I Stumbled Upon Something WAY Better than Tomato Cages. Highly Recommended! \(^. ^)

[GreenArmadillo]

Hi everyone.
Hope you all having an ecstatic gardening day. May the hours bring you bountiful buds.

So I stumbled across something in a general store that sells everything from toolware, to houseware, to gardening supplies.
It looked interesting enough so I bought a good number despite not really needing it.
I have put it to use over the past week, and MY LORD, I love this stuff. It's a stake accessory, more or less. So damned practical and helpful.
Really helps hold up and support my beautiful girls that are growing big, especially now that they've exploded after the flowering stretch, and are busily creating buds.
It runs similar to the idea of tomato cages, but SO much more customizable. I didn't like the tomato cage I bought a while ago, but this stuff is gold.
I totally recommend now that i've used these. I would have totally bought them earlier if I had know they existed.
So just sharing here, to spread the love.

Check it out:

[GreenArmadillo]

The result?





Sorry the pics aren't that great. I have actually added these stakes and stake arms to 3 out of my 4 girls, and plan on buying a last set for my final baby.
I was meaning to upload a picture of the full grow room with all the gals chilling with their sexy stake supports, but this will have to do.
Hope this is helpful for anyone looking for something along these lines. Much love.

[NA420]

Holy stretchy plant! Nice find but lower your light some to reduce stretch.

[GreenArmadillo]

Yeah man, these babes exploded with over tripling in height after the switch to 12/12. I was totally unprepared for it, being a first time grower. XP
But hopefully I kinda got it under control now.

I'd wanna lower my lights, but can't, cause it would lightburn my very top budlets. I just gotta stay on top of things now in this delicate stage. =)

[OzBud]

I use those on my outdoor tomatoes, they can't support them. My tomato plants bust out of them, have broken or pushed out the horizontal supports or have just pulled the entire cage/stakes over. They're good but can't hold up to heavy duty plants

[GreenArmadillo]

Damn, haha, those are some unruly tomatoes.
I have one tomato plant outdoors on my balcony and it's started making tomatoes. Got this cage system supporting it nicely at this stage.
I'll keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't break down, hopefully.

But as for my weed plants, the stake arm system seems to help out so much.
Once the buds start fattening up big time, i'ma pull out the plant yo-yos for extra support tho. =)

[OzBud]

Yeah just keep an eye on it, they're still great even if they can't always keep up with the load sometimes. I'll still be using them again on next years tomatoes.

[South Sierra Dude]

May have some outdoor guerrilla utility.

[9fingerleafs]

Real nice. Thanks for sharing

[9fingerleafs]

It has a bad ass name also

[GreenArmadillo]

haha, I totally agree!

[Tika]

Very nice images and representing stakes. But with the group and for you- next round top three times...at least and LST
thanks for the beautiful images

[GreenArmadillo]

For sure boss!! I made quite a number of mistakes with this being my first grow, but that just makes me happy knowing my next grows will be many levels up.
Thanks for the advice. <3

[Newf]

Wow those girls are taller than the UConn basketball team. Is that your toilet hiding behind them? How do you get to it? The sacrifices we go through, right?

[CCisme]

Id assume its an unused bathroom, I grow in a bathroom that hasnt been used in long while because the plumbing was messsed up. I sterilized it top to bottom! So two tents on plywood on the bathtub and a veg cabinet built over the toilet (which isnt used) nutes stored in the nice dark medicine cabnet over the sink supplies in cabinet under the sink. Lolol We have a very tiny house this is the best stealth option as it was intended as a master bath. So people just visiting never go in our bedroom let alone the bathroom.

[GreenArmadillo]

haha, I see you noticed.
Dude, it's humbling for me to say that my girls are all TALLER THAN ME! haha, now isn't that something.
I'll definitely be doing a better job with height control next grow. I'm just glad that I can still continue my grow, despite the massive explosive stretch. The bathroom ceiling is juuuuuuuust about high enough for me to handle things, so long as i'm constantly monitoring the gals. =)

And fuck yeah, growing in a spare bathroom is awesome. I fuckin love having that sink right next to me for immediate use. Not to mention the built in exhaust fan.

CCisme You're grow bathroom sounds lush mate. I'd love to have so much space. Mine is a pretty tight fit, but lucky for me I have a tiny spare room right next to it, so that's where I do the majority of the handiwork before putting the gals back into their gro room.
Grateful for my setup. (^_^)

[CCisme]

Its so fun to see how and where people come up w for grow set ups.

[lewiscopeland18]

Wow it's nice.

[NebulaHaze]

Hey, you mentioned in another thread that you were having trouble with some leaves. Overall your plants actually look like they have lots of green leaves! It's natural for some leaves to die and fall off, especially if they're not getting light anymore. How much of the plant is showing symptoms?

[GreenArmadillo]

The good, the bad and the ugly is over here in this thread:

http://forum.growweedeasy.com/forum/growing-community/74139-can-you-help-me-figure-out-what-my-ec-pen-is-trying-to-tell-me

The symptoms are mainly one of the plants: Daphne. From top to bottom, her leaves make me sad. Thankfully the other girls aren't so dramatic, although they have some leaves with symptoms too, just not nearly as drastic as daph.

[NebulaHaze]

Overall they actually look like they're mostly green all over! How many leaves are showing symptoms? The main thing to me is the leaves look dark green and the edges are curled down, like the plant needs overall lower levels of nutrients (specifically Nitrogen). How much water are you giving at a time? I also think you could maximize your yields if you added a little more light especially to the developing buds! You've got so many bud sites, but it looks like many of them are relatively far away from a light. It looks early in flowering development, so there's lots of time for those buds to fatten up!

[GreenArmadillo]

Haha, that's awesome to hear you say that. Well two of the girls are still relatively green I must admit, and the other two not so much.

On Daphne, i'd say at least 80% of the leaves are showing severe symptoms. The other girl doesn't have so many leaves left, but i'd say 50% of her remaining leaves are problematic.
I'm watering twice a week, usually giving each girl 3 litres of water. For the last two weeks i've completely cut out ALL nutrients except calmag+, as well as some unsulphered molasses.

You know what, I actually decided to buy a proper HPS grow light two weeks ago, and merrily drove down to the ONLY grow shop in this country with grow lights. And to my absolute dismay, he is completely out of stock on reflectors. He has ballasts and bulbs, but no reflectors. He say another month until he receives a new shipment.
He also has no LEDs on sale, although he said MAYBE he might get a shipment this next week.
It's kinda sad, cause I really wanted to up the light levels. So far I have a total of 855 watts in my grow room, but it's clear (just as you say) that these girls want more light.