I haven’t posted anything in a while; life kinda keeping me busy. I am on my 6th grow, halfway through flowering. This is the first grow I didn’t use all my gadgets and just used common sense and grew. For me this has been the most enjoyable grow.
I have spent no telling how many hours and countless dollars on high end EC meters, built digital scales and automatic watering systems. Infrared VPD sensors…Even got ‘close’ to building a PAR meter. I haven’t used any of it this grow.
I am not saying they don’t have value, and during my first few grows gave me some needed direction. I think for next grow or two I will stop chasing numbers and just relax and use common sense.
You are correct. I used to chase all the snake oils and such, now I use living soil, fox farm fruit and flower 4-9-3, and that pretty much it. No mixing together a bunch of crap, and still get as good, or better results.
I keep it super simple as well. Use a good soil, only feed them worm tea, keep my temps and humidity in control, and let the cannabis do it’s cannabis thing. No synthetic nutes and maintain a natural environment cause that’s what nature does!
I concur as a follow bald guy . I read everything that I needed all bells and whistles. Money tight mrs Spud got let go. I couldnt buy things but found things. Pastic pallet =plant risers Tupperware totes = runoff trays hospital clipon fans=fans for tent. Etc…
Since I have been part of this forum I have been sharing my view on growing simple. Sure some types/methods of growing require a bunch of tools but soil grows indoors, not so much. I only give my girls nutes during flower. I transplant 4 times so I always have fresh soil but since she is in the 5 gallon for about 8 weeks (final transplant prior to flowering), I do have to give her calmag and bloom nutes every 10 days for the last 4 weeks. I do what she tells me to, not what I want to do.
Out of curiosity, what is your start to finish time between sprouts 1st appearance and harvest?
Im on my 4th grow and am averaging about 100 days. I believe 90 would work on a pure indica.
I’m in veg only 28 days on average but run T5 lighting 24/7 at 3" height above plants. I switch to HPS in flower. BTW, I’ve only done photos so far, I plan to try autoflowers, but wanted to get my process down for photos 1st. So far, I’ve averaged about 2.8 ounces per plant. Is the yield typically smaller for autoflowers?
My mentor, a 40 year grower, uses CO2 and gets closer to 5 oz’s per plant. Not sure how well it would work for me, as I’m im a Tent (leakage) and use HPS lights (heat) in flower. Please comment with your excellent opinions;-).
Hi @mikromo… Here is sorta my breakdown in times from my last grow:
Day 0: Start germinating seeds (paper towel method)
Day 3: Tap roots emerge, plant in soil in 12 oz plastic cup
Day 5: Seedling sprout
Day 14: Start of vegetation (first 5 finger leaves) transplant to final 3 gallon containers.
Day 22: Start of manifold (first topping)
Day 31: Last topping creating 8 mains
Day 46: Flip lights to 12/12
Day 49: Start of stretch
Day 55: Start of flowering (first pistils)
Day 64: End of stretch
Day 117: Harvest (59 days from start of flowering)
I use about 400 watts (true plug watts) worth of LEDs. My tent is round and right at 5 square feet area. I grow 3 plants at a time. I will get anywhere from 2.5 ounces to 3.5 ounces in the grove bags per plant depending on the how well they did.
