Outdoor budget Mom grow - freebie seeds and low cost / no cost soil amendments

[HappyDaze]

Like most growers I'm constrained by time and grow space, so I don't invest much of either in the free demo seeds that often come with my seed orders. I had a couple packs of freebies in my drawer, and last Wednesday I thought I'd drop them in a 7 gallon bucket of dirt and set them out on the deck just to see what I could get from them. The primary goal here, is to get a few promising moms going that I can take cuttings from in the late summer/fall, with an absolute minimum of investment of any resources.

Strains:

- (10) Meds-Web by Meds-Man
This is a Charlotte's Web x Hemp cross that's purported to be 20% CBD. First time auto, first time CBD grow for me.

- (5) Mozambiquen Poison by Malberry
This is a pure African Sativa that I know will take a lot of space and time to grow out. I've grown Malberry's Malawi before and was extremely happy with the resulting smoke. I had a lot of trouble maintaining my DWC reservoir during late flower with the Malawi. Twelve + weeks is along time to keep a res sterile and stable for me, so the MP grow may be in soil with GH Bio nutes.

Soil:
- 50% Walmart topsoil (25 liters cost $2.99)
- 40% recycled ProMix + perlite from a previous grow
- 10% very hot compost from our municipal green cart collection system (100 liters was free. I'll be using only this to amend the soil as the grow progresses)



At this point, 7 of the 10 Meds Web (MW) are sprouted and I'm 5 for 5 on the Mozambiquen Poison (MP)

I'll cull the weaklings and males as they show sex and maybe divide the survivors out to their own buckets. These probably won't go to flower, as I said before, these are starters for my fall indoor grow cycle.

[starramus]

the best things in life are free, or almost.

[Gingerbeard]

Where do you shop? I have a load of free stuff I need.

[starramus]

Most seed dealers give out freebies. I was just commenting on his frugality. Apparently he shops at Walmart, and reuses soil, and the hot compost was free.

It's always good to get more out than what you put in.

[HappyDaze]

@ Gingerbeard, Hemp Depot in Canada. You just missed their annual 420 sale. Most of their breeders were doing buy one, get one free deals and they always offer some kind of freebie with a regular order.

@ starramus, All my main grows are DWC using GH floro series with limited success using additives. This is just an experiment to show that you don't need all the shit the guys at the grow stores are hawking

[SoOrbudgal]

Way to go HappyDaze whatever works you got this.

[HappyDaze]

The forest in a bucket keeps plugging along six weeks after planting. I intended to keep these outside, but there were a bunch of wet and cloudy days where it just made sense to put the bucket in the tent under a lamp.

Three males and one un-sexed weakling from the Med-Web plants have been culled, leaving 4 yet to show.

It turns out that I didn't have my glasses on when I planted what I thought were the Mozambiquen Poison...I actually grabbed a bag of TGA Girl Scout Cookies crosses, which have yet to show sex. Those five are doing ok in spite of everyone having to endure a third soap bath to combat spider mites.

I'm going to start moving the bucket into the garage every night to shorten the light cycle and get the remaining plants sexed. I need to concentrate on cleaning up the last of the #@$%ing bugs on any females so I can start taking clones.

The good news is I didn't plant tomatoes...just the wrong weed.



Meds-Web male gets the chop.



Forest in a bucket...nine contenders remaining.

[HappyDaze]

Forest in a bucket lost three more contenders yesterday....the Meds Web is down to one feeble looking plant. None of the GSCx have shown sex yet so they're staying in the garage overnight until they do.

[Toker1]

I have gotten really good results from regular seeds when I follow these guidelines for the first month.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.greencultured.co/cannabis-seeds-growing-female-plants/amp/

[HappyDaze]

Yeah, I think the results are from the lousy treatment they received. They didn't get a lot of the care recommended in the link, so the results are predictable. I'm not too broken up about the Meds Web plants, they're a high CBD, not my thing right now. I really hope the GSCx seeds give me a mom though...I mixed up packages and fucked up planting them...they're supposed to be in the drawer until winter.

Thanks for the pointer.

[HappyDaze]

I abandoned this thread, but not the plants!

I ended up with 3 female TGA GSC x Space Dude. They ended up getting more care than I intended to give them. They got mites and that took a couple of soap baths to deal with. Then they looked sad from the soap baths and got some foliar kelp to help them recover. They're almost four weeks into flower, which was forced outside by moving them into the garage every night. They've been getting G.O. box nutes at full strength every second day and are now inside in the corner of the flower room sharing the 1000W. The pot is a little small, so they're going to be a pain in the ass to finish. I took clones from all three, and they're doing fine at about 12 days.

Typical of TGA seeds, I got some "variety" (not a compliment) in the three plants. One of the three is considerably shorter, with broader leaves and is much hungrier than the other two. Once they're in full flower, I should be able to tell if they all share the same parents from the smell. Right now, you wouldn't know the plants were related, just looking at them.

My dirt growing skills are minimal, so I'm not expecting much from these. Their clones in hydro will be more fun.