Indoor The Indoor Growing Season - Welcome to N�rdlich's Grow Shack 2013/2014

[Nördlich]

I'm going to use this post as my grow journal for the rest of this year and next year. Because I'll constantly be rotating plants, it's a bit hard to demarcate separate grows, so I'll just log my notes and post my pictures here as I go.

I just got my grow room into shape after a bit of a disorientated late summer / fall growing season. For the past two months, I was waiting on some photo sensitive plants to finish up so that I could start growing autoflowers only. My goal is to streamline and make the growing process as easy as possible for my situation. I would love to hear any and all suggestions or advice. I'm still fairly new to this and feel like there is still so, so much to be learned.
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My grow shack is located in an old woodshop attached to the back of an outdoor greenhouse. It is insulated and heated and has ventilation. A HUGE bonus to buying the house we did! It's not huge - 10' x 9'.

Here is the view walking in. I use the bench as a trimming / harvest work area. It works out pretty nicely, actually. To the left is the 5'x5' gorilla grow tent.

Turning around, here is the entrance. I hung a surplus wool blanket up to help stop drafts from hitting the thermostat. We've already had temps down to -20F and it worked great. I have to haul water out from the house since all outdoors taps are turned off. It's not bad. 4 Gallons each trip, then I mix the nutes and stuff on the far end of the bench.

CFL light over two-week old seedlings. Basically, this is the early veg area.

Closeup of seedlings. Four different medical strains to be used later in Rick Simpson Oil. The seedling on the far right is a tomato. it will be moved to our indoor food garden in the corner of the garage.

Back corner / extra area. I have the mini greenhouse with heated mat here now for starting seeds. Fresh air comes in and hot air goes out here too. The light is a 300w MH / HPS light to be used for backup or supplemental light. I hope to replace this with another 300w LED at some point. I get better results with my LEDs in the tent than with this light.

View inside the tent. I had just moved these three autos in. They were under the HPS while the other photo plants finished up. The tent is a 5'x5' Gorilla Grow Tent with two Sunshine Systems 300w LED lights. I have six supplemental LED spots for side lights when needed. One blue cfl is kept in corner to supplement LED light (read this helps). I sold a lot of my outdoor equipment to buy this stuff. I found, once you get going though, cost isn't too bad at all, and I'm pretty frugal.

continued…..

 

[Nördlich]

My grow plan is as follows:

I still don't know exactly how many plants will fit in the tent yet, so for now, I'm shooting to have a max of four in there. I'll try a SCROG grow at a later date, but right now, little steps…

Pot Size: 2 gallon smart pot
Soil: bottom 1/2" is ProMix BH, middle portion is clean CocoCoir, top 1/2" is ProMixBH
Nutes: FoxFarm Organics
Main Lights: 2 300w Sunshine System LED (one has adjustable veg/bloom, but both work equally well), 6 13w Advanced LED bloom spots, 1 15w cfl in corner

The Plan: The mini greenhouse will be used to start seeds. All seeds will be started in ProMix / CocoCoir Mix in a 3" jiffy pot and will be bottom watered in the mini heated greenhouse. After seeds are an inch or two tall, they will be transplanted to the smart pots. The smart pots will be left under the vegetation fluorescent light bank for a couple of weeks and then rotated into the grow tent when room is available. A middle stage may have to take place by utilizing the corner space if more space is needed than the tent can provide. Two new seeds will be started every two to four weeks, depending on how grow is going. Hoping to have enough product to make 30 grams of Rick Simpson Oil in the next couple months. I also need to produce enough to use for pain management, which is about 45 grams every two weeks (I cook with it a lot).

So far, I've been able to produce enough product for my needs, but now I'm trying to have enough for the RSO, too. It's not going to be easy, but I have a little more faith after how this last grow turned out and how my current plants are doing. This was the last photo that I just harvested. A Nirvana PPP in a 5 gallon smart pot filled with Coco and grown organically all under the LEDs in the tent. It stretches across the full five feet of tent. The buds are really hard and dense too. I haven't weighed anything yet, but will soon.

The top cola of the Nirvana PPP

This is the Nirvana Short Rider Auto that I just moved to the tent when it was under the HPS. It's doing better than I expected! This is the first auto I've grown indoors, and I'm happy to see that it's doing much better than the strain did when I grew it outdoors this past summer. Buds are much, much more dense, too.

I pulled a small bud off the bottom to test it out in my vaporizer. The trichomes are getting pretty milky, and my test proved that harvest is only a few days away. Good, good stuff.

Wet weight after breaking it up for the vape:

That's all I have for now. I'll post up the strains I'm growing right now later. My hands need a break. Time to try out a bit more of the Short Rider………...

 

[namvet25]

Look like You have everything you need and everything js going ok.Thanks for the datailed info on your setup and the nice pictures. Keep us posted on your grow and as always good karma sent your way.

 

[Nördlich]

Grow update: 01 Dec 2013

The tent before harvesting the Short Ryder.

Almost finished……

I was conflicted about cutting her at first because of all the new white hairs, but she was ready. It was week 12, the trichomes were 100 percent milky, fan leaves used up, smaller leaves yellowing, and the buds were dense. Haven't tried her since the first sample yet. I'll wait a few days for a good, dry bud. She grew much, much better indoors than out for me. This makes me happy as I was questioning the output of these autos when I grew them this summer in the greenhouse… Glad to see that pulling 3-4 ounces of these isn't only possible, but pretty probable, even for a non-expert grower like me.

A few of the lower branches hanging up to dry. Note - good node separation made getting light to the entire plant easy.

The tent currently. The girl in the back left is a Bubbleicious, the one on the right is a Royal Queen Cheese. These two have absolutely taken off in the past week and look fantastic. They are both in 3 gallon smart pots. Hoping they don't get too big….. The other four are in 2 gallon smart pots. There is one DP Think Different, one DP Auto Mazaar, an Auto Anethesia, and a Candy Kush. The tent should look a lot more full in a couple of weeks. Then, hopefully, i'll be able to keep it full. That's the plan at least. I'm also experimenting with bottom watering with these smart pots. So far, so good, and humidity has been kept in control.

Here's a closeup of the four seedlings that are partially under an LED Grow Panel. It does well for seedlings and as a side light for bigger plants. They are overpriced and cheaply built, though.

Thanks for reading. I'll put up a smoke report when I get to try out the Short Rider dried and cured.

 

[Nördlich]

Edit to above post - the two plant I currently have in flower are a Royal Queen Cheese and a Auto Candy Kush, not a Bubbleicious.

A quick update on those two plants. They are both about a 3.5' tall and are quite healthy. However, they aren't producing quite as much as I thought they might. This was my first go growing in Coco, so I probably don't have the nutes quite down right. This picture is actually from 11 December - Week 9 for both girls. Cheese on left, Candy Kush on right.

A quick look inside the tent this morning. Seven days has made quite a difference in the plants. Buds are bigger and are definitely filling in and are quite dense.

Here's the Cheese (PS - this was a free seed). As you can see, the top leaves are a bit curled. This seems to happen with this particular 300w Sunshine System adjustable spectrum LED. I've had awesome results with the light, but some strains don't seem to like it. Dutch Passion Blueberry (photosensitive) did the same thing in two previous grows. Other strains have done just fine. More testing to be done…..

The Auto Seeds Candy Kush. I'm looking forward to a nice mocha by the fire and a vaporizer full of this on Christmas Eve…..

I've got four other plants ready to go when these two are done. Hoping to fill the entire tent up with them. Have a new Blackstar 240w UV LED showing up tomorrow that should help with that I'll try to get some better pictures when I can. It's -22F outside right now. I didn't feel like hauling my tripod and flash out with me this morning…..

 

[Steel_Reserve]

Nice grows bro. I like how you sectioned the room off with blankets. I used that same LED in the past and just like you, ended up being a sidelight.. After about 16 months, the LED's started dying one by one. I paid 110 USD for the thing when I fist started growing 3 years or so ago. If I were to spend that same money now, would definitely go with something else..

 

[Nördlich]

Thanks, man. Which light do you mean, SR? The Sunshine Systems or the BlackStar? (think I figured it out - the Grow Panel, yes? That thing is a POS and not worth the money) I just received the Blackstar yesterday, and it's quality. Light pattern looks very similar to the adjustable Sunshine System. We'll see how she does!

Been busy. Between harvesting and the cleaning up all of the snow that's been falling, I haven't had much spare time. Still need to download some updated pictures. I did sample both the Cheese and the Candy Kush. Both were covered in milky trichomes, and the buds were dense and very tight. Surprisingly, it was the Cheese that ended up being my favorite - by far. I've smoked other Cheeses before and was never too impressed. This one hits me hard, though. I really, really, really like it. The Candy Kush? Reminds me a lot of the auto Short Ryder from my last grow. Nice, but keeps me wanting more. Again, these were just samples that were slow dried and used in a vaporizer. Results may vary in another week or two. Damn, loving this Cheese…….. the back pain from shoveling has kind of melted away……

 

[Steel_Reserve]

The grow panel 28watt... This will be an archaic and historical device. Both you and I were sold on snake oil since we both own them.

 

[Boogieman]

Love your set up and grow area....:smoke:

 

[Nördlich]

Thanks, Boogieman. Got a burst of energy today and did a bunch of work in there changing a few things around to make it all flow more easily. I'll post pics of that when I'm done with it in a day or two.