First grow ever — somehow ended up winning 1st place in the indoor flower category at the Stargazer Cannabis Cup (Ohio).

Never grown anything before this — started with 6 plants, finished with 5 after I drowned a seedling. But hey… one of those survivors brought home a trophy.

Setup Details:

Tent size: 5×5

Grow method: RDWC (5-gal buckets)

Strain: Gelato Sunrise

Seedbank/Breeder: ILGM / Phylos

Lighting: 2x HLG R-Spec V2 600W (picked up both on FB Marketplace for $150 total)

Cost (hardware): ~$800–1,000 before consumables (power, nutes, water, mistakes)

I can post the full nutrient list in the comments if anyone wants it — it’s… a lot. But every single additive had a purpose. I wasn’t just tossing in bottles and praying. I even ran all of it by ChatGPT to fine-tune the stack and make sure there was no fluff.

Lessons learned:

Don’t cheap out on electrical gear. I melted a timer and caught it on fire.

Overprepare, then obsess some more.

Pay more attention to your plants than your kids (joking… mostly).

Also: don’t expect anything — but aim for everything.

The pics I attached are just random ones I liked throughout the grow — not necessarily the final cure shots. Just excited to finally share it.

Did not expect to win anything. Thought I’d get a good first harvest and call it a win. But apparently if you go full psycho mode and over-research for 6 months straight… sometimes the weed gods notice. 😂

by Responsible-Mess-835

22 Comments

  1. Responsible-Mess-835

    Here’s some more, unsure why it didnt post all of em
    *

  2. kingsizeddabs

    How were the terps on it? Must have been pretty loud since you entered it

  3. Nm I read the comments… But I do need help with the lingo

  4. GotWellSoowie

    Did you play music to them? If so, who?

  5. MrModusTollens024

    imma let you finish but its not really much of an award to grow someone elses genetics, and i don’t see anything particularly special about the appearance, im sure its good bud, but i just don’t see how its award winning, and beyonce had one of the greatest strains of all time

  6. Competitive_Ice_9873

    Congrats man that’s amazing I’m just hoping my 1st grow has smokable bud 😅

  7. Tiny-Airport-6534

    I love seeing this stuff. Takes me back 🙂

  8. SuspectUsed4674

    Hell ya congratulations! Wish I could try some lol

  9. Dapper_Comparison_23

    God damn, that looks to me to be that sticky icky! Ooohweee! Put it in the air!

  10. Muted-Reputation-194

    What was the name of your strain?

  11. ConnectCow9111

    🥹 beautiful. Love to see it. Good job man 👏🏿 more to come!

  12. The_Mannikin

    That’s that sticky icky! Where are all these cannabis cups held at, I only know of the farmers market one. Is it some type of mailing list for events?

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