Smoke3js
New Member
Greetings and Salutations fellow cannabis enthusiasts!
I'm new to posting here, but I've been lurking/reading this forum ever since I was diagnosed with Hepatitis C a few years back and discovered that cannabis helps knock back the nausea I suffer on a daily basis. Cannabis has cut the number of episodes per day in half, so clearly, I'm a lifer with this cultivation thing. So, who am I?
I'm a 51 year old Corporate I.T. Department Manager and a former I.V. drug addict - I've not touched a narcotic drug in well over 20 years. But it's definitely what led to my disease. It's progressed to the point that I am about to undergo a form of chemo-therapy using a drug called peginterferon alfa-2b (marketed as "PegIntron" or "Pegasys").
I'm not trolling for sympathy here, just giving you some context. The truth is, I've been smoking cannabis since I was about 14 years old. I love marijuana. And I use it for recreational purposes, much the same way a person who comes home from a long day at work will pour themselves a glass of their favorite adult beverage. So, up until recently, when marijuana was legalized for medical use, I had been purchasing it (illegally) for many, many years, a quarter of of a pound (4 ounces) at a time. Mostly mid-grade commercial weed, grown guerrilla-style in Mexico or in the thick forests of the northwest US (Oregon, Washington, northern California). The quality of this stuff is pretty "meh." It works as expected, but tastes like you're smoking dirt, smells like dirt and is typically delivered in one small extremely compressed block. That's what's generally available in the underground markets, unless you want to pay top dollar for what is commonly referred to around here as "hydro."
Anyway, when the nausea began escalating about a year ago I asked my doctors for something to help. They prescribed a couple of different drugs that did not help at all. It was around this time that Ron, my brother-in-law (who is also my best friend) started growing his own. This was what planted the seed :icon_cool of the idea in my mind. I had to keep it somewhat stealth-like because my wife and I both have family and friends who have young children (nieces and nephews) coming over to the house and even though we don't really care who knows about our cannabis cultivation and use, we also don't think it would be OK to try explaining it to a 10 year old.
So, last August I bought a grow cabinet. I decided on LED because I believe the future of lighting is going in that direction, but also because of the difference in cost to run it compared to similar cabinets with Metal Halide or HPS. I didn't journal my first or second grows. Both were moderately successful. I grew 16 plants. Two of them did not thrive at all. I'm still not sure why, but the rest of that grow went surprisingly well and in the end I pulled about 10 ounces of quality dried nugs out of it and still had plenty of sugar and popcorn for making hash and/or hash-oil.
The original plan was to try and harvest 3 times each year, but with my insane busy schedule I don't have an awful lot of free time to care for the plants, so I decided to see if there was any truth to the advertised claims made on the Herbie's Head Shop web site about the Heavyweight Fast & Vast strain. I grew 4 of those and ended up killing one of them somehow and another one of the remaining 3 didn't thrive at all, but the other two absolutely exploded with growth -especially in the last 2 weeks- and !BAM! Just 2 plants netted me almost 4 ounces dry.
So I am now growing 8 of the same strain. I haven't completely made up my mind just yet about whether or not I prefer to grow Auto Flowering plants or photo-period (regular) plants. The quick turnaround with these F&V plants is just incredible. 60 to 65 days and she's finished.
Anyway, that's a bit more than an introduction, but I got on a roll and just went with it.
I am happy to be here with all of you fine folks. I absolutely love the positive vibe emanating from this forum! Big respect to the mods and admins for running such a clean, spam-free, flame-war free forum.
Peace, Love and Respect
Smoke3js
I'm new to posting here, but I've been lurking/reading this forum ever since I was diagnosed with Hepatitis C a few years back and discovered that cannabis helps knock back the nausea I suffer on a daily basis. Cannabis has cut the number of episodes per day in half, so clearly, I'm a lifer with this cultivation thing. So, who am I?
I'm a 51 year old Corporate I.T. Department Manager and a former I.V. drug addict - I've not touched a narcotic drug in well over 20 years. But it's definitely what led to my disease. It's progressed to the point that I am about to undergo a form of chemo-therapy using a drug called peginterferon alfa-2b (marketed as "PegIntron" or "Pegasys").
I'm not trolling for sympathy here, just giving you some context. The truth is, I've been smoking cannabis since I was about 14 years old. I love marijuana. And I use it for recreational purposes, much the same way a person who comes home from a long day at work will pour themselves a glass of their favorite adult beverage. So, up until recently, when marijuana was legalized for medical use, I had been purchasing it (illegally) for many, many years, a quarter of of a pound (4 ounces) at a time. Mostly mid-grade commercial weed, grown guerrilla-style in Mexico or in the thick forests of the northwest US (Oregon, Washington, northern California). The quality of this stuff is pretty "meh." It works as expected, but tastes like you're smoking dirt, smells like dirt and is typically delivered in one small extremely compressed block. That's what's generally available in the underground markets, unless you want to pay top dollar for what is commonly referred to around here as "hydro."
Anyway, when the nausea began escalating about a year ago I asked my doctors for something to help. They prescribed a couple of different drugs that did not help at all. It was around this time that Ron, my brother-in-law (who is also my best friend) started growing his own. This was what planted the seed :icon_cool of the idea in my mind. I had to keep it somewhat stealth-like because my wife and I both have family and friends who have young children (nieces and nephews) coming over to the house and even though we don't really care who knows about our cannabis cultivation and use, we also don't think it would be OK to try explaining it to a 10 year old.
So, last August I bought a grow cabinet. I decided on LED because I believe the future of lighting is going in that direction, but also because of the difference in cost to run it compared to similar cabinets with Metal Halide or HPS. I didn't journal my first or second grows. Both were moderately successful. I grew 16 plants. Two of them did not thrive at all. I'm still not sure why, but the rest of that grow went surprisingly well and in the end I pulled about 10 ounces of quality dried nugs out of it and still had plenty of sugar and popcorn for making hash and/or hash-oil.
The original plan was to try and harvest 3 times each year, but with my insane busy schedule I don't have an awful lot of free time to care for the plants, so I decided to see if there was any truth to the advertised claims made on the Herbie's Head Shop web site about the Heavyweight Fast & Vast strain. I grew 4 of those and ended up killing one of them somehow and another one of the remaining 3 didn't thrive at all, but the other two absolutely exploded with growth -especially in the last 2 weeks- and !BAM! Just 2 plants netted me almost 4 ounces dry.
So I am now growing 8 of the same strain. I haven't completely made up my mind just yet about whether or not I prefer to grow Auto Flowering plants or photo-period (regular) plants. The quick turnaround with these F&V plants is just incredible. 60 to 65 days and she's finished.
Anyway, that's a bit more than an introduction, but I got on a roll and just went with it.
I am happy to be here with all of you fine folks. I absolutely love the positive vibe emanating from this forum! Big respect to the mods and admins for running such a clean, spam-free, flame-war free forum.
Peace, Love and Respect
Smoke3js