My very first grow

Hi,

I am an MMJ patient living with AIDS. Anyway, I've been smoking recreationally for about 37 years, and NEVER had any luck growing. Either I'd smoke the first leaf the little plant sprouted (kinda Warner Bros, I know) or my cats would eat the thing in the first 3 weeks, or it would just up and die. Never got it to work, got no green thumb, although I do well with cactus and corn.

Well, I was smoking some bud from our local medical dispensary, and lo-and-behold I found a couple of little seeds in a bud. Just for fun I thought, "I'm gonna grow me a plant or die trying." I figured if I could just keep it in my head that the thing would be useless until late flower, I might make it. Well, one of the two seeds sprouted, and after 4 months of indoor growing 18/6 under a couple of dinky 26 watt 1,600 lumen 5,600 Kelvin CFL's in simple reflectors, I had a plant 36" tall. I topped it once or twice during veg, gave it a Big Gulp cup of water when the soil went dry to the touch.

I used a gallon pot (maybe 2 gallons) with mostly plain dirt from the yard, and maybe a bit of potting soil. For food, I used MG timed release food, a general plant food, that lasts for 3 months. I applied it once during veg, and at the start of flowering.

So at four months I put her (it was a female) into flowering 12/12 with two of the CFL's being tungsten-balanced 3,200 K 26 watts, and one of the 5,600's. Now, 9 weeks into flower, the dank smell comes and goes, and the plant has a few nice-sized buds, and a lot of large popcorn. The bud hairs are starting about 20%-60% amber, and the trichomes are tuning milky. The four biggest buds are the size of my outstretched hand. Most of rest of the buds are the size of a half-dollar or silver dollar.

I clipped the top off one of the four big buds last night, and dried it in the following way:

Put it in a small brown paper bag, the tiny kind you'd get at the pharmacy for one bottle of pills. Put that, open-ended, in a Pyrex dish for baking bread. Put it on my dining table, which has a black surface and is in direct sunlight in the dining room window in the afternoon. That surface easily gets over 100 degrees under direct sun, so I sit the dish there, and in about two hours the bud is pretty dry, but still needs a boost. I then take the whole dish, bag and all, and put it in the oven at 200 degrees for 30 minutes or until nicely dry.

It smoked smooth, tasted properly dank, and really seemed to get me off! I went to bed and slept soundly, and it brought my appetite up. So, for my first grow, even though the yield is not so much (less than an ounce this first time, I'm sure) it is pretty good, and I proved to myself that I can do it! I don't know what strain the seeds were though, coulda been a Hindu Skunk, but I don't know, so Ive simply named her... wait for it...


Lois Lane!

Here are some pics...

[attachment=o278310][attachment=o278311][attachment=o278312]

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

:jointsmile: Well done for getting Lois to grow for you after other tries didn't work out. I'm sure your really pleased with what you did get off of her - its a nice sense of achievement eh?!

If you want to have another go at it and aim for more yield out of your time spent then you'll need much more light and better soil etc. But you got the plant to grow and got something smokable at the end and thats already more than a load of other noobs manage.
Happy smoking :)

Thanks!

I don't expect to get much out of her, but based on a thread I read here, I've cut back her light to 11 hours a day in these last few weeks in the hopes of getting the last two of four kolas to puff-up. I'll probably harvest the remaining large one in another week or so. I'm gonna try to reveg her, then cut some slips to clone.

If I do that, I may go with the wicking hydro mix of vermiculite and perlite using ropes out the bottom holes of the container to wick nutes up into the medium. I've seen it work for others. There's a hydro shop in the town nearby that has some nice lighting. I'm looking at getting the 125 watt CFL giant-size lamp, 8,500 lumens, which will be enough for two or three small plants, with a few 26 watt CFL's in reflectors for fill. No way I'd consider metal halides or any of the other big-wattage HPS lights. Too much heat, too much power drain for my tastes. I need to stay VERY discreet.
I'm smoking a bit of the popcorn from the mid-level branches right now, and it's quite stony. Even had a nice headrush like when I was much younger, at one point.

"Well, I certainly hope this little incident hasn't put you off flying, Miss. Uh... statistically-speaking, of course, it's still the safest way to travel."

I would have left it abit longer mate but looks nice :thumbsup: and I wouldn't suggest oven drying you can really loose the beautiful smooth taste of it if you don't cure it properly