Grow Buddies

10/21/2026

📦 MAIL TIME! GROW BUDDIES!

Sometimes a frustrating situation turns into an incredible opportunity!

After running into some challenges with our powdered nutrients, Advanced Nutrients stepped up in a BIG way!

Not only did their team personally get on the phone with us, they took the time to educate us, answer our questions, and then went above and beyond by UPGRADING OUR GROW!

That's the kind of customer support that deserves recognition!

We can't wait to show you what's inside this box, share what we learn, and bring our Grow Buddies family along for the experience!

Who else loves a company that takes the time to educate growers instead of just selling products?

Huge thank you to the Advanced Nutrients team!

GROW • LEARN • SHARE
That's Grow Buddies



For educational and informational purposes only. Grow Buddies are licensed Missouri cultivators. Any vegetation shown is not for sale or trade.

10/17/2026

Check this out! Smash SHARE! WE NEED HELP SPREADING THE AWARENESS

The White House is bringing much-needed attention to C*D, cannabis, and their potential medical benefits!

What an exciting time to see greater awareness and research into something that could help so many people!

Cannabis has been one of my greatest tools throughout my Stage 4 cancer battle, and this progress means a great deal to me personally.

More awareness. More research. More possibilities!

Grow. Learn. Share. That's Grow Buddies!

https://truthsocial.com//115283887618990920

10/12/2026

During my battle with Stage 4 cancer, cannabis became one of my most valuable tools for managing pain and helping me avoid relying on prescription narcotics.

But here's something worth thinking about.

Many cannabis edibles, especially gummies, are loaded with added sugar.

While cancer cells use glucose for energy, just like healthy cells, the relationship between sugar and cancer is more complicated than simply saying sugar feeds cancer.

That's why we choose to make our own gummies without added sugar or preservatives. We want to know exactly what goes into our medicine.

Be mindful of what you're putting into your body. Your ingredients matter.

Grow. Learn. Share. That's Grow Buddies.

For educational purposes only. Grow Buddies are licensed Missouri cultivators. Any vegetation shown is not for sale or trade.

10/08/2026

GROW BUDDIES — SOMETIMES THE LESSONS COME FROM THE SETBACKS!

Social media is full of beautiful gardens, massive harvests and picture-perfect results.

But what about the challenges along the way?

At Grow Buddies, we believe there's just as much value in sharing what goes wrong as there is in celebrating what goes right.

And we've hit a pretty frustrating hiccup getting this garden back up and running.

As many of you know, the last three years have been spent battling Stage 4 cancer, including multiple surgeries. One of those was an open-cranium surgery that damaged part of my visual cortex, leaving me with permanent vision challenges.

Something as simple as measuring liquid nutrients, which I used to do without a second thought, has become incredibly difficult.

So we decided to make a change.

WE'RE SWITCHING TO POWDERED NUTRIENTS!

We were genuinely excited to try the Advanced Nutrients Cultivator Series.

We even had our storage system planned out. Most of the powder would go into airtight, moisture-resistant containers, with smaller working containers for our weekly reservoir fills.

That way, we wouldn't constantly expose our main supply to moisture and humidity.

Everything was looking good!

The first bag we opened was absolutely beautiful. Light, fluffy powder, exactly what we expected.

Unfortunately, the excitement didn't last.

When handling the next bag, we noticed a small hole just below the factory seal. Pressing on the bag actually pushed air through that opening.

Once opened, we found hardened chunks ranging from golf-ball size to roughly softball size.

The third bag showed similar problems, with smaller packaging damage and powder beginning to harden and crystallize.

NOT EXACTLY WHAT WE EXPECTED FROM OUR BIGGEST GARDEN PURCHASE.

We ordered through TD Supply Corp. because we couldn't find the product locally at a reasonable price.

Rather than immediately demanding a refund, we reached out and tried working through the situation with them.

Having owned a brick-and-mortar hydroponics store ourselves, we understand the challenges small businesses face. We wanted to give them an opportunity to help.

To their credit, they did communicate with us and said they had reached out to Advanced Nutrients.

Their suggested approach involved using warmer water to help dissolve the hardened material and checking the EC.

The problem?

Even their explanation left uncertainty about whether this would fully resolve the situation.

And while the powder might dissolve, an expected EC reading alone doesn't verify that every nutrient is present in its intended proportion.

We simply weren't comfortable experimenting with questionable nutrients throughout an entire grow cycle.

Especially when testing that approach could have taken us beyond the return window.

For us, this wasn't a small purchase.

After three years away from work while battling cancer and being under hospice care, putting together the money for this garden has taken considerable effort.

Nutrients, growing media, seeds, electricity, water, equipment and, most importantly, our time.

We can't afford to gamble with those investments.

SO WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE US?

We're now roughly a week behind schedule on getting our new nutrient program started.

We're temporarily working with the nutrients we already have available, rather than making the consistent run with one lineup that we originally planned.

We've requested a refund and are preparing to return the product tomorrow.

We appreciate TD Supply Corp.'s efforts, even though we weren't comfortable with the proposed resolution.

The shipping carton arrived in excellent condition, but we can't say for certain when the individual bags were compromised.

And to be clear, this isn't about blaming Advanced Nutrients. We have tremendous respect for the company and have enjoyed working with their products.

One lesson this has reinforced is the value of having a knowledgeable local hydroponics store where you can inspect products and work directly with someone when something goes wrong.

Boy, do we miss having our own store open!

NOW WE NEED OUR GROW BUDDIES COMMUNITY!

We're looking for a reliable, high-quality POWDERED NUTRIENT LINEUP suitable for our coco/perlite AutoPot garden.

Due to my vision challenges, going back to measuring multiple liquid nutrients isn't a practical option right now.

We're willing to travel to Kansas City or St. Louis, Missouri, to purchase the right product and get our girls properly fed.

What powdered nutrient lineup would YOU recommend, and WHY?

We're especially interested in nutrient availability, chelation, consistency, solubility and actual grower experience.

Don't just give us a brand name. Tell us what you've run, what worked and what you learned.

And to anyone else dealing with setbacks in their garden, remember this:

PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION.

Success can teach us plenty, but sometimes the biggest lessons come when things don't go according to plan.

A setback doesn't mean the grow is over. Sometimes it means finding a different way forward.

Grow. Learn. Share.
That's Grow Buddies.

For educational and informational purposes only.
Grow Buddies are licensed Missouri cultivators.
Any vegetation shown is not for sale or trade.

10/05/2026

THREE YEARS LATER… WOULD WE STILL CHOOSE THE SAME LIGHTS?

After spending the better part of the last three years battling a pretty serious medical situation, Grow Buddies hasn’t exactly been standing on the front lines watching every new piece of cultivation technology hit the market.

And three years can be a LONG time in this industry. Technology changes. Efficiency improves. Companies come and go. And sometimes the newest thing really is better.
But sometimes new information simply reminds you why you chose what you already have in the first place.

As we started putting this garden back together, we had several lights sitting here that we could have chosen from. We also started looking around again, educating ourselves and seeing what had changed while we were away.

For this run, we’re working with roughly a 4' × 10' table, and after looking at what we already had available, two familiar fixtures ended up hanging over the garden:
Our HLG Scorpion Diablos.

There’s some history behind that decision.
We had a phenomenal relationship with HLG before life forced us away from the garden, especially with Brock and Emily.

More importantly, we’ve actually run these lights. We know what they’ve done for us.
You don’t have to take our word for it either.

Scroll back through the Grow Buddies page and look at our previous gardens and harvests. Those are real plants, real gardens and real results produced under the equipment we’re talking about.
That doesn’t mean we’ve stopped looking at new technology.

One of the easiest way
s to stop growing as a grower is to decide you’ve already learned everything there is to learn.

Educating yourself doesn’t always mean you’re going to change what you’re doing. Sometimes what you learn simply reinforces why you believed in what you were already doing in the first place.
We’ll continue looking at what’s new, asking questions, comparing specifications and learning from other growers. Sometimes that education will change what we do.
Other times, it’ll simply give us a better understanding of why what we’ve been doing already works.

We’re also keeping a running Grow Buddies journal on this setup.

Rather than cramming every measurement, adjustment and observation into the main post, we’ll be dropping the detailed journal entries in the comments below as we get everything dialed in.

PPFD readings, light height and percentages, environmental numbers, adjustments we make and what we’re seeing from the plants — it’ll all be documented below as we go.

So if you enjoy the technical side of growing, keep an eye on the comments.
So here’s our question for the growers who stayed on the front lines while we were away:

What lighting technology, fixture, diode, controller or advancement from the last three years do you think is genuinely worth us taking a look at — and WHY?

Don’t just drop a brand name.
Teach us something.

Grow. Learn. Share.
That’s Grow Buddies.

For educational and informational purposes only. Grow Buddies are licensed Missouri cultivators. Any vegetation shown is not for sale or trade.

10/05/2026

ROOTS FIRST. EVERYTHING ELSE FOLLOWS.

Around Grow Buddies, we talk a lot about environment — temperature, humidity, lighting, air movement and nutrition. Getting those things dialed in can make a huge difference in what happens in your garden.

But there's another side of the equation that sometimes doesn't get nearly enough attention.

The root zone.

For this transplant we're using Xtreme Gardening AZOS, which contains Azospirillum brasilense, a beneficial nitrogen-fixing bacterium.

Without turning this into biology class, these bacteria have the ability to take atmospheric nitrogen and convert it into forms that can become available to the plant. AZOS is designed for use with rooting cuttings and transplants and to support root development and vegetative growth.

Now let's forget the scientific terminology for a minute and talk grower to grower.
You can put all the groceries on the table you want, but the plant still needs a way to eat.

That's where those roots come in.
We can spend a small fortune dialing in nutrients, additives, lighting and environment, but ultimately we're relying on the root system to access the water and nutrition we're providing.

That's why Grow Buddies has always believed that what happens below the surface is every bit as important as what we see above it.

When we're transplanting, we're not looking at that hole as simply a place to put a plant. We're looking at it as the beginning of the environment that root system is going to call home.

Give those roots the opportunity to spread out, establish themselves and go to work.
Then when the plant needs water and nutrition, the infrastructure is already there to go get it.

Healthy environment up top.
Healthy root zone down below.
Good nutrition available when the plant asks for it.

Get those pieces working together and let the plant do what it was designed to do.
That's growing from the roots up.

Grow. Learn. Share.
That's Grow Buddies.

For educational purposes only.
Grow Buddies are licensed Missouri cultivators.
Any vegetative growth shown is not for sale or trade.

10/04/2026

TIME TO FILL SOME AUTOPOTS!

Over the years, Grow Buddies has grown just about every way you can imagine — soil, coco, hydroponics, hand watering, and multiple automated watering systems.

We’ve learned what works, what doesn’t, and occasionally learned the hard way what happens when technology decides not to cooperate.

For this run, we’re trying something different: AutoPot USA.

We’re filling our new 6.6-gallon AutoPots with FoxFarm Cream of the Crop — 50% coco and 50% perlite. And that combination was very intentional.

The coco gives us the wicking and moisture retention we’re looking for while keeping that nutrient solution readily available throughout the root zone.

The perlite brings the air.
That 50/50 combination gives us the balance we’re looking for — plenty of access to water and nutrients without sacrificing oxygen around those roots.

Then we’re taking it one step further.
Every pot is getting an AirBase Round and AirDome, bringing additional oxygen right underneath the root zone.

That’s the part we’re really excited about.
We’ve worked with plenty of automated watering systems over the years. AutoPot is simply the new piece of the puzzle for Grow Buddies.

No Wi-Fi.

No server connection.

No electronic valve deciding when the girls get a drink.

Just a gravity-fed system designed to let the plants take up solution as the system naturally cycles.

After nearly losing an entire harvest in the past because an automated watering system lost its server connection, simple and dependable sounds pretty damn good to us.

Now it’s time to put this setup through the Grow Buddies test.

We’ll show you the setup, share what we’re seeing, make adjustments when they’re needed, and tell you exactly what we think as this garden develops.

Next up: filling these 6.6-gallon pots and getting the girls settled into their new homes.

Grow. Learn. Share.
That’s Grow Buddies.

For educational purposes only.
Grow Buddies are licensed Missouri cultivators.
Any vegetative growth shown is not for sale or trade.

09/28/2026

GROW BUDDIES IS TRYING SOMETHING NEW!

With our medical challenges and the limited time we have available in the garden, reliability and simplicity have become extremely important.

We nearly lost an entire harvest after our previous automated watering system lost its connection to the server. That made one thing very clear:

We wanted automation without depending on electricity, Wi-Fi, an app, or a server to keep our plants watered.

Enter AutoPot USA.

We're extremely excited to put this gravity-fed system through its paces for the first time — but what really has us interested is the AirDome system underneath each 6.6-gallon pot.

We're running 50/50 coco and perlite, with an AirBase and AirDome delivering additional oxygen directly into the root zone.

This is our first run with AutoPot, so we're going to document the entire experience — the good, the bad, and everything we learn along the way.

Grow Buddies is back in the garden. Time to grow.



Educational purposes only

09/26/2026

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN… GROW BUDDIES IS BACK IN THE GARDEN!

After several long years away, we cannot begin to tell you how good it feels to finally say those words.

Our garden went dark while we fought one hell of a battle with Stage 4 renal cell carcinoma. Three surgeries, years of treatments, setbacks, pain, and a fight that nearly took everything from us.

Eventually, we made the deeply personal decision to step away from conventional cancer treatments and focus on the path we believed was right for us. Slowly but surely, we're finally making positive headway—and Grow Buddies is getting its hands dirty again.

And if you remember Grow Buddies, you already know:

If we're going to grow, we're going to do it right.

Our first garden back will be built around Advanced Nutrients, using their newest base nutrient lineup along with many of the additives we've trusted over the years.

But Grow Buddies has never believed that everything has to come from one bottle or one company.

We'll also be bringing New Millennium back into the garden for some of their additives, along with Recharge from Real Growers and Fish S**t to help us build the biological side of the garden.

And we're not just experimenting with what's going into the plants this time—we're changing the way we're delivering it.

For the first time, Grow Buddies will be putting an AutoPot USA system to the test, using their gravity-fed watering system with 6.6-gallon pots, a dedicated reservoir, and their float-valve watering system.

No pumps constantly pushing water to the plants. The system uses gravity and allows each pot to receive water and nutrients as they're needed.

We're excited to put this setup through its paces, learn its strengths and weaknesses firsthand, and share what we discover with all of you along the way.

We're incredibly excited to combine some old favorites with newer products, equipment, and techniques—and share the entire journey with you as Grow Buddies gets back to growing.

For us, this is about far more than growing plants.

It's about getting our hands dirty again. It's about growing our own medicine, by our own hands, in our own personal garden—and continuing to reduce our reliance on the pharmaceutical treadmill of pain-management medications.

And perhaps most importantly...

Grow Buddies has missed you guys.

We've missed the growers.

We've missed the conversations.

We've missed experimenting, learning, teaching, screwing things up occasionally, figuring out why—and sharing everything we've learned along the way with the Grow Buddies family.

We do want to make one thing very clear:

Grow Buddies is NOT reopening as a retail store.

But Grow Buddies IS back in the garden.

And as we get our own garden running again, we're also beginning to open a limited number of opportunities for private Grow Buddies grow consultations for those who want our experience and assistance with their own gardens.

So dust off those grow lights and follow along.

We're going to experiment.

We're going to learn.

We're going to teach.

And most importantly...

WE'RE GOING TO GROW.

Grow Buddies is back in the garden.

And damn, have we missed this.

WELCOME BACK, GROW BUDDIES.







New Millennium

05/31/2026

Here's your breadcrumbs, get to it.
The system is not coming to save you....
Not medical advice just common sense

Terrain Reclamation | Fractured Vessel

Consult your medical team regarding the information, protocols, or actions found inside before proceeding