Cannabis Chronicles

once you have the genetics then it comes time to plant them. . . at least for most folks that is. we’ve heard of some folks with seed collections numbering in the hundreds of strains. . . and while we have nothing against collectors. . . we just hope that their seed collection will get used to grow some great herbs. . . a lil seed embryo sitting on a shelf in a jar or pack that never gets grown is a sad waste in our opinion. . . our philosophy is and always has been to share the seed and then grow great weed!

anyway. . . as you can see from the attached picture. . . fifteen standard 4 1/2″ square pots sit waiting for the seeds they will nourish. . . (week old clones are in background)

some folks germ in paper towels or use other similar methods. . . we prefer to put our seeds directly into these planters to eliminate potential stress from handling. . . so the planters you see will get theirs seeds after just a lil bit of prep work.
002 expectant-seedbed

we get lots of questions about our soil preferences so we’d like to take a moment to describe the soil we’ll be growing the LUI seedlings in. . . we call this our Wally-World soil mix since all of the ingredients can be purchased at a Wal-Mart. . . as many folks are aware we re-mix and reuse our soils pretty much endlessly. . . but seedlings and cuttings are the one spot in our garden where we use a store bought soil mix. . . this is the exact soil mix we use these days for all of our cuttings and seedlings and have had great success using it. . . even with hard to clone strains like Herijuana we’ve experienced 90% + success rates in rooting cuttings!

The base is Schultz GardenSafe potting soil which is 100% organic and even OMRI listed. . .OMRI is the Organic Materials Review Institute which certifies products manufacturers pay to have tested and certified if they meet OMRI’s organic standards. . . we’ve seen it in aqua-green bags at many Wal-Mart’s we’ve visited. so hopefully it’s something available pretty readily across North America. . . We simply mix equal parts of perlite and vermiculite into the GardenSafe soil to get a texture that has good aeration and still holds water to protect tender young roots. . .so the standard formula is. . .

50% Shultz GardenSafe soil mix
25% perlite
25% vermiculite

just about any soil could be substituted here. . . we originally choose the GardenSafe because of it’s easy availability and because it is slightly cheaper than FoxFarm OceanForest. . . the FFOF tends to be a lil “hot” in terms of nutes. . . we use mushroom compost a lot as a soil base/amendment for blooming plants but would guess it’s also too hot for tender seedlings and clones. . . the GardenSafe will work great & we’ve used an organic potting soil called FertiLoam before and it worked great as well. . . organic Promix or Sunshine Mix in the same proportions should work too. . . the specific soil isn’t going to matter as much as simply paying attention to purchasing a quality soil that is organic. . . in the attached picture you should be able to see (if you look closely) that most of the 4 1/2″ planters have been heavily soaked with warm tap water. . . normally we’d never consider using water straight from the tap. . . but preparing soil for seeds is where we’d make our only exception to that rule. . . we like to use warm water to get the soil heated up a lil bit before we plant our seeds. . . . seeds will germ faster in warm soil so this helps give them a jump start. . . the little bit of chlorine that may be in some folk’s tap-water might retard potential mold on the seeds and certainly wont hurt anything. . . finally we should add that underneath these planting flats are a pair of the seedling heat mats often found in garden centers. . . they are fairly expensive and not absolutely necessary and frankly they are of limited use. . . as soon as the seedlings start popping their little heads above ground we will shut them off because we don’t want to “cook” any tender lil roots. . . so at most they will probably only be on for two or three days. . . they may contribute to a slightly faster and slightly higher germ rate so we do go ahead an use them.

003 wetting-down-the-seedbed

at this point. . . with the future home of our seeds warm and moist and all cozy for germination. . . some folks would just push their lil seeds down under the soil a bit and be done. . . and certainly that’ll work. it may even be a lil simpler than what we do. . .

the problem w/ just pushing the seed underground in at least one bird’s mind is potential problems for folks who might have lost some feeling in their extremities due to various chronic illnesses. . . those tiny lil seeds can be hard to feel and once fingers are wet things have a way of sticking to each other. . . if a person pays $50 for a pack of seeds then each bean is $5. . . and we’re not wanting any potential confusion with odd seeds sticking to our fingers. . . so we make lil seed holes. . . . they are slightly smaller in diameter than a pencil and only two or three seed lengths in depth. . . that is our general rule of thumb with lil seeds. . . . 2x or 3x the actual seed depth down into the soil. . . and that works if you are pressing them into the soil our making the little indentations like we use. . . in the next pic you will see the lil holes in the center of each square planter. . . .At this point we’re ready for those lil seeds.

004 lil-seed-holes

15 seeds were carefully dropped into their new homes and are waiting to be tucked in for the night. . . After all the seed were dropped in their soil depressions they were gently covered by the warm moist soil. . . Transparent humidity domes cover our seed beds but not too tightly. . . They are in place to hold warmth and humidity to encourage germination. . . As soon as the plants begin poking above the soil surface we’ll lose the plastic covers and unplug the heating mats.

005 seed-in-the-hole

006 tucked-in

007 Humidity Domes