PGA Caddie: The Front Nine

PGA Caddie

PGA Caddie

Well-Known Member
Hi gang,

Been an unregistered user here @ 420 Mag for over a year now. My state has came around and legalized cannabis for medical use. I applied for my license and am awaiting approval. If and when i'm approved I can have 6 flowering plants, 6 clones, and 6 male plants at one time. That sounds pretty good to me....

In the mean time I have been putting together my grow room. Its a separate building from my residence. Heated and cooled. Been growing my own bell peppers and tomatoes in there all winter with great success. The transition to cannabis should be fairly simple. ;)

Now lets git down to the nitty gritty. I grow in water using dutch buckets and an occasional dwc. I had never heard of a dutch bucket until I stumbled upon @Hyena Merica journal. Talk about an entertaining and informative read. If you haven't checked him out do yourself a favor.

Doesn't get any simpler than this folks. 18 gallon res with 4 air stones. Submersible pump on a timer runs 4 times per day / 10 minutes to refresh solution in the buckets. The excess solution drains back to the res using gravity. Its a closed loop system and is pretty darn easy to maintain PH and EC.


Dutch Bucket.jpg


Dutch Bucket - 1.jpg
Dutch Bucket - 3.jpg


I'm planning on growing CD-1 in 3 buckets and the fourth bucket will have a Skunk #1. 3 Mars TS1000 will be the sun for this grow. I was impressed with how they grew out my peppers so I have high hopes.

On the other side of the room I set up a 32X32 tent. This will house my dwc babies.

DWC.jpg


Going to attempt a couple DDA in here. Hoping for a black pheno....and not two spogs...these plants are notorious for stalling out. Unless your @Rifleman that guy has grown some dandy DDA in dwc buckets. I hope to follow in his footsteps.

The sun for this tent will be a Timber 4VS @ 425 watts it should provide plenty of light. I added some cheap side lighting for when we hit flower. @SweetSue noted using side lighting yielded her best DDA grow. That's why i'm here folks...to learn from people that know a heck of a lot more about growing than me...

I'm going to try and update my journal once/week. Won't be a whole lot going on for a while but i'm okay with just talking weed, golf, or whatever.

- Caddie
 
awesome setup! It is going to be fun watching a neighbor with his first legal grow! Enjoy!
 
Emilya said:
awesome setup! It is going to be fun watching a neighbor with his first legal grow! Enjoy!
Click to expand...

Glad you here Emilya. Lets have some fun....:slide:

I do have one favor to ask of you...How do I add my journal to my sig?
 
PGA Caddie said:
Glad you here Emilya. Lets have some fun....:slide:

I do have one favor to ask of you...How do I add my journal to my sig?
Click to expand...
save the link at the top of your browser in your clipboard and then when editing the signature (under your user name) use the link button to add that link in and name it
 
Fastass419 said:
That is a really nice setup only question is did you leave them enough room to grow up I'm really interested to watch them grow
Click to expand...

I got another 6 site Dutch Bucket set up on the other side of the room that’s got considerably more headroom. It has my tomato’s and peppers growing right now. I’m guessing the first of May I can lift them out of the buckets (the buckets are lined with mesh paint strainer bags). Carry them outside and plant them in the dirt for the summer. Then I can simply move my cannabis buckets over there.

Glad to have you aboard. Chime in anytime
 
Looks good Caddie! Good plan too.

I have found growing cannabis is easy; growing supreme cannabis is hard. Like the golf swing, setup is crucial and yours looks more than adequate to do the job.

It's also a game where you only have one standard to beat: your own expectations.

Random thoughts for the first round, hope you don't mind...

There are some differences worth mentioning between growing weed and tomatoes. One is that cannabis will outgrow any vegetable in terms of its basic hardiness and ability to survive a lot of different growing variables, however, getting the best buds possible takes a lot more work and environmental perfection than it does to get the most out of vegetables. In other words, no matter how you grow you'll probably get SOME weed, it's amazingly tenacious, but to get really dank buds it takes about twenty weeks of a perfect environment and you can reduce the "optimal result" in any one of them.

I mention that because I noticed you Dutch bucket 4-plex is in an open environment, and if the larger one is also like that you might want to build more of an enclosure (or tent, looks like the DWC is in a tent). The protection for your plants has to be serious because the second important difference between tomatoes and danky dank is the cost of predators, the non-human ones I mean! If you get spider mites or some disease on your vegetables you haven't lost much...if you get any bugs in your grow you're screwed, it's a losing. frustrating battle against 250 million years of evolution...you can't win and even when you occasionally kind of do win, it takes a lot of bullshit, you add all kinds of crap to your pristine plants and the yield and quality of the weed is always diminished. Bugs and disease can be treated but never cured...so the enclosure of your grow is the only real way to defend against ambient invasion (that's why tents are so cool) cause once it happens you face the tough choice of a huge sanitation effort and expensive restart, or an ongoing battle the rest of the way to try and save what you can. Either one will suck!

So my only word of advice is make sure it's totally sealed and spotless from the beginning wherever you start a project and you won't have the pain I have seen others experience having to hack ten weeks of work and start over. Then going forward keep in mind anything that can hurt your plants will come in on you. Don't visit...just tend briefly and observe. I have opined in my journals about the difference between having a little green friend and a true quality growing effort. If you want to spend lots of physical time with your plants it's fun but they will suffer. When you first start growing for real it's natural to want to fuck endlessly with them and be in there a lot but that's how they get diseases and predators, period. You can't do it. Every time you touch your plants you risk being the unknowing vehicle of their destruction, especially if you just walked in from the yard (fatal). A long list of shit wants in there and if any of it gets in, getting it out is ten times harder so my advice is always treat the grow room/tent like a hospital room. It might sound paranoid but I never wear anything but freshly washed clothing into my grow tents, and I have a pair of shoes I slip into that are only for that purpose,that I've never worn outside the house. I have never had a spider mite in all my indoor growing experience and those things are why.

So if you want a friend, get a dog...if you want the best buds, (1) fully seal your grows and (2) stay out unless you absolutely have to.

Just my take. Looks good, good luck with it!

Peace, Hyena
 
Hyena made a lot of good points, and their all true... but I’d like to play devils advocate on this one, only because I run DWC in an open environment and yes it’s more challenging but definitely not impossible. You just have to take precautions, when it comes to bugs and disease. I have multiple types of spider, rat, and fly traps set everywhere... I created a minefield for pests. Also I always wash my hands, wear gloves, and use the same shoes for only my grow room... also vacuum, sweep, and sterilize my entire room once or twice a week. Most would think this is overkill but I have yet to run into any pest or serious diseases so it works. The real challenge is optimizing your environment... depending on the time of year, I could need 3 Dehumidifers or a couple humidifiers running to keep the rh in the sweet spot... summertime I need more fans and a portable A/C to keep heat down. I can’t stress it enough.... Get your environment in check and be prepared for equipment failure and have back ups on standby. I hope this helped you a little bit... btw count me in for this grow, I’ll be watching :)
 
Thanks for joining in @BubblinBuds I appreciate the advice.

@Hyena Merica , now you got me thinking...I might have already whiffed my first grow. Was foolish and had some soil in the GR for a brief period. Noticed some aphids on my lettuce and kale then quickly removed it. No telling what else is lurking around in there. I'm sure there are plenty of brown recluse as they are my pets.

About the only thing I can do now is run with it. You might end up witnessing another epic failure due to pests but sometimes you have to learn the hard way. I'm sure all my outdoor grows were covered in bugs. I'll just keep telling myself that. :rolleyes:

All jokes aside both of your guy's advice is spot on. I got a couple tents. A 5X5 and a 4X8 that might be set up in the near future. I could set them up now but would have to completely rebuild my dutch bucket set up. Hmm, if I spend one more day on my GR and put off finishing my wife's new chicken coop my ass is grass and shes the lawnmower.

Already got some beans that should be poking their heads up any day now. Nothing like putting the cart before the horse....I thought weed was supposed to calm a person down or maybe its the consumption part and not the growing part...I got a lot to learn

- Caddie
 
Me too. Rock and roll bro!

Peace, Hyena
 
Can I play through? Got to get home and tend my garden...

Got some good news to report. As of 4/1/20 I am a legal medical user/grower in my state. I put the cart before the horse and started all the beans a few days before my license was approved. Glad I did...6 beans/6 babies....

Lets start of with my four dutch bucket setup. The Skunk #1 was up a couple days before the others. You can tell she wants to grow and get real stinky. I'm okay with dat. The 3 CD-1 were a little slower to pop their heads up but now that they can look around they like what they see. Full spectrum artificial sun set at 10500 lux. Add unlimited drinks with a PH of 5.8 and they are smiling from ear to ear.
CD-1 Bucket 2.jpg
CD-1 Bucket 3.jpg
CD-1 Bucket 4.jpg
Skunk 1.jpg


On the other side of the GR we have a couple DDA autos. These two little gals are settled into their forever home. I told them if they behaved themselves I would let them listen to some classic rock once they get a little older. There so young I don't think they understood me.
DDA - Bucket 1.jpg
DDA - Bucket 2.jpg
DDA Light Meter.jpg
DDA Root.jpg
DDA.jpg

The left bucket already has a root in the res on day 3. You go girl, daddy's proud of you.

I sure appreciate everyone that stops by.

- Caddie
 
I need a little help friends.... @Chris Scorpio @Rifleman @Grandpa Tokin @Hyena Merica

These DDA were born on 4/1. One has been notably lighter green color than the other. Both buckets have the same nutes/temp/ph.

I’m running my 5g buckets around 3.5g res which has the net pot about 1-1.5 inches above water line. Ph is 5.7 - 5.9 consistently. Water temp is around 72. Using GH trio with hydroguard and calmag.

I added a bit of micro to the pale one and she has not responded....am I missing something?

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Caddie
 
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