How did everybody FIRST learn to grow?

We always had a vegetable garden growing up so basic plant care was nothing new to me. I had a family friend that had been cultivating outdoors for about twenty years. He chose to gift a clone to myself and my housemates one spring. We did most of the tending, and once or twice a week he would stop back over to check progress and offer advice. It's still the only outdoor crop I've dealt with. By winter that year I had purchased a Handbook by Billy McCann, found this excellent forum, and set up a tent indoors =) Had some rough times, had some great times, every harvest I'm looking forward to the next time.

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Originally Posted by galt

In the late 1990's, there was no facebook. There was no web forum software like vBulletin. There was barely a web and Netscape made the number one browser. But there was usenet. It was almost an email protocol, but not quite. There were redundant servers and anything posted to one server would propagate thruout the world over a few hours time. There was no such thing as encrypted web. And email security was a big concern. So we learned to use pgp encryption, and used anonymizers to email comments into one of the usenet servers, who would then decrypt it and post it. There were two groups. alt.drugs.pot.cultivation and alt.drugs.pot.cultivation.hydroponics No sub-groups, just threads.

We named SOG and refined it. We invented SCROG. LST was just bending. Hybrids were new, and feminized seed was only an idea a few people were tinkering with. Autoflowering was accidental and annoying. Ordering seeds was shaky, and new seedbanks ripped off lots of people. But usenet friends would sometimes mail you a seeded bud or two, so you could try it out, and then grow it out if you liked it. Domestic mail was still safe to use. It was a small community, you knew who was smart. We had few posers, and less fake experts. We had a community-authored FAQ for new members.

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Hate to burst your bubble, but SOG was all over High Times mag since the early 80's: So was SCROG, it just didn't have a name yet. We used rusted chicken & turkey wire (because this was for camo, new silvery stuff stuck out like a sore thumb) & kept everything low to the ground because the po po was looking for tall lanky sativas (& it made it easier to cover those slower sativas to shade for forcing 12/12, & for frost protection on frosty nights in cooler climates. FEMINIZED was discovered by accident, but auto-flower is the result of experimenting with ruderalis crosses begining mid to late 70's. Lived through it, grew through it, know it for a fact. These were underground things, not popularised untill later, but those of us of the underground, hippies, started this stuff before it became common knowledge. Most of the geeks & nerds of the 60's & 70's were hippies. Go figure..... :) :) :)

i learned it my self :) just by reading and watching movie's about it :) and the video's helped me allot i think :) but the reading to :thumbsup:

my first grow was in 1976 and I'm still learning...........

Warning, "humblebrag" to follow: :)

Read Bill Drake's, Marijuana cultivator's hand book in the early '60s.
Great book, still relevant!
Poked some seeds in the clay.
Cow's ate 'em.

Bought some 8' fluorescent tubes and some supersoil in '66.
Then started playing with Colchecine, gibberellic acid, x-rays, Hops splicing, and emulsified fish guts.

The fish guts worked.

Made my first hash oil in '67 from an oz of Columbian black in hot Ronsonol, (lighter fluid/naphtha).
Nasty, dirty, dark green muck, but it kicked ass.
Didn't really have a pretty grow until I moved to California in the '70s

Ah, good times.

Aloha,
Wee, ancient, 'zard

I learned some from a buddy who is pretty good at it. Some from doing reading on the net, and quite a bit from this site.Never heard of a whole lot of methods until I started hanging here!

I was first introduced to the art and the basics at some off-campus housing where some friends lived and grew while I attended college at a large, popular, state university in western Massachusetts about 10 years ago. There is a large local community of graduates of the school that grow and are happy to share their knowledge if they come to trust people that really piqued my interest.

I have not had the opportunity to grow until recently moving to where I currently live with my wife, and being offered a large, empty cabinet from a carpenter friend. I picked up a couple books by Ed Rosenthal and scoured these forums before building my cabinet, purchasing some seeds, and starting my first grow 2 weeks ago!

My first grow, I just germnative some seeds, and through them out in the woods. Then I forgot about them for several years, and went back to see where and if there was anything growing. Nothing but the woods had growed up around the place where I had put them. After that I just put some seeds in a pot and hope for the best. I would like to see some pictures, when you get things going. Good luck, and happy growing.