The Exodus Collective: History of UK Cheese

[Londinium]

As far as The Fromage goes I think its a great little Skunk and an excellent free-gift and still grow a few here and there although I'm more a Psycho fan meself. But It isn't my fave Skunk ever or even close to it,all my best Skunks were bought and selected from SensiSeed's in Dam or were later filial generations of Sam's seed's handed down to me by Elder's(my best ever Skunk was Orange Skelter which was a Sk1 x CaliO male BX'ed to a Sk1 lady,I would swap every other Sk1 I've ever tried..including Cheese and ISS for a cut of that now)
E.M. I grew a pack out of that Skunk3 from Sunlight along with most of their strains and I found it to be a slightly more Sativa option than their Skunk1(which was very quick for a skunk,very OrangeBud looking and had a Mongy buzz) but Sk3 was a crappy yeilder and was pretty much a sweet,up kinda skunk but nothing special or distinctive like cheese. I think their Sk1 was the more Roadkill of the 2 but nothing to write home about either...Sensi's stuff was way,way better in every respect at the time....Although I was a big fan of the NL(Stocky and Stinky and Piney/sweet) we got from Sunlight and their SuperSkunk(fruity and huge buds) and SkunkHaze(Got excellent Stud male from that but no Girl to keep) both had Rockin' pheno's too! A couple of their strains were appalling and hay-like as well if I remember rightly but they were cheap so not complaining!!!!
I remember the Stratford Sunlight being around b4 21st CG as well and the Leicester Sunlight deffo pre-dated 21st CG by a good while,selling mostly Lights originally from what I recall....
I shopped intermittently at both for a while(was too paranoid then to return to same shops too quickly!lol).But the shop I miss most was TropicalHouseCultivation in Camberwell(not the other T.H.C that had a shop in Midlands). It was in a small terraced house behind the Hospital and had a Sunflower picture in the window that was the only way to find it as it had no signs etc.....The fella there used to give me such good prices it was almost silly and he'd source almost anything u wanted that he didn't stock...He used to get me an Orchid Grow-media called Goldenwool from Denmark that was hands down my favorite media,it was 2 diff grades of RW with Clay and Lignite to buffer the PH and stop loose fibers...Marvellous stuff!
He carried on doing phone orders and meets for a year or so after the shop closed in the mid 90's but I lost touch after a while to my regret...Anyone remember that place at all,I think they advertised in Viz for a little while as well??? Luck and Lumens JBo

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

LOL Yes, I remember THC in Camberwell, well.... A nice but mad Hippie in a squat on Southwell rd undercutting everybody else, but partly by using the cheapest bits around... my mate/mentor back then really did not approve and I got moaned at for buying 'rubbish that needed fixing'...... I was there when w****** were coming in griefing him for kit playing up and felt very sorry for him, he was trying to sort out people as cheaply as possible for all the right reasons, but was selling kit to some shady sorts who were earning thousands with it. I seem to remember he was the first person to sell Blooom nutrient, a powder called Eco Grow IIRC, ah, the memories, VIZ changed my life, I spotted Sunlight Systems adverts there first

 

[DocLeaf]

Love the treehouse photos

ChaosCatalunya and Londinium

We used both shops as kids,, always thought sunlight came slightly later,,, could be wrong,, have been before These are the oldest catalogues from each shop I could find:

peace n love

 

[Londinium]

Wow they r a blast from the past,thanks for making me feel old again Doc lol! Oh! The memories.......
Chaos I thought u might remember them....Yeah he was deffo trying to do the right thing but a little lost at THC, but I used to get what I wanted ordered usually as He did sell some cheap crap as standard...but as u say he was the first place I got various products as he would go out of his way to source stuff for me(None of the other shops did for me then,they just forced u onto the products they earnt most from!)...He probably sorted me out bcos he dealt with so many others that were Hot and Dodgy at the time!
I would often go up to Midlands for any bulk buys back then though as the shops North of Watford were always cheaper and less Hot back then.
Luck and Lumens Jbo

 

[ojd]

man this is mad

21st centurt gardens was my first growshop i bought from 98 i think
north london to the fullest

this is 1 small world

chaos
what was the cuts you give the 21st century guys
do you also know the peng cut also the rumple and the rino(these are around the area)


nice pics doc
peace

 

[buddymate]

Didnt sunlight systems open a shop in Edinburgh?I remember going up there from Sunderland to buy my first ever HPS,got a 600 which back then seemed to light the bedroom up

 

[Hazyfontazy]

oh the good old days indeed ,sunlights lights were fire hazards if i remember rightly ,i think they closed because of it ,we never bought these lights
,in 1993 we were fetching stuff from Holland by the vanload for ouselves and other grower friends ,this prompted me and a friend to start up a growshop ,we stocked the shop (at great exspense)and before we had chance to get insurance and open ,someone broke in and stole everything , Growell opened just after

anyone remember the "bush telegraph" ?

what about "leni" ? the old bloke in pershore who taught at pershore college of horticulture,fuck me that man could grow weed

memories lol its suprising to still have any lol

 

[Hazyfontazy]

Didnt sunlight systems open a shop in Edinburgh?I remember going up there from Sunderland to buy my first ever HPS,got a 600 which back then seemed to light the bedroom up

i bet it was a poot

 

[DocLeaf]

You lot make me feel young still,,, bow-down to ALL old-school ganja cats in the house
Without you folk the UK scene wouldn't be what it is today

N.B> Sunlight was just like McDonalds,, they had a shop everywhere,, you could only look and touch it if you bought it style,, just in-case it went wrong. That shop also had major issues with under 18's .. i know,, i was one of them ... even used to try make yout pay for the catalogues. lmfao Those where the days

 

[nomaad]

More hype about an ok strain... Jesus are we all turning into Americans where hype is king and the product is a second?? I don’t wish to offend any US growers but you do hype strains to stupid proportions, not all of you mind some know the plant for what it is a plant and not a money making tool or a trinket to hold above others heads as if to say I'm better then you as I have this OG lobster diesel white Kush clone.

If you look a little closer, you'll see that what you're describing is a Los Angeles thing... the "i'm better than you...'elite' boolshit"... even if its not transpiring IN los angeles, the vibe and culture of empty "im-better-than-you-ness" and fake tits. Other than the young kids who buy into this bullshit the same way they have been buying into shit since their 'Baribie" days, its unfair to characterize all American's as competely vulgar.

I am a gringo from new york who has lived in Manhattan, Los Angeles, New Orleans, 5 European cities and Central America. I have sold crap E's and Soapbar to sunburnt British package holiday-makers on Ibiza and up and down the Costa del Sol and called them "White Doves" and "Morocan 0-0" respectively. Same mo-tards, different accent.

 

[DocLeaf]

nomaad,, we got plenty American brethren/sistren out there,, love them
Stereotypes are generalisations based on opinion,, as an island race,, we say things tongue in cheek,, so pls don't take stuff you hear in here personal man,, you folks have had your hand in cloning "keepers" long time before us over here caught on ,, we just playing catch up one love all

 

[indifferent]

I still don't understand how something as bog standard as Cheese got so popular, just another mediocre smelly skunky cut, maybe it's cos it always has that distinctive stink no matter how its grown and just about anyone can pull off a commersh crop with it.

But conoisseur headstash? nah, mediocre at best.

 

[DocLeaf]

It's because Cheese is a "workable" cut / clone. Most "clone-onlys" are whack and make pathetic "workable" plants IMO (less than 75% rate is compost these ends). I n I talking returns over a tray of 50-100 clones,,, so not connoisseur grade dope here,, by a long standard!

Cheese is fast,, reliable,, semi-wooded (roots well), takes to most mediums like a duck to water... and usually get ppl stoned out there faces! The ppl that buy the stuff from dealers cant get enough of the stuff quick enough,, often fiending for it before they even smoked it ! That's why dude!

Obviously there's better dope around,, but none quite as popular on road in UK with commercial smokers,, for an 8weeker.

...give an extra 2-3 weeks n Jack Herer kills it all round!

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

man this is mad

21st centurt gardens was my first growshop i bought from 98 i think
north london to the fullest

this is 1 small world

chaos
what was the cuts you give the 21st century guys
do you also know the peng cut also the rumple and the rino(these are around the area)


nice pics doc
peace

Si Hombre, small world, I am wondering which one of you guys I have bumped into here & there in years past. My involvement with 21C was before they started, I never made it up there to the shop, IIRC because the nice guy in Brighton was closer timewise than N London ...for the West London Massive at least...

I cannot remember what it was we gave him, possibly a cut we called "Tony Skunk" after, well, Tony who grew 2 seeds out of a K of Dutch SK1 [? I think] someone nice brought in alongside the regular rubbish, the first unit ever seen around, maybe '91 or '92.

I have not run into Peng or the rumple, but there has been a rino cut around my home area [W/SW] for ages, Jordan is the local cut a lot of ppl have run for +/- 10 years, stll the best mix of quality and quantity.

now, where did I leave my Zimmer frame ?

 

[ojd]

hi chaos

yeah small world indeed

i got a mate who has a shop in brighton
does some nice prices not like 21st

you got any pics of the rino cut or jordan

chat soon

peace

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

The guy I used to see in Brighton was the old Hippie with the first growshop down there, not sure of what he is up to now, after a brief time with the massively dodgy Croydon bunch, shops sprung up on 'our' side of town... I even used to use Gypsy's old growshop 3 doors down from his seed shop in Surbiton.


David Bailey can sleep easy I think, these are all I currently have of the Jordan - a Summer Loft crop and the Rhino, a quick 2 crop lash up garden, homebrewed NFT system running on a 'table' of some very high tech Milk Crates.

 

[Chilli]

Here is the true story of the origins of Cheese - by Wing Commander Blue (the guy who first grew it) and as printed in issue 65 of Weed World magazine.

The true origin of UK Cheese​

I recently went on holiday to the Canary Islands, a friend of mine gave me a copy of Weed World magazine to read while I was there (issue 56). To my surprise, was the article by Big Buddha Cheese? On reading this I decide to tell the story from the beginning.

Back in the late 80’s early 90’s, a friend-of-a-friend of mine came back from the Sensi Seed Bank in Amsterdam with some seeds.

Most of the plants were males but 4 of them were girls – 3 of the 4 were wankers and one was kind of OK. This plant was cloned and passed on to 3 or 4 different people who grew it alongside some Northern Lights and Silver Pearl plants in their well built grow rooms.

I am 45 years old now and have been growing my own weed for about 25 years, 10 of them outside in the wild.

My best friend and I decided that we would build ourselves our own grow rooms but didn’t see the need for getting too technical so, we made them out of anything we could lay our hands on – we called them “orange crates” coz that’s what they looked like.

As for lighting, we went on a commando raid to a local disused cement factory and helped ourselves to some Sodium and Metal Halide 400’s. We made our own shades from some aluminium sheeting from a local scrap yard.

Now all we needed was some nice cuttings. I managed to get some N/L and S/P plants and also one of the Skunks. Most of the other growers concentrated on the N/L and S/P because they are good all rounders.

I think one of the Skunks went to Crewe and another to Cornwall. I quite liked the Skunk so I kept it going. Now over the next 7 or 8 years of constant cloning, the Skunk started changing – don’t know why – it just did. It started to get really smelly – I mean really stink. The smell would get everywhere and I was often creosoting the fence to try and mask the smell (a little tip there for Cheese farmers, creosote or burnt toast). Cropping was a nightmare and I wouldn’t even go out because people would often say “you stink”.

I was giving some of this weed to my close friends and they all loved it and, as the taste was changing it seemed the strength was too. This weed had become so strong and so smelly that it reminded me of something I had smelt before, but I couldn’t think what it was. Then one day the penny dropped.

When I was 17 or 18 and living at home with my parents, I would go out a lot with a friend who worked in a food essence factory. Some days I would see him and he would stink of all different kind of things: fish, beef, vanilla etc. He would bring me small test tubes of concentrated liquids home and use them in my fishing bait (the carp loved the vanilla). One day he put one under my nose and said “smell this one, its called blue cheese, and it’s a real minger”.

This was the smell I had been trying to remember. The weed smelt just like it and so she was born. I gave the weed the name “Cheese”.

The only cuttings I let out were to people who were incapable of doing their own cloning and only wanted a plant for their own garden in the summer months.

Another close friend of mine, known as “Of the Hill”, came to me one day and asked me if I would do him 21 cuttings as he was building a big lab for the Exodus people in Luton. I was a bit unsure of this as I didn’t know ay of these people but, I did it for him because he is a good egg and has dug me out of plenty of holes over the years. Anyway, off he went with his cuttings and I didn’t here too much more about it, other than a good harvest festival was had.

“Of the Hill” arranged for a cutting to make it’s way to a coffee shop in Amsterdam in 2003 (Home Grown Fantasy). It was cloned and put on the menu as ‘Cheese’ and went on to claim 3rd place in the cannabis cup in 2004.

I recently met an American at a Hawkwind gig in London who had heard of the Cheese in Washington. He had come to the UK to see Hawkwind and smoke Cheese. His face lit up when I pulled a big fat Cheese straw out of my pocket!

It’s kind of annoying really – I wish I could have put a patent on the word “Cheese” in the context of marijuana but, it’s kind of difficult when things are illegal.

All over the place now I hear people calling all sorts of weed “Cheese” and I say to them “no mate, this is Cheese”.

As for Mr Big Buddha? I have plenty of respect for him, but the Cheese is not yours no matter what you call it and, as for crossing her? She does need help –over the years she has started to show signs of stress.

Growers will notice that some plants get brown spotty leaves during growing & flowering that results I leaf drop. I don’t know what the cause is, it’s not the soil, the water, the food, or the air quality (possibly a virus of some kind), so I suppose a cross of some kind to introduce some new vigour to her would be a good thing so, like I said, respect to Big Buddha for trying.

So for nearly 14 years, the Cheese was living at only a couple of places but now it seems to be everywhere for people to enjoy.

I don’t know what she has become – some sort of mutant freak, but she sure hits the spot and everyone who smokes her loves her to pieces.

So there you have it – the truth about the origin of Cheese. You can all rejoice that I kept her going for all these years and now you all know how it came about its name.

In the grand scheme of things it’s not very much, but I wanted to set the record straight.


[FONT=&quot]Wing Commander Blue[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
© WeedWorld Magazine

 

[bigwity]

all i know about cheese is when raving in norfolk the smell of weed is thick but through the strench there is a hum dinger of a smell its always easy to find a cheese smoker at a rave to buy a bit off but it is like you say all smell and medium high

 

[Weird]

Hey boys n girls

I loved the thread

let me add an american two pence here for ya

i have the cheese, im excited to run her and I think she is a PRIME example of EPIC pot

WHY!?!?! WHY!?!?!?!

in its truest form smoking is a pleasure and I for one like many old hippies that ame before me really enjoy smoking alot of pot all day long

do that with some devastating one hit wonders and your not functional or you get undesirable effect


the uk cheese experience is for the ardent smoker, the social smoker, the smoker that is off the beaten path and smokes a sizable amount of weed in a day, well then fellows youve got the winner

it embodies everything enjoyable about a toke and the high is a fine high anytime of the day

certain weeds satisfy on so many different levels i certainly "get" the cheese fancy

its also a great pot to introduce to the causal smoker and not make for an unpleasant experience

just my two cents

 

[JGP]

Bump, good read, looking forward to my xmas crop