Spice outdoors 2014

UnpossibleOne

New member
Hello Friends,

I'm going to attempt to grow out up to four Spice Girls. The plants are 30 days from germination. Their first couple weeks was rough! I started fourteen seeds, ten popped, and these are the four which survive.

I tied the main tip back on the largest plant, it was way outpacing it's kin and all it's cellmates too :D I may grab a cutting or four off the low stem, instead of pruning those sucker tips off later in the field?

They are paired up in divided containers primarily for ease of transport. A pair will snuggle into a 5gl plastic bucket -for protection- which will slip into my old rucksack. Two (hopefully) good-sized plants for one trip. Seemed like a good plan, but at a cost in root-ball size? We shall see. ;)

The growspace evolved from T5 tubes @ 18-6 to a metal halide @ 17-7. The last two weeks have been with 600w & mostly with CO2, and last night they went up to 750w and down to 15.5-8.5. I've had to kill the gas, and get more air flowing to fight the heat :(

The site prepared for these has: Lots of sun, sparse but similar-looking local vegetation, apparent seclusion, nearby water, South facing hilltop... :cool: A twist away from my other OD efforts this season is that these will be growing in a mix which will be mostly medium-fine coco coir, with some soil-moist gel in the base of the holes. 19-6-12 (or maybe 14-14-14, or a blend? :p ) time release fert. was added to the holes, and I recently mixed in a little lime. The picture of the site was taken 4-30-14.

I have a catch-all thread for my '14 OD grow in the Outdoor section http://www.mrnice.nl/forum/12-outdoor/12441-unpossibly-outdoors-2014-a.html but will add Spice-specific stuff here as things progress or devolve.

Happy Growing!
 

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Good on you for growing Spice.

I am working on a joke about 4 Spice Girls, sowing seeds, feeling those buds, etc but I just can't quite get there yet.

So close, though, so close...
 
Howdy Grey Man! Thank you for popping in. I hope they ARE girls!

In my mis-spent youth (early 1980s - Boston Metro) The shit-hot cannabis was "Hawaiian" or "Jamaican", when available... But in truth we really never knew the true origin. The elite herb scene hadn't really took off yet. So for once in my life, I can possibly grow a stash of "island weed."

These have enough secondary shoots that I can hopefully root off 2-3 from each seed plant. I'll force one per into flowering and see what The Stork™ brought.

I noticed tonight that all four appear to have begun staggering the newest nodes, which tells me they are coming of age! :) 38 days from seed. I also noticed that the largest plant of this batch has some 'double-serration' on the fan leaves. (In the group shot, the Spice are the two buckets on the back row, far right side)

These are now seeing 1000w at 15 - 9.

Thanks for visiting, and Happy Growing!
 

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Plants look great. One thing though is your temp is too high. Your thermometer says 89, might want to bring it down a few degrees.

Happy growing
 
Hi Dawn... Thanks for the tip, I know it's too hot. In that series of pix I killed the fans, so the plants would sit still to focus. The temp soared up into the 90s pretty quickly. :(

As cool as I can get the lit space is around 85°F though.... and it drops to about 75 with the lights out. :( When I was indoor growing "for real" I had much better cool air intake and hot exhaust fans going. The lamp heat was also evacuated "up the chimney." Even with that, I normally knocked off the indoor growing from around June through October. Just way too hot in there.

This set up is only going to be in play long enough to get this batch of kiddies ready for the woods. :D Two weeks max.
 
Those are looking good, interested to see how they do for you, especially outdoors. I got some but couldn’t get any to go but will try again.

Wow, quite the observation Dawn.
 
Hi all.

I agree with Betterhaff: Dawn has the eagle eyes. I was afraid someone would spot the thrip on the largest plant. The #@%%* thing escaped me, right before I took the pic of the bent main tip. I meet BIG spiders down in the cave, and yesterday a tree frog :p so maybe it's somebodys lunch. ;)

The four Spices are coming along at Veg day 39 :cool: These are thirsty, when compared to their cell-mates. They are a bit taller than the others (back row, two buckets on the right side) so I imagine their root systems are packing up in those divided containers.

Thanks for looking in, and Happy Growing! :)
 

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I have been looking at spice for awhile as i have read some good things.
I am pulling up a chair for this one. I wish you the best of luck with all your projects;)
 
Aloha!

Aloha friends!

Last night, Mrs U was giving me the evil eye (looks like this :mad: ) about the house stinking like herb, and the Spices were getting almost too big to fit in my rucksack anyhow, so it is high time to make things happen!

I toted #1 and #2 to their home right before bedtime last night, and an hour ago I stuck #3 and #4 in beside them. Each planting hole was covered up with a pile of pine bark mulch, and watered them in really well with a gallon each of some FoxFarm Big Bloom mix. This was at veg day 40-41 for what it's worth. :p

I'll try to remember to keep updating this thread as the season progresses. Thanks for looking in, and Happy Growing :)
 

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Be wary of Pine bark .

If it is not composted it can lock up Nitrogen during its composting . Taking away N that your plant wants .
Ever noticed that all that grows in a Pine Forest is Pine Trees ? No diversity , not friendly to other species .

You have liquid feed so should be no probs . But look out for yellowing .
 
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Hello Friends,

My Spice kids are doing pretty well, I think. This morning I did some pruning of the lower shoots, and gave them a drink of 5-1-1 fish emulsion fert. @ 2 tsp. per gl. The pix are from 6-13 and 6-15, but before the pruning.

Thanks for that tip on the pine bark, Mary Mary. I learn new things on MNS every time I browse, and I am grateful. :) Maybe by the time I'm too old to do this stuff, I'll sort-of know what I'm doing. :eek:

Happy Growing, and Happy Fathers' Day, for those who are.
 

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Update 8-8-14 Spice

Hello friends!

During a visit to the Spice site on July 23, one small plant was showing male flowers, and the remaining three were indeterminate. I removed that male.

My latest visit was Aug 8, and the largest plant (1.7M with some relatively broad leaves) was showing male. The remaining two plants are small females, approx 1M tall. These exhibit minimal side branching, have quite narrow leaves, and are a distinctly lighter shade of green than the other MNS strains I have cooking.

I decided that I'd leave the large, broad leafed male alone... and maybe he can make some babies with the gals.

I predict the Spice has great potential outdoors in the mid-south, I just need to work on getting to know them, over a few seasons. I'll say that using some surplus coco coir, Soil Moist gel, and 19-6-12 Osmocote is probably not how I'll do this next year :eek:

Thanks for looking, and happy growing!
 

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Hello friends,

I harvested the one remaining female Spice on September 26. She was small, yielding just a few grams of seeded bud (all shown in the pic) Early taste and smell is very pungent and unkind, so I am letting these cure up for awhile. ;)

The other female (in the background of the field pic) died of something between the past visit and then. :( RIP.

I am going to play with this strain over some seasons, and try to learn more about them... This season offered some first examples of how not to grow them :p

Happy Growing!
 

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a bag of compost and a bag of composted chicken poop. a bag of bone meal (approx 4 lbs if you get the miracle grow organic bone meal), mix THAT up in the bottom of your holes next time about a month before you plant with some lime and gypsum (1cup lime and cup gypsum per yd of soil or per hole) dig the holes about 3 ft to 4 ft in diameter and as deep as you can get them, 2 ft to 3 ft. then mix all that up. when you come back to plant, make sure you water them in good, then the rest of the season just make sure you give them water, maybe every other week a feeding of molasses at 1/2 tsp per gallon to keep the microbes happy. you were probably in acidic soil to start which is why they stayed yellowish, also test the local water supply you are using. the lime and gypsum will help the soil buffer each way so no matter what that local supply is you should be okay, plants should be nice and green and rocking next time.

and get rid of that soil moist gel. causes more harm than good with cannabis. i grow in central cali in 108 degree heat without those things and i didn't water every day, either. if you can water every other day during high heat periods you will be fine. just really need to make sure the soil ph is okay and the water too - could be alkaline as hell, from the looks of it. or acidic, but i am betting its alkaline soil that did it.
 
careful of Calcium products

In Colorado I thought clay was the only problem. I then found out that the soil contains an excess od calcium. This keeps the soil to basic. If in tour area silver maples turn yellow then donot add Calcium. If ironite is sold in your area for general gardening check out the specific soil for the site.
My main rule is to add compost. It improves soil microbes and lowers ph. Now if I am using cheap potting soil I will add lime ( CaO ) I got a 50 lb bag at Home depot for $5 it will last a couple of lifetimes. I called the manufacturer and they said it was used for a soil supplement. Outside I use chicken manure combos one 10-2-5 and 25-3-5. Sold as lawn fertilizer. The soil here has plenty of K and P. I do add some for flowering though. I also put my plants out earlier so the roots can develop before the heat hits. Its supposed to be 103F today. I'll be out watering at the warmest procrastinator that I am. If plants have a good root system the heat really doesn't bother them. Look at how hot it gets in AFG. most grow books are based on California growing. If an area has been farmed very little nutrients are needed other than nitrogen. I seem to use less and less most in early spring.
 
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