Wooden shoes gone wild

Here's my journal for my latest grow project. I have built a 2x2 and put a QB96 V2 in there with plans to add some side light strips. Since I don't want a separate discussion page; please feel free to discuss here.

I'm a medical user living in a regressive state, so we're working toward getting this all hidden away as well as possible. My goal with this setup is to be able to run 2-4 plants per chamber and have a couple chambers so I can run autos and photos next to each other. Right now I am running all photoperiod plants though.

The strains I have running currently are: Summer Breeze(unique trifoil), Killer Orange, OJSDKB, Black Triangle, J1 Hash Plant, Gooey 13, and Loud N' Proud. The first four are in the flowering chamber with an additional 4 ready to go as soon as those are done. I have rooted a couple of clones of Summer Breeze, but so far haven't rooted any others.

My "soil" mix is roughly: 2 parts perlite, 2 parts verm, 2 parts worm castings, 4 parts coir, 1 part peat, and a mix of organic fertilizers(Espoma and Jobes mostly). I also add silicon dioxide in the form of dessiccant crystals and crystal kitty litter. The silicon dioxide was a very good addition to the mix. Since I have started using that my plants are hardier than hell. Its now kind of weird to lose leaves, where it used to be normal. Bugs also don't seem to bother the plans nearly as much now. More science might need done on this, but as far as I can tell the SiO2 crystals are an amazing soil additive.







Clockwise from top left: Killer Orange, OJSDKB, Summer Breeze Trifoliate, and Black Triangle.

I have most of the parts now for my side-lights. I got a deal on some Samsung V-series strips and I am going to run them dimmed on the sides. Still a lot to do in order to get that together, but so far so good.

Its looking like we tragically won't have anything to smoke for Christmas. Our outside stuff was disappointing and we're going through it really fast because we really need better medicine. I am really hoping this current batch in the flowering chamber will have the medical qualities we so desperately need. Its probably not going to be done until right around the new year though.

I've been struggling with this grow due to a huge pest invasion at the start of winter and overly low temperatures in the middle of winter. The first wave of plants in this cabinet have performed very badly and in total created less than an ounce of so-so bud. I've been pretty depressed about this because we desperately need medicine and can't fucking reliably supply it when stuff like this happens

Also... HERMIES!!!! I have had serious issues with hermies due to a light leak caused by some caulk getting damaged by thermal expansion(it was -30 out and the caulk was against an exterior wall). By the time I found the leak it had caused a lot of nanners. So that's the bad news. The good news is that Summer Breeze created a couple nanners under extreme stress but those nanners seem to be dropping dead pollen. Black Triangle also created a couple nanners, but absolutely none of them had any pollen in them. OJSDKB has hermied fairly badly too but plucking has kept them at bad so I can let the small amount of bud on it finish up. Loud N' Proud hermied like fucking crazy, with nanners all over the lower portions. I was too desperate for meds to throw it away though and so I spent hours plucking all the nanners. Amazingly that paid off and LNP is on track to be our biggest yielder; showing both resistance to cold and pests while zooming past other plants put into flower a month before it. I am keeping a cutting of herm just in case it will be of use next year as a good outdoor strain. I only have a limited set of seeds though because a friend sent me freebies to replace my seed collection that got destroyed while we were homeless(I am still so sad I lose my seeds for Arnes Amesiated SSDH!!!!).

Recently I put Gooey 13 into flower in one of the 9ish gallon bags. It has been through some rough times but it has had a lot of time to grow big healthy root systems. Its also the first plant that will be started with the full lighting setup installed. Right now I have LNP and OJSDKB finishing up with Gooey 13 just getting started. The next one going to flower will be J1 Hashplant. I just got J1 in a big grow bag, and she should at least have a couple of weeks of vegging before there's much chance of her ending up in flower.

One bit of awesome news is the side lights. I finally got my strip lights installed on the side walls. They are only Samsung V series strips, but they are still very bright and not particularly hot. I wish my QB96 ran as cool as my side lights, that's for sure. I have them running at almost exactly 100W with 10 total strips.