Springbotch 2015 - Fun In A Polytunnel (Spanish Section)

[The English Cut]

Hi all, thanks for everybody's kind words, I'm really happy that people are enjoying this as much as I am. I've been neglecting the comments though which is rude, so time to address a few...

Lots of you have commented on the compost bed - this turned out really well, kicked out some heat when I needed it (when it cooled down i would make holes in it with rebar and pour in fermented comfrey liquid to reheat), it probably pumped out loads of C02 as well. The heat meant we could propagate all our tomato, pepper & aubergine seedlings on there cost free. Next year I'd like to get the pile started earlier and try to start my weed plants in there, although I'd have to figure out some supplemental lighting. The compost that was produced is top notch, or it will be once it's finished rotting down completely. The bed is now chock full of red wigglers, which will be great for the veg crop. I think the only downside of the compost heap was the amount of slugs but really that just required extra vigilance.

Just had some Rotten Panda - slow burner, about 10 minutes before it kicks in. Everything is really enjoyable with it - cooking, gardening, smoking more Rotten Panda, that sort of thing

Ha ha you really cracked me up with this! Thanks. Sounds like my kinda weed for sure.

Are the metal cans to keep water from the stem base?

Great idea covering the canes as well, almost took my eye out moving through a room too quickly. Not my brightest moment...

Nice to see you over here, and yeah, ping pong balls are definitely cheaper than eye surgery!

The rings around the base of the plants are copper downpipe cut into bits, mainly there for slug protection but also good for keeping the mulch away from the stem and actually useful for directing water to the roots, I water into the ring so it goes under the mulch. I'm not too worried about soaking the base of the stem, I plant them very slightly raised and they drain quickly.

If i'm not wrong you want to flower them now in Spring, maybe you will need to cover the polytunnel a few hours from April onwards to force the 12/12 photoperiod and to avoid reflowerings and undesirable leaf production during flowering.

I can't really cover the entire polytunnel - It'd be too visible and I'd get too many questions from neighbours, I'm sure you know how they can be. For the most part I'll be letting things re-veg naturally just for the hell of it, anything else is too much work at this stage. Luckily my stash jars are well stocked from last year so what little I end up harvesting from this experiment will be just enough to get an idea of taste/effect and help me decide which plants will go out for the main season. I'm trying some rudimentary light dep on a few plants for the first time:

The bags go on at 17:45 and once it's dark I take them off again so they don't get too sweaty. The sun comes up around 6:30 so they get a good 12.5 hours dark.

Awesome thread!! ¡Pura vida compadre!
Amazing lineup, top quality soil, man youre in for some tasty monsters!!
The Vompost thing made me laugh out loud too, funny stuff

Are the things at the base of your plants copper necks? Do they really work against slugs?
Any bugs in your insect hotel yet?

Oh and don't hesitate to show us more veggies pics, I lov'em.
I'm also extremly interested in your Autos endeavours, especially Mephistos stuff.

Thanks, I'm glad you like it. I just did some training on those Mephistos and they paint a terrible picture at the moment, but I reckon it'll work out well. More pictures will go up soon over on Mitch's thread.

The copper rings work up to a point, but the slugs can always go under them through the soil, but I reckon things would be much worse without them. Not sure if the insect hotel has any guests yet - we're still undecided about a final spot to position it anyway. There are ladybirds around, and I've seen a few predatory wasps. The lizards are in and out all the time too. This one is quite tame.

and as for more veggie pics, you asked for it...

Well that's all for now, I've taken a load of pics today, I'l try and get the update done asap. Peace, TEC.

 

[padrone]

lovely garden spring.

 

[Baron Greenback]

Some wonderful work there. Great ideas in the polytunnel and nicely executed too. Hope you get the flowers all your hard work deserves.

 

[The English Cut]

^Thanks Silas.

Ok, so this will probably be the last update for the plants in the polytunnel. Yesterday or the day before the daylight period went over 14.5 hours, which I think means that they'll all start to re-veg and look even uglier than they do now! It's only a matter of time before they have to go as they're crowding out the peppers & tomtoes and the missus is starting to complain. Also the weather has taken a turn for the worse and it's gonna be rainy and cold for the next week at least, which won't do the girls any favours but will mean I can check for mould-resistance.

Some of the plants are seeded, so I'll try and keep those in the ground as long as possible to give the seeds time to ripen. I've marked seeded branches with electrical tape so if I need to remove a plant I can at least chop everything but the marked branches.

Now this was never going to be one of those 'hey everyone, look at the size of my buds' threads, I've never done a spring grow before and frankly I'm pleasantly surprised at getting any kind of flowers.

It's been a valuable learning experience and I'll definitely take what I've learned here and make a success of it next spring. I think it's really as simple as sowing earlier so the plants are ready to flower when I plant them out, or using clones. That way I should be able to plant out early march and harvest around now. It's also been clear that some strains adapt better to the increasing photoperiod, so my choice of strains for next year will be influenced by this. For now though it's time to start concentrating on the outdoor spots and to decide which of these beauties will be able to deal with the conditions here.

so here's how things were looking yesterday, in alphabetical order as that's how the pics imported...

Afgooey #1 (Strain Hunters) Free seeds that I didn't expect much from at all. This one surprised me, super vigorous in veg, very quick to flower, chunky buds, sweet sticky citrus smelling resin and pretty frosty. Selected as a mother for this year's outdoor. Ugly re-veg leaves on the buds, but the buds themselves have stayed solid.

Afgooey#2 - this one much more afghani, slow starter with huge wide leaves in veg. Smells quite nice, but nothing really special. Probably too indica for my outdoor spot.

 

[The English Cut]

Bangi Haze. Very nice, pot was too small though. Smells lethal, has also been selected as a mother. This one pollinated with HFH Lebchunk.

Bubba Kush x Hashplant. Cool plant. late into flower but quick once it got going, has really impressed me with the resin production in such a short time. Could definitely produce some huge buds in the right hands. The clones from this have been really stretchy in veg, which the mother wasn't. Smell of sharp tangy floral shampoo. Can't wait to smoke this one.

 

[The English Cut]

Caribe (Cannabiogen) Another free seed, this plant impressed me with it's vigour and beauty eary on in veg, but then became a bit lost in the jungle of plants, but it's been quietly doing it's thing, producing some incredibly sweet sticky sickly fruity bubblegum resin. Smells so good that more than once I've been halfway back to the house from the polytunnel and I've had to go back for one more sniff. Amazing. Selected as a mum.

Cheestral (underground seeds). The last of the regular seeds to show sex, very slow and didn't really get to start flowering properly. Nice structure, good resin production on what flowers there are. Smell is what I would describe as 'classic' or 'rasta's armpit'. I'll give it another chance outdoors, with PCK in the mix it should be pretty hardy.

 

[paulo73]

Great update on the polytunnel.
Thanks for sharing.

 

[The English Cut]

Thanks Paolo73, my computer crashed mid-update and gave me chance for a bowl or two! Better now, on with the show...

Fatty Bubba. Bushy & vigorous. Slower to flower than the Bubba Hash, despite appearing more Indica dominant. Smell is definitely reminding me of Orient Express. Another one to try outdoors this year.

Quick look at fun corner:

Nepal Jam #1. The small one. These are obviously very tough plants. Had trouble getting a decent clone from these plants, very slow to root and slow to recover.

 

[The English Cut]

Nepal Jam #2, very ugly re-vegged leaves, tiny resinous flowers. This one definitely didn't enjoy the increase in photoperiod.

Nepal Jam #4, my favourite from the 3, plus Igot a nice vigorous clone from it.

 

[The English Cut]

Nepal Jam x Kali China. Nice plant, I love the leaves. This will definitely get a spot outdoors. Can't really say much more, no real notable smell yet anyway.

Orient Express #1. Slightly more sativa of the 2 I have. More bushy and from what I can tell it's faster in flower and will make bigger buds. The smells are really interesting, unusual for weed. I'm intrigued and looking forward to trying these outdoors. Do they tend to stay quite compact?

 

[The English Cut]

Orient Express #2. Fatter leaves, more vigorous growth. Smells very similar to #1.

PCK x Kali China. Much more sativa than I expected. Very stretchy. Lovely fruity smells, I've kept a clone as a mother for outdoors.

 

[The English Cut]

Peyote Purple #1 (Cannabiogen). Very different to the other pheno. Narrow leaves, seems like it could produce huge buds. Shitloads of resin. Can't describe the smell of the resin but there's something a bit nasty about it like rotten garbage and disinfectant. I'm sure it'll be great though. I wonder how this pheno will do outdoors?

Peyote Purple #2. Much more what I expected. Very Indica looking. Leaves are turning purple. Smell is similar to #1. Huge calyxes but not much more in the way of flowers.

 

[The English Cut]

Rotten Panda. Super vigorous plant. i love the way it bushes out, perfect for my style of growing. The clone I took is by far the strongest clone of all. Great plant. Not doing much in the way of flowering really but hey ho I'll try her again outdoors this year.

The clone:

Zamal Hash. Some great smells on the stem rub. Very floral (from the hashplant?). Stretchy as expected.

That's the lot for now. I get the feeling I'm going to have to post some bud photos from last season just to prove that I can grow weed properly. This grow is hardly a testament to my flower-production skills and probably a bad choice for my first posted grow on icmag but I'll make up for it later this year, I promise. Thanks for watching everybody. Peace, TEC.

 

[Alpen rock]

. I get the feeling I'm going to have to post some bud photos from last season just to prove that I can grow weed properly

Lool
Cool update...gotta love the lizard chilling in the rosemary pic...
Im gonna try the copper rings trick this year, lost all my clones outdoor to slugs last season (guerilla), when they had been quite manageable previous years...live and learn...

 

[The English Cut]

Im gonna try the copper rings trick this year

Copper downpipe isn't cheap but it's better value in the long run than copper tape products from garden centres. Try a builder's merchant.

I've had good success putting a layer of broken eggshells inside (and outside if I have enough) the copper ring, unlike DE or ash or lime etc, eggshells don't have to be dry to work as a deterrent. Also in flower you can pour vinegar over them to create CalPhos. Don't do that last bit though, at least not in situ anyway!

Here are those budshots I promised. These are from one of last year's outdoor spots, taken around 20th sep, about a week before I started harvesting the first plant.

The rebar cages are 2.2m high. I made the roof cover things to cover the plants for the last week or so of flower, once a plant was chopped I'd move the roof to the next in line and so on. I reckon it saved me a lot of mould problems. Luckily the spot can only be seen from the air.

I suppose it's relevant to post these here anyway as it was whilst trimming these plants, tired of having to harvest too early to avoid mould, that I started to look into landraces for wet climates, which led me to Ace. I get the feeling there'll be no looking back (after this quick retrospective, that is...)

l-r Power Kush (behind), Critical + CBD, Shark Shock CBD, Cheese. All from Dinafem.

Various poor quality closeups:

 

[The English Cut]

a few more:

this one's a delahaze from a different spot.

I had quite a good harvest, well it made me happy anyway! Peace, TEC.

 

[Bleiweis]

Beautiful garden/s TEC!
Best wishes for the oncoming season!

 

[Baron Greenback]

Wonderful stuff fella. Inspirational and full of great ideas.

 

[padrone]

lovely garden innovative rain protection

 

[dubi]

Dont worry The English Cut

We never doubt about your gardening skills: your greenhouse, vegetables and plants from past season are lovely!

It's also interesting to learn how the different genetics perform in an increased photoperiod. As you stated in your first post, most photoperiod dependent strains won't flower correctly outdoors at our latitude after mid May (except for the auto flowering strains).

Non auto flowering strains start to grow back at this time of the year, producing lot of leaves, stopping flower production, etc .... but i think some of your plants from seed still can catch up the season: Zamal Hash, Rotten Panda, Nepal Jam x Kali China, ... have barely starting to flower (at least in your last update).

Also, If you keep clones of your favourite ones (based on early flowering traits, like aromas and early resin production) in the mother room, you are still on time to place new clones outdoors, the outdoor season has just started at our latitude for the growers that start from clone.