SmokinErb's Vertical Garden - CMH - Speed Queen, Mandala#1 & Bagseed.

[SmokinErb]

Welcome to the Garden!

Room - Approximately 9'x8'x8' - Stacks will be partitioned off with some black painters plastic. It's cheaper than panda, and the reflective surface is basically useless in vert.

Strains - Mandala#1, Speed Queen, 6 different Bagseed strains.

Lights - 3x 400W CMH, 356w CFL

Method - Vertical stack 3 bulbs high. I'll be growing trees as well as SOG. May possibly have ballasts on a flip/flop and push 2 identical grow rooms. Can't do anything perpetual really, as I only have a 6-month lease to work with.

Medium - I use a soil less mix straight out of the bag. Metro-Mix 300: Horticultural grade Vermiculite, Bark, Canadian Sphagnum peat moss, horticultural grade Perlite, processed Bark Ash, starter nutrient charge, Dolomitic Limestone and our long-lasting wetting agent.

Containers - I'll be using grow bags. 1 gallon bags for SOG and 3 gallon bags for the trees. May use some 5 gallon containers, but I'm trying to save on the cost of the medium.

Nutes - FF Grow Big, FF Big Bloom, FF Tiger Bloom, SuperThrive. I follow the FF feeding schedule listed here - http://www.foxfarmfertilizer.com/soilfeed.pdf

 

[SmokinErb]

Rundown of the two strains I ordered:

MANDALA 1 MANDALA SEEDS

Type: sativa-indica
Genetics: S. African highland Sativa x NZ Purple Indica & N.Indian Sativa
Flowering time: 55-60 days/mid Sept. (south) end of September (north)
High: an up-high that spreads in waves; euphoric; creative; can also be spacey and dreamy at the start.
Aroma: properly cured buds have a natural sweet fragrance like dried apples. The purple plants spread a delicious raspberry fragrance, with a touch of minty freshness.*
Medical use: Mandala #1 shows potential in it’s anti-anxiety and anti-depressive effects. As this is a new strain we will be updating further benefits once feedback comes in from med users.

Mandala #1 is a good choice if you are aiming for a quick crop with a Sativa effect. We recommend this strain especially for northern climates where harvesting by the end of September is a priority. This strain has two basic phenotypes (characteristic plant types). Approximately 30% of the plants belong to the Sativa dominant phenotype and grow in a christmas tree shape. The leaf structure is similar to the Indica dominant pheno. Purplish leaf stems and light red stripes along shoots are not uncommon and should not be mistaken for a nutrient deficiency. The young flowering plants have a perfumed woody-herbal fragrance when you rub the stems.* Despite the Sativa dominance the buds are chunky and the plants are easy to grow. The Indica type pheno is apparent through it's squater growth, thick main stem, and larger leaves. Branches are shorter, growing upwards close to the plant (perfect for SOG). The side shoots towards the top are also short and give the head buds a more compact structure. This pheno tends to develop a sweet-spicy smell during early flowering. Mandala #1 flowers with a spear-shaped head bud of considerable length that makes this a high yielder.

SPEED QUEEN MANDALA SEEDS X 10

Type: mostly indica
Contains land race genetics from: Himachal Pradesh, North India
Flowering time: 55 days/September (south); mid October (north)
High: the “surfers” choice - a stimulating, and balanced indica buzz that does not put you to sleep. Pleasantly relaxing yet leaves plenty of energy for social activities and is a great daytime grass. No nervous side-effects (racy heart, etc.); suitable for regular med users.
Medical potential: this strain shows potential against anxiety and depression.

Speed Queen is a stocky and tough indica with a thick main stem (green or with distinct scarlet coloring) and fleshy leaves. She carries compact and resiny buds that have great “bag appeal” after drying. One pheno has the delicious aroma of orange and citrus. The other mixes this freshness with a more pungent/skunky note. This indica will fit well into grow spaces where shorter plants are required. To a large extent the bud leaves are covered in THC glands, but harvesting is a quick operation since all buds remain nice and chunky.

 

[SmokinErb]

Okay, so let's get everything up to date.

Germination - I soak the seeds for 12 hours in a solution of distilled water and 1/8th tsp of SuperThrive. They're then placed between paper towels, put inside a freezer bag and placed on top of my computer monitor. As soon as the seed cracks and the tip emerges, they were placed into peat pellets. The peat pellets are placed under a 62w cool white CFL so the sprouts have some light to grow with. They're then transplanted into 16oz Solo cups and placed under my daylight spectrum CFL's.

3/2: Germinated 8 seeds - 2x Bagseed#1, 3x Bagseed#2, 3x Bagseed#3 (Henceforth known as BS1 - BS3, respectively.) All seeds sprouted. All came from good quality outdoor MJ that had an occasional seed.

3/3: Germinated 15 seeds - 15x Bagseed#4 (BS4, obviously.) Came from some high quality outdoor bud.

3/4: Germinated 15 seeds - 15x Bagseed#5 (BS5.) This is also some good quality dank bud that got seeded.

3/14(?): Germinated 36 seeds - 36x Bagseed#6. (BS6.) This came from a batch of some pretty good mids. The seeds were just really well developed so I figured, what the hey?

I haven't germinated any Mandala#1 or Speed Queen because I don't have them yet. I only ordered the beans 3 hours ago. along with the 1st of 3 ballasts/CMH bulbs. I'm expecting the ballasts here this coming week sometime, not too sure how long it'll take the beans to get here. I'll be using the same process with these, only less SuperThrive and I won't be using peat pellets again.

Not sure about transplant dates either. I wasn't going to start them until I got my CMH bulbs, but I figure hey, I got 356W of CFL light that can grow them until then. Might as well as get 'em a head start.

Anyway, here's some pics from the past couple weeks. Should pretty much bring you up to date. I did use sunlight somewhat by placing the sprouts in a window. Figured it was better than the 62w I had them under at the time:

 

[SmokinErb]

And they're off!

I know they're a bit stretchy. Thanks to only 62W CFL. Didn't get my daylights up fast enough - I'm such a stoner. I transplanted and buried them deeper than usual to correct the situation.

There's some yellowing, but I expected that in the peat pellets. There IS some burn from the SuperThrive. I continued to water the pellets using the same mix I soaked my seeds in. I've since discontinued that.

 

[SmokinErb]

This is just the just sprouted seedlings that haven't been transplanted yet. Under 62w cool white CFL.

 

[SmokinErb]

Here's a few shots of the ones I've already transplanted. They're currently resting under 168w daylight CFL. I've got another 126w that I've got to put up over them - but the hardware store only had 2 y-splitters for the bulbs. They don't seem to be stretching anymore.

After the transplant, I watered using the FF feeding regimen, 1 tbs/gal of Big Bloom at this stage.

I think I transplanted about 36 hours ago, so these are rather recent.

 

[lid]

Great choice of genetics. Wish I could have done some Mandala this round but because of time had to settle for OGK. Cant wait to see these ladies mature.

 

[SmokinErb]

Okay so I checked my email this morning and unfortunately, as of now my beans are not ordered. WalMart MoneyCard states that they charge a 2% fee on international transactions. Well while checking my account, it says the purchase was denied because "Purchases from this country not allowed."

Fucking bullshit. The doc emailed me offering 10% off and free shipping on a cash/money order payment.

Not sure what my next step is going to be.

Edit: Well, the 10% off and free shipping brings the total down to $54 instead of $68. I s'pose that's nice. I'd rather my beans were on the way though. I emailed the doc, asking if there was a way we could set up a quick paypal payment as opposed to going through regular mail. Mostly the issue is that the money is already on the card, that's what I put it there for. I'd like to use the damn card if possible. I WILL send him a money order tho if necessary as I still need grow bags and such that I could spend the money on.

I think I found the reason as to why the card isn't working. Seems that the temporary card can't be used internationally, but if I wait for the one in the mail, I'll be able to use that? 7-10 days... with his 10% off and the cost of mailing registered first-class mail, that comes out to only a dollar less than the card, and it takes 6-10 days for the mail to be delivered. I'm thinking I should probably just wait.

 

[SmokinErb]

Okay so I've decided on a few things -

I'm not sending the Doc a money order. The 10% savings basically only pays for the registered mail and I've seen far too many reports of money orders getting lost and/or taking forever. Simple fact is that I don't have a lot of time to wait on beans, so I'm going to wait the 6-10 days for the card to get here then I'll make an attempt at ordering the beans again. I only have until the end of August guaranteed to me on my lease, so we'll see how that goes. But regardless of the beans situation, the grow goes on.

I'm expecting my CMH to arrive sometime this week. Once that happens I have 7 plants that I'll be throwing almost immediately into flowering. 6 of the plants I have chosen are pretty much plants that I'd just throw away right about now, slow growers, mutated leaves, leftovers in the jiffy pellets that just couldn't keep up, ect. I'll be flowering one "good" plant which I topped down to 2 nodes, I'm aiming for 4 main leads from the bottom 2 nodes. Figure it'll heal from the topping by the time my CMH gets here and 5 days of veg under that should get 'em big enough to produce a decent amount of bud.

I'll be vegging under the CMH as well, so I'll be pulling those 7 (hopefully) girls out of the veg unto their own little dark space for that extra few hours. It won't be long until I flip to 12/12 anyway.

Another reason I chose to flower those was that due to my stupidity, I basically don't know what's what. I went around and threw away a lot of the plants that were in the jiffy peat pellets. Well I had a few unlabeled cups (which I've since managed to label) but after throwing away all of those pellets... well I just don't know which bagseed strain they are as I was relying on the numbers of plants to tell me what was what. They're either B.S#4 or B.S#5, that's as close as I can narrow it to.

Anyway, here's some pics of 'em this morning:

1) Plants I intend to flower immediately, including the topped one
2) Quick shot of some of the others
3) Singled one out
4) Plant after being topped.

 

[mg75]

The CMH will take a bit longer to trigger flowering compared with an HPS. You will get a lot more colorful buds with the CMH.

HPS + CMH = winning combo for yield, colors, and resin.

 

[SmokinErb]

I've taken that into consideration and will probably throw 'em into total darkness for 24 hours before starting a 12/12 cycle for that purpose.

The color and resin production is specifically why I went with 400 CMH's over 2x1000w HPS. My original plan was to run 2x 1000w on a flip but I remember really wanting to use a CMH when I was running a 400 HPS - Plus I'll need a good veg light for when I do get around to buying some 1kw'ers (and I know I will.) CMH are the best veg lights IMO because well... run 'em vertically and you got plenty of room for some autoflower strains. I was even considering running a 1kw suspended over a 400w instead of just the 400's.

Meh, it's more of my curiosity. I've grown buds from a HPS only during veg. I'd like to run a CMH-only for comparison purposes.

 

[SmokinErb]

Okay so I just got my bulb and ballast in the mail today. After looking at it closely, it seems pretty simple to wire up, I'm just a little confused as to how to mount it with the brackets it came with. Anyway....

I also went out and bought some lumber, panda plastic, and some grow bags. 1 and 5 gallon sizes as they didn't have any white 3 gallon ones, just black, and I want the reflectivity.

Everything's starting to take shape! This all should be completed hopefully this weekend because well, my plants are getting too big for the CFL's they're under. They're gonna love this 400w CMH.

 

[mg75]

Okay so I just got my bulb and ballast in the mail today. After looking at it closely, it seems pretty simple to wire up, I'm just a little confused as to how to mount it with the brackets it came with. Anyway....

I also went out and bought some lumber, panda plastic, and some grow bags. 1 and 5 gallon sizes as they didn't have any white 3 gallon ones, just black, and I want the reflectivity.

Everything's starting to take shape! This all should be completed hopefully this weekend because well, my plants are getting too big for the CFL's they're under. They're gonna love this 400w CMH.

The "reflective" white bags will not add to your yield. The canopy will shade the white bags.

 

[SmokinErb]

Yea I realized that, but my point really was, the canopy shades the "walls" anyway, so there's no point in laying mylar or panda. I dropped $30 on panda plastic before I realized this. Ended up going to walmart to get the same thickness black painters plastic. $7 for the same size. Figure I'll use the panda when I get aroud to trying a 4 bucket DWC hydro horizontal setup. Never dabbled in that, so... there may actually be a DWC bucket being added to this. Still considering it.

The white bags don't absorb heat which is why I insisted on them over the black ones(and got 5 gallons instead of 3 gallons like I wanted - the shop was out of white 3 gallon bags). I've seen instances where people use black containers and their soil gets too warm for their roots and basically fry them.

Anyway, it's been a busy couple of days. I am NOT a carpenter, and I've taken this thing apart and changed something, scrapped a lot of wood (gonna have to go buy more now) but for a guy with no more than roofing experience in construction, I think I'm off to a good start. I've built this thing with nothing more than an idea in my head and just kinda went to the lumber yard and just guessed. I'm making it work! Never wrote a damn thing down on paper before building this.

I SHOULD complete it tomorrow. If that's the case, I'll throw 6-8 plants into flower. Just some of the weaker ones that I'd probablly cull out by now anyway, figure I'll SOG 'em basically and just get some free decent smoke here in a few months. I just need to find a damn Mogul socket. They don't have them ANYWHERE (3 hardware stores) in town. I'm googling to local HVAC place and seeing what I can get there tmw. It's basically the only thing I need to get going.

So summary of today:

- Halfway(?) competed my cab: It's an octagon, now. Only one level so far, putting the 2nd level shelves in tmw and mounting my first light. The final dimensions are 8' tall ~4' parallel diameter, 1'8" leg lengths. The base is mounted 6" off the ground with plenty of air intake. I think something like 4x 3"x18" and 4x 6"x18" holes around the edges, in the center there's like a 12" or 12.5" hole. A fan sits flush with the plywood, pulling air in from under it and pushing it straight over the bulbs. The total growing area is about 6'6" tall. Basically, I'll be putting a 400W light every 2 feet.

A 5 gallon bags rests about 14" from the very center (~1' from the bulb") Still thinking about a screen, but I honestly think with topping and proper training, I'll manage to fill the canopy similiar as a screen.

Got a circulation fan for under the bulb. Not sure of the CFM, I'll look into it. It pushes more air than I thought it would. It's a 9" blade Massey fan from walmart I picked up for $15. It fits my 12" hole almost PERFECTLY, with maybe a half inch to spare all the way around

Got a mailbox to mount the ballast in and a fan to cool it. I'm really hoping I can fit 3 of them sumbitches in there. I REALLY don't like the mounting racks it came with. They give it about a quarter inch of lift, but don't really allow any air to pass underneath them. Regardless the fan I have should be more than sufficient. It's another Massey 4" high velocity fans.

Got 9' a flexible 12/3 cable and a male adaptor plug, I plan on keepin cable lengths to a minimum. I'll probably be using 3' to power the ballast and probably only another 3-4' to run to the bulb. Not sure where to put that ground wier from the 12/3 on the ballast kit though. Gotta figure that out. The male cable plug is obviously to power the ballast. I'll probably just hardwire the lamp cord with a stress relief.

Anyway, some more cab pics. The fan I bought was placed in the hole to show how well it fits.

The first pic is the lower 2' that'll be lit with my CMH bulb hopefully tmw. The others are of the full height of the octagon, more shelves will be added, but won't be ncecessary at this point as I only have 1 CMH for the moment. The two slots with no built in shelves will have removeable shelves to be used as entrance points.

 

[SmokinErb]

Did a little bit more work on the octagon. Really isn't my favorite thing in the world to do, and I'm by no means a carpenter. I'm basically building all of this from a mere mental image in my head of what I'm trying to accomplish. Basically though, it will be in operation hopefully tomorrow. I'm just fighting with myself on how high to put the shelves.

I've got to go to the HVAC store out of town to pick up a mogul base so I can wire up that ballast. I've looked EVERYWHERE, and nobody carries these things and I'm not vegging another week under CFLs.

I also put some weatherstripping in the door to block the light out. Granted the tent I'm building should be light proof, but if heat becomes an issue (I'm running bare bulb) I'll tear the plastic down and put it over the window instead. I just gotta take care of the bottom of the door.

 

[SmokinErb]

Oh yeah, the plants. Had to lower the shelves because they grew into the light overnight - about an inch. Seems like they've started their veg cycle.

Didn't really keep track, but I did some topping/FIMing and things today.

-I FIM'd 1 plant of each strain (2 of BS#4).

These 6 plants will be bushed out to fill the lower level. Most of my plants will be on the small side in 3 gallon bags. These babies are gonna be in the 5 gallon bags hopefully filling up that lower level nicely. I just hope I can get them big enough in time - being that its an unknown strain, I don't know how long they'll flower for. I want to give myself a full 3 months for flower to be on the safe side, so I'd say I've got about another month which I can veg on.

- I FIM'd 6 plants that will be getting put in flowering in probably like 3 days (April 1st). There's actually 7 getting flowered, but it's a plant that was stunted from being topped. They're all runts and plants I would have weeded out by now. I'm just putting them into some 2 liter bottles and see how they do.

As for the rest of my plants (20 of 'em), they'll be grown in 3 gallon grow bags that I'm ordering. Of these, about 40% are either topped or FIM'd, don't know how they'll respond to it, so we'll see.

The rest of the space will be filled with clones in 1 gallon grow bags. How many, I have no idea, not quite sure how much room the ones I have are going to take up in there, plus I don't know how many males I'll be pulling out.

Quick pics. I had them all out earlier, dunno why I didn't take some quality shots then. It's such a pain to take pictures standing on a stepladder squeezed into a tiny ass space.

 

[SmokinErb]

Ah, well I did manage to take this. I guess its kinda neat.

 

[SmokinErb]

Okay so today, well basically I got everything going. It's not the finish product, but it's a USEABLE product that'll do far better than my CFL's.

There's no plastic around the tent yet, as I still have to build some more shelves. The light actually had to be lowered in order to suit the containers sizes.

The plants in the 2 liter containers will be getting put into 12/12 this weekend. The rest will be vegging for a few weeks. I'll be transplanting the cups into 1 gallon bags tomorrow

Anyway, tired, so straight to the updated pics. They're pretty self-explanatory. Yes I'm aware I'm wasting light. However that 400w HID > 168w CFL.

 

[SmokinErb]

More pics. Once again pretty self explanatory.

That black sheet is me temporarily blocking off the window until I get my plastic wrapped around the tent.

The rest is that we got the circut ran, I just have to install the oldwork box and receptacles tmw.

That'll be it for tonight. Been a hectic last few days. I'll be ordering another 400w CMH/ballast here this week. Double stack comin' up.

The mailbox is what I'm mounting my ballasts in. It's just IN there right now and not bolted down or anything. I'll get around that tmw. I'm hoping I can fit 3 of them in there all together.

 

[SmokinErb]

Okay, so I did place ANOTHER order for those seeds. Same ones, Mandala#1 and Speed Queen. If the doc can get 'em to me in a week or so, I'll be able to grow out the Mandala, but if it takes him forever.... probably won't have time to finish it. So... fingers crossed.

Anyway, transplanted into my 1 gallon grow bags and put all of those peat pellets I had laying in the closet for forever (B.S#6 - which we were originally going to put outdoor). I put the pellets into some leftover Solo cups. They STILL may be going outdoors, just kind of improvising as I go along. The 1 gallon bags got a 1/2 strength nute solution and the cups just got tap water.

I NEED to get that tent wrapped up though. But I still gotta get 2 more lights in there as well as the ventilation all set up. I still gotta finish wiring up the receptical and mount it somewhere.

Temps aren't too bad. They'll hit 85 F at times but, I can tolerate that. However that's also with just one light. I'm sorta curious how much 2 more of those babies are going to affect temps. I don't think I'll really need a A/C unit so much as maybe some bake-around cool tubes. Maybe not even that if I get a good extraction fan.

Pics are pretty self explanatory.