Those of you who have been following my kind of disjointed threads elsewhere on the forums already have heard me mention my friend's mother's purple something bagweed and the new replacement for rockwool that I stumbled across thanks to a tip from a friend.
Well I'm going to bring it all kind of together with an explanation of the technique I used for my first attempt at growing form seed.
I have never used Rockwool because of the warnings about having to condition it and the similarities to fiberglass insulation when handling it (scratchy, harsh, itchy and so on -- and yes I know some people don't have those problems, but I do even with rockwool insulation). BUT if have always thought I would like to try it if it wasn't for those draw backs. I was directed towards Oasis foam because it was as close as I could get to rockwool without the hassles.
Well, guess what I got turned on to a product called Sure To Grow that could be described as a rockwool made from PET1, compost degradable plastic fiber. Now that is oversimplified, but if you're interested go to SURETOGROW.COM and click on the STORM STORY. It is awwesome to even handle, soft, resilient (my other half is trying to talk me into using it for pillow stuffing -- fat chance she just need to keep her house keeping separate from our growing!), instantly wettable, PH neutral and nutrient inert.
I have some bagseed that is supposed to be killer. It can from the mother of a friend who had a outside grow of an undisclosed variety (she is pretty close mouthed about her growing even to her son) get polinated by the wind. Fortunately she finished it out, separated out the seeds and KEPT them. She tried growing them the next year and got killer purple high yielding and potent pot plants. she is growing them outdoors every summer nd her husband grows them in doors every winter. It is hard ot tell the genetics other than the obvious purple father because she doesn't do anything except water them and he tops the heck out of them like I do. Outdoors they seem to grow tall and lanky with cola buds, usually not very many but big and indoors short and busy with a lot of big colas.
Anyway I got some of her seed about the same time I got the samples of the Sure To Grow. Since I had heard good things about both her weed and the STG medium, I decided to try the two of them together, even though I have always grown from clones.
Like most every thing else I do, it was a ghetto operation with what I had at hand.
I put 16 of the 1.5" STG cubes together in a discarded broiler pan, poured 6.0 PHed water with 0.5 ml of Superthrive added to it over the cubes until I started gettinjg run off. Then I inserted the seeds into the little X shape cuts in th ebottomof the dimples in the STG cubes. I tried to poin the seed upwqards, but most of them didn't really ahve any obviously rounde dor pointe dneds and I'm not real good with fine moter skills anyway so I'm sur ethey would up being pointing justr about every way possible with 16 seeds.
Then I put my ghetto humidity dome, DEEP 1/2 sheet cake cover from the bakery over the broiler pan which was set on the top of a pile of step treads (that I'm going to get killed over if I don't get them finished and installed pretty quick but hey growing comes first right?).
The to make sure they didn't get cool like my last three disasterous cloning attempts, I put a thermostatically controlled electric room heater about 2 ' away from the seeding bed and set it at 77F.
For the first day and a half I kept it moist with the Superthrive enriched water (0.5ml/gallon), but then I ran out and needed to moisten them immediately and only had PHed water handy so for a day, they just got straight water, but I've got Superthirve again so now they will getting that again.
No special lighting, just in my computer room. That was done in the eveing of 11-30-09 and in the late evening of 12-1-09 my other half saw the first one beginnig to show, but failed to mention it to me. Yesterday morning I discovered the little monster standing aobut 1/2" above the STG block about 36 hours after starting it! I had never heard of a sprout getting that big that quick especially if it hadn't been pregerminated and these just went into moisten STG cubes without any preparation at all. the first picture is what it looked like yesterday AM and the next two are what it looks like today, one with the dome on and the other one uncovered ant at a shallower angle so its height is a little clearer. For a frame of reference, the cubes are nearly exactly 1" high.
If you want to follow the progress, I will be posting the journal in the growing section either under my current journal MTF lives or under anew one following just the bagseed.
I haven't ever heard of over 1" high 2.5 days after setting an unprepared seed, so I'm pretty elated especially since it is my first attempt at sprouting and it is from unknown bagseed too. Out of 16 seeds at 2.5 days Ihave the one that is growing the seedling, 5 showing color through the white STG, and all of them are pushing up on the media.
Maybe I'm just uninformed but I think that's pretty quick and good for a ghetto operation without any special plights or anything other than keeping it very warm and moist.
Sorry about the longwindedness, but no one is at home and I'm jazzed up enough that I have to tell someone!
Good smoking.
Well I'm going to bring it all kind of together with an explanation of the technique I used for my first attempt at growing form seed.
I have never used Rockwool because of the warnings about having to condition it and the similarities to fiberglass insulation when handling it (scratchy, harsh, itchy and so on -- and yes I know some people don't have those problems, but I do even with rockwool insulation). BUT if have always thought I would like to try it if it wasn't for those draw backs. I was directed towards Oasis foam because it was as close as I could get to rockwool without the hassles.
Well, guess what I got turned on to a product called Sure To Grow that could be described as a rockwool made from PET1, compost degradable plastic fiber. Now that is oversimplified, but if you're interested go to SURETOGROW.COM and click on the STORM STORY. It is awwesome to even handle, soft, resilient (my other half is trying to talk me into using it for pillow stuffing -- fat chance she just need to keep her house keeping separate from our growing!), instantly wettable, PH neutral and nutrient inert.
I have some bagseed that is supposed to be killer. It can from the mother of a friend who had a outside grow of an undisclosed variety (she is pretty close mouthed about her growing even to her son) get polinated by the wind. Fortunately she finished it out, separated out the seeds and KEPT them. She tried growing them the next year and got killer purple high yielding and potent pot plants. she is growing them outdoors every summer nd her husband grows them in doors every winter. It is hard ot tell the genetics other than the obvious purple father because she doesn't do anything except water them and he tops the heck out of them like I do. Outdoors they seem to grow tall and lanky with cola buds, usually not very many but big and indoors short and busy with a lot of big colas.
Anyway I got some of her seed about the same time I got the samples of the Sure To Grow. Since I had heard good things about both her weed and the STG medium, I decided to try the two of them together, even though I have always grown from clones.
Like most every thing else I do, it was a ghetto operation with what I had at hand.
I put 16 of the 1.5" STG cubes together in a discarded broiler pan, poured 6.0 PHed water with 0.5 ml of Superthrive added to it over the cubes until I started gettinjg run off. Then I inserted the seeds into the little X shape cuts in th ebottomof the dimples in the STG cubes. I tried to poin the seed upwqards, but most of them didn't really ahve any obviously rounde dor pointe dneds and I'm not real good with fine moter skills anyway so I'm sur ethey would up being pointing justr about every way possible with 16 seeds.
Then I put my ghetto humidity dome, DEEP 1/2 sheet cake cover from the bakery over the broiler pan which was set on the top of a pile of step treads (that I'm going to get killed over if I don't get them finished and installed pretty quick but hey growing comes first right?).
The to make sure they didn't get cool like my last three disasterous cloning attempts, I put a thermostatically controlled electric room heater about 2 ' away from the seeding bed and set it at 77F.
For the first day and a half I kept it moist with the Superthrive enriched water (0.5ml/gallon), but then I ran out and needed to moisten them immediately and only had PHed water handy so for a day, they just got straight water, but I've got Superthirve again so now they will getting that again.
No special lighting, just in my computer room. That was done in the eveing of 11-30-09 and in the late evening of 12-1-09 my other half saw the first one beginnig to show, but failed to mention it to me. Yesterday morning I discovered the little monster standing aobut 1/2" above the STG block about 36 hours after starting it! I had never heard of a sprout getting that big that quick especially if it hadn't been pregerminated and these just went into moisten STG cubes without any preparation at all. the first picture is what it looked like yesterday AM and the next two are what it looks like today, one with the dome on and the other one uncovered ant at a shallower angle so its height is a little clearer. For a frame of reference, the cubes are nearly exactly 1" high.
If you want to follow the progress, I will be posting the journal in the growing section either under my current journal MTF lives or under anew one following just the bagseed.
I haven't ever heard of over 1" high 2.5 days after setting an unprepared seed, so I'm pretty elated especially since it is my first attempt at sprouting and it is from unknown bagseed too. Out of 16 seeds at 2.5 days Ihave the one that is growing the seedling, 5 showing color through the white STG, and all of them are pushing up on the media.
Maybe I'm just uninformed but I think that's pretty quick and good for a ghetto operation without any special plights or anything other than keeping it very warm and moist.
Sorry about the longwindedness, but no one is at home and I'm jazzed up enough that I have to tell someone!
Good smoking.
