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I thought I would share some thoughts and techniques I used...
I have used filtered tap (BRITA kitchen domestic) water and not paid attention to pH maybe I have been lucky my plants are perfect, sero yellowing no rot or mould whatsoever.
I have fed organically virtually with every feed during the flowering period and have noticed zero side effects. I even wondered if I under fed ?
The weather has largely been awful relative to what cannabis ideally likes 10 sunny days out of 50 and I still have big decent buds in northern europe.
Paradise Seeds Wappa comes highly recommended, I have nothing but praise and good words for how this seed grew it could not have been made easier I doubt.
I have watered little and often and always with Organic tomato feed and 1ml/Litre of Biobiz topmax. I guess every 3 days when cool and every day when very hot. On occasion I cooled root system in direct sun with 300mL of pure filtered water. Otherwise I always watered with feed at 300mL of water per 4/5Litre sized pot.
Here is a rough guide to how I went about it all for the cheapest possible organic grow...
Here is detail of my mega low tech, highly unsophisticated grow... which is doing nice.
I am what you might call a lightweight, I don't need much herb to get a buzz so I decided to look into growing my own herb. I was recommended a specific seed type when I got my seeds, namely Paradise Seeds Wappa, known to do well in northern climes. It is a feminized seed and photo period type and to get it to flower you need to adjust the lighting the plant gets to trigger flowering hormones. This is typically 12 hours of as much light as possible and 12 hours of total darkness.
What you need to obtain : 3 inch diamater seedling pots 12 inch diameter and 8 inch deep potting on and finishing pots Cardboard boxes or a big box for 3 plants Gaffer tape €3.00 Vermiculite €7.00 Paradise Seeds 'Wappa' feminized photo period seeds 3 (€15.00) - €25.00 for 5 John Innes No.2 potting on compost. 2 bags = €12.00 Organic Tomato Food / €8.00 Biobizz Topmax (organic) €13.00 Doff Organic Multi-Purpose Pour & Feed (unknown NPK, seems to be nitrogen rich) €1.00 () get yourself to '€0.99Stores' Filtered tap water - use a Brita filter
So let's start:
I am not highly technical, in fact this grow is seriously low tech. So this will be an easy read without heavy technical terms but hopefully with enough info to ensure it goes ok.
Fill your seed pots with John Innes No. 2 compost and mix in a little vermiculite, make a little hole 2cms deep in the middle use a tweezer to take your seed and put one in each pot. Water the pots and keep them damp all times but not water logged. Ideally keep the temperature up and do it indoors, light is not really needed I found at this stage.After a week or so you will see a seedling sprout. From then on just give as much natural light as possible, the hours do not really matter. Ideally you have a conservatory or a 'lean to' or a little plastic greenhouse to keep the seedling protected. Water the pot when the soil compost appears dry on the top.
Do not over water the plant, this is an easy mistake to make. Make common sense judgments, I found in my first grow common sense played a big part in success. Once the seedling is around 10cms high transplant with care into the big pots again with the same compost and mix in a handful of vermiculite, the excellent John Innes No.2, just dig a small hole in the new pot around the same size as the seedling pot and fit the seedling into the hole, water it in nicely but not excessively.
Indoors or outdoor grow, it's both ! In essence, the plants come in late evening and stay out all day unless rain comes, even on cloudy days there seemed to be sufficient light for reasonable growth. Take your plants in when it rains to avoid excessive moisture which is a potential mould threat. When the plant has it's 3rd set of spikey leaves start to feed it. Keep the feed fairly weak, 50pct of any recommended dilution. Used Doff Organic Pour &feed (which cost me €1.00) it appeared nitrogen rich as the plants deepened their green colour after a feed this is great for the plant growth during it's vegatitive stage. The plant was kept outdoors in as much sun as possible (in fact there was very little direct sun as the weather was awful, cloudy, this did not seem to hinder growth very much to my knowledge, average temperatures were around 18C-21C. The plant came indoors to protect it every night. Feed about once a week, when I saw the 4th or 5th set of leaves I snipped them off, this stimulates a 'double headed plant' so you get more bud sites later. You simply snip off the new bud with sharp scissors. You may do this again 2 weeks later if you wish. Grow the plant for 4 weeks feeding a little more as it grows. There can be a little smell build up during veg stage but I did not find it excessive with this variety.Smell is dealt with easily at the later stages when we start flowering the plant.
Flowering the plant
Arguably the tricky bit... this was my first problem, I am not using expensive lighting or hydroponics systems here so..... I am not minted so I thought a cardboard box might work as a cheap solution. There is a need for a 12 hour light and 12 hour dark period for the plant to change it's hormones and think winter is coming. It is essential that no light reaches the plant during the 12 hour dark period. My solution is simply a cardboard box that covered the plant from 9pm to 9am overnight. I checked the box for any light ingress and made sure zero light came in by sticking gaffer tape over any possible holes. I used this to cover the plants nightly. I also used bin liners (directly as they come off the roll) which I placed around the bottom of the boxes where they sat on the ground to ensure no light seeped in from where the box met the ground.
This box remained indoors overnight every night. This box also doubles up as a 'smell reducer' yeah man thats the tech term right. The box stops the smell becoming to strong, just air the box out as soon as you remove it in the morning. Withdraw the box nice and slowly and the smell largely remains in the box ready to be aired out outside. I put the box in direct sunlight to evaporate moisture and keep it bone dry whenever the weather permitted.
At the stage when you put the box over every night (when you start 12/12 with the box to flower them) you change to a feed that has more phosphorous and potassium which flowers need to develop nicely. I used Organic tomato food and a little BioBiz Topmax. This set of fertilizers will not break the bank. I believe TopMax to be an organic trace nutrient and sugars mix especially for this plant type. I kept this around 70pct of recommended dose. 17 days later I started to see hairs growing from what become very light green new leaf growth. This means female flowers are soon coming. At this stage I go to full strength and feed every 4 days. By day 24 I am giving a feed roughly every other day and watering as the top soil gets dusty. They are exploding and seem to love this regimen. I was giving approx 300ml of diluted feed water each feed.When the direct sun was out the pots got hot and I gave them pure water 300ml in the middle of the day to cool the root system and dilute the nutes a little, they respond very well to this treatment.
Summing up
The above are the products I used personally and which were successful. I am sure you can try equivalents from your area and that are available conveniently. I am pretty sure that the Wappa strain is a part of the success though, it is an absolutely awesome strain IMO and very forgiving to first timers.
Keep this up and just harvest the plant when you feel it is ready. I hope this rough and ready guide saves you some money growing herb.
UPDATE :
Thought I would report back, grow has been ok except I am being informed by the Mrs that the house is starting to smell slightly. It could be that I have been a little less careful with doors and movements the last few days and of course the buds are getting bigger now.
For future reference I am finding that they smell most after watering/feeding and when the leanto builds up heat they evap water and of course when they have been couped up for any period. The cardboard boxes perform remarkably well at keeping smells contained at night (air the box in the AM). So from today I am adapting and the plants will remain outside come rain or shine all day. (albeit with a plastic garden chair over them to keep the worst rain (if any) off of them. I am guessing I will get 1 ounze dry from 3 plants which probably sounds crap for most people but I am pretty happy cause thats 6-8 months of herb for my small edible usage at weekends.
UPDATE 2
So some further tweaks to the mega low tech grow here. Now have a portable plastic green house (the metal tubes and plastic sheet cover type with zip front) This was about €20.00 and means the plants can go in there when the rain comes which is great as no smell builds in the lean to when I shelter them from rain. (Arguably they could survive this no probs but I wish to minimize moisture ingress into the buds, I do not run lights to evaporate this, to reduce mould incidence) In addition I am planning to keep my ' night cover up' boxes outside now. This respects my own security and my neighbours.
This was quite time consuming to waterproof a cardboard box with bin liners (took hour and a half) and parcel tape.. you do this by covering the box with bin liners in such a way that the liners overlap like a roof thus providing a natural run off type seal. You need to wrap the bottoms of the box as well otherwis they will suck up water from the ground when it rains. The plants will now stay outside at night when covered with the box where smell is much less problematic. So these are further tweaks to the low tech style being developed. Of course much more work that I ever anticipated for an ounce of herbs but you have start somewhere and learn and adapt. Especially if you walk the path less travelled/experiment/cheapo budgetto styles. So the bin liners add another quid I guess. Total grow costs still below £70.00 including seed, boxes, compost, organic feeds, plastic portable shed, boxes, bin liners etc.
One good thing is this technique is relatively environmentally friendly and has no domestic fire risk associated with it. I cannot know how much running 800W of lights all day costs but over a 2.5 month grow period it must surely be €100.00 + cost of lights, supports and all the filtering, fans etc. I fully respect the people who do this as it is all a means to an end and your yields will probably kill mine but I am not in a position to invest in the significant time, money and equipment of the tents/lights etc.
I feel my introduction post has turned into a bit of an experimental log of my activities but I guess thats ok. I hope it helps a few people out. Bear in mind the weather has been awful, largely overcast skies for weeks with just 1 x 4 day stretch of decent sun over 4 weeks. Flowering initiated on 010712 first sign of flowers on 16/07/12
Thanks to this forum for taking me from man who asks if fans leaves can get you high to nice big buds and special big props to man like Mikey for all your tips, advice and wisdom.
So now in the dryiong process for 1 final week and then jars for curing. It's been a blast. I believe I have 3 ounces harvest, so about 1 ounce per plant great considering I did not invest in lights, hydro, fans a tent or the electricity to do it.
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