Stealth's Indoor/Outdoor Adventure

BACKGROUND

I'm starting this journal exactly 20 years after I grew my very first plants. It was late December 1999, and I was in the military, stationed in Virginia. I was fresh out of electricians mate "A" school and assigned to a group of electricians that managed all base housing needs. I was living off-base with a civilian friend, who most people would have considered a bad influence... terrible actually.

A day or two after Christmas that year I was talking with him, complaining about how for the next month I was going to be working in the cold, replacing all parking lot lighting throughout the base. It was a pain in the ass project... about 150 heavy ass 1000w metal halide street lights all needed replacement... and the existing lights worked perfectly... it was a perfect example of government waste simply to justify our existence at the base, instead of out to sea on a ship. My friend's eyes lit up and he said, "you know that you can grow weed with those right?" ... I said, "no shit?"... and it all began....needless to say, two of those fixtures, and about 12 bulbs never made it into the dumpster.

We had a walk up attic in our 2nd floor apartment and we built an 8x8 box with 1/2" insulation board and duct tape, hung the lights, and popped 6 seeds my cousin sent me from California of unknown bagseed. We had no gardening experience, or idea where to even begin... but we did find about 5 years worth of High Times magazines... and that's how we learned. The rigged up lights were dangerous as hell, and we always had to watch out for the landlord... but over the next 5 months I couldn't believe what I saw.... I was hooked.

We ended up running a couple rounds of clones from those original plants before my time in the military was done, and I couldn't get out of Virginia fast enough. I ended up leaving my friend all the grow equipment and moving to Puerto Rico, with nothing but a bag of dirty laundry, a surfboard, and block of hash the size of a golf ball.... that was the last time I ever grew indoors... for the next 20 years I've only been growing outside

After about six drunken months in Puerto Rico I moved back home to Massachusetts, bought a small house, and every year would grow a few plants hidden in my vegetable gardens. It wasn't legal at the time so I could never build any kind of protection for them, so my harvest was always at the mercy of mother nature... some years were great, other years I lost everything to mold, deer, frost, etc... you name it, I've dealt with it.

About five years ago I built a bigger house on a big private piece of land. I started with about six plants in my new gardens, but I always dreamed of having a great outdoor setup that would allow me to grow into November without the fear of losing the entire crop. So this past spring I began building a 16'x30' greenhouse with eight 32"x32" raised beds. I was so busy building the greenhouse that my plants were neglected a bit, but I ended up with a decent harvest in early November nonetheless. I used PVC for the hoops, and that was a mistake... even with added purlins for support the PVC was not strong enough at 16' wide to withstand the snow... a few weeks ago the hoops completely collapsed under a wet snow. It totally fkn sucks, but not the end of the world... I'm already in the process of rebuilding with steel hoops and it'll be ready well before the 2020 outdoor season begins.

FUTURE

With my outdoor setup under control (somewhat) I've decided to focus on getting an indoor setup together. I've always used a closet with T12 fluorescent lights to start my seeds, and for now I'm still using that for veg ... I decided on an 8'x4' Gorilla Grow tent for flowering, (2) Timber Redwood VS, and 8" AC Infinity exhaust and filter. For now I'm using a passive intake from another room in my heated basement. I did a lot of research on all this equipment and I'm hopeful it will work well for me.

I only grow for personal needs and as a hobby. I'm in Massachusetts and have a household limit of 12 plants, which is way more than enough for myself, with plenty to give away to family and friends. I'm still an outdoor grower at heart though, and the indoor setup's primary purpose is to find great cuts that I can bring outside into the greenhouse and grow HUGE every year. I only have space for 8 outdoor plants and this year I want 8 different strains going that I have 100% confidence in, to justify dedicating the space and time to growing out all season. During the outdoor season I'll still be able to keep 4 plants going indoors. At the moment the plan is to always keep 2 in veg and 2 in flower indoors until the fall harvest is done.

I have 8 plants in early veg right now for my first run. I went a little nuts on Black Friday and picked up tons of new strains. I decided to start with some Euro strains for this first run ... blue cheese from from Expert Seeds (I grew this in the greenhouse last season and it was great) .. MOB from TH Seeds (this is a New England staple) .. Blue Cindy, White Widow, & Alaskan Purple from Seedsman (never grown any of these), Franco’s Lemon Cheese from Greenhouse Seeds (never grown before), GSC from Blimburn (who knows what the euros consider GSC but we'll find out soon enough) and one bagseed from my 2018 outdoor crop (this is just a shot in the dark, I found one seed in a Chocolate Kush bud I grew out that year). Everything this run is fem seeds but the next run I'll be running mostly US breeders and I picked up some really cool stuff. I figured I'd wait to run the better stuff after I've had the chance to get an indoor run under my belt, and dial in the tent. I've been growing a long time, but I still consider myself a total noob when it comes to growing indoors again.... after all it's been twenty years.

I hope to keep this journal updated throughout my indoor and outdoor grows and I'd really love to hear from the community. All are welcome to follow along and encouraged to comment. I've learned a lot from this site and look forward to any advice you guys have for me. Happy New Year! let's fkn kill it this year!

... couple pictures of the new flower tent





... couple of the veg closet and babies .. very soon I'l be replacing the T12's with the (3) COB Daisy's from Timber





... couple of the greenhouse when it was still standing strong





... and finally a couple of the greenhouse devastation before and after the cleanup ...it's very depressing to look at right now but will be glorious one again by March 1.. lol

Awesome story thanks for sharing that with pics....nice


good to have you with us cant wait to learn more

My dream is to have a grow outdoors as nice as that!

January 4 UPDATE

I don't have anything ready for flower yet so I figured I'd start running the tent for veg. The two blue cheese and one bagseed were ready for a new pot, so I got them tucked into 3 gallons with my soil that's been cooking since early November. I set them up under one of the Timber's. It's only been a couple days and they seem to really like the new light. I set the light about 28" from the tops and have it dimmed all the way down for now. As they get bigger I'll increase the light and begin raising it to hopefully maintain 18" from the canopy. I put a small ceramic heater in the tent and temps are holding steady at 80-82 degrees. This time of year the humidity is really low so I put a small humidifier in there on the timer with the light... it's maintaining about 45-50 RH... without it RH drops to mid 30's.





I have another 7 still in early veg, still a couple weeks away from the tent, but coming along nicely. One plant each of MOB, Bubba Island Kush, Franco's Lemon Cheese, Alaskan Purple, Blue Cindy, GSC, & White Widow



The plan is to run the tent on 18/6 for another 30 days (first week in Feb) then I'll flip, regardless of their size. I'd like to have this run over with by 4/15. I'm looking to find 3 or 4 cuts from this group for greenhouse candidates. If I finish by 4/15 I should be able to get the greenhouse plants in the tent to veg for a few weeks before they go into the greenhouse about May 15. Unless I get really lucky and find 8 great cuts from these, I'm sure I'll have a few unknowns going outside this year... next year I'll have more time to identify what I really want to put outside through the winter, just not enough time this year... spring is coming fast!

Nice set up man, killer greenhouse. After you start cranking on the Timbers you should be able to remove the heater. In my tent I usually run about 7-12 degrees warmer than the room the tent is in. At full blast the drivers are roughly 118f with the heatsinks around 108f. I did start running two small oscillating pole fans at light fixture level, it really does help drop the temps of the drivers and heatsinks.

Flatrate said:

Nice set up man, killer greenhouse. After you start cranking on the Timbers you should be able to remove the heater. In my tent I usually run about 7-12 degrees warmer than the room the tent is in. At full blast the drivers are roughly 118f with the heatsinks around 108f. I did start running two small oscillating pole fans at light fixture level, it really does help drop the temps of the drivers and heatsinks.

Click to expand...

thx man .. yesterday I put a 6" clip on fan above the light, sending heat back down to the plants and the heater has been barely running ... like you said though, once both lights are running at full, and the tent is filled with biomass, I bet the heater is unnecessary ... it's crazy how well the plants seem to like the new light... even dimmed all the way down and 28" away they're growing like crazy... it could also be that I just repotted from solo cup to 3 gal

I love growing in the greenhouse, I practically live in there from May thru November ... do you grow outside or just indoors?

Just indoors, ain't going to lie when I seen your greenhouse I started dreaming. I don't have the room, I got a decent size home on a small lot. The little bit I do have of a back yard is for my pooch.

lol .. i know where you're coming from, I spent years designing every detail it in my head. I finally built it last year but I already have a list a mile long of modifications for this year ... starting w steel hoops obviously .. you really don't need a lot of room though, and the greenhouse is definitely overkill... even just a couple plants outside in 20 gal pots is a lot of fun... growing outdoors is one area I could provide some insight, so if you take the plunge let me know, I'd love to follow along

Maybe one day but no time soon and I will let you know if it happens, you seem like a guy who might know a thing or two. I am very private about growing, only people I say anything too about it is a couple of well trusted friends and RIU. For my scene its just too tight, my patio is 12' from my neighbors patio, don't want the possible attention.

January 11 Update

Today marks a full week under the timbers for the 2 blue cheese and 1 bagseed. I started the week with the lights turned all the way down and a few days ago I bumped it up to about 30% ... the plants seem to love it. I topped these 3 plants to eight mains today and that'll be it for topping them... I'll start tying the 8 mains back later in the week when the new shoots get long enough to work with.

I also moved a Blue Cindy, Franco's Lemon Cheese, and Bubba Island Kush into the tent a few days ago, but the BIK didn't seem to love the light yet, so I moved that back into the veg closet for a few more days.

One thing I'm really impressed with growing indoors is the consistency of growth... having grown outdoors for so long I've become accustomed to the swings in growth due to mother nature. Outside you get a cloudy week without much sun, or a cold spell, and growth tends to stall out a bit until conditions improve ... indoors, I don't have any of that... they get a consistent 18 hrs of sun every single day, and it shows.

Looking very solid Stealth!

thx Flat... I'm really curious to see how your 3vl works for you in the veg tent ... I'll be flipping about the same time as you in feb, maybe a week earlier, so once that happens this tent will be dedicated exclusively to flower. I'm planning to upgrade my veg closet lighting at the same time .. I'm currently still using fluorescent in there (with a 1000w bestva blurple above them, but primarily for the added heat, i hate it) ... I'm thinking of going with the timber (3) daisy's instead of the 3vl though ... I like the idea of being able to set them at different heights, and also being able to only use one, two, or three lights depending what I actually have in veg at the time ... the only reason I haven't ordered them yet is I'm trying to determine the best spectrum, considering these will be used for veg exclusively ... the redwoods are both 3500, but I'm wondering if I should get something better geared towards veg ... after that upgrade the only thing left for my indoor setup will be a small 2x2 tent to hold a male, or mothers I need out of my way

... but this week it's all about HASH... I have a really slow work week, a huge pile of trim, and this puppy just came in the other day... I've always just dry sifted my trim but it's time to start doing it right

Ouch! Wet snow is always heavier than it looks in photo, what an amazing greenhouse before though. Can't wait to follow along and see how it grows

I like the idea of the Daisies for the same reason. I like 3500k because its all in one, if some plants are taking a bit longer in flower I can start the party. This is the exact reason why I am planning to expand in March/April.

January 18 Update

It's been two weeks since I moved the three biggest into the tent and they're growing very well. I transplanted a Blue Cindy and GSC from solos to 3 gal pots on Wednesday. I tried bumping the lights up to about 75% but none of them seemed to like it ... especially the younger ones... the fan leaves starting curling up and trying to get away from the light... so I dropped it back down to about 50% and they all bounced back for the most part.





The two Blue Cheese and the bagseed were all topped to 16 mains and super cropped yesterday... I'm going to run with the 16 mains on each, I have no use for secondary's, they'll all get pinched back, I'm only interested in flowering main lines.. About 2 weeks left until flip for these three, I'll start tying them back to open the plant up until flip, then just let them stretch and flower.















Last night I went ahead and ordered the Trio of Daisy's for my veg closet. The closet is 18" x 48" and is about 42" tall. I actually started looking into HLG lights this week, and did quite a bit of research.... and they appear to be good quality lights.... but decided to stay with Timber in the end. I like idea of being able to use 1,2, or 3 lights at a time... but I really like the idea of hanging them at different heights even more, and that's what \sold me in the end. I plan to run perpetually, flipping two plants every couple weeks, so they'll always be a different stages and heights.

I've used these same T12's to start my plants for 10 years now... they've always worked fine I guess, but I'm realizing now that I'll probably get a much better veg with modern technology (and I'll never have to worry about bulbs again) ... they've served me well, but they'll get retired to general use above my workbench in my garage.

January 30 Update

The 4x8 tent will be flipped to 12/12 on saturday (2/1) with 5 plants to start in there .. the two blue cheese are by far the furthest along in veg.. right now they're 15" tall w/ 16 main tops each .. I grew this outdoor last year and it stretched a good amount, so I don't want to let them get much bigger than they are now .. the bagseed is doing alright i guess.. it dried out earlier in the week and still has a few crunchy leaves ... in my book this plant is on a short leash, if it keeps limping along it'll land in the worm bin real quick... no patience for under performers... I also have a Girl Scout Cookie and Blue Cindy in the flower tent .. they're a few weeks behind the other three, both are about 10" tall with eight mains and they're going into flower saturday with the other 3 ... I'm still only running one redwood in the tent and probably won't need to fire the other one off until next weekend ... In the meantime I plan to run a couple new 20A circuits to the tent before I begin using both... I'll probably end up running these lights at a higher voltage on one of the new circuits.. the other circuit will be 120V for everything else in the tent.. here's some pics from earlier today.. after the pics I cleaned out a lot of the interior fan leaves and plucked all nodes leaving just the top node on all mains


I also made my first batch of bubble hash this week.. in the past I would always just give away my trim after dry sifting it a little.. but somehow I got sucked into watching Frenchy's entire hashishan series, and figured I had to try it out .. over the past month or so I started gathering all the stuff I would need ... like Frenchy suggested I replaced the drain on the washer with smooth 3/4" vinyl tubing and elbows ... it works well, but I'll be adding a ball valve instead of just using the cap to release the water from the machine ... I also used a 6 gallon beer bottling bucket with 3/8" spigot as my work bucket ... it worked well this time, but in the future I'll change that to a hose spigot and run the hose directly outside to drain .. I had about 250 grams of dried trim from last seasons outdoor ... it was 5 strains mixed together and had been lightly dry sifted already, but I figured I might as well start with that ... i only ended up with 16g dried hash, all collected from the 73 and 120 bags, I found next to nothing in the 45 ... The yield was low but I was so impressed with the hash I had to keep going... I broke up about 180 grams of Galaxy buds and washed that about six or seven times ... again, I found everything in the 73 and 120 bags ... I ended up with 24g of really nice stuff from that run ... I honestly don't know how I'm ever going to want to smoke flower again... bubble hash is just incredible

February 4 Update

4th day of 12/12 .. one blue cheese is already showing, jury's still out on the bagseed... the blue cindy and gsc are healthy but i'm trying to straighten out lopsided canopies... i didn't pinch these as much as the blue cheese ... the veg closet is rolling, bubba island kush is the largest and will go into the flower tent in a couple weeks .. new light for the veg closet comes friday, I'm sure they'll do a better job than these t12's

clockwise from back left .. blue cheese, blue cheese, bagseed, gsc, blue cindy

February 10 Update

10th day of 12/12... all girls, the only one in question was the bagseed, but it's showing now .. 16 mains was too many for the smaller ones (gsc & blue cindy), I should have vegged them longer or left them at 8 mains .. the timber daisy's came friday .. I spent the entire night completely rebuilding my veg closet. I removed the steel shelving and built 2 new shelves. One 18" tall space for clones/seedlings under the cfl's... and a 48" tall space for the rest of veg under the daisy's

February 18 Update

Everything in the tent is on day 18 of 12/12.. still only running one Redwood in the tent, one light can easily handle what I have in there now .. the blue cheese in the back has nice spaced out mainlines I'm looking for .. the bagseed in front right is stretching like a bastard and kind of looks like shit so far, I'm afraid I could be growing schwag with that.. time will tell



On deck in the veg closet is MOB (left) and Bubba Island Kush (right) .. I just landed them in 5 gal pots a cpl days ago and their loving it under the daisy's so far .. I'll prob give the BIK another 2 weeks and MOB another 3 weeks before moving to the flower tent



Growing indoors is great fun, but it's almost March and outdoor season is just around the corner... I can't wait to grow some monsters this year! I've almost got my roster complete. I have 8 raised beds and will grow 8 different strains this year. So far here's what I got...

1. MOB (TH Seeds)
2. Lip Smacker (Exotic)
3. Booger Sugar (Envy)
4. Cindy 99 (Grimm)
5. Putang (Mass Medical)
6. Silky Johnson (In-House)
7. ???
8. ???

Still trying to figure out the last 2 beds, I know one of them will be something crossed with hash plant , I ordered a few varieties from ACE and should have them any day now... I'd like to find something I can grow a giant bush and wash the entire thing fresh directly from the garden

Looks good my guy. Great shape, should turn out sweet
Can't wait to start my outdoor activities as well