How long have you been growing for ?

[Khakibos]

So this is something I haven't really seen or noticed that people mentioned unless it was their first grow. I'm rather new to the forum and don't know anyone on here IRL so I was just curious

How long have you been growing for ? 

[SkunkPharm]

I grew out on a farm from 2000 to 2003. Then life happened or rather a women. Started again 5 years ago. 

Edited December 2, 2021 by SkunkPharm

[Khakibos]

I've been going for about 6 years now growing my own, saves me a butt ton of cash. Even if its just 1-2 harvest a year I don't smoke that much weed though, its just good weed cost a lot more than the sun dried swazi skyf

 

[CreX]

i only started my Grow Affair when i moved to JHB in 2012, before then i was a Toti boy and only knew the cheap kak from the corner.

when i arrived up here, even the cheap kak was crazy amazing to what i was used to, which struck me as weird because everyone called my R10 banky kak and often declined to smoke from it.

same friends also showed me the ways or finding better dealers until my first taste of some quality maryjane...

10 years ago i had fokkal to my name and paying R180 for a g was a christmas special kind of smoke. then i decided to give growing a go and get my own dank for cheaper.

its honestly taken me 8 years to be able to get to the level of growing  that i wanted to be at on day one of my first seed hahaha and another 2 years to be consistent with my output...

10 years and whole lot of experiments and trial and error and a buttload of cash for new things - i seriously cant wait for the next ten years and a reflection for where i am at then.

[Dookie69]

Respect to the OG’s out there man. Pushed thru years of trial and error in the face of serious consequences. Before the days of YouTube, hydro shops and easily obtainable seeds. You were the pioneers in this country, got us to where we are today, freely offering your hard earned experience to us young’uns (myself a new growing ballie LOL)

I’ve been at it now for only 14 months man and I’ve got so much practical stuff to learn.

All you OG’s: Thank you thank you thank you.

[CoolJ]

I've started about 4 years ago 1 successful outdoor harvest then started indoors for almost 3 years. Still far from where I want to be. 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

always been growing, got busted by my rents in school, got busted by my landlord after school, got my first outdoor harvest around 2012/2013, a once off situation as a strike of luck. 2016 came and I was left with only one choice - growing my own. had 3 years of learning about the plant growing some midgrade outdoor with a lot of trial and errors, more so preoccupancy and lazyness that made me uninvested. came mid 2019 I finally had enough money saved and gathered -what I thought at the time to be- enough knowledge on growing cannabis that I took the swing and bought my first expensive seeds from reputible breeders and a complete grow setup. 

If people ask me how long I been growing or how long I been taking it serious I always say since 2019, when I got all my equipment and started taking it all serious, but is that really the right answer? I feel it's less accurate saying I've been growing since 2012 just cause I finished a grow back then. 

[Khakibos]

1 hour ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

had 3 years of learning about the plant growing some midgrade outdoor with a lot of trial and errors

I mean that's still 3 years of growing in my books.

Overall my first grow wasn't as successful as I would've liked it to be, but it was my first time putting all that theory to work in a practical situation, but a harvest is a harvest and my first grow is still my first grow. Granted you stepped up your game and decide to go the indoor route to get a guarantee at a better quality end product, I feel it doesn't make your starting point obsolete.

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Khakibos

[ORGANinc.]

I started growing in 2018, threw some seeds in a pot of builders soil and bought some molasses. Bought my first tent in 2019 which i'm still using today. Being more than hungry for information on the how too, I ended up reading every blog I could find. After that I started clapping the farming books. 

Now i'm much more interested in soil. 

[Chris Jay]

Grew my first plant in 1994, a "biology experiment", actually tried to grow it under a light. Busted by my mother, I moved the plant to a mates place, got busted by his mother too, but did manage to harvest the plant. It was my first successful harvest. I think i might have started growing earlier than that,I did try and grow some weed in braamfontein spruit next to REEA nursery, just below their compost heaps.  When I was still at school an older mate rented a cottage with a mini hothouse in it, there were about 50 seedlings in there before he even got his bed into the cottage. Indoor growing,  I think my festish was growing in ceilings though, started around 2000, lots of places in JHB have wooden planks in their ceilings for my grow room. I think I started that around 2002. 

[Chris Jay]

Quote

Busted by my mother, I moved the plant to a mates place, got busted by his mother too, but did manage to harvest the plant

Quite a funny story. I did not have a drivers license then, but managed to fill a carboot of harvested stems. Took it home, dear mothers car was reeking. So spoke with a local rasta I knew, he quick dried them on his zinc roof. We hit some bottle necks and joints of good homegrown, and then I got busted again. 

[Marzcanna]

Growing seriously with grow tents and equipment, Id say easy 10 years, started with HPS. But I've grown for a couple more years if you count all the outdoor grows and messing around 

Edited December 3, 2021 by Marzcanna

[Weskush]

Some classic stories here

I started off back in 99/2000 with bag seed, garden soil and Sea Grow. It was highly illegal back then so growing one plant at a time felt like pushing the boundaries!

Harvests were small but felt huge, being used to paying R50/bankie. Mostly got Swazi, Rooibaard, Transkei. When my rasta buddy started mentioning strain names like LA Confidential, Cheese, Pineapple Express, we all just laughed and thought that these were just some made up names for what we were used to getting. Knew nothing about all the different strains etc. No Youtube and smart phones then hey. Still rocked a Nokia 3310 until 2008. Good times

Then came "higher grade" and prices started to sky rocket! Mostly Cheese as far as i can remember.Also had a Hawaian Skunk which grew into a huge tree. There was no way to hang dry on the property so the whole harvested tree was placed in his car's boot and we drove everywhere with this tree in the back of the car

Only started studying the plant, strains, soil etc about 3 years ago with my first "proper" outdoor grow being Chronic(NL x AK47 x Skunk #1). She was a beast and that got me hooked on growing outdoors

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by Weskush

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

I am also loving all these how and when I got started stories   

11 hours ago, Khakibos said:

I mean that's still 3 years of growing in my books.

that is true, although I planted my first seed in 2009 and since then almost always had a plant growing somewhere in the garden "just for fun", though it was always bagseeds and no special treatments. so I don't know if that should be counted as "growing" even though I was growing. only really tried to harvest one plant in 2013, then another in 2016, then started getting clones and tried a little harder, started paying special attention to harvesting from then on and I was more consistent. 

very deurmekaar start for me

[Ill_Evan]

I was always interested in cannabis since me and some mates discovered it in like grade 10 and similar to Crex, we had no idea the weed we were smoking was rubbish, but man those first highs were quite something. 

Throughout varsity I would occasionally splurge on what I thought at the time was decent stuff. Then one day I decided to treat myself and purchase some "top shelf" for the first time. The experience was so underwhelming that I actually stopped smoking weed for a little bit. 

Then September 2018 came around and the Constitutional judgement was announced that the right to grow cannabis in your private property was allowed. I researched hard for about 3 months, I think this is also when I discovered the forum. In December 2018 I popped my first seeds so that's about 3 years exactly now. 

[Chris Jay]

Was just rumminging through some old boxes and found this picture. I think this Pic was taken around 2000. How is that tree in the background, 13ft plus? And the game in the background was from cannabis culture, designed and developed by Dana Larsen from Canada. He was also one of the foreigners who took Durban Poison back over the seas to Canada. 

Edited December 3, 2021 by Chris Jay