The real "gardening" by my technique comes after the plants are moved in under the 400w mh hood in the laundry room. There I subject my little hunnies to stress and humiliation, and they reward me with enough yummy smoke to get through till the next crop comes in.

Now, 400w of mh light isn't a lot. Some folks will tell you to go with a 1kva MH or don't go at all. I've got the 1kva ballast, but I only operate it with the 400w. Why would I do that?

With the short space I grow in, I have to grow close to the light. A 1000w light will fry the plants from being too close, and will overheat the room. The effective lumens (law of inverse squares) of the 400w at 8" from the plant is close to the effective lumens of the 1000w at 18" from the plant. So for my purposes, the 400w fixture makes more sense ( or "sinse", if you prefer).

The light is suspended from a mini block-and-tackle kind of locking pully system. I can crank it up and down by pulling the rope it's on. The ballast is remote -- on the floor -- to keep that weight and heat away from the plants. The hood is a six-petal, shallow "daisy" design with a 28" diameter, so it just covers my 28" of floor space.

That's about as hi-tech as I get with the setup. I'll explain how I use it all later.