Garden Shots

Here are a few shots of the garden.

BB's cheese at 8 weeks



Cheese at three weeks





At week 3 veg

 

That's a nice grow you have going on right now.

 

That does look nice. What are those shiny chains for?

 

Thanks Mr GJ and OS!

Those chains are light hangers. There are 24 lights in there and after going through all my hangers I was still quite shy. Chain is way cheaper than ratchets and works just as good.

 

damn nice looking setup. What is the total plant count in that last pic ? Shit-load of tops sticking up there.

 

Thankee sir. Total plant count in flower room is 80. These pics are of half the flower room.

I am shooting for MGJ type tables. Right now the trellis is 3-4" too high for the size of plant I get after 4 weeks in veg. This run the plants are on average 60-80% below the trellis, with just the tops coming above the string. To get more chunk bud I need to get more of the plant above the trellis and chop out all the stuff below it that gets little light and makes popcorn.

I defoliated (can't tell right?) at week 2 flower. Should have waited another week.

I've been starting with bigger and bigger cuts too, a la Nippie. I don't know why but I was obsessed with tiny cuts for years. It was like the smaller the cut I could get to root, the more lottery I won. No idea how I went down that path, but I'm off it now. I take as big a clones as possible.

The only hiccup in the system is that I don't have a reliable source of cuts. Using the current veg crop is OK but the plants aren't big enough to produce the cuts I need in the two weeks they have to veg before i need to take cuts again. I have a mother plant and she is big enough to give me the cuts I need, but it takes her a few months to grow them back after I take them so I can't use her every round.

BTW my system is set up to produce a monthly harvest of exactly half my flower room capacity. It goes like this: week 1 - take 55 cuts. They need at most 2 weeks to root. then 40 of the best cuts are planted in veg tables. They grow in veg for 4 weeks. After that they are big enough (usually) to get transferred in to the flower room. Once they are in the flower room, I give them two full months. When one crop comes down, the next goes right into the vacated tables the day after. To keep the flower room full I run back to back veg runs, because every month 5 tables get chopped, 5 more move from veg to flower to take their place, and 5 more tables are planted with newly rooted cuts.

This means that about two weeks before I'm ready to chop / flip / plant I need to take the cuts for the next round. The answer is a second mother plant or a second clonerator. That and some more plumbing to make cleaning tables and reservoirs easier and I'll be done with the build out. A little HVAC for the summer.

I'm chugging along pretty good now, all systems full. I've caught a few mistakes this last time, like knocking a table off it's stand, letting cuts sit around in water cups too long, etc. But nothing to derail me. I'm fully on schedule for once in my life. In another few weeks I will have full tables and a full rooted cloner, which feels good.

 

Looking real nice!

 

Nice looking SMC. We got to get together someday buddy. Let me know when. Your rooms look great!

 

Thanks guys! Man I tell you what the cleaning never ends. Fans (what a PITA to clean a fan), lights, filter socks, filters, not to mention the normal routine of tables and reservoirs, table covers, pumps, vacuuming the floors, etc. Every month I clean 9 tables 4 reservoirs, and a clonerator. I'm pretty fast now. But I'm ahead of the bugs and mold and have been for months and I think part of it is due to keeping clean. Now that I'm outta my freakin 5' ceiling basement it's a pleasure to be in the rooms working the op. I spend many blissful hours polishing the door nobs and talking to the team.

As for getting away, I have set up my reservoirs with float valves so they stay full. Aside from the daily misting and watering mom every 2-3 days I can stay away for up to 7 days during the middle two weeks of each month. I have a friend close by who can mist and water Mom for me, and once I get the video monitoring system going I will be able to watch from afar. If I wanted to spend the dough I could set up auto-dosing systems for nutrients and PH for the reservoirs and that would extend my away time to two weeks. I could do a misting system like the ones at the grocery store. I could turn that house into a pot factory robot!

Thanks MGJ! I see a hearty meal in our future...

 

Having had to personally hand trim 5 pounds of popcorn (madness sets in) I am more than dedicated to more chunk.

I lowered my trellis in half the room.


What causes popcorn is excessive lower shaded budsites. This is particularly true of SOG or SCROG type grows like mine where the plants are close together and the canopy is dense. The cure is to chop low shaded budsites off before the plant spends energy making buds that will never get big. It re-directs that energy by default to the budsites remaining so long as the plant isn't stressed in the process.

This is a balancing act because early on you're never quite sure what will grow to be above the trellis (and therefore theoretically in the light) and what will not make it. This time I am going to wait until the end of week 3 to defoliate and clear out the bud sites under the trellis. I have not done this so far because the trellis has been too high and only a small percentage of the plant is actually making it above the trellis.







Ahh! You could say veg longer and/or grow taller plants (mine are short from topping and leveling). But I only have a month to veg, I have to train to get SOG, and I really don't WANT to grow tall plants. Although I have human-sized ceilings, they still aren't cathedral and heat rises. I do myself no good by growing taller plants. They will just be closer to the lights. Same square footage. The Sea is the same size



The all important radio pumping in classical music 24/7

 

Here's Mom spread out pretty good. I can get 60 cuts off her when she's filled the space.


Here's a veg table all opened up for cleaning

 

Mom maintenance is a sore subject for me. I confess: I have neglected a stable of great genetics to the point of killing them. Just from laziness. Oh the strains I've had...

At the end of week 5. The slight blur in the pics is from fans wiggling plants...




Gotta hungry spot

 

How are you trimming all of that? Looking stellar by the way.

 

Damn, man. this is just fucking stellar. clean, clean, clean.