To me, growing pot was a no-brainer.
The very first pot I bought (mid-60's), I looked in the bag and said "Hey seeds!!!"
I told the guy who helped me score "the dealer is stupid for leaving seeds in here".
That's how obvious growing pot was to me. I felt that anyone who had seeds would plant them, and then have no need to spend money on pot again.
The next morning I planted my first seeds.
For the first couple of years I had no idea what I was doing. At that time there was no internet, no grow books, and I didn't know anyone else who grew pot.
I knew enough to plant in the spring, but I never saw any buds and picked leaves throughout the summer and smoked them until the plant died from lack of leaves.
Some friends did the same thing. We couldn't understand why the pot we grew in our back yards didn't look like the pot we bought, or why it was so mild. In fact, for years "homegrown" was synonamous with crappy weed.
The 3rd year I grew, I forgot about 1 plant in the back of my garage. It never had leaves picked.
I was cleaning out some weeds back there in Oct. when I came across it.
A pot plant. With buds.
Lights and bells and buzzers went off in my brain. AHA!!!
But I still didn't know ****.
The next year, armed with the knowledge that one had to wait until Oct. to get buds, I planted anew and watched them suckers.
In Sept. I noticed these little round things hanging on the plant. I had recently heard that pot plants were either male or female (most other plants and tree's on earth have both sexes on the same plant), and males were no good and when I saw those balls I thought "hey those are seeds" and I ripped all the other plants that didn't have these round things on them up.
Of course in my ignorance I had ripped up the females and kept the males.
I continued to watch what I thought were females and obviously they never grew buds.
Now I was REALLY confused.
Granny To The Rescue.
The 4th year I didn't grow any pot. At the time I was buying bricks (2.2 lbs.) of good Mexican weed and selling ounces. I had basically given up on growing my own.
One day in late Sept., my grandma asked me to come over and help her with some gardening. I walked out in the back yard and OMG! There were three 7' tall pot plants growing in her flower bed. 1 had those round things, the other 2 had buds. Another epiphany!
About Granny's pot: Grandma raised canaries. When she cleaned the bird's cages she disposed on the bird **** (and spilled birdseed) into the garden for fertilizer.
Commercial canary food is FULL of hemp seeds*.
I mentioned those plants when my grandma brought me out some iced tea bless her heart. It turns out she had grown them before! Back when she was growing up on a farm in Hattiesberg, Miss., her family grew hemp, as did most everybody else. They would sell the harvested plants for a few pennies to someone who turned them into fiber and paper, and my great grandma (who died when I was a baby) used to make oil from the seeds, and they used the oil back in those days as fuel (oil-burning lanterns) and cooking, and feed the husks to the animals. She did not connect hemp with marijuana.
I asked her more and she was pleased that I had taken such an interest in her garden.
She told me that those plants with those round things were males, and you needed males and females to make seeds. If you didn't have male plants there would be no seeds. She would harvest the seeds for free bird food.
When she went to market I snipped a few branches of buds off and stuck them in the trunk of my car. Dried them at home and smoked them and got stoned hey hey hey.
The next year, armed with this knowledge, I grew lots of buds. Ripped up the males this time before they had a chance to pollinate the females.
My friends all asked me how I did it and I told them. But most of them preferred to buy pot (back then good pot was $10.00/oz.).
I've been sharing my knowledge ever since.
The internet has proved to be the biggest source of info for folks and I truely enjoy helping people grow pot.
And of course I still grow my own.
*As I said, canary food was and still is full of hemp seeds. Other granny's and people who raised songbirds had hemp growing from spilled hempseed and some were geting arrested.
The cops figured out what was going on and eventually the birdseed companies stopped putting hemp seeds in their birdseed.
The birds quit singing.
So now they sterilize the hemp seeds before adding them to the mix.
P.S. For years after my grandma died I would plant pot seeds every spring on her grave. Of course they eventually got ripped up or mowed, but I continued to do it until the cemetary mentioned to my dad that someone kept planting pot on her grave. My dad figured out what was going on and told me to knock it off.
I'm about ready to spark a fattie and Carrie Parker, this one's for you.
The very first pot I bought (mid-60's), I looked in the bag and said "Hey seeds!!!"
I told the guy who helped me score "the dealer is stupid for leaving seeds in here".
That's how obvious growing pot was to me. I felt that anyone who had seeds would plant them, and then have no need to spend money on pot again.
The next morning I planted my first seeds.
For the first couple of years I had no idea what I was doing. At that time there was no internet, no grow books, and I didn't know anyone else who grew pot.
I knew enough to plant in the spring, but I never saw any buds and picked leaves throughout the summer and smoked them until the plant died from lack of leaves.
Some friends did the same thing. We couldn't understand why the pot we grew in our back yards didn't look like the pot we bought, or why it was so mild. In fact, for years "homegrown" was synonamous with crappy weed.
The 3rd year I grew, I forgot about 1 plant in the back of my garage. It never had leaves picked.
I was cleaning out some weeds back there in Oct. when I came across it.
A pot plant. With buds.
Lights and bells and buzzers went off in my brain. AHA!!!
But I still didn't know ****.
The next year, armed with the knowledge that one had to wait until Oct. to get buds, I planted anew and watched them suckers.
In Sept. I noticed these little round things hanging on the plant. I had recently heard that pot plants were either male or female (most other plants and tree's on earth have both sexes on the same plant), and males were no good and when I saw those balls I thought "hey those are seeds" and I ripped all the other plants that didn't have these round things on them up.
Of course in my ignorance I had ripped up the females and kept the males.
I continued to watch what I thought were females and obviously they never grew buds.
Now I was REALLY confused.
Granny To The Rescue.
The 4th year I didn't grow any pot. At the time I was buying bricks (2.2 lbs.) of good Mexican weed and selling ounces. I had basically given up on growing my own.
One day in late Sept., my grandma asked me to come over and help her with some gardening. I walked out in the back yard and OMG! There were three 7' tall pot plants growing in her flower bed. 1 had those round things, the other 2 had buds. Another epiphany!
About Granny's pot: Grandma raised canaries. When she cleaned the bird's cages she disposed on the bird **** (and spilled birdseed) into the garden for fertilizer.
Commercial canary food is FULL of hemp seeds*.
I mentioned those plants when my grandma brought me out some iced tea bless her heart. It turns out she had grown them before! Back when she was growing up on a farm in Hattiesberg, Miss., her family grew hemp, as did most everybody else. They would sell the harvested plants for a few pennies to someone who turned them into fiber and paper, and my great grandma (who died when I was a baby) used to make oil from the seeds, and they used the oil back in those days as fuel (oil-burning lanterns) and cooking, and feed the husks to the animals. She did not connect hemp with marijuana.
I asked her more and she was pleased that I had taken such an interest in her garden.
She told me that those plants with those round things were males, and you needed males and females to make seeds. If you didn't have male plants there would be no seeds. She would harvest the seeds for free bird food.
When she went to market I snipped a few branches of buds off and stuck them in the trunk of my car. Dried them at home and smoked them and got stoned hey hey hey.
The next year, armed with this knowledge, I grew lots of buds. Ripped up the males this time before they had a chance to pollinate the females.
My friends all asked me how I did it and I told them. But most of them preferred to buy pot (back then good pot was $10.00/oz.).
I've been sharing my knowledge ever since.
The internet has proved to be the biggest source of info for folks and I truely enjoy helping people grow pot.
And of course I still grow my own.
*As I said, canary food was and still is full of hemp seeds. Other granny's and people who raised songbirds had hemp growing from spilled hempseed and some were geting arrested.
The cops figured out what was going on and eventually the birdseed companies stopped putting hemp seeds in their birdseed.
The birds quit singing.
So now they sterilize the hemp seeds before adding them to the mix.
P.S. For years after my grandma died I would plant pot seeds every spring on her grave. Of course they eventually got ripped up or mowed, but I continued to do it until the cemetary mentioned to my dad that someone kept planting pot on her grave. My dad figured out what was going on and told me to knock it off.
I'm about ready to spark a fattie and Carrie Parker, this one's for you.