Grow Your Own Stone

Down and Dirty Super Soil for Organic Marijuana

2012-05-23T17:33:31Z

There are lots of recipes for Sub Cool’s Super Soil on the net. Why is super soil important? If you want to grow organic marijuana but don’t want to fuss too much with organic fertilizers and whatnot during the growing season you can use super soil as a one time, take care of everything solution.

The idea is to create a super soil that is packed with all the things that organic marijuana needs during it’s life cycle. You put this soil in the bottom of plant pots (or if you’re growing outside in the ground you put it into the bottom of the hole), then cover the rest with regular, un-manipulated soil. The plant begins growing in regular soil, but as the roots develop they start finding the super soil and take off.

The idea with growing any plant, including marijuana, is to replicate as closely as possible the optimal environment. Set the plant up for success and then let it do it’s thing. Sub Cool has developed a great recipe over the years, as have some other growers. Google “subcool super soil” and you’ll get a good grounding in what’s going on.

The problem that I had with the recipes were that they used terms like “4 large bags of Brand X Soil”, without saying how big Brand X’s large bag actually was. If you don’t live where the grower lives, especially if you’re living in a different country, you’re not going to get the same brand of soil or the same size bags. I’ve re-written and re-jigged the recipe to be in parts. That way you can make any size batch you want.

The other problem I had was that I had to read and re-read a lot of recipes to get a clear understanding of what was going on. Hopefully my description will make things clearer to a newbie.

Here’s the first thing to understand. You’re going to start with a base soil. Some of this base soil will be made into super soil, and some will be put aside as base soil. When you fill your pots or your holes the super soil will go on the bottom and the regular base soil will go on top. Some people put in half super soil and half base, and other put in 1/3 super soil and 2/3 base. You need base on top because young plants and clones will get burned if you plant them right into the super soil.

The base soil is usually store bought potting soil. There are different brands and different types. Do some research on the web and see what growers in your area prefer. Where I live we can’t buy a lot of the brands I see recommended in the forums. The common brand around here, Sunshine Mix, gets mixed reviews. Try to check out the ingredients, although in some countries and with some brands you may not get to see much.

One thing you really want in the soil you buy is mycorrhizae. This is a fungus that bonds to the roots of your plants in a symbiotic relationship. The plant gives the fungus carbohydrates like glucose and sucrose, and in return the fungus improves the roots’ ability to absord water and nutrients. I was able to find potting soil with mycorrhizae in it pretty easily – hopefully you will too. Don’t be scared by warnings that there is fungi in the soil – that’s what you want.

You also need aged compost. Aged compost is compost that won’t burn your plants. New compost, while great in some applications, can steal nitrogen from your plants while completing the composting process. You can buy aged compost in bags, or you can use your own (which is what I did). Aged compost should be dark, crumbly and be able to sift through a 1/2 inch screen.

Organic worm castings are also required. Again, worms eat my garbage, so I have organic worm castings. If you don’t have a worm composting system you can buy worm castings. You can also start your own worm composting project.

You need vermiculite or perlite as well. These improve the drainage in the soil by lightening it and making it resitant to compacting. They also improve air movement through the soil.

These are the big ingredients for your super soil (or my down and dirty version of it). Remember, you’re going to put at least half, and possibly 2/3s of the base soil to the side for the top level of your pots/holes, so you probably need to buy more than what I put in the recipe.

Next come the nutrients. You need blood meal, rock phosphate, alfalfa meal, kelp meal, green sand and bone meal, You need azomite, epsom salts and dolomitic lime. Blood meal is essentially dried blood, and is a great source of nitrogen (it can also be used to deter rabbits). Rock phosphate is a source of phosphorus and calcium. Alfalfa meal is naturally high in nitrogen and benefits soil microorganisms by helping them convert soil nutrients into soluable forms more available to plants. It also contains the naturally occuring groth hormone, Triacontanol, which boosts the growth rates of seedlings. Kelp meal is a good source of nitrogen and potassium. It also contains minerals, amino acids, and trace amounts of other micronutrients. Greensand is a good organic source of potash along with iron, magnesium, silica and as many as 30 other trace minerals. Bone meal is a slow release source of phosphorus. Bat guano provides high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen

You also need azomite, which is a source of over 70 trace minerals. Epsom salts provide magnesium. Dolomitic lime also provides magnesium and lowers PH (which may or may not be required).

So, here’s the recipe I used:

5 parts base soil material
1 part aged compost
1 part worm castings (organic)
2 parts vermiculite or perlite
1/8 – 1/4 part each of:
blood meal
rock phosphate
alfalfa meal
kelp meal
grean sand
bone meal
bat guano

1/16 to 1/8 part:
azomite
epsom salts
dolomitic lime

Mixing is a challenge, but not too hard. I used a cement mixer and a couple of sheets of plywood. You can use child’s pool or a tarp or a clean concrete floor. The important thing is to mix everything really well. If you’re mixing by hand don’t just throw the ingredients on top of each other. Spread the base soil out first, and then spread the ingredients evenly across the top of it. Turn it over carefully and thoroughly to make sure everything gets mixed in.

Once you’ve done that you put the super soil into a container. I used a couple garbage cans. Add 1 – 2 parts water, cover, and let stand for a month outside. Let the microbes in the soil flourish. Check your ph before using it, but remember that nutrients in organic soil are more accessible to plants, so ph isn’t as critical as it is in hyrdoponics.

New York Supreme Court Judge Speaks Out for Marijuana

2012-05-21T04:09:48Z

The information is not new. In one sense it is just another voice being added to the chorus. However, the more the voices come from new allies and from a wider spectrum, the closer we’ll be to enjoying our rights more fully, and the closer we’ll be to a sensible policy on marijuana.

This article is reprinted from the New York Times, where Justice Reichbach first published it. Justice Reichbach is a New York State Supreme Court justice. He explains his position much better than I can hope to.

A Judge’s Plea for Pot
By GUSTIN L. REICHBACH
Published: May 16, 2012

THREE and a half years ago, on my 62nd birthday, doctors discovered a mass on my pancreas. It turned out to be Stage 3 pancreatic cancer. I was told I would be dead in four to six months. Today I am in that rare coterie of people who have survived this long with the disease. But I did not foresee that after having dedicated myself for 40 years to a life of the law, including more than two decades as a New York State judge, my quest for ameliorative and palliative care would lead me to marijuana.

My survival has demanded an enormous price, including months of chemotherapy, radiation hell and brutal surgery. For about a year, my cancer disappeared, only to return. About a month ago, I started a new and even more debilitating course of treatment. Every other week, after receiving an IV booster of chemotherapy drugs that takes three hours, I wear a pump that slowly injects more of the drugs over the next 48 hours.

Nausea and pain are constant companions. One struggles to eat enough to stave off the dramatic weight loss that is part of this disease. Eating, one of the great pleasures of life, has now become a daily battle, with each forkful a small victory. Every drug prescribed to treat one problem leads to one or two more drugs to offset its side effects. Pain medication leads to loss of appetite and constipation. Anti-nausea medication raises glucose levels, a serious problem for me with my pancreas so compromised. Sleep, which might bring respite from the miseries of the day, becomes increasingly elusive.

Inhaled marijuana is the only medicine that gives me some relief from nausea, stimulates my appetite, and makes it easier to fall asleep. The oral synthetic substitute, Marinol, prescribed by my doctors, was useless. Rather than watch the agony of my suffering, friends have chosen, at some personal risk, to provide the substance. I find a few puffs of marijuana before dinner gives me ammunition in the battle to eat. A few more puffs at bedtime permits desperately needed sleep.

This is not a law-and-order issue; it is a medical and a human rights issue. Being treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, I am receiving the absolute gold standard of medical care. But doctors cannot be expected to do what the law prohibits, even when they know it is in the best interests of their patients. When palliative care is understood as a fundamental human and medical right, marijuana for medical use should be beyond controversy.

Sixteen states already permit the legitimate clinical use of marijuana, including our neighbor New Jersey, and Connecticut is on the cusp of becoming No. 17. The New York State Legislature is now debating a bill to recognize marijuana as an effective and legitimate medicinal substance and establish a lawful framework for its use. The Assembly has passed such bills before, but they went nowhere in the State Senate. This year I hope that the outcome will be different. Cancer is a nonpartisan disease, so ubiquitous that it’s impossible to imagine that there are legislators whose families have not also been touched by this scourge. It is to help all who have been affected by cancer, and those who will come after, that I now speak.

Given my position as a sitting judge still hearing cases, well-meaning friends question the wisdom of my coming out on this issue. But I recognize that fellow cancer sufferers may be unable, for a host of reasons, to give voice to our plight. It is another heartbreaking aporia in the world of cancer that the one drug that gives relief without deleterious side effects remains classified as a narcotic with no medicinal value.

Because criminalizing an effective medical technique affects the fair administration of justice, I feel obliged to speak out as both a judge and a cancer patient suffering with a fatal disease. I implore the governor and the Legislature of New York, always considered a leader among states, to join the forward and humane thinking of 16 other states and pass the medical marijuana bill this year. Medical science has not yet found a cure, but it is barbaric to deny us access to one substance that has proved to ameliorate our suffering.

Gustin L. Reichbach is a justice of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn.

What to Cook?!?

2012-05-19T04:32:39Z

I am happily in possession of a bunch of weed. I’ve got some bud and I’ve got some trim:

I feel like cooking with marijuana, but I don’t know what’s the best way to go.

So, what I’m gonna do is ask Jessica Catalano of the Ganja Kitchen Revolution for some advice. I’ll let you know how it turns out…

Making More Outdoor Marijuana

2012-05-03T03:44:13Z

I’m moving more of my marijuana plants outside. Growing outdoor marijuana has been a learning experience for me. I really pushed the envelope to begin with, putting some of the larger ones out at the start of April. That was too early. It was still getting too cold at night, meaning that it was still getting close to freezing (2-3 degrees centigrade). A lot of the leaves either got burnt by the sun, or by the cold. They dried up along the edges and turned sort of yellow.

Smaller plants got hurt more than bigger ones. In fact, one little baby almost lost all it’s leaves, although new ones are sprouting.

She got hammered, but there is new growth

Another problem with moving them out early is that there is too much stress on the plants. I’ve got two plants showing signs of being males – they look like they have male flowers, but it’s way too early for that, unless its a product of stress. The only other option is that they are auto-flowering seeds that came out of my old stash (slim chance of that).

I’ve got another showing female flowers. Again, it’s way too early for female flowers unless I’ve got an unplanned auto-flowering girl. It’s probably a stress reaction. I’m not too concerned. I’ll let the males drop their pollen and grab the seeds off this female and see what develops.

Last, I’ve got a plant that’s growing well, but only has tri-palm leaves, instead of the regular five fingered leaves. Another grower shared with me that every time he’s had that occur the plant turned out to be a hermaphrodite. Again, I don’t care. I’ll let it develop and see what the flowers look like. I might get lucky and get both female and male flowers. If so, once again, I’ll let them self-pollinate and grab the seeds.

Each subsequent move was more successful. I let the bigger plants fend for themselves, but I took a little more care with the little guys. I used a trick suggested to me by the guy behind East Island Seeds. You take a 1 litre plastic pop bottle and cut off the bottom. Take the cap off, and presto, you’ve got an individual greenhouse for your little plants.

The plants I moved outside are three varieties: Early Wonder Skunk, and autoflowering strain, Dutch Treat x Hash Plant, and early maturing strain, and Red Girl x Dutch, one of the two first seed batches I started, and one that I’ve had a lot of success cloning.

What is interesting to me is how clear the differences are between the mostly indica Skunk and Hashplant, on the one hand, and the sativa characteristics of the Red Girl x Dutch. The RGxD has long, skinny leaf fingers while the Skunk and Hashplant varieties have fat little indica fingers.

Dutch Treat x HP, RG xDutch, Early Wonder Skunk

All in all I’ve got at least 4 strains going now: Red Girl x Dutch, the Purp, Dutch Treat x Hash Plant, and Early Wonder Skunk. I probably have a few mutts growing from my old stash, and I’ve got one Low Ryder that’s still trying to live, but isn’t thriving.

Here’s the outside nursery. I’m going to have to start moving plants out to the woods really soon or giving them to friends.

Click to see a bigger version

Curing Marijuana

2012-05-02T01:56:58Z

A grower I know dropped by and I quizzed him about how he cures marijuana (there are lots of ways of curing marijuana and everyone has their own preferences – this is just his).

First, at harvest time, cut the whole the whole plant off at the base. Next, break it down into the individual branches. Pull off the fan leaves. What you do with them is your business. Most of the time they’re big, turning yellow, and don’t really have any trichomes anyway. You can mulch or compost them, but that might leave too many clues around. It’s your call.

That leaves you with branches, buds and dew leaves. Hang these branches upside down in a dark, clean room, with a fan moving the air around. Don’t have the fan blow right on the bud – just keep the air moving.

Leave them like this for 3-4 days (until they feel dry to the touch on the outside). They may feel dry on the outside, but they’re not ready yet. It’s now time to trim.

Trim the buds from bottom to top. The buds at the bottom will be smaller, ranging from little “popcorn” buds to nice nugs. Separate the bud by quality and size. You can trim the buds at the same time, keeping the trimmings separate. My grower friend like to wear gloves, and he makes a point worth considering: with a big crop you might want to go to the store halfway through, and if you wear gloves your hands won’t be covered with finger hash and you won’t smell like a grow op!

When you’ve got the buds trimmed and separated they’ll still feel dry. Put them in sealed glass jars for a few hours (as in, three or four). The bud will become moist again, by magic! What’s happening is that the moisture deep in the bud is drawn to the drier outside.

After three hours open the jar and carefully empty the buds onto a tray (like a baking tray). Handle them carefully, as you don;t want to break off too many crystals. Lay them out on the tray and put them into a dark clean place with indirect air movement until they dry again to the touch.

Rinse and repeat this method. Each time they come out of the jars they’ll be less moist, and it will take less time for that moisture to dissipate from the buds in the tray.

How long does the whole process take? I asked the grower. His answer was “I dunno. I’ve never had the weed last long enough. I smoke it to fast”!

Here are some more samples of his wares:

Do you have a different way of curing that you like? Let me know about it, and share some pics!

Mini Hydroponic Marijuana

2012-04-27T00:25:52Z

I decided to set up a little hydro unit to grow hydroponic marijuana. The first thing I needed was a good pump. I’ve got lots of big ones, but I needed a small one. I connected the clear plastic hose with the brass union so that it would fit into the 1/2′ plastic.

You can see how I transitioned it. I put the valve at the end of the header hose to act as a stop and a pressure reducer.

Next I needed hose and nipples. I already had some 1/2″ black plastic hose and some spaghetti tubing. I got some more nipples and alligator clips. The yellow tool allows you to punch holes in the header tube and then insert the nipples.

I popped 12 holes into the header and inserted the nipples. You can see how the little yellow tool works.

I punched the holes in two parallel lines, offset about 45%.

Then I connected the spaghetti hose. You can see the whole set up here, from pump through the header to the 12 drip tubes.

The reservoir is a Rubbermaid tub with a lid. I drilled the holes for hoses, pots and cords, and started putting it together. Feeding the spaghetti hose though the top is the first move.

Once it was all together I inserted the plants. 4 were clones that I’d put under a 12/12 regime to sex them, and the other two are brand new clones. The first four were in a proto-type mini-hydro set up that was cursed with an over-sized pump, a bad PH meterand no ventilation. They were starting to get some mold growing on the base of the stems and on the hydroton. I’ve got a new PH meterand ventilation, so we should be on the right track now.

4:20 in Vancouver

2012-04-21T04:34:30Z

4:20 in Vancouver presented me with lots of cool opportunities for pictures. It also let me grab a few samples of the local herb. $10 a gram isn’t the best deal around here (7 grams to a 1/4 means $280 an ounce, which is kinda steep, but it sure was convenient).

Here’s the weed:

Rock Star, Purple Kush, OG, Trainwreck, etc

Here are the people and stuff:

Bagpipe music is the music of my wild, primitive Celtic ancestors!

Check out the horns!

Got some!

Got one of those 1/8ths too

Vancouver Seed Bank was there!

Making sure everything stays safe.

Haze

More haze

Speakers and musicians

Got some of this, too!

4:20 crowd by the Art Gallery Pool

Already have lots of these

Got some rockstar, too!

The crowd was happy and calm

Smilin' Buddha

Going Hydroponic

2012-04-20T04:12:26Z

I’m making a switch to hydroponics for a bloom experiment. I’ve got an 8 gallon gravity feed system, and I needed to know what the nutrient mix should be. General Hydroponics provides s simple calculator right here.

DopeFiend.co.uk

2012-04-20T04:02:48Z

I’m going to do an interview, hopefully, with Mel Thomas, a well known (possibly notorious?) grower from the UK. In doing some pre-interview research I found an interview that he gave on what I call Dopefiend Radio. It’s a podcast/website for what they call the Dope Tribe.

I like the Dopefiend podcast, but there are other podcasts too. A couple of them are mostly music, like Lefty’s Lounge and Pothead’s Coffeeshop, but there is also a Grow Report podcast that has one pissed off old hippy named Zandor on it. At times he get’s just a little over the top for my tastes, calling people he doesn’t like human pieces of shit and whatnot, but it’s still got some good stuff when he’s not ranting about politics (I somehow think you aren’t going to convince someone who doesn’t agree with you when you attack them, but that’s just me).

There are other podcasts there too, but I haven’t checked them out yet. Anyway, download a few. It’s good stuff.

Great Outdoor Grow Op Picture

2012-04-17T21:21:36Z

A Vancouver Island grower sent me this pic, which he found on Vancouver Seed Bank’s blog:

deer and marijuana plant

That has got to be the cutest outdoor marijuana grow op picture ever!