So I have 3 plants that i started on 12/21/10 under a cheap double light from wally world. After i went and got the supplies and bulbs to switch to CFLs they started to grow a little. They are currently under 12 26w 6500k GE cfls with 19680 lumens. (Picture number 1). Plant on the left is the bigger one of the 3, for the sake of simplicity will name it ava. It has become my little pet project. Want to see how small i can start flowering it from to grow a single mini micro. (picture 2)Is Ava after about 2 days under the cfls. (Picture 3) is of the 2nd plant that i will call carmela. It is now in a small version of a dwc bucket made out of a large butter tub. (picture 4) is of carmela in her new home. The system actually works well till i finish my larger versions in my final grow cabinets. (picture 5) is a pic of ava's growth over a period of 3 days. as you can see she is taking her time growing. (Pictures 6) is of Ava's growth close up. (picture 7) is of Carmela's growth since being put into her mini dwc.Yes i know those are just regular rocks lol but didnt want to use up any of my good supplies in these mini tests while constructing growing boxes. (Picture 8) is of carmela's growth close up. I plan to allow these plants to grow during my purple power grow untill they are ready to flower and going to flower the mini plants when the PP goes into flower. WIll do weekly updates if anyone is intersted.
Update: Even if nobody is really following along ( i know just had first post with nothing exciting) But figured that i would use this experiment as a chance to get use to keeping a grow journal for my big grow. Ava has spread out her top growth with a 5 finger leaf and is starting to perk up rather nicely. Watered her with Average ph water and run off was 6.5. Carmela has unfolded her top set of 5 fingers on its 3rd node and has started her next set which are at about 1/8" long. Ph in bucket is at 6.0 and just added grow fert at 1/4 strength to her water res. Will allow her to use remaining amount of water till next week, when i will change her res. Have Started soaking the Pot that Ava will be moving into when she gets ready to move into her new home. It is a mixture of moisture advantage soil mixed at a ration of 3 to 1 with blood meal. Added a 1/4 of the full strength amount of bone meal to the soil also. Will water it every time that i water Ava to allow the microbes to begin colonizing the soil.Will also allow me to get the soil's ph and ppm range into where i would like it to be. On a side note my Purple Power and Royal Hash seeds are starting to break through the soil.
UPDATE: AVA: First 2 pics are from 1/21/11 you can see the little bit of growth that has started to appear. Next two pics are from 1/26/11 and you can see that in 5 days it has put out 2 full leave sets and is working on a 3rd. Carmela and unnamed plant ( no new pics b/c they are in dark cycle) Since there was not much growth on carmela i decided to use her to experiment and put her into flowering last night. I really dont know what it will do since it is so small yet over a month old. Hopefully she will atleast give me one nice little bud. The unnamed plant which has been a guinea pig this whole time i topped after it had started its 4th set of leaves. It is about the same height as AVA but is not as bushy. Its leaves are more of a sativa strain because her leaves are much narrower then ava's. But she has started really putting alot of energy into her joint leaves which is nice. Will post pics of carmela and unnamed when they are back in light cycle.
i agree, keep posting as i would like too folow this. i am glad your flowering really soon i want to see what happens.
I really dont know what the outcome will be. im pretty sure the other 2 are lost causes. But why not have fun and experiment with them?
Well update. After doing a little thinking i decided to take the two plants out of the flower box and put them back into veg. and took ava out of veg and put her into the flower box. Didnt think there would be a big impact on the 2 that came out. they only had a total of 12 hours of darkness. But they look to have done really well with that. So hopefully it wont screw them up more then they already are lol. Would hate to have to make a new flower box special for them that is the shape of a small school bus. But the pictures are of ava to get a glimpse at my thoughts and reasons for the change. I figured that since she was the one that was the furthest along out of the 3 that she should go first. She was also replanted into her new and final home. It is a 3 gallon pot. i figure that she shouldnt get big enough to take it over during the time it takes me to finish my perm. boxes. Just havent wanted to get out on the roads with the idiots who dont know how to drive in snow. But should have them done by this weekend after i get to lowes for the lumber.
I noticed you named all your plants female names. What about the ones that turn out male? You just gave them a horrible childhood.
Well if i gave them male names and then turned out to be a female they might get so confused they go hermi lol. just random names that came to me.
Well i figured that it wouldn't hurt to just go ahead and give them female names. Hope for the best right? Man it pains me to have to wait for the dark cycle to be over before i can check on Ava. Drives me nuts. lol.
Guess i will waste the last 30 mins of Ava's dark time to get the room picked up and ready for all the other plants to be transplanted and take some pics for a new update. Think i might do a day to day pic update on ava just one pic of her overall growth for comparison later. And i have been keeping a very detailed log in a notebook strictly for these 3 plants on amount watered and bone and blood meal that was mixed into the soil, and daily morning and night temps in closet with the and log the highest and lowest the temp has gotten that day. this way i can know everything that has been done to the plant in case something goes wrong. I will know or at least be able to narrow it down to what caused it. update coming soon. I guess we will consider this the start of ava's grow journal.
Well Ava has grown a bit. She is really starting to fill out and her node leaves are starting to fully open and bend to get the light. The first 6 pictures are of ava and her growth, also threw in some to show her actual size. She is a tiny thing but oh so beautiful.
The next few pictures are of my transplanting of the plant that will remain nameless as of this point. Just can't think of a name for her lol. But she is the plant that i have topped. She has a slight waxy almost fake look to her biggest leaves. Don't really know what that is about the only thing i could really find online was that she might be close to a nute burn by N but its just under the threshold of it. Will just water her with distilled water for the next 2 weeks and see what she does. Her node leaves are starting to fill out nicely and growing at a rapid pace. The pictures that are here are of this orphan of a plant. I started with Scott's soil guy at lowes said he used it in his greenhouse at home and it helped with the plants roots and since it was a neutral balance i figured id give it a try. I am using the MG organic bone and blood meal (i know lol but all i could find at the present time) Going to be using FF on my purple power and royal hash plants. I mix it in with the soil while i am filling up the bucket a tbs of each and the rest just soil. You can see that she was getting ready to be root bound in the cup. Figured she might be because Ava was . And then in her new home. The close up picture of the top site was taken on the 25th. as a comparison to the new growth.She will stay on a 24/7 light period with 6 26w 6500k 1750 lumes each and 3 26w 2700k 1750 lumens each and then 3 26w 5500k 1750 lumens cfls on her and the rest of the bunch in my veg box. I plan to let her grow out till the Purple Power is ready to flower and pop her in there with it. Crosses fingers.
And guess i should post pics of the Grow box its self. The front of the cabinet is going to be the face of the box. It looks to be the front of a kitchen cabinet or something. So what my plan is going to be is to Build a box using the face that measures totally 4' wide x 3' Deep x 2' high. Going to build the frame from 2x2" furring strips then use osb to close it all in. In the middle of the two doors i am going to make a dividing wall from osb. All inside joints are being caulked with silicon caulking to completely seal and light proof the box. Then the walls will be painted White with 5 layers to ensure complete saturation and a very smooth finish. In the veg chamber i plan to have a total of 15 CFL's I want a fixture that is suspended from the roof of the box and then fixtures that fit down the corners to max the coverage of light. I will do the same with the flower chamber But with mostly 2700k cfls. Each chamber will be vented independent of the other. That way During the Purple power's flowering i can lower the temps to really set in the purple color in the bud. I am having trouble finding anyone with experiance with the strain that can tell me what temps they used with theirs. Pics are of the current ghetto set up. Using the face that I'm using in the final build. But the back is mainly maid of cardboard and scrap wood that i have had around the house. It actually works really well. The new bagseed and the Purple power and Royal hash have really taken off and both working on 2nd leaf sets. So hopefully they got a nice root system going.The plants in picture 4 that are in the party cups on the right side of the pic is the PP and RH seedlings. The royal has actually has two cotyledons on one side. It is one leaf that split halfway up the leaf into two at the end. Any questions tips or tricks feel free to post a reply. Welcoming all of the help that i can get.
What up Munky? I have read through your journal so far. Looks like you have a decent start. i would say the thing to remember about growing is everything that happens is reactionary. Since you are growing indoors, you control the plants world. It's climate, nutrients, light cycle, temp, soil, feeding..... Cannabis is reactionary. Remember that first. Everything happens for a reason. If you follow tried and true methods, good things are bound to happen. You can learn much from this site and the experienced growers here. If you don't know, instead of guessing, ask. That's what I love about this place! Personally, I would not have used that soil, or those ferts, not saying they won't work, but you have less control over dosing. Your plants seem to be doing well though. You need to be careful in adding more different nutes or you run the risk of burning them up. You are doing good so far, Be more worried about over watering than under watering and keep up your journal! Good luck and let me know if I can help!
Yeah i figured i would run into that kind of problem. but i plan on using nothing but distilled water to water with. no added nutes untill flowering begins. hope that the plants will use up most of the stored ferts in the soil. Only reason that we used that soil was that we already had it from indoor veg garden. works wonders for tomatoes and melons. But I found a hydro shop about an hour and half away that has all the FF line. Going to use that when next transplant and box construction is done.
Hey man, I appreciate your PMs, and I looked at your grow. It's ok- about how I started out. My best advice is that experience is the best teacher, and the only other teacher is hours and hours of reading. I was never very successful with soil, though I do keep my mothers that way. But man, I've got to be honest about one thing- if you're gonna risk this and put in the effort, 3 little plants won't return much. Not worth it really. Now, you did mention a big grow- if this is a practice run then I applaud you- no better way to learn. I started out thinking that plants could be grown cheaply- I'm over $5,000 in grow equip now- but it had been rewarded. You get what you pay for. I wish you the best of luck, and I want everyone to succeed- but it takes about a grand worth of stuff to even get your feet wet. I don't think CFLs and little cabs are gonna get you what you want- but I hope they do. Read, build, grow- repeat. I've been at this about a year and a half and I'm still a rank novice! Keep at it, you'll get there.
Yes these are test runs. The only reason that i have kept the little plants is because they have been with me and survived since the very start. So i figured why not give them a chance. the cabinet will eventually turn into my mother and cloning cabs. I plan to make a 2x4 frame in the room that has 2 5' wide x 5' deep x 7' high double chambers. These will eventually be my flowering rooms. I wanted to start with cfls so that i could concentrate on the medium part of the grow first and find what works for me. I have never grown in anything but soil. so while there are a lot of diy tutorials on dwc and everything i dont know if it is for me. I might try one bubble bucket when i flower a purple power after i get the big flower room cabs made. I just wanted to start out slow and take my time learning each stage of growth to its fullest. Mess around and experiment and not have to worry about killing a large crop. No better way to learn then from ones own mistakes. and i have made plenty of them and learned greatly from them. We currently dont have tons of $ to throw at this at the current moment and that is another reason that we are starting small. Going to gradually build up to a full room grow. While i know that i will never be up to par with any of the best growers on the forums or around the world. This whole grow and experience is not about being the best or well known. It is about the love i have for the living world of plants and their amazing abilities. I enjoy the peace and relaxation that tending and caring for my garden has brought me. If it wasn't for my bonsai tree i had during my divorce i think i would of lost my cool. Kinda sad but its a great therapy. I just like to have another thing that me and my gf can share even tho she kinda just zones out and has that wtf are you talking about look on her face sometimes its still nice to see her face when she see's a plant that has grown a lot. I thank you both for your advice as i have learned a tremendous amount from your grow journals.