2019 Year in review: cost, materials and grows

[runamuckgardener]

Hello and happy new year. I wanted to document my first twelve months growing; capturing hard costs, ideas and results. I started out investigating late 2018 and started purchasing things in Dec2018 and Jan2019. My first seeks popped up Jan 15, 2019.
After much reading and investigation, without really understanding, i purchased some stuff. I started with about $750 shopping trip to Amazon. I ended the year spending $1650 on what i call hardware (tent, pots, chemicals, etc.). I'll go over the extra $1000 later, some was necessary (notes, jars...), some extras (better curtains).

Here's what i started with:

4 x 4 tent ($100)
lights: 1000w / 180w from wall LED ($112)
Coco-perlite mix ($42/bag x 2)
Calmag: $18
Bloom/grow/micro from AN ($35)
PH down (lots of PH down) ($15)
5 gallon smart pots ($13)
6" carbon filter fan and filter ($129)
Light timers: $23
Rope pulleys: $9
Humidity monitor: $12
rapid rooter bags: $17
green saucers: $24
garden plant ties: $13
seeds: $100

Shortly into this first grow of four, soon to be three, seeds i realised the inexpensive LED was not going to be enough to power the whole tent into flower. I did not know if my fears were justified, but once I got the heebie-jeebies it was over. I went and purchased another HID light for the tent. This soon led to a second tent set-up.

3 x 3 tent: $60
HID light kit: $130
replacement lamps: $26

 

[runamuckgardener]

Grow #1:
My first three successful plants were two Blueberry seeds and one Raspberry cough seed. I wasn't sure of anything and second guessed everything. Temps were around 75 degrees in the daytime and 63-66 at nighttime.
I added the HID light on Feb 11. I also added AN Big bud and AN Bud Candy to this grow during the flower stage. So cumulative nutes were: calmag, AN micro, AN grow, AN bloom, AN big bud and AN bud candy.
I grew these three about 70 days under the 18 hour veg lighting, put them in a darkroom for 20 hours and then flipped the lights to 12 hours. This was end of March. I had trouble figuring out the HID light, heat and humidity so i was flipping back and forth between 300 watts and 450 watts on the 600 watt dim-able light.
At the end of this grow, all three plants were taken down early June. I grew these for 70 days and flowered them for about 73 days for the raspberry cough and 80 days for the two blueberry plants.

RC: harvested 2.99 oz dry
BB #1: 2.20 oz dry
BB #2: 1.68 oz dry

All in all, if one were growing serially in only one tent, it takes six months, $750+ to get about 6 ounces, over 2 per plant. It would be a close call to harvest a second time by end of year. Luckily, I purchased that second tent and started some seeds around the end of March. By this time I had purchased more stuff: microscope, neem oil, more dirt, scale, button hygrometers, jars...

The review of these was very good, had some crystals but not super sugary (a stretch goal is to get sugary smelling and tasting buds).

Grow #2 coming up.

 

[bobrown14]

2 grows @ 6 zips per

12 zips whole sale price @ $5/gm = $1680.00

You're way ahead.

Try cloning once you find some keeper genetics. Your grows will take 1/2 the time to harvest.

The important part of quality is genetics.

A sows ear doesn't turn into a race horse. It's always a sows ear.

Bigger pots bigger yields if you're in soil.

Congrats on your harvests.

 

[runamuckgardener]

Hello Bobrown14,
I have definitely enjoyed the experience and feedback from everyone. I’m out now but want to cover my first year clone experience as well. They seemed to run into the flowering time. I’ll post my examples.

 

[bobrown14]

Yeah how we get bigger bushes lol

 

[runamuckgardener]

What I consider my second grow was gorilla glue #4 auto. I started the seed late March, it poked up 3/29.
I started this under the LED in the new veg tent at 18 hours. My original intention was to grow it alongside other vegging plants. The GG4 plant flowers did not get fill out as I'd liked. Again, no experience to make good decisions. At some point, the veg tent got crowded and the GG4 auto wasn't filling out as i'd like, so i put it in the flower tent with the other newbies for grow #3. Instead of 18 hours for an auto this was 12 hours.
After the GG4 auto started flowering i moved it to the 12 hour flower tent. I am not sure if the hours cut is good for autos. At best, doesn't hurt?
I chopped this plant July 27 and harvested 43 g dry = 1.53 oz. In hindsight, my other GG4 (non-auto) were also light on the thick, heavy flowers.
In summary, 117 days to get 1.53 oz from a GG4 Auto. March 15 - July. Lotsa variables that could have been better here. I believe I may have underfed the first two grows so far. We are still averaging 2.1 zips per plant, 8.4 ounces year to date end of July.
I am now considering $50 per month in electricity as a standard cost. There's still water unaccounted for. Now my estimated total cost for the year is $2250. I am valuing ounces at $200 conservatively so eleven is the break-even.

What happens in the next grows is interesting as the clones back up in the veg tent and get really thick waiting for space in the flower tent. The veg process takes 70ish days, sometimes less; while the flower process takes over 100 days (hand watering in coco, in my observations).

 

[Nunyabiz]

I veg 8 weeks, flower is usually 8 weeks sometimes 9 and I average 8.6oz per plant.
So about 4 months, 4 1/2 at most average 17oz.
All organic, large pots.

 

[runamuckgardener]

I veg 8 weeks, flower is usually 8 weeks sometimes 9 and I average 8.6oz per plant.
So about 4 months, 4 1/2 at most average 17oz.
All organic, large pots.

Wow, nice. I definitely stunted the first grow with poor PH and what i believe was not enough watering out of the gate, as well as whatever else could have been better. I now believe one has to run water through the coco every day.

 

[runamuckgardener]

Grow #3:
At about the same time I put down the GG#4 Auto, I also put down some other seeds: Northern Lights, Blue Dream and Bubble Gum. These went down 3/29 and popped up between 4/5 and 4/12. The Blue
Dream plant vegged until 6/16, 66 days. I lost some detail in documenting during this grow. Some of the time frames are approximate and conservative. Still using An trio plus Big Bud and Bud Candy. I harvested the three in October and November.

Blue Dream: 2.7 oz
Northern Lights: 2 oz
Bubble Gum: 2.35 oz

We're up to 15.45 ounces at this point, end of November. Considering my spend at end of year was $2250 (hardware plus electricity) I am paid off and in the green!! haha.
I purchased no significant hardware this quarter; a second and third microscope. The power button on my cheapo broke twice. It took me a couple tries to learn my lesson. The other item that failed twice was the PH meter. I now prefer the chemicals. At this pointy my spend is nutes,coco-coir and electricity. I keep a list of wants: right now plant yoyo-s and a cool tube light are on the list.
Here's where I started cutting clones. They started easily, nothing special required. That leads into the end of year grow. I started thinking about whether I could get another one done by end of year...

 

[runamuckgardener]

From January to March I was in the one tent, but after March I started perpetual growing (on a very small scale) and working with clones. I wasn't sure how many to start but by June 10, I had the above plants going to the flower tent. At this time I had a number of clones going in the veg tent, i also started a Money Maker seed and a non-auto GG#4.
I had transferred a couple clones outside which failed. They were too small to put out when i did, coupled with i did not care for them enough. I will try again this summer and have already planned the timing.
After the Blue Dream, NL and BBG plants above harvested in October and November, I had a jungle in the veg tent backed up: two Northern Lights clones ready to flower, one Bubble Gum and one Gorilla Glue #4. I also had the Money Maker seedling as well as another
GG#4 clone backing up in the veg tent. One of the Northern Lights and one BBG plant would harvest by end of year. These were cloned about June 10, put into the flower tent 9/1 and harvested about mid November.

BBG: 2 ounces, .78 was very nice, the remainder airy.
NL: 2.55 ounces, over 1 ounce was grade A retail looking

At end of year i measured up to 20 ounces of dry flower.
Again, none were sugary smelling or sweet. Things would be very sticky and smelly until the last 2-3 weeks and then this would die down. In the beginning i was likely underfeeding. For my next grows i am going to try out AN overdrive. It is listed as a bloom booster for the last two weeks of flower.

 

[runamuckgardener]

At the end of the year, i spent $2300 and harvested 20 ounces of dry flower. I also had two more plants harvest in Jan 2020. Once going, this seemed enough to smoke, cook and give some away.

I value the harvest at $200 an ounce. Someone listed a $5/g value. We can buy average grade at $100 per half. My initial justification for growing my own was based on my spend of $400 per month ($50/eighth) prior to growing.
My start up costs were $750; at the end of the year I had spent $1750 on hardware type items. There were a couple mistakes. I accidentally purchased two 4 litre bottles of AN grow. I have not even come close to busting into the second. I also went through two and am on my third inexpensive microscope due to carelessness.
One of my largest recurring expenses is coco-coir at $40 per bag. One bag filled up two 5 gallon pots. I went through a lot of PH down and am on second litre of all the other AN stuff, except big bud.