BIG BUD - 1st Grow - Medium Budget

[GumDispenser]

GERMINATION START : 2 February 2009

I bought 10 seeds online of the Bid Bud for my first grow.

They are known to be :

A - Big
B - Easy for beginners
C - Big Buds

Soil : Organic indoor potting soil
Nutes : None
Water : Ozonated
Light : 6 x 26 watt cool white CFL
Light : 400 watt HPS (coming in February 18 )


- 5 seeds were planted, 4 died. I made the fatal mistake of fertilizing the soil.

- 1 week later, 5 new seeds were planted + lone survivor of nutes massacre.



These pictures were taken a week after germination. 8 February 2009

- Front Red & Blue Pots are from the first 5 seeds. Only the blue one is now alive. ( 2 weeks old)

- 5 other pots are are the 5 seeds planted a week ago in un-fertilized soil.

- The pots are 6 inch deep, 3 inch wide.

[GumDispenser]

11 February 2009

Note : I moved the plants to take a picture, the CFL's are normally very very close.

So now all my plants have well expanded in just a few days.

I can see the roots on the transparent parts of my pots. They are due for a change of pot.


My oldest plant, the lone survivor, has hit a growth stunt. Probably has reached the root limit already even if it's smaller in volume than some other plants I have. It is the darkest in color, but it also started to develop a problem with the leafs. You can see some sort of golden color on top.

With a magnifying glass, I can see that those are "scratches" of some sort. Maybe a weird light burn? I added another inch of distance between the CFL and the plant.

One of my biggest plant's leafs started to ROLL upwards, almost rolling inwards. I also added another inch between the plant and the CFL.

Aside from that, Everything's fine. I will keep a close watch and will start with the transplanting soon.

[GumDispenser]

11 February 2009

I have purchased 6 buckets at the dollar store. They are ~2.5 gallon. - 1$ each

I purchased 3 long plastic trays to hold 2 buckets each (for the overflow) - 1$ each

Pierced a bunch of holes at the bottom,

Purchased one huge bag of indoor potting soil to add to the other bag I had.



Transplant method

Preparations

1- fill 3/4 of the pots with soil and soak it with room temp water until water comes out the bottom.

2 - Let it dry for 30 minutes

3 - Dig very large and deep holes and have extra soil easily available


Steps

1- Water your small pots so that water comes out the bottom.

2- Hold the base stem of your plant, and put the rest of your hand flat against the dirt surface

3- Flip your pot upside down, squeeze it, shake it a little bit. It would PLOP out in one big piece.

3b- If it doesnt plop out, add more water.

4- Put that big glob of dirt unto your bigger pots and ... ya, be careful with the roots.


12 February 2009

Pictures below are a day later. One plant started to droop down, the curly plant from the other time is uncurling, and the stunted old plant restarted to grow.
All in all, more positive things than negative.

[GumDispenser]

15 February 2009

Now my plants grew a bit more and seem to like a lot the bigger pots.

I think it will be soon time to add nutriments to the water. Though I'm still reading up on that before making a move.

The oldest plant, lone survivor, really took to growing again, but remains a "diminutive" plant compared to the others.

The size of the leafs simply dont compare, yet the lone survivor seem to be richer in green.


The curly plant uncurled and now is fully flat and even raising it's leaf stems towards the bulb to hug it.. happy times.

The droopy plant regained composure after I got some lights closer to it.


Pictures below :

1 - Plant group
2 - Oldest plant that now resumed growth
3 - Droopy plant that now wants to hug light

[GumDispenser]

16 February 2009


One of my plants has REALLY become a hugger.

I was talking about it in the previous post. A plant that raises it's arms to get to the light.

Here it's getting really bad... and this is not because of lack of light. I think this one just has extra strong arms since it is not stretching.

[GumDispenser]

18 February 2009

I haven't watered my plants since I transplanted them just a week ago. Yet the soil is still moist. Im wondering if I should water them anyway or wait even longer.

Anyway they are steadily growing. I think in 2 weeks I'll be putting them into flowering mode.


All plants look very healthy aside from a few heat burned marks here and there. Nothing major really.

[smoke-the-ganja]

i realy like dem plant any tips for me how tall ar day now

[SEMS1]

Originally Posted by smoke-the-ganja

i realy like dem plant any tips for me how tall ar day now

English please?

Plants look good bro, a little nute burn or possible
you PH is out but they look nice.

EDIT: Just saw the burn is from heat.

Take it easy!

[MaStEr_SkUnK]

Originally Posted by GumDispenser

18 February 2009

I haven't watered my plants since I transplanted them just a week ago. Yet the soil is still moist. Im wondering if I should water them anyway or wait even longer.

Anyway they are steadily growing. I think in 2 weeks I'll be putting them into flowering mode.


All plants look very healthy aside from a few heat burned marks here and there. Nothing major really.

i would wait till they need it. plants look awesome.
nice grow i'm in...

[GumDispenser]

Originally Posted by smoke-the-ganja

i realy like dem plant any tips for me how tall ar day now

I got no tip. All the guides are in the forum stickies anyway for absolute newbie grower.

They are about 4-6 inches tall, much wider however. They grow in wideness as seen in the pictures.

I was originally planning on LST, but now I realize I wont need it, nor do I have much space for that.


Lone Survivor is the only plant with nute burns. That was a while ago. The other 5 plants never ever had any nutes given to them. Still relying on organic soil.

[GumDispenser]

I havent updated in a while since I was very busy.

You'll notice my plants got a bunch of burns here and there. Those are lightbulb burns. Since i was very busy, I wasnt always around my plant every 4-8 hours to check up on if they got too close

My tallest plant reached 1 foot 2

Guess which one it is?

LONE SURVIVOR!!!!

That plant is the sole survivor of my first attempt at growing 5 seeds.

For a while, I was worried about that plant since it wasnt catching up with the week-younger plants.

Now, it surpassed them. I guess the age still affects the growth rate and not just the conditions.

My plants are on a steady once a week watering regimen with 20-15-10 nutes.


They seem to grow well considering they only got 1x23watt CFL each and that they are all a month old (except for lone survivor)


I'm thinking it's soon time to switch to 12/12 since I dont care about yield.
What do you think guys? They mature enough?

[hydr1]

why would you not care about yield?

[hydr1]

I was originally planning on LST, but now I realize I wont need it, nor do I have much space for that.

LST helps reduce the size of plants...low stress training...tying down ....

[GumDispenser]

Originally Posted by hydr1

why would you not care about yield?

Because the first plants I'll harvest will only be to keep me supplied until the other plants mature. Basically, I want speed over yield for the FIRST crop. After that, once I dont have to buy weed anymore, I'll be increasing my yield and quality.

Originally Posted by hydr1

LST helps reduce the size of plants...low stress training...tying down ....

LST is good to save VERTICAL space, but right now I'm low in SURFACE space.
Unfortunately, as you can see from my pictures, the plants have gotten so wide that they outgrow the width of the pots they are in. Anyway I have no problem about height. I got a good SoG going on there. No empty spots in between plants.

[hydr1]

yeah it looks killer bro you should have enough herb to hold you over for 3 years.