Today I start my first legal grow here in Ontario Canada. I grew many many moons ago in my younger years and I was a member back in the early 2000’s under another username. Now I’m able to legally grow four plants under our new laws and I’m starting with some Blueberry Cookies and Sweet Deep Grapefruit from Dinafem seeds. I hope to document the grow as best I can as well as it’s environment(grow room) in order to learn more and eventually get more proficient and efficient at growing. All comments, questions and suggestions are encouraged. I see this as a forum to engage in conversations to broaden my knowledge and understanding of all things, so please ask questions, give me suggestions and teach me what you are willing to share as I am willing to learn.
Seeds:
Seeds were ordered and purchased through hemp depot (www.hempdepot.ca) I can’t say enough good things about these folks. Fast, secure and all around great service from these guys.
Note: I ordered some other seeds as well from another seed vendor, True North Seedbank, but I have not received them as of yet. More on that at a later time but strains include:
5 X Barney’s Farm Glue Gelato (auto fem)
5 X Sweet Seeds Dark Devil (auto fem)
5 X Sweet Seeds Black Cream (auto fem)
10 X Oasis Genetics BerryBlue (auto fem)
I have a dedicated room that will house a 4X4X7 Gorilla Grow tent. Although I do not have the tent yet as it is being shipped, I do have the lights, the carbon filter and the in-line fan for outside venting as well as all the necessary ducting for air intake. The air supply will come air conditioned and cooled via a 4" line. The exhaust will go directly outside after being scrubbed by the carbon filter.
I’ve decided to try the following LED light for this grow:
VIPARSPECTRA Reflector-Series 600W (V600) LED
I have little experience with LEDs but wanted to give them a try. Back in 2002 I used HPS for flower and a MH for veg cycles, so this is all new to me.
I’ll post more information and more specifications soon. For now, here are some pics of the seeds that have sprouted and been transplanted.
I really wanted to start with some nice fruity strains and I really liked the crosses used in these strains by Dinafem. I’ll post some descriptions of the two from the breeder as well to keep this thread tight! I’m glad you took the time to share you had a great experience with Dinafem. It’s certainly encouraging.
Today I was able to get confirmation that my grow tent is finally on the way. I should have it by Monday if all goes well. So far, nothing has popped out of the soil yet, so we still have some time to spare.
This will give me the chance to talk about the medium and grow room a little more in detail.
First off I’ll talk about the medium I’m using for this run. I’m using the Premier Pro-Mix HP Mycorrhizae Growing Mix. It’s a high-porosity, peat-based growing medium which contains the following:
SPHAGNUM PEAT MOSS (65-75%)
PERLITE
LIMESTONE
WETTING AGENT
MYCORRHIZAE
Before I make any adjustments to my soil mix, I thought I would start with a vanilla baseline and see how it goes. In the past, I used Sunshine Mix #4 but would add an extra 15% perlite to the mix but I don’t know how much has changed in 20 years.
I also intend to fertilize using Acti-Sol pure hen manure (5-3-2). It’s dehydrated and granulated, so you just mix it in to your medium.
Here’s a few shots of the utility room that will house the grow tent. It has some 4" ducting (currently capped) that goes directly outside (for a dryer) and it also has a direct feed from the main house air AC. (I also have a mobile AC unit to additionally bring down the temp in this room if needed) The room has both hot and cold water lines and it has two 15 amp service outlets each on their own breaker.
Here’s a shot of the water lines which I will connect a hose and nozzle to. The power is right next to it.
In these next two shots, first on the left side you can see the 4" ducting that is capped, it goes directly to outside. I will remove that part and place it horizontally along the top of the ceiling to the grow tent. As shown in the third pic.
Nice setup there. I’d kill for a huge clean space like that!
The HP in that promix stands for high porosity which means it has more perlite than the regular stuff…not a ton but definitely more. It’s sweet that it has mycos and dolomite lime already added too!
Thank you sir and excellent info on the Pro-Mix. I do enjoy that I don’t have to mix in anything more cause it already has all the right stuff like you said.
Since the laws changed in Canada, I was considering making some changes in my garage for a stealth grow room setup and then this year I realized everything I needed was ready in the basement furnace room. There is nothing else in there so its good use of the space too
Speaking of clean…I picked up a few goodies and a new shop vac to help clean and prep the room for next week. If the grow tent arrives as planned, I should have a working setup by next Wednesday.
And finally today I received a nice treat in the mail. All my seeds have arrived from TNS plus some freebie goodies and I’m stocked for the next year and some. As freebies, they gave me; a single seed of (auto fem) Sweet Tooth from Canuk seeds, a single seed of (fem) Northern Lights from Canuk Seeds and a single seed of (fem) Alien Technology from Prims Seeds. They also had a two for one sale on the BerryBlue so I ended up with two packs of 10 seeds. I’m starting 4 of the auto fem BerryBlue seeds from Oasis Genetics to put outside at my fiance’s home. We each own our own home this summer and so we can each have 4 plants. She has a little over an acre of land so we’ll try our hand at outdoor as well. Since we are so late in the season however, I opted to try out some auto flower seeds to make up for lost time. I have zero experience with auto flower and back in the early 2000s the only “rudy” strain was low rider and it wasn’t a promising strain at the time in regards to yield and potency. Now it seems all strains are femenized and/or auto flowering. Interesting times for me as I’ve been out of touch for many many years.
Wow that’s a sweet deal, those are some killer freebies. Autos have come a LONG way since lowryder days you should be pretty happy. Auto sweet tooth should be very nice!
It’s been about three weeks since I last updated the thread. In this time, I did acquire the 4X4X8 foot gorilla grow tent and I also ended up buying a new in-line fan (AC infinity Cloud S4) as well since I did not like how noisy the original one I purchased was. I’m extremely pleased with the new exhaust fan and I’m going to be buying another one for a veg tent I’m planning on starting soon. June 4th was my birthday and my fiance ordered me the 2.5 X 2.5 X 5 shorty gorilla tent for a veg setup since I would like to have a perpetual grow going. I also bought a 300W LED for this and I’ll be adding another 600W light for the flowering tent as there is plenty of room and it’s cool enough.
Setting up the tent was super easy and I was able to do it on my own. I was able to install the lights, fan and carbon filter in the flower tent and get the ducting to vent outside with the need of only one 10 foot 4" flexible ducting, which was nice on the wallet! I will try and purchase a longer insulated duct in the future and I’ll tie it up properly and more cleanly. for now it will do.
-I still have to purchase a proper door handle with lock and key to secure the room
And here are the girls three weeks from germinating. I think I was a little late in giving them some nutrients as I only started feeding them 4 days ago. I noticed some deficiencies and hoping it’s not my water. I used to be on well water but now I’m on city water so I’m bubbling it for 24-48hrs to get the chlorine out. I was not able to get my hands on the acti-sol yet so until I transplant they’ll get some nutrients with watering.
Hey-Zuka… Looking good.
I run Dinafem blueberry cookies I acquired the seeds through a test run I did for the breeder. I love running the Blueberry cookies so far I’ve ran 4 plants and I’m running 1 outside now. They’ve all been outside grows. Have not run her inside yet. But outside under with light depth techniques. All of last year’s plants crop 1 and crop 2 yielded over a pound each. Of quality AAA Smoke. The plant could actually yield 2 keys of quality AAA bud… if I was to grow it the entire summer long.
You love the buzz it’s excellent all of my patient clients love it they asked for time and time again. As I’ve ran out a little over a month ago from last year’s Harvest. Good luck to you I’m sure that the plant will do a very good job inside it looks like you got your Ducks lined up in a row and you should be able to grow a nice crop. Good luck brother happy growing.
I’m humbled a test grower for the breeder has chimed in and I’m very excited to have read your comments about the quality. With a little more time and love, I’ll get there too I hope! I have some updates soon that I’ll be posting and I made a few more adjustments to the grow tent.
Those are some beautiful pics my friend. Please feel free to post more. You grew some big plants and I love how healthy they look in your pics. It shows they got some tender love and care. I’m trying my hand at four blueberry plants( BerryBlue from Oasis Genetics) outside this year but at my fiances residence as she is allowed four plants as well. The seeds were started in my grow tent and brought over since last Saturday. They are doing well and I’ll maybe post some pics to show you. Maybe one day I’ll grow something comparable to you! Thanks so very much for sharing. Do you have any bud shots of the blueberry cookies?
Here are some updated pics of the girls from the 15th of June after a much needed transplant and feeding. I learned how quickly they can become stunted if root bound. I learned not to use any small ceramic pots to start them off as both plants that were put in ceramic pots were much smaller and lankier than the other plants. I think they got root bound very quickly in the beginning. I was also ill prepared and should have had proper pots. That won’t happen again. I’m ok with making mistakes as long as I learn from them. I also waited too long before feeding them. I was able to get my hands on the acti-sol (hen manure) which has given the plants new life! One plant was showing signs of P or K deficiencies but I was able to remedy it with the acti-sol. I worked it into the new medium when I transplanted them into bigger pots. They are all showing nice colors and growing well now. The acti-sol releases nutrients with each watering and I will start to add some organic supplements as needed. I’m keeping a close eye on them and enjoying how they are progressing.
Here they are from Monday the 15th SDG on he left and BBC on the right:
The “shorty” gorilla grow tent has also been delayed. This is 2 for 2 for GrowDaddy.com and I’m really disappointed with both my experiences purchasing from them. Both times I’ve had numerous issues, communications being the worst one. I just won’t be dealing with them in the near future, as I’m very turned off by their lack of customer service. Ok, rant over…
I’ve added another 600 LED light so that should be the equivalent of 700 HPS I believe, but I may be mistaken.
I also have some Black Cream and Dark Devil going for a friend’s house. He knows nothing about growing but wants to put 4 up in his yard this summer. I got two extra seeds of each strain as a freebie from sweet seeds in my order so they went to him. They are auto fems, and the two left ones are Dark Devil and the two right ones are Black Cream.
Here are the blueberry auto fem at my fiance’s house outside. First three are from Monday the 15th right after transplanting into new pots and new ferts(Acti-Sol dried pure hen manure) amended into soil:
thanks for stopping in man,
