Missin the 90’s - growing, nostalgia, and nonsense

[MissinThe90sStrains]

Hey, thanks for checking me out !

I’m a small time grower in a flyover state, just quietly doing my own thing. I’ve been enjoying this special herb for over 20 years, and after a decade of doing stupid things to try and keep it around, I decided I should be growing it.

The desire to keep improving has always been there, and over the years I’ve learned a lot, mostly through mistakes. Life had me trade my old circle of grower friends and special cuts for kids and married life, but it’s ok. I’ve got some neat old beans to look through, and prefer having unique things anyway.

I grow for medical reasons, and mainly grow indica dominant strains for pain relief, anxiety, and sleep. I have IBS and anxiety, and herb helps me every day. My wife has been fighting cancer since 2019 (fuck cancer), and she is my inspiration to keep our medicine as clean and safe as possible.

I’ve been learning a lot about organics, and have been trying to venture down that route. Feel free to correct any mistakes or lend some advice if you see me doing something stupid :-).

I hope to hunt through some old school smoke and pull out some fire to build my stable of keepers. I’ll try to collect some pollen along the way to dust some stuff up in the process. I only grow photoperiod seeds, and prefer to stick with seeds instead of taking in clones.

Enough introductions and boring words - I’ll fill in more details later and answer questions along the way. Here’s some pictures to catch up.

Flower tent
ACE CBD #1 (1st run) week 6? need to check calendar
Bodhi Saints Crossing (3rd run) week 5? need to check
AKBB MTF BX4 (2nd run) day 13
Tony Green’s GG#4 R.I.L. fem (1st run) day 6

Veg tent - a couple old moms and backup cuts and a bunch of peppers and tomatoes waiting to go outside. The 2 bushy veg plants are Frankenstein S1’s. They are aggressive and will need to be cut back and managed.

[C_in_CT]

Thanks for sharing with us! I look forward to following along.

[Igor]

Looks good mate, following along.
You could turn your fan over so it’s blowing out through the filter, then put the filter outside the tent with just a little bit of flexi-hose in the top of the tent. Would free up all the room it’s taking up inside the tent.

[KiMatinho]

Will grab a sit, sir.

Have interest in that cbd from ace, lets see how it develop

[MissinThe90sStrains]

I had it setup like that before, and it caused some issues for me. It blew charcoal dust out of the filter and made a mess on my shelf and made the pre filter dirty. I used to have to vacuum the pre filter on my old CanFan filter because of it, and I eventually changed the setup back around when I replaced it.

I usually have the filter hung from the tent, and everything was fine, but this new one is just way too heavy. I had ordered a smaller unit, but a stocking and technical error led to me getting offered a free upgrade to a larger filter, and I jumped on it, hoping to figure something out later.

[C_in_CT]

I’m a real big fan of “metro shelving” in the grow room and grow tent. The wire shelving that is used in restaurants / everywhere these days. Could possibly put a shelf and just heft it up onto that instead of mounting it from the ceiling.

A shelf along the back wall that was tall enough to have the filter above the lights, and just a single shelf low on the body of it might not block much light getting to whatever lived on the bottom shelf.

I am going to be mounting my exhaust fans to similar shelves outside my tent soon, so they’re on my mind as a solution to this sort of issue.

[Headies12green]

Looks good man and great reasons to grow… what are you using for organic feeding? Dry amendments compost teas recharge or some sort of homemade super soil mix?

[MissinThe90sStrains]

I make my own supersoil. I’ll go back through my notes and post it and some more details about my setup later on, when I’m free.

[MissinThe90sStrains]

Some more pics of my setup and mess - amended soil ready to go, shelf of amendments, trash can for storing RO water - aerated with a pump and air stone, my 2 5x5 tents. (Notice the 2 old HID hoods on the shelf, my humble beginnings).

Soil is stored in 40 gal tubs, drilled out and taped with micropore paper tape, so that they can breathe and not go anaerobic and smell sour. I make up extra soil in advance and let it cook for a few months before using it.

My lights are a combination of cheap quantum boards from SpiderFarmer and Viparspectra (100, 200, 250 watt models). I’m pretty low tech. I hand-water and don’t use any type of controllers, other than some manual light timers. I use temp/humidity gauges in the tents and a dehumidifier for the open lung room.

Tents are vented passively by keeping negative pressure and drawing in cooler air from the bottom vents. I try to sweep and vacuum frequently to keep dust and debris away, and I have speed controllers to dial back the fans as needed. The smaller, older, louder fan has a duct silencer that helps a bit.

Our water is well over 500 ppm, and very hard, with a lot of buffering. Our home came with a water softener, and it’s a pain in the ass. It removes all calcium and magnesium, replacing it with sodium. After a couple years of struggling with lockouts, deficiencies, and salt buildup, I switched over to RO water at the same time I switched over to organics, and it’s gotten much better.

[edds]

Very good, thank you to share with us.

I will continue to follow

[Ibegeekdup]

That is a whole other level. A beautiful system.

[Hemp]

Looks good. Those old lights worked. I got rid of all mine. I remember using hard water. The thing about it I remember the water smell funny. Water softeners are not fun. lol

[MissinThe90sStrains]

Some more details:

I run a pretty basic mix that I’ve been experimenting around with. I want it to be strong enough to be “water only” and allow me to run full size plants in 15 gal pots, but not strong enough to burn them. I want my ultimate method to be “lazy-ganic” - anyone remember the Ronco Rotisserie infomercials? - Set it and Forget it !

I’m practicing right now with mixes in smaller pots, to be able to run more plants and try to pheno hunt. This is my basic soil making and re-amending mix. New soil is roughly 1/3 castings, 1/3 peat, 1/3 aeration (1/2 perlite, 1/2 vermiculite). I try and keep a closed system to help keep bugs and disease away. I buy worm castings and amendments, but that’s about it. Soil and leaf material is recycled and no clones are brought in from elsewhere.

After my last run, I had a pheno stretch hard and get hungry early in flower and never fully recover, so I started fortifying my mix. I’m currently running Soil Mix “A” in flower right now, and the remnants of my basic soil mix for my peppers and mom plants.

I had some more soil to re amend so I made another mix, with the super original name Soil Mix “B” lol. This mix is stronger and has some more goodies in it. I’ll be experimenting with it soon. At time of mixing, due to container availability, I had to mix about 10 gals of Soil Mix “A” into the finished soil mix “B” and combine a bin to make space. I may go back and add some more azomite to it, now that I can see my notes again.

Some other goodies : I have powdered aloe vera, and powdered coconut water that they sometimes get for a shot of growth hormones. I add some cal mag as needed, for the extra fussy plants. Sorry “Rev”, I know it’s not TLO-approved.

I started a fish tank in January, and the plants will occasionally get some water from there, for the beneficial bacteria.

I used to make a worm casting tea with molasses, kelp, and alfalfa that I bubbled for 24 hours, and then added cocounut water to it. It made everything pray the next day, so I named it Jesus Juice. I don’t make it much anymore because it’s a bit of a pain and I’m pretty busy, but it’s there in my toolkit if needed.

[Igor]

Basement of my dreams right there. Nothing wrong with HPS, I started on hps and learned a lot.

[edds]

Have you ever tested coconut fiber instead of peat?

[MissinThe90sStrains]

I’ve considered it for sustainability reasons, but haven’t actually tried it yet. I’ve heard mixed things about people’s success with amended coco, but you’ve given me something to read up on.

[KiMatinho]

Im using coconut this time, 1/3 carolina soil(perlite+peat moss)+ 1/3worm cast + 1/3 coconut fiber+ amends, the drainage is absurd, in 7 liters pots Im watering every third day.
If you have time take a look at my grow diary.

First time using this soil mixture and untill now all good, 2 of 20+ plants are showing some leaf problems but the majority isnt. Also before I repotted them another 2 were showing N deficiency, but its fixed now that I transplanted into larget pots(those with 7L)

[MissinThe90sStrains]

Nice, I’ll have to go check it out.

[blowdout2269]

Man…
Your posts sound all to familiar my friend.
I’ll be chacking in.

[MissinThe90sStrains]

GG#4 RIL and MTF got new shoes today. GG#4 got some light training and a support cage. She’s got nice vigor and branching for only being topped once.

I tried to really push the MTF with light and top training this 2nd time around, and she hasn’t been very happy about it. She’s stunted a bit, but hopefully some less intense light and more room to stretch out helps her recover. No biggie, this is what a backup mom and a journal is for.

ACE CBD smells rank AF - citronella, neem oil, bitter orange, and maybe floral rose and some sourness like dumpster/garbage? I both love and hate this smell. She’s oily and slightly tacky. She popped a male flower down below yesterday, but I didn’t see any pollen when I pulled it, so my fingers are crossed. She’s a big girl, and hard to search through.

Saints Crossing smells like wintergreen life savers and ricola cough drops mixed together, with some pine. She’s oily and very sticky. She reminds me of a Christmas wreath.

Next up on deck to flower will be the 2 Frankenstein S1’s.

Here’s a pic of the MTF from last run, when she was much happier.