Omega Garden's Volksgarden rotary garden

[maxximus]

Howdy to all,

Sure is good news to see the new guy taking a new tack on the feds messing with the states medical laws

I am fixing to do a grow show with my Volksgarden. I have gone 2 rounds with it, and I am very happy with the results, and I would be posting pics right now if I was able to do so, but the 'posting rules' say I can not post attachments. I'm not too sure what that's all about, but I'm guessing that I need to have a certain amount of postings till I am allowed to post pics.

So any questions, answers, problems with the family

[maxximus]

Soniq420 has set me straight with the pic posting so lets try this again.









OH YAAAAAA that's more like it. So this is my new hmmmm toy is not the right word, but it's fun like a toy and has a bit of a new toy feeling to it, kinda like calling a new car a toy, but it kicked by last systems but and has me looking at the whole picture a little differently these days. This is from my first VolksGarden(VG) grow. I wasnt quite ready for it as it happened faster then I had anticipated, but it rocked my world even though the take was only .5 lb

[flyfishinrock]

thats way kool, I have been hoping someone would do a vertical grow journal. Could you give us some shots of how the whole thing works? like how the plants are secured, does it actually move like a Ferris wheel (is it chain driven or belts?), just how large is it, etc. That would be great info man, oh yeah what strain, lights, nutes, etc, would also get us on the same page as you are. Thanks and good luck on the grow!!

[maxximus]

Originally Posted by flyfishinrock

thats way kool, I have been hoping someone would do a vertical grow journal. Could you give us some shots of how the whole thing works? like how the plants are secured, does it actually move like a Ferris wheel (is it chain driven or belts?), just how large is it, etc. That would be great info man, oh yeah what strain, lights, nutes, etc, would also get us on the same page as you are. Thanks and good luck on the grow!!

Hey Fly,

Thanks for dropping by. Here is a youtube video of an install -

YouTube - VolksGarden

- IT shows you most of what you are asking about as far as size and drive. It does move similar to a Ferris wheel with the exception that the plants stay perpendicular to the light the whole time instead of remaining upright. One wheel is chain driven and the other three idle. There is a spring loaded wheel pressing down on the cylinder down onto the drive wheel. 4 foot diameter wheel, with a cool-tube glass light fixture at the center. I am running a 600 watt lamp, though you can run any lamp in it that will fit into the cool-tube.


I am using Botanicare's CNS (commercial nutrient system) 17 veg formula and their flower formula as well. I used to use all Canna nutrients but they are insanely expensive and weren't what I was looking for. I felt that the Canna food emphasized red hair growth and taste. Two things I don't care about very much. The CNS 17 (in my opinion) promotes size, resin, and hardness. On top of that the CNS is 1/4 the price and it is a simple one part formula unlike Canna. I keep the nutrient mixture light (800 PPM) for veg since they are new to the Volksgarden at that point. In flower in the first week I give them 1000 - 1200 ppms for the first week, after that 1500.

I am using plain tap water and ph adjusting it, but I am not a freak about my ph meter. I tend to fly blind a lot using my eyes as my main meter.

For this run - on top of the one part bloom food I have been adding a little silicate blast which helps strengthen the cell structure and is supposed to add a little weight to yield.

In the first week of flower I added Advanced Nutrient's Bud Blood. It is supposed to speed up flower formation. I was skeptical, especially after seeing the price - it was about 22 dollars for enough for one run. I must say it works. The flowers formed much faster than the last time. It may have taken a couple of days off
my finish time, which matters to me because rent is always due quicker than you think.

I am also adding Monster Bloom from grotek. I use 4 teaspoons per 5 gallons of water. I use it twice before harvest. Two weeks apart.

In week 3 I will start to add ChaChing by fox farms. This stuff really does bring out the resin and it is not too expensive. The strain I am running is Blackberry Kush. It is a 7 week indica strain that has a strong berry flavor, lots of crystals, and is the lowest yielder I have ever seen! Even lower than OG. Sigh. I
only ran her because it was the one mom I had that was big enough to spit out 40 clones. (I got the volksgarden more suddenly than expected. After the stock market crashed a friend of mine had lost a bundle and was looking for a better investment. After he saw my gardening skills and I told him about the VG - he bought it and will have doubled his investment in less than 6 months. No stock is going to do that for you.)

Cheers Maxx

[flyfishinrock]

thanks for the info, all good stuff. I will be keeping a close eye on this grow, as it seems like a sweet set-up. Off to watch the video.

[maxximus]

Moving on too round two.

60 plants in this run, with a little more veg time

















The result was .97 lbs. Not too bad but still not what I'm looking for. Still kicking the but out of the DWC system I was using before this though.

[Be IRIE]

You only got a LB from 60 plants??? How long are you vegging them for? I have always wanted to see this in action....

[flyfishinrock]

thats .746666666666666667 grams per watt, I'm thinking thats a pretty fair yield in my book. I dont know if its enough to offset the risk/reward to having so many plants though. Dang interesting though.

[Soniq420]

[maxximus]

If you have to worry about plant counts then this system may not be the way to go. You really are growing branches and not large plants, and you could say that all you grow in this system are buds, as there is very little waste.

The gram per watt ratio is pretty good so far, but I am really just getting my 'rotary legs' so to speak. I was looking for better last time out, and finding the right plant for the system is part of the process. 1st grow at .5 lb, 2nd at 1 lb, so at this rate of increase.......

IMO this machine is genius! I grew the first strain right before I got the wheel in a regular DWC garden. The final product was okay. And in time it looked better. However - the same strain in the volksgarden - perfect. It went from fluffy hazy in the DWC to OG Kush like density in the wheel. same exact plant. Hard nugs that were exactly what I wanted. Let's put it this way the collective I took it to (and it is the best collective in LA, ie the world) took one look at it and put it on it's top shelf because it was so frosty.
Completely covered in trichomes. It looked like velvet. That means that this wheel turned out some of the best medicine in the world. Patients even went online on the weedtracker forums to talk about how awesome it was.

Once I have the height, the nutes and the genetics just right - this will be a beast of production. I will be satisfied with two pounds but I will be pushing for three. Oh what a fun game this is. It is a nice feeling to walk into a dispensary and have the owners treat you like a rockstar because of the obvious and hard to find quality that you are bringing them.

Cheers,
Maxx

[BubbaKush]

okay im in for this grow.... i saw one of these on sale at the hydro store for 6000...its bad ass. i want one bad but it holds 100 i think.

[pan4gold49]

Damm that thing is cool.

I'm in for this one.

Pan4

[Be IRIE]

I am not knocking ya, just figured that you would get a lot more. I have seen your grows and just love that thing and would love to have one but the GF would kill me. I am allowed six plants per patient (guess I need 20 patients) She pretty much keeps me in line with our laws here and if I brought that home, I would be sleeping in it on the front porch.... I have no doubt that you will get that dialed in and that gr. per watt will increase dramatically.

[Cherma]

Good information finally on one of these. I like the fact that it produces many i.e... 60 plants. However, this would not allow most Medical Cannabis patients and Caregivers in certain States the full oportunity to utilize this. Our limits here are 7 per person 3 in flower 4 in veg, and limiting a Caregiver to only 1 patient to grow for. Hopefully soon we will finalize at least the increase in plants alowwed to 12 and able to cargive for 5 patients. This would allow perfect use of this. I look forward to seeing more of your grows here.

[maxximus]

Originally Posted by BubbaKush

okay im in for this grow.... i saw one of these on sale at the hydro store for 6000...its bad ass. i want one bad but it holds 100 i think.

Hi BubbaKush,

Thanks for the input. The Volksgarden is 2k plus shipping and you add the lights of your choice. VG holds a max of 80 plants. If I were to grow them longer in veg, training them and tying them down I could do a grow with far fewer plants then I am using.

Cheers,
Maxx