20th Century Growing Nostalgia

This post is geared for nostalgic folks on here who grew cannabis during the 20th century before the internet was a mature animal. Like 1980s and 1990s.

My interest in growing hydroponic pot started in the early 1990's in college - I hated spending $60-80 for an eight of kind bud. The internet was still very young when I first started reading up on growing - search engines and internet speeds were not at all like today. The internet did have some grow information if you looked hard and there were books like Rosenthal’s The Closet Cultivator.

My first attempt at growing indoors was 1995 with bag seeds from Mexican brick and a couple of “keeper” seeds found in more premium bags. Lighting was two scavenged HPS lights (150 and 250W) and some 4-foot T8 fluorescent shoplights. Grow medium was a 50/50 mix of perlite and vermiculite. Containers were 2 liter pop bottles with the necks cut off. Reservoirs were kitty litter trays. Fertilizer was Miraclegro 20-20-20 patio food.

System was a passive wicking of nutrient solution with the pots sitting right in the solution. I managed to get a harvest of scraggly stuff. It was over fed, chopped too early, looked terrible, smelled like hay, but was mine and got you high.

I also learned to tell a male from a female all by myself from comparing my plants to black and white Rosenthal pictures without ever having to post pictures on an internet forum for help . It's really not very hard...

Second grow was with mail-ordered seeds from a shop in the Netherlands willing to ship to the US with the disclaimer that they might get confiscated by customs. Was utterly stoked when an international package arrived in the mail about a month later with 10 Northern Lights seeds. The little ziplock seed baggie had “NL” handwritten on a white sticker and came packaged inside a plastic cassette tape case. It was wrapped with a little note that said something like “here are the samples you requested”. Fancy breeder packaging it was not, but it was stealth shipping at least.

For the second grow I upgraded to a 400W HPS light. Still used miraclegro patio food and tap water but was in much better tune with the plants on that run. Managed a successful harvest of passably decent bud. Terrible by my later standards but far superior to Mexican brick weed.

I learned much during those first two grows but the biggest take away was this:

Better Genetics + Better Light + Experience = Better Results

I ceased using miraclegro after that 2nd grow for a variety of reasons, but still chuckle when I see folks either bashing or passionately defending the use of MG products on RIU.

I have kept growing off and on for 25 years. Always small scale for myself, family, and a small handful of friends.

Dumbest move as I was learning; I peed in my reservoir once. It was because I was super stoned one night and I read on the internet that it was a good idea. Regretted that almost immediately, ended with a nasty mess of a reservoir and a piss stinking closet. I still laugh when I read about someone suggesting (or even joking about) peeing on plants. Wizzing on your plants or in the nutrient reservoir is just gross, it's even worse than growing with miraclegro salts.

Any other growers with 20th century experience share your stories, humorous or otherwise, or don’t.

Cheers
-Cat

My first real grow was not until much later, but back in the 90's I did try to plant some brick weed seeds in the trees at the frisbee golf course. Then, when they got about 2 ft tall without any single bud showing yet, I ripped them up and smoked the dried leaves. I had no idea that the good part is the flower! I couldn't understand why it had no effect. Hahahaha!!!