Full size cabinet grow 2'x3' interior

Seeds were planted on Christmas, and due to timing / travel they were harvested on Easter. That sort of makes it “Jesus Kush”. It took longer to harvest than expected so I let the Blueberry strain go a few days longer. If it were not for time constraints I would have harvested about 1/2 of the flowers and given the rest more time to add weight… but they would have not had a good nutrient flush so oh well. It turned out good enough.

The buds were all tight and dense, both varieties.
Yield of Kush = 200g trimmed cured and dried.
Yield of BB = 70g trimmed cured dried.
add a little to those numbers for what I have been snacking on (eating raw).

Leaf and trim ~130g

I can't post what I wrote because there is a limit of 10,000 characters.
and the "myrollitup" as referred to is no where to be found.

This was made with a 2’x3’ storage shelf made from 3/4" plywood which was obtained from a business that had gone under. There were 5 of the shelf units, doors were put on two of them to make the cabinets, one of which was converted to grow in. This made it less conspicuous. The one which had the grow in it had a back put on it and was made light proof. Caulking and wood filer were used to fill in gaps. A few of the shelves were cut out. They were not removed completely because maintaining structural integrity was important.
Most electrical and ventilation equipment was kept on the top shelf. A 4” duct fan was used. Can’t remember the name, a German company, their name begins with "O"(?) the fan is white and loud. A carbon filter was constructed using about 10 pounds of activated carbon, mixture of fish store stuff and that used for filtering distilled spirits. At first 100% was recirculated but when the canopy got thick, a vent was added (and a small dehumidifier. A flap at the exhaust from cabinet to the room was placed there, opened at night, closed in the day. Unless I forgot which was common.
CO2 was initially provided manually from a tank. To keep the flow of CO2 more even, sugar / yeast / nutrient water was fermented in 5 gallon cornelieus kegs. It takes about a week to ferment out, so two were used, every 4 days or so a new batch was started. An anti-foaming agent (silicone drops) was used to keep the liquid from foaming out of the kegs. Tubes from the kegs ran into the recirculating air system. The cheap sugar alcohol distilled for fuel / cleaning purposes and could potentially be used to make an alcohol extract from leaves / trim.

The bottom shelf of the cabinet is what holds the reservoir. The shelf above it holds the flood drain table recessed for maximum space in the cabinet.
Flood and drain in bags and square pots. GH three part nutrients, “Photosynthesis Plus” microbes. Fulvic acid and fish emulsion used foliar with fresh eartworm casting juice. Fulvic acid used last five weeks in reservoir... I had forgotten how much it added to tomato crops in recent years. The last four weeks with Aurora’s Infinity and Swell (none above used final week), Aurora’s Peak used last two weeks. A flush with GH FloraKleen started on Good Friday.

Lights were 4 x Vero 29 3500K running at 1050mA. One blurple cob was used in the middle of the fixture. Not sure of the actual wattage, it was claimed at 30W and running at 700mA. Overall they were kept too high above the canopy.
A handful of far red LED’s were added with a frustration of how long it was taking flowering to get going. They were not on a timer but had an alarm set and would go flip the switch on with about a minute of light left, then turned off 5-10 minutes after the lights were out. Most of flowering was then done using 13.5 hour long days.

The girls did more than half of their veg cycle under CFL’s. CFL’s were also used in the last two weeks or so to get more light on the BB plants on the left side of the cabinet. The fixture was slightly centered to the right side.

First attempt at SCROG, and first grow in 15 years. In the past had used large HPS and MH lighting. When the grow was started it was not intended to be SCROG but due to stretch and not flowering as fast as hoped it became obvious it was worth trying.

Some website selling Barney’s seeds had what was probably a typo in that it had listed "8 Ball Kush" as being a low THC / high CBD strain. This is probably incorrect, just a marketing ploy. All of the other sites selling the strain claim it is very high THC 18.5 - 20.+ % with virtually no CBD. Who knows...
All sites selling the strain claim it is 100% Indica from Afghan / Pakistan origin.
Seeds were purchased for medical reasons to treat nerve pain and muscle spasms. This user doesn't enjoy most strains because of anxiety induced by them.
Whatever the case, it is surprisingly enjoyable in the couch lock sense. No paranoia or anxiety. Maybe there was a time when adding some finger hash made from it to a bowl of it there was an incident where laughter at “who flipped the album from side three to side four? , the dog? oh, that’s right, we are watching the song on youtube…
A couple of people have mentioned it is “exactly what I want” (in pot). It relieves joint pain and muscle spasm remarkably well. It’s really the only kind I can tolerate. All of the varieties I’ve tried with a small amount of Sativa result in paranoia and anxiety. All chill.
Everyone is different.
They sent a couple of Blueberry seeds as well. They had some crazy inter node stretch early on and that made me move them to the side to make it easier to manage them. The first picture of plants has them on the right side, they were moved to the left.

Haven’t sampled any of the BB yet, enjoying the Kush.

Yield was surprisingly high given how lazy the grower was. At first didn’t think the LED’s were going to work well. Comparisons to “as good as” HPS isn’t that encouraging. Really, you are just trying to do “as good as?” - not better? Almost ditched the LED's in favor of a 600w HPS and 7,000K HM conversion bulb for veg and the last week, but decided to stick with it... plus the work of venting a hood and lazy factor
No plans to try growing anything other than food in the cabinet, lettuce, etc. but based on experience would say if one is growing herb, go ahead and get the far red led’s and use them at lights out time for 5-10 minutes. One bar used in this “cabinet grow” but would make two. May consider some 10,000K / UVB light for last two weeks of flowering.
The bar was placed in the back of the cabinet and it didn’t reach the flowers at the front of the cabinet, especially those tied to the canopy and under leaves. There is a photo of a branch which was treated to go hermaphrodite for pollen collection. It did not get long enough of a night cycle to product until the last week. A red florescent placed next to the branch didn't seem to help. Eventually the red light bar was moved and used at lights-out to help the little guy finish off.

The lack of green in the dried herb is due to the experimental curing method made necessary. Had to leave town a week after harvest. Since everything was so dense there was a serious concern about mold destroying everything when away for a week. That plus the issue of odor.
No idea if the following really works, but it’s what was done.
By the weekend after Easter, everything had been trimmed and placed in mason jars. The jars were stored warm, in the upper 90’s F for three days in an attempt to hurry the breakdown of chlorophyl. Wrapped in a heating pad, then the jars had lids loosened and spent one day in a box with a blanket over it. That’s where it got it’s brown. For the week away traveling, a screen was put on one of the shelves with all of the trimmed buds removed from jars and placed on the screen. The recirculating carbon filter kept enough air moving to make it dry faster and control odor. Upon returning, the screen was moved outdoors where it was very damp with fog in morning and temps below dew point every night. The buds quickly absorbed moisture back over three days. They were loaded into mason jars once again but this time with a paper towel in place of the jar “lid” so they could breath and an eye could be kept on them for fungus. They remained in the jars for an additional two weeks before being removed, weighed and placed in new jars with real lids. They will be purged with inert gas then refrigerated. (Is the inert gas a bad idea? The buds are dry.)
The pictures will appear in order. You can see towards the end - the last week - fan leaves were removed first. Then the Kush harvested first, starting in the middle working to the right. The BB harvested last.

Other notes… when the canopy / chicken wire became dense humidity shot way up and mold became a concern. A small dehumidifier is visible in one of the last pictures which would remove a cup of water from the air per day. There is one fan under the canopy, two fans above it, plus the recirculation fan. Note return air was made to be pushed across the canopy through the piece of 3” PVC. The rest of the carbon filter / fan was heavy padded with home - made mufflers which worked great! Since there wasn’t enough room on the top shelf for one long muffler, a box was built (second and third photo’s?) and insulated. It made the 90 degree turn tighter than possible with fittings and had additional sound insulating properties as well. It worked out great but without the dehumidifier it probably would have clogged with moisture. Made decision to vent outside the cabinet at night a 4” PVC tube was placed on top of the cabinet. Inside of it was a UVA light which generates a small amount of ozone. This may have helped odor management some…

Also used Ona Pro block and gel - not in cabinet, but across the room. Oust odor eliminator spray helped if keep a cabinet door open, for trimming, etc.

No issues with corrosion between the copper and the aluminum. It wouldn't be cheap, but had it as scrap. It was warm to touch but never got hot. There was a lot of air movement and part of the air return system was directed towards the fixture.

Maybe there is something to be learned from mistakes made or you can see room for improvements. A built in fire extinguisher would be a good idea.
Draining the resivoir was difficult to do discreetly because of height and since the flood trays were lowered it was not possible to slide it out for a 100% drain.
Thanks to those who answered questions about setting up Vero 29’s.
…And now for the gratuitous herbal pictures

will try a few at a time...

apologies for orientation of some... thought i had it

next ten, should be through the training into screen and into the ripening stuff

ok, saw some ripening in the previews...

hope that worked...

Sorry didn't read all of it but nice job man, great harvest.

Nice work. I can definitely appreciate a well worded and completely coherent post every now and then. Good job.
My only criticism would be purely my personal preference. I like to have the ability to crank up my drivers and really saturate the canopy with light. I'd probably pop in 2 more Vero29 chips at 1050ma or maybe 6 of the V18 chips at 350ma or 500ma. I don't like any "dark" spots in my cabinets... again, just opinion.
You obviously have a pretty good handle on things.

Kevin the Great said:

I'd probably pop in 2 more Vero29 chips at 1050ma or maybe 6 of the V18 chips at 350ma or 500ma. I don't like any "dark" spots in my cabinets... again, just opinion.
You obviously have a pretty good handle on things.

Click to expand...

Just posting a first experience with these methods so others would think and share ideas for improvement. Went over budget and was unsure how this would work out. Had my doubts and almost went to hot HID lights.
Overall, results were pretty good.
If tried again it would be for quality over quantity since this is a higher amount of medicine than planned. Not selling it so no motivation for that end.
The yield numbers were a little fudged. Found a couple more bags of leaves during recent cleanup. More importantly, that hermaphrodite branch had some spewage that wasn't noticed at first. An old trick to put on weight was to introduce pollen the last week. The buds would think they were pregnant so would start producing a lot more resin. Lots of goopy tricomes to protect their wombs. They were probably starting to put on internal seed weight but one could not see evidence from breaking buds apart. Sure, it is a cheat if growing for weight. At what point does it start to make a negative effect, don't know... I grew up with seeded herb, that's the only way it came. With the leakage of pollen this time, some seeds had started to form. Nothing that would ever germinate, but if selling the product one would be an issue.