1st time (**SUCCESSFUL**) grow, ghetto to ghetto-fab before she finished.

Okay, I admit some things: no knowledge as to how to grow before I started, none.

I became a patient not to long ago and figured out that my meds were sucking me dry for money. I was going on vacation two weeks after three clones landed in my lap. My buddy and I came up with a simple solution, he had some cheap walmart grow equipment and he would hold on to the plants while I went and threw a growbox together that HE designed (my first failure). I should have come on this forum and picked up some ideas. I used a plastic rubbermaid and he cut the holes, I assembled the box. The box is to be stealthy... but is still incomplete. Lots of problems...I entered into this too fast without really thinking it through.

Now...The problems:
#1 Problem: HEAT!!!! It's in an improperly ventilated garage. I rigged some ghetto stuff for now but all it is, is a energy waste... Next year... sigh. I bought the property not too long ago and never waited a full year to see what the seasonal issues were...we have wasteful designs all over the place (WHO DESIGNED THESE CRAP HOMES?) I have been working to lower them because I'm midflowering, but they are resistant now. Either way, I don't want airy buds, time to bring it down!!! (98 degrees before I fixed her down to 91 degrees, Tomorrow I put in ice jugs!)
#2 Inexperience: I don't know how many times I said "I think I killed them..." and then watch them bounce back from hell like resilient ninjas on energy drinks. I am puzzeled and astonished. What an intriguing plant.
#3 Safety: I've left for a night after "upgrading" my lights and couldn't sleep because everytime I closed my eyes I'd see my house on fire. Unable to sleep, unable to check if my house was on fire because I'm over a days drive away...sucks. Last night I electrocuted myself 9 times, once it tripped the breaker, don't worry I'm an engineer, I'm used to it. No fires yet. Just missing toes and fingers.
LASTLY #4: Family: Not my family, my extended family. My wife and I don't tell our family members about my health issues and we definately don't talk about my prescriptions. I'm not that old that I have to brag about my meds to my other retirement buddies (Just my younger buddies). We had the in-laws over for about 10 days. I couldn't go check on them when I wanted, I couldn't medicate on my property and had to go on frequent "walks." I had to put my plushberry in a bucket and drop it off out in the wilderness for that time and I know nothing about outdoor growing either so I thought I killed that one too. It was eaten alive by fire ants and critters. It had two "leafs" left, if you could call them that. It's now about to flower now and is completely heathy BTW, don't worry. Anyway, I also live about 15 minutes from my family and they want to come over constantly and see the baby. We schedule weekly visits now at there house. When my parents were babysitting, my dad would snoop into my things and start asking WAYYY too many questions. Sorry, dad, we're on break until you can mature a little. That's the stealth portion coming into play, not because I'm avoiding cops, worse, parents.

Now, on to the show!!!
I started with a 3x3x4 box, with three 23Watts (6500k) over each clone after transplant into rubbermaid filled with foxfarms ocean forest (week1). I later on down the road added splitters to two 23w over each plant (week 3). Then my friend donated his 65w (2700k) for overall performance and they continued to grow (week 5). Added three more into vegging with rest of them (two Vortex and one Plushberry) painted walls white with KILZ2 (week 7). Week 8 I have no idea what I'm in for. They are huge...my friend says "time to flower, they'll double in size during flowering." He didn't know what he was talking about, they've tripled since then but that's okay with me. I paint inside with elastomer paint, WAY better and it keeps humidity in, the KILZ absorbed any and all humidity in growbox causing weakening and minor warping of particle board, do not recommend. I next designed better venting and lighting...I haven't upgraded the venting yet but prototype passed and will be installed once harvest is over. Without further adu... I present, the "Squid!" The Squid is a fully manuvuerable top light system, as to place and direct light where ever needed by the plant, as we know with CFL's, moving around can sometimes be limited to our design, but not anymore, it's not! Comes fully equiped with a shorting feature, so everytime you touch it's metal encasement while it's plugged in you become fully aware of your surroundings (see problem #3), better than any cup of coffee I've ever had in my life! A minor set back, that will be dealt with after this proto-grow, along with all the other problems, as I know I'll have new problems in the winter to fix and must tend to then.

It is currently pumping 430+ watts and is 13-23w(2700k), 2-65w(2700k), I fertilize now with soul synthetics line(low ppm) since early flowering every other watering. Really good for soils! I'm sticking to it! I wonder how fast it would have cut me back on vegging time? We'll find out when my winter projects: 1- agent orange, 1- white widow, 1- BB Indica are all mothers and this grow box becomes a flowering box...aye-yea-yea...who wants clones? They are going to be coming out of my eye balls...I'm going to master LST and air-layering techniques this winter. I'll donate the giant clones to friends just to keep them down.

EDIT: Sorry for the hold up, gentlemen. I needed a server to upload to, this one sucked too much for me.






Stay tuned for harvest of each plant...
Thanks for your viewing! Any questions?


DID I FORGET TO MENTION I AM CRAZY AND EVERYTHING I SAY IS COMPLETELY FICTICIOUS...??? These photos - I stole from the internet somewhere???

Pictures or I don't care.

Foolet said:

Pictures or I don't care.

Click to expand...

One picture could of replaced all those words

One picture could lock you up for life. This is all fairy tales anyways, isn't it??

BUMP due to picture adds. Again, I am sorry for being such a loser... I plucked the bush today, those beautiful giant nitrogen rich leaves were starting to go and were past 50% golden rule, the lower lights are penetrating even deeper up now and those buds are bigger and starting to crystalize. WOOOOWIE...feel free to thumb through the album, not the best pix but they are the worst either. Taken with a Canon 500D.

DID I FORGET TO MENTION I AM CRAZY AND EVERYTHING I SAY IS COMPLETELY FICTICIOUS...??? These photos - I stole from the internet somewhere???

amen bro.. you say you picked some buds today? gonna show us some bullshit pics of that too?? haha.. it doesnt look to bad man. thumbs up

Sorry Unwanted, either you misunderstood me or I wasn't very clear on that last one. No, no buds...yet, I just went through and pruned them, they are massive. Those plants are 6 inches shy of being 4 foot. Like all of them are, as of today. Daily I move those lights ever so slighty up. When I start benefiting from this setup, and my money goes somewhere with it, I'll upgrade to LED, I hate burnt tips due to these lights.

Yeah, again that's 430w. I should be maxed out on lights but incase I need more I'll replace one 23w with a 65w and all will be well. That would be 484w and nearing fire harzard... while it's true that The Squid can handle 325w on her own, I dare not push that on her...I had to re-wire her already to make her handle the 230w pumped into her now. She came originally from Lowes' lighting section and had the capability to run only 125w MAX! Heavier guage wire and lots of force feeding, 3 hours later and The Squid was born. take notes. AC circuits is must-know for any grower. I don't know how many times I had to fix something on the fly or be without lights or something necessary for the photo period...down time minimal. Crack that old textbook, gents.

Well my questions I believe had variable response but I am chosing the way of Zeus and Riddleme(?) https://www.rollitup.org/harvesting-curing/210501-zeuss-take-harvesting.html and https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/409622-truth-about-flushing.html

As I now consider myself a connoisseur of finer bud having access to the best the Pacific Northwest has to offer at local dispensaries, I decided what kind of buds I wanted instead of just letting the plant do it's own thing. I know that different nutes programs will effect that strain slightly different. But how much money was I willing to invest into doing so? Well, I studied for answers to 1)How long should I wait til flushing? and 2)When should I harvest because the "Afghani triplets" by theory were done going off anecdotal advice of 50% amber hairs and what not, you get the drift...well they haven't even started to truly swell, and they are getting the right amounts of everything with little to no nute shock and just almost it seems to be the perfect grow imhumblesto, seriously...Also does it matter so much as to flushing, I'm only at midpoint and with my fertilizer soil, have not even allowed a drop of water to ever leave that container it's in until tonight when I will now start excess salt build up empty from the bottom into a drip container. Again there is no indicator that there is excessive salt build up yet but I have decided to long train the roots to absorb large amounts of aeroated(vegging)&still(flowering) water over time so that these techniques will produce sensational results (in theory) in organic based soil with synthetic fertilizers over it's lifespan (Low salt buildup) But I want to introduce more organic ferts (natural cane vitamin c enriched sugars that will help with carbohydrate production/uptake and I will also put extra low low low concentrations of h2o2 to re-aeroate the lower 'hardpan' to essentially remove it and the salts with it (not that it's entirely necessary) in the last stretch... I want to experiment and ensure great flavor and with my regiment that soil is probably TOO rich with organic salt build up because the still water is now having a hardtime sucking up the syrup water (higher EC/PPM in my natural flood/drain grow [My early intro into hydroponics]. Yes, I am proud of my unconventional grow and you will see that even an inexperienced grower like myself can contribute LOTS by his inadvertent mistakes. I have only seen slower growth from the little plants

I recommend this reading to all growers, especially those consider themselves better than most other growers. Because as I've noted that the more I learn about growing, the more I realize I don't know anything at all, which is absolutely true in all facets of life. If you learned 'all there is to learn' you are full of sh*t and should stop teaching your narrow minded bs to us youngins. Had I cut these plants down this week, I would have held the worst vendetta against most in this forum. I knew when to cut before I even asked the question and got all worried. Trust your instict and learn from your "mistakes!"

Stay tuned for more pictures, I'll take more tonight after drains are installed on my afghanis.

Did I just type all of that???!!! That's weird...I've been known to tell inaccurate stories, but that one takes home the prize! Everything I type is a lie.

Still..... no...... pictures......

Sorry, I get excited and type about her while she's sleeping, can't throw off her photoperiod by taking pictures. I take it no one is a fan of actual reading here?

<a href="http://s1138.photobucket.com/albums/n525/tftx22/?action=view&amp;current=IMG_7074.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n525/tftx22/th_IMG_7074.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" ></a>
full box
<a href="http://s1138.photobucket.com/albums/n525/tftx22/?action=view&amp;current=IMG_7079.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n525/tftx22/th_IMG_7079.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" ></a>
Afghani flowering
<a href="http://s1138.photobucket.com/albums/n525/tftx22/?action=view&amp;current=IMG_7077.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n525/tftx22/th_IMG_7077.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" ></a>
Vortex flowering

Hey tftx, Some of your pictures don't shop up because your photobucket album is private. It might be easier just to upload pictures through RollItUp instead of going through photobucket and then adding them on here, cut out the middle man. From what I see so far it seems like you are doing a good job. I am also a fan of reading and have read A LOT of Riddleme's info. He has a lot of good advice and techniques.

Thanks, Vtec! Hope this works.

Wow you certainly didn't waste any room in that box, that plant is ready to engulf your lights. Your plants look green and healthy, good job

Yeah, thanks. That was the goal! I didn't want to post anything too early. I know I haven't yielded a gram in my life but that is about to change, I've learned so much. I have a couple outdoor plants that aren't anything to gawk at but those were once all dead and brought back (all zombie plants), I'll probably take shots of those but I wasn't proud of any of them until now. I have a plushberry that is only having nitrogen issues but the others were failed DWC attempts that I couldn't resolve so I threw them in soil after "invigorating" their roots with 3.5% H2O2 for twenty minutes a day, their roots survived though and they are all green and much larger.

This thread is about my successes and failures on my first year of growing more or less. I should post those, I didn't journal much but I have very good memory and could answer any questions. Tonight I might do my first attempt at air-layering my winter mothers (Agent Orange, Blueberry Indica, and White Widow). I plan on not *keeping* mother plants due to space and legal quantity of plants, so I have intentions of flowering off the mothers once I air-layer the tops successfully, insuring less stress and more production. This should be another thread but I'll attach pix tonight to this thread and have other's critique my works up until the final plant's harvest for the year.

Update: So these pictures are just an update not much to salivate over yet, but "Tank," The biggest girl is plumping up pretty quickly now. I just wait for signs then blast her with nutes until slight tip burn (earliest signs) anywhere on the plant, her younger sisters are getting huge too...a couple weaks behind each one. Also ~~~~ Take a look at those Vortex in the back literally growing through everything and reaching the top of the box AND STILL GOING!!! I give her light feedings of fertilizers when she needs it and sometimes when I can just tell she will sooner than later I'd like to 'resolve' that so that we don't ride her 'menstral' rollercoaster again and again...If I wait till first sign she takes awhile to bounce back and her condition spreads until I saturate her with love (ferts). This will be the last time I grow such a crazyass plant in this box. Next year vortex can grow outdoors, I can tell she'd really love that and take over my entire garden....GRRR! A couple quick shots of pen-scaled closeup from like a week ago but it was still a cool shot, my maxed out box with it's maxed out electrical on a maxed out circuit (within <=80% of course, don't want a fire hazard *WINK*), and a pic of my water drainage with all the fert salt buildup with my maxed out circuit wires laying in the middle of the murky oily water that reminds me of the slums of India, that only small children would happily play in or adult laborers would be forced to work in...sad...oh well, also check out the p0rN0!!!!!

PS: I started 12/12 over two months ago on all these plants, what's taking them so long? Is it that they flower when they flower and then you start the 'countdown'? They're all clones (fems)! And they still are females, none hermied or anything...Did I do anything wrong (besides the original stated known problems that I can't do anything about now, like individual pots next time)?