A Percy grow

Nice Bit of Percy! By Little Lebowski

No matter which walk of life you come from, where you were born, where you grew up or what football team you support... we can all agree on one thing... in this life, there is nothing better than to grow your own!

The sense of achievement that rushes over as you take that first toke on a joint of home grown is as intoxicating as the weed itself! Watching your mates smile as you pull out a nice little bag of your latest harvest fills you with pride. There is no better feeling.

Even if you only manage to scrape a few grams off some spindly plants grown at the bottom of your wardrobe, so fucking what! You grew that and no one can take that away from you. Unless your mate pulls out a bag of bigger and better percy that is! Then maybe, just maybe, it’s time to step it up a notch and read the Soft Secrets quick guide to the ultimate percy grow....

Location, Location, Location..

The percy grow is, by definition, a small scale affair. Unless your personal use is bordering on Marley territory, then think small and compact; a 1 metre square space will suit 4 decent sized plants, up to 8 if you want to keep them small and flower them quick. Of course if space is at a premium, or if the missus isn’t particularly understanding and relegates you to the cupboard under the stairs, then near enough any little nook or cubby hole can be converted for a bit of percy. Just make sure you have some way to extract the hot, stale air from your grow space. However, if you are blessed with a choice of locations to house your percy, or if you are lucky enough to have an understanding partner - maybe even a fellow toker, the holy grail! – then choose wisely. For the sake of this guide, let’s assume that fate is on your side and you have a number of options at your disposal.

First off, it is preferable to keep your grow concealed from visitors – friendly or otherwise – so, that immediately rules out the communal areas of the home. You are going to have a hard time convincing the mother in law that the rectangular tent in the corner of your living room is your new tanning shower or portable airing cupboard (believe me, I’ve tried). Better to house your percy in the areas that are usually off limits to guests, that leaves us with the following shortlist;

the shed (or the garage) – an interesting candidate, with its own set of pros and cons depending on your domestic set up. The shed can be viewed in two ways; it is either a private oasis in which you can escape the everyday stresses of home life, the perfect environment in which a grow tent can be slipped into a corner unnoticed, or, it is a dumping ground; piled ceiling high with boxes of Christmas decorations, the lawn mower, a pram and piles of old paint pots – in which case, it’s a serious clean out job or a non starter. Either way, security levels will vary depending on the area you live in and the proximity of your neighbours. If you can get electricity to it, and you are confident it will not get broken into, then the shed is a good contender. - the greenhouse – only to be attempted if your neighbours are far away or have no sense of smell! An isolated greenhouse provides an opportunity for an outdoor percy grow that can be run alongside an indoor crop. Plant out in early spring to ensure that the frosts have finished and you’ll be harvesting in late September to mid October. The greenhouse grow requires much more patience than the indoor grow and is more susceptible to the elements and pest attacks. Although, if all does fail, at least you haven’t wasted any electricity in the process, As if that will be any consolation!

- the bedroom wardrobe – the classic percy hotspot, favoured by students in shared accommodation and city dwellers short on space. Keep the grow lights low powered or you’ll forever be kept awake at night by the drone of your extraction fan. Low chance of detection, makes up for the lack of space (and fan noise). A good option for a small number of plants. - the spare bedroom – a real contender, particularly if you have more than one. Nice and easy to access on a daily basis, but then this does carry security risks and is open to detection by the stoned house guest who is searching for the toilet. A tent set up in the corner of the room creates an immediate percy grow room and prevents you having to cover walls in reflective sheeting; very handy if the missus isn’t too keen on you becoming self sufficient!

- the loft – moving into serious percy territory now. No house guest, however stoned, is going to stumble into the loft, particularly if they have to climb a fucking ladder! Great secure location and plenty of space, plus nice and easy to extract stale air out of. Just watch out for temperature fluctuations spoiling your fun. Lofts will get hot in the summer, so up your extractor fan size by a couple of inches in the warmer months. They will also get cold in the winter, well worth dropping a submersible heater in the nutrient reservoir if you are growing in hydro. Oh, and rumours that a one light, percy loft grow will melt the snow off your roof in the winter are police propaganda! Be clever with your extraction and stop being paranoid!

- the basement – the ultimate, the definitive, the perfect percy grow area. Basements usually come with a lockable door which immediately takes care of any detection issues, plus they are easy to access – no tricky ladders to climb up and down like there are in the loft – so you can get in and out on easily on a daily basis. But the best thing about the basement, the icing on the cake, is the environment; nice and cool in the summer and straightforward to heat in the winter – just chuck a portable fan heater in during the winter months, the excess heat will safely disperse through your house, no worries. The basement is tailor made for year round growing.

So, with the location sorted it’s time to move on to some of the finer details.

For a Little More Yield, Try a Hydro System

Let There Be Light!

Don’t Forget The Filter In Your Tent!

looking for a minimum amount of heat in order to get the best from your plants, but if space is not so much of a problem then you will be free to use more powerful lamps and exploit the optimum yield from you plants. The options are as follows;

Compact Fluorescent Lighting (CFL) – a good idea if heat dispersion is an issue. CFL lights are a relatively cheap option, as you do not have to purchase a ballast (they can plug straight into the mains) and they produce comparatively little heat (good for very small spaces). Tailor-made, horticultural CFL lamps are available in a range of outputs ranging from 100w up to 300w, with the lower output versions being more suited to propagation than full cycle growing. A 250w will produce a decent percy yield, the downside being that CFL grows tend to take longer and yield less than their equivalently powered HID counterparts, due to the comparatively lower light intensity. Buds cultivated under CFL’s will be fluffier and less dense than if they were grown under HID lamps.

High Intensity Discharge (HID) – the old faithful. Still the most commonly used lighting method for indoor cultivation, HID lamps are available in a range of outputs from 150w to 1000w. Choose the power of your lights depending on the amount of space you need to cover, the yield you are looking for and, maybe more importantly, the quality of your extraction – no point setting up a 600w rig in the wardrobe if you can’t get the hot air out of there. You will cook your plants! For growing in up to a metre square, go for a 250w or 400w set up, a larger area will need a lamp with more coverage; a 600w will adequately cover a 1.2 metre square percy grow space.

The beauty of the percy grow is that you can go as hi tech as you want; if the budget is tight then a HPS (high pressure sodium) lamp with a magnetic ballast, simple euro reflector and contactor is all you need – go for a dual spectrum bulb to see you through both the vegging and flowering photoperiods.

But if the budget is no concern, then the sky is the limit, get yourself down the nearest decent hydro store and start browsing! Digital ballasts are more efficient, quieter and produce less heat than the budget magnetic options. Reflectors are available in a huge range of shapes and sizes, you could also go for the air cooled option, allowing you to run a lamp with a higher output and extract the heat directly off the lamp using ducting and a small extract fan.

If you’ve got the cash and are looking for the optimum results, go for a MH (metal halide) lamp for the vegging period – these give off the blue light that promotes denser vegetative growth - and a red spectrum hps for the flowering period.

Light Emitting Diode (LED) – the future of plant lighting, possibly? This newcomer promises less heat emission and lower power consumption then the equivalent HID lamp. This would make them the preferred option for the ultimate percy grow. However, there are lots of LED lighting companies out there claiming that these lamps produce great results when used

for flowering, but has anyone seen any proof yet? The jury is still out. Somebody send in a convincing photo, please!!

Just remember, the key to percy success is your growing environment. So your lighting and extraction is more important than your strain, nutrients or growing technique. Make sure you choose an extraction fan that will fully exchange the air in your grow room around three times a minute. Work out the cubic volume of your grow area – length x width x height – and multiply this figure by 90 (three times a minute is 3 x 60 = 90). You can now match this figure to the relevant extraction fan.

E.g. a tent that measures 1m x 1m x 2m has a cubic volume of 2m3 (1 x 1 x 2 = 2).

90 x 2m3 = 180m3

So, that tent needs an extraction fan with a minimum output of 180m3 per hour.

And, don’t forget your carbon filter!

Just Grow It! One of the pure joys about the percy grow is that you are doing it for yourself, not to pay the bills or put the kids through school (if you are then you may want to think about going larger scale!). When you are free from the pressures of having to please other people, you are free to experiment to your heart’s content....

You can choose any growing method or style of grow to suit you. At the most basic level, just some simple pots and compost from the garden centre will see you through. But, really, the percy grow is all about treating yourself;

Want to experiment with a few plants in hydro and bag yourself a bigger yield? Give NFT or aeroponics a try. Only have time to check in on your plants every few days? Get yourself a drip irrigation system and cut down on your workload. Looking for the ultimate taste and quality? Maybe you should try organics.

The nutrient package you go for can be as complicated as you want it to be. If you just want to keep it to the minimal

amount of fuss, a straightforward grow and bloom feed and flowering stimulator will see you through to a decent yield.

But, if you want to invest some time and go all mad scientist, really push your plants to their limits and attempt to break the gram per watt boundary, then there are an incredible range of additives out there; root stimulators, foliar sprays, silicon additives, beneficial enzymes and bacterias, growth enhancers and bloom boosters. Just

Choosing Your Strain, How About Two of Each! don’t forget your wallet when you go shopping for them!!

Finally, it’s time for the main event, the big question... which girls are you going to invite to the party? Picking your strain is a tricky decision; there is so much incredible choice out there! If you are growing from clones, then your choice is made for you, but if you are starting from seed then the world is your oyster!

My advice would be this, why choose something you can usually get hold of? If the Cheese is flowing in your area - and it’s decent! - then maybe go for something more exotic. Take a look at the strains that are never an option commercially; a soaring Sativa with a longer flowering time or, at the other end of the scale, if you need a harvest mega quick; a potent autoflower.

Loose Lips Sink Ships So, you’ve made sure your location is discreet enough not to be discovered, you’ve installed an extraction fan and – more importantly – a carbon filter, to ensure your percy grow doesn’t tickle your neighbours noses. Plus, your single light set up is barely registering on the national grid.

Your percy grow is undetectable and will remain a secret forever, right?

Wrong!

The cruel irony of the ultimate percy grow is that all the pleasure and the pride that you experience when pulling out that tasty little green bag and sharing it with your mates, has to remain hidden. Because, with a percy grow that is so well controlled and so discreet, the only thing that will uncover it is YOU!

When embarking on the ultimate percy grow, you must consign yourself to passing off the source of that delicious percy using little white lies, as you will often be faced with the question “nice gear that mate, where did you get it from”

It’s time to start practising. Now repeat after me....

“Just got it off some bloke down the pub mate”