pistonhips

The left-wing myths regarding drug use are almost as absurd as the right-wing myths.

I encourage marijuana use and support slackening of laws in all parts of the world.

However, to deny that there are negative effects from its use or that its usage does not increase your chances of being involved in a mishap due to your impaired state is ridiculous. Ingesting dope brownies with a sizable amount of marijuana baked into the mixture, for example, can create an effect close to a mild LSD dose.

Exaggerated use in a given session by individuals not accustomed to smoking can result in fainting spells (white-outs).

Extended use over time no doubts dulls your thinking skills and makes a person apathetic. For some this may be viewed as a benefit.

On a side note, the economic benefits that could result from decriminalization could be a boon for Canada. Imagine a compound somewhere in the beautiful yet accesible wilderness in BC where tourists can come and stay and smoke to their heart's content....

Qwiz

I checked on the pots and was glad to see I had some major sprouts. One is over 2�? tall, which is not much but when you go from nothing to something that tall in so little time, well, it lifted my spirits. The lights are on 24/7 at this point and you can see the sprouts are thriving in their conditions as they are breaking ground all over the place. The soil looked a little moist still so I just sprayed the sprouts and not the soil. The tall ones are showing the rounded seedpod leaves and have grown the more recognizable leaves above that.


The plants will grow in a vegetative stage as long as the days get longer. The plants don’t flower until the days start getting shorter. On or about June 22nd the days will get shorter and this will induce the plants to flower. This time of the year is critical for growers. Cops know this too by the way. You must check on your plants to see them change. It helps if you have a male and a female so you can tell them apart. To have a great spot with just one plant makes it hard to identify. Not only that but if it turns out to be a male then your spot has really gone to waste. Planting twice as many plants as you need may be the way to go. Only the females will flower and produce bud. The males must be eliminated carefully as soon as you are sure you’ve sexed them correctly.

I will get into this a little more in later posts. Here is a handy link for you.
Sun Rise and Sun Set for Your Area

I'll be transplanting my plants around the May 24 weekend. After that it will be a month or so before I know for sure what the sex of my plants are.

I'll keep you posted, wish me luck.
Qwiz

Qwiz

N P K
When you are looking at fertilizers you will notice 3 prominent numbers on the package. These 3 numbers represent the amount of (N) nitrogen, (P) potassium and (K) phosphorous. Numbers like 20-20-20 are referred to as 1-1-1 in terms of the ratio of the content for the basic three elements. 20-20-20 is a good all purpose one to start with but you can use what you have handy if you like.

(N) During the vegetative period it is important to have a fertilizer that is heavy in nitrogen. This is why a whole fish can be buried deep in the hole, to provide the nitrogen element, which is very high in fish. I would like to stress again that the fish must be buried prior to transplanting. Predatory animals that smell the fish, may dig it up and eat it if it’s not buried deep enough or if you were sloppy and dripped the juice from the fish around the hole. If your plants are there at the time you will most certainly lose them during the course of excavation. This is where frozen fish come in to play, as there will be no scent to drip around the hole to alert these types of predators to the location of the fish.

Your fertilizer should have a high (N) number. This will be the first number of the three. I’m using a 24-8-16 to vegetate my plants. The ratio is 3-1-2.

My plants have grown the rounded seedpod leaves, the pair of single leaves, the triple leaves and are producing the five part leaves. The more recognizable 7 part leaves are just starting to open on the larger seedlings. The single-pair of leaves are turning yellow in color, which tells me that most of the nutrients in the potting soil have been consumed by the plants. Growth seems to be stunted a little which is another sign it’s time to give the plants a boost. My soil is a little dry as I have been frugal with the watering over the last week in anticipation of this step. It’s time to fertilize.


I’ve mixed up a weak tea in a two-liter bottle using ½ of the recommended amount of fertilizer, one cup of club soda and then filled the bottle with the water I’ve had sitting to help dissipate the chlorine. I’m using ½ of the fertilizer needed, as I don’t want to burn the roots on the young seedlings. I can make it stronger as the plants grow and they will then be able to withstand the harshness of the nutrients.

I will add this solution to the overflow tray and let the pots soak it up. I will add it sparingly at first and watch for signs of rejection. If the plants reject the solution I can simply add water to the pots to flush and dilute the solution and not drown my plants in the process.
Good luck,
Qwiz

Graeme

The apathy argument has been thoroughly debunked - but I have no argument with your other points. However, compared to the effects of overusing alcohol, they're VERY mild.

Education, of course, is key. Responsible, educated pot users have little to worry about.

Qwiz

There is a movement gaining momentum in the US, to inform and mobilize Americans regarding the need to take marijuana out of the criminal market and regulate it. This movement has a number of celebrities championing the cause and the list of “VIPs�? is growing every week. Jesse Ventura, Michelle Phillips and Joycelyn Elders, the former US Surgeon General, are leading the campaign.

Bill Maher has recently added his voice to the cause and more celebrities and politicians are networking with friends and colleagues, in an effort to bring them together, with a strong common message with respect to the facts about marijuana.

This campaign will not succeed in educating Americans about the truth about marijuana without your help. It’s time for you to get involved and to mobilize en mass.

Please take the time to check out the website and add your voice when the time comes.
Marijuana Policy Project
Thank you,
Qwiz

Qwiz

I got my hair cut today. I have gotten my hair cut by the same guy for the last 15 years and we have become good friends. In the past we have spoken about pot and I know where he stands on the subject. He told me that his father and grandfather would grow pot years ago on their farm and would trade it with the guy down the road who was the local bootlegger.

The guy who cuts my hair was kind enough to give me a good-sized bag of hair cuttings from the floor. He was enthusiastic about sweeping all the hair up except for my own. He apologized that he did not have a whole bunch more for me and asked that I give him a little advanced notice the next time I’m in and he would make sure he had more hair cuttings for me than I knew what to do with.

The fact is I do know what to do with it and it will not go to waste. The hair can be placed in nylon stockings and staked near the plants to keep a human scent present and help ward of rabbits and deer. If you have hair in abundance it can also be spread around the plants and make the area an undesirable place to forage for food. This, in conjunction with other forms of non-lethal pest control will help keep the plants safe.

I’m a firm believer in maintaining plausible deniability almost to a fault. I will not use any hair that could be traced back to me through DNA testing. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cured bud.
Qwiz

Qwiz

A few weeks ago I got a chance to meet and thank a guy, who smoked a joint on the steps of Parliament Hill. He insisted that the cops arrest him. He had 3.3 kilograms of marijuana on him at the time. That’s over 7 pounds!!! It carried a life sentence. I used the past tense there because he single handedly changed the law and put it into limo where it is now. Here’s the kicker… he represented himself all the way to the Supreme Court of Ontario and won. Not only that, he is petitioning through the courts to get his stash back. The guy is a character and funny as hell and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to him speak.

On May 16, a superior-court judge in Ontario agreed with a January lower-court ruling and declared Canada's possession law invalid. Canada does not have a law against possession and the courts have told the Government to write new laws to deal with the changing times.

The Chretien Government came up with Bill C-38 but the PM left before it was passed. There were a few things missing however and the Paul Martin Government added some changes and tried again with Bill C-10, which is still on the agenda but the PM is soon going to run out of time as he is set to announce an election.

Right now the laws are in a vacuum and the courts do not want to hear any small time cases 'till the new law is written and passed. Drug offences such as dealing or growing on a large scale are still being prosecuted, as there are many other laws on the books that are involved in these cases. Things like organized crime, and evasion of income tax issues and trafficking, are laws currently on the books and that is where the authorities are concentrating their time and effort.

Small time growers like myself, who only grow for personal use and not for personal gain, fall through the cracks presently. This is a good thing as far as I’m concerned and I rather like the situation and I can wait for a long time until we get new legislation. I do worry about the fines proposed as I thing there is room for abuse by the authorities where they use it as a cash grab and rather than give you a friendly warning they would be obliged to give you a ticket.

One of the hurdles to overcome in my opinion will be a reliable roadside test, which is not available and must still be invented. There is no way to test the amount of THC with respect to smoking and driving. Although it looks like the current legislation will die, I believe that at the present time, with no law on the books, I’m better off. It would have been nice to have Bill-C10 passed but I still think we can do better. It’s possible that I may regret that statement but I really do see that attitudes have changed about pot in this country. The Senate’s investigation on marijuana has exposed the myths and the facts about pot. Their final conclusion was that alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than pot have gone along way to exposing the lies and myths.

So this is where we sit with respect to the current laws. That being said, with no possession laws, our country has not gone to pot.

My point? One person can make a difference!
Qwiz

Qwiz

Unlike Clark W. Grizwald, who had his father to teach him everything he knows about exterior illumination, I had to learn everything I know about interior illumination myself.

Watts is a measurement of electric energy consumed by the bulb. Watts are important with respect to energy consumption but for a personal use only grower, it has very little effect on my electric bill.

I’m sure you have heard the fear tactics used on both sides of the border to help discourage people from growing in their homes. Let me dispel some of the myths and mystery associated with grow lights.

I have 2 4’ fluorescent lights I use to grow my seedlings and I am soon going to add another set of 4’ers. The question is how much does it cost to run these lights 24/7. I have a 35W tube and a 40W tube. One covers the red spectrum and the other covers the blue spectrum. So that would be 75W running day and night.

Let’s assume the kilowatt-hour cost is 5cents per hour. I pay less than this but we will use this number in our calculation.

75W is equal to 0.075kw
0.075kw x 24hrs per day =1.8kwh per day
1.8kwh x 30 days = 54kwh per month
54kwh x 0.05 = $2.70 per month

The cost for me to run my fluorescent lights is less than $2.70 per month.
When I add my second set of lights, the cost will be less than $5.50 per month.

Watts have little to do with plant growing but is still an important part of the total set up.
Qwiz

Qwiz

No doubt you have heard of the light measurement known as candlelight or candlepower. This is a measurement of the amount of light at the source and not the object you are lighting up. If you will imagine, you’re holding a flashlight on a one square foot target, in a dark room and as you move in closer, the target gets brighter. The candlepower of the source remains a constant. As you get closer to the target the intensity of the light increases.

A foot candle of light, or lumens as they are called, are the units of measurement for light falling a distance of one foot, on a one square foot target. This is the measurement of light on the target and not the source. One lumen is the amount of light cast by one birthday candle, from one foot away on a one square foot target. This is the one we growers focus on the most. We measure this growing power in terms of lumens and are not to be confused with watts.

2,000 lumens per square foot, is about as low as you want to go. 2500 lumens per square foot, is considered adequate and 3000 lumens per square foot is considered optimal for the vegetative stage.

A good rule of thumb to calculate fluorescent lumens per watt is 85 lumens per watt. Some of the various types of fluorescent tubes put out more lumens than others. “Daylight�? tubes put out about 6000 lumens, “cool white�? put out 4000 lumens, “white�? tubes put out about 3500 lumens and "warm" tubes put out 3000 lumens. There are also the colors of the spectrum that affect the plants. Blue is for the vegetative stage and red is for flowering.

Now this all sounds pretty good but it’s not much when you consider the power of Mother Nature. Sun light at the summer solstice, will generate in the area of 10,000 lumens per square foot.
Happy 4/20
Qwiz

Qwiz

My plants are nearing the 1’tall stage and have grown many 7 part leaves. The fluorescent lights are working great at the top of the canopy and are adequate within 1’ of the tubes. Unfortunately like all grow lights, they lose their growing power, or lumens, substantially, the further they are from the plants.

One of the most important factors that is often missed, is that light measured on a target, is inversely proportional to the distance the target is from the source. What this means is the further you get from the source, the less lumens your target gets.

The formula is quite simple and may help you understand. I=L/D2

I=Intensity
L=Light output
D2=Distance squared

So using the handy fluorescent rule of thumb, we are going to calculate how many lumens the plants will get two feet from the light.

75W x 85L = 6800 Lumens. (I have more lumens than this but we will use this as an example.)

I=L/D2
1700 Lumens = 6800L / (2’x2)
1700 lumens at two feet away will be the “Intensity�?. As you now know, this is not enough “Intensity�? so it’s time to add the extra set of fluorescent tubes.

Here is a link that shows how many lumens for the numerous lights on the market. The site has everything, from your lamp light, up to and including high tech grow lights. Lights, Watts and Lumens

It is safe to say, that there are lights that produce many more lumens than my fluorescent lights. Lights such as a 175W Mercury Vapor (MV), which produce around 8000 lumens, are still less efficient than my fluorescents. Mercury Vapor lights glow extremely hot and if the plants get too close they will burn.

Using the formula above, if the plant is 2’ away from the (MV) light, it will only give off 2000 lumens of grow power at the canopy. Fluorescents, even though they start out with less lumens, are more efficient than (MV) ‘cause they burn cool and you can get the plants that much closer.

Knowing the above information, gives me a far greater appreciation for the delicate balance of Earth’s orbit.


Sorry for the Idiot Savant type posts. I will try to keep these, all too technical type posts, to a minimum in the future.
Qwiz