I seem to do better at killing than growing - HELP PLEASE!

[GrowingInGeorgia]

Looking good:thumbsup:

Have you had any luck with your hps search?

I 'thought' I had, but it fell through. A girl in Atlanta had a 1K and a400? 600? Plus fans, pumps, nutes, complete kit. SunSystem's Ballasts and a couple of conversion bulbs for both. She had already sold the 600 (or whatever it was) and 'only' had the 1000 left. I was negotiating with her on that 1000w when she came back and said someone had just bought it all - package deal. :wtf:..>>....>>..:stoned: ..>>..
But really... she had thousands invested in everything she had and was looking for a $350 bailout. It WAS a Sweet deal!

So I kinda gave up as my plants were flowering and ended up building 2 grow boxes instead. Extra large cardboard storage boxes from HomeDepo. I kept 'em flat and reinforced the corners with 1x2 pine stripping - which created 'legs' as well as reinforcing the entire corner. I Mylar lined everything. Then I laid a sheet of Mylar on the floor to sit them over effectively lining the bottom.

I built a CFL light board with a piece of 1x12, 4' long, and with 6 ($1.79) ceramic sockets. Wired the line of sockets in parallel using a 12 ft extension cord ($2?) - which left 8 feet of cord to get it plugged in. Then I put a 'Y' splitter (79¢) in each socket creating 12 sockets - which I filled with 26w/100w-eq bulbs($14/6 pack). At 2,700° Kelvin they're way red/warm.

I drilled a couple of holes in the wood and threaded a cord through, looping through a couple of hooks in the ceiling to raise it and lower it - I'll put it on pulleys soon. I put a couple of pieces of Mylar covered cardboard on each side of the wood for a reflector and hung it up. It gives me 600w in each box, which is 22"x22"x65", and it's working like a charm. :thumbsup:

The reflector spreads out when the light is in the lowered position, and allows the top to 'seal', but this seal is not absolute... So during the 'night' (for the plants), I just raise the lights and throw a piece of black poly over the top. If I miss the time for whatever reason, the reflector seals the boxes well enough for them to wait.

I'm just getting ready to expand it to a 3 pot box and then duplicate the entire system with another.

Attached is an image of my homemade lights system. Total cost? Around $65-$75.

[attachment=o279653]

[GrowingInGeorgia]

The reflector spreads out when the light is in the lowered position

Actually, I didn't say that right.

The reflector fits INSIDE of each box at an angle spreading out to the sides of the box. There is a small triangle open on each end at the very top, allowing heat to naturally vent. I have an 80mm muffin fan at the bottom of each box, that feeds cool air 'forcing' the vent.

There. That's a better explanation, description, destruction, whatever....

[GrowingInGeorgia]

Looks Great!...:thumbsup:

Now, comes the hard part...when to harvest.

more amber ....takes several more weeks

Yea, these upcoming "several weeks" will be the hardest part as patience is not really one of my strong points. But having gotten this far with the plants looking this good there's no way I'm going to stick my foot in this and harvest early, sacrificing quality just to make haste.

[GrowingInGeorgia]

Hey Pushit (or someone that knows more than a rank amateur like myself!)

Please take a look at the attached image. I 'might' see a nanner, but I'm not REAL sure exactly what it is that I'm watching for.

If it IS a nanner, this plant (the smaller of the two I'm flowering) needs to come out ASAP!

Am I looking at a nanner here?

Thanks so much!

[GaGrown]

Wonder if you could take another pic and back away from the plant where I'll be able to zoom it from here when I click on the pic.

Ga.

[GrowingInGeorgia]

I will attempt to better than that...

Here's a couple of links to the 14 megapix images, straight off of the camera.... You can zoom in as far as you like.

http://hemp4georgia.org/P1010872.JPG <-- the possible nanner

Thanks for looking!


(By the way, here's what I'm trying to protect....)

http://hemp4georgia.org/P1010858.JPG

[GaGrown]

I'd say yes by the way it looks. You can just pluck it off. Are there anymore? Do you want to leave it and produce seeds,for a future grow? I looked all abot the plant. From my inspection that was the only one I saw.

Plant looks really healthy,though!
Ga.

[pushit]

I personally cant tell but if Ga thinks it is then it probably is. Ive only had nanners pop up one time since ive been growing so on my log i was pretty much just assuming since ive never seen them before. You should be getting close to harvest by now huh? Dont forget to flush for the final 2 weeks.

[GrowingInGeorgia]

You should be getting close to harvest by now huh? Don't forget to flush for the final 2 weeks.

I "think" I'm real close to harvest. It becoming REAL hard to keep from 'tasting' that other plant, with those 4 huge buds. But I've been a good boy and kept my grubby little fingers off of it.

I'm seeing a couple of amber trichomes scattered around on the bigger pant, and as soon as I see about 10-20% amber, I intend to flush. I've quit foliar feeding with superbloom and am just using plain distilled water to give the flowers a bath nightly now, as I want to be absolutely sure that I don't leave any chemical nutrients in the buds as they tighten up. I'm VERY impressed with this other plant (see 2nd link above) considering it's just 'bag seed'. I don't have any fancy schmancy name for it, but those 4 buds are thicker than my wrist at the top, and filling in nicely down the stem! That's going to be my "Christmas present"... (I hope!!) I'll just call it 'Santa's homegrown'....

So while I wait for that one to finish, I'll start drying the 'smaller' of the two plants, with the nanners ... tonight. Nanners? CUT IT! It will give me 'some' idea if I've been doing this right, though the trichome count on the top of the leaves is pretty low. The bottom of the leaves actually have more on that one plant.

Damn! I hate that the one is popping nanners, but that's part of the game I guess.

I have one plant in vegetation that's apparently an quto-flower strain - just more bag seed... and two that I'm just about ready to move to the flower boxes. I've topped the shit out of them and have 12 main stem growths on each. I hope they're girls and they do well.

The 'auto-flower' girl is not 'exploding' with flowers, but it's shown it's sex and I can't get it back to vegetating - even when I took the lights to 24/0. So it will be what it will be - staying in there under 18/6.

When these other two go into the flower boxes, I think I'll order a few seeds from Attitude to start the next rotation. Any suggestion on any particular strain that will handle heat (and an inexperienced grower) well?

Summers here average in the 90's and while the back porch is 'cooler' than outside, it's still pretty damn hot. I'm sure that MH lamp is going to produce enough heat to keep the vegetating area in the high 90's starting early in the spring and getting into the 110(+) range in the actual summer..... There ain't a damn thing I can do about the heat without installing an air conditioner back there - to which just the ideawould cause my wife to have a COW! So I need to find some real 'heat resistant' seed strains.

Of course, <sarcasm> I want that 87+% THC strain, ya know! Ok, ok, ok... I'll 'settle' for 20% - how's that? 8-15%?!?!? Damn! Well, if I have to... :stoned:

(Course, as I'm probably 'smoking' 3% and growing 5% right now I guess I shouldn't complain, huh?)

[GrowingInGeorgia]

SNIP! SNIP!

The plant with the nanner is hanging to dry....

Now watch it start to rain for the next 3 weeks straight and raise the humidity to some ridiculous levels where nothing will dry.... We've only been in "drought" conditions for the last several months, but I can just hear MURPHY coming! That summabitch NEVER misses a chance to f*ck with me.

GaGrown... Thanks for identifying that nanner.

And now I'm down to one.... But it has some MASSIVE buds!