Hey folks, thought I'd make a thread and show ya'll what I've been up to for the past few months. Long story short I sold the forclosed home I was growing in and spent the money on more important things like bills, equipment, nutes, ect... Anyways I'm now growing in two seperate locations to help keep the power bills under the radar. Enough Jibber-jabber.....The first place I'm growing is a nice little shed rigged with 4 1000k watt Hortilux Super HPS bulbs with water cooled lights (Fresca Sol) covering 64 plants. I have a 100 gallon aquarium with a chiller keeping the lights cool and all the ballasts are all digital. There is also two a/c units to help keep this shed cool in the summer. I'm running 2 70 gallon reservoir's on each side of the shed with a little walk-way down the middle. For nutrients I'm using Dutch master gold, carbo load, overdrive, gravity, floranectar and a few other goodies. I'm not going to get to specific but I can answer any questions you have. As little clones: look how much brighter the satellite (left) is compared to the pioneer (right) Today: The Big plant up front has been nicknamed General Sherman after the giant Sequoia tree. This thing is massive and has grown past the lights! Next grow takes places in a huge closet. 24 plants in total. 20 under 2000w and the 4 scragglers under the 400w. Hortilux bulbs, sun systems ballasts and reflectors. Cutting edge solutions nutrients, floranectar for the taste, carbo load, overdrive, ocean forest/ light warrior for soil. Vortex 6 sucking out the hot air. Once again any questions just ask.... Got Soil? Freshly transplanted into big pots one side of closet: Other side of freshly transplanted closet: Today: Snapped right as lights cut on, hence the blueish hue to the lights.. And heres what was harvested from my last grow, about 2 1/2lbs.: Anyways sorry it's not the most specific journal ever but I'm a busy dude and I'm never in one spot to long. Any questions just ask, otherwise enjoy!
Looking good. when curing bulk amounts, I ditched the jars, and used large Zip lock bags, they were around 3-4 gallon in size, meant for clothing or something, they work great. 2 /12 lbs off 2k watts is about right. you save the trimmings to make canna butter? I tumble all my trimmings first for bubble, then make canna butter out of the rest for baking up some kick ass cookies. Whats FoxFarm soil running you? when I was running soil, I found a kick ass organic soil mix made by Gardner and Bloom that was $10 for 2 CF, toss in some Blood and bone meal, Epson salts and some agricultural lime, and that shit was the bomb. look for it at the local nursery.
Hmm, I will have to take a look for that as a bag of ocean forest runs me about $20. It's pricey stufff but has never let me down. $10 a bag sounds a lot better though! Thanks for stopping by bro.
I'm going to pm you some questions about your curing techniques pretty soon, so be ready. As for the trimmings, In the past I have just thrown them through bubble bags and made hash. I have not had very good luck making butter. Once again another thing I will likely pm you about very soon!
you can use this here to find nurseries that carry there stuff, it really is top notch stuff. Welcome to GBSoil :: Search Interface :: I use to buy the stuff by the pallet (40 bags) 20 bags each run, toss a bag in the large cement mixer, toss in 1 1/2 cups each of bone and blood meal, 1 cup of epsom salts, 1 cup of agricultural lime (ebay it) don't use the hydrated lime. and then 5 scoops each of perlite and vermiculite, let mixer do it's thing, then bag that shit up. and plant and grow. it would produce big chunky sugar coated buds. Welcome to GBSoil :: Search Interface ::
my approach is simple, once my buds are dried, I put them in the large zip lock bags as mentioned, then toss in several leafs of lettuce, and let sit for 24 hrs, this softens up the buds, and they will weigh down on each other and slowly compact themselves, then I dump them on trays to dry out again for about 2 days, I repeat this process about 4-5 times, once they have compacted down a bit from the process i just leave them in the bag in the cool dark closet to slowly cure for about 2-4 months, opening the bag once every 2 days to air out. in about 2 months they look and smell freaking awesome. my left over trim is tumbled, scooped up and then compressed, i normally collect about 2-3 oz of very sweet kief from each run, then compress it in those clay maker press thingys, heat the press maker with a heat gun, (buy the stainless steel one they cost 45-50$) then pop out a 8-9 gram chunk of kief. all left over trim is set aside for canna butter, I'll buy about 6-7 lbs of butter, put in large pot, melt it all, then add all my trimmings, then set on a low simmer for about an hour, stirring every few mins, then turn it off, and let cool, but not so cool as to let the butter set up and harden, then strain it in a large strainer over a second large pot, then a second straining thru the jam/jelly sleeves to remove all the fine particle matter the other strainer missed, (Butter may be hot still, so wear 3 layers of latex gloves to squeeze out the butter from the jelly sleeve) then put in fridge to harden, the next day it should be hard, then break up the puck, as it will have some water in it, discard the water, and your set, keep unused butter in freezer. when baking or making goodies, just use the same amount of cannabutter as you would normal butter. with about 5-6 lbs of cannabutter, I am able to make 10-13 batches of peanut butter, chocloate chip cookies, and give them away as an extra to my broker who in turn gives them to his dealers/end users. 1 cookie is all you need to get seriously baked all night. takes about 2 hrs to kick in once eaten.
Heres two new pics of the hydro grow. First pic is of the table on the right (aka the better of the two tables). Second pic is of the left side which had some issues early on, partially due to a leaking light. And a pic of my little babies! Amazing how fast they grow. Tommarow, look for some new good updated pics from my soil grow. I tried to get some today but the lights cut on before I got there.
Snapped some pics of my soil grow today like I promised. It's hard to get good pictures of these ladies. Even my runts in the back are filling in nicely!
Thanks man, they sure are coming along! I seriously log on everynight now to aleast check your grow updates, you got me hooked.
I'm only gonna update with pics once a week. but i try and answer questions if they pop up. i always remember my first grow, i was scared as hell, and always kept saying to myself "what the hell are you doing!" my first i acted like i was on speed, looking out windows, watching everybody..took me a year to get comfortable. Blah!
Yea I remember those days to, and honestly they sucked. Im glad I've been able to overcome that fear! Heres a pic, to match the one in your grow journal even though your buds are more massive. This was from last grow.