If so, I hope to join your ranks soon with the purchase of this grow system. I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a ready-to-go system for quite a while, then saw this and thought, “hmm”. So I’m in learning mode for a while as I try to absorb info.
A crucial question: what should I do for either seeds, or seedlings?
That looks nifty !
Not sure if that has different veg’ and flower lights though … ?
I recently switched to a hydroponic system, and it was well worth it.
I use an nft (nutrient film technique) system like this using rockwool cubes.
I think that’s the smallest in that range, and i don’t think it’ll fit in that Advance grow tent.
Might be worth looking at some sort of dwc (deep water culture) setup, eg this.
As for seeds, i use a slightly different approach. I put the seeds in a cup of water until
they germinate with ~5-10mm of root showing, then put some seed compost into the
hole in the rockwool cube and plant directly (and carefully !) into that - I’ve never had
any luck trying to germinate seeds directly in rockwool plugs, don’t know why !
I have a 90x50x160 cm tent and one of these. although i might upgrade to something more powerful for flowering (It’s great for vegging !)
Nice little set up!
I’m not currently growing, but when I owned my previous home I had the ideal situation. The house had a “cold cellar” that was underneath the front porch. I used it for flowering ten plants under a 600 watt HPS and a 400 watt HPS. The 600 watt was in an air cooled hood. I used a Dayton blower to pull air through the hood and discharged it through a big can carbon filter. I grew in soil using 5 gallon buckets, but I played around with hydroponics and aeroponics just for fun.
Up in my attic I had fluorescent lights for germination and early growth. Vegetative growth was under a 250 watt metal halide light that ran 24/7. I also had two mother plants in constant vegetative growth for harvesting clones.
It was a sweet setup. I got all my supplies before moving in and began running my lights the day I moved in, without any plants, so the electric company never saw a jump in usage. I lived alone but used the electricity that a family would use.
My carbon filter did such a nice job that I could have 5-0 standing on my porch, with my garden under their feet, and they wouldn’t suspect a thing.
It was a cool hobby. I told nobody for years. I produced so much that I was constantly looking for excuses to give away mason jars of weed. My friends all thought I “knew a guy”. I made butane honey oil in my backyard once, and made cookies & brownies all the time, taking them to concerts and passing them around.
I miss it. Wish you luck and green times!
My BIL bought some big pots and placed them on small wooden dollies. He moved them around his driveway to catch full sun. He grew large beautiful plants, and processed them when they were covered in buds.
I bought seeds mostly from European sellers. Gypsy Nirvana in the UK was a great source. Discreet shipping and the worst case scenario was they were intercepted and you were out some money. There was no way to prove you did anything wrong. My orders all went through fine.
Back in the day there was a cannabis message board called Overgrow (the concept was to Overgrow the government). I posted there and over time became friends with a grower in Ohio. We planned a brief meetup on the PA Turnpike at a rest area with east & west access.
We each brought identical Playmate coolers with clones of plants we were most proud of. At the rest stop we each carried our coolers to a restroom area. We wore sunglasses and baseball caps to help with identification. We approached each other, set our coolers down, then picked up the other cooler and headed back to our cars. No words were spoken. It was fun but a bit scary.
Timing your harvest is crucial. Buy a cheap usb microscope to view your trichomes so you can harvest precisely at peak.
If you grow from seeds you’ll need to sex your plants. Read about preflower identification. I used a hand held RadioShack microscope to view pre flowers.
Read all you can about drying and curing. Makes the difference between great and excellent product.
It’s funny that when I was growing everyone used MH and HPS lights. The “kids” were all talking about LEDs but we scoffed. Now LEDs are the way.
You can get feminized seeds now, no need to sex them !
(Unless you want to produce your own seeds, of course.)
Treating seeds chemically to guarantee they produce female plants (feminized seeds) is a practice not without controversy (at least the last I read). I never used feminized seed. I’d rather pay $60 for ten seeds than $60 for one feminized seed.
Also, the techniques used to evaluate preflowers IMO makes the grower more in tune with his garden.
All that said….,
My biggest fiasco ever was a timing disaster that turned out hilarious. I was under time constraints to put a garden into flower before heading to Jamaica for vacation. Timing was crucial, as I’d be leaving my garden unattended for a week.
If I waited long enough to see preflowers so I could harvest definite female clones, I wouldn’t have plants ready to flower. So I went with my gut and took cuttings to early.
I rooted my clones and put them into flower the day I left. I returned to a garden of ten beautiful MALE plants!!! Total disaster that I shared on Overgrow. I quickly chopped up the plants and started over.
A fun project that I attempted once just to say I’d done it. I grew a male plant under fluorescent light in a spare bedroom, keeping the door closed for bio security. Pollen is scary.
I put the male into flower and flower he did. I very carefully collected pollen, mixed pollen with some sifted flour , then changed my clothes and pollinated one branch of a flowering female using an artist paint brush. I put a bag over the pollinated branch and waited.
When I eventually harvest the female I had hundreds of seeds on that branch. Despite the care I took, I found a handful of seeds on another branch of that plant. But none on the nine plants that flowered with her. Success!
Another way to make seeds (I do not recommend this) is to stress the female plant, turning lights on during the dark phase is one stressor.
A stressed cannabis plant will sometimes become a hermaphrodite and self pollinate. Makes sense evolutionarily.
This is why if you purchase cannabis from a dispensary you can sometimes find a seed or two. It’s evidence the grower f’d up, stressing the grow.
The offspring of hermaphroditic cannabis is questionable.
I probably would too, but with my set up, i only have space for 1 plant at a time
- including vegging and flowering. So if said plant turns out to male, i’ve lost a few
weeks !
LEDs are much better than they used to be. I’m sensitive to lighting, and they used to be okay, now the good ones are nearly as good as a hot incandescent light for light quality. I assume you can get LED grow lights tuned to the needs of a variety of plants.
Do you consider your grow a micro-grow? Back in the day on Overgrow the micro-grow people had their own sub forum and had some crazy setups and results.
Things like grows hidden in an end table with filtered ventilation out the back.
At the opposite end of the spectrum there was a guy with a grow in a huge freaking cave. Really crazy but he made it work.
They’ve come a long way!
The advantage of legalization is that you don’t have to find weird places to hide your grow.
No, not a micro grow. It’s a 50x90x160cm tent in my loft (wrapped in loft insulation !)
My nft tank and pumps only just fit in. Here’s some pics …
I’m in the UK … !
As a moderator, i feel obliged to remind you that this board discourages illegal activity. Also, we can’t keep track of laws around the world, and the tiebreaker is whether a Chicago cop would care. (Since the board is based there.)
Growing cannabis is legal enough in enough US states (including mine) that we do allow discussion of growing cannabis. I don’t think we did prior to legalization.
So… I don’t know the cannabis laws in the UK, but I’d request you not talk about how to evade laws.
Noted !
Beautiful girls!!
I’ve wondered for a while what the effect would be if the plant pot was suspended from the ceiling by a hook attached to a gear motor which would turn the plant at a low rpm. And then mount the lights on the side of the enclosure. If I get this set-up, and harvest enough to keep me going for a while, I’d be tempted to try this.