# Don's grow room



## DonJones (Oct 30, 2009)

Here is my grow room in a section of the family room that was temporarily sectioned off.

The first picture is hallway door into the old family room with a 20" window box fan to exhaust all of grow room into downstairs hallway, then the veg room, then standing in doorway into flower room looking straight ahead at ballasts, then standing in doorway looking midway to the left at the middle of the far wall, then looking all the way left left at the end of the room, then the 6" fan exhausting from flower room into veg room, then 6 of the 9 alleged MTFs newly put into the flower room and finally one of the last crop of the hermieing alleged lowryder.

It is a work in progress so some of the electrical wiring tangles will be sorted out later.  I draw fresh air into the flower room through vents in the riser boards in the stairway and then through a vent from under the stairway into the flower room, then through the 6" radial fan into the veg room, then the entire grow room exhausts into the downstairs hallway by a 20" box fan installed into a hole in the door.  The fan through the hallway door is so large because I intend to convert the other half of the family room into another grow area soon, plus I had it lying around.  The wall between the flower and veg rooms is made of fiberglass reinforced plywood that I had lying around.  The wall between the veg room and what remains of the family room is sheetrocked.  The doors are made from OSB (chipboard) siding I had lying around too.  Each room has a 18" oscillating fan running on low speed.  Except for the lights I have less than $100.00 US invested, and even if I had had to buy sheetrock between the 2 grow rooms, the total cost for materials would still be less than $175, including the fans. 

My 5 400 MHs have cost me less than $250 by buying used commercial lights, remote ballasting them and fabricating 3 of the reflectors to replace the original  round vertical reflectors that focused the lights into too tight of a circle.

Behind the piece of plywood in the middle of the far wall is a 3' tall x 4' wide slider window that has 2" isocynate (sic) foam insulation board behind a curtain so only the curtain is visible from the street and then with the plywood over the inside to insure that there is NO light escaping when the grow lights are on.  The ledge around the outside walls of the rooms is where the concrete lower wall/foundation ends and the frame wall start

The last two pictures are first 6 of 9 of my alleged MTFs that were newly put into flower and a close up of one of the last crop of our hermie-ing alleged lowryders.  When I say they are alleged, it is because they all came fro clones or plants obtained from local growers that said that was what they were but we can't verify it.  Personally, I don't really care what they really are because as far as I'm concerned there is nothing valuable in a name.  What counts is how they grow, how they yield and most importantly how they smoke.

While there is a lot of room for improvement in the craftsmanship and even some changes I would make if I was doing it again, I'm satisfied with the results for a 10'6" x 12' combination veg & flower room for less than $175, especially since this was mostly built in less than 2 days by two of us working together (That 2 days included figuring out what materials we had on hand and how we could utilize it.) for my first crop when it became obvious that the upstairs bedroom wasn't going to work out well -- it was too hot in summer and too cool in the winter plus too obvious from the street.

I'm posting this not to brag but to show what can be done using available materials and a little good old American ingenuity.  It also gives you some idea that most of what I suggest here are things that I have done, either on my own rooms or helped others do in their setups.  If I am just repeating what I have heard, I indicate that in the posts.

My applicable construction background includes extensive remodeling, electrical, plumbing and heating/AC work; auto and heavy truck mechanics and running a successful trucking business for nearly 10 years until the economy and a lack of cash reserves KOed me.

I walk the walk as well as talking the talking.  I freely admit that I'm very much a newby to both extensive MJ use and growing, but I utilize the knowledge and experience of others where ever possible to try to avoid their mistakes.  I have always been told to pass my knowledge and experience along to repay the help I was given so I try to do that.  I also am incapable is not challenging advice that is going to get someone hurt, killed or arrested.  I have been in jail overnight a few times and I have no desire to see anyone else go to jail or even worse to prison like I've seen my oldest son do twice -- both times for being stupid and careless.  I have been blessed with the good fortune to beat the charges every time that jail was a likely sentence, but I know how blessed I was.  I just do not want to see some one else go through that or get hurt/killed or cause it to happen t somebody else who might not be so lucky if I can possibly prevent it by speaking out.  Also, I apologize in advance for those times that I get very confrontational or harsh -- tact is very seldom my strong point.

Enough soul bearing and demonstrating how I got where I am.  My advice is just that -- take it or leave it.  It isn't costing you anything and you are the one taking the risks so it is your free choice.


----------



## 4u2sm0ke (Oct 30, 2009)

Nicve  setup.   whats  the  mirror  for?   and   how  long  ya  been running  this  setup?   if  ya  go  to  a  garden  suply  store  or  nursery...buy  a  propagation  mat...no  timer  needed   temps  stay  constant ...I  use  thisand  have  a  spare  in  case...is that  Square  fan  in  the  door?..lol..im  high  as  hell  right  now...thanks  for  shareing..take care and be  safe


----------



## DonJones (Oct 30, 2009)

Everyone,

I thought I was posting this on another thread where dangerous advice was being thrown around (advising a not even first timer to forget about fresh air exchanges and instead to use CO2 supplementation in an occupied basement, as well as other potentially dangerous electrical advice) and I thought I needed to establish a little bit of credibility with the newbie to make my counter advice seem a little more reasonable and effective. 

That is the reason for some of the defensive tone to the post.  _I apologize for getting it on the wrong post.  I'm getting older faster each day and sometimes get mixed up, so as always if you read something , especially from me, that doesn't make sense, challenge it and check it out for yourself.
_  Edited -- this has been corcected thanks to Hick having moved it for me.  Thank you Hick.  You the man! 


*Now back to the post itself.* 

I've been running the basic setup for about 3 or 4 months, but am constantly making improvements.  

The mirrors are for reflecting light back towards the plants and hopefully towards the bottoms especially.  I used the mirrors because I had them stored in the room before I started converting it, had no other place to store them, had no money for mylar at first and figured any reflective material was better than the dull of colored pain that was there.

Originally I had no intake ventilation and only the round 6" fan between the rooms. We used the house A/C during the summer to supply fresh cool air and to take care of the veg room.  Then when the weather cooled off enough that we weren't running the central AC anymore, I had to change something.  Right behind the the flower room end wall with the mirrors is a stairway that had no riser boards in it because of another construction project to repair water damage from a flooding of the upstairs bathroom (do NOT ever lock 2 pit bull puppies in a bathroom for very long without someone around.  They chewed through the plastic hose between the wall water supply and the toilet tank. It ran for several hours before anyone came home and found it.  I leave it to your imagination about how much water ran into the house in 6 hours with the hose chewed completely in two.)  -- get back on topic Don.  Directly under the right hand mirror is an cover panel for accessing the stairway.  I installed an 8" x 24" louvered screen outside vent through that panel for fresh air intake and left enough airway spacing in place when I installed the riser boards to insure adequate air flow from the downstairs floor, which is the coolest place in the house, into the space under the stairs.  That by itself didn't give adequate airflow, so I got to looking around and found that square 20" window box fan, and cut a hole through the hallway door into the partially converted family room grow area.  Since the door was damaged and would eventually need replacing anyway, I figure that was better than cutting holes in the walls.

Another advantage of the fan through the door is that it will handle exhausting the other half of the family room when I finally get it converted too.  Basically the other grow area will be either a mirror image of this one, or maybe one big area if I find that I like growing autoflowering varieties where I won't need to be switching out light cycles from vegging into flowering.  Which ever way I go, I will vent fresh air into the far end of the room from the utility room near the floor for the coolest air in the house and vent it into the new hallway that will be between the two grow areas, then finally out of that little hallway into the main hall way through the square fan in the present doorway.

Eventually I will probably be venting the exhaust out through the outside wall directly behind the fan and up through a frame construction shaft that currently houses the upstairs zero clearance fireplace.  My plans are to run ducts into the bottom of the shaft and let the hot air rise through the shaft around the chimney pipe and out through the vents that I'll install up above the roof.  The shaft is approximately 2' x 4' with an single 12' chimney pipe running through it so it should act just like a chimney itself and draw the hot air up naturally.  That will quiet down the fans and disperse any odor about 25 ' in the air.  I'm trying to do these things in as non-invasive way as possible so it will be easy to convert it back into either a big family room or a small family room and an additional bedroom or even two additional bedrooms when our health forces us to move so it will sell better.

Currently we have to get water from either the kitchen or one of the bathrooms, so I'm also looking to add a small deep sink in the utility room to use to get water and mix nutes.

Right now my biggest and most urgent need is a drying/curing area and I haven't figured out just how I'm going to do that.  Once I get all of the plants going constantly in even just what I have now, much less if I expand the growing area or convert over to hydro with the faster growth and higher yield, then using the closets in the upstairs bedrooms will not be enough, and I can't convert one of them into a drying/curing area because my youngest son lives in one and my office/computer room is in the other one.

As you can see, I'm a great one for using what is at hand and keeping the costs down. 

The reason I'm looking to expand my grow operation is we currently have three legal medical patient certifications in the family and will shortly have 2 or 3 more (our family all suffers from chronic pain from various arthritis type conditions as well as one of my sons from chronic irritable bowel syndrome and two of the kids are cancer survivors) and we can legally grow for one other patient each so we could be supplying 10 or 12 patients at a time out of our house.  Hopefully the dispensaries will be legitimized here in WA state and then we can supply as many as we can grow for.  

We are also developing a network of legal medical growers and legal patients needing someone else to grow for them, so as you can see, my retirement has turned into a more than full time job, at least until we get things up and running smoothly.   However the main difference is now I am at home most of the time instead of  both of us living in a semi tractor and visiting home like we have been doing for the last 10 years and like I have done for the last 30 plus years.  Plus there are way fewer deadlines or time constraints than with working for someone or running a normal business.  I'm also developing an on-line shopping service, but once it reaches critical mass, it will be largely self running.

If things work out the way I hope they will, we will be able to legally make more money form supplying medical marijuana than from both of our social security retirements combined with my VA service connected disability benefits total.

My ultimate goal is for my daughter and both sons to be involved in the medial marijuana business instead of the unstable normal job rat race.  At least one of the boys will probably be running his own separate medical MJ business out of his own home and maybe my daughter too.  There will always be a market for good medical MJ so if we can get started now on the ground floor and do it right, we should each have secure lifetime business ahead of us doing what we love.  All three of the kids have been growers and smokers every since their late teens, so thy have a lot of experience but now need to adapt to low key rather than stealth/illegal operations.  My oldest son was ecstatic when he got his medical MJ certificate, could grow legally and made his first legal sale to another patient.  He said he didn't know how to feel or act when he became legal after all of the years of outlawing.  Of course with us being truck drivers subject to frequent random UAs, their mother and I never got into growing or even smoking on a regular basis so the legal thing isn't as big of a change to us as it is to them; but is is sure strange to be able to meet a cop at the door, greet him with "We are a legal medical marijuana growing operation", hand him the paperwork, and then ask him what he wants instead of having to worry if he can sense the grow or if he will find pot in the house.  It is also strange to be able to smoke anytime in any private place without worrying about getting caught or getting busted for having pot and/or pipes/water pipes/bongs with us in the car.  *We do NOT drive under the influence or allow anyone else to drive under the influence either if we can prevent it.  We are also very intolerant of legal patients using their license as a cover for illegal dealing in MJ because the acceptability of medical MJ here in WA is shaky enough without people abusing it.*

Enough rambling, my medicine has finally kicked in so maybe I can get some sleep tonight.  Good night to all of you and may GOD bless you with good smoke, good grows and in the other fields of your lives too.


Edited to improve readability and to cover my poor spelling and keyboarding skills.  GOD bless all of you.


----------



## OldHippieChick (Nov 1, 2009)

Now please be assured that I know very little but in my first post here I was advised that mirrors are counterproductive so get rid of the mirrors now. It's natural to assume they would reflect light but they don't. Best regards to you and your family and my thoughts are with you all. You sound like a cool bunch of survivors and I admire your efforts to take care of your people.


----------



## brantdonley (Nov 2, 2009)

iam new at growing. why is good air flow needed. iam using my 28ft camper trailor as a grow room. all i have done this far is open the end windows and the top vents. do i need more.


----------



## Heemhoff17 (Nov 2, 2009)

Don-  Nice set up dude!!!


----------



## The Hemp Goddess (Nov 2, 2009)

Oldhippiechick is correct, mirrors do not reflect light well at all--flat white paint is far better than mirrors.  Also, you do not want light on the underside of the leaves.  This promotes stretching.

Good air flow is important because plants need a constant supply of fresh CO2 to flourish.


----------



## DonJones (Nov 2, 2009)

How well mirrors reflect light depends on what you are comparing them to.  Yes white paint is better but the off colored dirty paint that I had is worse than the mirrors.  I'm in the process of mylaring all of the walls any way.  All I know for sure was I was having light starvation problems before I put the mirrors there instead of having them all stacked together and now that I've got the mirrors spaced out, my light starvation problems have disappeared.  *Does anyone know if I can paint in the room with plants still in the room using water based latex paint if I'm very careful about keeping splatters/drips off of the plants?*  I'd like to paint the walls and ceiling white and then put up myllar too.

Are there any questions about how we made the walls and so on, or is pretty understandable?

Good smoking!


----------



## MeNtAlPaTiEnT (Nov 10, 2009)

Hey don, you've got a pretty awsome grow room. Plenty of room to grow plenty of plants. Also, are you a retired or current electrician? Just curious.. seems like you know what you're talking about when it comes to wires and whatnot . 

I remember seeing a "Bored electrician, post your questions" thread on another website. I was looking at it, and the guy was helping a lot of growers out by giving them sound advice on their electrical doubts. He even helped me out a bit when I asked him about daisy-chaining extension cords. Maybe you could be our "bored electrician"? . Anyways, happy growing, I'll be looking forwards to any updates you might have.


----------



## dirtyolsouth (Nov 11, 2009)

Hi DJ...

NICE post! :aok:  You've got a great setup going there.  I wish you and all that enjoy your meds lots of Green MOJO...  If you continue taking the thoughtful approach to learning about marijuana the way that you have mastered the variety of skills you've obviously already acquired you'll be at the top of your game in no time.  I wish you the BEST!

Peace!

p.s...  THANX for your service to our country.  I know all too well that the blessings we have didn't come for free...


----------



## IRISH (Nov 12, 2009)

nice sized room DJ. ...

what you got for lighting? and what is the preferred nutes? we like to keep it simple as possible...

are you debating hydro Don? does anyone else in the fam run a hydro setup? i ask, 'cause you were spending alot of time researching that option. . i like that 'bout you. not scared to ask the questions, and the research you've done lately. you'll fare well. i know this...  ...

thats what it's all about brother, figure out the easiest way to build your setup, and roll with it...

10-4 Jack. eighty-eights around the house. were down, and out. 3's & 8's to ya good buddy...   ...Irish...


----------



## DonJones (Nov 14, 2009)

MeNtAlPaTiEnT,

I was blessed with a self taught father who encouraged us boys to learn too.  When I was in junior high school, he remodeled the house we lived in and when he finished there were parts of 2 walls in the same place and one doorway still where it started.  I helped him and even though I didn't realize it, learned a lot about plumbing, carpentry and electrification.  He was also a heavy duty diesel mechanic and he taught me a lot about mechanics and DC electrical systems.  Then I went to community college studying electronics.  I did 7 years in the USAF where I worked as a Data automation Specialist, an Aircraft Security Specialist and a Heavy Construction Equipment Operator.  Then I studied nursing for over three years before hurting my back and having to give up on nursing just one semester short of graduating. I've worked at a variety of types of jobs until I finally quit fighting fate and stayed with long haul trucking until my retirement.  Along the way I learned to do my own electrical, plumbing, framing and finishing on our houses and the greatest majority of the repairs on both our cars and our semi tractor-trailer rigs.  I can tune, replace injectors, change transmissions, clutches, rear ends and rebuild brakes clear up to class 8 rigs.  I also learned basic sheet metal work and welding and fabrication along the way.  I guess actually I pretty much learned my out look on life from my grandpa and my Dad.

There are several licensed electricians that frequent the forum who are a lot more knowledgeable than I am.

Thank you for the complements.  I  know enough about most things to realize when I'm over my head and never think that I can't learn something from almost anyone.  Fortunately I was taught to try to think my way through before starting and try to ask for help ahead of time instead of waiting until I had thoroughly screwed it up.  I try to never give advice that I'm not sure is safe and correct.  If I'm guessing I try to be sure and tell the audience that I'm guessing.

There is more knowledge and experience about growing marijuana on these forums than any one person can ever learn.

Thank you for  your kind words and compliments.  Good smoking buddy.


----------



## DonJones (Nov 14, 2009)

Irish,

Thank you for your compliments and even more for your generous help and sharing your knowledge.  I'm constantly amazed at how little many people actually know about anything, yet they seem to ** their way through life. This seems to be especially true in growing marijuana.  I learn a lot every time I visit the forum and really watch for your name to come up.  One thing that I've learned over the years is I learn more while I'm trying to explain something that the person I'm explaining it to learns.

Let me try to get back to your questions.

On the lighting question, I currently run 4 each 400 watt remote ballasted MH's in the flower room.  They are used commercial magnetic ballasts that I remote ballasted. Two of them have the same rectangular reflectors that wer on them, just remote ballasted.  One of the others has a home reflector patterned after Tater's DIY.  The fourth one has a top of a truck battery box that I built out of polished aluminum and never used, so when AI needed another light quick and couldn't afford to buy one I installed a socket in it and am still using it.  Surprisingly enough an experienced grower was in a bind and had me convert the other half of the box for him.  I'm sure it isn't really efficient but is is getting job done for now.

In the veg room, I've got one of the400s with the commercial rectangular reflector that I also remote ballasted.

I know I would get better results if I had more red spectrum and am thinking real hard about installing several warm white HO T5s, but haven't decided though.  I'm seriously considering buying a ballast kit from 1000bubls.com and converting one of the MHs over to HPS, but haven't decided which way to go.

No I'm not DEBATING on going hydro, I'm going hydro.  It is just a matter of time. I'm just starting at the same time I was forced into retirement 6 months short of qualifying for Social Security with no savings in the bank, and so I'm struggling to get a decent setup as inexpensively as possible and yet do it right the first time all on a total income for me of $243/month and my ex-wife's SS of under $700/month.  We were forced to get a divorce years ago in order to get medical coverage for her when I lost our medical insurance because she is diabetic and has terminal kidney failure;however by the grace of God she has actually regained some of her kidney function and is actually doing better than when they told her she had 6 months at best until she would have to start dialysis.  Next month my SS will kick in and that will add $671 to our income.  However, we still are incredibly rich in comparison to the majority of the world's population!  I thank GOD every day for being blessed with being born an American!

No one in the family has ever grown hydro, although thye have seen a few of their friends hydro operations.  The oldest boy has by far the most experience in growing in dirt, my daughter's husband used to grow in dirt too until he got so messed up on coke and meth that he is incapable of doing anything that long, and my younger son has a little growing experience.  Until just recently, they were all out-law growers/users, but now we have three prescriptions in the family with two more in the process of gathering the needed documentation.  Most of my life I have worked in jobs that made me subject to frequent random drug testing so I haven't smoke a whole lot but, I've always kind of been in the pot smoking community and have
had some very, very good smoke as well as some very bad stuff too but this is the first time I've grown.  I started with a crop of clones in June after retiring in May 2009. 

So far I have made three small crops and have 4 non-autoflowering supposed lowryders that are hemie stock that are going to be being harvested within in a week or so as they each get ready.  I have 9 alleged Mantunuska Thunder F**ks that I've raised form clones from my son's now defunct operation.  They are just barely 4 weeks into flower and have buds every where.  I'm hoping they are quick finishers and give me as good a yield and quality as they did for my son.  He told me that no matter what else I did he wanted me to keep that variety alive until he gets out because he's not sure he can get them any more.  He says it is the best smoke he has ever grown.  I have couple of old timer hippie/biker friends that remember getting MTF back in the late 70s and 80s and they say it sure smokes like what they remember.   My oldest son has taught me a lot and helped me until the middle of  September when he started serving a year + a day sentence for dealing before he got his prescription.  I've also got some non-auto White Widow and Diesel, at least that is what we were told when we got the clones and they seem to be growing like the descriptions I read on the forum, except I thought WW was always an auto flowering variety, but now I'm hearing differntly a little bit.

I'm leaning very strongly to buying seeds from reputable seed banks so that I know what varieties I have instead of having to take the word of the grower I get the clones from.  A couple of hundred dollars over several months to have known varieties seems like a small investment to me if I can keep cloning that line for years.

I hope this gives you a better idea of who I am, where I can from, where I'm at and where I'm trying to go to.

Good smoking.


----------



## DonJones (Nov 23, 2009)

One error that I have found, I think, is I have a large plywood box in the veg room with dirt stored in it.  I think that maybe why I'm having so much trouble with spider mite in the veg room and none in the flower room where the only dirt is what I have in the pots themselves.  So I'm moving it out of there.  Not only that, I'm through using dirt.  Black Gold works too well and is inexpensive enough that all of my non-hydro stuff will be done in Black gold from now on.

Good smoking evryone!


----------



## umbra (Nov 23, 2009)

imo, always easier to prevent pests than deal with them after the fact. i think you are right about the spider mites.


----------



## The Hemp Goddess (Nov 23, 2009)

DonJones said:
			
		

> One error that I have found, I think, is I have a large plywood box in the veg room with dirt stored in it.  I think that maybe why I'm having so much trouble with spider mite in the veg room and none in the flower room where the only dirt is what I have in the pots themselves.  So I'm moving it out of there.  Not only that, I'm through using dirt.  Black Gold works too well and is inexpensive enough that all of my non-hydro stuff will be done in Black gold from now on.
> 
> Good smoking evryone!



I doubt that is the reason--spider mites live on the leaves--they cannot survive in the soil.


----------



## OldSkool (Nov 23, 2009)

Excellent posting Don! Are you sure you weren't a supply seargent? 
Your attention to detail is amazing. If I were you I would paint every surface in the room white, forget the mylar, not but about 2% more reflective then flat white buddy. Save the money for important stuff. 
You are the ultimate handyman bro! Love the giant fan on the door! 

Looks like I should be asking YOU questions!! 

Keep it up buddy! "off they go, into the wild blue yonder!"


----------



## DonJones (Dec 1, 2009)

OldSkool,

I was real lucky to get into advanced Chemistry and Physics classes in high school and to be taught to think outside of the box and to look at everything critically, not just to be a rabblerouser, although I have been called that too, but just to see if it made sense before I accepted it.  I was also taught very young to try to profit by the experiences of others instead of repeating their mistakes and constantly being trying to reinvent things that were already around.  That didn't mean not to try to improve on things.

I think I probably learned darn near s much about life and things generally from my physics teacher in the one year is was in his class as I did in the rest of my pre-college schooling.

My father who never got to go any higher in school than the 8th grade was many times over more of and a better handyman than I will ever be.    I will always believe that it was a waste of a great mind for him to have been denied any more formal education than he got.

The closest thing he ever got to a formal education was an extension course through Cummins Engine Corp after WW2 on the GI bill.  He did so well that Cummins gave him a scholarship for 6 weeks in house hands on training at their plant in Chicago.  I tried to work through it on my own after a couple of years of college, including calculus and I gave up because I wasn't getting it.

But with his 8th grade education he aced it and got that scholarship!  I frequently wonder where he could have gone and what he could have done had he been allowed by my grandfather to continue his education beyond the  8th grade.

He taught me early on by example to seek experienced knowledgeable people and get them to mentor you when you wanted to learn some new skill.  He learned carpentry, home electrification, plumbing, welding and mechanics that way.  He passed those skills on to me from as early as I can remember.  My grandfather on my mother's side taught me a lot about doing some thing right or not at all and values regarding hard work and morals too.  all of my family taught me right from wrong.  They weren't always right, but they knew when they were wrong.  That probably describes me too.  When I did wrong things or in the wrong manner, I almost always knew it was wrong but for whatever reason went ahead and did it.

Even though I far surpassed my Dad and Grandpa in formal education, I will never approach being smarter than both of them were individually and surely not together.  I remember my Dad telling me when I graduated from high school "Son it will be amazing to you how much smarter I'll become in the next 3 years."  I surprised him with the reply, "No Dad you won't get any smarter; I'll just get a lot dumber because I already know how smart you are but just think I'm smarter than I am."  I meant it then and I have never doubted that he was always smarter than I was, even if he didn't always have the answers to my problems and faltered in his walk through life sometime.

No, I was NOT in supply, I was an Aircraft Security Specialist, a Base Level Data Automation Specialist (operated and managed all of the data processing of a SAC base except the supply stuff with their own systems, learned to repair them while in use to help out the Burroughs' tech support personnel late at night so he wouldn't have to drive 60 miles ot the base and back home to do a 15 minute repair -- always under his telephone guidance, usually after he had shown me how to do things the Air Force said were impossible) and a Warskills Augmentee Heavy Equipment Operator trained to take over the construction part of Civil Engineering Squadron's work on the base in case they were deployed in Wartime.  Mostly I got to do a lot of snow removal from the runway, taxiways and work areas on the flight line using some fantastic heavy equipment -- like 57,000lb rollover snowplows that would move 12' of new wet snow 15' wide at 45 + mph, rotary snow plows with secondary engine running just the snow blower part with over 300 hp plus another 250 hp engine to move it; one of them weight over 85,00 lbs and would cut a 16' wide swath through compacted frozen snow 9' deep, not very fast but it sure moved a heck of a lot of snow real quick --when we would wind up that turbine you could hear it whine 5 miles away! Those were the best times of my military service, we had priority over anyone else on the flight line because without us, the planes couldn't fly and we had 9 nuclear armed B-52 and 10 KC-135 tankers on alert 24/7 fo rhte entire 7 years I was on base.  We never lost our alert mission once due to snow, although the field was frequently closed to landing aircraft for a few hours until we got the runway completely clear.  We had 7 miles of runways over 750' wide to keep cleared enough that the alert aircraft could launch along with another mile of taxiways.  We could start with 12" of fresh snow and in 12 hours have that entire runways bare and dry!  Oh yes, cowboys had nothing on use.  We'd frequently get above 60mph running those big Oskosh blade plows running in an echelon formation overlapping our swaths by 2' with about 75' of front to rear separation. I saw a picture of 7 of our plows coming down the runway at night and from the cutting edge of the leading plow to the end of the plume of snow coming sideways off of the blades was nearly 500' wide and dark night with all of our equipment lights glowing.  God, the still lights my fire thinking about it 20 years later.  Everyone just got the heck out of the way and we rocked and rolled.  There was only a 2 block stretch where we had a speed limit during snow removal operations, and that was from our shop to the flight line gate.  Even the senior officer's housing was as fast as we could run the dump truck with the blades down but when we had the blades up or were working in the summer the entire flight line and the housing areas had a speed limit if under 20 mph even for the fire department.

Gosh I sure got off track there didn't I?

Thanks for the compliments even if they aren't deserved.


----------



## DonJones (Dec 1, 2009)

Irish,

I was just reviewing the thread and discovered I didn't answer your question about nutes although I have talked about it elsewhere.

When I started I was copying my son's operation until I got a little experience.  He was still doing what he had been taught by the old outlaw growers up on Onion Creek in NE Washington.  We used Superthrive, Alaska Fish Fert stinky s**t), Alaska Morebloom and then he added CNS17 in finish.  I played around with a product called Vita-Start instead of Superthrive for awhile but returned to Superthirve.  Recently a younger experienced grower  who also guided me toward using the WaterFarm system in our 5 gallon buckets when I finally get the hydro started suggested that I try Future Harvest Development nutes.  He said he had been involved in grows where they spent around $1000for a 10 plant grow using everything that AN made, a couple of less expensive grows using GH and Botniacare (sic) where thye spent around $500 for the same 10 plant crop and finally he started using the FHD and it was costing him right at $50 for the 10 plant grow.  He said he couldn't see any difference in the yield and quantity and quality between the AN and FHD.  so when I moved the current 9 MTF into flower I switched 4 of them over to FHD in both dirt and Black gold and kept the other 5 on the Alaska stuff for an control.  After just 4 weeks the difference was so much on the positive side for the FHD, even without using Superthrive, in both the dirt and BG media that I canceled the experiment and switched them all to FHD.  Now everything get only the 3 part FHD from the time I start feeding them until we start flushing.  I just got confirmation from FHD that it is compatible with Superthrive, in fact the representative I was speaking with said he used Superthrive instead of their similar Super B, so I started adding Superthrive again yesterday.  We also use Gravity and Purple Max out of the Emerald Triangle line during flowering. We started using it 2 harvests ago and can see a difference but not as much as we expected, but that could be because we were using it with the Alaska crap.  No additive is going to take the place of good nutes.  However, we will be trying FHD's similar products as soon as we can obtain them.

I strongly suggest that anyone looking for a different or new nute line check out the FHD line at extremegrowing.com. They are also real willing to either talk on the phone or to reply to emails with meaningful and helpful replies to question explaining things instead of just saying "Our is the best so buy it." like a lot people do.

Well that is enough.

Good night (2:40 AM here in NE Washington State) and good smoking --sorry for being so long winded tonight, even worse than usual.


----------

