Dank Gorilla Grow Journal

Hello fellow herbalists,
I am the mighty n00b known as Dank Gorilla.
I am attempting to start this grow journal to document my growing experiences for a reference for myself in the future and others.
As of today I am in the middle of my 3rd grow, the fist 2 outdoor in Northern California and I am just starting my indoor as the 2nd round of outdoor ladies come up for harvest..
I had a great season last year (IMHO) and really enjoyed every aspect of the growing process. I'm not sure how much total weight I got last time but it was a crazy amount. I started the previous season with 6 outdoor plants, keeping in compliance with local laws, and I ended up harvesting 5...really only 4 as I had some issues with one of the plants toward the end. All plants last season were clones I picked up at a medical co-op.
Blueberry
Chocolope
Pre 99 Bubba Kush
Lavender
Purple Erkle
Green Thai Dragon
Looking at them now, I'm remembering that I chose some of my favorites that I had smoked in the past, I really had no idea what I was doing and was just picking from smoker memories from the past. I didn't take into account strain, indica/ sativa amounts for height or really anything. I asked the guy at the counter what his favorite of the bunch was and he chose the chocolope. In hindsight I owe that dude, Chocolope became my all time favorite smoke. Anywho a quick fast forward of months of truly falling in love with the process of watching my ladies grow into themselves and I ended with 8-1 gallon glass jars of sweet, herbal goodness that lasted me and the wife 7-8 months.
We ended up with 4 full jars from the Green Thai Dragon, this plant was amazing.
Like I mentioned before, this was only my first grow so I decided to be pretty hands off. I planted everything in some large half wine barrels I had around and pretty much used only EarthJuice GROW, fish emulation and a few rounds of pre made tea from the hydro store during all of the veg period and then switched to EarthJuice BLOOM for the flower period. I didn't use any type of training as I was scared and was really enjoying studying how the plants reacted to things on their own. This made for some pretty anxious feelings toward harvest when my dragon started hitting the 14 foot tall mark! Like I said, she was amazing.
I lost the Lavender plant pretty early on when one of my chickens decided to dig it up and eat the wormlike roots out of the rock wool. Down to 5. My wife came in teary eyed one day close to harvest when our garden hose sprung a leak and literally spray/cut the Pre 99 Bubba into shreds. This totally wasn't her fault, the pressure from the water coming out of such a small cut in the hose turned the stream of water into a lazer beam, the poor little Bubba was like a foot away, receiving the full force of the blast.. She never stood a chance. She was drenched and pitiful, I cut away a HUGE portion of wrecked flowers and did my best to dry the rest off, I ended up pulling about 4 ounces off her in the end but they had almost no buzz, tasted a bit minty but that's about it. I was super bummed about that one. The purple Erkle didn't perform to her best standards as she was in the worst spot of the bunch, very low light amounts gave me airy popcorn buds and me playing favorite with the feeding amounts for the bigger plants didn't help either.
Purp endded up giving me 8-10 ounces of some pretty good herb whose taste made me wish I had paid more attention to her. I'm sure givin the right light and a fair amount of food she would have performed better.
My successes were my Bluberry, the Chocolope and the Green Thai Dragon. All three of these produced well and offered up some excellent medicine. The blueberry was nice and sweet, strong buzz and my third best producer.
The Dragon was an amazing beast of a plant, producing like a machine. Peppery/ spicey flavor, very strong odor..again peppery and very strong buzz. Great painkiller. The Chocolope produced ok, but the flavor and smell were amazing. I have lived in nor cal and been smoking my whole adult life and I just absolutely loved this herb. Can't wait to grow her again.
So that was last year. I will try and find some pics to post from that grow.
This season I am growing 12 ( still compliant) clones outdoors in 30 gallon white aeropots.
Same as last year I am sticking with EarthJuice GROW/BLOOM. I am NOT using pure fish emultion because I was told it was not needed in a soil only grow, at least not the way I was using before. I am also using Earthjuice CATALYST throughout the entire grow...again I am using a nute tea from the hydro store biweekly. I know the tea has fish emultion, humus, molasses, castings, kelp, rooting enzymes..etc..
Do to some local government fuckery the local co-ops were shut down and I wasn't able to acquire the Green Thai Dragon clones or the Chocolope clones I had wanted to include again this year. Through a friend I was able to get a fairly good selection this year. I am doing 3 each:
Grape Ape
Blueberry Headband
Sour Diesel
Candy Kush
So far this year I am all about training. After witnessing how strong these plants do outdoor I was not scared to whip those ladies into shape this time around. I lollipopped (removed all lower branches to allow energy to focus on the upper canopy development and to get air to the under canopy) for the first time this year and i will never skip this step again, i could almost hear the girls thanking me after i did it. I have been using combos of Low Stress Training early on in their life, I topped all of them multiple times, split my kolas 4-5 times each and have been super cropping like crazy. All good things, don't be scared.
Not only did these techniques work well, the ladies seemed to really appreciate it, responding very quickly to each one. These methods have produced some bulky, full monsters this year and rather than being an unmanageable 14 feet are clocking in at a girthy 8-10 feet. I am very pleased with their progress so far this year. I just switched to their first bloom feeding this week and giving a half does of veg mix for the next 2 weeks combined with the bloom to taper off the nitro loss. I will also post some pics from this year soon. The Candy Kushs' are the big dogs so far this year.
I will post again soon....
Dank Gorilla

Well here we are several weeks later and things are going well.
I am currently just starting to harvest some of my outdoor ladies, Im a week or two out from the big cut down but i have taken 3 of the ladies and they are all drying happily in different stages. I took one of the candy kush and 2 blueberry headbands, the candy is drying now and smells amazing. The Blue/Heads came up early cause of the Blue genetics... from what i have gathered all "BLUE" genetics flower early. The high is strong but not overly heady, great taste. A good daytime medicine.
I know pics are king on these forums so I will try to get those up soon. I know I have some pics from last years grow around here somewhere as well.

As the outside ladies are finishing up I also started my first indoor garden!
I was lucky enough to run across a used BCNL producer growbox in great condition for a good deal. I have been looking for an all in one box system that would not take up much room, and something that would keep me growing no matter what future situation i find myself and had already planned on getting something similar. I have my reasons for wanting this system, i am aware of its limitations... for me its perfect for the off growing season during the winter.
anywhooo....

I got the producer up and running on 9/18 and I have really been enjoying playing with this new toy. I started the box out with 8 Banana Kush, 2 Cotton Candy Kush and 2 Lavender Soma #10. All started from clone. Again... pics soon.

I have decided to do my first producer grow as a soil grow. I have experience with soil and none with hydro so Im hoping to get to know this system the first time around working with a method Im used to. There is not a lot of useful information out there in cyberspace to help with my specific grow this time around but one site I did find was this one: http://growyourownmedicine.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html
That guy does some amazing stuff with this cabinet and Im hoping to come somewhere close.....ish.
Will post again soon.
Dank Gorilla

Well hello...
been busy around these parts. Tis the season and all.
I have been pulling and cutting, snipping and trimming and most importantly...... smiling.
As I type out this journal entry my garage is full of hanging and drying goodness.
My second outdoor grow turned out to be a great and informative experience. As I mentioned above in my previous entrys, I grew a great selection of strains this year.
All of which were fun to grow and offered new challenges to overcome.
My strains this season were as follows:
4 Candy Kush, 3 Grape Ape, 2 San Francisco Kush, 2 Blueberry Headband and 1 Sour Diesel (maybe?)
The ladies were planted in 30 gallon white smart pots. The year before I had used mostly wine barrels, which worked fine, but these were easier to move and I was told and have a hard time arguing with, that the white pots keep the root base at a lower temperature and allow more air flow. I liked them fine.
I planted on May 25th in my backyard in Northern California. I tried topping and a bit of super Crop training this year and things seemed to work fine, in retrospect I should do these techniques a bit earlier in veg. to allow the new growth to really take effect.... also next time around I think I will be doing a bit more training of the limbs, tying down established ones so the new ones can develop under more light. I should do this earlier on to help increase yield and possible bud sites.


The Blue/Heads finished first around the 25th of September, which I understand is because of the Blue genetics. (I hear Blue-anything is always an early finisher...bluedream, bluecheese...etc)
I really have enjoyed this medicine, giving a clear but effective high that i feel totally mentally aware with. Great daytime smoke. Smells good, like blueberry and has an easy exhale.
One thing I will say about growing the Blueberry headband is that it stretched a good bit, buds were sticky and small.. popcorn. Not a big deal for me but was a bit of a pain to trim. These were also a bit of a chore to keep the mites off of, I noticed that these and the Grape Apes were always the most susceptible to bugs. I could and should have been more diligent with my pest routine while the ladies were still in veg. This should be noted for next time.
Everything else decided to creep over the next few weeks and a roller coaster of temps over most of October kept them confused and at a simmer. One short cold spell caused all the remaining ladies to turn all at once. Everything was harvested this past weekend ( oct 18-20 ) My House smells amazing and early tests from some precut candies is great.
The Candy was really, really easy to grow. Looks and smells AMAZING!

Gotta go... See yall Soon.