The cheapest grow ever?

zoic

Well-Known Member
OK. Good news. I was not happy with week 8 pics, no lights on made for some serious shadows, almost like double vision. I asked my wife to get in a little closer so you could see the new growth at many of the nodes. In other good news, I topped one of my plants and took two branches for clones as well. I will get to that in the bad news, but first the new pics.
 

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zoic

Well-Known Member
Right on eh? So lets do the bad news now, if it is even that bad at all. The plant separate from the closet, under a single LED bulb was growing up to the light every day, about 2 inches/day. Since it seemed to already have a bend that made it lilt to one side I decided to try LST. It was so bendy and flexible that I got away with myself and while pulling the top down I also tried to get it to curve around the pot a little bit. When I used my thumb to test the ability to curve I inadvertently put a bit too much pressure on the stem midway between two nodes, and it snapped. So I moved on and cut the two longest branches off, then put them with the top of the plant in a glass of water to try and get some roots. I already have some Stim-Root so I am ready to go if they take. Sigh, so I did at least achieve topping and possibly some clones to boot, yah!
 

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zoic

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Now this is the 5th picture from above but closer up. I seem to be having a problem with some of the leaves on this one plant. It was not as dry as the other 4 so I suspect it may have had some over watering. Does that make sense?
 

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zoic

Well-Known Member
I decided to top the one with the ugly leaves at the top. There are still a few messed up leaves so I will keep an eye on them.

I should update my new total cost so far, excluding hydro was has not seemed to change much.

Potting Soil 2.25
Flower Pots, Soil 49.25
38 Watt LED/4FT 90.40
Litmus Paper 6.79
Thermostat 10.99
Light Timer (x2) 33.86
LED bulbs x 2 4.71
======

TOTAL 198.25
 

zoic

Well-Known Member
Week 9 pics are in, lots of growth from most of the nodes. The one I broke is doing well, and the one I topped with the bad leaves seems to be recovering nicely. I am going to veg them for another week then flip to 12/12. Need to make space for round 2 so hopefully the will flower nicely within 8-10 weeks.

First three are the GSC from bag seed.
 

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zoic

Well-Known Member
Well tonight is flip night. The timer is now set so the lights are 12/12. I am reasonably sure I have 2 males in the corral but I need to see them develop more, could be a hermie also. One of them I am very sure is male and that is the one I accidentally broke. Going to post week 10 pics tomorrow, plus the new ones I already started.

Also, bought 6 new, 4 inch starter flower pots and a pack of 60W LED bulbs.

4 in. flower pots - 4.25
60W LED bulbs - 16.94

NEW TOTAL - 219.44
 
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zoic

Well-Known Member
Well I was not doing well on picture day, which was also flip day. I figured I would just start posting pics again after week 1 of flowering. I will try to get a pick posted for one of my new grows. I topped it at about 2-1/2 weeks and now it is just over a month old. It looks like my other plants did at 7-8 weeks. I will get it posted later when the light goes back on. Cheers!
 

zoic

Well-Known Member
OK, I took some pics of the vegging plants. In the big pot we have a plant that is about 4 weeks old, it was topped about 2 weeks ago.


The two together are about 3 weeks old, the larger one is the one that I ripped off the helmet and it had no cotyledon leaves. The three together were planted Mar 21st.

 

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zoic

Well-Known Member
OK. As a point of interest, all of the pics above are round 2, and all have grown under a single LED shared with other plants.

Now I decided to step it up again and try using nutes for flowering, Big Bud to be precise. Now to say my wife was shocked that it cost almost $50 for a liter would be an understatement. Once I quickly pointed out that I only use 2ml per litre she realized it was not so expensive after all. So I mixed up a batch and fed/watered the plants this morning. Starting to see a lot of pistils growing out of many of the bud sites. I will try to get some pics up tonight.
 

zoic

Well-Known Member
I need to water today. Do I use the nute mixture every watering, or do I switch it up every second time with just water?
 

zoic

Well-Known Member
And now for my latest crazy idea, that fits well with cheap. I have been scrapping computers for a few weeks now, including but not limited to hard drive disassembly. I have about 80 large platters now and I am going to add some light to my grow using reflectors. I have not started on laptops yet, so that should net me about 50 of the smaller ones. I going to light the place up. :mrgreen:
 

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zoic

Well-Known Member
Updating cost with new items purchased. I went to a local shop (recommended by another RIU member) for nutes and square pots. I bought some Big Bug (Advanced Nutrients) for flowering and 5 of the 5-1/2" square pots.

5x5-1/2" flower pots - 7.63
Advanced Nutrients - 50.32
NEW TOTAL - 277.39

So yesterday I asked my wife to have a look at the plants, now 2 weeks in flower. She was somewhat surprised at the progress they are making. I sure hope she likes the end product. This is all for her mainly, I am going to smoke green Moroccan until it runs out. For now the buds are about the size of those burrs that get stuck to your clothing like velcro.
 

zoic

Well-Known Member
So today is week 3 into flower. These bitches stretched between a foot and two feet. I have to keep lowering my shelf since I cannot raise the light. The short one on the left in pic 2 was the one I topped. It only started to flower a few days ago.



Next I tried to take some flower pics, emphasis on tried.



 

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zoic

Well-Known Member
This is day 30 of flowering. I watered and managed to get some half decent pics, although when I unloaded the camera I discovered I missed one plant. I am just way to tired now to try again, maybe later.



I also installed my reflector system. Homemade from hard drive platters and shiny anti-static bags.

 

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