Plants Are Smarter Than Me: Tales of Grow Room Fails

[Laughing Grass]

Let's be real, sometimes our plants know more about growing than we do. I'm starting this thread to share those 'WTF was I thinking?!' moments from the grow room.

I’ll start: During a harvest, I decided to get fancy and step on my flood table to reach a plant in the back of the tent. No problem, right? I’d done it before, and it held my weight like a champ. Well, not this time. One second I’m fine, the next, my foot is through the table.

Cue full-on panic mode. I found a replacement table locally, but here’s the kicker: I drive a tiny sedan, so I had to rent a freakin’ U-Haul to pick it up. Got there, and surprise! The website was wrong—no table in stock. So I patched the hole with car body fiberglass. That patch held for a few grows before I finally had to bite the bullet and order a new table.

Total damage: $400 with a new table, body filler, truck rental and a bruised ego.

So, who’s next? What’s the most expensive, hilarious, or ridiculous mistake you’ve made in the grow room? Let’s hear it—roast yourself so the plants don’t have to!"

 

[Dboybudz]

roast yourself so the plants don’t have to!"

You just said it all right there,lol. Trying to start seedlings under a hlg quantum board light fries em every time,had to make sure and roast again some more the second time. All I needed was a cheap t8 or fluorescent light.

 

[Laughing Grass]

You just said it all right there,lol. Trying to start seedlings under a hlg quantum board light fries em every time,had to make sure and roast again some more the second time. All I needed was a cheap t8 or fluorescent light.

You have a ppfd meter too!

Epic!

 

[BarnBuster]

Back in the 70's, my first grow attempt was a room full of cheap fluorescent lights (with corresponding heavy ballasts) and 5 gal buckets. Grew a bunch of leaves and that's it...until half of the lights fell from my lame ass attempt to fasten them to the ceiling with clothesline.

 

[Laughing Grass]

Back in the 70's, my first grow attempt was a room full of cheap fluorescent lights (with corresponding heavy ballasts) and 5 gal buckets. Grew a bunch of leaves and that's it...until half of the lights fell from my lame ass attempt to fasten them to the ceiling with clothesline.

Hiya @BarnBuster it's really good to see you! I guess you just winged it back then. No internet or books to help you grow.

 

[Thurston]

I am aware that I consume cannabis now. Apparently I wasn't aware of that and was very high when visiting my grow. Many times I have forgotten to feed or turn on a pump or reset a timer or something else disastrous for the plants. I have awoken from dead sleep because I suddenly remembered that I screwed up! Now I get anxiety unless I can see them on cameras and can check triple things even though I may not be around. I have always been a lone grower without anyone to check my work.

I was going to fix my grammar but realized it reinforces the first sentence.

 

[BarnBuster]

Hiya @BarnBuster it's really good to see you! I guess you just winged it back then. No internet or books to help you grow.

Yeah this was even pre "High Times" magazine I think, and main stream book stores didn't carry anything. Course we all thought we knew it all anyway. Stoner mentality, dontcha know! And quite frankly, this was the golden age of "readily" available pharmaceutical drugs. Why smoke dope when there was a cornucopia of stuff available? It was easier to trade pills and powder for dope rather than growing it.

 

[Laughing Grass]

I am aware that I consume cannabis now. Apparently I wasn't aware of that and was very high when visiting my grow. Many times I have forgotten to feed or turn on a pump or reset a timer or something else disastrous for the plants. I have awoken from dead sleep because I suddenly remembered that I screwed up! Now I get anxiety unless I can see them on cameras and can check triple things even though I may not be around. I have always been a lone grower without anyone to check my work.

I know exactly what you mean. I have a weak point in my grow that requires intervention or a flood can occur. I've done the same thing, got out of bed and went downstairs to empty the waste.

 

[Shane Karmann]

Hiya @BarnBuster it's really good to see you! I guess you just winged it back then. No internet or books to help you grow.

It was the pre book era. Life moved at 33 1/3 rpm pretty much.

 

[Shane Karmann]

I cleaned up my tent once before flipping some plants. I turned the lights down to 25% for ease of working. I didn't notice until 4 weeks into flower and everything was looking puny. Needless to say I considered every possible solution except the correct one. Finally figured it out, got a harvest of sorts.

 

[Laughing Grass]

I cleaned up my tent once before flipping some plants. I turned the lights down to 25% for ease of working. I didn't notice until 4 weeks into flower and everything was looking puny. Needless to say I considered every possible solution except the correct one. Finally figured it out, got a harvest of sorts.

I think @curious2garden might get the prize for dimmer issues and reveg

 

[Senokai]

My first ever hydro RDWC was a DIY job and sprang a ton a leaks..... had multiple buckets connected together and for the life of me couldn't get a few of the connectors on the buckets to seal properly. Fortunately I had a water barrier at the bottom of the tent that caught it. Spent a lot of time with the shop vac sucking it all up. I can laugh at it now because it was my first ever attempt so no big deal but I was def stressed at the time lol.

 

[Laughing Grass]

My first ever hydro RDWC was a DIY job and sprang a ton a leaks..... had multiple buckets connected together and for the life of me couldn't get a few of the connectors on the buckets to seal properly. Fortunately I had a water barrier at the bottom of the tent that caught it. Spent a lot of time with the shop vac sucking it all up. I can laugh at it now because it was my first ever attempt so no big deal but I was def stressed at the time lol.

I started growing in individual dwc sites. What a nightmare! So much labour... then I added scrog to the mix lol. part time job!

 

[Shane Karmann]

I'm ashamed to this day about my dwc experience. Never got a harvest and paid a couple hundred bucks for some totes with holes drilled in the lid and some net pots and a pump and an air pump to make sure your res gets hot enough to cook lobster. All under a 100W CFL bulb

 

[Shane Karmann]

I still didn't want to grow in dirt, so my next try was 100% perlite hempy buckets which yielded me several harvests. But perlite is hard to clean and reuse and I hate waste. Flood and drain in Botanicare Turbogardens was next and that was pretty great. I'm using one of those reservoirs now in my lettuce patch 15 years later. Life is for learning.