From what i heard from a planter, sugar makes the plant grow but when it’s growing it’s not flowering or at least not as much.
I started in 1995 the first year I started smoking cannabis. My friend had a garden in his attic, I bought a plant from him with a spot grow lamp from Payless I went to my grandparents for Christmas I came back and my plant was dead. After that I was hooked to cultivating cannabis my first issue of high times magazine was the million dollar grow room. It wasn’t until my 20’s that I really got good at cultivating I remember borrowing my older friends grow book and reading it from cover to cover multiple times. Another friend turned me onto O.G Overgrow and pot tv. I love growing cannabis, I love nerding out studying and learning different techniques for growing great cannabis
3 Likes
It was the early to mid 2022 for me LoL
2 Likes
I was bored durning the California lockdown started growing weed plants around the house 
that’s how my lockdown strain came about ,then I bought a couple of tents and I’ve been growing non stop since then,
I know growers all over the world,because I used to sell them handpans,that’s how I got a lot of
My seeds,but like I said before now I’m bored growing weed,proabbly take a break after this grow for a while,
I just don’t have the heart anymore for growing unless something really interesting comes my way
1 Like
20 years ago. Learned right here… wish i could find the journal. Be fun to chuckle at… 
1 Like
I started during the first days of Covid ,after my mother in law gave me an edible.My state had legalized medicinal but there were no dispensaries open for a whole year. After two months of dispensary crap ,I bought an Amazon burple and started. I wish I had come here first,because just lurking and reading OG, turned my grow into some decent product.
2 Likes
2019
In a closet under the same blurple I’m still running now, in amended bagged soil, adding water only. Speed Devil #2 auto fem, it stank up half the house, but gave a real solid stone.
It was a year into the pandemic, I was getting weed through a guy that had a guy, the founder of my old company, and my friend in Santa Cruz. I’d smoked smoked so infrequently for years that it seemed ok that I didn’t have my own guy. I know the guy I was getting it from was just taking a small cut. All those dried up for one reason or another during the pandemic.
I got tired of paying $70 for 1/8 of shitty weed at the dispensary and during one of my hour drives to get that shitty weed I decided, I’ve grown and farmed corals for decades, I can grow weed!
A year later… last night I popped 28 (up to 12 of each) strains to start my first breeding project in three tents
This is going to be bad, real bad… I’ve already read studies on how kelvin affects cannabis growth and cannabis genetics. I know this feeling, it’s the same it was with reefkeeping, by the time I was 16 (skip to the last paragraph of you want to get to the point) I’d read nearly every consequential book published in English on the topic of marine fish, coral husbandry and marine systems. I was the cocky nerdy kid at the aquarium society meetings that always made the speaker look bad, unintentionally.
I went to my first speaker engagement at the shed aquarium when I was 13-14 and after all the questions I asked they gave me free seminars in exchange for my frozen fish I’d developed that reversed HLLE.
I guess what I’m saying is, now that I’m hooked, I’m going to come up with some crazy strain or some thing that’s new in the cannabis industry, or die trying…
2 Likes
Funny, I had forgot about my first (failed) attempt until I read the second or third post where someone mentioned an incandescent.
Boston 1993, I tried growing a bag seed inside a white plastic trash can (the shiny abs plastic kind you might see in an architect’s office) with some sort of incandescent bulb. I think it grew poorly and then turned out to be male? I remember my roommate at the time actually knew the incandescent wouldn’t work but didn’t tell me until after my fail. My connections were pretty awesome back then, kinda makes me wonder what that bean was.
Besides random attempts at planting bag seeds outdoors using weird hippy grow books, I really learned to grow when I was living down south in the mid oughts and had no connections and found the original OG and read enough to sorta understand who was giving good info and who was full of it, and started buying seed packs. First grow was with some CFLs, ended up buying a 400w HPS (people were starting to use DIY LED setups but they seemed like crazy dreamers).
Oh jeez, I was way too young, grew some bag seed in my bedroom, then transplanted outside. Maybe 2001 or 2002? Started in a tv stand in my bedroom with a couple discount store (Building 19 haha) lamps And cfls and soil from I don’t know where. Bought fish emulsion and cloning powder from Lowe’s haha, my mom drove me to the store! I moved them into stacked rubber maid totes that I painted white jnside, top one had the bottom cut out, the bottom one had the top cut out. Used a fan I salvaged from a broken ps2 that I soldered to a wall wart power supply. Lamps got mounted to chains hung in the totes. I was stoked, fired it up, and to my horror it flowed like a fucking UFO was landing in my room! I put the plants ( had cloned a couple in the tv stand) and let it rip anyway. Got caught and moved them outside in early April. I put my peppers out now in the last week of may, so they definitely got frosts. I planted them in the ground in an area that in the summer was total shade. The single time I tended the plants I got poison sumac so bad my eyes swelled shut! At the end of the year got a sandwhich bag of probably 50% immature seed, the rest was leaves. Smelled like gasoline though, and I was stoked. Smoke like 1/4, meaning all of it, in a sitting and got light trails and pulses! So many more stupid things happened during that adventure, but I’ve already gone on too long. Prolly the sunshine 4 x c99 I’m enjoying, how far I’ve come haha.
3 Likes
My first attempt was in 77 in my parents back yard. I put a seed in a maybe 1 gal pot, turned out to be a male. Didn’t try again for a while.
2 Likes
I was just thinking to myself about the first couple times I tried to grow. It’s pretty funny how bad it was, knowing what I do now.
My first attempt was at 15 years old. A bag seed in an ice cream container with no holes, random dirt from outside…. All underneath a halogen spotlight lol. The thing was just cotyledons stretched about 6 inches high, it obviously didn’t make it any farther then that.
Fast forward a year, I was 16. Saved some money and got a 400w hps, open bulb and big bulky ballast. Put it in my closet with no ventilation or a/c. Another bag seed, soil from the garden this time and all purpose miracle grow 20-20-20. Backed up with the book closet cultivator, I couldn’t fail! I somehow made the complete grow cycle and got about 4oz off her. I used wayyyyy too much fertilizer. I figured more was better and had no clue what flushing was. It all ended up in the trash because it made everyone’s lips feel weird from the over fertilization lol.
Came a long way since those days lol not sure what made me think of this but I figured I’d share. Anyone else have some first grow stories?
5 Likes
1980 was my first grow in the UK, after only smoking hash for 4 or 5 years, someone gave me some Thai stick, and after that all I wanted was bud lol.
Had a mate who was an long haul airline Co pilot, and got him to source some seed’s for me, can’t remember where they came from, but they were predominantly sativa, not that I knew that back then, 12 in grow bags, in the back yard, fed on miracle grow.
Not sure if it affected the taste but they would make loud popping noises and burst into flames when you tried to speed dry them in the microwave lol.
The following year it was 60+ plants gurilla grow lol.
2 Likes
When I was 16yrs old…bagseed from the 70’s
5 Likes
2000 I was 18 my first apt my older brother called me an said his landlord saw his plants can I bring them to your house I said sure he said im outside he was using just mh so I added a hps an they came out better then my brothers ever did he said keep the light
1 Like
2005 white wardrobe closet from home depot 36" x 24" x 60. 400-watt coil ballast HPS cool tube 4’inch vortex inline and can filter plus a 4 bulb 24" T5 fluorescents for veg seedlings 1-gallon square perfect pots MGMC and advanced nutes wow advanced nutes with MGMC lmao
2 Likes
I got convicted in 1990 of "possession of marijuana with intent to distribute " and "manufacturing marijuana " both felonies and I was 18years old . It was outdoor .bunch of seedlings found when a friend was hanging out with an undercover and introduced him to our whole crew of like 17 people who were just smoking our teens away.
1 Like
Turned 18 in 75 and was promptly busted for felony cultivation. Over a 1,000 seedlings of dirt weed. They counted and tried to make a big deal. Judge saw thru the BS and gave me diversion, with a very stern don’t repeat warning. I became part of the “support crew” after that.
1 Like