Mission Improbable: Half Pound DIY Budget Grow

My mission, should I choose to accept it:

Produce 8 oz of cured, high quality bud using little cash and without any real growing experience.

(WTF am I thinking?!)

The mission is not accomplished until I can repeat the results consistently, with a high level of quality.

The parameters:

Deadline - 4 Months. 2 months from start to flower. 2 months of flower time or 'til the trichs come home.

Budget - Under $200. This doesn't include electric or water.

Space - A 4x4 grow room built to hold an already flowering overstock Afghani plant that a band mate of mine gave me. That plant has been harvested. A 2x2 veg/clone room that can be made two-tiered to allow for continuous two-month harvest cycles.

Greenery - 707 Headband & Strawberry Cough, both from clone. Plus a tin filled with old bag seeds that says "Naughty" across the front. (I'm mysteriously drawn to experiment with these seeds for some reason. Call it my nature.)

Materials - Piles of materials lying in various stash spots (my box truck, the trunk of my car), along with plenty of tools to bend, shape, cut, bind, press or otherwise modify them for fabrication.

Lifeline - A lot of geek friends who love to experiment with gadgets, gizmos and theories like me. A neighbor down the street with DECADES of gardening experience who can bring dead sticks back to life and thinks it's great that I'm growing weed legally. The amazing growers and breeders of these forums whose combined cannabis knowledge likely exceeds 1,000 years. The plant's hardiness and desire to keep on going AND of course plenty of band mates and ex-band mates who can let me know if the stuff's any good. (They're real good for that. But mostly just that as far as weed knowledge goes.)


So this journal is starting a bit into the grow. The next few posts are going to be in chronological order and will hopefully catch folks up on what's been happening up to the present.

Smoke on brothers and sisters..

daf

P.S. For the record..ain't skairt. Bring it on..mission accepted.

Clone - O - Rama

Clone - O - Rama

So the adventure starts. I'm all over craigslist looking for reputable clone growers. I might as well be looking for a barfly with a two-drink limit. Everyone's got "THE clones." Everyone's working for the cheapest donations (if you're doing SoG and need 10 at a time.)

I'm concerned with strains at this point. I want specific strains, but it's just not working out that way. Whatever I want is not available or not in my budget. Ahhh but the rainbow of flavors!!

Side track: I've been smoking since '82. (Not the oldest pothead on the couch, but definitely old enough to be clicking my heels over legalization.) I've been wanting to grow since was about 15, but between parents, joining the military, getting married and having kids. It's never happened. (You know, my ex-wife sure didn't have a problem with weed until the kids came along. Then she turned into a half wolverine, half drug counselor for 18 years. The best I managed was a stretchy closet grow in a corner of the closet with a light bulb for light. Never got to flower. She destroyed it. The hate still festers a little..)

After a billion calls from every wanna-be-pimp-daddy grower in Detroit, I finally settled on a guy out of Ypsilanti who seemed helpful, concerned and grows DWC. (I had DWC equipment left over from my buddies plant..I decided to stick with that method.)

The bad news? He's about an hour away, it's hot and I'm not feeling like losing clones on the way back.

Solution? 700W Inverter attached to the cigarette lighter, attached to two bubblers..one with a T connector. Enough bubbles and buckets to provide life support to 3 clones during the 1 - 1.5 hour commute back (rush hour kicks in.) I filled the buckets with my own tap water so it he could PH it.

I had decided on Dyna Gro "Grow" and "Bloom" as my nutrient system because they are so inexpensive and come highly recommended. I also bought a small bottle of Rhino Skin (only because they had a small bottle in my budget range. If you know of a cheaper solution for strengthening stems, please let me know.) I took the Nutes and Silicon additive with me.

The guy who grew the clones was real cool. He went ahead and took the time to ph and nute the water for me (my meters hadn't come in the mail yet.) He gave me some basic instructions and guaranteed the clones. You can find him on Facebook under "Cdz Klones." We're still in touch here and there so I feel like the choice was good. Back to the plants:

(1) New York City Diesel - (Short but very bushy and with extremely healthy roots. I damn near cried over this one. More on that later.)

(1) 707 Headband - (Tall and skinny but with good node spacing. Decent root structure.)

(1) Strawberry Cough - (Two nodes only and the first one didn't count (trimmed leaves from cloning.) Healthy roots showing through the Gro Block it came in.)

We nuted and PH'ed em up and I headed back home. The plants are home, healthy and settling in.

Mission f-ing accomplished!

Smoke on y'all..

daf

study lots ..pay attention and study some more ...you may make it..?

its possible, goodluck

My wife and I used to collect plants. We always carried a cooler. We could dig a plant wrap the roots in wet paper towles then wrap that in newspaper. Then them into the cooler. We could keep them in the trunk.

Just don't lay them pm the ice.

Even the ice left over from an gas station drink would keep them cool for hours.

A couple of times we just put them in baggies with water.

Aphid Wars

Aphid Wars

al70: Having you say it's possible gives me hope.

amanda88: You're right. I need to study my ass off. And I have been. I'm hoping a few growers here and there will take enough interest in this to keep me from fucking up too hard. But hey..if I do..lesson learned and on to the next round. Btw. Same thing I said to al70.

MicroRoy: From now on..that is my method. So much simpler..and ice is cheap. On my trip back from Ypslanti the res solution spilled a little onto the upholstery and bleached it a bit from the acidity. Next time..I go with ice.

Here's the part where I keep trying to catch y'all up on my diary:

Aphid Wars


So the plants had been home for a couple of days..when I noticed the 707 Headband was starting to wilt.

I looked it up..and everything said oxygen deprivation. I looked and..sure enough..one of the stones must have been from the prior grow, because it wasn't pumping out as many bubbles. A light bulb went off and I realized what the little screw valve that came with one of my bubblers was for. I adjusted them until they were both pumping out the same amount of bubbles, then thought "Whew. Disaster averted." Gawd I'm naive sometimes.

The next day, I come back and the 707 Headband is looking GREAT!

Unfortunately, the New York City Diesel is now withering and I'm Alaskan Thunderfucked about it. I check the bubbles..they are the same. I don't know what to do.

I decide to give her her own bubbler..assuming that it's something simple..maybe an oxygen problem. (Like the unsuspecting humans in an alien invasion flick.)

3 days into frantically adjusting bubbler positions and share ratios, misting, praying to the gods of cannabis (at least once with a half-hearted promise to offer up the heart of my ex on a stone altar at the top of a pyramid) I opened up the lid of the NYCD's res and found the problem: hundreds of small black insect chomping on her roots.

It's too bad you can surgically remove bugs with a rocket launcher. I would have opted for that at this point. I put $, time, love and worry into this plant. The $%&@ you're going to just eat it you mother$#%^s!!!

They just ate it anyway. Apparently being pissed off at a bug isn't a very good insecticide.

I lost my beloved New York City Diesel before I even had a chance to name her. So I called her Aphid Chow and mourned privately over a bowl or 7.

Mourning done, it was time to save the other two:

The 707 was infected. The Strawberry Cough wasn't.

I looked up remedies. Everyone was talking about Azamax[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif], [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Acephate, [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Imidacloprid[/FONT] [/FONT]or Garlic and Cinnamon and shit. Some were awesome recommendations..but the ones which fit my budget looked like wive's tale B.S.

So I just guessed a bit..mostly in a panic I guess.

I dumped all of the coco pebbles into a pot for boiling. They were crawling with the critters. I'm usually live-and-let-live, but I took a little bit of sadistic glee in watching the little fuckers climb to the top of the floating rocks and burn. (I'm not proud of the fact that it still makes me smile.)

While that was going on, I sprayed the roots of the plant with some Captain Jack's Dead Bug(Spinosad) and let it sit for 30 seconds. Then I blasted them with the sink sprayer. At the time I had no idea how delicate or tough roots are. I just did it to help a dying plant live.

Turns out..not so bad on the no0bie.

Then I came across the Root aphids killed with hot water thread.

Heat water to 120+ but not over 140. (I heated to 140 and let cool a minute.) Then dunk your basket into the water and let sit for 5 minutes. Result: Eggs dead, teens dead, babies dead, adults dead. Plant..fine. Definitely staying in my arsenal of cures.

So I lost the NYCD..but the 707 is still healthy and happy and Shortcake (Strawberry Cough) is still thriving well.

Whew..war is hell. Where's my bowl?

Smoke on y'all..

daf

Saturday Light Fever

Saturday Light Fever

Having been thrust into study by a root aphid emergency, I was learning a lot about what plants want (not Brawndo) and don't want.

And apparently, to hit the harvest goals I've set, I was going to need a lot more light.

Here was my old light setup:




It looked pretty cool, but was shit for a light.

Fortunately, a guy I fix PCs for happens to be a caregiver and he was getting rid of a 250W MH with ballast. We agreed on two PC repairs, and I took the light with me.

I decided to beef up the CFL count a bit. I pulled all of the CFLs off of the wall, bought 4 more and sat down to design a hood.



(I, of course didn't take any pictures of the construction like I should have.)

I grabbed a left over 16" x 8' piece of particle board from a stage we're building and cut it in half. Measured the 250W light and cut a hole in the center to fit it exactly.

I then canted them at a slight angle inward, giving the hood the shape of a slightly peaked house roof.

Then it was time to cover it in Elmer's glue and aluminum foil. (In that order. I tried putting the foil down before the glue once. It's a mess. And it doesn't work.)

Finally, I mounted and wired the 14 CFL sockets and installed the bulbs. I mounted the bulbs pointing downward so the CFLs could be a little closer to the plants than the HID.

The end result cam out pretty good. It's like a mini sun. And now it's at about 600w give or take:

You might have noticed the missing bulb in the foreground of the picture. More on that in a couple of entries.

Smoke on..

daf

You should have enough light to pust them along.

It's down to the wire

It's down to the wire



Started looking at light and canopy management techniques. I've opted for a combination of Low Stress Training, FIM'ing and ScrOG'ing.

Step 1: Get this 707 Headband under control. She's growing easily 3 times faster than the Strawberry Cough.

I started out just tying the branches down with twist ties, but the coco pebbles don't hold things well at all. It was time to get creative again.

I saw this online


and wanted to emulate it, but for cheaper and with more tie down points.

I bought some doorbell wire at the hardware store for about $1.34 and came up with this:


You can read about it's construction here:

Budget DWC LST Basket Lid

She seems to be taking to her new arrangements pretty quickly.

But the spiral LST method has a little problem that became obvious pretty early into this. More on that in the next post.

Smoke on brother and sisters..

daf

You seem pretty determined and handy, I'm guessing you will do just fine!

Best of luck!!

If your looking for better material for reflecting light that is still cheap you might want to consider using the emergency blankets from the camping section at any local Wally Fart for like 2 bucks. I grow on a very tight budget myself. The aluminum foil doesn't reflect as well I only know cuz I tried that first lol

Christ, talk about a trial by fire. If you're still around after all that you'll be here for awhile

Penniless Punk said:

Apparently being pissed off at a bug isn't a very good insecticide.

Click to expand...

Yelling at them is more effective, in that 0 x X = 0 kind of way.

MicroRoy: Thanks for the encouragement. I hope it's enough to accomplish the mission.

Lester: Solving problems and building shit is as good a time waster as watching TV and a lot more productive. Thanks for the kind words, brother-man.

It's a JUNGLE in there!

It's a JUNGLE in there!

Not sure why that post got half posted. I'm pretty sure it's The Ghost of Windows Operating Systems Past come to haunt me.

Here's the rest of the post:

Lexort: AWESOME tip. Thanks. (To be honest. I'm obsessed with improving things, so I don't know whether to thank you or not, since I've already planned a 2 hour rebuild around your idea and I can feel the exhaustion kicking in already.) Really great idea! Can't thank you enough for that one..beats the "Mylar chip bags and dollar store balloons" ideas some people gave me.

Mikell: I'm in this for the long haul for sure. As for the root aphids: I gave them a calm, but firm talking to and we've agreed to work it out by consensus. I have a feeling they're trying to screw me democratically. I'm not sure how to respond..

IT'S A JUNGLE IN THERE

Well, this next installment of "catching up on my grow diary" has a happy start and a crappy ending.

As I mentioned in a previous post, spiral LST has a really big problem to be worked out: The center of a spiral LST is a place of increased competition for light.

To counter this, I've decided that trimming leaves(which I am desperately trying to avoid in order to lower stress recovery times) in the center was going to be necessary. But more importantly, I settled on a strategy that involves:

A) Increasing light to center nodes.

B) Keeping nodes and their fan leaves from spreading into the center where bigger, more hardy nodes could block out the light to other center nodes. Instead they are to grow upward only. This keeps one center node from competing with another center node and reduces the overcrowding stress in the center. (In theory only. But, then again, I'm also the guy who can't understand why pizza-flavored ice cream isn't more popular, when both pizza and ice cream are practically worshiped. So it's just a theory.)

On top of an entertainment center is one of my smaller piles of materials. Things that are clear or otherwise inconspicuous usually end up there..neatly stacked. (My girl has been patient as all get-up with my engineer's quirks. I'm not trying to tax that.) Among that inviso-mess, I found a clear plastic tube that sparked an idea.

The idea was to create a center lamp with a clear shield to keep the plants off of the bulb, and also to keep them from entering the "no man's land" in the middle.

With a blank CD container, a 6" basket, the plastic tube, a worthless CD and an old light fixture, I cobbled together a center light.



You can read about its construction here:

Spiral LST Center Light

It was working GREAT!!

But then:

F$%# F^^% F%$^ F^%$!! Heat Stress!

That's right..we had an incident.


The center light, unfortunately..only made things worse when the AC failed to cool the space. I'm going to install a computer fan on the center light to keep it from getting hot. It might lose power, but won't be stressing the centers as much.

So you're pretty much caught up now. I just received my meters in the mail, bought batteries for them at the dollar store.

Need to:
calibrate the meters
buy some battery acid from the auto store to make my own PH Down then
get some BioRoot from a hydro store down the way.

And then? FRESH, STERILIZED, DELICIOUS reservoir for the babies. (So happy to be able to spoil them into spoiling me.)

Smoke on y'all..and have the best day you've ever had..

daf

Looking good.

Are you going to make your $200 budget?

MicroRoy: I have approximately..$75 invested so far. It's looking good. Bad news? 10% of my next two harvests are "smoken" for. (Helped keep the budget down and got me nutes and bulbs when funds were low.) That should amount to less than an ounce per harvest and keep the mission on track. - daf

Wait a minute. Does that make me a sharecropper?

Bad ass..

get lotsa low watt cfls,, they work great, goodluck

NICE.
Love DIY and this looks pretty awesome. Good luck!