Happy Frog runoff test

[Lostgirl]

@Cap_Ron

Did the smell bring back memories of other things from that same time?

Yes, I was thinking of a specific time that my older sisters boyfriend showed up at my mom’s house and gave me a little corner in a bag of this Hawaiian weed that smelt and taste just like pepper I was used to only getting mainly Colombian gold or some dirt pot as no one that I knew had good shit but him. So she shows up at my mom’s house my sister wasn’t there and he says I’ll give you the rest of this weed if you let me raid your refrigerator. I was like hell yeah. I never seen a person eat the way that he did he had a frying pan he started out with an egg and put it on a sandwich then he opened a can of peas and poured it in the frying pan and heated them up and ate the peas right out of the frying pan. But it was that same smell. Smells are nothing but historical memories.

As I was fixing the girls this morning I noticed everybody in the tent looks so uniform with their beautiful haircuts lollipop but production the only thing was different was big girl is almost two times taller than everything else and the fact that what I’m assuming is a normal Auto flower is theoretically only about 2 ft tall and nothing on it bigger than popcorn buds that I can talk about right now.

It almost makes me want to do another run of the GSCE (as a back-to-back run)

I’m sitting here relaxing because believe it or not I’m still in pain. I had several extractions all at one time all on the same side of the mouth in the back. So I guess nows and time that’s good as any to prepare a post with my drying curing scenario dilemma. I started it right on it last week yet there were no solutions workable for me. So let me grab a cup of coffee and I’ll post it here what my conditions and scenarios are. Take your time and answering the post as I have a couple of weeks but if there’s anything I need to order I’d like to order it in the next day or so give me a few and I’ll do another post

[Lostgirl]

@Cap_Ron
Basically my grow room is a room on the third floor that is technically a redone finished attic. 80% of it has slanted roofs head space it was all I could do is fit the 4x4 tent in the room. The weather here is generally an average of 90° outside and having a window unit a fairly decent brand in size will only cool that room to 77°, the lowest. Running a duck straight from the air condition window unit to the tent will only cool the inside of the tent to about 79° to 83° during the day (perfect for growing) at night I can only get temps down to about 75° to 80° (what’s more perfect for growing) I’ve tried everything you could possibly imagine to get the temperature outside of the tent below 77° and it doesn’t work.

As far as that room intent go I believe the only option would be the purchase a portable air condition and put it in that tent. I don’t really think that I would like to put any more items over $200 into this as I’m probably already about $1500 + into the room.

The only other option that I even have is my room it’s on the opposite side of the addict even smaller than the tent room. I’ve been monitoring the temperatures with my rooms air condition window unit and I can get that room during the day from 65° to about 72° during the day and 60° to 65° at night. The relative humidity is generally that cold going to be around 45% I also have for that room a commercial dehumidifier and a cheapo humidifier so I think playing with the two I can get the room to 60 to 65% relative humidity for the week to 10 days. Now if I want to freeze my cupcakes I can run that AC with all the doors closed and probably keep it around 65° with 55 to 60% humidity. If I’m calculating this correctly giving up my room could be the only option for drying…

Now here’s the obstacles for drawing in my room. There’s basically no room! I don’t know how you feel about laying your stems and buds down but I bought one of these it’s a four tier and I’m sure I can buy one or two more and have them here before the girls are done…

So that was option A for my Peewee brains thought of drying. I can also buy a little 10 RPM rotating motor and let the thing spin if you think that’s a benefit.

Option B I didn’t buy any, but I can are the little sock round clothes drying apparatus something like this

Also in my room the roof is about 85% slanted so there’s only a small portion of flat ceiling to hang something from but I can work on that. I also purchased one of these as I’m sure it’s a tool I’ll need.

I don’t know if option A or b are any good but that’s about where I’m at with my dilemma. What’s your thoughts?

[Lostgirl]

@Cap_Ron
Also, for curing is the Grove Bags better than Jars? Have you used Grove Bags?

Also I noticed that Grove bags has a couple competitors out there that are much cheaper would you take the chance on them?

[Cap_Ron]

I tried Grove bags, and they worked fine, but ultimately I’m a creature of habit and I went back to my jars because it’s how I learned and what I know best. Aside from that, I actually enjoy burping my jars and checking my nugs every day. Not sure about the other brands like Grove bags, but I’m sure if you start a thread there’s got to be people here who have tried them.

That’s the same moisture meter that I have. I use the “Building Materials” setting, and jar my buds when they’re between 10 - 12%. I use the abrasive green scotch pads to keep the pins clean. The pins get caked up and sticky pretty fast when you’re jabbing them into fresh buds, and I noticed the readings get inaccurate once the pins are really grimy.

As far as your drying issue, I’m a firm believer that the best way to dry is to hang the entire plant upside down. My first couple of grows many years ago I cut my plants up and used those drying racks, but it was tough to keep them from drying too fast. I did a ton of reading and switched to keeping the plants intact for drying, and I’ve done it that way ever since.

My ideal temps for drying are between 60° and 65°F, but I don’t always achieve that, especially in the summer. The grow I just finished dried at 68° - 72°F and it came out awesome. I like the humidity at around 62% for the first 2 days, then around 60% for the next 2 days, then 58% or so for the remaining time until it’s done.

A few other things to consider. If you forsee your drying area being on the warmer or dryer side, then you should think about harvesting while the soil is still wet from a previous watering. That way the plant will be carrying more moisture at the time you cut it down, lowering the chances of it drying too quickly. If you think the humidity in the drying area might be high, then think about harvesting when the soil is dryer. That would help reduce the risk of pathogens.

Your main goal is to get them to dry as slowly as possible. The longer it takes, the better the taste and smell profiles. The faster it goes, the more your buds might end up smelling like hay.

I’ll keep thinking, and let you know any other ideas that come to mind.

[Lostgirl]

@Cap_Ron
Thanks for taking the time to put this together. I already started a thread on the competitors bag they’re called sweet decade. I got a day or shouldn’t play with it before I have to order. I really don’t want to have to go with the jars. Even though I got about a hundred of them.

I really think I can hit those numbers and be relatively consistent with them I’m just going to have to freeze my cupcakes off for a week. I can throw an extra curtain up to keep it as dark as possible but I will more than likely end up utilizing TV is that going to hurt for the whole darkness thing?

If you’re telling me not to use the racks or hanging apparatus due to the fact it’s better to hang the entire thing I can easily rig up some kind of bullshit clothesline and hang her from it. Once I reach that 10 or 11 on the meter and it’s dry how long will it actually have to be in the bags until it’s smokable? Believe it or not I haven’t smoked nor drank in over 30 years. This is going to be interesting

[Cap_Ron]

As far as hanging the entire plant vs cutting it up and using the racks, it’s a preference thing. Both methods work, but in my opinion the results are better when I hang the entire plants.

I don’t know that you have to freeze yourself or jack up your electric bill insanely high to meet those optimal numbers. Especially if you leave the plants whole, I’d say 70°F and 60 to 62% would do just fine. Don’t get me wrong, optimal conditions would be great, but only up to a certain cost.

Either in jars or Grove Bags you’re looking at two weeks for a decent cure, and then it only gets better from there if you keep curing. There’s no worries if you want to sample it before the two weeks. Sometimes it doesn’t smell or taste as good as it will after the cure, but I almost always sample my buds before they’re cured.

Wow, that’s a long time. I’m sure you’re first time back will be a super high no matter what you smoke, lol.

[Lostgirl]

@Cap_Ron
I’ll be able to hit the numbers in my room. I didn’t spend the last 3 months mixing nutrients everyday getting up feeding them at 6:00 a.m. each day and giving them all this care to not hit the exact numbers to give me the best opportunity to get the best that they’ve got to offer me if that makes sense.

I don’t think hanging big girl by herself in hole should be a problem. It’s two or three weeks after that when that whole damn tent has to go in my room. That’s going to be a pain in the ass

I definitely learned one valuable lesson through this whole ordeal. Don’t have a wide variation of starting finish times in the tent as it takes away from them and it puts tons more work and pressure on you.

Yes I agree it’s been so long I’m sure to be one toasty sumbitch. I may even find out that I don’t like it. Nonetheless, I love to grow and I’ll probably do two more runs before I even take a break.

You’re a very generous person run and I couldn’t have done this without you. I definitely owe you for the succession that tent.

One thing I wanted to ask you in regards to the big girl. I’m not sure how this works or what the outcome would be however. You already know how cramped it is in my tent so getting optimal waiting to the middle in the bottom of the big girl wasn’t quite achieved to my expectations. What’s the probability of cutting down portions at a time for instance the top third trichomes were mostly Amber and ready to roll but the bottoms were still clear would I be able to cut them down and would the bottoms actually fill out and become nice?

[Lostgirl]

@Cap_Ron
Is this set sufficient for viewing the tricon with the magnification etc

Amazon.com: HMKIS Jewelers Loupe 2 Kinds 30X 60X 90X Magnification + 20 Backup...

[Cap_Ron]

Yes, that kit is perfect for what we need.

Ok, I hear you on wanting to continue giving them the best conditions possible through the dry.

I’ve seen lots of posts here from people who harvest part of the plant and leave the rest to keep ripening, but I’ve never done it so I don’t really know the advantages vs the disadvantages. I’m trying to think of who would be good to tag for that question. Personally I like to wait until the main top part of the plant is fully ripened. At that point I don’t care much if the lower buds are over or under ripe, they’re all going to make butter and coconut oil anyway.

I most definitely learned the hard way not to stagger my grows. It made so many issues and problems for me when I had plants in different stages. Now I start a full run together, and finish them together. No more struggles with trying to keep one tent hot and humid and the other 2 spaces cool and dry, in the same room, lol.

Thank you, but you could have done every bit of this without my help. Getting advice only makes it a little easier, but you still had to do all the work. I’m just an old guy with some extra spare time recently who loves this forum. I got great advice here years ago, and I still use many methods and techniques that I learned here.

[Lostgirl]

@Cap_Ron
Hi Ron I have a question good morning. I know you stated since I use advanced nutrients that there’s no need to flush towards the end. However I just wanted to point out that for the entire life of big girl she has had seaweed kelp extract during every single feed including seedling. Not sure if that builds up a flavor nastiness or not I just wanted to make sure that you knew. Let me know if you think a flush is necessary. Also I don’t know if it’s too late in the game or not but I did want to ask you should I order flawless finish or is it not necessary. It would probably take me about four or five days to get it here and I don’t mind just want to know if it’s necessary or not. Thank you buddy!

[Cap_Ron]

I don’t see any need to do an actual flush, like where you run large quantities of water through them. I used to do it that way, but there’s been lots of research and studies that have concluded it’s a total waste of time, effort, and water.
I do stop giving nutrients for the last week, and either give them plain RO water, or if I have it on hand I’ll use plain water with Flawless Finish. FF is the kind of thing that I’ll pick up if I happen to have an extra few bucks laying around, but I also have no issue skipping it if things are tight or I just don’t want to make a trip to the grow store. Honestly, I can’t say I’ve ever noticed a difference using Flawless Finish vs not using it.
Either way, just eliminating the nutrients for the last week is plenty to get rid of any leftover nutrients in the root zone, so no need for flushing.

[Lostgirl]

@Cap_Ron
Thank you very much for the input on flawless finish.

Big girls looking good. Again, her consistency is very impressive. Her eating habits have become almost predictable. She’s ginormous! . Is it pretty common to get a “Big Girl” every run? This was her numbers today.

IN
EC 814
PPM 404
pH 5.84

OUT
EC 980
PPM 385
pH 6.40

Here’s a couple shots of her after her feed this morning. She’s so beautiful

[Lostgirl]

@Cap_Ron
With the amount of girls I have am I going to need a bowl trimmer machine?

Is this a good deal

Amazon.com : iPower 16" Bud Leaf Bowl Trimmer Machine Twisted Spin Cut with...

[Cap_Ron]

I have mixed feelings on the bowl trimmer to be honest. I would never use it on my prime buds, I trim all of them by hand. The bowl trimmer comes in handy for the larf and popcorn buds that are brutal to hand trim, but then the wretched task of cleaning it kind of takes away the advantage of using it in the first place, lol. It’s literally at least an hour and change at the sink trying to scrub the blades, silicone fingers, the bowl, the grate, the dome, and the frame pieces that hold the silicone fingers. I think it’s only useful or beneficial if you’re planning on harvesting large amounts of plants at a time. Other than that, you’ll do a much better job by hand, but I would definitely suggest several pairs of hand trimmers, or you’ll be stopping to wash a single pair every five minutes, lol. This is how many I have, and I still have to stop and wash all of them every half hour or so.

As far as big autos go, once you get used to treating them the way they want as seedlings, and use decent size fabric pots at transplant time, almost all of them will be monsters. You should easily be able to harvest 5 to 8 ounces from an auto grown in good conditions.

These were one of my recent runs of autos, and they weren’t even done with the stretch yet at the time of these pics. It’s all about giving them perfect care as seedlings and a good veg period.

[Cap_Ron]

But yes, that looks like a good deal for the bowl trimmer with those accessories. I have the 19" model (which makes it tough to fit the parts in my sink) and I think I paid around $125 for it on Amazon Day a few years ago.

[Lostgirl]

@Cap_Ron
Wow, you are the grow king. They look beautiful. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really catch on to the grow until I was about 30 days into it. I basically guessed everything through the entire seedling stage. So I definitely foresee an issue during the next runs seedling stage due to my inexperience.

There’s so many mixed opinions out there about the entire seedling stage that it basically lost me and I just closed communication to everyone and did it my own way. I would definitely say it wasn’t the right way but they all pulled through. I can’t agree with you anymore that that seedling stage will dictate the entire rest of your grow and you must Master it first.

I personally like to go into the final pot. Nevertheless I found out the hard way that Happy Frog has way too many sticks and stems and basically blocked a couple of seedlings from sprouting during the start of this grow.

So basically what I did at that point was I took 50% coco and cleaned 50% Happy Frog and started them in a cup and boy that really helped. I also learned a trick about using two solo cups so you never ever have to touch the actual Roots at all during transplant. It made things much easier.

I have all my notes, basically I started out with simply misting the seedling a couple of times a day to keep the soil around her moist after a couple of weeks and then started giving her a couple of ounces of water until it dried up then repeat… I know I was totally wrong on everything that I did but like I said I was so confused from one person saying do this and another saying do that that I just want it using a little bit of common Sense.

I guess I’ll scratch the bud cutting tool for now. Especially since you say it’s bad for your nicer buds. I’m way ahead of you I ordered two dozen pair of the exact trimmers that you have. So I’ll have lots of them. I do want to get some of those bags for making hash. I think the older people from my day love hash. It was hard to come by back in the day. But if you recall when you found it, it was like Christmas.

I did a post like you said about cutting down big girl in portions in case some parts of her are perfectly ready and others are not to give an overall perfect harvest and Bud quality. The consensus is that it’s okay to do it that way but rarely does a plant do that. (Have done half not) I just can’t believe that all those little bud sites and smaller sites all get done at one time. But posting the picture of her several said she’s got a long way to go. I am incredibly patient and in no way in a rush. I pray I have 30 to 40 days left because I believe she’ll be a giant with Coke can size buds and that’s what I’m talking about!

I’m thinking about taking all the sugar leaves and trim combining it with everything including the buds from the two Do-Si-Dos girls to use for hash that should give me a shit ton of keef or whatever the hell that stuff’s called to make hash.

That’ll leave me with nothing but Girl scout cookies to have for my relapse party LOL

By the way, have you ever used seedmans? Are they any good? The reason I ask they have their own version of “Green Crack” and it’s buy one get one free on that strand right now plus three free seeds. That would give me about nine seeds for about $50

The reason I’m so gung-ho on the “Green Crack” is they say it’s the most uplifting strain of all strands. I like the uplifting not the couch lock stuff. My only reservation is that everyone’s opinion on the Green Crack is based on fast buds. I can only imagine that the same strain grown by two different growers can be completely different.

[Cap_Ron]

Yeah, the toughest part of getting advice in a public forum is the wide scope of opinions. When I first found this site, I read everyone’s responses, but I picked a few users who’s information seemed to match what the owner of my local grow store had told me, and I chose their advice over the others when needed.

I’ll be soaking seeds tomorrow, so I’ll have a new batch of seedlings going by Monday. I’m going to make a journal at some point, and I’ll document everything I’m doing in good detail.

I bought from Seedsman many times years ago before I found ILGM and Mephisto. I never had a problem with their seeds, but the customer service is what lost me. I had an order that never showed up, and there was an error with the tracking number from the start. When I checked the tracking, it was showing another name and address, not mine. I notified them and they claimed to correct it. When I let them know I still hadn’t received it, they said it showed as “delivered” in their system. I emailed again to let them know I never received it, and that it probably got delivered to the personwho’s name and address were on the tracking info you sent me, and they sent the same message again, telling me their system says it was delivered. So that was the end of my business wirh Seedsman. After spending a lot on their site and never having a problem, they pretty much stole $150 from me.

A lot of times, if a Fastbuds strain is out of stock on their website, you can find other sources who still have some. Lot’s of online seedbanks carry Fastbuds seeds, so if you do some searching, you might get lucky.

[4204life]

Thats the one I ordered. Works pretty good.

[Lostgirl]

@Cap_Ron
I’ve seen the green crack on many different websites for fast Bud strain. It was the whole buy one get one free from Seedmens Plus a three pack of freebies that you can choose from a very small list. I’ve read on several occasions but their customer service at seedmans really sucks and they always try to bail on the germination policy.

For me the sale starts with customer service. If I can’t get the service they don’t get the sale. It’ll be interesting to follow your journal. I think I’m locked in for gorilla cookie by fast buds and ILGM Girl scout cookie extreme re-run for the next go. These were very trying times for dialing into the perfect conditions due to the extreme heat here however it was a little work but I was able to accomplish it. Next run will get better as it’s going to start cooling off.

[Lostgirl]

@4204life

Thats the one I ordered. Works pretty good

What’s up buddy! Are you referring to the ipower 16’ bud trimmer package?