JoeSmokesAlot
Member
After reading and researching for hours, I decided to experiment with my own closest grow and post the results as best as I can remember them. I try not to exaggerate or embellish, but only provide information as accurately as I can in order to assist others who might be considering growing themselves.
I remember what it was like early on trying to separate the good information from the garbage on this and other websites.
The Reason
Bottom line was, it's a pain in the ass hitting up people in your social circle asking if they can get you any when you run low. Me and the wife smoke socially and only occasionally around the campfire, etc, so an ounce will usually last us about 6 months. I figured, fuck it, I can just grow some myself and have all of the weed I'll ever need. Also, it's been an amazing learning process over the past 5 months researching and learning all aspects of this lifestyle from the actual growing process to the legal aspects, law enforcement, politics and economics.
The Budget
I wanted to do this on the cheap. No expensive panels, filters, nutrients, equipment, etc. All told, I spent somewhere in the range $500-$700 to get all this done. Also, I didn't want any trips to the local hydro shop.
All of the materials came from Home Depot or WalMart.
The GrowBox
1/4 Plywood 2'x2' box, 5' tall. I painted the inside entirely with white, flat paint. The whole box just barely squeezed into a cupboard under the stairs. It was basically a closet within a closet.
The Lights
I had 3 4 foot shoplights holding 2 32 watt florescent tubes each placed along the side in 3 of the four corners of the box. In addition, I wired a homemade panel of 5 CFL sockets. Each socket held 1 23 watt bulb. There was a grand total of 307 watts. I used 6 daylight tubes, 3 daylight bulbs, and 2 warm white CFL's during veg. I switched to 6 warm white tubes, 3 warm white CFL's, and 2 daylight CFL's during flowering.
The Timers
I had 2 electronic timers in place to manage lighting schedule. I was lucky enough to not have any power failures during the process to mess up the plants schedules. I had the tubes light 30 minutes earlier than the panel and shutoff 30 minutes later than the panel. (To simulate the rising and setting of the sun??) I have no idea if this helped. I used a strict 18 hour veg cycle and a 12 hour flowering cycle.
Odor control
There was a 50 cfm fan installed in the side of the GrowBox with a homemade carbon filter exhausting in. I had 2 computer fans exhausting out through a slit near the top into a tiny box filled with active carbon (which didn't do shit). I eventually covered it over, and later installed another 70cfm fan and homemade carbon filter exhausting out through the top.
I placed several of those round, white odor eater things you get at WalMart for about $4 throughout the basement. Along with the carbon filters they seemed to work well. I used 5 in total during the entire grow.
I also purchased a used air-filter machine and a new filter for it. Made by 3M/filtrete. I later found out these things clean the air, but do nothing at all for odor. So i ended up taking out the $20 filter, and replacing it with a folded up sheet of filter fabric used in furnaces containing active carbon and duct taping more of the fabric to the top where the air exhausts. MacGyver style.
I also cut the fabric into stripes and lined the door of the GrowBox as a sort of gasket. All in all, odor control is a major problem to overcome when it comes to growing weed. I can understand why people get busted because they skimp or ignore it completely. I only had 4 plants and it was a struggle to keep the smell contained. I can only imagine what a house with 85+ plants you see busted on the news all the time would smell like.
Monitoring
I used a crappy old thermometer to tell the temperature in the GrowBox and 4 moisture meters to tell when the plants needed water.
The Seeds
I ordered a packet of seeds from a local to my country online shop which seemed to have a good reputation. I did not want my seeds coming across international borders. As for the strain, I chose Jack Herer x PCK.
The reason I chose this strain was because I like to fuck while high and I read somewhere this was a good strain for this. It was $50 with shipping for the seeds. There were 20 seeds in total in the packet which arrived 7 days after I sent the order.
Germination
I chose to germinate 5 of the seeds. My intent was to try to get 2 or 3 of them female, so I gave myself a 50% chance to get a pair of females. All 5 seeds germinated after 3-4 days. The plate method between moistened paper towels absolutely, without a doubt works the best. Without the plates, the paper towels dry out very quickly. The plates keep out the light and keep in the water.
The Vegetation
After they all germinated, I planted them in these little brown cups that are biodegradable. Once they big enough, you can just transplant the whole cup into a big pot. The roots will grow through the walls of the brown cup. I thought this was a good idea at first, but it comes with a serious drawback, and that is water. Water will transpire through the walls of the cup, and so there is far more surface area for water to evaporate from resulting in my little plants drying out a lot faster. I lost 1 of the seedlings because of this. Once I realized what was happening, I quickly transplanted the whole cup into their bigger permanent pots.
The pots came from the dollar store and are 1 gallon pots. Since 1 seedling died, I had 4 left to fit into a 2'x2' space. I figured I had 50% chance that 2 of them were leaving once flowering started and I could transplant into larger pots once space was cleared out. I watered them when the moisture meters indicated, which due to the pot size, was around every 2 or three days. During the vegetation, phase the plants grew low, broad and very bushy, and leafy. They were very healthy and looked good. I was surprised how wide the palm leaves were. The leaves didnt look the skinny leaves, I'd seen in pictures on the web. I never had any issues with pests or other problems you read about.
The soil I used was typical potting soil from Wal-Mart, not Miracle grow, but something like it, with small amount of nutrients already in it.
The extra nutrients I used during veg were Miracle Grow 24-8-16 blue powder stuff I mixed into the water. I used 1/4 of the recommended amount.
I vegged for 7 weeks less a day. The plants were approx 20-24 inches from the soil when I switched.
The Flowering
This is when the plants started to show their true personalities. About a week after switching the lights to warm white, and adjusting the timers to 12 hours, I began checking the plants daily and meticulously for any signs of their sex. Over the next week, one by one, each of the 4 plants started to develop the characteristic little white pistils indicating a female plant. After checking, and checking, and re-checking, eventually I realized I had 4 girls in my little GrowBox. I dont know if I just beat the odds (6.25 %??) or I somehow ended up with feminized seeds. The girls would have to stay in their pots as they were because I had no extra room to increase the pot size.
I named the 4 girls as follows:
The Slut: This one showed her sex the earliest. Very prominent pistils. Short, squat, bushy. This one wanted to fuck.
The Runt: This one was the runt of the litter. Very lanky, weak, and couldn't hold herself up. Maybe didn't get enough air circulation early on?
The Lawyer: This one reached for the stars. She would not stop growing. Very tall, and thick stalk. The last to show her sex. She kept on trying to grow into the lights to the point where she got burned a few times by the CFL panel before I could raise it. I had to tie her down at one point.
The Middle Child: Middle of the road, taller than the slut but shorter than the lawyer. Not much to say about her. That's why she's the middle child.
This was, by far, the hardest part about the grow. It's the all of waiting and watching and waiting for the end. It borders on a kind of almost self-torment. It's a constant nagging obsession when you are trying to figure how to tell, if they are ready. You spend your time reading and studying all of the pictures and posts that you can to try and glean some kind of clue. You will worry that you are doing too much or not enough. You will worry that you time and effort will be wasted. You will worry that your yield will not be high. You will worry that your potency will not be good.
They are like raising bloody kids!
Nutrients were switched to 10-20-10 blooming fertilizer, not Miracle Grow, but same idea. (It was on sale)
Once the lights were raised as high as they would go inside the GrowBox, I had to add a mesh screen between the lights and the girls. I got the mesh out of the garbage someone had tossed and cut it down to fit near the top of the GrowBox. The Lawyer just wanted to grow and grow. Her main cola was bent over against the wire mesh for the last 3 weeks of her life.
The Flush
The seed website advertised this strain as flowering finishing centered around 9 weeks. I guess that's as accurate as they can be given they have no idea what conditions the plants will be grown in. On this point, I'm still a little unclear. Does the 9 weeks start as soon as you switch the lights? or when you see the first flower? I've read both opinions. Regardless, I began the flush at 7 seven weeks after the switch with the notion that 9 weeks is when they are supposed to be done. During the flush phase I supplemented with a glob of molasses in the water. I don't know if the molasses helped. I have nothing to compare it to, however, the top surface of the soil acquired a small bit of mold when I started this regiment. I just stirred it into the soil. It was never a problem.
The Harvest
After 9 weeks, as described on the seed website, none of the plants looked ready. Despite the flush, I let them go another 2 weeks without nutrients. They got water only. I could tell the girls were starting to get hungry. The palm leaves were browning and sagging. Slowly, they started to look tired. The Runt and the Middle Child were the first to take on a sort of golden glow. I guess you just sort of learn your plants and you just know its time. It's hard to describe. Up until then, I didn't have a scope. You can't get them anywhere in this country and there was a mail strike so everything from EBay was delayed. By the time my scope arrived, I could see almost all trichomes were milky, but very little amber as far as I could tell.
After 11 weeks, I decided to harvest the Runt first. She was certainly the most ragged, pathetic looking thing in the GrowBox. I tried the drowning method on her. I took her out of the GrowBox and placed her pot into another pot and filled it with water and then put the whole thing into a dark corner for 3 days. I don't know if this helps with the curing process, and it makes a fucking mess and stinks. I chopped and harvested after she sat 3 days in the dark.
I dried for only 4 days before cutting up and jarring them for the curing process. The buds dried so quickly because they were very light and fluffy popcorn buds. This may have been due to this particular strain, or may have been due to the heat issues I experienced with my GrowBox. Contrary to what might be said on these forums, CFL's do produce a decent amount of heat and will burn and cook your plants. I was constantly struggling to keep the temperature below 90F inside the GrowBox especially as the plants grew taller and summer brought warmer weather. I did not add any temperature control such as portable AC units or venting outside. My only method of keeping the temperature lower was to keep the door of the GrowBox open all the time. I didn't want to re-engineer my basement for this project, just grow a couple of plants. I also fiddled with a jug of frozen water placed in the GrowBox, but the effects of this were negligible for the amount of work swapping a jug of water to and from the freezer. I was also concerned about the condensation on the side of the jug dripping into the back of the CFL panel possibly causing an electrical short.
I suspect the high heat has affected my yield, but I don't know how much more I would have yielded had I been able to lower the temperature by 10 more degrees. Maybe next time I'll start earlier in the year to take advantage of the colder basement.
When the Runt was harvested I moved onto the Middle Child. The same as the Runt, I drowned her for 3 days in the dark. Again, a mess and a stink and I resolved to not bother drowning the last 2.
I killed the lights on the last two for 8 days but left them in the pots while we were away on vacation. I returned to find to two droopy, miserable plants sitting in the dark ready to be chopped. It could be because they were dehydrated but they were a lot stickier than the first two were. The Slut and the Lawyer had a lot less little popcorn buds all over and a lot larger main colas.
The Cure
I'm curing them now in mason jars and burping occasionally when I think of it overnight or for a few hours. It's funny, but when you stick your nose in the jar it doesn't smell like weed at all. It smells like plants. But if you take a couple of buds and put them in a baggy and stick the baggy in your pocket, you can smell the weed from 5 feet away. Its a very strange thing. The curing must be working. Because this shit is pretty good and I imagine will only get better with some time. It's a nice, light, uppy high, with a very little-to-no comedown or burnout. It will give you the giggles and makes 30 minutes of shagging feel like a dick massage from heaven!
One interesting curiosity is that, for whatever reason, the Runt generated one single solitary seed at the bottom of the main cola. I discovered this seed while I was jarring her after she dried. I can only hypothesize that she hermied somehow just slightly in a few cells(?) near that area of the plant. No other plant generated any seeds and no males were ever present during the grow (or at any other time for that matter) If I plant that seed and it grows, I'm going to call it Jesus weed.
The Results
The Slut: Veg 48 days, Flower: 93 Days, Yield: 93g wet with stems, 16g dried no stems, buds only
The Runt: Veg 48 days, Flower: 79 Days, Yield: 89g wet with stems, 14g dried no stems, buds only
The Lawyer: Veg 48 Days, Flower: 93 Days Yield: 102g wet with stems, 19g dried no stems, buds only
The MC: Veg 48 Days, Flower: 83 Days Yield: 113 wet with stems, 17g dried no stems, buds only
So, 2 ¼ oz from 4 plants of my own homegrown stuff and Ive got the knowledge and equipment to do it again, forever. Not many people get to say that.
The weights might not be perfectly accurate but they are close and it gives you an idea of what you can get with some basic plywood, lights, dirt and water.
Hopefully this information might be useful to someone considering a small grow for the first time. Its been a hell of a ride but Im glad its over for now and I get my life back...
Good luck!
I remember what it was like early on trying to separate the good information from the garbage on this and other websites.
The Reason
Bottom line was, it's a pain in the ass hitting up people in your social circle asking if they can get you any when you run low. Me and the wife smoke socially and only occasionally around the campfire, etc, so an ounce will usually last us about 6 months. I figured, fuck it, I can just grow some myself and have all of the weed I'll ever need. Also, it's been an amazing learning process over the past 5 months researching and learning all aspects of this lifestyle from the actual growing process to the legal aspects, law enforcement, politics and economics.
The Budget
I wanted to do this on the cheap. No expensive panels, filters, nutrients, equipment, etc. All told, I spent somewhere in the range $500-$700 to get all this done. Also, I didn't want any trips to the local hydro shop.
All of the materials came from Home Depot or WalMart.
The GrowBox
1/4 Plywood 2'x2' box, 5' tall. I painted the inside entirely with white, flat paint. The whole box just barely squeezed into a cupboard under the stairs. It was basically a closet within a closet.
The Lights
I had 3 4 foot shoplights holding 2 32 watt florescent tubes each placed along the side in 3 of the four corners of the box. In addition, I wired a homemade panel of 5 CFL sockets. Each socket held 1 23 watt bulb. There was a grand total of 307 watts. I used 6 daylight tubes, 3 daylight bulbs, and 2 warm white CFL's during veg. I switched to 6 warm white tubes, 3 warm white CFL's, and 2 daylight CFL's during flowering.
The Timers
I had 2 electronic timers in place to manage lighting schedule. I was lucky enough to not have any power failures during the process to mess up the plants schedules. I had the tubes light 30 minutes earlier than the panel and shutoff 30 minutes later than the panel. (To simulate the rising and setting of the sun??) I have no idea if this helped. I used a strict 18 hour veg cycle and a 12 hour flowering cycle.
Odor control
There was a 50 cfm fan installed in the side of the GrowBox with a homemade carbon filter exhausting in. I had 2 computer fans exhausting out through a slit near the top into a tiny box filled with active carbon (which didn't do shit). I eventually covered it over, and later installed another 70cfm fan and homemade carbon filter exhausting out through the top.
I placed several of those round, white odor eater things you get at WalMart for about $4 throughout the basement. Along with the carbon filters they seemed to work well. I used 5 in total during the entire grow.
I also purchased a used air-filter machine and a new filter for it. Made by 3M/filtrete. I later found out these things clean the air, but do nothing at all for odor. So i ended up taking out the $20 filter, and replacing it with a folded up sheet of filter fabric used in furnaces containing active carbon and duct taping more of the fabric to the top where the air exhausts. MacGyver style.
I also cut the fabric into stripes and lined the door of the GrowBox as a sort of gasket. All in all, odor control is a major problem to overcome when it comes to growing weed. I can understand why people get busted because they skimp or ignore it completely. I only had 4 plants and it was a struggle to keep the smell contained. I can only imagine what a house with 85+ plants you see busted on the news all the time would smell like.
Monitoring
I used a crappy old thermometer to tell the temperature in the GrowBox and 4 moisture meters to tell when the plants needed water.
The Seeds
I ordered a packet of seeds from a local to my country online shop which seemed to have a good reputation. I did not want my seeds coming across international borders. As for the strain, I chose Jack Herer x PCK.
The reason I chose this strain was because I like to fuck while high and I read somewhere this was a good strain for this. It was $50 with shipping for the seeds. There were 20 seeds in total in the packet which arrived 7 days after I sent the order.
Germination
I chose to germinate 5 of the seeds. My intent was to try to get 2 or 3 of them female, so I gave myself a 50% chance to get a pair of females. All 5 seeds germinated after 3-4 days. The plate method between moistened paper towels absolutely, without a doubt works the best. Without the plates, the paper towels dry out very quickly. The plates keep out the light and keep in the water.
The Vegetation
After they all germinated, I planted them in these little brown cups that are biodegradable. Once they big enough, you can just transplant the whole cup into a big pot. The roots will grow through the walls of the brown cup. I thought this was a good idea at first, but it comes with a serious drawback, and that is water. Water will transpire through the walls of the cup, and so there is far more surface area for water to evaporate from resulting in my little plants drying out a lot faster. I lost 1 of the seedlings because of this. Once I realized what was happening, I quickly transplanted the whole cup into their bigger permanent pots.
The pots came from the dollar store and are 1 gallon pots. Since 1 seedling died, I had 4 left to fit into a 2'x2' space. I figured I had 50% chance that 2 of them were leaving once flowering started and I could transplant into larger pots once space was cleared out. I watered them when the moisture meters indicated, which due to the pot size, was around every 2 or three days. During the vegetation, phase the plants grew low, broad and very bushy, and leafy. They were very healthy and looked good. I was surprised how wide the palm leaves were. The leaves didnt look the skinny leaves, I'd seen in pictures on the web. I never had any issues with pests or other problems you read about.
The soil I used was typical potting soil from Wal-Mart, not Miracle grow, but something like it, with small amount of nutrients already in it.
The extra nutrients I used during veg were Miracle Grow 24-8-16 blue powder stuff I mixed into the water. I used 1/4 of the recommended amount.
I vegged for 7 weeks less a day. The plants were approx 20-24 inches from the soil when I switched.
The Flowering
This is when the plants started to show their true personalities. About a week after switching the lights to warm white, and adjusting the timers to 12 hours, I began checking the plants daily and meticulously for any signs of their sex. Over the next week, one by one, each of the 4 plants started to develop the characteristic little white pistils indicating a female plant. After checking, and checking, and re-checking, eventually I realized I had 4 girls in my little GrowBox. I dont know if I just beat the odds (6.25 %??) or I somehow ended up with feminized seeds. The girls would have to stay in their pots as they were because I had no extra room to increase the pot size.
I named the 4 girls as follows:
The Slut: This one showed her sex the earliest. Very prominent pistils. Short, squat, bushy. This one wanted to fuck.
The Runt: This one was the runt of the litter. Very lanky, weak, and couldn't hold herself up. Maybe didn't get enough air circulation early on?
The Lawyer: This one reached for the stars. She would not stop growing. Very tall, and thick stalk. The last to show her sex. She kept on trying to grow into the lights to the point where she got burned a few times by the CFL panel before I could raise it. I had to tie her down at one point.
The Middle Child: Middle of the road, taller than the slut but shorter than the lawyer. Not much to say about her. That's why she's the middle child.
This was, by far, the hardest part about the grow. It's the all of waiting and watching and waiting for the end. It borders on a kind of almost self-torment. It's a constant nagging obsession when you are trying to figure how to tell, if they are ready. You spend your time reading and studying all of the pictures and posts that you can to try and glean some kind of clue. You will worry that you are doing too much or not enough. You will worry that you time and effort will be wasted. You will worry that your yield will not be high. You will worry that your potency will not be good.
They are like raising bloody kids!
Nutrients were switched to 10-20-10 blooming fertilizer, not Miracle Grow, but same idea. (It was on sale)
Once the lights were raised as high as they would go inside the GrowBox, I had to add a mesh screen between the lights and the girls. I got the mesh out of the garbage someone had tossed and cut it down to fit near the top of the GrowBox. The Lawyer just wanted to grow and grow. Her main cola was bent over against the wire mesh for the last 3 weeks of her life.
The Flush
The seed website advertised this strain as flowering finishing centered around 9 weeks. I guess that's as accurate as they can be given they have no idea what conditions the plants will be grown in. On this point, I'm still a little unclear. Does the 9 weeks start as soon as you switch the lights? or when you see the first flower? I've read both opinions. Regardless, I began the flush at 7 seven weeks after the switch with the notion that 9 weeks is when they are supposed to be done. During the flush phase I supplemented with a glob of molasses in the water. I don't know if the molasses helped. I have nothing to compare it to, however, the top surface of the soil acquired a small bit of mold when I started this regiment. I just stirred it into the soil. It was never a problem.
The Harvest
After 9 weeks, as described on the seed website, none of the plants looked ready. Despite the flush, I let them go another 2 weeks without nutrients. They got water only. I could tell the girls were starting to get hungry. The palm leaves were browning and sagging. Slowly, they started to look tired. The Runt and the Middle Child were the first to take on a sort of golden glow. I guess you just sort of learn your plants and you just know its time. It's hard to describe. Up until then, I didn't have a scope. You can't get them anywhere in this country and there was a mail strike so everything from EBay was delayed. By the time my scope arrived, I could see almost all trichomes were milky, but very little amber as far as I could tell.
After 11 weeks, I decided to harvest the Runt first. She was certainly the most ragged, pathetic looking thing in the GrowBox. I tried the drowning method on her. I took her out of the GrowBox and placed her pot into another pot and filled it with water and then put the whole thing into a dark corner for 3 days. I don't know if this helps with the curing process, and it makes a fucking mess and stinks. I chopped and harvested after she sat 3 days in the dark.
I dried for only 4 days before cutting up and jarring them for the curing process. The buds dried so quickly because they were very light and fluffy popcorn buds. This may have been due to this particular strain, or may have been due to the heat issues I experienced with my GrowBox. Contrary to what might be said on these forums, CFL's do produce a decent amount of heat and will burn and cook your plants. I was constantly struggling to keep the temperature below 90F inside the GrowBox especially as the plants grew taller and summer brought warmer weather. I did not add any temperature control such as portable AC units or venting outside. My only method of keeping the temperature lower was to keep the door of the GrowBox open all the time. I didn't want to re-engineer my basement for this project, just grow a couple of plants. I also fiddled with a jug of frozen water placed in the GrowBox, but the effects of this were negligible for the amount of work swapping a jug of water to and from the freezer. I was also concerned about the condensation on the side of the jug dripping into the back of the CFL panel possibly causing an electrical short.
I suspect the high heat has affected my yield, but I don't know how much more I would have yielded had I been able to lower the temperature by 10 more degrees. Maybe next time I'll start earlier in the year to take advantage of the colder basement.
When the Runt was harvested I moved onto the Middle Child. The same as the Runt, I drowned her for 3 days in the dark. Again, a mess and a stink and I resolved to not bother drowning the last 2.
I killed the lights on the last two for 8 days but left them in the pots while we were away on vacation. I returned to find to two droopy, miserable plants sitting in the dark ready to be chopped. It could be because they were dehydrated but they were a lot stickier than the first two were. The Slut and the Lawyer had a lot less little popcorn buds all over and a lot larger main colas.
The Cure
I'm curing them now in mason jars and burping occasionally when I think of it overnight or for a few hours. It's funny, but when you stick your nose in the jar it doesn't smell like weed at all. It smells like plants. But if you take a couple of buds and put them in a baggy and stick the baggy in your pocket, you can smell the weed from 5 feet away. Its a very strange thing. The curing must be working. Because this shit is pretty good and I imagine will only get better with some time. It's a nice, light, uppy high, with a very little-to-no comedown or burnout. It will give you the giggles and makes 30 minutes of shagging feel like a dick massage from heaven!
One interesting curiosity is that, for whatever reason, the Runt generated one single solitary seed at the bottom of the main cola. I discovered this seed while I was jarring her after she dried. I can only hypothesize that she hermied somehow just slightly in a few cells(?) near that area of the plant. No other plant generated any seeds and no males were ever present during the grow (or at any other time for that matter) If I plant that seed and it grows, I'm going to call it Jesus weed.
The Results
The Slut: Veg 48 days, Flower: 93 Days, Yield: 93g wet with stems, 16g dried no stems, buds only
The Runt: Veg 48 days, Flower: 79 Days, Yield: 89g wet with stems, 14g dried no stems, buds only
The Lawyer: Veg 48 Days, Flower: 93 Days Yield: 102g wet with stems, 19g dried no stems, buds only
The MC: Veg 48 Days, Flower: 83 Days Yield: 113 wet with stems, 17g dried no stems, buds only
So, 2 ¼ oz from 4 plants of my own homegrown stuff and Ive got the knowledge and equipment to do it again, forever. Not many people get to say that.
The weights might not be perfectly accurate but they are close and it gives you an idea of what you can get with some basic plywood, lights, dirt and water.
Hopefully this information might be useful to someone considering a small grow for the first time. Its been a hell of a ride but Im glad its over for now and I get my life back...
Good luck!
