Mephisto Genetics The Mephisto story...so far

[mephisto]

Noo dude you misread, Money has never been a reason I grew! I never grew commercially in the UK, because it was too risky and not something I was comfortable with.
I grew to try out as many different strains as I could, and different techniques to see what worked the best for me, and until now I have always been limited to few 4x4 ft tent's.
I can see why people grow cash crops though.

The thing to keep in mind about a design degree is, It's highly competitive, 1000's of people do them, and there aren't thousands of jobs available. So in my opinion you either need to be a) Highly talented, or b) work your balls off to get the best result possible, if you want to find employment in that sector when your degree is finished. It partly comes down to luck, and if you are prepared to move cities, or countries for work?
London and manchester are the two places you'll find the most work in the UK

If you're not really sure what you want to do in life (and at 18/19, I was the same) but you like the idea of uni, then by all means go, but be prepared to do I as did and potentially work low paid jobs.
The thing is I stayed in my city (too long) after uni because I liked the city, and had a good bunch of friends close by, but it put me in a funny situation, not qualified enough for some jobs, too qualified for others, a bit of an employment limbo.
It may have been down to the economy too, but to have a degree, and be working minimum wage jobs.. kind of defeats the point of higher education.

I did leave school at 18, but applied to Uni, and defferred for a year. I had a gap year where I worked, I got a decent job at a company, but it wasn't for me. The job, or to be living in my home town for the foreseeable future if I had continued with that career.

If I were you, my suggestion would be to have a year out, work and save, go travelling and try to gain some perspective on things.

Please appreciate though this is just my experience and my 2p, I'm not a qualified careers advisor, but figure out what you really love doing, what you're really good at, and 5-10 years down the line where you would like to be in life.

 

[peez]

DANK If your uni costs are £9K a year, id take that 27K and see the world and fuck education personally lol. Just finished a design degree and it was amazing living the life of a student dont get me wrong, the however the degree wont really effect my life massively. Put it this way, £27,000 in 3 years and all you know is design, or the same amount could last you yeeears travelling and you'd gain so much more wisdom. Just my opinion (I was the last year where it was £3K a year and that's still a lot for what I gained).

You're likely to getting 2 or 3 years into uni then decide you want to do this but now you have a huge debt. I don't want to warn people off of uni as this is where I came to understand myself more and you also meet some amazing people (and parents would hate me if they read this lol) but I believe we should learn from our planet not an education system!

Like Mitch said above, it's COMPETITIVE (same goes for most careers not just design obviously), I love designing and making but as a career i cba to be living a competitive life. His advice is good, take a gap year/ 6 months travelling cheaply and see how you feel after. It'll all be clearer soon enough.. the 'bigger picture' doesn't have to be a scary as they make you believe throughout school

Great work Mitch sorry for bit off topic but seems like you had a similar reality check at some point. Keep it up and safe growing buddy!

peez

 

[SkatterBrayne]

Knowledge is the most powerful force on our planet. There is no substitute for intelligence, period. That being said, you also shouldnt burden yourself with copious amounts of debt for the sake of knowledge. Most people attend uni simply because they are expected to, anr the majority of them learn very little while they are there. They are simply there to get that piece of paper, to validate themselves and market themselves for future employers. I wouldnt attend uni unless you are 1000% on board to LEARN. You can always attend school in a few yeas, and the added life experience you will bring with you is an invaluable addition to ones perspective.

I have always had a distaste for the education system, and rarely attended my classes because I didnt need to. However, if you need a person to tell you what to learn, and how to learn, it would appear that you do not truly seek knowledge. Its out there. Everywhere. It is in the world, in books, and in your own mind when you allow yourself to sit there and quietly think. You dont have to pay anyone to grow in your own mind. Take advantage of the blessings the internet and the information age provide. Dont fall into the trap of monoculture, and the mechanization of the human race like many of our peers. Learn for yourself, and find your niche.Thats when the world opens up. The answers are all out there, you just have to ask the right questions.

 

[DANK]

Insightful stuff right here, I'm liking the sound of a gap year anyways, so I guess I'll do that, and let time take me through

Also mitch, I totally misunderstood when you said 'The money from growing bud can be enticing, but it's not the reason I began to grow, and continue to do so' haha, nevermind

Sorry for taking this so off topic too D:

 

[mephisto]

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 split the basement into and added several new circuits. 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 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 from a couple of weeks ago to give you guys a better idea.

After construction of the G'houses was complete, we have been concentrating 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.


Phew, almost up to present times, which I will bring to you in tomorrow's instalment.
Cheers, Mitch

 

[RebelRoy]

:clap: my oh my. this just gettin bigger and bigger Jorge Cervantes Holy Moly :tiphat: amazing!!

 

[RebelRoy]

"always make sure to have plastic blades on your fan! that wont hurt your finger so much" xD safetypatrol. just gotta love that man :clap:

 

[DANK]

not actually jorge right?

 

[Mr Piggy]

That's him, l recognize that stoner. I'm liking the story, but how did you get a picture of me clearing the back 40?

 

[Red eyed c]

Nice spot you got there Mitch and all that hard graft will start to pay off :smokebuds: