5 years off, starting up ghetto grow

For the record I have grown good quality in the past. I used to harvest 1.75-3lb every five weeks.

My stepdad had a stroke and is dying, so I'm back at my mom's house to help with lifting his dead weight.

I started with a large cardboard box. It's in a cold and dry basement, near the radon fan. Scent and climate is non issue for veg. I even pulled off 3 weeks of 11/13 lighting in it (actually 9.5/14.5 because I was fuckin high)
^the cardboard box will likely stay until I have all my mothers, at least till new years.
It's not as filthy as it looks. The floor is covered in cinnamon, and the walls in liquid Sevin.

The grow is supposed to be All-in-one; in this chest of drawers... But it's actually a slow build. I couldn't stuff the filter where it belongs yet, so it's in the middle of my brightest spot :/ sticking a 9" peg in a 4" slot takes work.

Ignore the plants in flower. They all literally died in July, but Seedsman fucked me and I ended up having to pop seeds I had planned for outdoors (shaman, a mild outdoor sativa :/).
I had clones, but all damped off when I had a mite infestation.
As a matter of fact, my Japanese maples outside almost died from mites too. Idk what the fuck happened.
So no clones, just a huge 4 week gap between harvests.....

So please don't judge my flower room and disorganized genes. Half are tall and stretchy, half are short and too wide. All are bagseeds, and are literally zombie Jesus plants that rose after three days of death.

The plan is to have three select mothers, and veg/flip 6 clones at a time, and have 12-18 flowering on the bottom. The clones can't branch or stretch, otherwise the genetics are useless to me.

I have 8 unsexed shaman seedlings, 1 zkittlez, 1 lemon amnesia. I may be able to take clones in a week.
^ Cream Mandarine F1, Caramelo early version, sugar candy, and fast green crack coming soon.

I have one friend I trust to grow out mothers without killing them (my former growing partner), and another friend I'm teaching the basics to (he's getting my freebie autoflowers for now).

So hopefully in the next 90 days or so, I will know what phenos I need; to make my 27" flowering height possible.


Box is covered in cinnamon and liquid sevin. Not as filthy as it looks. Fan doubles as ventilation and circulation. I can feel a cool breeze outside of the top flap of the box. Just a little USB fan. I go in and huff and puff on them daily, and rustle them around with my fingers to toughen up the stems.



These pots are prep table containers, from a subway. I have the little "juice" trays in the bottom (like for onions or pineapple) and holes drilled in the sides.
Note the carbon filter is right in the best lighting :/
This is two UFO's, I'm going for 6 eventually.
Yes, I have blueprints for the box.
^^^ all work has been prison/astronaut style. My mom takes her long dog walk, and I have a small window to accomplish work.... So a day of planning, and 20 minutes of knuckle busting hustle.

Elder care. It's shitty get it? Shitty.

Hey, we get it but at least you're making good use of your time along with providing a much needed service.

Welcome back to growing!

CosmicGiggle said:

Hey, we get it but at least you're making good use of your time along with providing a much needed service.

Welcome back to growing!

Click to expand...

Thanks!

Yeah, finding mothers takes a good amount of time. It also requires extra veg room space. So the cardboard box is staying for a while. Last I checked it was 74°f

I don't want to do soil/coco, but I don't want the noise of air pumps or trickling water. Daily waterings on these air pots will have to do.
I'm using the most basic nutrients possible, so I can have fewer nutrient containers and quicker feedings.

I hide my grow supplies in my unused luggage, in my closet.
^whats great is I have pellet guns at the ready. So it's an understanding that my bedroom is locked when the grandkids are over. Everybody stays out of my bedroom. The kids get YELLED AT for stepping foot in there. It's beautiful! Locking the door is not "weird".
They are allowed in the basement, but they are scared of the dark

I have my fingers crossed for three suitable mothers for Christmas


At minimum I will pop 6 seeds by the end of the week, and hopefully I will have clones off the shaman for sexing in the next few days.

I feel behind schedule now....

But the end goal will be harvests every 14 days. With 45-50 day phenos, 3 "stages" of flower, and a separate veg/preflower room; this should be about right.
Maybe ten days of 16/8 to root, four days of 10/14. Sounds right for 1l air pots and a maximum height above soil of 18"....... I just gotta find the phenos. 4g dry per plant minimum, 6 plants per harvest. That's my goal. 16g per plant would be my bag limit so to speak.

When I grew commercially, it took about 9 months to sort out genes. I don't want to take that long, but probably will.

The cardboard box is hidden in plain sight. Nobody goes back here. It might as well be in the attic. There's a dehumidifier, and the basement is chilly year round.

Edit: the crawlspace has history. Before I went commercial, I vegged and cloned 6+ strains and 40 total plants in there. Only that nice white vapor barrier wasn't there. There were widows, recluse, bright red, and bright yellow spiders down there. It would make my skin crawl.

If it's cool to ask, how did Seedsman fuck you?

Also, no judgements. Work with what you got. You're rocking it!

sbeanonnamellow said:

If it's cool to ask, how did Seedsman fuck you?

Click to expand...

I got my money back. As soon as I emailed them saying I would do a bank reversal, they started a refund.

Supposedly they got like 2,000 US and Aussie orders seized. If you check their recent reviews, like 2/3 of the people are pissed.

After three weeks I didn't have a tracking number, and half of the stuff was out of stock. So they were frequently taking orders, and killing three weeks with customers before any communication. I had a small order with Herbie's, and it actually showed up. Shipped in one day. Arrived on 15th day.

As soon as I got my money back from Seedsman, I did another Herbie's order. Shipped next day, should be here tomorrow.

Seedsman gave me my money back, but they wasted 3 weeks of my time.
Seedsman is probably an upstanding company, but they are playing catch-up right now.

Beyond impressed with Herbie's head shop. They email back in hours instead of days, and they shipped the next day on both of my orders so far. My next order will be through Herbie's as well. Their customer service is over the top. It ships from Madrid, ~2 days in Spanish post, then says "preparing to dispatch" for 9-10 days, then it shows up in us customs, then in 0-3 days it's out of customs and into USPS.
I expected 2-3 weeks, but it's unacceptable to not get a tracking number from seedsman for like 21 days, and 4 days to reply to an email. Had to title the email "refund/reversal" to get a reply in less than a day.

.

Topped above the second internode on the largest shaman plant. Risky I know. It has secondary branches starting, so I'm hoping those take off as tops.
^these are at the height of three finger leaves. Really curious how many fingers the new leaves will have.

I have 20 breeder seeds popped. Ruining an unsexed shaman mother won't be the end of the world.





A little risky.... But I wanna smoke a nug of Shaman out of the freezer on Thanksgiving.

5 Dutch Passion Shaman 24 days from seed added to box.

The largest three shaman were topped yesterday and today. The mothers are still vegging with the clones.

The biggest "mother" one day after topping above the second node!!!! Only three fingers on the leaves.


The jig is up on stealth. My mom was stressing about my stepdad dying and was tidying up my room for family to visit, and she heard the fan. She didn't tell me to take it down.... It's decriminalized, and I'm a long way from any harvests nearing four ounces.

As of now; looks like I can harvest these 5 (hoping for females) about ten days before Thanksgiving. With the help of a dehumidifier, freezer, and oven, I think smoking Shaman on Thanksgiving is possible. It may be a 1oz harvest, but I don't care!

Three on the left, two out of view.


Now that the jig is up, one night I will make noise and finish up the ventilation. This will make it quieter and more effective.

Right now the box peaks in the high 80's unless I have my bedroom under 72f. The exhaust being on the floor, on top of absorbing IR heat doesn't help. I just swirl the air everywhere with the little noisy black desk fan that got me busted.
The problem has been my box is on at night. With the stanley cup finals, and no need to hide from mom, I can finish my ventilation sooner as of now.
I think as long as there are no smells or light leaks, and I get the fans rattle free, I will be allowed to continue the grow without argument.

Also, you may have noticed those "ledges" in the box. I need to get rid of those or trim them back so they aren't blocking so much light.
I may leave them partially as a mount for a scrog.... But I'm planning on a sea of green.
Also obviously, I need to paint or put mylar up.

Anyway, that's all for now. Three to five weeks until my bagseeds are harvested!

Way to go man! You are a good guy for taking care of your mother.

The bagseeds in MG soil look to have nitrogen toxicity. Probably half soil, half me not watering to runoff, half heat. Yield isn't looking great. These are in bad containers, bad soil, and stretched under cfl's.



My seedlings are damn vigorous!! This has to be the sturdiest set of seedlings I have ever had in my life. Not germination rate, but stem strength. I can blow on them, and they hardly jiggle. Not what I normally see from seedlings.... Different breeders, it's something I did but IDK what.
-10w 5,500k LED spotlight at 8"
-1/4 dose Jacks classic blossom booster
-1 drop of superthrive per liter of water
-75f, 60 or less humidity
-approx 16/8 light
-no fan, no dome. Sprayed every couple hours for three days besides dark hours.


The shamans that I put in flower smell like straight pine cone. I only did a stem rub, so I know that's not EVERYTHING. But probably the most pine-like weed I have ever smelled.