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Pesky Caterpillars and Slugs
It is still spring and my four K2'S are standing proudly under the blue sky in the streaming sunshine and the temperature outdoors is very pleasant.
The Bubblegum and the Jack Herer that I had started from seed and placed outside earlier because they had grown so thin and weedy for lack of space indoors, were now filling out nicely and it won't be long before all traces of how bad they were, are gone.
Spring is one of the best times of the year seeing as how it is this period I use to put my plants through their growth cycle and then bring them indoors later for the flowering period. I was planning to do the same with the K2's that I had placed outside whilst they were straggling. In no time at all, they had developed thick stems and broad healthy leaves. I had cropped the growing top because from my experience, this will force the plant to return to its normal growth speed.
I always use the great outdoors as my growth cycle 'room'. It costs nothing in energy and you can let the plants grow up to any desired proportions. It is possible to leave your plants outside from April until mid-July without the fear of early blooming and that adds up to a lot of saved electricity. By only using your lamps on 12/12, you can bring in 3 harvests each with a maximum of a two-month growth period and a two-month flowering period. In this way I am able to put the four K2's under the lamps as soon as I have harvested. They have had a two-month growth period and are looking sturdy and bushy. Because I had cropped the growing tip off all of them, the side branches were all upright. During the growth cycle I had busied myself tying the branches into place so that the flowering heads would spread out and so bring in an optimum return.
Going into early summer, the temperature rises and so good ventilation becomes important. In the spring when the air is still cold, I ventilate less frequently in order to keep the temperature in the room from dropping too much. Now that it is starting to get warm outside, I ventilate constantly so that the plants can enjoy lots of fresh air.
Cuttings
During the growth period, I had taken cuttings off some of the plants with the purpose of growing them up and flowering them outdoors. Last time I had very little success as mould had set in quickly but I dared to try it again. It's really good to make your own cuttings, as then you can be sure you have selected the best plants. By making your own you can be sure of having them when you want them and will not have the necessity of having to look around to buy them. It is not at all difficult and there are many methods available.
The method I prefer is simplicity itself. You just slice the cutting sideways off the branch and stick it immediately into water. This prevents air bubbles forming in the stem. After that I plunge the cutting into a solution of rooting hormone. You can use a sharp knife to thinly slice off the outer layer at the end of the stem which allows the cutting to soak up that stimulating solution much more easily. This is a good idea if you use plants that tend to have a sturdy woody stem, as otherwise the new root development can be really slow.
After submersing the stem of the cutting in root stimulator I dip the tip of the stem in a bit of rooting powder while it is still wet. You can use either rooting solution or powder. After that I stick them into a cube of rock wool that I have soaked ahead of time in water and rooting powder. First I slice into the block a few times to help get rid of the excess water and then I carefully push the cutting into a hole at the top. Be care that no powder falls off the cutting tip and make sure it fits snugly into the hole otherwise you will need to squeeze it closed a bit. Thereafter I place the blocks of rock wool with the cuttings under a clear plastic dome in which the cuttings will be able to take root. The plastic dome allows for a high humidity build up, which protects the cuttings from drying out. This promotes root growth.
Do keep the dome under a florescent light while the cuttings root. You do not need to give them water as they have more than enough. If you do water them you will slow down the rooting growth. Without water a cutting is obliged to go in search of it or else it will die.
I usually put my dome under my skylight, placed out of direct sunlight because they will dry out then, especially in the early stage. Naturally if you use a hot sun instead of a light bulb, you will need to give them a bit more moisture. Actually, I like to let them sweat it out a bit, as it were, but that also ensures that only the fittest survive and will root rapidly under the intense light.
The first few days and the cuttings always look a bit wilted. If that persists after a week, then that cutting is not going to make it. The cuttings should root somewhere between seven and fourteen days. However if you let them stand for twenty days, than they are very sturdy with a firm bunch of roots. Please note: I never let them stand in direct sunlight! Always only in the shade. Only once they have really rooted properly are they permitted into the sunshine, as before then they are not able to take up sufficient water. You can feed them with rooting hormone dissolved in water in order to stimulate the root growth.
Last but definitely not least - I always let them stand on a warming mat in order to keep the base temperature between 20 and 22 degrees. This is vital because according to my experience, a warm bottom always stimulates root growth. Without a warming mat, the whole process can take three weeks before the cuttings start to sprout. Make sure you provide your cuttings with a warm basis if you want them to do their best quickly.
Cocoa
Did I mention that I use cocoa growing medium for my plants? The stuff really suits me. The strangest thing about using cocoa is that you can use the same nutrients during both the growth and flowering phases. You would think that they would suffer an overdose of nitrogen but it is not so. I find it very user friendly and I manage without pH or EC meters. I keep to the instructions for use on the package and feed when necessary. It is a bit easier than growing with soil because shortages with the cocoa medium can be quickly supplemented. Potting soil on the other hand will take a few days. Plants off a cocoa substrate generally grow a thicker stem and have more branches than plants grown in earth. Whether the heads are any bigger is a moot point, I personally do not notice any remarkable difference.
Plants grown on cocoa tend to bring in a bit more due to all the close dense side branches. It is a very light medium and will soak up water with no problem. If you rinse everything through with enzymes every two weeks you will prevent any problems with salt build up. Actually even without the enzymes I have never had a problem.
A cocoa growing medium is a pleasure to work with even after harvesting. Once the plants have been reaped and it's time to empty the pots, you will notice the difference. Just let the stuff dry out in the pots and then turn them out over a big plastic bag. It only takes a few seconds and you are left clutching the rooty stump in your hands. Then you can use it again. My encounters with this medium have only been positive.
Back to the K2's. These were meantime in flowering before I noticed something. Each of the plants was approximately 50-70cms broad and they had to fit on a meter square. The last plant stuck out about halfway, no problem, you'd think, but indeed it is, with one home grow lamp that covers 1mx90cm. Within the radius of the light, beautiful big tops had formed, but just 5cm from that, the tops were less well formed and at 10cms distance, the tops were nothing but fluffy bits.
So it is strongly advisable to keep the plants within the light radius as much as possible, because outside of that the effect on bud forming is dramatic. On one side, the plant formed good-sized heads as expected and a measly 10cms further out, it was all just fluffy stuff. Well, actually it was quite an interesting sight because it was clearly evident what a difference there is in light strength over distance. I had never imagined for a moment that it could have such a dramatic effect. The distance is relatively small but the difference is huge. Well - learned something new.
Pests
Everything was going beautifully. Every crop should be an improvement on the previous one. But, of course, just as you are sure nothing on earth could go wrong, something unexpected always happens. It seems it's not so smart to just bring plants indoors directly from outside. They are full of beasties that Mother Nature would normally deal with, but because my indoor space was ready and it was only four plants, I did it anyway. After some time I noticed that one of the plants was not looking healthy. It seems those lovely Spring butterflies had made trouble for me whilst flitting around outdoors, they had laid their eggs all over my plants. Tiny green and yellow caterpillars began emerging from these eggs and started gorging on the stems of the plants whilst ignoring the leaves completely. This caused enormous damage to my plants because those essential juices were being blocked from flowing to where they were needed and so the buds began to die off.
These hateful minuscule monsters just had to appear now and ruin everything! They are so tiny they can almost not been seen plus they prefer to hide out in the stem where it's not easy to find them. The worst is that they bore their way across the stem, going in one side and coming out on the other with a satisfied belly. Besides the dying heads, you will also notice little heaps of excretion left on the branches. These little heaps are just like tiny piles of sawdust. After a thorough inspection, I saw that the plants were covered with these. An entire branch had already been lost to this banquet.
The only effective remedy to get rid of pests like these is so spray them with insecticide, preferably a biological variety. But I was already in the last two weeks of the cycle and I did not want to ruin the buds by spraying them. So I decided there was nothing else to do but hunt down the little monsters myself. I took the one worst affected plant out of the room and armed myself with a load of toothpicks. Wherever I found a little pile of shit, I stuck the toothpick in to the stem. Shortly after that, a tiny caterpillar emerged. One down - many more to go!
It proved to be a hellish task to hunt down the little beasts. It certainly was no joke. Especially when you consider how if you miss a few, you are bound to lose another branch or two and you can be sure it will be just those branches on which your best tops are situated. The biggest fattest juiciest tops I had ever produced too!
Happily the plant itself was not just giving up but had started to fight back. I was amazed at how it struggled to protect itself against this attack. Everywhere that the caterpillars had been busy, the plant began to produce a tougher stem so that the vital juices could still flow through to the ends. You could see bumps forming on the branches where there has been an invasion but in the places where the caterpillars were eating faster than the plant could repair the damage, the result would be a lost branch. It is entirely possible that this caterpillar attack actually helped to make the buds sturdier because the stem they were on had become sturdier.
The main stem bearing one of my best buds had been horribly gnawed away but held together just enough to get the sap through and for the stem to hold up the top. It made me think of a building tottering on the brink of collapse. Fortunately that did not happen. I took care of the damaged branches by trying to support them and to prevent them from falling over or breaking off. Happily I could bring in my crop within two weeks. The damage had remained limited to the main stem of one plant and a few smaller buds on the side branches. The total weight loss was approximately 40 grams. It could have been worse.
Slugs
The two plants that I had outdoors which I had started from seed were also suffering somewhat. They had begun by flowering really early on, (July) but had not really got into full flowering until mid- August. Then they started to yellow and fade and I could not get them a healthy shade of green again. I added all sorts of supplements but nothing helped. I tried to stimulate them with leaf food and it did help for a short while until they started weakening again. I wondered if they had not outgrown their 20 litre pots and if that was not the cause of this yellowing. Whatever I tried, I could not help them and I lost them both, which was a real shame.
I still had my enormous Jack Herer, which I had put into the full earth as a seedling. From the start it had come under continuous attack from slugs and had even had the growing stem cropped as a result. Natural cropping that is, and that happened often as those fat slugs are just crazy for tender young shoots. To keep them off I had to sprinkle some poison round the base of the stem. If they wanted to gobble down the best bits, they were going to have to cross the poisoned line first. They die soon after coming into contact with it.
Two months later and it had become a gigantic plant and had the thickest stem I had ever produced. A big difference from the plants grown in the pots. Full earth always produces the healthiest plants and the highest yields. The best is that you don't really have to water them because their roots reach deep enough into the ground to find their own. This in contrast with the plants in pots that I had to water on a daily basis or else they would dry out. Sadly, once it got to full bloom, it proved to be a male. However, because he looked so proud, I let him survive a little longer and to avoid having a big bald spot in my garden. I granted him permission to make seeds in the first two weeks of flowering so that I could get a nice crossing between it and the other plants from seed.
Fertilising a few of the tops early in the season does not automatically lead to ruin. You can let a few of the first flowers be fertilised without impunity. You can do this manually or you can just leave a healthy male nearby for a while. In this way you can be sure to get a limited number of seeds (20-30) before the plant gets into full flowering.
Male plants are generally ready a few weeks before the ladies, so you can just leave them to stand there for a while but be sure to remove them before the females really get under way putting out the flowers. So not only do you get enormous seedless buds, you do get a few seeds from your favourite plants too.
The summer was coming to an end and I was enjoying my harvest. I had nothing to complain about. As last return from an early autumn I still had a few of the K2 cuttings standing. Thanks to fine autumn weather they had ripened beautifully. Thanks to the weather I had actually brought in a good return from an outdoor crop for the first time. I gained about 10 grams per plant despite their shortened growth phase. The quality was superb. In my opinion outdoor weed is always darker in colour and sweeter in taste.
Nothing beats sunshine!