New Grower Setup

I got my medical marijuana card and started growing for myself not too long ago, and here's my evolving setup so far. This will be my second attempt at a successful harvest, but as a brand new grower I knew the first couple attempts would probably be trial and error until I learn the ropes so I wasn't too crushed by the first loss. In fact, I'm pretty sure that my failure was in the curing more than the growing so hopefully with some of the upgrades I've gone through I can get that in check.

I was given two small clones of pineapple express, so I started out growing two plants at a time in 3 gallon pots under a home made CFL lamp that I made using a piece of steel roofing, some flat white paint, and a couple of ceiling fan light fixtures that I had lying around. I then used two power strips to plug in three more CFL's on each side of the room, all 43 watts, and using standard 19 inch aluminum shades behind the power strips that somebody had given me. I figured that this wouldn't be enough light to get real big buds or anything, but as a brand new grower I was more concerned with learning about the needs of the plant itself before I started demanding huge buds from it lol. I started with a cheap potting soil and amended it with peat moss and lime, then used a standard Miracle Grow high nitrogen fertilizer that I already had lying around (24-8-16), and I fertilized the first harvest a couple times during vegging, but stopped completely when I went into budding and just used the non sulfuric molasses up until about 10 days before harvest. No other nutes since I didn't have alot of cash to play with or hands on knowledge on what exactly they needed. I figured just good old water and tlc would be enough to see what happens and map out what I need to improve the next time. Using my son's microscope (I know, shame on me) I waited until the trichomes were glazed and almost turning brown, then harvested. The first harvest was about three ounces of buds between the two plants, and the buds were very small which resulted in me drying them out too fast when curing so they tasted like crap. Nice buzz, but very harsh taste.

In the mean time, I had cut a few clones before putting the two plants into budding stage and framed in another closet inside my grow room to act as a vegging area, so again I tried to bud these in the same manner, adding a few more CFLs to try to squeeze in more light and maybe get a little bit bigger buds. This time around, I got smacked with mites in my vegging area and really had to put in some overtime to get them under control. I ended up using this method here to get rid of them with the addition of some canola oil, and it was pretty effective. Although as you can see in the pics, there is still some scarring in the leaves.

So now that I feel that I've played around long enough and gotten a little experience on the light cycles, watering, and other care, I think I'm ready to step it up and grow how its supposed to be done. As you can see by the setup I have now, I upgraded to a 600 watt HPS, which came with a 19 inch shade but I ended up making my own using some aluminum roof flashing, a set of steel curtaid rods to make the curves adjustable, and some flat white paint. I then ripped the carpet out of the room and painted all of the walls white, since they were an off-white before. So this is where I'm at now after a few upgrades:

Budding 2 plants at a time in five gallon buckets now instead of three gallon, under a 600 HPS
Vegging in three gallon pots for a month from clone before transplanting and putting to bud.
Using Fertilome Ultimate potting mix, with some lime amended in.
Using 1 tablespoon non-sulfuric molasses once a week in watering during bud stage.
Using Walmart nutes, every other watering:
Schultz All Purpose for vegging (20-20-20)
Schultz Bloom Plus for budding (10-54-10)


These pics are two weeks after the HPS light upgrade. The vegging closet has a four foot flourescent shop light, and is on an 18 hour light cycle, with the main room being on 12.

And here's what I have plans for:

Windows: I'm not sure if this has mattered so far since the my budding timer is set to go off after it gets dark where I live and come on before it gets light. But I plan on covering these up today or tomorrow before the daylight hours start changing too much on me.

Venting: You can see in one of the photos that there is a plugged hole in the back wall in the lower left hand side. This room used to be one half of a laundry room and that's the old vent that the previous owner never covered. When I peeled the wallpaper off to paint the room, there it was. So I plan on installing a four inch fan there for room ventilation. Also I have a small fan that I took out of the back of an old computer that I am going to wire up and plug into the side of the vegging closet, using dark fabric to filter the light form leaking out.

Nutes: I'm a pretty good gardener, but I do know that plants are different in what they need to flourish. I chose the Schulz's nutes just because that's what was available to me and i wanted to at least try something. Living in a small town, I have since accepted that I will need to shop online if I want to find anything of quality. For the time being, I'm thinking about ordering the foxfarm tri-soil combo and using that until I learn more about nutes since that seems to be a no brainer from what I've read about it. I also have had me eye on maybe trying seabird and bat guano for vegging and budding respectively.

Timers: I'm using cheap dial timers right now, and I plan to upgrade those as well.


So there it is, my attempt at providing myself with my own wacky tabacky. You guys who have been doing this for a long time, my hats off to you because this isn't easy. Like I said, I think the curing stage is where I've been failing due to the thumbnail size buds I was getting drying out too fast, but now I think I'll have a bit more time to play with when this next batch is ready. Any feedback or tips on my setup or process will be greatly appreciated.

Only thing I would change at a glance is your use of 5-gallon buckets for 3-foot plants.
We figure a 3-gallon pot will more than support a plant thru 3 months of lifespan. Very few
of my plants stay in dirt more than 12 weeks, so you are wasting time with the bigger-than-you-need pots.
You could do just as well with 6-8 quart pots for your growing space. You have done a great job of
keeping your plants the right size for your operation. You just wasted 2 weeks waiting for the rootball to
fill in a lot more area than needed.

BigSteve.

Nothing substantive to add, just wanted to say it sounds like you're on a great track! Good luck, and happy growing!

set-up looks pretty good... best advice I can give is to step up your game when it comes to nutrients

Cool, thanks for the advice guys. I got the five gallon buckets for a buck a piece from the local subway so I figured I'd give them a try. If it's wasting time though then by all means going back to the three gallon pots is more manageable for me anyway. And as far as nutes go, yeah I have alot of research and learnng to do.

whats up fellow michigander ! lol.....man im from a small town also and we only have 1 grow shop, is small and expensive as hell except the small shit nutes, soil is kinda alot but thats a must also but your grow is awesome as hell for a newb, only thing if you could get your hands on fox farm shit some happy frog soil and nutes grow big, and big bloom i think its called lol....if you have to order stuff www.htgsupply.com thats the best place, orders come from penn. but has only taken 4 days ea time.....but htgsupply also has like 5 or 6 stores here in mich, how far are you from traverse city? ive drove there a couple times and is deffinately worth the drive only took me couple hrs topps, i grow pineapple Xpress also and thats the stuff i use and mmmm! love the smell and taste....hope this helps


edit: you can use that T12 shop light for veg i just wondering, did you buy plant and aquairum bulbs for it? and you can have that style of light alot closer almost touching...imo

I live in central Upper Michigan, quite aways from Traverse City, but I'm originally from lower Michigan though so I've been there a few times. I will be trying out the foxfarm for sure, I just have to get my hands on some. Thanks for the link the link too, because I'll probably have to resort to ordering it online. I've been shopping around my area the last couple of days at the few places that do sell plant nutes and my best find as far as organic was a mill that had bat guano. People in my area are still warming up to the idea of medical marijuana so slowly retailers are starting to carry better items.

As far as the light in my vegging closet, I do usually have it a couple of inches above the plants but for photo taking purposes I raised it up so you could see the tops. Those are just regular 40 watt cool white flourescents but I do have two 40 watt plant & aquarium ecolux bulbs for it too. I just thought that the spectrum I would get with the cool white bulbs would be better for vegging stage and those others were more suited for budding?