Hey everyone,
I just started growing within the past couple of months and would like to document my success and failures on this forum in order to educate the newcomers so that they wont make the same mistakes as me! Enjoy!
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I began by choosing where I wanted to grow. I started looking around the house for vacant closets or rooms that weren't accessible to guests; I couldn't find any. After weeks of disappointment and coming to terms with having to pay the dispensary like a drug dealer I suddenly looked to my left and saw an old entertainment center that was taking up space. The entertainment center had 4 chambers, two top two bottom both seperated by a wall going down the middle. A revelation occurred, I needed a grow box.
Now I had to do some math. How big do marijuana plants grow? How wide do they grow? Do I have enough room in this box for proper space and ventilation? I measured the entire box, each section, and found that I had the two top portions at 4ft height. The left chamber 3 feet wide and the right chamber 6 foot wide - the bottom of course as with any entertainment centers had smaller cubby type spaces with only 1 1/2 ft height w the same width as the top.
Instantly I saw what I wanted to do. I was going to create a all-in-one grow box that can not only vegetate, flower and harvest plants - but also keep a healthy female to clone from. This causes a never ending cycle of harvesting plants every month!
I began work on this project and let me tell you - it wasn't easy. I have never done anything like this in my life and to come up with a functional and safe way of constructing this was a serious issue. I took a trip to home depot and started window shopping for everything they possibly had that would make this project work. After about 20 trips back and forth measuring and pricing items, I went in for the last time.
The grow box was to look like so:
After a shit ton of editing and rethinking everything on Gods green earth this is what I had crafted and come up with.
\
Please pay no attention to the plants in the last photo. Those were my testers to see if the box was operating correctly - and it was.
The only issue that I ran into was finding a proper power source for my exhaust fan. The "adjustable" source I got fucked up (was brand new) and took a shit on me, in the process made the box over 120F and the plants all died.
To counter this issue I installed a brand new CPU blower that is run on its own STEADY 12v source which is guaranteed to run for a long while.
------------------ Now for the new grow-------------------
With the box complete and operational I decided to take the next steps forward into growing my new crop!
I began by germinating seeds. Me, I am using bag seed - crap regular weed seeds which I got from a half oz of mid grade bud a long time ago.
*PAUSE FOR A MOMENT*
This is where my shit gets a little complicated, so pay close attention!
I wanted to do my first grow as an "experiment" so to speak. I needed to germinate and plant them exactly 1 week from each other. The reason this was tricky is because of germination time ranges of the seeds and grow rates of the plants. My original plan was to plant 5 seeds and be done with it; thats when i found out most of them will probably be males. I had to change my entire experiment.
I started with a bag full of about 50 mid grade seeds. I took one thick and moist paper towel and placed 10 seeds on it, spaced out, put it in a ziplock bag and put it in a warm dark area. 5 days from then I did another 10 and kept going until all 50 were germinating. Every week like clockwork for 5 weeks I planted the 10 or so germinated seeds and put them into the chamber. To plant, I used tiny solo cups (kid sized, not the REALLY mini ones). After all the seeds were germinated and planted I watered as needed for another 7 days. Now, the first batch is 6 weeks old, second 5, third 4 and so on. This allowed me, as a noob grower, to test watering habbits, nute measurments and ph adjustments in one set of plants to see the results BEFORE the rest of the plants got the same treatment.
The way I did this is not neccessary, and if you know what your doing DONT do this - it will be a waste of time and effort because eventually you will need to seperate the plants for 12/12 and 24 cycles.
I learned off of the first 30 plants, over watering, under watering, malnurishment, over nute'ing the soil, lights too close etc. This gave me an advantage with the last 20, as they were my control and my variable was the care given to them through trial and error with the oldest ones.
Right now I have a shit ton of plants ranging in age, all in the vegetative state, highest being 6 weeks. Now I know your saying " Dude are you retarded? If you have 50 plants and a 5 foot wide cabinet youll NEVER be able to grow them in the box " Yep, I know - Here is where it gets a little depressing.
For this first experiment I will have to waste a bunch of 'healthy' plants. From doing the math, I can fit 4-6 plants in the flowering chamber only by using the method I am trying called side scrogging (explained later). The only plants out of all of these that will be kept are going to be out of the last 20 planted. I will be looking for the most healthy, prominent and sexy looking babies to continue growing and HOPEFULLY be able to see male/female before I do this.
The method I am going to use for growing is called Side Scrogging, I dont know if this is an actual term or if it has been done before but I havent seen it anywhere.
I am going to plant the plants in permanent 1 gal pots and then create a chicken wire tube that will line the pot going directily up to the top of the box. I am HOPING that this will keep the plants somewhat compact. I will hang lights above and beside all the plants.
What I am trying to gain by doing this is instead of having a huge bushy plant with buds at all angles, or just a scrogged roof of buds - I will create a one bud plant for lack of better words. Where the plant will be a compact dense budding plant instead of a loose wild one.
This is where I am at right now, I will update my experiences and post photos as the weeks go by! Hope your enjoy!
I just started growing within the past couple of months and would like to document my success and failures on this forum in order to educate the newcomers so that they wont make the same mistakes as me! Enjoy!
--------------------------------------------------
I began by choosing where I wanted to grow. I started looking around the house for vacant closets or rooms that weren't accessible to guests; I couldn't find any. After weeks of disappointment and coming to terms with having to pay the dispensary like a drug dealer I suddenly looked to my left and saw an old entertainment center that was taking up space. The entertainment center had 4 chambers, two top two bottom both seperated by a wall going down the middle. A revelation occurred, I needed a grow box.
Now I had to do some math. How big do marijuana plants grow? How wide do they grow? Do I have enough room in this box for proper space and ventilation? I measured the entire box, each section, and found that I had the two top portions at 4ft height. The left chamber 3 feet wide and the right chamber 6 foot wide - the bottom of course as with any entertainment centers had smaller cubby type spaces with only 1 1/2 ft height w the same width as the top.
Instantly I saw what I wanted to do. I was going to create a all-in-one grow box that can not only vegetate, flower and harvest plants - but also keep a healthy female to clone from. This causes a never ending cycle of harvesting plants every month!
I began work on this project and let me tell you - it wasn't easy. I have never done anything like this in my life and to come up with a functional and safe way of constructing this was a serious issue. I took a trip to home depot and started window shopping for everything they possibly had that would make this project work. After about 20 trips back and forth measuring and pricing items, I went in for the last time.
The grow box was to look like so:
After a shit ton of editing and rethinking everything on Gods green earth this is what I had crafted and come up with.
\Please pay no attention to the plants in the last photo. Those were my testers to see if the box was operating correctly - and it was.
The only issue that I ran into was finding a proper power source for my exhaust fan. The "adjustable" source I got fucked up (was brand new) and took a shit on me, in the process made the box over 120F and the plants all died.
To counter this issue I installed a brand new CPU blower that is run on its own STEADY 12v source which is guaranteed to run for a long while.
------------------ Now for the new grow-------------------
With the box complete and operational I decided to take the next steps forward into growing my new crop!
I began by germinating seeds. Me, I am using bag seed - crap regular weed seeds which I got from a half oz of mid grade bud a long time ago.
*PAUSE FOR A MOMENT*
This is where my shit gets a little complicated, so pay close attention!
I wanted to do my first grow as an "experiment" so to speak. I needed to germinate and plant them exactly 1 week from each other. The reason this was tricky is because of germination time ranges of the seeds and grow rates of the plants. My original plan was to plant 5 seeds and be done with it; thats when i found out most of them will probably be males. I had to change my entire experiment.
I started with a bag full of about 50 mid grade seeds. I took one thick and moist paper towel and placed 10 seeds on it, spaced out, put it in a ziplock bag and put it in a warm dark area. 5 days from then I did another 10 and kept going until all 50 were germinating. Every week like clockwork for 5 weeks I planted the 10 or so germinated seeds and put them into the chamber. To plant, I used tiny solo cups (kid sized, not the REALLY mini ones). After all the seeds were germinated and planted I watered as needed for another 7 days. Now, the first batch is 6 weeks old, second 5, third 4 and so on. This allowed me, as a noob grower, to test watering habbits, nute measurments and ph adjustments in one set of plants to see the results BEFORE the rest of the plants got the same treatment.
The way I did this is not neccessary, and if you know what your doing DONT do this - it will be a waste of time and effort because eventually you will need to seperate the plants for 12/12 and 24 cycles.
I learned off of the first 30 plants, over watering, under watering, malnurishment, over nute'ing the soil, lights too close etc. This gave me an advantage with the last 20, as they were my control and my variable was the care given to them through trial and error with the oldest ones.
Right now I have a shit ton of plants ranging in age, all in the vegetative state, highest being 6 weeks. Now I know your saying " Dude are you retarded? If you have 50 plants and a 5 foot wide cabinet youll NEVER be able to grow them in the box " Yep, I know - Here is where it gets a little depressing.
For this first experiment I will have to waste a bunch of 'healthy' plants. From doing the math, I can fit 4-6 plants in the flowering chamber only by using the method I am trying called side scrogging (explained later). The only plants out of all of these that will be kept are going to be out of the last 20 planted. I will be looking for the most healthy, prominent and sexy looking babies to continue growing and HOPEFULLY be able to see male/female before I do this.
The method I am going to use for growing is called Side Scrogging, I dont know if this is an actual term or if it has been done before but I havent seen it anywhere.
I am going to plant the plants in permanent 1 gal pots and then create a chicken wire tube that will line the pot going directily up to the top of the box. I am HOPING that this will keep the plants somewhat compact. I will hang lights above and beside all the plants.
What I am trying to gain by doing this is instead of having a huge bushy plant with buds at all angles, or just a scrogged roof of buds - I will create a one bud plant for lack of better words. Where the plant will be a compact dense budding plant instead of a loose wild one.
This is where I am at right now, I will update my experiences and post photos as the weeks go by! Hope your enjoy!
