Now that I have a little bit of time off I thought that I'd put together a grow journal so that I can pull in suggestions, and keep notes for next time. I had never really given much thought to growing, as I never had the space or access to seeds. I hadn't found a seed in a bag for years. 8/12 - I discovered 4 seeds in a pretty decent bag that I had picked up and decided that it was time to give it a try. So I head into the local organics store and pick up a cloner tray with dome and an adjustable 250/400/600w ballast and hood with a 400w Hortilux MH Bulb and pop the seeds in the tray, cover, and put under light at 250w, I run the light on for 18/6 cycle. 8/15 - Three of the four seeds sprouted, time to get them ready for there new home.
8/17 - Three of the four seeds took and I had to decide what medium I was going to grow in, I chose to do a simple drip ring method in a hydrohut 4x4x7 tent and run three buckets. One of the three seeds popped and looked to stunt right away, I figured I'd give it a shot to grow as well. I'm using the General Hydroponics nutes and still have light at 250w about eight inches above the plants.
8/25 - Starting to see good growth out of the two that didn't stunt right away. The one that stunted got pulled today. Temps are starting to get warm in the tent as the light is at 400w and temps are rising in late August. I decide to upgrade the hood to a ported hood and purchase a inline fan to pull the heat out of the tent and move into the tent an oscillating fan I had laying around. I'm also opening up the ports in the grow tent for more airflow.
8/31 - The plants are starting to grow their fifth blades now. There is finally some meaningful nute soup consumption and I am having to add some water in between water level changes this week. It's warmer than usual and I'm sweating while messing around in the tent, I decide to open all the port holes and keep them open with fans blowing air in and around. The plants are now directly in the path of a constant mild breeze. 18/6 @ 400w MH about 12inches off plants.
9/5 - I decide that it's time to change the light cycle, the plants are about 1.5ft tall. I've done very little research at this point and haven't looked into SCROG or LST/HST or any technique for that matter and am really just throwing light and nutes at plants, maintaining ph of 6, temp levels and seeing what happens because I don't know any better. Lights switch to a 600w HPS bulb on a 12/12 to force flowering and not outgrow the tent without any training to plants. I start to notice that leaves on the bottom are getting wet and nasty b/c of contact with the drip ring so I place a few white wash-cloths over the ring and below the leaves to avoid any further nastiness. Not knowing anything about what I was doing probably caused me to get overly concerned with determining the sex of my plants and likely switched over too soon and caused me overlook the benefits/necessity of LST or netting.
9/17 - Starting to see signs of what look to my untrained eye as female plant parts according to the pics I've seen online. Plants taking off well and really starting to grow bushy and wild, one is clearly the bigger plant and has been the hole time. I'm now starting to look into training methods and netting and am realizing that I missed my opportunity for this.
9/18 - Plants are both now confirmed in my book as female. It's starting smell quite strong in and around the house. I connect to the tent a can-filter with 6"fan at 170cfm with a 20lb carbon filter. It's getting cooler and I am now closing the tent fully due to the can-filter/fan and am leaving the oscillating fan in the corner running 24/7. Lights still on 12/12@600w HPS.
9/21 - Plants are taking off, drinking water like camels and are starting to rub the fan so I'm going to pull it out of the tent. I've had to lift the light a couple times and am amazed at the stretch happening.
9/28 - I'm really starting to regret not dong more research to better control the plants shape, the stretch is insane in one of the plants. I'm now swapping them around in position in the tent, thinking that maybe the bulb shines better on one part of the tent, the growth rate difference in plants is huge.
10/1 - I think that the stretch has to be about over, if it's not I'm going to run out of ceiling height. It's fun to see the girls doing their thing au natural.