of is whether to top those Grail x ThaiFrican girls?
Really want to do a great grow, show my gratitude for your generous gift last year!
These are easy feeders, no sensitive plants , i just feed at half strength on all my gows in coco on base feeds (canna a-b) and normal feed recommendations for Soil and organic nutrients ( Bio bizz nutrients).

If your talking about topping your big plants no need and the time is to late really unless they going to keep vegging for several more weeks before flowering.
I do heavily top all my Sativa seeds from early in veg/seed stage every few weeks again and again until ready to flower to create a nice bush , control stretch and increase yield.

These nice big plants you have will produce much better quality flowers for you to the sample.
Small or premature seed plants flipped dont give the full expression of what can be achieved.
I know it was out of your hands due to light cycles and watering access but look forward to these new 1's and the Reveg plants going to heavy flower down the line.

Great show your putting on for us and yes we like seeing the bats to 😆
 
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Maria Sanchez

Well-known member
These are easy feeders, no sensitive plants , i just feed at half strength on all my gows in coco on base feeds (canna a-b) and normal feed recommendations for Soil and organic nutrients ( Bio bizz nutrients).

Hey @ojd!
Glad to hear they are not drama princesses, haha. Since the last top-dressing they recovered from that very dry time and look good. pH seems okay, and their Ca and Mg fine, which is what my dolomite lime is for. From what you've said here, I think I'll continue with organic top dressing, but low level feeds with the Peters mix as well, just to keep their nutrients nice and even.

If your talking about topping your big plants no need and the time is to late really unless they going to keep vegging for several more weeks before flowering.
I do heavily top all my Sativa seeds from early in veg/seed stage every few weeks again and again until ready to flower to create a nice bush , control stretch and increase yield.

Okay, let me leave those two Grail x ThaiFricans and the Lemon 'n' Lime Jones un-topped, let them show their natural shape.
I have no idea how much longer they are going to veg before flowering, to be honest.
Even by Aug 1 it's still a bit over 13/11, that's another four weeks of veg growing from now!

These nice big plants you have will produce much better quality flowers for you to the sample.
Small or premature seed plants flipped dont give the full expression of what can be achieved.
I know it was out of your hands due to light cycles and watering access but look forward to these new 1's and the Reveg plants going to heavy flower down the line.

I'm sure hoping they can keep going nice and large, as you say, I can get a number of top quality main colas from them like this.
The last round was a bit of am embarrassment, apart from the two SSSTN which were small but not ridiculous!
The smoke is very nice, but nothing like a bundle of ganja spears to fill the jars.

Great show your putting on for us and yes we like seeing the bats to 😆

Glad you're enjoying the fun.
It's so cool to have the breeder available to give direct pointers and advice.

I'd send you some connoisseur bat guano, but after a couple of weeks in summer shipping, it would probably be a toxic hazard by the time it reached the UK!
 

Maria Sanchez

Well-known member
Spring-Summer Grow -- Maria among the Hazes!

Day 105

Kind of a short update, even though I spent a lot of time on site.
It's been a hot week, no rain, and next week is forecast for the same.
Temps up around 35C during the day, maybe 28C or so at night.
More importantly, humidity quite low for around here, like less than 70%.
This is the hottest and maybe the driest time of the year.
Between two very wet periods, the next of which will kick in soon.

That means the girls are going to be thirsty.
Five days since last visit, but when I arrived, they were wilting a fair bit.
Not happy girls, but it wasn't as bad as that time a couple of weeks ago.

I already knew this, and have been thinking how to solve the watering problem.
And the next couple of weeks my site access may be reduced.
Quite a big problem!!

I don't want to use drip trays.
I want to reduce to an absolute minimum bringing things to the site, for security.
And anything hard that may leave finger prints, I don't want to use.

Was thinking about using plastic bags, partly rolled down, on the base of the pots.
Then watering to run-off, leaving some in the plastic bag.
Not ideal, but it will leave them with something to last another day or two.

Then I thought about possibly adding more medium to the bags.
But again, getting large amounts of medium to the site isn't easy.
Could use dry coco coir and hydrate it on site.

In the end, badly organized, I only arrived on the site with one decent plastic bag.
Thought I'd use it on the Grail girl, as her pot is the smallest, and most prone to drying.

Had a little fright when I saw how thirsty they were.
Not good.
Not good.

PXL_20240705_015455082.jpg

(This is after they had perked up a lot after watering.)

I explored around the general area, looking into some other buildings.
A couple of doors down, there were a few large polystyrene boxes.
Just big enough to fill the pots in.
(Sometimes I see locals using polystyrene boxes for container gardening!)
I grabbed three of them, two just big enough, and a large one.

Took them to the site, and put in a few holes on the side with my pocket knife.
The holes are on the sides, about 2.5 cm (1") high from the inside bottom.
Kind of like a hempy bucket, allowing some watering to just sit in the bottom.
I figure a little sitting water for a short time is better than no water at all.

It looked good. At least, better than before.
The girls were starting to pick up a bit from their watering.
The white polystyrene will also keep them from heating up too much, I think.

But I thought, this really isn't enough.
So I went looking for something to fill the rest of the space of the boxes with.
Maybe some leaves or something?

Well, I struck gold!
At the back of these apartments, on the northern shady side, there is black gold.
Must be 10+ years of naturally breaking down leaves, sticks, and stuff.
The bottom inch or two are just beautiful, with a few partially decomposed leaves and sticks on top.

Didn't have any tools, so scraped it off the concrete with my shoes,
and stuffed it into my plastic bag to take back upstairs.
This is some of the nicest, darkest, richest compost I have ever seen!!
I took about 6 bagfuls in the end, maybe 5 liters each time.
And put it all inside the polystyrene boxes, packing it around the original cloth pots.
Then watered it on down...
PXL_20240705_015504578.jpg

You can see the extra volume in the seed-plant pot.

PXL_20240705_015509167.jpg

Helping the Grail girl find some more moisture and root-space!

So happy!
Those boxes are now pretty heavy when they are fully watered.
The biggest box was for the big Grail x ThaiFrican and L'n'L girls.
Could barely lift that box back to its sunny spot, from the work area.
Filled with water again, until the water ran out the holes in the boxes.

Since they're in cloth pots, I've now almost effectively doubled their potential root space.
As the roots can grow through the cloth into the compost in the boxes.
The revegged Grail girl volume is now maybe 30 liters (about 8 gals).
The revegged SSSTN girls volume is maybe 40 liters (about 10 gals).
The seed crop Grail x ThaiFrican and L'n'L girls are now in about ... maybe 60 liters (16 gal).

Next visit, I will further top up that black gold compost.
I'm guessing it will settle down a bit, and it was only about 80% full when I left them.
Should also mean less need to top dress.

Let those roots just grow right on through the cloth pots into the boxes.



Peace and Love,
~MJS

🦇🦇🦇
 
Last edited:

Greaselightning

Well-known member
Spring-Summer Grow -- Maria among the Hazes!

Day 105

Kind of a short update, even though I spent a lot of time on site.
It's been a hot week, no rain, and next week is forecast for the same.
Temps up around 35C during the day, maybe 28C or so at night.
More importantly, humidity quite low for around here, like less than 70%.
This is the hottest and maybe the driest time of the year.
Between two very wet periods, the next of which will kick in soon.

That means the girls are going to be thirsty.
Five days since last visit, but when I arrived, they were wilting a fair bit.
Not happy girls, but it wasn't as bad as that time a couple of weeks ago.

I already knew this, and have been thinking how to solve the watering problem.
And the next couple of weeks my site access may be reduced.
Quite a big problem!!

I don't want to use drip trays.
I want to reduce to an absolute minimum bringing things to the site, for security.
And anything hard that may leave finger prints, I don't want to use.

Was thinking about using plastic bags, partly rolled down, on the base of the pots.
Then watering to run-off, leaving some in the plastic bag.
Not ideal, but it will leave them with something to last another day or two.

Then I thought about possibly adding more medium to the bags.
But again, getting large amounts of medium to the site isn't easy.
Could use dry coco coir and hydrate it on site.

In the end, badly organized, I only arrived on the site with one decent plastic bag.
Thought I'd use it on the Grail girl, as her pot is the smallest, and most prone to drying.

Had a little fright when I saw how thirsty they were.
Not good.
Not good.

View attachment 19027768
(This is after they had perked up a lot after watering.)

I explored around the general area, looking into some other buildings.
A couple of doors down, there were a few large polystyrene boxes.
Just big enough to fill the pots in.
(Sometimes I see locals using polystyrene boxes for container gardening!)
I grabbed three of them, two just big enough, and a large one.

Took them to the site, and put in a few holes on the side with my pocket knife.
The holes are on the sides, about 2.5 cm (1") high from the inside bottom.
Kind of like a hempy bucket, allowing some watering to just sit in the bottom.
I figure a little sitting water for a short time is better than no water at all.

It looked good. At least, better than before.
The girls were starting to pick up a bit from their watering.
The white polystyrene will also keep them from heating up too much, I think.

But I thought, this really isn't enough.
So I went looking for something to fill the rest of the space of the boxes with.
Maybe some leaves or something?

Well, I struck gold!
At the back of these apartments, on the northern shady side, there is black gold.
Must be 10+ years of naturally breaking down leaves, sticks, and stuff.
The bottom inch or two are just beautiful, with a few partially decomposed leaves and sticks on top.

Didn't have any tools, so scraped it off the concrete with my shoes,
and stuffed it into my plastic bag to take back upstairs.
This is some of the nicest, darkest, richest compost I have ever seen!!
I took about 6 bagfuls in the end, maybe 5 liters each time.
And put it all inside the polystyrene boxes, packing it around the original cloth pots.
Then watered it on down...
View attachment 19027769
You can see the extra volume in the seed-plant pot.

View attachment 19027771
Helping the Grail girl find some more moisture and root-space!

So happy!
Those boxes are now pretty heavy when they are fully watered.
The biggest box was for the big Grail x ThaiFrican and L'n'L girls.
Could barely lift that box back to its sunny spot, from the work area.
Filled with water again, until the water ran out the holes in the boxes.

Since they're in cloth pots, I've now almost effectively doubled their potential root space.
As the roots can grow through the cloth into the compost in the boxes.
The revegged Grail girl volume is now maybe 30 liters (about 8 gals).
The revegged SSSTN girls volume is maybe 40 liters (about 10 gals).
The seed crop Grail x ThaiFrican and L'n'L girls are now in about ... maybe 60 liters (16 gal).

Next visit, I will further top up that black gold compost.
I'm guessing it will settle down a bit, and it was only about 80% full when I left them.
Should also mean less need to top dress.

Let those roots just grow right on through the cloth pots into the boxes.



Peace and Love,
~MJS

🦇🦇🦇
nice looking plants maria, the graffiti in the background is cools as.(y) is this like a old building of some sort.
 

Maria Sanchez

Well-known member
nice looking plants maria, the graffiti in the background is cools as.(y) is this like a old building of some sort.

Hey there @Greaselightning --
Thanks for stopping by.
Yeah, it's a pretty cool garden site, and the graffiti just makes it more urban edgy.
The area is a block of apartments/houses that were built maybe 10-15 years ago, not that old at all.
But for some reason they were not finished, like just 90% completed, and then abandoned.
Maybe the investment company went bankrupt or something, not enough investors, who knows?
But it makes for a perfect grow area, with these sunny balconies, and the balcony below that has now turned into a fresh rainwater pond for me.
 

Greaselightning

Well-known member
Hey there @Greaselightning --
Thanks for stopping by.
Yeah, it's a pretty cool garden site, and the graffiti just makes it more urban edgy.
The area is a block of apartments/houses that were built maybe 10-15 years ago, not that old at all.
But for some reason they were not finished, like just 90% completed, and then abandoned.
Maybe the investment company went bankrupt or something, not enough investors, who knows?
But it makes for a perfect grow area, with these sunny balconies, and the balcony below that has now turned into a fresh rainwater pond for me.
awesome it looks like a good place to grow, easy watering with the pond there to.
 
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