Z's amazing cheap diy grow. how to grow top buds at low cost.

HELLO.

How is it going? Thank you for taking the time to check out this grow. I probly talk to0 much and can ramble a bit.. so please feel free to chat it up with me.
If you are a DIY like me you are in for a treat. Watch out for Home made hydro set ups, $10 carbon filters, $35 aircooled 400w MH light... $10 clone machine and much much more.

The Mission: Top buds at the lowest possible cost. A perpetual sog grow that will pump out a quality supply reliably. and of course to LEARN and educate my self in the process. Organic and green. all this while staying under 25 plants

The experience: Always loved gardening. Remember at a tender age of 6 hanging out in my grandpas garden picking potatoes and composting kitchen scraps. But this is my second grow. My first grow was bag seed and a huge 160w cfl.

The strain: Big fan of mandala. I love the background story and the fact that they are land race. Ive choosen the variety pack called safari mix. Looking for a copule of great mother out of this 20pk of seeds. Ordered from attitude had a great exp mandala is making a big step forward offering stable and awarded genetics at crazy low prices. they pride them selves on fair pricing. it was $25 for a 20pk of seeds.. i mean come on.. these guys have wond top honors with high times getting top 10 strains of the year with hashberry and satori.

The nutes: Lots of organics.Fox farm soil. I like light warrior best. mainly use the fox farm line i have the hydro grow big and some big bloom. I got some alaskan fish fert. I love using the General Hydroponics rapid rooters and also the GH vegan compost tea as a great kelp source. I have high p bat guano and some earthworm castings. I love to make compost tea and to make sure there is plenty of decomposing ingredients in my soil containers.. I like to make sure things are booming at the microorganism level and usually add a little molasses here and there.

The Grow room + equip: Lets see we have a flower room and a clone/veg room. The flower room is a small closet with a 400w mh light air cooled home made hood. |NOTE: This is a 400w construction light bought of craigslist used for $25. The ballast and bulb were one unit so to use a reflector and operate remotely I simply took it apart and soldered a 6ft 12guage extenstion cable from the ballast to the light bulb. The reflector was made using a ducting piece, mdf wood as sides, 2x 120mm thermaltake fans, highheat white paint, mylar, and a piece of glass from home depot sealed in with aluminum ducting tape... (more on this project later)| 4" duct fan and a can filter. and some mylar. Im doing soil and hydro. Organic hydro. I have a 25g rubermaid DIY hydro unit. Using dwc and drip. The veg room is narow but long. Its a blocked off hallway before the flower room. In here we are using one single 23w spiral for seed starting and clones. Das Cloner is home made clone unit using dwc and rapid root plugs in a little tupperware conatiner. then another tupperware container ontop for humidity. NOTE this thing is realy kicking butt. Im turning out soo many clones I dont even know what to do with them all. Then there is a veg hydro unit and for ligthing Im using a custom made spiral reflector. its got 6x 26w 6500k cfls and then 2x 26w warm 2700k cfls. for total of 8 lights 200w of cfl power! The reflector has mylar on the bottom. Im getting great growth under this. no stretch and close internodes. Environment controls. I have a window ac unit because I live in the south and it gets hot. AMF heat was my biggest challenge last year with my first grow and that was with cfl so I knew I had to step up my game... The ac unit is located in the veg room. then i have ducting hooked up to it that blows 75percent of the cooled air into the flower room... the rest goes into the veg room. flower room temps are a wonderful 77deg constant. and 69 at night. with about 40-60 rh humidity.. the veg room sits at low 80s with rh around 60-70. As far as I am concernd these numbers are gravy as hell. higher temps speed up growth in veg. and low rh is good to prevent mold in flower..

The veg room


Das cloner


Veg room lights.




The flower room




Flower room light. Plus 1 of 2 home made carbon filters

Also wanted to mention that I nabbed a digital ph pen and tds meter for under 25usd off ebay. I am attempting to recycle my soil by composting it and adding organic matter plus wormies. I read if you let it decompose for at least 30 days you end up with a better soil than it was before it came out of the bag.

Oh and Im also at about 3 weeks into flowering right now.

Guess I should get you guys up to speed.

They started off as seedlings I ended up with 1 fem out of 3 in the first batch. I kept one of the male seedlings and named it bonsai berry because it was very compact and smelt amazing. The bud shot above is from the first girl she is named m3.

Next is another batch of seedlings. The g13 autoflower called quicksilver that came as a freebie from attitude, then 3 more mandala. 1 of the 3 were a female. her name is m4

Then a batch of hydro seedlings was started. out of 2 out of 5 were female. these are m7 and m

so i have the first lady at about 3wks flower, then the 2 hydro units at about 1 wk flower next the m4 girl is only at a couple days.

they are all pretty similar as far as traits. some are a little more indica than others and Im confident that m3 is white satin due to its low odor and shape. m7 is the most vigorous grower and its almost too branchy. I actualy went crazy triming this thing and choped a lot of it down to allow better light penetration. m8 is probly inbetween m3 and m7 its a little branchier than m3. the odd ball is def m4. it has a strange purple stem and even behind the leaves is purple...

The male m1 or mr bonsai berry was bred with the lower flowers of m3. they both had very compact growth with medium branching and wonderfull smell. m1 was the most indica looking plant of the bunch.



most of the garden and some clones in flower.





mr bonsai's genitals.


early Flowering m8


m3 trichs

I love me some LST.


Seedling. i just like this pic for some reason.


Day 1 flowering m7 and 2x m3 clones


clones start here


when they are...


they go to veg..






then when they are like this they move to flower.

Without further adou sp I give you the seedling version...

Seedlings start here


in 2 weeks we are...


some more time gives you..


finaly we are getting some where--


Whoa lets go to flower now.




Just make sure you give them lots of yummy tea.


THE END.

For now anyway. I will be adding a couple posts on tips and how to;s. Things ive learned up until now. like breeding.. nobody should ever have to buy seeds again.. and home made equipment lighting, carbon filters and more.

take it easy and stay green jelly bean..

Is my sig too much?

HOW I breed.

HOW I breed.

Oh yea and how about some easy breeding techniques?
I got this covered for you too. NEVER BUY SEEDS AGAIN! and breed plants that are tailored and customized to your enviroment and tastes. You dont have to be a genetics expert or math magician. The goal is simple polinate a select female with a selected males pollen.. ONLY pollinate as many flower sites as you need so this way you can still have sinsemilia buds on a pollinated plant! You can even pollinate the lower buds.. The safest way to do this is when you harvest, leave a couple of the lower buds, and then pollinate the plant.. In theory this method will not sacrafice any of the plants energy on reproduction while ur still trying to grow fat buds.. And of course it will be much safer since you will already have your harvest... IF you are going to try this method I would like to also point out that some plants have been found to hermie after flowering too long... THIS IS GREAT. want to make some female seeds leave a flower site alone and see if it will hermie its self and self polinate.. why not give it a shot right?

So learning from my first experince of growing out a male that lured me out of the strictly sensimilia mind set with its AMAZING aroma VIgorus growth wonderful branching and compactness. it was my favorite plant.. I didnt want to kill it just because it was a male.

You need to know that pollen is TINY. microscopic even. The polen you can see is clumps of little pollen. PLEASE UNDERSTAND THIS and make sure you use as much common sense as possible. When working with pollen turn off fans.. keep as far away from ur females as humanly possible, use gloves when handling males and remove them when u handle fermales... change ur clothes. If ur lazy and dont want to change ur clothes after handling a male. make sure handling the male is the last thing you do in the garden maintenance schedule to rid ur self of having to be near females if at all possible. pets can carry pollen. WATER is pollens worst enemy. keep a water spray bottle close by and spray the area around your females before and after getting near them if you sense the presence of pollen. Use ur weapon to keep the air moist so that the pollen doesnt float around its almost like how a bee keeper uses smoke to keep the bees in line..

1 You can grow out an entire male plant. 2 You can take a known male clone and flower out a clone. 3 you can top the male and then place this in a cup of water.
Lets review. 1.. this is stupid unless you want to polinate more than one plant. males make so much pollen its unreal the way i see it the less pollen there is the less chances of uncontrolled pollination. 2... this is a good idea if you want to grow your select male and female in the same room.. using clones.. but this is for comercial breeder. 3 ahhh perfect. This method is what we want. all you have to do is let the male flower for a good while and catch it just before the first set of sacs start to mature CUT the top.. just like making a clone.. then kill off the male plant... take your newly cut plant and place it in a cup of water.. on a window sill. this thing will still flower and every few days a new pollen sac will open so simply shake the cutting over a hard surface like ceramic or glass or mirror. let the pollen sit out for a few hours then using a qtip or similar go polinate ur female only where you want seeds to develop..
Or continue to collect pollen.. then using a razor scrape the pollen into a film canister... ADD A SILICA PACKET. leave in a cool dark place for 1 day and then freeze.

there you have it. when i used this method what i did was made a nice little device that collects the pollen for me and keeps the pollen out of the water. I did this using 3 small Styrofoam cups. the first cup is ur reservoir filled with water. cut about 5mm off of the top of the cup. with the second cup poke a hole in the bottom place the cuting through the hole so that it can be inside of the cup protected from the water and also collect your pollen. now we use the 3rd cup to make a stand between the reservoir and the pollen catcher.. basicly cut the cup in half horizontal like. then place the large end over the reservoir. then you can place the cuting in side of the cup onto the stand make sure the stem is poking into the water.

TIPS

TIPS

TIPS. from my grow journal on uk420

ok so Not that im some amazing horticulturist or anything but I want to share a couple tips I find along the way. Thats why we do these journals any way right?

ADD SOME CO2. Yup we all know that plants breath c02. what can we do about it if we cant afford a $2k tank or bruner system with enviroment controlls... as with everything you can do it but on a smaller scale. If you are running a small closet like me you can use yeast + sugar + water in a bottle. then drill a hole in the top. wala instant co2 and it makes a huge difference in the grow.. the yeast actualy lasts a long time too. some tips on this would be that co2 is much havier than air so make sure you put them above the plants. also make sure you use a fan to spread the co2 around the room.

Another option is to use the same yeast method but instead of a hole in the top you can atach a tube and make it air tight. then at the end of the tube is a small airstone. place airstone in cup of water and watch as yeast manufactures co2 in the form of bubles in your cup..

co2 can be absorbed throught the roots so make one for your hydro unit too! add it right to the resivor.

low sodium carbonated water.. (look for non mineral water that is just filtered water with co2 added) you can mist plants with this and they will absorb the co2 water into the leaves... or add to your watering regimin or resivor.

and thats how you can cheaply and easily DIY co2 in your grow. Go out and do it right now!

PH. ok so adjusting the ph is a pain. and takes time... Well my tip for this is grab an empty handsoap dispenser or hand sanitizer dispenser.. and clean it out real well make sure to use a little bleach. then put your ph up or down inside of the bottle. Measure how much liquid comes out in each pump. I find that mine squirts out exactly 1/2 tsp each pump! then just memorize how many pumps you need to adjust your ph of a liter (or gallon im in the US if you havent figured out by the crude measurement system im always taking about) this method is really handy and saves me a lot of time. I use vinegar to adjust my ph I find that it is organic and works best on soil however in my hydro setups I find I have to use a chemicle based ph adjuster because the vinegar does not last. If your ph up or down is a dry powder. no problem. simply dilute some of it in a liter of water and then place this inside of your handy new ph pump. These pumps are wonderful and is a great way to recycle things around the house.. you can even use them for ur nutes.. we all know how hard it is to poor some of these horribly desighned nutrients that we all spend so much money on. screw one of these handy pumps right on to your bottle of nutrient. presto no more mess.

I do everything DIY and GREEN. and so should you!


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Well done Z id like to such yeilds of my own some day.....looks like awsome smoke mmmmmmm

bengie187 said:

Well done Z id like to such yeilds of my own some day.....looks like awsome smoke mmmmmmm

Click to expand...

Thank you for your kind words! The first to comment. u deserve some cookies=D.

take it ezy

Grow room. stealth

Grow room. stealth

This post is pics of my grow room set up.

the pics will take you through my "fo" closet into my flower chamber.


just an everyday closet in the corner of our bedroom.



with clothes



what is this black plastic behind the clothes?



is that a door? or am i dreaming??



It was a door. Cool and now we are on the other side of it.. inside my veg room.











Cloner. And veg hydro unit. Plus my ghetto veg lights. its 160w of cfl goodness. multi spectrum. the plants luv it. took a lot of trial and error to get the right ratio of blue and yellow light. and my compost station. I recycle my soil and all scraps and trimmings go here to be feasted upon by worms.

albumid=9520&pictureid=177722'] [/url]

This is my window ac.. yes there is a window in this room. that is blocked off. the ac keeps everything at a nice 77deg









flowering room.

I love the stealth grow closet .....I should do it too

Very nice bro. What size are those net pots you have the rapid rooters in? Are you going to share how you made that carbon filter? Sorry for the questions so early, but I'm really impressed with what you got going bro.
Subscribed

Bengie. thanks for staying tunned in.
Yes stealth is fun. Everytime I go through the door I feel like im batman or something lol. Maybe one day I will add a retena scanner.

Firsttimer. Thanks for stoping in. I use 2" net pots. but its starting to be a problem in the flowering stage. they want to fall over so i have to weight them down. I think i will be going with 5 inchers for the next run.

The carbon filter was really easy and I have a walk through with pics. i just need to dig through my computer to find it and will gladly post it up for you guys.

peace.

Oh a little update. I splurged last night and ordered some seeds.. couldnt help my self.
huge fan boy of Cali pot scene, being that my friend that introduced me to the world was from aracta.. so have been dieing to get some tru cali genetics..

i have to say this was tuff. It was all a toss up between reserve privada strains purple wreck (purple urkel x trainwreck), og kush #18. then there was DnA Genetics kushberry and a few others, also th seeds had a few like mendocino.. I really could not decide.. I did rule DnA out.. no offense but I just dont like those guys. I saw some footage of them at the canabis cup and they through a temper tantrum when they didnt win. I just dont like there attitude.

Then I found CH9 and grabbed some feminized seeds of the strain called California
(purple urkel x jack herer)

I also remember hearing about a really cool breeder from cali called apothecary seeds. who actualy won the canabis cup with kia kush. I really liked the guy, I enjoyed his story about how he named the strain after his daughter. I like that he actualy had cancer and his goal is 100 percent dank medicine. well anyway i was really disappointed when I realized apothecary seeds was impossible to find. and just wrote it off.

well apparently the breeder was getting into trouble in the US for the seeds (rumor) so he went to Arjan from Green House and made a deal with them to sell his genetics..
So i was very excited to read about GH;S Kings Kush which is direct from this cali breeder. It is Grape ape x Og Kush.
Excerpt from green house website
King's Kush
The King’s Kush is a very special strain, and a brand new release in the Green House Seed Company catalogue. It is a cross between the OG Kush from Apothecary Seeds with a Grape Ape original clone. The pedigree is solid, with both strains having gained serious recognition in medical clubs all over the west coast of the USA and Canada. The traits of the King’s Kush are very much in the Kush direction, with a purple pigment and sweetness typical of the Grape Ape creeping in the background. The plant is short, bushy, and very dense. The leaves are thick, overlapping and dark green, with shades of purple appearing regularly even with no cold temperatures. Branching is very uniform, with short and sturdy internodes. The King’s Kush is so dense that sometimes it is necessary to remove some sets of branches to allow more light and air to reach the inner areas of the plant. It is a strain that performs best indoors, but its strong characteristics allow outdoor grow in most areas.
The feeding on this strain can be pushed to extreme levels, up to 2.4 in hydro systems and up to 2.0 in soil (peak flowering values). This is a plant that demands to be fed in order to produce at its full potential. The pH should be kept above 6.0 for the entire flowering period, and some extra Mg (Magnesium) and Ca (Calcium) should be added to the standard N-P-K mix during the resin-formation period in the last weeks of flowering. Adding some Fe (Iron) and Mn (Manganese) during the first weeks of flowering will help the plant absorb the other feedings in a balanced and effective way.
The flowering time on this strain is 8-9 weeks. The production is achieved already in the eight week but the full resin development needs a little longer. The calyx to leaf ratio is very high, especially when grown indoors. The buds form in a round shape, with irregular calyx formation and oversized calyxes shooting out of the regular bud profile; it’s a really beautiful plant. The pigment goes wild even on the buds, with blue-purple veins giving a special glow to the finished product.
The smell of the King’s Kush is very pungent, intense, and almost tangy. It reminds of lavender, grape, musk, and it is harmoniously balanced in the style of all Kush crosses.
The taste is somehow rougher than the smell, very similar to the OG Kush but with a hint of grape and berries in the background. It is a very round taste, a mouthful of flavor for the true indica connoisseur.

Franco
Green House Seed Company
Amsterdam

Super stocked be growing this stuff..

thats not all I got. =D


I have been eyeing Nirvanas Papaya for a while now (previously known as mango) its consistently a great plant and came from the kc brains mango from back in the day. Ive always heard good things about nirvana. I went with a single fem seed on this one.. But I have always read about how very homogenized these ladys are and that they are very consistent and quite stable so hpfly will not be disappointed.

I also picked this one for breeding purposes.. If i like it. After seeing a lot of pics of this plant in action I realized that it has a lot of very similar traits to mandalas white satin and hashberry. and well I plan on breeding the papaya with one of my (m3 x bonsai berry) offspring, traits i want from the mandala side is the very white and frosty hashness, low height, Fruity lemon smell yet low odor, not too branchy, and of course fruity taste. From the papaya i will be looking to add some things in to the mandala, papaya shares the same white ultra frosty hashness so this should breed true, then hoping to add mroe intense flavor and smell.. also yield. the papaya is a pretty heavy yielder and always puts out huge compact nuggets..

this project im working on is just for fun and to make a personal strain for my personal needs. I will call this strain either bonsai berry or Mango mania. depending on the outcome.

might throw in some Soma seeds Somango to make it even more mango like. then I would def have to call it mango mania.

ahh I read somas book growing organic style.. I really enjoyed it and I like the guy. a lot actually. And his stuff is def on my dream list. either NYC disel or rock bud or reclining buda. and of course somango is my favorite. how about sogudda ?

HAHA I told you guys that I ramble. I could talk mj strains all day. Lol not that ive ever tried any of them but I do read a lot.

anyway congrats if you read all the way through this.

and sorry for rambling.

Peace.

The DIY mini scrubber. works great for a small cab or closet. You could stack them up or use similar method to make larger ones if needed. NOTE you can get large amounts of carbon on ebay.

Tools needed. I obtained most of them from walmart and it cost 10 bucks to make. The only thing not from wall mart was the large pencil holder.. I got mine from officedepot. which sucks because the rubermaid large pencil holder would have made it nicer.



1 small mesh pencil holder or similar
1 large mesh pencil holder that smaller one fits inside of nicely with atleast a 1" gap all the way around
1 box of activated carbon . I recomend going to a pet store and getting the most expensive kind you can find. the more expensive the longer it lasts.
1 small legging.
1 120m pc fan.

so you got everything now what?

First the basics. A carbon filter is known for its amazing ability to remove particles and smells from water. Its great to get rid of the chlorine taste of your tap water. The carbon works by actually absorbing the particles.
When you use carbon to filter air it becomes the #1 imo way to get rid of smells. NOW when you purchase or make a carbon scrubber for your grow you want to get the most surface area possible. You want the air to get pulled through the filter as slow as possible without effecting the needed exhaust that your sized grow requires. Thats why we use a pc fan.

ok that was boring.. HOW do i build this thing..



Its quite simple. Warning this gets messy.

STEP 1. Pour enough carbon into the large PENCIL HOLDER to make the top of the small pencil holder level with the large one when you place it inside.

STEP 2. Remember the surface area part? Well we want as much of the carbon inside as possible to increase the surface area. Acomplish this by shacking the unit every time you add a little carbon and using a stick to compasct the carbon down as much as possible.

STEP 3. So you have about 2 inches of carbon at the bottom of lg mesh holder. You have the small mesh holder perfecly in the center of the large pot as well as the tops of both meshes level. Great ur doing a good job. Now take the small pot out. Place the small mesh holder inside of the legging. Make sure you stretch the legging out a little. Place your new legging mesh holder back in the middle of the larger one. Do you see the void between the large mesh and small mesh? we want to fill this with carbon so carefully and slowly pour your carbon around the sides. I find its easy to just pour it from the container but I like to make a funel out of a firm piece of cardboard or a magazine. Remember to shake the filter often to compact the carbon as much as possible..

If you bought your carbon from walmart and is the same one as pictured above. you should be able to fill the filter with all of the carbon.. its a perfect amount.

STEP 4. USE some duct tape. preferably the alluminum kind to apply small pieces at 3-4 places around the top. You want it to help hold the small mesh to the big one. Keep up the good work were almost there. now all you have to do is take the leftover bit of legging and pull it over the large mesh holder incasing the entire filter. Picture above. I find that a helper is great to put pressure on the top of the small mesh because if you pul the legging too much it will start pulling out the smaller mesh from the larger one. TRUST ME you dont want this to happen because you will need to start all over. After you have pulled it over the entire filter you will want to tie it off into a nice knot against the bottom. then you should have some extra legging hanging there. I like to take it and pull it back over the filter to add a second layer and then pull it over the top a little to help hold the small mesh inside of the larger one.. Or if you like you can just cut it off. It just looks nicer when you double bag it.

YOUR DONE> good job. Now just mount your fan to it some how and add some ducting.

seeds came in yesterday
i am germing kings kush and a mandala for comparison. im holding off on the papaya because it was crushed a little so am going to grt repl

more seeds ordered. th seeds wrekage(train wreck x sage) free
nirvanah wonder woman free
paradise white berry $16
dna la woman free
$70 worth of beans for a steal $16

Bud shots

Bud shots

The buds are getting swollen. they are at about 70 days and still puting on weight. I have the other girls at about 30 days that are getting pretty frosty as well.

Was playing around with my cameras focus feature.

Nabed a 30x pocket microscop off ebay for 7 bucks. Ive cut a few small buds off and let them dry for about 3 days.. THe smoke is amazing. Best tasting pot I have ever smoked in my life. ITs very sweet. Skunky. with loads of citrus. It smokes very smooth for not even having a proper cure.. The stone was pretty strong and fast. IT was a very clear head high.. but that comes with early buds as they get riper I will be testing buds to figure out what my fav ripeness is.