Darth Fader's 1st Grow - DR100L/400watt CMH/wick/coco

[Darth Fader]

The Haul: I wanted to keep the stems on to slow the cure. Won't have a final yield until manicure when curing process is stable @ 55%RH. My goal was 8oz, currently weighing 10-11oz w/ stems & a little extra moisture.

Final Haul:

dry Casey buds

Jar O' Jones

 

[sheo_O]

Green Heaven =)

 

[plough]

not too shabby 4 ur 1st grow! LOL

 

[Fat J]

Not too shabby at all ^.^ way 2 go man!

 

[Darth Fader]

Glad you enjoyed the show gentlemen! The kind words are appreciated. It was a lot of work, much more so than I anticipated.
After final manicure, the big jar of Casey Jones weighs in at exactly 3.5 oz and smells fantastic.
And after 10 days in the jars, the cure is working on the Chem4; the smell of dank replacing the smell of grass.

Well, I made it. Whew! I've got one successful grow under my belt and in the books now. Now that that's out of the way, I feel I can stomach a bit of failure as much as I feared it before. And since the best education comes from the experience of experimentation and failure, I'll be switching things up, sacrificing the goal of simplicity, stability, and yield, for that of insight; learning to be a better grower. I plan on running lots of smaller plants of different strains in a perpetual grow, attempting to make bonsia mothers, and to perfect my cloning. I will experiment with training on the clones and try dialing in different nutrient mixes, hopefully learning to read plants along the way. Right now it seems I'm learning how to kill clones LOL, but I get past that soon enough. It seems like a step back in some respects, but really, it's an investment in education.

Full disclosure: Truth be told, the MK & Chem4 just don't impress me that much in terms of looks. For a first grow, I'm not disappointed, but regardless of how it smokes, I do wish the buds had more bag appeal. They're not as full, dense, or tight as I would like. This is in comparison to top shelf SoCal dispensary buds which are typically grown by seasoned professionals under 1k watt HPS lights w/ CO2. Not a fair comparison, but a good goal to aim for. We all want to grow the dankest head stash possible, right? It's hard to know what I need to adjust, having no basis of comparison. The biggest input is probably light. I can't compare the 400 CMH to a standard HPS, so that's probably the place to start.

 

[joeking]

great thread and awesome grow bro. Your results have given me something to smile about.