My First Grow: Kashmir Resin Factory

I’ve always known that if you want something done right, you’d better do it yourself. Things are no different when it comes to cannabis.

It all began about three years ago when I started reading books and articles about marijuana cultivation. Naturally, as an inexperienced farmer, homework was the key ingredient to my whole operation. I would read anything I could get my hands on, and was instantly taken aback by the attention to detail and sheer complexity that was involved in caring for these little miracles of nature. I then started buying Cannabis Culture Magazine for the great grow tips and different featured projects, and discovered a few online forums that were loaded with more information than I could have dreamed of. From that point on, the seed was planted in my mind and I knew that one day I would put into action everything I was learning. I just had to wait for the right time, and place, to finally grow my own.

When the right time came, so did all of the work. With limited space, I had to conceptualize and then build a cabinet that would house the whole operation within a bedroom closet. I acquired ideas from similar homemade cabinets featured online and in magazines. The goal was to maximize the use of available space while keeping the cost, smell and visibility to a minimum.

The hunt was on. I found it cheaper and less labor-intensive to buy a pre-constructed cabinet, given that it would meet my goals with some modifications. I went to thrift stores all over and ended up buying an entertainment center (2 feet by 3ft. by 5ft.) that was missing doors and a backing for only $25. While useless to most, it saved me hours of work that I would have had to put into building a completely custom cabinet. After replacing the backing and installing some doors made of composite board, I painted the entire inside of the cabinet with flat white paint so it would reflect as much light as possible back onto the plants. I installed a carbon filter with a fan to exchange the air inside the cabinet while reducing the smell. I then sealed the entire cabinet with caulking to prevent light from entering or escaping.

Next was the issue of the lighting. I ended up finding a 400-watt HPS light for $120 on a classifieds website called Craigslist. It had been used, but came with a bulb and looked to be in pretty nice condition – even the guys at the local hydroponics shop said it was a steal. I did, however, purchase a new bulb and kept the used one around as a backup.
Next on the list was a Pyrex bread baking tube that I got for $10 on eBay. The “Bake a Round” by Corning kitchenware is a hollow 14-inch long Pyrex tube with a diameter of 3.75 inches. I learned how to use it to put together a “cool tube” for the light bulb – another do-it-yourself trick from online cannabis growing forums. All I needed was a few parts from the hardware store to install this bulb-cooling system – it isolates then displaces most of the heat produced by the bulb, with the aid of a fan.

Without the cool tube, the temperature in the cabinet with the light on reached the high 90’s (degrees Fahrenheit). Even with the 80 cubic feet per minute (cpm) inline duct fan I installed the temperature was too high, and I knew plant growth discontinues at around 92 degrees. Adding the cool tube helped drop the temperature a few degrees but I realized I would need some serious wind power if I wanted to keep the temperatures low. A Dayton 265-cfm “squirrel cage” blower was brought in to cool the light, so temperatures with the light on are consistently in the mid-80’s, which is adequate, but the low 70’s would be perfect. At any rate, it was good enough to go – now it was time to find something to grow.

I started off by trying to germinate four seeds that I had collected over the years from bags of weed. To my disappointment, I did not have success with any of those four seeds and had to start looking elsewhere. I went back to the only safe place I knew of to get in contact with like-minded individuals: the internet. I contacted people from all over asking for help in getting started. I knew that seed banks existed, but in light of Marc Emery’s arrest I was feeling a bit too skeptical about ordering online.

The cabinet still had no residents two weeks after completion. After brainstorming and attempting to obtain seeds or clones through several different avenues, I finally gave in and placed an order online for ten seeds that were said to be a mixture of White Widow, Northern Lights #5, and Big Blue (NL#5 x Blueberry). Around the same time that I placed this order, a gentleman running a seed contest on a website forum contacted me and said he would send me a few seeds from a strain he thought would be perfect for my cabinet specifications. Needless to say, I was ecstatic and decided to use those seeds for my first grow.

I finally had six Kashmir Resin Factory seeds (a pure indica from the Kashmir region in the Himalayas) germinating in paper towels four weeks after the completion of the cabinet. Only three of the seeds germinated successfully; I was a bit disappointed, but I figured that a 50 percent success rate would do just fine for my first grow. A few days after planting them in four-inch pots filled with soil, one of the three seedlings had still not emerged though the other two had. I began to wonder if I had a casualty, so I poked around to see if it was still alive. Sure enough it was, but growing in the wrong direction. I propped it up in the right position above the soil, and hoped for the best.

A few weeks later, I transplanted the plants into the three-gallon containers, which they would remain in until harvest. I used a mixture of two-thirds Fox Farms® Ocean Forest Soil and one-third fine perlite to provide adequate drainage and aeration. I watered them every three to four days (whenever the soil went dry) and fed them Fox Farms liquid plant food every other watering. The plants remained in the vegetative state for slightly less than one month.

The next step was to lengthen the dark period to induce flowering, so the timer was set to a 12/12 lights on/off schedule. By this time, two of the plants were just under a foot tall, and the one that got a slower upside-down start was a bit smaller. At this time, I also started to tie down some of the branches to position all of the bud sites in direct light to increase the quality of each bud, as otherwise these sites would have been shaded by the upper parts of the plant.

Two weeks after starting the flowering light cycle, I finally knew what I had “given birth” to: two females and one male. I decided to pull the male out of the cabinet for fear that it would pollinate the females, attempting to collect some pollen to make some more Kashmir seeds before getting rid of it. I took a few cuttings of the stems that had pollen sacs (“bananas”) and stuck them in a glass of water. Even though the cuttings stayed alive, the sacs were underdeveloped and did not produce any pollen.

From that point on all the female plants needed was properly diluted nutrients, an uninterrupted 12-hour dark period, and a little tender, loving care. As the plants continued to grow, the larger of the two was consuming much more nitrogen than the short one and started turning yellow. The color change began with the lower fan leaves and moved its way up the plant, where amazing colors started appearing as the yellowing reached the bud sites – deep reds and purples became visible, and so did the first trichomes. I knew that there wouldn’t be many leaves left at harvest if the plant kept processing nitrogen at this rate, so I gave an extra dose of high-nitrogen fertilizer to keep it sustained. That’s when I really started to get excited about savoring my very own homegrown buds.

I started watering with only water and molasses (two tablespoons molasses per gallon of water), which is supposed to flush out all of the nutrients and unwanted chemicals left in the plant and soil, making for a less-harsh product. I used molasses two to three times throughout the early flowering stage after transplanting the plants into a fresh soil mix, and then for every watering (about one tablespoon per gallon) during the last three weeks before harvest. I used distilled water for the three waterings in the last week.

I knew I would need to check the trichomes up close to know when to harvest – they are cloudy with a touch of amber – so I purchased a loupe with 20x magnification from a local jewelers supply store. But two weeks later, I was still waiting for the trichomes to turn amber... then three weeks passed. The expected flowering time for the strain was said to be 65 days, but my gals went for over 70 before being ready for harvest – and boy, did they smell fruity and spicy! I only chopped the main colas on harvest day, leaving the rest of the plant and smaller buds intact. I moved the shortened plants closer to the light to let them soak in a few more rays until day 85, when they were harvested.

With the entire yield piled before me, I was in utter awe at what I had created. The next part was the drying and curing. I hung the freshly cut buds on a string that ran across the top of a large cardboard box, and there they stayed there to dry for the next four days. Then I put them in jars to “cure”, draw out the remaining moisture. Every day, for the next two weeks, I removed the curing buds from their jars for about 15 minutes to let in some fresh air. By the time they were done, the total dry weight was close to two ounces.

After the curing process was complete it was time to take the final, and probably the best, step: I sat back and enjoyed the very first taste of my homegrown. It tasted earthy and spicy, and was potent and smooth. I found it quite breathtaking and awe-inspiring to smoke my own cannabis, and have decided there’s nothing in the world more satisfying! No dealers, baggies, or schwag to mess with – just me and my very first grow.