No-Budget Grow! (Just a newbie trying training techniques)

Hi there! As the title says, I'm quite new to the growing world, but I've read a lot about techniques and how/why they work. Of course that I'm aware that experience is a key factor in this things, but I'm really interested in comparing different training techniques.

My grow setup is quite embarrassing in comparison to the amazing things that are going on here: I have to speaker cabinets where I put my flowering plants when the lights go down and take them out when I get up. They are not getting 12 lights of darkness, but they get less for sure and I've already harvested 4 plants with this method and no problems (light leaks, revegging, etc) at all!

Currently I have 5 plants growing:


One is already in week 3 of flowering. No training at all, about 3 weeks of vegetative stage (started these seeds quite late, so I'm not getting a looot of sunlight, also I used a small container on purpose, fin it funny to grow small plants)




About 7 days ago, I started Light Dep on another one. The idea is to start every plant on different moments, so I get a pretty continuous harvest.



Those two weren't trained at all, just started flowering early, nothing new, have done it before.


Now the interesting part, the trained ones:


This one was just topped, plain and simple. Not the first time I do it, but the first I just do that.


This one's been topped and it's being LST'd. My goal with this is to get a 'plain' shape. Like the idea of a more horizontal aproach to growing.


This will probably be the last one to enter into flowering stage. She's been topped and is being LST'd in order to form a ring with the main colas around the structure. I've done something similar with my last grow and it turned out great, it ended up with an almost plain top. This time I will try to keep it growing a bit more.


As you may notice, my goals aren't getting a huge harvest, nor super amazing high grade weed. The seeds are random, as long as I can't buy seeds in my country and they're REALY expensive.

I'm feeding with plain water and homemade compost.

Advices are welcome!

You can take clones and root them in a bottle of tap water, also free and easy, change the water every couple of days

When you see the white pistils, those plants are in flower. You've got a mix going on, which can be a problem. What's the current and expected light cycle where you live?

if you like small plants .steer clear of autos and learn how to clone. the plants stay as short as you want and you can get a better crop from a grow of clonres as oposed to a plant or two

@anexgrower Thanks! I've done it with the top of the third one! I'm waiting it to root up!

@smokinrav If I let them on the 'natural' light cycle, they should all be starting to flower. What I'm doing is applying Light Deprivation on the ones that I want to flower and compensating the light hours on the ones I don't. It's currently early autumn here. From those 5, 4 have shown female preflowers (and the first one is on week 3-almost-4 of flowering), the left one is the bigger one and is starting to show what it SEEMS TO BE female preflowers. Gonna keep an eye on her!

@go go kid The problem is that it's very difficult to get autos here. The moment I put my hands on one of them I will surely try to clone it and keep that line going!

Thanks guys!

No point in cloning an auto, you can’t keep it in veg, because that’s a timer. Autos can only be “kept” in seed, nothing prevents you from making auto fem seeds though. The cheap way is diy colloidal silver.

Weekly update!!

Fifth week of flowering on the little one:

Smelling reaaally good!

First week of flowering on the other untrained girl:



And trying some new training on one the topped one:



Aiming to get 4 leveled buds, surely they wont be the same size, but it's gonna look cool!

Look at you with 100W/sq.ft.

anexgrower said:

Look at you with 100W/sq.ft.

Click to expand...

Hahahahaha more like wattage of the sun/speaker cabinet (?)

Well, I forgot last week update, so here I come with 3 what happened these two weeks!

#1 hitted week 7. It's smelling amazing! I think I'm gonna harvest next week or so, since the only four fan leaves left are almost all yellow.


#2 is in her 3rd week, developing reaaaaally good!

I fucked it up with #3 trying to train it a little more. I overstimated the flexibility of that part of the stem; but, since it didn't broke up all the way through I managed to hold it in place with some tape. Hope it survives...


The one in the rectangular pot is beginning light deprivation today!



Finally, the one on the big pot. Goin great with her training! Although, it still hasn't shown sex..

And another two weeks passed. I harvested #1, since all it's pistils had receded, revealing the bud structure and trichomes were all white or amber. Should have taken some photos before I smoked it...

#2 fell from a 1st floor (it's were I put them the second half of the day). Survived, but it lost a few buds and fan leaves... Also, all pistils darkened; surely because of getting in contact with things during the fall. Anyway, she's in her 5th week, doing well!


#3 Has already cured her broken stem! She's been growing a bit slowly this last weeks, maybe because of the weather (winter is coming) or maybe she's asking for a pot change, probably gonna make it when I harvest the former.

The in the rectangular pot begun light dep about 10' days ago, and I'm counting week 0 of flowering today!

Finally, the one on the biggest pot is doing well. Still not showing sex, maybe because of extremely large day periods (supplementing with a lamp when sun goes down). I'm trying to get those bottom branches to the top, when I get there I'll put it into flower.


Getting king of an amphitheater look!

See you in a few weeks!