Welcome to my grow update!
I've got 4 female pink kush plants here in my little Vancouver apartment. It's the first time I've grown here in our new place, but I've got a green thumb and a few skills in my box.
That's my setup right now. I've had no budget to play with here. The wooden unit is a SAD lamp unit my father made for my grandparents. It was for shining bright lights into their eyes on winter mornings - it's a treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder, also known as "gardeners get depressed when it's dark and cold outside for months on end". I wonder if my dad knows what I'm using it for now, and if so, what he thinks about it? Heh.
My grandparents have passed on, but I got the lamp. Other than the little LED on the side you see, they've got almost all their light (starting in January as seeds) from that lamp. I move them into the sunshine to get a bit of natural light now and then, but have to be careful! If my neighbors see cannabis plants, or even THINK they do, they can call a snitch line. Cops will enter your place without a warrant and arrest you for plants. "Legalization" won't come to Canada officially until Halloween, and even when it does, these plants are still going to be illegal. For one thing, they're too big. And their genetics aren't from the government, so they're illegal that way too. Also, I rent, and people who rent aren't going to be allowed to grow any plants. Well, you can grow plants, as long as they're not cannabis plants! (That's what "legalization" means, apparently. I hope they don't "legalize" tomatoes next, because I really love the cherry tomatoes I grow on my patio, and it would suck to have neighbors snitch to the cops on me because of them.)
The pink kush girls also get room air, tap water, and plain dirt. No fertilizers, no pesticides, no fungicides, nothing at all. Any growth you see is a product of the incredible genetics of the cannabis plant, and my efforts. Every chlorophyll molecule, every stem, every leaf, and all the flowers they're going to produce, are completely made of nothing but CO2, H2O, and a few trace minerals from the dirt.
It's incredible what you can build from carbon dioxide! And it's amazing the governments of the world are trying to tell us it's dangerous and that we need "carbon taxes" to stop us from creating so much CO2. I say, bring it on! My plants need as much of it as they can get! Any time we've had higher CO2 levels in Earth's atmosphere, have been times of lush vegetation and lots of new plant and animal species! CO2 is good for the ecosystem and for life.
How about them sexy Indica leaves, eh? (I said "eh" so non-Canadians can finally claim that I say it all the time.)
I don't see any signs of flowering yet, although I flipped them 4 weeks ago. In other words, they're probably getting too much light in their 12 hours of darkness. I suppose this is why people buy "tents" for their plants, so they can keep the light out? So far that's the only reason to get a tent that I've run across. They seem kinda silly to be honest.
There's a better look at a top, from the side. I notice the length between side branches is very short up top, and they don't seem to be "stretching" much anymore. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but might they be close to flowering? They're giving off a wonderful healthy smell now, like black pepper, coffee, and chocolate. Little droplets of terpenes are appearing on some of the smaller leaves. But I don't see any white pistils ("hairs") or tight bud clusters.
I'm not really in a hurry. They started from seeds in January and I've been micromanaging and loving them non-stop since. I ran some cloning experiments (and succeeded) before going back to just the 4 main plants again. I want to focus on giving them what they need to provide @MediKatie and I with some great medicine. We just had summer equinox, and even though they're on a fake lighting schedule, it's not far off what the sun is doing. Also, they can "feel" the sunlight coming through the curtains. The plants also have an idea of what the temperature is, and if it's humid or dry. I'm pretty sure they know what time of year it is. And now that the days aren't getting any longer, I think they're about ready to do their thing.
They're like me - they want to do it their way. That's how I run things in my life. I don't let anyone else tell me what to do, how to feel, or what to want. My dreams and my actions are my own. I keep every promise I make, but I make few. I function well in a team, but often get even more accomplished without anyone else involved. I'm an independent in most things. I don't do religion, I don't do dogma, I don't act fake, I don't put up with drama, I don't do what I'm told unless that coincidentally is also what I want to do. I say what I mean, and mean what I say (they're not the same thing). I grow the plants I want and need to grow, and I fight for the laws to change so we don't have to fear imprisonment from "our" government. I'll make friends and show love to anyone who deserves it. I offer common decency to all. But my respect is difficult to earn.
MediKatie and I have been hardcore activists for ten years together now. We do things the way we do them because it's how they work well for us. We're a finely-tuned machine that has been seeing results for a long time, despite all odds. The smart money's on us.
High five! :)
I want to thank my regular followers and upvoters, as well as the influx of new people who found me yesterday because of my post about addiction. We're all here to get our message out there, and hopefully have it received, so you guys are a big part of this for me. Thanks for being here.
DRutter