First time CFL closet grow on a budget.

Yeah, there's definitely something to be said for bag seed. A thought just came to me about it too: the reason might be because it's a strain that's easy for cultivators to grow and get sold. The profit margin of just about any large operation is astronomical, but any manufacturer in any business wants to get the most out of his investment. Although I'm far from a connoisseur, I thought this was good pot. It was forty bucks for the 1/4 bag, and that's about what your average weed goes for around here. So unless I got one hell of a deal, this probably wasn't high-grade stuff.

I'm quite happy with how this is coming along. I've fallen into a pattern of watering about twice a week, alternating between just water and water with plant food. The girls seem to like that pretty well, there's no signs of over fertilizing. And the extra space is doing a world of good. Even my two skinner, younger plants are starting to fill out some more. I don't think it will translate to more bud sites, but someone else on this forum said to think of the leaves like solar panels, so a few more of those won't hurt.

After harvest I'd LOVE to make a couple clones and really veg them nice and do some better training. But I don't think I'll have the time for that. I don't know how much longer I'll be living where I am. And I do NOT want to be trying to smuggle plants out of here and into a new place. Maybe I'll build a box for a micro grow. Get some feminized seed or a cutting and keep like one well-trained plant in there at a time. A couple ounces every 90 days would probably be enough for my own use unless I go nuts and start smoking too much.

But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. By harvest time I'll have a better idea of how much longer I'll be here. And then I'll determine whether or not I have time to grow a clone.

Made some more brownies. This time I went for broke and threw in all the cannabutter I had left. That would've been *does arithmetic* about 1 1/3 cups. Double the amount of butter that the box called for. And I baked them at just under 325 this time.

I had to eat almost the whole pan to get high. But it was one HELL of a high! I woke up still feeling it a little. So, yeah, that's the verdict on cannabutter from male leaf: I had to use a lot of it, but it sent me into orbit and I stayed there awhile. It was an inefficiently-gained high, but in my opinion it was loads better than no high at all.

The numbering of days got fudged at some point during all this. I think I might've put in a 9 where I meant put in a 0 once or something, and after that it was all thrown off. But I opened up the calender on my computer and did a count of the days. Now it's accurate. ^_^

But I have pictures today! I have one of each plant, and a couple of my nicer-looking buds. A few of them are starting to get nice and sugary. I think I counted 17 flowering tops, and then who knows how many that are at nodes along the stems. So, I think I'm doing alright, especially for a first grow.

I wish I knew what strain this was, it seems to be very friendly for beginners. Probably isn't actually an established strain, it's probably some kind of marijuana mutt. And if those brownies from the males were any indicator of what the high will be like.

But onto the plants themselves. I have Tonks there on the far left. She's sort of the runt of the litter, she was stuck in a corner of the closet competing for light and space against bigger plants, so she grew up kinda skinny. But I have two nice tops.I'm not expecting that many buds from her, but the two tops might do well, because she's pretty much getting one bulb per flower, and none of the others are getting that kind of light. ^_^

Luna there is in the lower left. This was another of the younger plants that had less space for vegging. But she filled out a little nicer than Tonks. She has the fattest buds so far, but they might also be fluffier, so who knows.

In the upper-left there is Lily. She has the most tops. I think that was the plant where my FIM took the best. I'd like to get a little more light on her. I think I'll try to do that next week.

On the upper-RIGHT is Hermione. Big old tall plant she is! She has the highest plants, even compared to the two that I had to stack on stuff to keep the canopy as even as I could. She's also one of my eldest plants, so she got a chance to veg really well. I'm getting lots of bud sites on her as well. I included close-ups of a couple of her flowers.

On the lower-right, finally, is Ginny. She is gonna have a couple of really nice tops. The nodes are nice and close together up there, and she's nice and bushy. I also included a couple close-ups of her buds too.

So that's all for now. It's all gotten pretty routine. I think I've found a good schedule of watering and feeding. Now I just watch them mature with ever increasing excitement.

Okay, got some more lights today, so now I'm up to 12 26w CFLs for the five plants. I saw some other threads where they were getting good results from lighting that was near what I already had, but I figured four more lights was half-again better. More importantly, I'm up to 20,400 lumens in there.

I'm already getting some good buds, especially on Ginny, I have these two lines of flowering nodes the length of my hand, and they're already almost filled in all the way. When those really start to swell a couple weeks from now. And it looks like I'll be living here through at least the end of September, so I should have plenty of time to let these mature, and then harvest and dry to the point where I can stick the buds in some jars for curing. (At least then it'll be a lot easier to smuggle into my new place.) And 50% more light should make that even better!

I misbehaved a little, though. I nipped two small fan leaves that had some trichs on them. I couldn't resist a female. I doubt that's enough to overstress it, but I'd never make a habit of it. Now, this is LEAF, with a small amount of immature resin on it. I cut it up and dried it on a non-stick pan over low heat. It filled two bowls on my home-made bong, and the bowl to that is pretty small. But with that amount, I went from fine to "Woah...." to fits of laughter, back to "Woah" and fairly sober again.... all during the course of an episode of the Tonight Show that I was watching on hulu. THIS, my friends, is going to be pot!

But other than that, I've been able to keep my hands out of the cookie jar so to speak. I don't want to stress the plants too much lest they hermie on me. Every now and then a few older, lower leaves will dry up and fall off. And I think to myself "It's weak, but it's still pot by god, I can't waste it!" And even that will give me a bit of a head rush and a relaxed feeling. I admit I have a fairly low tolerence. But that gets me all the more excited about what the bud will be like.

Well, the bitches hermied on me. 4 out of 5 definitely. The one where I didn't see any burst pollen sacs was my really skinny one, and that may be because there were so few nodes on that one.

So that shoots my yield right to shit because I see tons of seeds forming on the lower bud sites. The top ones are faring better.

I don't really have any other choice but to let them mature and get what I get, but christ knows what that will be now.

I'm trying to look ahead. I don't have enough time to start another grow here. I won't be able to set up a grow closet in my new place, but I think I'm going to do a PC microgrow. I think one female at a time that way would be sufficient to always keep me supplied with weed.

And I think what I do yield should be enough to last me until I can get something like that up and running.

Planning ahead like this is about the only thing I can do to keep myself from screaming right now.

I don't think I'll be adding anymore pics until harvest time, because unfortunately I don't think my buds are gonna get a hell of a lot bigger.

I harvested Luna, perhaps early, but almost all the hairs were brown, so it was probably about right. I didn't get a hell of a lot once I de-seeded. 3/8 maybe. Probably not quite a half. Luckily she was one of the slimmer plants. Lily, Ginny, and Hermione have a lot more flowers. So, I'm guessing my final yield will be somewhere between 1.5 and 2 oz. Which all things considered will last me awhile, but it's a far cry from the 4 oz. or so I was expecting. Well, may the next grow will give me better yield!

On the other hand... oh wow is it good shit, oh wow! I think I may have harvested Luna either a little early or JUST at the right time for some folks, because for the first time I understand what a "cerebral" high is. This gave me very little couch lock, but a great rush and I felt like I could talk anyone's ear off if they were there to listen. And it sent my friends into orbit as well.

I smoked a hell of a lot of weed this weekend. I spent the lion's share of Sunday just sleeping. ^_^

Fuck! I had a nightmare about the cops being on to me and my arrest being imminent. Scared the ever-loving fuck out of me! I had to get up for a few hours to take my mind off it! I can't stand nightmares, but I very rarely get one that disturbs me to the point where I don't want to go right back to sleep in fear of the nightmare starting right up again.

But, my weed is still doing alright. I might take a few more pics soon, but in spite of the hermie-age, the tops are still swelling quite well and mostly have white hairs.

Still, I hope it finishes soon, I don't need more of these nightmares, they could really start to make me paranoid. A mason jar of weed is a lot easier to stash away than four potted , pungent plants in a brightly-lit closet. And if I set up a box in my new place, as least it'll be smaller and much stealthier, I can breathe easier.

And probably about 60 growing. I don't feel like doing the math.

I harvested Ginny today, Makes sense that she and Luna would've matured first, though. They were positioned in a way that they probably got hit hard by pollen, because the outtake of air went right through them especially.

But all the same, I got a couple of nice tops on her. Once I had gotten just the bud trimmed down, it had... a bit over a half? That's about what I'm guessing. We'll see. I set aside a medium-sized to quick-dry, but the rest is being water-cured.

I didn't take any photos of Tonks, but she has two nice tops that have swelled up quite a bit. As has Hermione. These were the two plants that likely got hit with the LEAST pollen because of their position.

And then I have Lily, which was somewhere in the middle, and she'll be the next one to harvest, I think. Lots of brown hairs, but still enough white to let it keep going.

I know the time is near for all of them, so I stopped giving nutes about a week ago. I'm not sure how many I want to water cure (that removes chemicals from the fertilizers.).

A lot more brown on my two late-maturers today. So, right now I have some bud being water-cured, that'll be done in exactly a week. And the way things are looking, that's probably when I'll harvest these last three plants.

I suppose I'll trim the leaf around Thursday. I don't know if that even does anything to have it just be bud for the last couple days, but they look kinda cool like that-- like little Joshua trees that fuck you up.

Well, it's all done. I finished the last of my water curing today. Final weigh in, around 2 ounces. It's hard to get that number exact because of the bits I've already smoked. I didn't harvest it all at once, so. And most of it is water cured, so that means it lost some of its weight. If I had air-dried it all, I'd have more. But, all the potency is still there, so it doesn't matter.

But both the air-dried and water cured stuff is very good. They've both become much more potent than the odd bud than the few buds that I quick-dried. And much, MUCH smoother. The air dried stuff has a very piney flavor to it, as does the water-cured, but much more subdued.

And I changed my mind about doing a small grow later. I decided its too risky in an apartment. And I don't live in one of the more enlightened states when it comes to growing. I started to get too jumpy near the end of this grow. I think I read too much about people getting caught and it seriously spooked me.

So, maybe by the time I'm done with school, this country will have pulled its head out its ass when it comes to marijuana. (California, I'm really counting on you there!) Or maybe I'll be able to get a medical permit. Or maybe I'll end up with a job that takes me to a state where growing a couple plants is treated more realistically.

I have enough weed to last me a few months if I go easy on it. Although now that I AM indeed done growing for awhile, the disappointment in their self-pollination is really hitting me again.

And it's very upsetting that these circumstances cause me to think of the police as enemies out to get me. And for WHAT, exactly? What terrible crime was really taking place here? I know I'm most likely preaching to the choir here, I can't imagine there are too many prohibitionists hanging out here.

I feel like we're at a tipping point here, but the prohibitionists are going to fight it with every dirty trick they can think of. It's already beginning. Legalization would do a lot of harm to some very evil people. But that'll make it all the sweeter if we do manage to pull this off.