small ghetto rigged cloning/vegging/germinating cfl grow box - december 31 2009

i need a small growbox for clones, germination, small plants in vegetative state, etc.

i spent about $50 at target (with a gift card i was given, so no cash out of pocket), there i purchased the power strips, the lights, the box and lid, as well as the 2 trays that fit inside the box, the boxes dimensions are 14" on all sides

i then spent about $15 at osh for the wall plug to light socket adapters, then the light socket splitters, i also got the small biodegradable fiber pots there

the splitter seems to be really difficult for people to find, or so it seems from forums i have read, osh has them for under $4 so go get yours there, they also have the wall plug to socket adapters for about 3$




the box is about 90% done, the last thing i will be adding are 2 fans, one for intake and one to blow air out, gotta' keep things circulated

i am using cfl bulbs, there are 4 @ 26watt, the bulbs are 6500 kelvin so they should work out well for vegging



there are 2 shallow plastic trays inside, each with 8 small pots, i seriously doubt i am going to try to keep 8 plants in this tiny space, maybe 4 at most, probably shouldn't do more than 2 haha, but this is an expandable system, it would cost me about 20$ and a bit of sawzall wackiness to make it twice as tall, handy little modular cubes from target

training the trainwreck, light upgrade, hindu skunk too big! - december 30 2009

i'm working on training the trainwreck plants, i only have 1 tied up right now, the second is not doing too well so i'm letting it catch up a little bit more before i begin with it



the new 400 watt hps is in and running, these plants seem to love it! in the little bit of time that has passed i can see growth, i am going to have to switch to 12/12 for flowering very soon, running out of room!!

growlab 80 gots ta' go! - december 29 2009

wifey was not happy at all about the growlab

i packed it up, trying to figure out what to do with it till we move into a bigger place later next year

i went ahead and swapped my 250 watt hps out with the 400 watt hps i got for the growlab tent, not sure what to do with the 250 watt for now either, i guess i'll let them both sit and wait

the 400 watt light is awesome, it has a remote ballast, a lumatek brand ballast, i have the ballast sitting up on top of the small grow room, that should help to keep some heat out since the ballast is no longer inside...

germination plans and growlab80 from craigslist ideas - december 28 2009

i scored a growlab 80 through craigslist for 110$! woohoo!

so i have gone ahead and popped seeds into jiffy pots!

here is a layout for the seeds in the jiffy pot container



here's the growlab 80 next to the current grow room, i went ahead and picked up a 400 watt ballast, light, and reflector as well, 8 more of those square 8" x 8" pots from the 99 cents store (the last ones too!) and some fox farms ocean forest soil, 3 big bags of it

i need to get some ventilation before i can move plants from the main grow room into the growlab

the growlab is going to become the flowering room, the main grow room will be the vegging/clone room ;)



hopefully wifey will be alright with this, it's kind of larger than i anticipated for our tiny apartment, hmmm....

lowryder #2, columbian gold, random goodies, and a mug, thank the dutch =) - december 26 2009

i got a late christmas present today

santa delivered something great from our dutch friends, 10 regular lowryder#2 seeds, 3 feminized columbian gold seeds, and 3 types of random freebie seeds from g13 labs, looks like la woman, la confidential x skunk, kandy kush x skunk, as well as a schnazzy new coffee mug (i heart coffee btw)

these are from attitude seeds, here's their info, check them out:
http://www.cannabis-seeds-bank.co.uk/

merry christmas!

faaaawk! SHOT GLASS DOWN!!! - december 25 2009

damnit, the shot glass fell down over night or something, i came to check in on the girls this morning and the boddington's can that shot glass plant lived on had toppled over, shot glass can plant was on the grown on his side, bent and in pain =(

i am so bummed, i knew i wouldn't get more than .5 g out of this guy or so, but i wanted her to live, i was even thinking that i'd say screw the competition and just transplant her in a week or 2, but now...now we just don't know, shot glass plant is trying to recover, the doctor's tell us it's all just a matter of time now, we're hoping she doesn't go the way of oaksterdam og kush plant =(

time for a transplant! - december 25 2009 - merry christmas!!

the pots i have been using are so tiny, like .75 gallons

i made a trip to the 99 cent store and scored on these guys, i think it's between 1.5-1.75 gallons 3 would be ideal but whatever whatever i am super short on space, these are 8" x 8" and tall! =)

i needed taller pots and it was a pain in the rear looking on all the gardening store websites, nobody has tall skinnier pots it seems? is it bad to grow in a pot that is more tall than wide or something?! hmm...either way, i scored these and drilled a bunch of drainage holes in the bottom and they seem to be working great!

the shot glass sprout is growing! - december 17 2009

it's getting bigger, lol

c'mon girls!! - december 17 2009

comin' along, you can see that i've moved them from the last group pic, i'll randomly move them about, usually to assist with watering, sometimes i'll rotate them so certain parts of the plant get a bit more light...it'd be kind of cool to have a very slow moving turntable that the plant pot can sit on, rotate the plant at a 1 revolution per hour or something...of course this wouldn't work in a tight space like mine, the xj13 is getting lanky and i'm certain we'd see branch snappage lol

group shot, hindu skunk on the left, xj13 in the middle, trainwreck on the right



what are those little jars on the floor of the grow room?

these jars are an attempt to create co2, and as we all know from gradeschool, plants breathe co2! what we're doing is mixing a small amount of yeast, with a bit of sugar, add a few tablespoons of warm water, give it a little shake and wait, if you come back a couple hours later you'll notice something happening in the jars! frothing and foaming up we can see a reaction taking place, one byproduct of the reaction (yeast eating sugar) is co2!

i really have no idea if this paltry amount of co2 is enough to help, and it sure does begin to stink after awhile, haha, but we'll give it a go and see =) this is a learning experience for me after all

shot glass grow sprout! - december 15 2009

the shot glass grow sprouted!

for the curious, i planted 1 seed of cheese, this was bag seed, i got a cheap 25$ 1/8 from eden therapy of hollywood and it had about 12 seeds, go bag seed go!

bit of growth, shot glass grow? - december 12 2009

we've seen a small bit of growth since the last time

i saw a grower's forum post where people were attempting to grow a plant out in a shot glass, thought i'd give it a try

here's the shot glass



here are the 2 trainwreck plants




here is the xj13, don't know why this came out so dark?!



here are the 2 hindu kush plants

sorted

sorted out this width issue, now you can see the full pics without any weirdness

blogger's so skinny!

it's cutting my pics off, forgot what i need to do to widen it, will fix this up in a jiffy folks...

first grow pics - from december 8 2009

here's a picture of all the plants in their little home

i am using a wardrobe that i purchased from ikea and slightly modified with my crazy sawzall hacking skills, the dimensions are 18" deep x 28" wide x 68" tall

the lamp is a 250watt hps, some chinese brand, not sure, it does the job and is my first real grow light, other than this i have attempted to grow outside and with florescent lighting

there is a small fan bringing air into the grow box from the bottom, another fan up at the top expelling air, the idea is that fresh room temperature air enters at the bottom, hot air rises so heated air will go up from the light and exit with the top fan

the strains from left to right are, 2 trainwreck plants i got as clones from eden therapy in hollywood, the middle plant is a xj13 (jack herer x g13) i got as a clone from los angeles patients and caregivers in hollywood (shipped to so cal from oaksterdam nurseries), the 2 on the right are hindu skunk which are also oaksterdam nurseries clones i got from lapcg



notice how lanky the xj13 is in comparison to her neighbors the hindu skunk...i have noticed that the hindu skunk plants are far more tolerant to heat and fertilizers as well as under or over watering when compared with the xj13, these 3 once had an og kush neighbor, i got all 4 clones at the same time, the og kush plant was so much more fragile, we think it is dead and it's sitting in it's pot outside on the balcony, i just don't have the heart to yank it up and dispose of it

i am not sure of the exact date that i got the oaksterdam clones, it has been about 2 months though i believe, they aren't that big because i almost killed them all by over fertilizing them, so they are stunted a bit, hopefully i won't make the same mistake with the 2 trainwreck plants

here's 2 more of the trainwreck




here is the xj13



last but not least here are the hindu skunk plants

grow journal intro!

i am a medical marijuana patient, living in the los angeles area

per california state law, i am allowed to legally grow a small number of marijuana plants

this blog is intended as a place for me to post journal entries of my growing progress

i am not a pro at this, in any way shape or form, in fact i have a history of killing many marijuana plants whenever i would try ;) the batch going right now seems like it is doing well, and may actually make it all the way through

hopefully i can look back on this and see improvement over time

thank you for reading!