I started growing in my basement in June 2002. A friend called me and told me he was bringing me something. The ‘something’ was an enclosed trailer filled with an assortment of whitefly infested plants that an anonymous grower had given trying to deal with them.
I flower in 3 gallon plastic pots and there are 9 plants in flower under a Fluence Spydrx Plus LED. I use ProMix BK 25 as a medium and I fertilize with MegaCrop. Two teaspoons per gallon jug of RO water with a 6.0 pH works well. I harvest one plant a week and I replace the harvested plant with one from the veg room. Each flowering plant starts in the back left corner of the room on a 9 week journey to harvest on a Sunday morning. The plants slide one spot each week until the plant reaches the end of 9 weeks. Then I cut it and hang the plant at the top of the stairs to the basement. After it hangs for a week I bring the plant into another room and I hang it from a ceiling fan to finish drying. I pluck leaves and drop them onto a plastic sheet spread beneath the hanging plant. Then buds are plucked and dropped into 1 quart jars.
Wow, what an amazing story, @buzzmobile! I’m loving the nostalgia of your growing journey starting back in 2002. It’s incredible how you’ve developed a system that works so well for you, from the Fluence Spydrx Plus LED to the ProMix BK 25 medium and MegaCrop fertilization.
Thank you, @tmorg . I appreciate the reply. The ‘system’ is very basic. I save 1 gallon orange juice jugs and there are about 30 of them lined up in the veg room. I have a 4 stage reverse osmosis water filter that fills a 33 gallon trash can with water. I plumbed a hose bib at the bottom of the cam with a short section of garden hose to act as a fill spout.
I believe that lights are the most important part of an indoor grow. I have to laugh about my first lighting setup. The same friend who delivered the whiteflies had a 5’ tanning light fixture that I spent several hours converting to 4’ so it could run fluorescent tubes. It was hippy engineering at a high level. There were even sparks flying when the Dremel fired up. The next step up was to a 1 KW MH for the veg room and a 1KW HPS in flower. More light MORE heat but vented hoods helped. When full spectrum LEDs turned from blurple tp white light I saw what some other growers were achieving with them.
Love the efficiency of your grow operation! The way you’ve got the plants rotating through the flowering stage is genius. And your harvests look amazing! Killer Queen, C99, and Hippy Slayer are all looking great. Can’t wait to see how Satori turns out!
Thanks for dropping by, @Dev-O . Efficiency and genius in the same post is high praise indeed. I am going to credit the ‘trick photography’.
The girls have been doing well this summer; much better than I expected because I decided that running a portable AC unit was too expensive. Both rooms are running around the 90F/33C ranges for high temp, and the buds are solid.
The Satori will be harvested Sunday morning. I am looking forward to it as well because new flavors are always welcome. It’s a big girl. There are some Soulmate seedlings coming up now. I messed up on backing up a Soulmate I had for a few years.
Sunday morning has arrived and in a little while I will cut down the first Satori. I have a little chore to finish when it gets light enough. We are expecting a visit from a young lady by the name of Debby. I put up shutters on all but one window yesterday. The last set of shutters have to be installed horizontally which is a bit of a chore to slide the parts into place without dropping a screw or wingnut. I was dripping wet with sweat after installing shutters on the other 17 windows. Just one more to go.
The Soulmate seeds produced 9 seedlings out of 13 seeds in the pack. A couple of helmet heads needed assistance and one had funky cotyledons.
This is the day to finish cleaning up the Killer Queen. I must check on the ladies downstairs first, and then I will roll a joint and smoke it, and then …
Did some transplanting of seedlings from 2" to 4" pots and a half dozen clones. There are 8 Soul Mate, 2 Apple Fritter, and 2 Grape Killer 99. There is an Amnesia Bubba Auto seedling in a 2 gallon pot at the top of the picture. The two clones at bottom right corner are from a C99 x Jackberry pollen chuck.
I keep the seedlings in the 4" pots until they are large enough to send into the flower room for 3 days to sex them. I almost always take cuttings to back up females just in case of the possibility of a keeper.
It is usually a mess like a jungle down there. I appreciate the nudge you gave me.
There is a freak Sunshine Daydream on the chopping block this morning. I either mismarked it or it decided to grow straight up into the light. I’ll get some pics of it shortly.
There is a Satori that needs to have buds removed from it and jarred. Then the Gelato will take its place while the Sunshine Daydream hangs upside down in the dark for a week.
I have stripped a few small buds to sample and whatever it is offers a decent buzz.
The past week has been hectic with Doc visits, eye exam, spinal injection and a mower that needed fixing. Yesterday my wife and I became responsible adults. Our wills are now official; initialed, signed, and notarized.
I have shuffled a few plants in and out of the flower room to sex. A C99 x Jackberry cross showed female after 3 days in 12/12. I will take her top to clone and put her in a 3 gallon pot.
Rain is on the way and that is a good thing. It is crispy dry after several weeks without. The down side of the coming rain means the grass will grow tall while the mower waits in line for repair. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdphvuyaV_I
I have been sorting through seedlings and nursing cuttings in the veg room this past week. I also transplanted several overgrown clones from 4" pots to 3 gallon pots. To get that done I hauled pots of old soil upstairs so I could dump them and refill them with mix. Then I hauled those pots back downstairs.
There I was just settled down for a dose of Judge Judy when I heard something that was not tiny reindeer feet on the roof. Pecan tree in the front yard pruned itself. I will be trimming away when the sun comes up but it may not last long because there is rain heading this way.
That left me with a very large stick leaning on the roof. I gave it several hard shoves and it slid off the roof landing with a thud.
I made small pieces from the big stick and put them under the shed for drying.
had a 5’ tanning light fixture that I spent several hours converting to 4’ so it could run fluorescent tubes. It was hippy engineering at a high level. There were even sparks flying when the Dremel fired up. The next step up was to a 1 KW MH for the veg room and a 1KW HPS in flower. More light MORE heat but vented hoods helped. When full spectrum LEDs turned from blurple tp white light I saw what some other growers were achieving with them.
I am going to credit the ‘trick photography’.
