60 watts of organic goodness

So it has been a little while since I last grew. I was rocking 2x400 watts of ceramic metal halide and high pressure sodium with 5 gallon buckets of a homemade organic soil, along with a cfl cabinet for mothers and cuttings. I am serious about growing strictly organic and am not satisfied unless the end result is supreme. I started dicking around 10-15 years ago with miracle gro and abysmal results, but about five years ago I was shown some new tricks

I have plans to use Neem oil, Dr. Bronner's soap, aloe, marigolds, thyme, rosemary, and spicy spicy peppers to spray on a schedule throughout veg and into the first two weeks of 12/12 to hopefully enjoy a problem-free week 9 or 10 in flower.

Also, I intend to water in seed sprout teas and kelp teas throughout the process, along with with alfalfa during the veg phases. Anywho.......more pics!!!


EDIT: Such high hopes lol. No kelp. The spray is shitty neem oil with unscented dawn for emulsification.

 

Much love, Chunk Daddy! I shot my old homeboy Jerry a message and will definitely pop over the lounge. You know I love chilling with my old homies at another site, but I wanted to show an easy and cheap way for the rest of us tiny growers to grow ganja with proper respect to the plant.

 

the light. 23 watt CFLs offer the highest lumen per watt rating for fluorescent bulbs. This setup probably set me back about $10.

The grow media. I scored a bail of promix, which is peat moss and a little perlite, for ten bucks. A $3 bag of lava rock covers aeration. For compost I used a mix of thermophilic compost from my tiny town's compost heap and some locally produced castings. To amend the mix I threw in a couple handfuls of Espoma Garden-Tone. Final recipe was 40% promix, 15% castings, 15% compost, and 30% smashed up lava rocks with about three cups espoma per cubic foot (this batch was nowhere near a cubic foot), along with all the dust from the rock whacking. Altogether I have maybe $30 tied up into it, but I could make a whole lot more soil with what I have.
A sub-irrigated planter. Made this out of trash so $0. I love these things. Totally fool proof.
the cab. There is a light trap behind the pot to let air in. That hole near the top is where a pc fan and homemade carbon filter will go. Still need to attach the door of course. The only thing I bought here was some activated charcoal and I still need a charger to power the fan. Everything else was done with scraps and junk.

Altogether I have about $50 bucks into this rig. It might take another $20-30 to get the timer, some cords, and the charger to run the fan. I am expecting about an ounce of the finest ganja per run from this setup. And with only 92 watts the power draw should be almost nothing.

 

The Garden-Tone had me feeling a little insecure, so I beefed it up a bit. All of the powder from smashing up the lava rocks was mixed into the soil. (Red and black lava rocks are scoria, grey lava rocks are pumice. Scoria is mafic in composition, pumice is felsic....just like basalt and granite.....scoria dust is basically basalt dust). I also went out and grabbed some potent accumulator plants, chopped them up, and whisked them into one part water and one part castings then poured that over the top. Yarrow, echinacea, and nettles. You need to figure out what you have nearby. This is what happens to be in my neck of the woods. When I lived in the south I used colocasia, kudzu, and dandelion.
Accumulators and casting slurry to kick it off right. I will let this relax for a month before planting.

 

And just for shits and giggles, some shots from my old 800 watt garden..... The top pic is Jamaican Lambs Bread gifted to me by someone who brought it back from the island. The bottom two are Lumperdawgz The One x Cherry Bomb. Swami seed hooked me up with the F1 and I made some F2s and backcrossed the best one to a good cut from the F1s.

 

And some sick reggae to move my soil along....

 

Ya I have no experience with LEDs, but I do with CFLs. Plus they are cheap and that was one of the goals with this project.

 

I don't know for sure. The 23 watt bulbs offer the highest lumen per watt ratio, so those are all I use anymore. Four of those can take a small plant through flower. 6 or 7 of the 13 watters might be enough to hold a mother.

 

Ya, that is a tough one to get around. Even in my days of running 400's my end results were not as dense as what friends were doing outside or inside with 1000 watt HIDs. The best way with CFLs is to always keep them within 2-3 inches by adjusting them daily. Even then the buds will never be as dense. As for potency issues, I would suggest delaying harvest as long as possible. You can expect CFLs to take a little longer.

 

Update.....never got around to this grow. I did just recently rig up a nice little computer fan and homemade carbon filter for the cab. Spent a couple of bucks on way more activated charcoal than I needed and jammed it all into the unit. I also traded a friend some cool beans, so I can get off my ass and get this thing happening any day now LOL.

I also whipped up a big batch of nettle FPE. Left over carcasses from cleaning my catches have been dehydrated and pulverized to make some homegrown fish meal. Old oyster shells have been saved and pulverized. Same with lobster and crab shells. Alfalfa hay has been tossed into the blender to make some alfalfa meal. I still need to whip myself up a small worm bin for fishing bait and the occasional casting slurry.

 

And some more fiya reggae to hold di vibes

 

A good friend hooked me up with some of the same genetics that led to the last nug pic. I feel like everything is in place now.

 

Cool man. I used a PC fan and power source, duct tape, a bunch of activated charcoal, some pantyhose and ducting. I can give you some pics if you want, but you are picking up what I'm laying down, right?