Mitch's Auto Adventure......

[mitch_connor]

Hey Guys,
Sorry to anyone for being M.I.A, but I fell off the map, and popped back up somewhere better! There's something of a story to tell so my advice is to smoke one and read on..

Part 1 - The before:

Where to begin, for those who don't know me, I'm Mitch Connor, I've been around here on icmag and on several other forums for some years now.

I have been growing for the best part of 10 years now, experimenting, cultivating and breeding along the way for 9 of those years.

Some random eye candy.

I started pretty humbly, as most do, in the closet with CFL's in a makeshift manner, after reading and reading and reading and reading, I progressed to designing and building stealth cabinets/grow spaces which I had to do due to my living arrangements, but really it was a blessing in disguise to get a grip on the fundamentals of growing. Working with what you have at your disposal in order to create the best environment possible, and also learning to read plants. I studied a design degree so that aspect was always great fun for me, sketching out concepts, trialling them, and eventually succeeding with them.

After finishing uni, the economy in England was in an especially bad state, friends from my course who did a masters degree and were personally prepared to move anywhere in the world were still facing an incredibly tough time to find employment.
I always had my love of growing and breeding as a staple, whilst I muddled through the minefield of working in the real world. Working construction, landscaping, hard labouring jobs just to make ends meat.

I grew Auto-flowers whilst they were still relatively new to the mass market, as well as photo-period strains (both will always have a place in my garden), AF's were super fun to grow, as they take a different mindset and approach differing from traditional ways to grow successfully.
Once you get the hang of them though, the rewards are evident, quick turn around time, rapid daily progression, makes them a pure pleasure to witness.
Another thing about growing AF's, is I've now grown thousands of plants from seed, I have always worked with large numbers to hone desirable plant recognition and selection skills. Considering the vast amount of plants that have passed through my hands, I can also remember 99% of the plants I have grown. But maybe not surprising given the time we spend with our heads in our girls.

I loved to grow AF-SOG style (Auto-flower sea of green) , to consistently get higher than 1gpw is very addictive, with a turnaround time of under 10 weeks.

An example of AF-SOG in action:

England's laws when it comes to cannabis, are frankly, pretty draconian, and only getting worse and worse as time passes.
Unless you have cajones grande to go big or at the other end of the spectrum a one or two plant set-up and you research the law and every to do and not to do, it's not a place to be situated long term and keep your freedom and/or sanity.
The money from growing bud can be enticing, but it's not the reason I began to grow, and continue to do so. Punishments also vary as it's basically a postcode lottery, luck could be on your side or on the flip-side you could get royally shafted.
Our city was rife with growers, and coincidentally had a prominent judge with zero tolerance for growing weed. A handful of plants, with any kind of tidy set-up, and jail time is a reality, and I'm way too pretty for prison.

Despite paranoia and getting too hooked reading the legal sections of several forums (scary reading), I always gained a momentary sense of peace and tranquillity sat looking and admiring my plants. I thought to myself, how amazing it must be to get that satisfaction without the worry.

Therefore Spain was always an idea in the pipeline. I had a very close friend die several years ago, and at that point, I didn't want to mess around any longer, and made Spain a priority to get to.
There are obvious plus sides to a young Englishman. The weather, the women, cheap alcohol and tobacco, and for someone in our world, great laws for growing dope. From the vast majority of Spanish people I've spoken to, the impression I get is the Spanish have a very laissez-faire attitude about it, which is really refreshing.
It was a big thing to try and figure out alone though, I had some advice through forums, which whilst useful was often contradictory, I really had to see for myself.

About a year passed by, and at this point by happen chance I started to converse with a friend in the seed industry here in Spain on a regular basis, over time we tossed some ideas around, and eventually it was suggested I get out to Spain, meet up and go over some ideas in person.
After some joints, alcoholic beverages, general chit chat and ice breaking, serious discussion, plans and ideas escalated, and we agreed to do it.
It was a big life change proposed, to up sticks and go for it, to leave family and friends behind, but the pro's far outweighed the cons on paper, and we started the serious look for a suitable place to call our HQ here.

After trawling through some internet property sites for what felt like an eternity, it was an arduous process, investigating the locations on google maps, calculating indoor/outdoor space, researching towns, transport links, prices, you name it. We were still drawing a big blank, we narrowed hundreds down to a 'short list' but nothing stood out and smacked us in the face saying 'perfect'.

However one day, just out of interest, I searched a little above our original budget, and immediately found a place just added that was well worth checking out in person.
I got on the blower to my friend, he called the guy up, and he went to see it that very day, he reported back that 'it was like an oasis' and a deal was done later that same day.
The place was a little rough around the edges, it had been neglected somewhat, but the scope of what we could do with it was too enticing to pass it up. All of our boxes were ticked, with added bonuses on top.

Cogs were turning and it became abundantly clear to me, to do things on the scale we intended it would be an impossibility to work solely by myself, there's only ever 24 hours in a day, and I only have one pair of hands, so at this point, one very close friend sprang to mind.
A good grower with a great work ethic, practical skills and first and foremost someone who I had lived with for several years without any drama.
He'll be on the forums soon, but for now, I'll introduce him as Tim.

Thanks for reading, and hello everyone. I'll work on posting the next parts the next few days.

Peace, Mitch​

 

[JustPassinThru]

I have the weirdest feeling that I may be enjoying this thread quite a bit. Can't wait for the next part!

 

[aridbud]

Sounds like a gratifying change!! Keep up the awesome work. All the strains I've tried of your hybrid creativity have been stellar.

 

[rock solid]

hi mitch glad to see you back and wish you the best in your new surroundings

 

[PeterGriffin843]

good read and good luck.

 

[mitch_connor]

Part 2 a) - The beginning: Autumn and Winter
(I have split the story due to photo posting limits)

We arrived in early Autumn to Spain, I was picked up by mi amigo from the airport. Tim had come the day before, as he had to fly over his dog and only a few airlines cater to that. He had spent a night alone in the woods at our new house and I was anxious to see the place we would be calling home in the flesh.

We had packed all of our important grow gear, a hefty seed collection and all our precious cuttings, to be able to hit the ground running and get to work quick time. This was shipped out 4-5 days before our arrival date, We got to my friends apartment (hallway completely obscured with boxes) , bought some snacks for the road, loaded up the car, and we were on our way.

As we left the city, I looked out of the window and had a flashback to geography lessons when I was 16, seeing the CBD (no, not Cannabidiol ) disappearing in the mirror, followed by some industrial areas, then passing by tower blocks on the city limits I'm told are mostly occupied by immigrants, and I realised I was saying good bye to city life for awhile, In Spain, as well as back in England.

We pulled off the motorway, and eventually found our way to a track, with crazy undulations, lumps and bumps, I don't think I have ever been on a dirt road that wasn't part of a farm. I kept asking, like an impatient kid on a journey, 'are we there yet...?'.. answered with 'not just yet..'
We finally arrived, on what felt like a never ending journey, and wow the place was insane, I remember now, walking around laughing, thinking this is the maddest thing ever.

I was greeted by the animals, Tim, and a massive fig tree loaded with fruit and the strangest thing, no noise whatsoever.

The first few days were pretty bizarre, sleeping on the sofa, Tim spent the first night underneath an old curtain, that when he shook it a family of moths flew out. Me personally being eaten alive by mosquitos, and not tiny bites, but there was a point where one or several had a feast on my face. The bites swelled, conjoined and I felt pretty elephantman-ish.

The house was pretty sparsely equipped, no utensils, bedding, a small box of rations to eat.
There was no gas for the cooker, so I believe or first nights meal together was an ad-lib barbecue, on which we only had a huge paella dish to try and cook pasta, one person stirring the other person blowing on the fire to stoke it. I might add much to my friends amusement... but with a lot of perseverance we had full tummies. At the end of the first night we set about germinating seeds and rescuing some clones that had a rough time of it in the shipping process.
I also thought to myself, I should have watched Ray Mears bush-craft and extreme survival episodes in full before starting this adventure.

The weather was very pleasant indeed for several weeks, we even cleaned and took several days to fill our pool. It was short-lived though, we only braved one 5 minute dip in 2013. Bit by bit we gathered the essentials to live day to day more comfortably.

The house is several decades old, had been lived in for most of those, but was never fully completed. Now, I don't want to slate our Spanish amigos here, but building practices are very different over here in comparison to the U.K..., much of it is very nonsensical to us at least.

The property, was a minefield and maze to figure out, so many problems to think on and rectify bit by bit. There is no mains water, no postal service, or phone-line, no working central heating, no internet. To bring everything in just to get set has been a herculean task in itself.

Electrical gremlins took some head scratching to solve, at one point early on we had to wait until the lights off period to begin cooking our evening meal, just to avoid power outages.

There is a Spanish word 'chapuza' which basically means a botched job, so gradually we have been un-botching what we can, making things function to suit our purpose.

A couple of examples of this are:

WELL STORY:
As I mentioned earlier, we have no mains water, but draw our water from around 100 metres away at the end of our track. I must say though, the water is amazing.
We have a high capacity pump, and pipework to fill a large water storage tank. When full, at that point in time, a near full tank, lasted several months for us and plants to drink.
We had filled it once completely, and then topped it up twice without problems. It seemed like a good system, flick a switch, wait for water, job done.
However we noticed it was running pretty low, flicked the switch. Nothing, nada.., we set about investigating, and pulled the pump out to test it, brought it back to the house, pump works. Through a process of elimination we had tested the socket at our end, the socket at the well end, the pump itself. All working. Some head-scratching, and I said mate, we need to trace the wire to see if theres a break along the way. Tim said, noo, it'll be encased (the first section is encased and runs underground) I said let's see. Well the casing only lasts to the edge of our property. And the other 100+ metres, is just a cable strewn through the woods, sections joined by electrical tape only. #chapuza! So wire stripped, connected with chocolate boxes, and connections routed into insulated plastic boxes, problem solved.

SMOKE STORY ( not the good type of smoke) :
During an average evening for us, sat by the fire, something on the telly to watch, a little r&r time, a few drinks. I got up to go to the little boys room. On returning back to the lounge, I said 'Is it me, or is it pretty smokey in here...' Tim agreed, but well with windows shut, and an open fire, a little smoke isn't uncommon. So we looked around and saw smoke billowing down the stairs. The entire upstairs was filled with smoke. Where the flue draws the smoke from the fire up, unknowingly, there *was* fire proof plasterboard (drywall) with a cut out for the chimney and smoke to be exhausted through. Due to our hardcore use of the fire, It had disintegrated and now, smoke was only partly being drawn up and out, the remaining smoke had been going up into the wall cavity, and finding its way out of an upstairs bedroom wall (luckily unoccupied).
The fire was extinguished, every window possible opened. The next day Tim fabricated a metal blockade, and the edges were sealed with a high temp mastic.

We were also without transport for the first 6 weeks, and without giving away our location, although by car it's relatively close to a major metropolitan area, on foot it's very very remote, and the terrain is not hospitable for a leisurely walk to the shops.
I'd liken it to camping out, when you're here you stay here with rations. We were walking maybe 30 km a week, a 4 hour round trip to get a back pack's worth of food. Not a situation that lends itself to growing simultaneously.
We had the use of our friends vehicle off and on for awhile, he was meant to be spending several months in South America with Jorge, but the trip fell through and with our friend no longer local to us, I had to fly back to England to buy a rugged vehicle to drive back so we could be self sufficient. You may ask yourself, why not just buy a vehicle in Spain, it's a good question.. Two words.. red tape. To fly home, buy a car, drive, ferry, drive for hundreds of miles is in fact easier. It also meant I could bring back a hoard of supplies and grow equipment, without having to fanny around and find a place for them to be delivered in Spain.

I got a phone call from Tim whilst at home, saying 'mate, winter has come..it's super cold', I thought he may be being a bit of a pussy (no offence dude) , but it was warm when I left. So with a smirk I put together a winter survival package, just managing to inch it in to our new, super packed full car.

He was right, and in hindsight we weren't at all prepared for winter, naively thinking 'winter in Spain will still be nice, it's Spain'. We were very wrong, we hadn't packed coats even. Whilst day time temperatures were very fair, 17/18 degrees some days, we could have an ice cream on the balcony, the difference between day and night time temperature was well, like night and day. Getting below freezing at times.
We were sleeping fully clothed, with two duvets and a hot water bottle each. We had no central heating, so were devoting much of the day to collecting and chopping firewood and as soon as the sun dipped below the horizon that was the working day pretty much done outside and all that was left to do was eat and sit 6 inches away from an open fire, or manage tents inside the house at this time. The sofa did originally sit several feet away from the fire, but over the course of winter inched itself ever closer.

Some tent work - Pollination for fem seeds by hand

We were very surprised one morning to wake up and see this, It hadn't crossed my mind at all.

We went out that day, 4 wheel drive engaged, to buy some electrical supplies. The mountain was like pandemonium.., with people, police, kids, it was crazy. I did feel sorry for those Spanish kiddies though, as in just a couple of hours, it had all melted.

Part B to follow soon!

 

[mitch_connor]

Part 2 - b)

With transportation now sorted we set about converting the basement into a grow room. It wasn't underground on all sides, as the house is raised. This meant it would be a great place with some tinkering to stay cool in summer and warm in winter which will enable steady year round growth and continuation of projects.

Tooled up

We like stepladders.

We set about constructing a veg room, a cutting station which houses mothers, a tent room for projects, and a decent sized flowering room (5k at present which is to be upped with some Gavita products soon)

Having done several basement/cellar conversions in the past (for none growing related reasons) , I knew we would require good damp proofing, and came to learn there is no such thing in Spain, luckily due to some foresight I had brought a roll over from England.
This proved very wise, as we later found out, we are in a basin, and with heavy storms, the water will flow down the mountain for several days after, running off, and unfortunately into our basement, but that room was perfect after a triple layer on the floor and a layer behind the walls.

Mid build:

How we found out this though, was pretty much what was to me, the most stressful day we have had here. It had been raining heavily for several days, all was good and we had been mindful to check. The following happens rarely, but electrical storms in the distance can cause a power outage, this has happened less times than I can count on one hand in the entirety of us being here, anyway about midday there was one, so I went down to the basement to check. Water was pooling in the entrance.., not a good sign. I went through the tent room and it was flooded. Balls. I alerted our Tim, and we set about a swift clean up operation. Stage one was to get everything off the ground and the water soaked up/drained away. Whilst I was on that task, Tim was going to dig some trenches to divert the water running down from the mountain away from the basement.
Our vehicle was parked outside of the basement, and needed moving so a trench could be dug, I had my hands full, so handed the keys to Tim (who ordinarily doesn't drive), he moved the car up the drive. I heard it stop, and thought, good lad..all good. He came back, 'mate, the keys are stuck, I can't get them out', I said there's a trick to it, just push the section around the keys in, turn to the point where the marks match up, and they slip out. So off he went, 2 minutes later, 'I still can't do it, you'll have to come and do it'. So I left my post, and walked up our (steeply inclined drive).
I have no clue how it happened but they were stuck, I jiggled them, and the steering wheel, and in a second, maybe, I knocked it with my elbow, it was so quick, but the car got knocked into neutral, and instantly started rolling back. Tim was behind me, I was half in/half out of the car, door open, I started running with the car, but had no choice but to duck out of the way and avoid the door.
The door met with a tree, the tree won. The car was finally halted by careering into the dog/pig kennels. The car won that one.
So picture a scene of devastation, door creased, deformed, battered, us boys in disbelief, wet through with rain. Pig/dog kennels with a post from the chain-link fencing uprooted from the concrete. And whilst we were absorbing that, and actually being thankful neither of us had been run over, our new and very little piglet saw a chance to breakout and abscond.
Note to the wise: You can't catch a little pig in the rain. We always thought any damage to the car would occur on the roads and be the fault of a Spanish driver with their hair on fire, not at our own hands. So that tri-fector of calamities had me nearly at a breaking point.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, several lessons were learnt, the piglet returned to her home, I fixed the car, and the tents are now raised off the ground with a proper drain in that room.

Work in progress: *note plants in the middle on the walk way, are males being moved.

When the grow-room was built, and plants were in full swing during run 1, we set about constructing outdoor facilities which I will begin Part 3 with.

 

[aridbud]

What an adventure in Spain. Various rooms look great.

Car antics remind me of a friend being run over by an old 60's truck out of gear rolling back. Left tire tread marks on my friend's back. Luckily, we were young in our 20's and supple then. Yikes!

With all great projects, calamities happen.

 

[S_a_H]

Looks like a great adventure.

This is still all for Secret Garden Seeds right ?

Goodluck

 

[new3]

secret garden seeds tisk tisk tisk

the only reason I say this is because they do not give dutchbreed any credit in their secret citrus and they also changed the description from saying they used two autos to make the cross then made an ibl, to saying they used a hindu kush clone and bxed, still if the latter "WERE" true they would have to stop ibling at the right moment or it will cause lack of vigor due to repetitively being inbred. anyways they won't get any of my money and if I can sway others to spend their money on peoples creations that actually took the time and care needed into putting out a quality ingredient then I would have no internal quarrels with myself warning others to do the same.

stay away from secret garden seeds and their affiliates, they care not in which the product they put out nor the quality of the user experience. instead they care more about paying the bills. it is evident when someone does not care they will start making up reasons(personal problems) in which they "HAVE" to stay in business no matter what because they are too weak to do otherwise.

So I hope if anyone is reading this.(SGS crew included) I swayed you to stay away from SGS products and if your listening SGS dump all of your gear and go back to the drawing board but only if you care to include the happiness of your customer in your equation

 

[mitch_connor]

Looks like a great adventure.

This is still all for Secret Garden Seeds right ?

Goodluck

No, we aren't involved with SGS,

This is a joint project for another forum/seedsite and we (me and Tim) are working on our own projects for a new company in the making.

Which I will mention later if it's permissable by ICMAG

Cheers, Mitch

 

[mitch_connor]

What an adventure in Spain. Various rooms look great.

Car antics remind me of a friend being run over by an old 60's truck out of gear rolling back. Left tire tread marks on my friend's back. Luckily, we were young in our 20's and supple then. Yikes!

With all great projects, calamities happen.

Cars out of control, being inside or out of them is no bueno , but we lived to grow another day!

The toughest aspect to being out here is, you need to be prepared for all eventualities, or you're in for a very long walk.

In just the past week, our drivebelt perished on the truck, and I ordered a part whilst in the Uk, was told it was the correct one, but it was way too long.

So we had to cut it, bodge it back together (staples and glue) and cross our fingers we could get to the local town.

Another mode of transport would solve this problem, or having a whole stock of service parts but those requirements are above our budget at present, so we've relied on many elements of good fortune throughout the year

Glad your friend was ok, Peace Mitch

 

[S_a_H]

Sure go ahead when ready seed breeders and their companies can be mentioned just not other seedbanks.

So what kind of genetics are you going to be using ?

Anything local to the area ?

 

[mitch_connor]

Sure go ahead when ready seed breeders and their companies can be mentioned just not other seedbanks.

So what kind of genetics are you going to be using ?

Anything local to the area ?

Unfortunately at present, no Spanish genetics.
It would be interesting to work with some for outdoor next year.

Apart from visits to the grow shops for supplies, we've really kept everything low key in terms of making local connections etc.

The origins of the genetics we've been working with so far, span U.S, Canadian, and UK 'elite' cuttings. Many provided by a friend from the UK forum here.

Some strains were worked from seeds from breeders like BOG, Chimera and RD, my personal favourites basically.

Half of the projects (Non AF x AF) were crosses made whilst I was in the UK and running AF's and Photoperiods simultaneously, Many were shelved for the future due to space restrictions.

We were lucky enough to host some very cool and insightful people this year, Jorge Cervantes and Karma to name a couple, so we've been networking that way too.

All new strains and projects have been started from scratch, and a handful are at F3 now. We've chosen our projects very carefully and been very harsh with our selections so far. As we felt it would be pointless to work this hard, come this far and change our lives basically, to sell ourselves short.

Any other questions, feel free.
Peace Mitch

 

[aridbud]

Anything from the ground up is going to take time, patience, perseverance, luck and a lot of chutzpah. Sounds like you've got some good folks in your circle.

I disagree w/ new3....I've grown several of your SGS strains and have always had great results. Now you are writing a different chapter....of which many will take note. KUDOS!

Inbreeding is a problem, thus my reason to hybridize, then bx or F2 onward. Personally I do not inbreed knowing the unstable genetics down the road. And perhaps as a craft brewer or wine maker, you have to get your ingredients from some source. I've used others genetics to make my own crosses or hybrids.....and hybridize again to make it my own, yet label what genetics are being used. Liken it to a Levi denim jacket....once I put a Harley Davidson emblem on it....it's still Levi's and still HD....but it's my own creation.

Perhaps new3 has had unfortunate grows with your strains. I could name several other strains I've tried ( both large commercial seeders and private breeders); the seeds did not pop and at times seedlings were weak and died. There are times when seeds don't cooperate. Move on and try something else is all I can recommend. No need to lambast IMHO.

Thanks, Mitch, for your sentiments....not sure if watching my friend being tire "branded" was as bad as using a work glove saturated w/ creosote scratching my chin/neck was more painful, all happening simultaneously that fateful day. So, I stay away from steering column shifts (in old trucks) and creosote as a wood preservative. Cough.

I applaud you on your new venture, Mitch. Grow on!

 

[mitch_connor]

The Plan really is to get the new Strains stable with the AF trait, and then take it from there. Strains will be released at F4 pending results of the F3's,

There will then be 3 options,

A) IBL lines onward - to the point where there are only a couple of phenotypes, or where I can pretty much guarantee that all plants will grow to within certain parameters we are looking to achieve.

B) A bx back to the non-AF parent, and work them again to AF - It takes time, but there is no rush here, and I personally believe it would take this family of new strains above and beyond most products out there.

C) To also offer F1 AF hybrids made from the new strains.

At present we have 10+ strains in development, and I'm going to do my best to document them at each stage of the process.

It's a fun journey to be on, some crosses excel any expectations, others leave something to be desired and are scrapped, but you have to grow to know.

I could liken it to cooking, sometime you can have 2 or 3 ingredients that on there own aren't special, but you can combine them in the right way and have something great, Or you start with the very best ingredients you can find and cross your fingers.

In the next few weeks we are converting another room to a 6 light space to work in solely for our projects.

Cheers, Mitch

 

[aridbud]

"I could liken it to cooking, sometime you can have 2 or 3 ingredients that on there own aren't special, but you can combine them in the right way and have something great, Or you start with the very best ingredients you can find and cross your fingers."

Sounds great. keep up the arduous work. Look forward to your new hybrids.

 

[vostok]

Great Post ...please keep us up dated

 

[mitch_connor]

Great Post ...please keep us up dated

Thanks, there's plenty more to show and tell, I'll get the next update sorted tomorrow

Cheers

 

[mitch_connor]

Here we go:

Part 3 – Spring

Mid February, saw the completion of phase 1 of the flower room. We filled the room with cuttings we were familiar with, in order to make accurate comparisons to what we had seen and were used to in England, where both of our set-ups were dialled in. We also grew out some new plants from seed, some crosses that I was itching to test out, but hadn't the space/time previously.

Anyone who has built a room from scratch, or even just moved to another area to grow, knows how much of a nervy time it can be, and the process to get an environment dialled in, and wrinkles ironed out begins.

We were confident in the quality of our build, the materials we used, and the theory and concise planning that went into it, but until you flick that switch and observe you can never be 100%.

Despite general teething problems as noted in Part 2, all in all, we had a productive time in the tents over Autumn and Winter.

Also, as we are growing for seed and not sensi, growing many strains is no easy task, to see them all flourish, but it's a must when sorting through a mountain of seeds, and is definitely worthwhile to uncover some real beauties.

One bonus to growing for seed = A lot of nice kief

It does take several hundred plants to spot those illusive diamonds sparkling in the rough (relatively speaking here of course, everything we dedicate space and time to is top notch, but I'm just extra fussy).

After what felt like a never ending Winter, we were being teased by the Sun, there was a day in late February that had the smell of Spring in the air, flowers were emerging, the sun getting a little higher and out for longer each day. I actually got my only sunburn of the year back in early March.

However, as our luck would have it, this happened to be (I was informed) the wettest and coldest Spring here since the 1890's I believe, but it wasn't so bad for us, England was having snow drifts in March, and a whole shit storm of problems because of it.

I must admit, it's a slightly evil pleasure of ours, and a very British obsession to check the weather between our home city and Spain.

Back to the flowering room, we flipped our girls in to flower in the 3rd week of Feb, to encounter a problem... we had added several new circuits to the basement and divided the spaces up. The tent room was on it's own circuit, the flower room was split into 2 circuits, one per side, and lastly we have a general basement circuit for fans, tools and miscellaneous electrical items.
In theory this should have been all good. But we were experiencing voltage drops. We opted for adjustable ballasts, and whilst everything would hold on 400w per light, when making the switch up to 600w or 'super lumens' certain lights would flicker or turn off, to turn back on after a reset, or one fan would be off whilst the other would be on full power no problems.
In the winter we had gathered all items inside the house, and noted down the watts/amps of each, and step by step turned them on until we found where the cut off point was for the circuits tripping.
We had carried out some remedial electrical work which cured the problems inside the house before the expansion and turn on of the flower room.
We after some head-scratching and a lot of research, we got down the bare bones of it. We have 3 phase power, however the way it was previously configured, everything was running from one of those phases. Now each circuit is tied to a different phase, so we have 66% of our total power left to play with!
So during week two, as the initial stress had settled down, and the weather was becoming fairer, we set our attention to outdoor preparation to capitalise on the Sunshine Spain has to offer.

A new friend popped in to check the progress – Jorge Cervantes.

Our property is one hectare+, however due to us being in the mountains, much of the land is well, mountainous, hence without heavy plant machinery, at present there are only a few areas we can safely exploit and utilise.
There was one spot we had originally had in mind, a clearing deep in the woods that was flat, and just the right balance between accessible and stealthy.
One problem was at that time it was heavily shaded by some big trees.
We first downloaded some apps to check the path of the sun and how it would affect that area later on in the year, then with a tape measure, a pen and pad, and later some 3d CAD design work (Uni did have some benefits afterall) we put together a plan.
We costed up the price for the greenhouses, and once OK'd the next item on the shopping list was a chainsaw.
So, 2 boys, 1 4x4, 1 chainsaw, 1 Rope, 1 Axe, 2 shovels and we got to work.

STAGE 1:
This meant A LOT of hard graft, felling some big big trees in order to open up the area ( don't worry, we didn't set about willy nilly with a chainsaw hacking down everything in sight). We tackled the area strategically and thoughtfully, taking only what needed to be taken, whilst leaving what did not. My hat goes of to any lumberjacks out there, it's punishing work!

With the area now less shaded, we set about excavating some banks surrounding the clearing in order to free-up extra precious square footage and then levelling areas by hand. We could build greenhouses, to which we have 4 now, with another one planned for that site.
There are secondary sites to further investigate and begin to plan and expand our outdoor adventures next year.

Here's a picture to give you guys a better idea.

After construction of the G'houses was complete, we concentrated on getting power up to them, the distribution and conservation of our water resources, and implementing methods to save labour. Efficiency is key to a smooth OP no doubt.

I will get on to the next instalment soon!
Cheers, Mitch