Spice Of Life: Winter

Just enjoying a good smoke during the cold winter days. The good harvest I had just gathered had done me proud and was enough to see me through the whole winter. Lovely fat buds bulging with resin had been well dried, slowly over three weeks in fairly warm air (between 15-20 degrees Celsius). Every time we smoked a bud we were hit with the impression of just how good and strong a self-grown weed can be. Let’s not forget either how lovely it was to watch the ladies grow up and come into bloom. All my efforts had been well rewarded.

Just as an outdoor grower waits until the last frost is over and the temperature has begun to rise once again in order to put his plants outside to begin growing (and eventually to harvest) a big old lady , so too I began to tremble with anticipation when the temperature began to rise once more. It was just as if I had awoken from a winter hibernation and was coming back to life. This time I also had the intention of building a growing space outdoors. For anyone who is a bit handy, this has got to be one of the nicest things you can do: make your own grow cupboard in order to pluck its fruits later. Some growers even stick real jewels in them. I don’t go for the most beautiful cupboard but the cheapest that is still good enough for growing a top quality harvest in.

In the early spring I turned up at the nearest DIY shop to get all the materials I would need. I got everything for under 25 Euros. I built a frame with the measurements 1m x 1.80m x 1.5m. As a base I used several large, cheap wooden plates and covered everything with black-white plastic. All this was built on one sunny spring day, enjoying the sunshine with a good fat spliff hanging out of my mouth. The most important aspect of the project was to make sure it was light-tight, and I made real sure no light could get in. The growing cupboard sat under a shed, safe from wind and rain. On the uppermost side of my cupboard, I installed the filter, protruding like a chimney from a house. On one side there were three tubes through which the fresh air came in. On the straight tubes a bend was added to make sure no light would creep in.
Inside, the lamp was hung, along with a swivelling ventilator placed in the corner. Everything was made as safe and secure as possible, making especially sure that no water could come into contact with the electrical apparatuses. Everything looked good, and then…

The luxury of choice
Variety is the spice of life. That is to say, a good change in what we smoke is welcome. In keeping with this, I had the plan this time to grow a range of varieties so that I would not be left smoking the same stuff the whole time. Also, there were some varieties I just fancied trying and I hadn’t been able to get hold of them as clones, so I had no choice but to raise them from seeds.
The biggest harvest it would not be, but this time I would not be going for the best harvest but simply for many varieties of quality weed.

I had already researched and made my choices during the cold winter months and ordered the seeds on the Net. A week after placing my order my seeds arrived, so well hidden that I couldn’t find them. This particular seed merchant had a special trick to deliver the seeds in as unobtrusive way as possible. Obviously I can’t reveal how exactly here, but I can say that you were to deliver the package to a police station, they would never suspect there was anything like seeds stashed in it. At first I thought that I’d been the victim of a rip off and there were no seeds sent, until I sent them an email describing the situation. Their reply made me feel stupid but delighted at the same time. It is so easy to spot, but if you don’t pay attention you’ll never find the seeds. My order consisted of Blueberry, Bubblegum, KC Brains, Leda Uno, Jack Herer, K2 & Skunk 1.

The Blueberry and the Bubblegum especially I was really looking forward to trying, having heard so much about them. The Leda Uno really blew me away because it was the most powerful plant in the whole garden and shot up like a tower in a very short time.

The shame about seeds is that there is so much variation between one and another that it has to be a great coincidence or you have to be just plain lucky to find that special plant that fulfils all your requirements in terms of taste, yield and smell. I was well chuffed to find a Blueberry that really did smell of blueberries - and I did – only it was a male, which was kind of a let down.

By contrast was the Bubblegum, which most of the plants I had did indeed have the typical chewing gum smell. It is really incredible how these plants smell of that white chewing gum. And the typical taste too is really unique and extremely sweet. These were both ‘must have’ varieties as far as I was concerned. The Jack Herer needs little to be said about it; everyone knows it’s a quality plant. The K2 was back as a clone, a Powerplant (also a clone) and to round off, a good Skunk #1, which was bound to be a heavy-yielder.

A good start is half the battle
The pots were filled and the seeds were planted, having been germinated in a small dish of waterlogged kitchen towel kept on a warming mat. These little mats are really handy as they keep a constant temperature 20-22 degrees and are therefore perfect for letting seeds germinate on. Certainly when you let your seeds germinate when it’s still pretty cold outside, you can spare having to keep your central heating on 24-hours-a-day – that’s a waste of energy. Much cheaper to just use one of these mats that can stay at a good 20 degrees all day and night. At least, that’s what I think.

So the 20 seeds were planted first and ten clones joined them a little later. This time around I had chosen to use high quality earth and went for a good, airy earth from a grow shop. I did notice a great deal of difference between the ordinary earth you get from a normal garden centre and that from a grow shop.

Because I had built a smaller growing space and no longer had a large area to grow in, I decided I could best use some climate control. It was really easy to keep the air moisture content very high during the first few weeks for the growth phase. I have never seen plants grow as fast as then. Within the shortest time the seedlings had grown into little ladies with strong side branches. The clones too shot up and very quickly built up their root systems.

I gave every plant a dose of root stimulator, naturally. The first time I grew it took my seedlings a week to get going, but this time, thanks to the high air moisture, only a few days.

So you can see how everything you learn you can use the next time you grow in order to get a better harvest. Thanks to the rapid growth I let them sprout only for a week-and-half before I put them into bloom. Everything seemed to be going according to plan and was looking perfect. Now all I had to do was hope that I got a good number of females, since with seed you never can tell, though if you maintain a good climate you raise the chance of females. Some factors can influence the seed and tip the balance in favour of females. A high air moisture makes for a greater chance of females, as does a raised nitrogen content in the soil, a lower temperature and several more…

To my amazement I turned up with 17 females out of 20. This was very good and most unexpected, maybe also a bit of bad luck because I had expected more males and can never find it in my heart to throw away females. The excess of females I simply put outside and left them to grow in peace.

In order to ensure that the clones became as big as the seed plants, which normally are a little higher, I had planted the clones in coconut fibre. On this, they shoot up a little higher into the air than when grown in earth, and so they can catch up the seed plants. It is very hard to raise the various varieties all at the same time and still make sure that they end up the same height. Especially if you’ve got Sativas and Indicas growing together you can be handed some nerve-wracking developments.

Whenever I made a Sativa a head shorter, the Jack Herer for example, then it still ended up shooting up again sometime later. With the Leda Uno I had the same problem – it just wouldn’t stay small. It was hideous trying during the growth phase to keep everything nicely bowed and tied up. Every day coming back to see if there were more branches needing bending and whether the already bent branches needed bending a little more and if so, in which direction.

Bending is simply guiding a branch to grow down by holding the tip of the branch down with string. By doing this you put a brake on the growth and allow the lower branches to develop a little better. You can of course just decapitate the plant, but then you lose the head bud; in this way you get to keep it and still allow the under-most branches to develop better. Of course it is more work, but you will be rewarded in the end. I don’t think in retrospect I will try and grow so many varieties together at the same time again. Each to its own square meter is the best way.

Despite the drawbacks, you also have the positive side of the mix of wonderful sweet aromas from the various varieties. It was a real mini-Paradise. So much choice is nice, and the tasting at the end even better. Also great to see of course was the difference in growth patterns and how each plant blooms in a different way to the others and how each bud looks different to the others.

The Bubblegum bloomed with these enormous oblong buds I had never seen before, even the lowermost buds had a huge size. The Blueberry had lovely, hard, round buds, gorgeous in shape. Because it had become a real jungle I had to take out a few plants to give the others more space in which to develop. The thing I learned here is that a plant really does need sufficient room to grow and bloom. If you limit a plant’s space by putting too many other plants around it too tightly in your growing cupboard then you will end up getting less out of that plant because it can not develop sufficiently. I certainly felt this with my harvests. I had still left too many standing and in place of them developing their width, they simply grew too high, which ensured that I had more long, skinny plants.

By the time I realised this, the damage was already done and I had no choice than to go with what I’d got; I’ll do better next time, I always say. You could clearly see the difference between them and the plants that did get enough space. These plants had the loveliest buds of all and were much more broadly spaced out than the others.

Thanks to the continuous input of fresh air and co2, very attractive buds developed on the branches of my plant. There is an advantage you have as a grower when you live in or near a city. Thanks to the many cars, factories, and industrial sites there is more co2 in the atmosphere than if you lived out in the sticks. Thanks to this your plants will grow significantly better and develop larger buds. So actually if you ventilate well and get plenty of air and fresh co2 flowing through your cupboard you will get a top harvest. Some growers in industrial areas simply ventilate well rather than giving extra co2 from bottles. Now you’re not going to hear me say that the automatic, controlled addition of co2 from bottles in to your space is no good, but the cheapest option is still to make good use of the higher co2 values of the polluted city air. Good ventilation is one of the most important and cheapest ways of scoring yourself a good harvest. However many wonder potions you use, if you don’t ensure good ventilation you will never get the maximum out of your plants.

Harvesting, trying and enjoying
Because I now have everything I need to raise and harvest a crop, I have no need to go to a grow shop. Apart from the struggle to keep the plants growing at the same height, things went pretty smoothly. No phosphate deficiency, no lamp came crashing down or other such accident. Thanks to the variety of weed, the harvest was spread out and not all bunched up at the same time, since each had its specific blooming period. This had its advantages in that I could trim away with no pressure with no need to do a huge pile in one go. At the end of it all, I collected up all the trim waste and made a superb water hash. This was a particularly delicious hashish since it had such a mixture of varieties mixed in.

After having dried out all the varieties came the best bit of all, the tasting. Each weed has its own character and it was a real party to smoke them all at the same time.

Although I did not achieve a huge harvest from any single weed, I did have a reasonable harvest from all of them. It is nice to have a choice and not have to smoke the same stuff every time. Having a choice is a luxury. Just laying them all out and sorting though them by shape and appearance is fun. The most stoned I have ever been was when we once made a cocktail of seven different varieties rolled into one fat joint. After half an hour we were so languid we were almost asleep, so it’s definitely not an experiment I would recommend if you’re hoping to go out, because you won’t be moving at all!

This time of course I also had some outdoor plants; the few seed plants from indoors I had left over and had stuck outside to give those left inside more room, and the four K2 clones that didn’t work out. With some time these too began to shoot up like rockets under the intense sunlight. They were stood in seven litre pots of coconut fibre that looked marvellous tome, but more of those next time.