Budzills CFL Grow Guide For The Complete Beginner

Chapter 1: Introduction​

Welcome to my grow guide! In this guide im going to cover EVERYTHING you need to know and purchase to start your very own low tech, low budget, personal grow. Ill cover every step from seed to dried and cured bud, and even how to make hash from your trim. So lets get to it!

First thing i wanna do is tell you not to listen to High Times magazine when it comes to growing. They put out a new grow guide every month and they all contradict each other and try to make growing seem very hard and complex. This is not the case at all. Marijuana is a plant, and as long as it has dirt, light and water it will grow. Now you may not get the same outcome as someone using a $1500 set up, but whatever you grow is already gonna be better than the weed the seed came from. I HIGHLY recommend you go to a book store and pick up Jorge Cervantes "Medical Grow Bible". Its an extremely well written and illustrated book that will teach you literally everything you could ever possibly need to know about marijuana.

This guide is based around a very cheap method of growing, using CFL lighting (the twisty, energy effective bulbs). Im able to write this guide because ive used CFLs multiple times in the past and know exactly what to do. My outcomes have always been good using this same method im gonna be describing. Ive already made and learned from beginner mistakes, so hopefully ill be able to prevent you from making them. Lets move on

 

Chapter 2: Buying Supplies and Space Setup​

Everything on the supply list can be bought at Wal-Mart or Lowes. Now it may be a little more difficult to find good soil in the winter time, so if you plan a winter grow youll either have to buy ahead of time, or visit a gardening supply store. A lot of people will tel you that Miracle Grow soil is garbage and shouldnt be used. But ive found that it works just fine if you know what to stay away from. The ONLY Miracle Grow soil i recommend using is the Seed Starter and Organic Gardner varieties. The reason being is that they contain low levels of time released fertilizers which will cause you plants to "burn" up. When plants "burn" from nutrients, they dry up and die.

The Supply List:
-Miracle Grow "Seed Starter" soil
-Miracle Grow "Organic Garden" soil
-Shultz 10-15-10 Liquid Plant Food
-12 "soft white" CFL bulbs (23 or 26 watt)
-12 "daylight" CFL bulbs (23 or 26 watt)
-3 Hanging shop lights (they look like THIS and are sold at walmart)
-9 "Y" light socket splitters
-24 Hour timer
-a small desk fan
-Extention cord
-Solo "party" plastic cups
-Plastic flower pots (i recommend 1 gallon)
-3-4 Emergency Blankets (the very thin, metallic shiney kind. in the sporting good section)
-Plastic wrap

Once you have bought everything, you gonna need a dedicated grow space. This could be a wooden box youve built, a big stereo box, or just an empty closet (keep in mind for ever plant you have, you should have about 1 square foot of space, and at least 2-2 1/2 feet of height) For the lights, you wanna take the shop lights, put a "Y" splitter in them, then another splitter in each of the socket holes in the original splitter. Then screw in 4 of the "soft light" bulbs into them. Youll only need 1 "string" of these lights for the seedling growth stage. Then during the vegetation cycle, youll add the other 2 (Note: this is the MINIMUM amount of lights you need, the more you add, the better the end result will be) You wanna hang these lights so they are above your plants, and MAKE SURE THEY ARE VERY WELL SECURED! I cant stress this point enough. Several times i thought my lights were secured well, and at some point they slipped free and dropped on the plants and severely damaged them and burned them. Plug all these light strings into the extension cord and plug the extension cord into the timer and the timer into the wall outlet. Now cover your space with the emergency blankets with double sided tape or anyother kind of tape. They reflect light and make your space more effecient. Now just put the fan in the corner so it will blow across the space and your done!

 

Chapter 3: Germinating Seeds​

Seeds you grow with can be any seeds from a marijuana plant, weather you decide to buy them from a seed bank, or if you just pull some out of a bag of buds. When choosing your seed, you want to inspect them for any cracks, splits or holes because these seeds will NOT grow. You want a seed thats a little bigger than a BB with no cracks, and one that isnt solid black.

Now to start the germination process, you want to fill a little bowl with warm water and simply let your seeds sit in the water for a few hours (overnight is fine). After theyve soaked, wet a paper towel with warm water, place the seeds on it and fold the towel over so the seeds are covered. Place this on a plate and cover it with a solid bowl and set it in a warm spot. Check the seeds every few hours. Your looking for the seed to crack on the seam and a little white sprout to poke out. Once you see this and the sprout is about 1/8-1/4" out, its time to plant them.

 

Chapter 4: Seedling Cycle​

Once your seeds have sprouted, make some holes at the bottom of the solo cups, fill them with seed starter soil and water them well. Now dig a small hole in the top of the soil about a 1/4" down and place your seed sprout side down in the soil. Cover it back up with dirt, put the plastic wrap over top of the cup and place them directly under your soft white lights. Keep your lights on 24 hours a day for the seedling cycle. It usually takes a day or 2 for the seedling to sprout up from the soil. Now sometimes when the seedlings sprout up from the dirt, the seed casing may be attached. VERY carefully and gently use tweezers to remove it.

Keep the soil moist. The top layer can and will get dry due to the light, but if you dig down a little bit, the soil should be moist. If you go down about 1/2" and the soil is dry, then give them a good watering. Generally in the party cups, youll have to water every other day or so.

Once the seedling pushes its first set of real leafs out, you can take the plastic wrap off. During this stage the seedlings are delicate, so make sure you dont over water or add any kind of nutrients.

Plants in this stage grow very slow, so just be patient and have faith that soon theyll start growing by leaps and bounds. Once the seedling pushes out its first leaf that has 3 fingers on it, the seedling cycle is over and the plants will start growing a lot faster.

 

Chapter 5: Vegetative Cycle​

Once your plants have their first set of 3 fingered leafs, they have effectively moved from the seedling stage and moved into the vegetative stage. Youll notice that the plants are going to start growing at a faster pace. Your plants are now probably about a week or 2 old. Now you can start giving them the nutrients. I would start at about 1/4 strength for 1 week, then 1/2 strength for a week, then go full strength for the remander. This is to ensure they arent shocked by the sudden addition.

Now i know i said to use the Shultz plant food, and if you really are on a very fixed budget they will work, but i highly recommend looking into getting Fox Farm liquid nutrients. They are leaps and bounds above any other nutrients and the results will definitely show very quickly. While the Shultz will keep your plants going but the Fox Farm will make your plants EXPLODE in growth very rapidly. They are definitely looking into. I recommend getting the Grow Big, Tiger Bloom, and Big Bloom. Whatever route you go, youll only want to use your plant food every other watering. This will help prevent nute lock.

Now once your plants are about 4-6" tall, your going to want to transplant them into the bigger pots. To do this simply fill your pots with the Organic Garden soil, dig a hole in it big enough to hold the party cup. Now take the cup with your plant in it, and gently squeeze the sides to loosen up the soil, then gently tug on the main stem of the plant til it comes out. Put the rootball into the hole you dug and cover it with dirt. If your plant stretched (the main stem is very long) dig the hole deeper and put it in. You want the soil to come about an inch away from the lowest set of leafs. Now give it a good watering and youll notice the soild kinda washed away, didnt it? Just fill any gaps with more soil and water it a little more. Once youve got it soil all in and the rootball completely covered, youve successfully transplanted.

After youve transplanted your plants, its time to switch the light cycle. So now instead of 24 hours of uninterupted light, you want 18 hours of light and 6 hours of solid dark. This will encourage growth. You need to be sure that the dark cycle is just that...DARK. You dont want any light to be able to get into your grow space, because it will interupt the grow cycle. This is more important in flowering than in veg, but its better to get it right now.

Now once your plants get to about 6" tall, you have the option to Top or FIM them. This isnt nessacary, but it can keep your plants from growing too tall, it encourages side branch growth, and it splits the main cola into several different ones.

To Top your plant, simply take a pair of clean scissors, and cut the top of the plant off. When i say top of the plant, i mean just the tippy top. Find the very top of the plant, then go down to the next set of leaves down and snip the top off right at that set of leaves, making sure not to cut any side branches that may be present. This will cause the growth hormones to be redirected to those 2 side branches, making them each grow into a seperate cola.

To FIM a plant is a little too complicated to accurately describe, so this picture will show how to do it. It also shows how to Top, so its a win win.



If you choose to FIM/Top your plant, growth will slow a little bit at first, but it will resume after about a week.

Once your plant is about 1/3 of the size you want it to be, its time to flower. If you choose to keep your plants in veg they will continue to grow, and eventually grow pre-flowers. I always flower my plants at about 1' in height.

 

Chapter 6: Sexing Plants​

Ahh yes, what every grower waits for. This is where your patients will really be put to the test. And where attention to detail is very important.

First thing you wanna do is swap out those "daylight" bulbs for the "soft white" bulbs. This is to somewhat mimic the automn sunlight, where as the daylights mimic the spring sunlight.

Now that thats done, a step i like to take is leave the plants in total darkness for 24 hours. This preps the flowering hormones to get going. After the 24 hours of dark, put the lights on an even 12 on/12 off cycle. This is the key to forcing plants into flowering.

Heres where your attention to detail is gonna be put to the test, and this is essencially the key to a successful harvest (and thats what we really want, right?). After about a week, the plant will effectively be in flowering mode, and when they do this they will push out flowers. Whys this important? Well marijuana plants have different sexes, male and female just as humans (hermaphrodites too). The female plants are the ones that produce those beautiful buds that get you stoned and the males just spray pollen all over the place, which will get on the female and cause her to develop seed...which we definitely do not want. So to stop this, we have to weed out and kill every male that pops up (yes kill, no mercy style).

Females:

The female plant will push out "flowers" that are really just little pods called caylxes, that split open and push out little "hairs" called pistils. This is what your looking for, preflowers will show themselves at the nodes, which is where the leafs and branches meet the main stem. Here is what a female preflower looks like:



And a more close up view:



Males:

Male plants will show preflowers at the same spot as the females, but instead of one little pod with the hairs, theyll push out tiny clusters of balls, called pollen sacks. Once these sacks show, you generally have about a week or so before they open and spew pollen everywhere, so its extremely important to spend time each day looking over every node to make sure you dont have a male. Regardless of if the females are in full flower or not, the pollen can stay in your space for a long time and pollenate plants even long after the male has been removed.

Heres what a male flower looks like:



And closer:



I really recommend getting a magnifying glass for this stage, itll come in real handy.

Now even if your plant shows female flowers, you still must keep a vigilant eye on it because plants can and do go hermaphrodite. So your female can grow male parts and pollenate itself. If you see a plant doing this in just 1 or 2 spot, you can just cut the branches off that are growing male parts and hope for the best, but if its an ongoing problem its best to just kill the plant.

 

Chapter 7: Flowering​

So now that weve successfully sexed our plants, its on to flowering. And believe me, patients is a virtue. You dont wanna rush this process and harvest too early or youll have something at half the potential it could have been.

Now for flowering, really you just wanna keep doing what your doing. Keep the soil moist, make sure your lights are functional and your timers working, and be sure that you dont have any light leaks cuz this is the time when it can really hinder the plants growth and add weeks onto the flowering time.

Flowering generally goes thru 3 bursts of growth, with periods of inactivity in between. Where most people make a mistake is harvesting after the 2nd burst due to being inpatient. If you can make it through the wait, youll definitely be rewarded.

Really this is just a waiting game. Flowering usually take 8-10 weeks depending on the strain and whatnot. Some people will say that you should harvest once the pistils start turning brown/orange, but this is a mistake. The pistils will change long before the plant is ready. The key to harvest is the trichomes, usually called crystals. The chart below will show you when to harvest so that the plant is at its ripest.



Youll want to get a little pocket microscope to inspect the trichomes. You can get these at Radioshack for about $15.

Once your trichomes are at thier peak and your buds are nice and big and juicy, its time for the best part...HARVEST!!!

 

Chapter 8: Harvesting/Trimming/Drying/Curing​

This is where all your work, patients and time finally start to pay off! But trust me, this shit stops being fun after about 15 minutes. Lets get started...

Once youve determined your plants are done, you have a couple options. First you can cut off single branches trim and hang them to dry, or you can cut the whole plant down and then cut the branches, trim em and hang em to dry. Its really up to you. What i do recommend is a good pair of scissors with a small tip and a really comfortable chair, cuz you will be trimming for hours.

What you want to do is start by cutting off all the large leafs as close to the main stem as you can get, then move on to all the little leafs. This is going to VERY time consuming to get each bud perfect, but just keep pushing forward and youll finish eventually. Clip all the leafs as close to the stem as you can possibly get. Save all your trim and any small puffy buds not worth trimming and drying. Once youve finished clipping the leaves off, hang the branch upside down in a dry, cool place. Leave these hanging like this for at LEAST 5 days, even if they feel crispy to the touch the inside is still moist. Rule of thumb is once the smaller stems snap when bent, they are ready to be cured.

Curing is simple, cut the buds off of the branches and place them in a glass mason jar with an air tight seal. Let these sit for a day, then take the top off and let them sit unsealed for a day. After this uncovered day, put the tops back up and open them up 2 times a day for 5 minutes each time and shake them up so they rotate a bit. Youll notice that the jars will stink like wet hay for a while, this will go away eventually and theyll have a weed smell. After a few days of this, you can start smoking! The longer they cure in these jars like this, the better theyll get. After 2 weeks of opening the jars daily, you can keep them closed, opening them once a day.

And thats that! At this point youve successfully completed your first grow. Pat your self on the back and call yourself a grower, you earned it.

 

Chapter 9: Making Hash​

There are several different methods to do this, if you check the Harvest section here youll find all of them. Im only going to cover the easiest method here. This method is called QWISO and stands for Quick Wash ISO hash, because you use Isopropal alcohol.

To start, gather your popcorn buds and you trim (doing this right after harvest and trimming gives the best effect) and stick it all in the freezer for a few hours. Now your gonna want a big bottle of 91% Isopropal Alcohol (you can get this at walmart for $3). Take your frozen trim and buds and fill up a mason jar halfway with them, then pour enough Iso in to cover everything plus a half inch. Put the top on and let it sit for 30 seconds, no more no less. Then shake vigorously for 30 seconds, no more no less. Now immediately pour this all thru a coffee filter draining into a pyrex baking dish. Squeeze all the liquid out of the trim and coffee filter. Then set it aside (you can repeat this with the same trim 2 more times, tho they wont be as good of a quality). Now if you have more fresh trim to use, do the same thing again until youve run out of fresh trim (dont use the trim already washed for this first batch). Set the tray infront of a fan in a closed room with the window open. Itll take about 30 minutes to an hour for it to completely evaporate. Once all the liquid is gone, you can scrape up the residue and press it together and start smoking it immediately if you want.

 

Thx for the kind words

 

What your doin is trying to replicate the outdoor light. During spring and summer the sun sits higher in the sky and the light reaching us is toward the bluer end of the spectrum. And during late summer and autumn the sun sits lower and the light reaching us is more toward the orange/red end of the spectrum. So really switching the daylight (blue) for the softwhite(orange) along with the light cycle change mimics the season change and helps the plants realize its time for flowering. I know theres more, but i cant remember off the top of my head lol