Soft Secrets: Basic Growing

Introduction!

The first column in Soft Secrets and La Maria! Recently HIGH TIMES magazine and I renegotiated my contract and now I can write for European magazines. I am very happy to write for Soft Secrets and La Maria because they reach more growers than any other magazines in Europe. This column is all about, growing!

Last year I bought a Nikon D100 digital camera and have been building a digital library. You will see many of these new digital photos on the pages of Soft Secrets and La Maria. So far I have shot many publication quality digital images and am looking for more all the time. Is your garden available to be photographed for the pages of Soft Secrets and La Maria?

Please contact me at jorge@marijuanagrowing.com for questions. I will do my best to answer your questions by return e-mail and/or publishing them in this publication.

Indoor growing is taking off all over Europe and the UK. I believe growers are most interested in learning simple time saving growing techniques that they can implement immediately. I will tailor this column to the time of the year, answering questions in relation to climatic conditions. I am writing to growers from northern UK to southern Spain with a lot of climates in between. I will do my best to address all climates and growing conditions.

Strong roots are the building blocks of a heavy harvest. Clones have been rooting for 10 days and have a strong enough root system for transplanting.

Set seeds on a paper towel on a plate and moisten. Keep evenly moist and warm (25 degrees C). Be very careful the seeds do not dry out or drown in water. In 3-7 days small white roots will sprout from the seeds.

The tip of the sprout on this seedling got a little dry and development was retarded. I planted this seed next to others that did not dry out. The plant this seed produced was always smaller and slower growing than properly maintained counterparts.

Summertime Outdoors

This magazine will be in shops in the heat of the summer. Many indoor growers go on vacation this month and next. However, outdoor grow shows are full speed ahead!

Yes, there still time to plant seeds and clones! Plant seeds and clones outside today! Last year in Spain, I planted my small garden August. The poor plants received only two hours of direct sunlight per day. I still harvested 100 grams of bud from 6 small plants. If plagued by cool northern temperatures, you are in luck. Plant clones outdoors in 20-50 liter pots of light fast-draining soil. I prefer the least expensive fast draining mix I can find on sale. Use soils with lots of peat, coco and perlite. Set plants out on the patio or anywhere they get sunlight from 10:00 until 18:00 for the best results. Midday sunlight is much stronger than that of morning or afternoon. If you must keep plants under glass or plastic, remember that about 25 percent of the light will be lost. This is not important in the summertime when vegetative plants need less intense light. Flowering, however, is a different story. In nature, marijuana flowers when the nights get long and the days short in autumn. The sun is lower on the horizon overhead and farther away from the earth. The sunlight is not as intense now as it was when it was high overhead. When your plants are flowering under less intense light, buds do not grow as thick and dense. If they are under glass or plastic, less sunlight is available.

If you are growing in a greenhouse or in containers on a patio, and your plants are at least two months old, you can induce the plants to flower now. If you start today, you will be harvesting ripe buds by the time the next Soft Secrets and La Maria roll off the press. The technique is simple, but it will take your daily attention. The technique, cover the plants after they receive 12 hours of light every day so that they will receive 12 hours of total darkness every night. Doing this simulates autumn weather and will induce the plants to flower. They will show visible signs of flowering within two weeks. Remember, you have to cover plants every night so they are “blacked out” and have no exposure to light. You could call this technique “Zero Tolerance.”

The easiest way to “black out” a single plant or a few plants is to build a superstructure over the plant. When you build the superstructure, make it bigger than the plant so that when you place a tarp or dark cover over the plant every night, it does not touch the foliage. If the covering touches the foliage, a wound could develop, which will invite insects and pests. And, in the case of inexperienced growers, confuse them!

Darkening a greenhouse can be a little more complex and requires a trip to the greenhouse supply store. If the greenhouse is small, it is easy to toss a cover over the top.

Your local newspaper or city website will have a sunrise/sunset chart. Remember dark is one half hour after sunset and one half hour before sunrise. For example, if sunrise is at 6:00 and sunset is at 21:00, the daylight hours would be 16 hours even though there is 15 hours between sunrise and sunset. To give plants an even 12 hours of darkness, the plants will need to be covered at 6 PM or from dark until 9:00. As soon as it is dark outside, the plants can be uncovered. Avoid covering plants all night because it will attract insects.

You can also opt to bring plants indoors to induce flowering with darkness. If you decide to move pots, a small hand truck or containers on casters (wheels) makes moving much easier.

Page 1 | 2 | 3