Tangerine Dream & LSD

[ozraptor]

After a break of 20 years I decided it was time to grow my own this season so I bought some Barney's Farm seeds from Attitude.

 

I was a bit worried when the seeds arrived as they were very small but I put them into jiffy pots late in October and eventually they sprouted. (error no. 1, I tried to sprout them outdoors rather than in a warm spot indoors)

 

The grow was always going to be outdoors which presented me with a couple of problems: I built in a new estate a couple of years ago and naturally when I moved in there was no good soil on the block whatsoever. Happily they needed to use a lot of fill on the block; so instead of having subsoil to contend with I had a very fine grey silt which while having good fertility had very poor structure.

 

So in spring I brought in 6 metres of mushroom compost and 20 metres of mulch (to spread over approx 400 sqare meters) and did what I could to improve things.

 

My other problem is that I live about 500m from a freeway which gets a fair bit of attention from the helicopter so I had to make things stealthy. I don't have much cover as the plants I've put in are still young.

 

By early Nov, I had decided which seedlings I wanted to keep so I dug 4 holes 50cm deep to put them in and filled it with a mix of mushroom compost 40%, worm castings 20% and original soil 40% with a couple of handfuls of dynamic lifter tossed in.

 

Initial growth was extremely slow (error no. 2, I should have veged them under lights until December) but by Xmas they were looking like this:

 

 

I'll post some more tomorrow.

[big outdoor]

Don't look to bad mate have seen smaller at the same time. Guess they will a fair bit bigger now they are in the ground and another month has gone by

[smashed1]

not bad looking plants , we get the cops circuling here all the time , at the start the season they musta seen me sitting out the back the pricks went over the greenhouse 4 times , i was going to but thought i better not , lucky they were seedlings

[brick]

How much water are you giving them? That leaf curl on the edges is probably due to over watering. Plant is having a bit of trouble getting rid of moisture. BOCIBW. Good luck. they look healthy enough. Cept for the leaf curl.

[uncle chron]

hmmm... that style of leaf curl(upwards) tells me the roots are getting too hot

and judging by the medium, it more or less reassures me

if the medium was coco and the leaves were curling downwards like claws, ... THEN i would be inclined to think it was over watering

those plants look like they`re ready for some 20-30 or 50ltr pots ....or even better....some prepped holes

if ya cant do that, whack the pots into some empty pots, for extra insulation/protection from the heat .... or put something infront of the pots to shade the roots (not the plants)

 

ideally, ya wanna do a test with one or two of each to determine the problem and knock it on the head .... so maybe try the insulated pot on one, less water on another and another in a bigger pot ......and if ya got enough, whack one in the ground

 

hope that helps

[ozraptor]

Thanks for the replies guys, the leaf curl was more likely over watering rather than hot roots as we hadn't had much heat by the time that the photos were taken.

 

I planted them in the prepared holes on the 28th Dec, soon after the first photos were taken. As I knew I couldn't afford tall plants and TD can get to over 2 metres I planted them on their sides somewhat and chopped up wire coathangers to stake down the tops of the plants. I expected that this would set back their growth and I was correct; they didn't move much over the next couple of weeks.

I also planted a number of sunflower seedlings around them to assist in stealth which has turned into error no.3. I didn't realise how quickly those suckers grow and how vigorous their root systems are.

 

I've been using Natrakelp as a foliar fertilizer as I have had good results with it on vegetables and I throw a handful of dynamic lifter around every couple of weeks. I am thinking of making up some of Uncle Chron's super sauce to give things a bit of a boost.

 

My next photos were taken 11 days later;

 

As you can see the only growth seems to be in the lower branches, which is what I was aiming for. The green plastic thingys are snail/slug traps that I fill with beer. They also attract earwigs which is a huge bonus here as they are quite a problem.

Edited January 23, 2012 by ozraptor

[ozraptor]

The next photos are about a week later, at this stage I'm wondering if I am growing bonsai as while they look healthy to my inexperienced eye they are still very small. Lucky I'm treating this as an experimental/learning grow and I'm not expecting a great yield.

 

 

Another week on there has been some growth but the sunflowers, which I thought would be well behind, are starting to cause me concern as they are racing ahead. I'll definitely have to remove some in the next weeek or so; I wonder what would happen if I topped a few. There only seems to be the one growing point so I suspect I'd kill them.

 

 

 

I forgot to mention that weekly I dilute the worm wee that I've collected and use that to fertilise them as well

[The Claw]

Good shit mate, which is the LSD, I got 4 femmed LSD from barneys, have not had any luck germinating them. Have tried 3 over the last few months all with same result, in a rockwool cube they poke a root out the bottom, poke their head up but the leaves don't open the root shrivels up and their fucked. Have 1 left will try again soon.

Vrod.

[ozraptor]

Vrod I couldn't agree more with the seeds; mine were very small and while 5 out of 7 germinated they were very spindly seedlings and slow to grow. I gave one to a friend and kept 2 to plant myself. The other 2 I just discarded as they were pitiful.

 

I have put labels on the photos with the date and strain, but in the first post with photos they go td, lsd, lsd,td.

 

In the 2nd post they go lsd, td, td, td, lsd.

 

I'll label them in the post in future to make it easier..

 

I've finally had some warm sunny days so hopefully they'll start to get a move on although the td is stretching more than I would like at this stage.

 

More pictures on the weekend.

[D.R.S.D]

hey raptor your tangerine dream looking good nice garden you got going on too things starting to take off good stuff mate