absolutely fantastic set up Abe. I love the closed circuit grows. The room construction has been very insightful.
Thanks. If there are any details I missed that you wonder about, feel free to ask.
Actually, I have a pile of details to dump anyway. Here is the future of my grow and how I plan it. First, what's coming up for harvest:
In a week I get to take down a Blue Dream, which is always a joy. The Trinity as well, which is a first, so I
finally get to try some Trinity buds soon. I'll probably take down the Afghani Hindu Kush freak-out too. Maybe she can't handle her own stone, or maybe she's just broken - I'll know soon.
Beyond that, the Matanuskan Thunderfu@k girls in bloom will finish around the end of this month, and the two Blue Dreams will be done before the end of November.
The next set after that will be the Super Lemon Haze and the Tangerine Dream, another pair of Blue Dreams, and another two Matanuskan Thunderfu@k.
The round after that is the Cheese with a BigBud x BlueMagoo, yet two more Blue Dreams, and the Grape Kool-Aid paired with a yet-to-be-determined partner.
That takes me to March-ish for all three slots. :brows:
Making this work depends on a reasonable bloom duration estimate for each strain, and an origination and veg period of predetermined length. If I know how long it takes to ready a strain and how long it takes to bloom a strain, I can plan ahead.
Now I know that setting fixed bloom times is contrary to the sentiment of a lot of people, and I agree to a point. However, when something happens to delay plants in the garden, it often happens to all of them. When it does not it is usually a predictable strain having a predictable problem. In either case it is not hard to adjust on the fly to accommodate extreme events. That said, if you are consistent, and your garden's conditions are consistent, and the plants are
always healthy, a given strain will often come out at exactly the same time
every time. Now you can make predictions.
Blue Dream is heaven at 70 days. The 'lavender' indica is great at 45 days, but will rock your socks at 56. Most strains accommodate going a week or more longer than necessary. This allows for fudging the harvests by going long to get odd pairs to co-exist, etc. All of the strains I have grown so far can go from unrooted cutting to ready for bloom in about 3 months. I may revise that longer though.
Disclaimer: Please remember, this is my experience. Yours may differ. I don't know your grow, but this is what mine does with fantastic results. This is what
I do. And I do it because it takes less time and fewer plants this way. Also, I'm kinda detail-crazy.
First, I use a desk calendar. One of the big ones where the pages tear off at the top and the grids are empty, so I can put my own dates in the squares. I the bought a bunch of the biggest magnetic clips Walmart sells. Three across the top will hold the calendar up on a steel door in the grow space. On the
lower part of the door. That's important.
As I start a page, I tear it off and add it to the old pages, just above that. That way, the current date is always in the top grid, and the next month or more stretches out below. If I want to see the past I flip up the top set of pages. If I want to see farther ahead, I flip up the bottom set of pages to find the future. Here it is now:
I have three pairs of plants in bloom at all times. They are on 'teams' if you want, but I call them 'slots'. There is a red slot, a blue slot and a green. You can see those colors in the day-zero and weekly count markings. There are orange ones too - that's the weird AFK, in her own little rotation. That's an anomaly.
Knowing how long a strain is expected to go means I can count ahead and mark potential harvest dates. I can also set transition dates to take early veg to mid veg, then to late, taper, and flush, which are the various recipe stages in bloom. I also track when I change the CO2, when I calibrate, and other notes like that.
Now that I know when a plant is going into bloom, I can count back 3 months to the origination time, which is when I plant a seed or take a cutting. Now I can plan successive sets of originate-bloom-harvest date sets. Most of the time this goes like clockwork and the result wows my grower friends, so that's good enough for me.
Knowing that, I have a planning white-board:
The vertical black lines that look so perfect are pinstripes from the local hobby shop. They don't discolor or come off unless you really try, in which case they peel right off. At the top of the first three columns are the slot colors. Those three columns
are the slots. You can see how I map origination ('O'), bloom ('B'), and harvest ('H') dates for each pair. About half way down the board it just turns into origination dates. I don't have to decide until then.
Down the rightmost column is a simple list of harvest dates for whats in the slots. This view helps me better visualize the actual harvest order. Below that, in blue and very faded, are the average bloom times for what I have to choose from. At the lower left is all the strains categorized, kinda. A heart means I love it, lol. The asterisk means others really do and I expect to keep it. A ? or no notation indicates I don't know, which I guess is pretty obvious.
Other than that I just make notes to myself. There is a reminder to buy PBP:Grow and a pump. There is also the address for Sally's Beauty Supply, who would probably be horrified if they knew I was posting it here, but it's in the phone book, so whatever. I am told that they may have liter size squirt top bottles new and empty for sale. I could use those for nutes. But that's another story and I'm not going to tell it because I am stoned and trying not to ramble.
Any of that make sense?
I have other bits and notes, but that's the core of my planner. This way I need not keep more plants than necessary, which saves time and money. Leaving more for the other girls, of course!
Doing this now lets me work out a good way to represent the same information in a computer interface as well. At some point, this will all go digital. As soon as I get around to writing it. Soon. I'm thinking about the automated central controller I'm putting together too.
So many projects...
[action report]
==> Bloom - Pre-harvest flush (3)
BD.5S (64/71 days) : 2.00 gal
TRN.1D (64/71 days) : 2.00 gal
AHK (50/57 days) : 0.75 gal
-Mix (5) gallons.
-Per gallon:
1 oz Clearex
pH target: 6.20 (±.10) Actual: 6.17 @ 20.9 C
==> Bloom - Pre-feed flush (4)
MTP.1J (52/65 days) : 0.50 gal
MTP.2A (52/65 days) : 0.50 gal
BD.6D (23/70 days) : 0.50 gal
BD.6E (23/70 days) : 0.50 gal
-Mix (2) gallons
-Per gallon:
1 T liquid steamed bone meal
1 T Yucca
pH target: 6.20 (±.10) Actual: 6.18 @ 21.1 C
1/2 T blackstrap molasses
==> Bloom - Feed (7)
MTP.1J : 1.25 gal
MTP.2A : 1.25 gal
-Mix (3) gallons - LATE
-Per gallon:
1 T liquid steamed bone meal
1 T Biggest Bloom
2 t PGE
1 t Silica Blast
1 t Cal-Mag
1 T Yucca
2 t Notrozyme
2 t Organic Supplement
1 t Soil Nute
--- t Big Foot (ord)
1 t Calcium Syrup
1/2 t Carbon sweet
2 T Amino Blast
1/2 t TM-7
Natural @ 890 ppm
pH target: 6.20 (±.10) Actual: 6.17 @ 21.1 C
1/2 t Companion
1 t Hygrozyme
BD.6D : 1.50 gal
BD.6E : 1.25 gal
-Mix (3) gallons - MID
-Per gallon:
1 T liquid steamed bone meal
2 T Biggest Bloom
2 t PGE
1 t Silica Blast
1 t Cal-Mag
1 T Yucca
2 t Notrozyme
2 t Organic Supplement
2 t Soil Nute
--- t Big Foot (ord)
1 t Calcium Syrup
1/2 t Carbon sweet
2 T Amino Blast
1/2 t TM-7
Natural @ 1120 ppm
pH target: 6.20 (±.10) Actual: 6.14 @ 21.1 C
1/2 t Companion
1 t Hygrozyme
==> Large Veg (10):
SLH : 0.75 gal ea
TDR
GKA : 0.50 gal
MTP.2G, MTP.2H : 0.25 gal ea
BD.6J, BD.6K
BBX.3F
L.5Q : feed to saturation
TRN.2C
-Mix (4) gallons
-Per gallon:
1 T Pure Blend Pro Grow
1 t Cal-Mag
1 T Yucca
--- t Big Foot (ord)
--- t TM-7
Natural @ 800 ppm
pH target: 6.20 (±.10) Actual: 6.23 @ 21.1 C
1/2 t Companion
[/action report]