Orient Express & more from the Buddhist Arc

Hi my friend! The worms eat and poop our precious flower.Where there is a bite or poop there is mold formed.Yes,with careful removal you could very well save a whole top.Wish you luck,but I think no worries now you got the bt.

I have cleaned out most of the rot and what I did was tape over the cut stems.


The worm cycle appears to be declining, but I will still go back with the Bt as long as I see moths around. Here...I may have said this last year, but sometimes driving at night, in the headlights, they look like a blizzard.


Next major challenge is hurricane and storms are one situation where container gardening has some options. Everyone will probably have to go in the barn for at least a day...there is some chance of it stalling and delivering a foot or more of water over several days. And that barn isn't exactly windproof...filtered light with plenty of holes in it. So we'll have to watch how strong the winds are going to be in case the barn's not going to be protective enough. It's likely to knock out the power for who knows how long.

Not too far down the road, not much is left of any kind.


I have been impressed with the barn's ability as a wind break, but at the same time, the light is so poor that it could be called a hermie stress test.


Although the destruction here is somewhat modest, constant rain may be a bit much for container plants, and of course the wetter they get, the worse the wind would be. I'm only guessing that a few days of poor light is a safer bet than being in the storm. With the system deflecting in an unusual manner, it is lasting longer than most.

The barn flooded so I had to prop things up. Rained so much that the ground is saturated and it just puddles up then flows where it can. Shouldn't be as bad tomorrow so hopefully we can go back outside and finish.


Genetically, all of these strains can flop out satisfying forearm-sized colas, but with the overcrowding and the worm loss, they don't all look the part any more. I think each kind took some damage but each still has some worth saving.


After trying some of the extra bits I snipped, so far it seems to read like a book. The parts that weren't sticky didn't do much. The ones that were, seem to have the legs for where they're going--Nemesis is still pretty much Nemesis. The Thai smelled like Mekong but lacked any stoned-ness and seems like it will be more like an Orient Express or something very light and up. Then another piece which I'm not sure was Himalayan or Krystalica was a bit on the heavy side.


Even considering those samples to be unripe, then our usual source of mid grade commercial gave us a bag very dried out with a bunch of stems where most of the good stuff was picked off, and it was a lot like the buzz from the non-sticky tiny flowers: not sure it was a buzz at all. So even an immature early harvest would be as good or better than the stuff we could buy. It's usually among the least impressive indoor grows anyway; outdoor sativas are the cat's meow so far.

I couldn't get Humpty together again.


It turns out that mold likes a dark flood better than cannabis. That's what mostly grew, although the one wispy Bhutanese tried to fatten up, at first it looked like millions of hermie parts, but it was just all her new growth was yellow. Turning green now.


I couldn't quite get everyone back where they belong, and, in the struggle, broke two good branches off of Nemesis, at what looks exactly like the "two weeks more" point. It had maybe half withered pistils and a minority of cloudy trics. Because the plant was waterlogged and exposed to mold, I broke down the branches a little extra and am trying to quick dry most of it. Usually we try not to water on the last few days, instead of sitting in a puddle.



The main Bhutanese is an octopus and, I decided to give a few plants more space instead of slamming all back together tightly, which means some are now stuffed in a bush exposed to animals. I will likely start pulling the three Thai from the poor containers, they ripened rather rapidly and have majority of withered pistils and a fair amount of cloudy trics, even a few amber. Because these ripened early, I believe they were especially attractive to worms, so what I have is a few accelerated plants half slashed up with loss.


Even as early sacrifices, the safe bits are incredibly gummy, and, I think, about as potent as the mid grade hydro we usually smoke, but in a different way that I personally like better. I'd rather taste the chlorophyll than smoke the commercial. The ones in better containers are not accelerated, so we can keep a few going. If the basic early buzz gets a little stronger, I would call it awesome. I wouldn't say it really has character or any mind-bending nature (yet), but is good in the uplifting way. In fact, let's grab some and re-assess.


...yes, people of Thailand thank you for the opportunity to find that a hatchet job on your weed works out better than a lot of what we could buy...

So far, the Nemesis or her two lower branches were not much to speak of. That's from starting with the fuzziest thread-like mini-flowers that dry almost instantly. Starting to move up the branch now, there's a little bit of something better to it. None of it was sticky or ready.


Finally, the Bhutanese has set her resin and started shedding leaves, so everyone is in the home stretch it looks like. So I axed a couple Thai from the bad containers, which I'm convinced made them bolt and ripen ahead of the others. Consolation prize here, sort of.

I went outside yesterday and got rained on a bit; so, I decided to come in and check the weather report, as I hadn't looked in a few days since it's been rather idyllic.


It said: get down. Storm with 60mph winds and hail approaching.


So I looked out the window, and it was raining, just like they said. And, although relatively brief, it looked more powerful than the hurricane.


Afterwards I found a bunch of floppies hanging upside down, and it broke the Nemesis, right where I broke it. When I tore the branch, it shucked a couple inches from the outer layer of stem, and the storm ripped this into a mostly vertical gash split through the majority of the stem. I have tried to splint it, but it's not hanging on by much.


There is at least one more, not exactly break, but deep crimp on branches of other things.


In any case, that's what can happen, if you don't watch the weather reports, they deliver it when you try to catch up.


With a few unfortunately early samples of Krystalica, I'd say it has a refreshing kind of scent, not specifically mint, fruit, or flowers, but all together in some sort of herbal tea you can't define. Probably similar effect to OE and Thai with a bit of, not exactly an eye buzz, but maybe a ski mask. Yarn.

That Nemesis isn't showing any shock, it hasn't lost pressure, and it's definitely not expired. I feel skittish about it, but, maybe it can keep going.


Like most people, I am looking at multiple stuffs which, from their own proper development, are getting into close range with withered pistils and cloudy trics, stalks without leaves. We hope this is the point from "early sample" to something more powerful and longer lasting.


The thing is.


Well, I checked, and we still have the same closet I used last year to hang plants. But this dusty cabinet has room for two, and perhaps, only one, plant, and in some cases will not be able to contain these. So I can't say "Let's cut four Himalayas today". It will have to be staggered, continuous, and continuously staggered.


The earliest one last year was around 10/15 however, those can be shown to have been about two weeks off their normal course due to immaturity. So if you knock off those two weeks, and then add one, because, nothing is quite as fast as Sexbud, then the reverse math almost works with the estimate. At this point it would have to be called that they have completed eight weeks of flowering, in terms of getting pistils, having started at the start of August. So that's at least eight weeks, but, even visually, it does appear to have a peak harvest window determined by the time of year.


In order to know this, it would seem to make sense to take plant X and chop at week 9, 10, and 11, and then plant Y at 11, 12, 13. It's about the only justification from this over crowded run, tuning the timing.

I went to start chopping but, they're having a European morning today, with fog from London and rain from a nimbus cloud.


This has got everyone looking all new growth-y and I couldn't do it with them soaked. But this is just to get the last from the bad container and proceed with the scraggliest, most beat up ones. So I will probably try to get a few plant pics and maybe some colas or stash. But not everything is very photo worthy and I am probably not trying to make twenty individual descriptions either.


And also in the shuffle I have gotten some stuff pretty badly mixed up, well Thai and Himalaya anyway. Most of them flower fairly similarly to indica, the Bhutanese is the only one you'd call fluffy and foxtailed. Originally I could see Himalaya because I had bent the stems, but later on when the plants' own weight flops them around, it's no longer obvious. If it cannot be determined nasally, there's no other way.

We had a doozy.


What that means is another gale worse than the last one. This one mostly shredded another Nemesis and broke a main stalk from a Bhutanese.


According to the directions, Nemesis should be ready now, but I do not think so. It is close but this pile of branches is still not quite where I would want it. The plant is mostly still green enough that it probably could live another month. This poor thing is now like a single stem with a bunch of broken nubs.


There was a medium size piece of Bhutanese that didn't quite break last time, but, it didn't make it, I removed it but has a very died-on-the-plant look. Between these two main Bhutanese, one has budded pretty full for this kind of plant, but the one just broken is a bit more wild or jungli so, whereas it has a lot of bud sites and they all get pretty big, they are extremely aerial. This is already almost dry enough to smoke. The Nemesis pieces almost felt like they were still alive.


I hope this is the end of culling things too soon. I believe this current batch of, eh, early samples will be a little better than the ones two weeks ago, but still, hopefully from here we can pick by choice instead of force.

In attempting to undo the knots of plants caused by the wind, it turns out the breakage was double the ones that were easy to find. It took one of the biggest stalks of Bhutanese. In terms of yield, it looks like this plant is very good. There is some fluff, but it has a satisfying cola plus about ten sub-branches with good tops. It was the last to start ripening, but at least it picked up a bit of the Mekong type scent, so, that stuff might be ok.


The rest of everything just looks like a patch of rotor wash.


Almost all of the growth leaves are gone and so plant cycles are over, regardless of trichome color, so we have to ignore that. Due to force of circumstances, I probably have to cut two plants every two days in a way that is more like saving surviving pieces from death and destruction.


If I was going to respond to the gales ahead of time, there needs to not be twenty plants rigged up with twine like a spider web. That is too major of a deal to move quickly. We need to grow fewer for multiple reasons. Start to emphasize yield and heed the caterpillars and storms. Maybe run some autos in the spring since they would be done before crowding becomes an issue.


It would be nice to do this some other way but, it's pretty much guerilla growing close to home. I've pretty successfully prevented animal incursions but that's about it.

The only drawback to the Bhutanese is it seems to have weak stems.


So the first Nemesis that got broken still looks ok. But this is because I was able to stake it. The ten or so branches that have been broken since then I just cut off, but along with those were other pieces that just got folded or crimped.


That really big Bhutanese had four tops, so I cut the broken one, and there was another one that got folded over. With this and a few other pieces, I attempted to splint them, but, I didn't do very good at that. So the top fell over again and expired rapidly, faster than the small branch that did the same thing. Overnight it went from salvageable to brownish, yellow, and shrunken. I call that dead. I don't think you can prop it up any more and bring it back. So I cut that one too. But I would say other strains that fold do not necessarily die, or don't die that fast, so, although anything could get bent by the wind, the Bhutanese may be a little weak in surviving it.


Cooler night temps slapped some purple to Krystalica.


Now that we're down to the appropriate number of plants for the space, there is nothing left intact. Closest thing is one Nemesis with 30% of the tops gouged out from caterpillars. Everything else is broken and/or chewed up more. So I don't have a single good looking plant. So in the end, running twice too many plants only brings about as much as the right number, if they were intact. Instead of extra harvest--arguably, from now forward--we got like a 50% bonus of early samples.


Mid-October does look like finishing time for most of it; with the Bhutanese, I would be prone to say end of the month. It doesn't seem equatorial like it would take forever at all. At least in form and appearance, this one totally has the thin/pinnate/foxtailish SE Asian style, but, at least with the sun, done within 2-3 weeks of others. November seems neither desirable, nor like it would keep going that long.


Even in decent containers, form wise, I cannot really tell a difference between the Thai and the indica hybrids. That may seem sketchy, but, at least off the samples I get no indica buzz.


I cannot find my nice Italian jar and already filled two other ones and this is a totally different issue related to too many blankets.

I was going to bug someone about maybe whether they didn't rinse out the detergent the last time after using a jar.


Instead I went back and looked it up and it says main flavor to Bhutanese is lemon mint. So I guess that's supposed to be there. It was not noticeable on the plant itself or at first but, after a few days and getting sealed, it's there.


I found that big Italian one and the Nemesis filled it and kept going.


I took a few small bits of Krystalica and they say this may be strawberry and I think so, and, here again, only after drying. From trying a few puffs, it could legitimately be "relaxing sativa", kind of a toned-down Sexbud. It lacks that unique grapefruit seed oil brain polish, but it carries something of the muscle relaxer. Nothing spacey or swoopy. Lucid. This probably will turn out to be one of the nice mediums that's not really stimulating or narcotic.


The Nemesis conformed perfectly well to the growth plan, and that tree is the definition of something that did not. I figured it was a male for being so tall and it just kept going until I broke the root, and the result is, it made a candelabra shape, six feet off the ground. So its height went to total waste. You could easily make one shorter yield more.

In breaking up the tree branches, Krystalica really has no berry scent upon the plant, I would call it closer to Afghan. I'm not that good with the scents, there may be better names, but so far I think there is an "earthy musky" SE Asian that's not exactly rubber, but oily and roasted, and on the other side of the spectrum is an "earthy musky" Afghan that's a bit more disgusting and closer to vomit. Maybe someone has better words for these, but, as a broad generalization, that's how it seems to me.


Using special perceptual methods, I was able to identify the thing that came with it as Himalayan. She seems really close to her mom. The Nemesis seems close to her mom too, even with the pretty bluish green tint, but the OE might have made her buds a bit fluffier. So far the Himalayan is a straight copy with a vague floral scent and a certain kind of pristine beauty when first picked. Doesn't really look special when dried, and of course most cannabis flowers are pretty...maybe this one is worth fresh cut photos. It's what I would want if there was such a thing as "florist of weed".


Maybe someday that can be an industry for excess cannabis.


So far it's the one I would want to keep for indica effect. The other night I had a bowl of the commercial hydro indica and got the nod offs really bad. Managed to shake it and smoked Bhutanese and was not tired at all. Like the early Thai it said "I need a couple weeks to get more potent". The run should probably be something like four Himalayas and about eight sativas.


I have mostly been smoking early Thai rather than hydro by preference. It added "something" to the SE Asian scent, not sure what. Although I hope the later batches get better, strangely, although the bud did come out with more of an indica style mass, this is not even as stony as the Mekong. It's going in a good direction but we'll have to see if it gets there. These were stressed plants. I'd still rather have this off peak than the same presumably cloned indoor stuff.

Going to take the Nemesis tomorrow at least the two broken ones. They're interesting because one was broken at the base over a month ago and was staked, and the other is topless--it's just a base with a couple of bottom branches which happen to be good because the plant was hand fashioned and because it is Nemesis. Neither one of them is stressed. Got mangled and kept right on going.


One of the Bhutanese simply did not dominate and stayed about the size of the hybrids, but it too has foxtailed but clumpy buds, just like in their picture. So two of them have turned out this way and the third that's wispy might have seeds.


Things dry fast here and mostly I have been packing it away and if I can keep my fingers out of it maybe some of it will actually cure.

Everyone is finished.


I snagged a few quick dry bits of newer ones. I went to try some Krystalica and it didn't take much since I got high before I hit it.


We'll have to check back with that one because I think there has to be some kind of rule that says you have to take the toke before you get the effect.


So this Bhutanese lemon grass. Here we seem to have one to the head with little to no body effect. It doesn't have Sexbud's brain polish, so, it is probably a little more like what I am used to as cannabis. I would not be surprised if the heavier pieces with a better cure might be disorienting or flighty. It doesn't seem to have the "centered-ness" of Orient Express; perhaps it is more ethereal. Very nice actually.

So far I have personally just been working on the lower grades of stuff.

In terms of yield, even with the major losses, it's more than last year. We got a gallon of Krystalica. This is determined by the new "unit", which is a lidded pitcher lined with parchment. Seems to work fine. That turns out to be the choice of my indica-favoring companions. It's a bit smelly, they tried to call it skunk, due to a limited vocabulary about these things. You and I know it's not, it does have some kind of a scent, which, I could agree that when you break it up might be strawberry.

It is an indica hybrid and you can definitely tell, if you were trying to get pure sativa, this is not it. But to me at least it does not have the more Afghani style of purely sinking or very heavy. It is rather sedative, and perhaps borderline drowsy, but I would have to say it's solidly relaxing without being heavily stoned.

I mean, it's not two toke weed in the sense of hit it and you're gone, but usually by the time I get two or three my hands just stop moving the bowl around. It's potently calming with enough sativa that doesn't really shine on its own, but I think centers it more towards the shoulders and up.

So far I have not been particularly impressed by the mixed plants. They lost their identity. Nemesis was a ride like a limousine or a hot air balloon or something I've never been on, and I haven't found that. The Himalayan was a bit heavier and blissful and that seems to be thinned out. Again, this is kind of going by scraps, I tried to split out some of the better pieces to give them a long cure. If it still turns out to be a pile of somewhat bland and generic weed, then that's what happens.

I believe Nemesis probably is a good breeding stock in that it will retain a condensed indica format of growing, which has no problem letting some sativa effect into its flowers. I'm just not convinced OE is an especially good thing to put into it. Probably something else from around India or Nepal or Bhutan would go better.

I might give a nod towards considering the Bhutanese for a stable strain. It works on a fast run, don't need to start it until June and it will still make a large, fairly generous beast of a plant. It doesn't call for an eonic flowering period, 2-3 weeks additional is probably good. Directly in ground, it would probably survive well into November and start risking frost here, but the container version will be reaching its end around the beginning of the month.

It's a light feeling without being spacey or going insane. If I wanted the "challenge my functions" kind of weed, this is not it. So maybe similar to OE but instead of being "centered" it's more "evenly distributed". This is mostly judging by a quick dried bag of the wispy plant.

I guess in terms of trying new strains, to most people, Thai is acceptable and Krystalica is preferred. Bhutanese is of no interest if pot=indica in someone's apetite. I like it. Smoke a little more and it's slightly creeper or slow wave and more high than heavy.

Out of papers and a broken bong

In trying to evaluate weeds, I guess I become a toke-ist.

What I mean by that is, in the case of resin gobbage, or a too tight joint, if the hit is choked and you have to struggle to get it, you can't just smoke more or something, you just don't really get the same high at all.

Having been broke for a few years, all the change I could scrape has gone into acquiring these seeds. Yeah, sad to say, I can't even get some rolling papers. And my bowls are so old as to be nothing but like a bag of wet cement.

We found a fast, effective cleaner is to boil them along with concentrated dish detergent. But who wants to do that whenever you go to light up. You just want to clear the ash and repack.

My personal favorite method was a steamroller, but not packing it, using it as a joint holder. Loved that thing. Knocked it off the table and it made the prettiest shattering sound I ever heard, kind of like flute music mixed with wind chimes.

So, I'm in not position to replace it. However, a while back, I think someone gave us a glass bong. Just medium size, perfect to hold in one hand, and the bottom is very thick, well-weighted, it feels really nice, great furniture.

But I don't personally care for bongs that much, because I am a toke-ist, and the surface tension of the water completely governs how you can draw.

It had one of those bowls you withdraw, on a tube. And since the bong is not very big, the tube was sort of small. So it gobs up relatively easily and of course you just ram wire through it. Over time the situation deteriorates until you snap half the tube off.

And that tube was small and thin, because it was in a sleeve. So the sleeve is fine, and once you get rid of the bowl and the water, then the bong is great, pretty close to a steamroller.

Being old school, we still had a few of those brass pieces laying around. And you ram wire through brass pieces all the time because they don't snap like glass. This situation also degrades over time, and it can get vulcanized so much that it crumbles. So I unscrewed the brass bowl and stuck it into the bong's opening. The resin in the sleeve seats it and it runs like a racehorse. Still out of papers though. It's a double improvement on both the originals anyway.

I finally got some papers. It was one paper which was every single one in the pack because they were all stuck together and there was not a usable glue strip anywhere.

So I just fought it out with the broken bong, squeezed out a ping pong ball of black goo, and boiled it again. I had some periods of abstinence and heavy periods trying to see what could cut through another buzz or something.

Overall I found myself turning to the Nemesis and Bhutanese. Probably safe to say that the entire harvest included some outright garbage that didn't really do anything, but fortunately that changes when you get to the good part.

The better part of the Nemesis actually is something like its original. It carries the same kind of broad, swooping float, but without a sort of electrified-ness that was distinct in the original. Seemed to be a pretty good yielder. Probably a good choice for intentional breeding.

Krystalica isn't bad, but, in a "favorites" hunt, it loses to Bhutanese. White Bhutanese has remained light feeling and just a better version of the early parts. Whole bunch of it left too.

So far I'm not sure if I've found any of the Himalayan much better than generic and anything like it was. Some of the Wild Thai is good, but it hasn't quite got to that "come home" moment like Bhutanese. We'll see.

There have been a very few seeds which would make Random Stable Male = Thai, Himalayan, or Krystalica. If so, we could try growing some:

White Bhutanese x Stable
Nemesis Express x Stable

Seeds are still like their moms. Bhutanese are not quite as tiny as Indonesian, but pretty small. Nemesis is bigger and usually mottled. Although those would be full of unknowns, they may work better than the southeast Asian seeds left from the first year. Not sure yet.

The papers are in.

Not the hemp kind I actually like, just some regular single wides. For the same kind of joints that the main weed I grew up on would burn for ten minutes.

Nemesis is fail. The dang stuff is still chunky and gooey and just won't burn right. It still breaks up in beads like the original plant, but it's a darker reddish brown from the OE mix. So, into the bowl you go.

Bhutanese is the opposite. At least these first two plants dried to where it's about as crumbly as tobacco. Even so, it is not quite the fastest burning thing ever. Breaking it up gets a bit of the rubbery or gutta percha scent like Mekong High, which, to me, is what cannabis smells like. Three or four tokes in and the jay is totally sleared with blond resin. I guess it may have enough lemon undertone to where it's no longer lemony, but it's not as heavy and thick as Mekong. For general joint purposes, this is practically perfect, fingertips disperse it in seconds with little difficulty of sticks mixing in.

Wild Thai burns with the almost identical heavy roasted thickness of Mekong but it lacks any of the heavy stone. I'm just not sure I can give it any characteristics. That's not necessarily a drawback. I just can't figure out what to call it other than weed without much body or sleepy effect.

I grabbed the pitcher of Krystalica but can't say yet cause I was baked when I tried it for looks, and, what it looks like, as if it is bleeding or something. All three of these kinds are about as dry as autumn leaves but the joints burn right and they all dye the paper pretty seriously.

So far I still find the Bhutanese has a lot to offer, I like the ethereal, evenly-distributed clarity, and it's pretty much on the mild and pleasant side, uplifting. You can get a big plant if sown in June that has not got a rigid requirement for an outrageous flowering time. Because mine were in containers, I don't think they would have lived much longer if I wanted them to. So it does all that and works in a way I like.

In the long run, I would try to pair it with a warm fuzzy body-effecting weed, but I believe it has a niche for now.

Nemesis is probably a good stock for making some kind of hybrid; if so, I think it could benefit from something else added to it.