SuperWeed
Member
Hi guys. It's been a long time since I posted. All my rep is gone, I can't edit my posts and my life has changed dramatically. It's been a bumpy ride.
Let me start with an intro. Hi, I'm SuperWeed, formerly StrainWhore. I used to post a lot, finally coming out of the shadows of the closet after OverGrow was taken down.
I learned so much from you guys... SoQuick, Heath Robinson, Delta9, Spurr, Res and Head, my old buddy Neptune... so many. I too used to share the knowledge, doing what I could to help other newbies (you might remember my Washing Machine Hash Thread). Then I got busted. I deleted my handle (StrainWhore) and fell off the forums. I lurked, but until now, have not posted.
In July 2009, my brother-in-law turned me in for growing. He blamed me for his divorce from my sister. I'm certain he felt justified in his actions, but he caused his divorce, not I.
In 2010, my pregnant wife and I were sentenced to prison for a year. We bonded out on appeal after two weeks in the county. The day of sentencing, my wife was bleeding vaginally. We had only just found out she was pregnant. She wasn't supposed to be able to have children, as she has a thyroid condition. This baby was a surprise after 10+ years of marriage. She was given NO medical attention in county jail. I am genuinely surprised more people don't die from lack of care in the county jail system. SO, she just rested. For two weeks, she watched TV and laid on her rack. It turns out, she also has a blood condition (I had to give her a shot every day of her pregnancy), and had she not been forced to rest, she might have lost the baby, as had happened, in the past. "Who knows what is good, or what is bad?" - Zen
In 2011, we lost our appeal and on Tax day, when our son was two months old, we went to prison.
The judge would not grant judicial release to myself or my wife. I only tried once, she tried 3 times. She kept up her milk production, right until the very end. You see, since the baby was born, she couldn't take him into prison. We were forced to grant guardianship to some old friends. Friends who neglected our poor little man (he hated his swing when we got home). We transferred guardianship to another older couple, new friends, but angels from God. They loved our son until we came home.
In prison, I didn't see my boy for 4 months, until he was 6 months old. He didn't recognize me. That was a hard day. Luckily my wife got to see him about once a week, but she was not allowed to change him or breastfeed him. When I say the system is broken, I am telling you, the f****** system is broken.
When we got out of prison, I got a job making $8 an hour slinging bags of mulch. Luckily, I had worked out a lot in prison. Obviously $8 an hour, didn't cut it. And I had only popped off one 10+ 5 light show before Fat Camp. (prison, I lost 35lb). The partner on that deal also cut me off while I was in prison. Stole my equipment. So I cashed out everything I had, found a friend with a basement and set up shop. Right back to work. Foolish. I had no choice.
Starting back up on limited funds is difficult. I was used to popping off 3lb a week at $4k. Making so much money I could "DO WHAT I WANT!". I tried every stupid line of fertilizer, every growing method, every bottle of snake oil. I have run everything, scientifically, side by side. But as Brian Tracy would say - "if you can't save money, then you do not have the seeds of greatness within you"
So I figured out better ways of doing things. Fewer, bigger plants. Better canopy maintenance, etc. My main focus was on getting to a legal state, where I could grow 12 plants, all by myself. The guy I was working with wouldn't water the plants... Cost us tens of thousands of dollars and I could no longer afford to work with him 50/50. It was a bad break, where I literally walked away. And started over. I had another identical location set up, before I walked. Always be prepared.
I took on an apprentice who was great,,, for a while. Then the pills took over. He cost us a lot of money.
He was replaced with a young man I will affectionately call "Junior", because he was great.
This second show was simply meant to get down to one plant per light. I went through so much evolution. Harvesting a crop weekly has allowed me to gain infinitely more experience in a shorter period of time. After 16 years, I have literally grown over 700 independent harvests. I had my largest confirmed (I will explain in a minute) harvest trying to get to Michigan. 50 ounces and a few grams. 4 plants squared off, surrounding a light, canopy heavily managed. 2 PimpSlaps (I miss her) and 2 I can't remember. The 2 PimpSlaps weighed over a pound a piece and the other two made up the difference. Had they all 4 been PimpSlap, then it would have been 4 pounds. There is no doubt in my mind that 4lb's is possible using an old-school Hortilux.
After tons of tests, trials and errors; a year of preparation, this grow was loaded into the back of a U-Haul truck and driven 3 hours to the new legal home in Michigan. And so the evolution of my methodology was finally coming to fruition.
I built this legal grow with the following rules firmly in place:
1. I am only allowed 12 plants (later increased, thankfully to 24)
2. 3lb A WEEK. Going from harvesting 48 plants a week down to harvesting just 1.
3. I can only be there part-time. 2 days a week, tops. The show must be run by an inexperienced 20 year old. "Go for a business that any idiot can run - because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it." - Peter Lynch (That idiot was me, my apprentice was a God-Send.)
4. I have next to no money, due to previous failures with partners and employees.
5. The manufacturing output has to be the same every time. There is no room for failure. 0. Zilch. Nada.
A Pipe Dream some said. F*** them.
I did it.
My setup in Michigan ended up being allowed 24 plants, so a number of my innovations were not needed. Such as the air-layered super mother, which would be one plant in a scrog with air layered cuttings being main-lined, growing roots while attached to the mother. Then I could just cut the branch off when I was ready to put one into flower. This was a sight. It worked, but was a lot of work. I got the idea from a book on trees and the thousands of cloned aspens that grow in nature. All the same tree, thousands of trees. I do not have pictures. I should have taken pictures. It was cool. We used a similar method for a while. We had 12 plants in flower and used the extra patient card to change out the method of cloning, which had developed into a tree laying down and having it's branches ground layered.
To keep a lot of variety, I learned how to graft. I ended up with a total of 15 elite strains grafted onto one bonsai mother. She was beautiful.
I have made many modifications and upgrades to the system since this, but I usually don't document my grows, because of LEO...
I will post more pictures shortly.
Let me start with an intro. Hi, I'm SuperWeed, formerly StrainWhore. I used to post a lot, finally coming out of the shadows of the closet after OverGrow was taken down.
I learned so much from you guys... SoQuick, Heath Robinson, Delta9, Spurr, Res and Head, my old buddy Neptune... so many. I too used to share the knowledge, doing what I could to help other newbies (you might remember my Washing Machine Hash Thread). Then I got busted. I deleted my handle (StrainWhore) and fell off the forums. I lurked, but until now, have not posted.
In July 2009, my brother-in-law turned me in for growing. He blamed me for his divorce from my sister. I'm certain he felt justified in his actions, but he caused his divorce, not I.
In 2010, my pregnant wife and I were sentenced to prison for a year. We bonded out on appeal after two weeks in the county. The day of sentencing, my wife was bleeding vaginally. We had only just found out she was pregnant. She wasn't supposed to be able to have children, as she has a thyroid condition. This baby was a surprise after 10+ years of marriage. She was given NO medical attention in county jail. I am genuinely surprised more people don't die from lack of care in the county jail system. SO, she just rested. For two weeks, she watched TV and laid on her rack. It turns out, she also has a blood condition (I had to give her a shot every day of her pregnancy), and had she not been forced to rest, she might have lost the baby, as had happened, in the past. "Who knows what is good, or what is bad?" - Zen
In 2011, we lost our appeal and on Tax day, when our son was two months old, we went to prison.
The judge would not grant judicial release to myself or my wife. I only tried once, she tried 3 times. She kept up her milk production, right until the very end. You see, since the baby was born, she couldn't take him into prison. We were forced to grant guardianship to some old friends. Friends who neglected our poor little man (he hated his swing when we got home). We transferred guardianship to another older couple, new friends, but angels from God. They loved our son until we came home.
In prison, I didn't see my boy for 4 months, until he was 6 months old. He didn't recognize me. That was a hard day. Luckily my wife got to see him about once a week, but she was not allowed to change him or breastfeed him. When I say the system is broken, I am telling you, the f****** system is broken.
When we got out of prison, I got a job making $8 an hour slinging bags of mulch. Luckily, I had worked out a lot in prison. Obviously $8 an hour, didn't cut it. And I had only popped off one 10+ 5 light show before Fat Camp. (prison, I lost 35lb). The partner on that deal also cut me off while I was in prison. Stole my equipment. So I cashed out everything I had, found a friend with a basement and set up shop. Right back to work. Foolish. I had no choice.
Starting back up on limited funds is difficult. I was used to popping off 3lb a week at $4k. Making so much money I could "DO WHAT I WANT!". I tried every stupid line of fertilizer, every growing method, every bottle of snake oil. I have run everything, scientifically, side by side. But as Brian Tracy would say - "if you can't save money, then you do not have the seeds of greatness within you"
So I figured out better ways of doing things. Fewer, bigger plants. Better canopy maintenance, etc. My main focus was on getting to a legal state, where I could grow 12 plants, all by myself. The guy I was working with wouldn't water the plants... Cost us tens of thousands of dollars and I could no longer afford to work with him 50/50. It was a bad break, where I literally walked away. And started over. I had another identical location set up, before I walked. Always be prepared.
I took on an apprentice who was great,,, for a while. Then the pills took over. He cost us a lot of money.
He was replaced with a young man I will affectionately call "Junior", because he was great.
This second show was simply meant to get down to one plant per light. I went through so much evolution. Harvesting a crop weekly has allowed me to gain infinitely more experience in a shorter period of time. After 16 years, I have literally grown over 700 independent harvests. I had my largest confirmed (I will explain in a minute) harvest trying to get to Michigan. 50 ounces and a few grams. 4 plants squared off, surrounding a light, canopy heavily managed. 2 PimpSlaps (I miss her) and 2 I can't remember. The 2 PimpSlaps weighed over a pound a piece and the other two made up the difference. Had they all 4 been PimpSlap, then it would have been 4 pounds. There is no doubt in my mind that 4lb's is possible using an old-school Hortilux.
After tons of tests, trials and errors; a year of preparation, this grow was loaded into the back of a U-Haul truck and driven 3 hours to the new legal home in Michigan. And so the evolution of my methodology was finally coming to fruition.
I built this legal grow with the following rules firmly in place:
1. I am only allowed 12 plants (later increased, thankfully to 24)
2. 3lb A WEEK. Going from harvesting 48 plants a week down to harvesting just 1.
3. I can only be there part-time. 2 days a week, tops. The show must be run by an inexperienced 20 year old. "Go for a business that any idiot can run - because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it." - Peter Lynch (That idiot was me, my apprentice was a God-Send.)
4. I have next to no money, due to previous failures with partners and employees.
5. The manufacturing output has to be the same every time. There is no room for failure. 0. Zilch. Nada.
A Pipe Dream some said. F*** them.
I did it.
My setup in Michigan ended up being allowed 24 plants, so a number of my innovations were not needed. Such as the air-layered super mother, which would be one plant in a scrog with air layered cuttings being main-lined, growing roots while attached to the mother. Then I could just cut the branch off when I was ready to put one into flower. This was a sight. It worked, but was a lot of work. I got the idea from a book on trees and the thousands of cloned aspens that grow in nature. All the same tree, thousands of trees. I do not have pictures. I should have taken pictures. It was cool. We used a similar method for a while. We had 12 plants in flower and used the extra patient card to change out the method of cloning, which had developed into a tree laying down and having it's branches ground layered.
To keep a lot of variety, I learned how to graft. I ended up with a total of 15 elite strains grafted onto one bonsai mother. She was beautiful.
I have made many modifications and upgrades to the system since this, but I usually don't document my grows, because of LEO...
I will post more pictures shortly.
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