Former Government Scientist Repurposed to Grow Dank!

Greetings all! Well, the title says it all. Until somewhat recently, I worked for a government contractor. There was something about a budget squabble and someone was about to be pushed off a cliff. Not sure exactly what happened, but Uncle Sam stepped in and closed up his wallet and I was sent out into the cold. As I walked to the car with the items from my desk tucked away in a bankers box, I found myself wondering just what I was going to do? I had been working hard for this dream job for the last 7 years. Somewhat lost, I wandered for a bit before finding myself in Washington State with a friend with a med card. At his suggestion, I got mine... and so it began..... More to come...

With tax season just around the corner, and a sizeable return expected, plans for a grow room were hatched. In the meantime, my med card holding friend acquired for me two clones. One was named Purple Haze, the other Orange Crush. Breeder unknown and donor anonymous, I had no way to know if these were even the same strains I was reading about online. I didn't even know if these same strains were the same strains from one site to the next..... one said sativa... one said indica. Going with the vast knowledge gleaned from reading and reading, I decided these two little ladies were most definitely indica. Only problem now... what to do with them?!? The ink was still virtually wet on my grow room plans and here I am holding two baby girls. They had been transported to my soon to be grow location in a small box, and I was worried this had stressed them out. I decided that a 24/0 light schedule would be the remedy for any blues they might be feeling and fixed a perch for them in a window near some T8 lights. Here they remained for about a week, in their red solo cups...

Now I should pause for a moment and mention my gratitude for you guys. I read lots and lots and lots of crap on the various forums out there. It didn't take me long to make RIU my go to guide. This site has lots and lots of great information if you know how to find it... google search... not the one in the top corner, if you didn't. I have found myself on this site nearly every day for the last several months. With your help, I managed to over-love my first ones just a little, not a lot. If this place didn't exist, things could have turned out much differently. As it is, I think I managed an alright grow first time around, all mistakes considered. I figure it's time for me to give a little back. So back to the story we go....

after 7 years this is all u got. ive done more in the last month. either way, welcome to RIU and best of luck with your endeavors

After sitting high up in that little window in their subterranean palace for about a week, I decided they were ready for a transplant operation. I went down to the local hardware store and purchased a couple of 10ish gallon pots and a couple bags of store brand soil that my eyeballs told me would be enough to fill. (Subsequent soil and container purchases were made with the proper mathematical ratio's and of much more proper origin. But more on that later, I'm just telling how the story happened, stupid stuff and all.) When I got home, I poured those bags of light-brown dusty goodness into the pots and I was pretty close. By the time the soil had settled after a few chemical feedings of miracle grow, it was about 4.5-5 inches below the plane of the pot. It also had a most attractive salty, sparkly sheen. (I later learned this is called salt-build up, but I thought that was a hydro problem... wtf?) It was around this time that I also started seeing some weird spots on the leaves and spotted my first flying insect...

I first spotted the little bugger perched atop a fan leaf, having a nice little snack. My first attempt to detain the critter failed, but after a brief pursuit, he was squashed while trying to flee. I wasn't able to make any kind of positive ID on this guy, but an encounter the following day led to a more peaceful resolution. The suspect was detained for identification and then released to the wild. Best guess, something called a lygus bug. (sp?) After those two left the neighborhood, a few others were spotted dead in the lighting. I suspect I accidently killed their leader and exiled his heir, therefore causing some sort of cult suicide thing. Anyway, not sure if those guys had been good or bad for the plants, for after their departure, fungal gnats moved in. At first there were just a few, I would catch them fluttering in the corner of my eyes as I tended the little ladies. I decided it was time to take action. I used some neem oil and SNS to no effect. Potato slices didn't seem to do the trick either. Sticky traps work great, but they don't fix the problem completely. I finally ended the fungal gnats reign of terror with a layer of sand on top of the soil. I trimmed away the leaves with the most damage, and just simply trimmed damaged parts off others. It was around this time that my fancy new lights arrived....

Now I did a lot of reading and research and it seemed to me that a 6oow lamp was exactly what I would need. But since I had two plants, I figured it'd be best to go ahead and just get two lights. That way they could each have their own and neither would be jealous of the other. Well, little did they know that I would end up sticking and HPS in one socket and a MH in the other just because I wanted to know what would happen. I excitedly opened my packages from the UPS man and my excitement was quickly replaced with anguish as I realized that these 240v plugs for the powerbox looked nothing like what I had on my dryer. How was I supposed to make this work? The particular model of powerbox I had purchased it seems only came with the 4-prong and could not be changed with a 3-prong. Still flush with cash from the tax return, and with ambitions of larger grows to come, I decided to tuck the currently useless equipment away, and order proper equipment for my wiring. It took a few extra days and when that pack of new ballasts arrived on my doorstep, I was a giddy child again.... only to be crushed again! This time, the ballasts had a different socket cable attachment. The horror! A quick trip to the hydro-store across town fixed that with a couple of adapters. The lights fired right up and boy were they bright, and HOT!!!...

With the ladies residing in an subterranean palace and it being the cold of winter, I had hoped that heat would not be an issue. I stuck a thermo/hygro combo on the shelf nearby the plants and realized in horror that my ladies were being subjected to temperatures of up to 96*! I had previously purchased an oscillating fan at the hydro shop, but even turning it on full only bought me a couple of degrees. Another trip to the hydro shop and more tax money laid out, I returned with a 745 cfm 8" fan and 25' of ducting. I also purchased a couple of reducers to splice into the laundry line. I mounted the fan and hooked up the ducting to one end of the hood and fan, running another length that ultimately ends up outside through the laundry vent. This brought temps down to a more constant 84-86* with lights on, getting as low as 56* with lights out. Still not ideal, but it was workable. During this time, I also decided that since I had installed more powerful lights and heat had become an issue, I would reduce the amount of time the lights were on. Should help save on the power bill a bit as well...

So my math was a little flawed with the power bill, turns out 2 600w lights running for only 12 hours still uses a little more power than two 24w fluro's running 24/7. Seems they actually have to run for 12 hours approximately before they equal one hour on the 6oow. Who knew? My bungled attempts to save money were rewarded, however, seems this change in light cycle flips some kind of switch in the ladies and they began to flower. It was a most beautiful and welcome site seeing those first little pistol hairs. As the days wore on, more and more became apparent and the buds began to swell. So I remembered reading somewhere that these girls are supposed to be big fans of CO2. I just happened to have a few old cartridges laying around from an old pellet gun and decided I would enrich the CO2 in my environment. There just happened to be a vice nearby on a workbench, so I clamped that sucker down and selected a drill bit to puncture the seal. Mindful that this could be unsafe, I made sure to put on some safety glasses first. It took a few seconds of gentle drilling and there it was, a little pop and a fizzle.... As I was thinking to my self, "that's it?", and reaching for another one, the drill moved ever so slightly and WOOSHH, we had CO2 enrichment! I had a few more of those little CO2 cartridges, so I repeated this process over the course of the next week every other day or so until I ran out. Deciding that this was cumbersome, I wanted to try those mushroom bags that hydro stores carry. As luck would have it, the hydro store wouldn't have any for several more weeks, some supply issue. So I decided to drive to Wal-Mart and pick up some dry ice and evaporate it in the grow area. I bought about 10 bucks worth and stuck it in a cooler with the lid propped slightly open just below the wall fan above the pots. By the growth that I witnessed during this time, I would say they liked it. It took about a week for the CO2 to fully evaporate and a few weeks later brought in a Exhale CO2 bag for the duration of flowering. And even though the ladies were filling out their buds nicely, many leaves were beginning to show signs of stress...

At first, the damage was only noticeable in the leaf tips. Scorching and dying, like dangling little finger nails. Now I had read a little bit about nute burn and the praises of RO water. There was also something about Ph needing to be in the correct range, but I scoffed at that, being a scientist and all, who pays attention to that crap I said. So in an effort to fix this over nuting problem, I picked up some organic feed, Herculean Harvest, and began adding it to my feed. I backed off the MG, from 40 drops/gal to 20 to 10 to 0 finally. I later purchased the basic Nectar from the Gods line and used it for the duration of the grow. I also wised up and eventually purchased a Ph/PPM meter. Turns out my tap water is about 80ppm and Ph of 8.2. It was around this time that I also began drawing my water and letting it sit out for 24 hours prior to adding anything to it and putting it to the roots. As it turns out, the Nectar did a great job of hitting 6.5-6.8 without requiring any up/down. Still no matter what I did, the leaves health just continued to deteriorate, some cupping at times and curling up. After thinking this was overwatering then under-watering due to the gnat infestation, I finally determined it had to be heat from the lights. At this point the colas were 4-6 inches from the glass, and even though everything I had read told me to get the lights as close as possible, I feel this was just too close and ultimately the plant suffered. Fortunately, week 9 was approaching and the chop was imminent.

Since about week 5 I had been keeping a close eye on the trichromes for any signs of amber. To my dismay, the trichs remained clear/cloudy everywhere I looked! It wasn't until day 67 that I saw my first few amber colored mini-mushrooms. I could wait no more, I would chop that very day. I began by removing all the remaining fan leaves, which were few, as I had selectively pruned throughout the flower period. Then individual branches were cut from the stalk and trimmed before being hung to dry. My first harvest was an absolute delight! Fingers stuck together with gooey goodness, more gooey goodness scraped from trimmers and vaporized. It was an experience I will always cherish the foggy memory of. So anyway, I let the sticks dry on the strings for right about 5 days in the (mostly) dark. Temps were steady at 66-70, with humidity at 40-50%. After that, the buds were trimmed from the stems and placed in mason jars to begin the curing process I had read so much about. I basically followed the steps in The Perfect Cure Every Time and am pleased with the results. When all said and done, I had just under 200g from those two plants. Now I should also mention, I did get some seeds. Seems I had a hermie, maybe both. But given all the stress factors I introduced, I guess that is to be expected. It was a great learning experience and I loved every minute of it! It gave me the confidence I needed to continue to grow and never look back. So that's me in a nutshell and how I got started. I just wanted to introduce myself before I started posting in other threads and topics. Feel free to join in on this one now.

Put a little up after a visit to the garden today in the outdoor section. I've got a Sweet Mango Auto that was a freebie that will be ready for the chop any day now (she was 8 weeks Thursday from first pistols, supposed to be a 7 week finisher). I'll probably post about it in it's own section of the auto-flowering threads soon. So head to the outdoor section and check out Visited the SunJ Garden Today... and tell me what you think!