Novice grow, veteran mentored

[sahdgrower]

Thanks for advice guys. You are both spot on. I will defoliate more next time through and with my vertical scrog I shouldn't have the light/heat intensity issues I had this time around. Super excited about my new design. Thing is, I have a kitchen my wife wants me to remodel and it would be really great if I have my new flower chamber ready in 2 weeks. Two bad I can't clone myself. I will put my idea on paper, maybe you guys can critique it. I have a much better handle on what I need to make easier in order to focus on the more important things. One idea I came up with today is to put a bathtub at counter height in my staging area. That way I can wash buckets and trays without having to bend or make a mess. Could also use it rinse medium. Will just run a drain to my backyard.

 

[LyryC]

Thanks for advice guys. You are both spot on. I will defoliate more next time through and with my vertical scrog I shouldn't have the light/heat intensity issues I had this time around. Super excited about my new design. Thing is, I have a kitchen my wife wants me to remodel and it would be really great if I have my new flower chamber ready in 2 weeks. Two bad I can't clone myself. I will put my idea on paper, maybe you guys can critique it. I have a much better handle on what I need to make easier in order to focus on the more important things. One idea I came up with today is to put a bathtub at counter height in my staging area. That way I can wash buckets and trays without having to bend or make a mess. Could also use it rinse medium. Will just run a drain to my backyard.

My back hurts from doing what you just described - washing gear in the tub EXCELLENT IDEA!

 

[sahdgrower]

OOohhh the Hexagon!

OOohhh the Hexagon!

Come one come all! SG's Hextacular Garden set to open asap. Here is the basic design I am working with. It is a combination of ideas gathered from this website with a couple of twists of my own.



So the idea is to build 6 carts on casters out of 3/4" plywood (I may pond line them or just paint with an elastomeric paint). Each cart will have a screen on 2 sides. The screens will be wire screen with 2"x4" holes secured to a pvc frame which will be secured to the cart. The screens will be 5' tall on top of the 1' cart this utilizes pretty much all of the ceiling space I have and still allow some clearance for air movement and my light spinner to operate.

The carts will surround 1 maybe 2 stacked 600w Hps and I am going to make a light spinner to which I will mount 1 600w HPS and 1 600w MH to enhance spectrum. Each of these will have a standard hood that will be rotated 90 degrees to point at the plants. The spinner will spin 359 degrees and then reverse direction. This is the only part of the build I am having a hard time with. I work with wood not metal. I basically have it figured out that I need to get a stepper motor and a reverse switch. The gear ratio and how to effectively utilize the reverse switch are what I am a little stuck on. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a heckuva lot of info on how to build it. I'll put up some of my drawings on it in a little while.

So my rationale behind this design. First I love vert. Second I have a Gavita light that cannot be run vertically but I can simply rotate the hood to point into the garden mounted to my DIY spinner. So it is similar to Heath's setup with lights all around but I don't need as many lights and I figure I will get very consistent coverage with no dead spots. Now each cart will be individually mobile so I can wheel it away from the lights so I can work on maintaining each plant without going blind. This will also give me the option of staggering harvest quite easily. I am going to run 3 screens with Hempy because it seems so easy I really like it and 3 screens with individual DWC because it seems bad ass and I want to see if I can get better at it. I will definitely be setting up automated watering of one sort or another. Still a little undecided. Blumats for the Hempy's and an auto top off for the DWC's im thinkin.

Please give me any and all ideas, suggestions, criticisms or tweeks. I love to come up with new ideas and put them into effect.

 

[Reevage]

All I'd recommend is for novice to start with soil. But since you have a mentor and the community here I guess your on the right track

 

[sahdgrower]

Days away from harvest. On day 61 todaytoday and still have a ton of clear tric's but the buds have really seemed to tighten up over the past week or two. I'm chomping St the bit to harvest. Will probably my start taking number 7 tonight. Looking forward to starting a new thread and a new setup. Pictures coming soon.

 

[OldSchoolGreen]

Woooohooooo! Congrats! Almost there....
What's your drying/trimming/curing process look like?

-Old School

 

[sahdgrower]

harvesting

harvesting

Woooohooooo! Congrats! Almost there....
What's your drying/trimming/curing process look like?

-Old School

slow and steady is my technique. Actually I remembered I advised you to only wet trim. Since then I have done a bunch of reading on the subject of wet vs dry trim and it seems the jury hasn't really decided. That being said I am still wet trimming but I am really trying to slow the dry times. Then I will follow Simon s thread on the perfect cure. Been chopping as much as I can handle each day. About 1/2 way through now and the first round is almost ready for jarring up now.

 

[sahdgrower]

Final numbers on 2 600w RDWC 6 plants from seed TGA Subcool Vortex 50 days veg 65-72days flowering. 715g grade A and 345g grade B and flarf. Total 1050. 1050/1200=.875/gpw Overall product satisfactory but leaves room for improvement. Especially lowering the B and flarf. Also experience a bunch of foxtailing on primary colas which significantly reduced overall numbers.

Moving to Hempy buckets and rearranging my gro. May start up a new thread when I get the new room up.