The result can be damage to your equipment, personal injury, instant death of your plants, a huge mess, and 6 months wasted time. Speaking from personal experience.
Sigh.
This was my 5th crop grown in this manner (small livingroom garden setup), and the previous 4 had gone well. Not so with this one.
- I didn't get the nutrients I needed (worm castings) because of the lockdown
- I had random pests attack my plants, causing big holes in the leaves, and the culling of one plant
- Little white spiders visited the garden - alarming, although they ended up being harmless.
- I tried my hand at high-stress training, and that didn't go well (snapped off branches, split stems, poor technique, etc)
- I cloned the plants to ensure enough females, but most of the clones didn't take, and then found out it was unnecessary because they were ALL female anyway
- I didn't flip them to flower when I wanted (because of outside interference), so they ended up old and tired by the time they flowered
- They grew unevenly, and one was up in the light, which had to be propped up, and the plant had to be partially harvested early
- Yesterday, for no apparent reason, the light supports failed and it came crashing down and killed most of the plants
With just days left, what little medicine I'd managed to produce from a long and grueling 6 month crop was dashed to pieces, squashed, and sprayed with dirt!
When I tried to salvage some of the plants from the wreckage, the light fell a SECOND time, this time onto ME, cutting open my hand and bashing me over the head.
It would actually be kind of funny, if it hadn't happened to me!
(In other words, maybe you got a laugh out of it?)
Either way, we can all learn a valuable lesson thanks to my pain:
Never compromise your garden's safety by raising your lights higher than they're set up to go!
It was a catastrophic and sudden collapse of a miserable project, almost symbolic and fitting. I actually had to stand back and have a long, genuine laugh. Once you hit rock bottom and you're still around to tell the story, sometimes that's all you can do!
Better luck next time! I'm good at learning the lessons I'm taught, and I'll never stop growing cannabis. That's a recipe for success... eventually.
Grow in peace.
DRutter
