Am I the only one who thinks growing weed ain't easy?

[alltatup]

As I've pondered the process over the past 7 years, I've compiled a list of all the things I have to juggle if I want to produce the best bud I can. I find that it takes constant vigilance. Is it easy for you guys?

Growing

1. Required equipment for pH
2. Air circulation
3. Temperatures
   • Seedling
   • Veg
   • Early flower
   • Late flower
4. Humidities
   • Seedling
   • Veg
   • Controlling leaf transpiration
   • Early flower
   • Late flower
5. Understanding strain genetics & growth pattern
   1. Controlling height
   2. When to flip to flower
6. Nutrients
   • Seedling
   • Veg
   • Early flower
   • Late flower
7. Roots: hydroponics
   1. Using water chillers
   2. How to treat root rot
8. Nutrient lockout: preventing/flushing
9. Nutrient burn: preventing/flushing
10. Low Stress Training (LST) in Veg and Fl
    • Topping
    • Mainlining
    • Super-cropping: Training colas horizontally
    • Taping a snapped cola
11. Defoliation: veg
12. Defoliation: flower
    • 3 week stretch: controlling plant height
    • Avoiding stunted growth

Harvest/Trim

1. Handling colas properly
2. Chikamasa clippers: trimming & protecting colas
3. Baker's teflon sheets for trimming, harvesting keif
4. Trim Bin & sugar leaf harvest
   • Make hash easy

Drying
21. Humidity, temp control, darkness, air circulation
22. When colas are dry enough to clip buds
Curing
23. When to transfer to jars: keeping buds frosty
24. How to use hygrometers: cheaper isn't better
25. How & when to use Boveda humidity packs
26. Burping jars: Preventing mold

• first 2 weeks
• wks 3-8
• following months

I have the feeling that I only possess about half the knowledge I'd need to be a genuine master grower; there's so much I haven't studied yet. Another 7 years, maybe...
But here's some of what I've done so far:

[Bluey]

Just grow.

You'll make mistakes. That's fine. You'll grow great buds woohoo.You'll get better at it when you practice.

The perfect grow doesn't exist. Be happy with doing your best.

[alltatup]

I have to disagree: I think grows can be perfect. The key is learning from our mistakes...

[Orggrwr]

If growing was easy it wouldn't be as much fun. Just my opinion

[alltatup]

hear, hear!

[Farmbuck]

Growing it ain't easy anymore... No it's not the strain, it's the new technologies we have to learn lol

[SoOrbudgal]

LOL I am not going to grow in a sealed room ever. Ya know that name of perlite you use......I thought at first i read fat tard LOL

[Ckbrew]

Easy is as easy does. Your list is valid, and each item is important to the "perfect" grow. While adhering to the basic needs of that list, I try to adhere to the KISS principle as much as I can. Keep It Simple Stupid. I have a habit of taking up hobbies and striving for the perfect product, system process, most advanced I can assemble and afford. The problem is that I don't know when to stop. When I brewed beer at home I started simple. I advanced over 3 years to the point that I had built a 10 gallon pico brewery. Select and mash my own grains, full wort boil, fresh hops, tanks, boilers, chillers, specialty extracts, pure yeast cultures stored and grown up for production, mini kegs, dedicated refrigeration with taps for serving, even custom pitchers and glasses. The problem was that it turned from a hobby into a second job. Hours of study, dedication and hard work. I'm not bashing that, dedication to doing what you do in the best way possible is admirable. But when brew day turns into an eight hour dedicated uninterruptible process that has to be coordinated with other steps 2 weeks in advance, and then life interrupts that, it truly feels like work, not enjoyment. I have come to the conclusion that for a hobby to remain enjoyable, I have to refrain from advancing so far that it turns into work. I was told over and over to go full time commercial with the beer, but then it is a job. I almost did. While I admire the people who can make it work for them, I'm satisfied to just enjoy my beer. Same with growing. I limit what I do so I can still enjoy it. Already, after approaching completion of 4 seasons of growing, assembling equipment, studying, I am starting to feel that growing is becoming a chore and I question if I want to continue. This has happened to me with photography, cars, boats, aircraft, carpentry, and more. That is why I try and keep it simple, and enjoyable. Just my perspective.

[Ckbrew]

Push button weed, now there is a goal. As long as that does not mean a trip to the dispo.

[Ckbrew]

alltatup It was a lot of fun while it lasted. As someone who then had time to spare it was a manageable intense hobby. When my son was born and I thought I could put him in a swing chair for 8 hours while I brewed lol. That is when I had to take it down a notch or two. My time was spoken for, the beer quality went down, rather than settle for sub standard, I ended that chapter.

[SoOrbudgal]

Exactly. I love me winter wheat beer

[90Gizmo]

But most days I don't need the big picture list. I look at my plants, see what they need and do it. Tomorrow's problems will have their turn tomorrow. Easy or hard is a mind set.

[PigSquishy]

When I started growing, I had a list similar to yours and I thought I had to have everything all in place before I could start growing and have any worthwhile success growing. Here's what my personal experience taught me in hindsight, and my best advice is simply to buy some worthwhile quality seeds and buy a light and get yourself some kind of an oscillating fan to get yourself started. Without a doubt you will need a carbon filter after a couple of months with an inline fan, and from there keep an open mind and be ready to make mistakes and start learning from those mistakes along the way. You will never have a shortage of other people ready and willing to stand up and tell you what you are doing wrong or ideas of how to fix the issues and problems you will undoubtedly run into. No matter how hard you try, no matter how much money you spend, you need one thing more than anything.. EXPERIENCE!

I know another grower who lives near me, so I thought same climate, we will share the same issues and I can copy what works for them. WRONG! If I grow in one room, verses another room in the same building that everything obviously would be the same for humidity, temps, etc... again I was WRONG! Even when I've grown the same strains, back to back in the same space, same everything.. they didn't perform the same, each plant is as different as people are, that's something I didn't expect. Everything I kept thinking I knew and understood as soon as it was put into real life situations, I kept finding myself in a learning curve as nothing will ever help you like experiencing it does. The seasons outside, temps outside, whether I'm running a heater, AC, opening windows it all makes a difference inside and the problems you will suddenly find yourself dealing with. I kept having people tell me "You have to find what works for you" and I didn't truly understand that until I started to truly experience that for myself hands on.

Nothing will ever teach you anything like a hands on experience does. Looking back I can laugh at my mistakes, my learning curves, and see what does and doesn't work for me and from my personal experiences I can help others only because I've already made those mistakes and I have a deeper understanding of what happens after that experience taught me. I watched an YouTube video where the grower "Kyle Kushman" was being interviewed and he was saying people think he came up with Strawberry Kush, and he was telling the story of the guy who came up with it and gave it to him, and he is only the person who basically brought it to the public, not the person who came up with the strain. He tells of being brought to some closet growers house, and the guy has this low budget grow going on, and he wants him to try this strain he came up with, and Kyle looks at the setup and since it's not a professional setup he just takes the strain from the guy and doesn't expect it to amount to anything worthy of his time. At a later point he finds the gift in his pocket again later, and decides to try it, figuring it wasn't going to amount to anything.. and to his surprise it was what is now sold as Strawberry Kush. I learned from listening to that story not to judge what you can possibly grow or do based on how low budget your growing area is.

[SoOrbudgal]

Do you still not like the word " weed " ? Got any pics of what you've grown?

[PigSquishy]

@SoOrbudgal

I absolutely hate the word "WEED" and I would in return ask you to please tell me the definition of the word "WEED".. because it is my firm understanding that if you are growing a field of corn, you could turn around and grow a single Ebony Rose in a corn field and that would be a "WEED", because a WEED is anything that grows you don't want growing. How about the term Marijuana.. I hate that term just as much, and why you might wonder.. I'd kindly refer you back to researching it's history of the term. How "Cannabis" farmers were suddenly told about this new drug hitting the streets and how it would cause all these horrible effects on people and they lined up to help pass the laws that would ban this new horrific drug, imagine their surprise after it passed into law and they suddenly learned they were talking about Cannabis being Marijuana, which completely took them by complete surprise. Should we move on to talk how those changes then brought about the DEA destroying all kinds Cannabis strains that are now forever lost to us because of their eradication programs being so effective? Oh and how do I think I know all these things I'm claiming as facts, that would be because I read some books by Ed Rosenthal, not just any author, but someone with a PhD and one of the biggest names out there that has been fighting for the rest of us to help people learn to grow and help fighting to change the laws going back a lot of years. I'd go so far as to tell you which one of his multiple books I read that in, but I'd have to go back and read every single one of his books until I found it again, and honestly would you even pick up that specific book to read all of it for yourself if I went so far to prove my point?

Regarding your other point.. and I'm a stickler for facts.. so I did some digging and found something that as much as I hate to say it a photo doesn't do it justice and as hard as I've been trying to get it to repeat it, I have been told several times I accomplished something called "Hash Tips" by people who are professional growers and actually got to see them in person with their own eyes and touch them with their own hands. I will post my photos on my profile, since I don't know how else to post it to this post, as I don't see the ability to attach them to this post, and I won't just make the claim without the only proof I have to back my claim up. So feel free to go check my profile, I'm posting them there after I post this.

[dirtymike]

I smoke at the same time im growing and i think it is easy but then i just get thirsty and lite another one just like the last one and then eat a banana what is it now, oh its EASY, yea its easy. Its so easy.

[alltatup]

I made that list not as a guideline for when I'm growing, because I have that knowledge internalized now. The list is for people who'd like to learn and want to see the basics of what's involved. I know what to do and when to do it, but I wouldn't call it easy.

The learning process was quite a challenge for me, because to grow well, I had to learn to keep juggling a lot of balls in the air. That's how I see it: a juggling act. And I see a lot of folks on the forum who haven't read anything at all and don't know what is really happening in their grow, or what comes next. So something goes wrong--or has been going wrong for a while, and they're completely caught off guard.

I think it takes a lot of reading tutorials (if you're not apprenticing under a master grower) and of course, a lot of practice. I do tend to write a lot of things down, cuz that helps me learn better. It helps me to see the big picture.

[dirtymike]

Yep the 60's were cool too, I'm still stoned. plant, water, harvest ,run and smoke at your leisure.

[Hdk40]

Coming from a newb, those pics look awesome. Striving for perfection just brings stress

[SoOrbudgal]

I don't grow for perfection I grow for myself that's where i am. But it takes practice and knowledge on each form of growing. I stick to my soil grows i don't go for each new wave to " speed " grow. I found what works for me.

[alltatup]

Hdk40 Striving for the very best weed I can grow brings me a lot of satisfaction.

[OldManGrower]

I am definitely with ya'll. Everything I think I know, I learned the hard way. That's called experience or stupidity, depending on your viewpoint. While I truly understand how time consuming growing can be, I suggest you try the KISS principal. Fortunately, for me, it's a hobby and a labor of love. I could grow two plants a year and satisfy my personal needs, but where's the fun in that? My goal is to be able to display my plants and harvests at the State Fair.

[No3odiesShad0w]

Like all good hobbies it comes with just the right amount of involvement. How much work you have to do is based on the style of grow you want to do and the kinds of nutritions you need

[Rwise]

One can make it as complicated as they wish, or just toss seeds in the ground and let it grow.

[SoOrbudgal]

If it's something or someway of doing it different then i say try it. But don't whine about it or throw things at the wall if it goes wrong. These newer growers lack patience, don't spend the time knowing the plant. When i learned it was with others help but i did'nt loose interest cause i failed making it to harvest, gotta keep going. But i don't make it complicated as like you say Rwise chasing the newest thing like phones or such. Things are speeding up quicker than I like so I ignore the hype. Peaceful simple grow methods and still you can get really good weed.

[Hdk40]

PigSquishy Bit much?