250w HPS in an entertainment center - Multi strain grow

Good morning folks! I'm just about finished with my fourth grow cycle, and am excited to start the next with some good genetics!

My first grow was two tiny plants in the patio, that was a fun one that netted me about 2 grams.


The second batch was pretty similar, but started outside and then moved inside under CFLs. It got me about 15 grams.



The next time I started a few plants, got them halfway through flowering, and then let them dry out and get fried when I was on vacation. They still sorta smoked, so it wasn't a total loss.



I've put a bunch of time into my cabinet, and I'm relatively happy with how it works so far overall. Here's my garden space:



It used to be a TV cabinet - I separated the space into a small vegging area in the bottom left, and flowering on the right. The cabinet is almost all the way done, more so than in the picture. I finished running the ducting out the back of the cabinet. The only thing I really need to do soon is to vent and add fans to the veg chamber.

This current batch is where I really started trying different things, as you can tell by how the plants look. The seeds were all started around April 10th. These were all started right in at 12/12 under the 250w light.

April 18


June 7


This girl just shot straight up to the light - I trimmed all of the bottom growth but there wasn't much at all. When she got too tall I bent her over, then she popped back up, so I bent her over again, and then again a third time. She's behaving pretty well now but I'm sure I've stressed her. Next time I'll think my bend through a little more to make sure I choose the right angle, and then I'll tie her down for a few days to keep her there, hopefully finding success with the first bend. I can likely avoid the need for this type of thing by keeping my plants shorter, probably by moving the plant closer to the light.


It's all bag seed, except for this little guy that I started the other day:



This is Sour Lemon OG that a buddy gave me - ~10 days ago I put this little guy under the 250w HPS at 12/12 lighting - It had been under ~80w of CFLs at 18/6 for a few weeks prior. I chopped it's head off above the 2nd node when I put it into 12/12, and a couple days ago I topped each of the new main stems. I'm trying to get 4 main colas with this plant. I'm curious to see how much growth the plant will have before it starts pushing daisies! The roots are growing pretty aggressively in the ocean forest soil. It's neat to have clear pots, I can see the roots hitting the sides and working their way down. I want to switch to all fabric pots soon, it seems like there's a lot of benefit to be had. I have a 7 gallon smart pot ready, but that's not for these - that's for the GOOD seeds

I also topped the three Sour Lemon OG plants that are still in the veg box. They are the same age as the one above, which is crazy since they're so teeny tiny. They were at 5-6 nodes each prior to topping - having the CFL bulbs close to the plants seems to keep the internodes nice and tight together. I think I'm going to make a few light stands that I can set in the flowering room in between plants for some low/inside supplemental lighting.



E: I'm at 8-9 weeks in to flowering for most of the babies!

Thanks for reading - Feel free to comment and talk shit, this is my new favorite hobby and I can't get enough!

I've been growing a bunch of plants in small containers and I want to try growing a single plant in a large container. I want to veg the plant for a month or so under my CFLs, and then get it into the 7 gallon smart pot. 7 gallons may be too large but I'm ready to find out! I'll be using straight Ocean Forest soil, and I'm currently experimenting with main-lining, I want to see if that would work well in my situation, where I only have a couple of feet between the lights and the growing medium.

Here are the strains I have available - What do you guys think would do best in a 7 gallon container in a closet like mine?

• 5x Urban Poison Fem - Sativa dominant (Nirvana Seeds)
• 5x White Castle Fem - Indica dominant (Nirvana Seeds)
• 2x Mango Skunk Freebie (Nirvana Seeds)
• 1x Russian Doll (Muñeka Rusa) Fem - Sativa dominant (Kannabia Seeds)
• 1x Mataro Blue CBD Fem - Indica dominant (Kannabia Seeds)
• 2x Kritical-K Fem - Freebie (Kannabia Seeds)
• 1x Afrodite - Freebie (Kannabia Seeds)

I have some Cherry Pie seeds from some decent bud*, and I also have a TON of the Sour Lemon OG seeds but I don't know anything about them other than the strain. I'm currently growing a couple of these.

*I'm stoked to find seeds in my bud, as long as it's good bud, but does that mean it was probably grown in some gigantic automated grow in Mexico or something? Where they don't have the manpower to check for males?

The more I read about/hear about growing weed the more I think that a 7 gallon container might be TOO overkill. Opinions?

My new fav hobby as well. Great job on the cabinet.
I think 7g is way too much for that space. The time needed to veg it out in a container that size and then flip it...it would be like this growing entity...in your entertainment Centre.
or
About a pound.

I think I might divide the 7 gallon container down the middle with a sheet of plastic or something, and have two plants share the container. I've built a lazy susan for the pot to sit on so that I can rotate it easily once it's in place under the lights. Two plants, each trained to half of the container, running around the sides with 4 colas each. I'd definitely need to veg the plants for a while to get the structure I'd want. I thought about 3 plants, as each would have over 2 gallons of soil.

I'm currently waiting very impatiently for my flowering plants to finish. Seems like they just keep growing white pistils and I want them to stop

I found a small thrip infestation on a couple of my plants - I'm blasted those little fuckers with spinosad last night, and I'll add neem oil and/or azamax to my normal rotation going forward. I read a few weeks ago to start treating plants preemptively, but it took an infestation to get me moving I'd been noticing spots on my leaves for quite a while, along with what looked like nutrient burn but I now think it was the thrips. There's a bit of silvering on a few of the leaves, and many are crispy to the touch. These little assholes suck the juices out of the leaves, but apparently they leave the buds alone for the most part? I thought it was nutrient burn at first but I definitely need to be paying more attention and reacting to things faster. So I guess I'm saying if you haven't had any bug problems yet, you might as well start trying to prevent them anyway.

Here's one of the little creeps, prior to being inundated with spinosad.

I also found seeds growing on a couple of my plants, but I'm going to finish them out anyway. I'd rather have a bunch of weed with seeds in it than none.

Here's a picture of some seeds - about a third of the way up on the right, under the curling leaf.



Here's the baby that I topped and put in to 12/12 about 20 days ago. It's looking good so far, almost ready to show sex - I sure am hoping for some little white hairs!

mattman998 said:

The more I read about/hear about growing weed the more I think that a 7 gallon container might be TOO overkill. Opinions?

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The only time I use 5+ gallon pots is when I'm using at least a 400 watt mh/hps. Or a lot of pig talez. Lol.. Imo. Its overkill in a small closet like yours. If you can, get a switchable 400 watter then consider a big air pot

farmerfischer said:

The only time I use 5+ gallon pots is when I'm using at least a 400 watt mh/hps. Or a lot of pig talez. Lol.. Imo. Its overkill in a small closet like yours. If you can, get a switchable 400 watter then consider a big air pot

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I've considered switching to a 400w but I already have a sorta hard time keeping my heat low. It runs 75-81° regularly, with a spike to 85° here and there. That's with a 6" in-line fan coming off of the light and a few little fans moving air around, and the door open

I'm going to get some 1 gallon smart pots to start plants, and then try some 2 or 3 gallons for flowering maybe. I think I want to keep 3-5 plants going all the time so I have a perpetual harvest, and that size seems to make a lot more sense than going huge. I'll look in to airpots, I like that they are a little more sturdy than the fabric pots.

Thanks for your input, I appreciate it.

I grew in small areas a lot, I'm thinking your plants would love at least another 250 cfl( warm) with some small 45s hanging for sup light in the dark areas

This plant is my favorite




The buds are beautifully sized and it's just covered in pistils. Not a lot of trichomes though. I think I probably cooked a lot of them off when it was over 100° in there

I have some 1, 2 and 3 gallon smart pots coming soon, along with another 300w led that I'm going to set up in the kitchen area for vegetables and herbs! I have a pepper growing in here with my babies, it will be nice to kick it the heck out and get some space back!! Jalapenos are too cheap to be taking up my square footage. I was thinking of keeping a garlic and/or cilantro plant growing in with one of my cannabis plants as a pest deterrent.

I harvested this guy a couple of days ago - The trichomes at the center of the plant were ready, but it was still fox tailing like crazy. I decided to harvest based on the inner buds. This plant was really leggy to start, probably because I started it at the bottom of the grow cabinet, as far from the light as possible. The whole plant ran horizontally under the light, which I thought was a good idea, but it left the bottom half of the buds with zero love from the HPS. All of the buds are pretty airy and light. This will probably be a batch for baking with.


I also harvested this one - It has seeds all over, and some actually seem to be done growing, as they are hard and fall off of the plant when shaken. I decided that it wasn't worth exposing my new females to the hermie. One plant just started flowering a couple of days ago so I'm hoping I wasn't too late pulling this one. This is the first plant that I've trimmed that left some scissor hash behind. The trichomes aren't ready but I'm going to smoke it any way and see what happens.


Lots of seeds, running the whole range from bright green babies to dark brown and mature. I'm going to save a couple seeds for future science experiments, though I doubt they're worth any real time.


I think this plant is still fox tailing as well, though the trichomes aren't ready. I'll give this some more time, as I don't see any signs of seeding or anything like that. Would you guys consider the little tower on top a fox-tail, or just new growth?


Also, I didn't take any pictures, but the Sour Lemon OG that I topped a few times has 10 bud sites and it starting to flower nicely. I can't want to see how it comes out. If anyone is interested I have a buttload of seeds, more than I'll probably need. I can't vouch for the smoke yet, but the buddy that gave me the seeds said it's a nice high. Plant seems strong so far, I'll post some pics ASAP. I also germinated a Nirvana White Castle fem seed, it's up to a bout 2 inches. I'm hoping to see it do well under the 300w led in my veg section.

This little lady might give me a gram or two in a couple of months :shobon: Looks like it's going to be a big yield, I'm going to have to buy a Popsicle so I have a stick to stake it up with. She started a couple of months ago on the patio with very little direct light, so she stayed super small. All of the growth from the halfway point to the top is new since putting her under the HPS. She just poked out some tiny little pistils. I think she's going to be adorable.


Here's the sour lemon OG that was vegged for a few weeks and then topped and put right into 12/12. Definitely not the best way to go for a big yield - it looks like it's going to have 10 colas total, 5 per side, but they're all sorta short so far. Probably because of not enough veg time. It will be neat to see how this one compares to the plants that were germinated on the same day but are still in veg (next pic). I think I may prune them down a little further and give them another week before putting any more into flower.


Here are the 3 plants on the veg side - there's also a few-day-old white castle seed in between the bigger pots:


The three were started with CFLs but I've switched the veg chamber over to one of these 300w led lights. I got a good deal on it and it isn't burning the plant being only about a foot away from the tops. I'm seeing how well it does at sprouting a seed, I'm hoping the internodes will be similarly spaced to how I was able to make them grow by placing the CFLs really close.

This little dude has 14 bud sites

Nice! Love your cabinet grow. I'm in R&D right now for my grow space, but it's going to be a while and I'm chomping at the bits to get started. Nice work ... keep it up!

Sour lemon og at about 4 days in to 12/12



And this sour lemon is at about 3-4 weeks in to flowering



I'm getting the thickest stems that I've ever had, due to the soil and smart pots I think.





I'm seeing some nice trichomes on the 4 week plant. Very exciting

Sour lemon og - baby donkey dicks


Down-blouse cleavage shot - only another few weeks I think!


White Castle is looking more and more like a hairy octopus. I haven't trimmed this at all since putting her into flower, it's probably going to be a bitch to trim the buds. There are buds on almost every inch of these tiny branches. This will be a good experiment for me to see whether or not shaded bud sites can still have potent bud.

I'm not sure if this is foxtailing or just bulking up a little. Should be another week or two I think, as I'm only seeing a few amber trichomes here and there.

looks like some good dense nugs, good work

vaporz said:

looks like some good dense nugs, good work

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Thanks man! My room smells like fruit loops.

Has anyone ever seen little golden droplets like these before?

There are three or four all in this one area, and I was able to find one more droplet on the underside of a very Trichome-covered fan leaf. It sure looks like resin or something but I've never seen it before.

I chopped the Sour Lemon og today, at 74 days. Here's what the whole plant looks like post-trimming.