MHBGuy - Grape Ox Grow Log - First Ever Newbie Summer Bud Contest

[MHBGuy]

So this one starts in the middle.

It's Day 57 in the garden and three nights into the 12/12 cycle. The plants in both corners, and the front left in the black pot, are female Grape Ox.

Strain is from Rare Dankness. I selected them for my first grow in over a decade because they are supposed to be small and fairly potent.


Small is accurate. I let them veg about 10 days longer than I anticipated to ensure they would have decent size going into flower. They were about 20 in. tall and super compact branches when I started LST a couple days before the switch.


Loved NYUrbanFarmer's comment about growing being cheaper than therapy. Must have been reading my mind because the last two months I have been grooving on the grow.

In '92 I read Marijuana Growers Handbook by Ed Rosenthal and Marijuana Grower's Insider's Guide by Mel Frank. Bought a 400 watt HPS and ran a pretty decent hydroponic closet through the end of the century.

Light has been buried in the garage for years, but with legalization I began to get the itch to pull it out and try my hand again. Problem was space. Hard to carve out grow space in a fully allocated dwelling.

But once you start rolling it around in your head and realize you have pretty much everything you need… *lol* well, a rarely used spare shower didn't stand a chance against a legal grow room.

Already had a multi-strain grow journal going so will share lots of pics and info from what I have been up to and what is happening currently.

Last pic for the first post. Seedlings at Day 13. One of the first I took.


The little dude is a carving my old man brought home from a yard sale 30 odd years ago and he stood watch in my garden all through the 90s. My old man is gone now, but Bongman is pretty jazzed to be back in the patch.

 

[Raziel819]

Subbed ...Go get it done Guy,
Raz

 

[patsfan420]

im in.. wont post as much but will be watching till the end..

 

[MHBGuy]

Hey, very cool, patsfan420. Glad you are still roaming around a bit.

 

[MHBGuy]

I think the best advice for all newbies is document what you are doing from the start. Make notes and take pics because you will want to come back and see it again later. Grow journals and diaries are an ideal place to make a record of it and they make it really easy.

I didn't shoot any pics until day 12 with these plants and wish I had started from sprout. I did start a grow journal that can be seen here. Because it includes another Rare Dankness strain and 15+ year old sativa bag seed. I will continue to update that journal as well.

 

[MHBGuy]

Bought these around mid-April, put them in some coco pellets in the afternoon on April 26th. I actually intended to buy peat pellets but picked up the wrong thing. I used them, but worried about them all night, so went and got the peat pellets the next morning and swapped them just for my own peace of mind. They were sprouting on April 30th. I used a plastic pre washed salad box with a cover as a humidity dome and left them all inside with the lid cracked for the first day above ground.

On May 1, either tap root was out the bottom or seedling was out the top and they all went into deep 4" pots (about 1.4 pints) in a bag to bag mixture of Fox Farms Ocean Forest and Happy Frog. I supplemented with about 7-10% earth worm castings. And then I mixed that with about 30 - 40% perlite for starting mix. Nothing else added except dechlorinated tap water. I didn't PH the water, but it is the same water provider I used back in the day and plants always turned out pretty good.



These are the first real pots. Four inches wide, but about 6 inches deep.

 

[MHBGuy]

Day 62 and with 8 nights into the 12/12 cycle the smell in the grow room has become very sweet.


Only a few flowers per bud site on them so far, but guessing by this time next week they will be looking lots better.

The sun leaves on these GrOx are huge. Way bigger than my hand and 11 blades per leaf.

 

[MHBGuy]

I really need to do some catch up on this diary as I am guessing most folks will not go back and read the journal from the beginning. I apologize for what will be duplicate information for some of you.

After I decided a spare shower was the place to grow I wanted to freshen the room up. Scrubbed tiles and floor down better than I have probably done since we have lived here. Fixed a few spots were grout was missing and painted the walls and ceiling.

I anchored some plant hooks in the ceiling with toggle bolts and used pulleys to suspend the light fixture, some cleats to tie the light off to and some safety covers on the shower faucet knobs to make sure the shower cannot be turned on accidentally.



A small clip fan from walmart was essential when the plants were new seedlings to toughen up their stems and is still stirring the tops of the canopy to keep things cool.

 

[MHBGuy]

An old automobile sunshade became a nice lightweight reflective front wall for the garden. I used and old piece of wood moulding clipped to the lamp shade with bulldog clamps and was able to clip the sunshade to the wood. It works great and flips up and out of the way when you want to work in the garden.



A remote sensor lets me keep track of the garden temperature and humidity.

 

[MHBGuy]

My goal has been to only spend money on stuff I really need and to reuse, repurpose things I already have on hand to whatever extent I can. I was fortunate to already have a light and most of the pots that I needed.

From my reading there did seem to be genuine benefit to transplanting through successively larger pots in order to force the plant to grow a more dense rootball. I also preferred the smaller pots in order to keep the plants as close together under the light for as long as possible.

I mentioned previously that I germinated the seeds in peat pellets and then moved into 1.4 pint cups (very similar in size to solo cups)


On day 14 I moved them into 2.75 qt pots.


Day 26 I transplanted again this time into 2.5 gallon pots. I really intended to take some root photos, but just as I yanked the first plant from it's old pot, tornado sirens went off and I ended up sky watching for a while. By the time I got back to transplanting I had forgotten about root shots.

One of the few things I have had to spend money on besides seed and soil stuff. I bought 8 2.5 gallon square pots. Again the size and shape worked really well to keep everybody in as close to the center of the light as possible.

Two weeks later on Day 40 I transplanted them for the last time.


Out of 7 seeds cracked only 3 were female Grape Ox. The two larger females went into some 7 gallon pots (may actually be more like 8 or 9 gallon) and the smaller one went into a 5 gallon.

 

[MHBGuy]

Day 64 for the Grape Oxen. 10 nights into 12/12 cycle

Stretching a bit now and adding flowers.


Ox balls ready to go to work as soon as the ladies are ready for him.

 

[MHBGuy]

I really wanted to do an organic grow and see if the flowers taste substantially different than what I am used to.

I also wanted to keep it simple enough that the average newbie with some enthusiasm for growing and a small budget could repeat the process. Basically soil only with some nutes as a bump during flowering

Of course, there are different levels of organic grows and this one is definitely on the simple side. I used a bag to bag mix of Fox Farms soils, some basic amendments and lots of perlite. But I read that FF nutes are not really organic and that cut them out as a simple solution to nutes during flowering.

I liked the idea of earth worm casting tea, but again most recipes call for a ton of expensive stuff in addition to the EWC. After I flipped I started hunting again and found a simple recipe: dechlor. water, EWC and molasses. Bubble 24 hours, strain and deliver with a watering can.



Fed them last night so well see if they make a big boom in bloom in the days ahead.

 

[MHBGuy]

Photos from yesterday (Day 68)
The Grape Ox are so dense you can barely see a branch. Flowering nicely though. Really remind me of poinsettias. Wonder if they could pass at the holidays?


After tea garden shot. Grape ox front right and back center and left.


Modified the tent with an old shower curtain, used the auto shade to top the sides.

 

[ghostmade]

Looking good man ,
GL hope u get fat knots of danm

 

[MHBGuy]

Thanks, ghostmade. Appreciate you taking a look.

 

[grow nerd]

Very nice. Growing in the shower, how convenient!

 

[MHBGuy]

Very nice. Growing in the shower, how convenient!

And just about right size for what is legal to grow. But a hilltop would be lots more fun.

 

[patsfan420]

looking good! wont be long now

 

[DoubleDDsNuggs]

An old automobile sunshade became a nice lightweight reflective front wall for the garden. I used and old piece of wood moulding clipped to the lamp shade with bulldog clamps and was able to clip the sunshade to the wood. It works great and flips up and out of the way when you want to work in the garden.

I love the ingenuity!! another cheap way to get some reflection is the emergency blankets made of mylar. they're usually a buck or two and are fairly large the crinkle can make hot spots they say but I use them and they work fine for me with 1400w.

 

[MHBGuy]

I love the ingenuity!! another cheap way to get some reflection is the emergency blankets made of mylar. they're usually a buck or two and are fairly large the crinkle can make hot spots they say but I use them and they work fine for me with 1400w.

Hey, DD, thanks for taking a look. Totally agree. Space blankets are awesome. I used them in my closet back in the early 90s, but have been like Fred Sanford on this project. Pulling crap out of here, there and everywhere; kind of seeing what kind of minimal stuff someone could get by on for a grow.

But good call, more light is always a good idea. Curitain I have up definitely allows bleed through so might have to swing by the surplus store and picks one up.