The Ultimate Grow Journal - 4th Times A Charm

For those of you that want to skip right to the pics, I'll have some ready later today. Before I get started, here is a little bit of a back story.
 
This is my 4th grow. I dabbled with it a few times over the last couple of years, but with mixed results. It was a learning process, but I believe this time will be my best grow yet.
 
Grow #1: It was a single plant that was absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately, I misunderstood how nitrogen worked for plants, and sprayed the plant down with a mixture of water and nitrogen rich chems. You probably already know that the plant burned to a crisp. 45 days down the drain.
 
Grow #2: I managed to grow 4 beautiful females, but harvested prematurely, and the buds weren't as potent as I would've liked. Lesson learned. This was also 100% chemical grow.
 
Grow #3: Managed to save seeds from 2 unknown strains that I liked. I grew 3 males and 3 females. I killed 2 of the males and put 1 in a separate room with 1 of the females so I could get hybrid seeds, and I got a ton of them. Roughly 500+. I actually shook the male over the female and there was almost no bud on the female plant when it was done. Those are the seeds I'll be using for Grow #4. This grow was 100% organic.
 
Let's Get Down To Business
 
Grow #4: I haven't grown anything in about a year, so I'm excited to get back to it. I've spent the last few days reading about new techniques, and I think I'm ready to mix my soil finally. This grow is going to be 50% organic and 50% chems. Here are the stats:
 
Plants: Unknown hybrid strain. 4 plants total.
 
Lighting: 250w HPS/HID & Sunlight (I have a huge window facing my back yard and a 10ft high wall, so neighbors can't see in. It faces directly West, so as the sun starts its course to set, that window gets several hours of full sunlight.)
 
Pots: 1/2 gallon. I debated between using 5 gallon, 3 gallon, 1 gallon, or party cups. I decided 1/2 gallon containers would be sufficient for the amount of artificial lighting I have.
 
Soil: The soil will consist of worm castings, blood meal, kelp meal, bat guano, Scott's All Purpose Flower and Plant Food, Epsom Salt, and myccorhizae.
 
Watering: All of the water will be aerated with a fishtank pump. The additions to the water will be molasses, worm castings, Ginormous, Vitamin B1 Plant Starter, Alaska Morbloom (made with fish), Bud Candy, Liquinox Iron and Zinc, Miracle Grow Liquafeed, and Superthrive.
 
I'm well aware of burning possibilities, so I'm going to be extra careful and start with small amounts of chems and slowly increase the concentration as the plants grow.
 
Spray: Aerated water & worm castings. I plan to spray the plants down every other day with this mixture since it won't burn them. Not sure how much it will help, but I did it during Grow #3 and it seemed to help.
 
Ventilation: The room is very well ventilated and all of my neighbors in the cul de sac smoke (seriously, everyone of them). We all just walk outside and smoke because we all know that nobody cares. It's fuckin awesome. I'm not going to tell any of them about my grow, but needless to say, they probably won't notice due to their own smoke being more potent.
 
Well I'm off to start setting up. I'll be back later with pics to post.

 

Yesterday, I spent the day going through storage and rounding up everything I need, since I hadn't used it in a while. I also picked out a few of the hybrid seeds I have and started the germination process using a wet paper towel.
 
The first thing I did was set up the 5 gallon bucket, fill it with water and Vitamin B1 Plant Starter, and get it bubbling with the air stone.
 

 
After that, I went ahead and cleared out some space in front of the window so the plants can get sunlight during the day. You can see what I mean by how much light comes through and that's only at 11:22am. The sun doesn't hit that side of the house full blast until noon or later.
 

 
I plan to get my soiled ready today so I can get started as soon as the seeds germinate. I'll be back with more updates and pics as I make progresss.

 

Finally got up and mixed my soil. I also made a few small changes for the time being:
 

1. I didn't add bat guano, but I will when I transplant for flowering.\t
2. I added wood chips.

First I mixed everything up in a 3 gallong bucket:
 

 
After mixing the soil, I transferred it to 4 smaller pots and wet it with the aerated water.
 

 

I'm currently "cooking" my soil. I want to let it cook at least a week, maybe 2 before I start planting anything. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to chime in.

 

Day 3
 
It took about a week, but I finally got one of the seeds to pop. Not sure if its gonna be male or female but I'm gonna grow it. Also it took me 2 days to get it under the light, because I didn't have everything set up just yet. I had it in the window until I managed to get my light hung up today.
 
Also plan to add Afrodite, BCN Diesel, and Blueberry to my grow.
 

 

Figured I'd do a quick update. The plant is a no go. I thought it might be too weak and I was right. After a few days under the light, the true leaves didn't even exist. I kept looking for any sign that they might come out, but nothing, so I'm scrapping it.
 
NEW STRAINS COMING: I went ahead and placed an order with The Vault, and my new strains should be arriving soon. I'll be growing 4 plants total.
 

• Afrodite
• BCN Diesel
• Blueberry
• Special Kush #1

My grow tent gets here today as well, so this should be a decent grow.
 
The seed thing set me back a little, but on the up side, my soil has had plenty of time to cook.

 

Still waiting on my seeds, but in the meantime I grabbed an 1/8 of Sour Headband and found a single seed. Hopefully its female. I watched a video about telling the sex of a seed and if its true, then its a female seed. Guess I'll just have to wait and see.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8pjptNTff8
 
Also took some time to setup Scrog in my grow tent. Here are the results.
 

 

Here's a pic of my Sour Headband Germination.
 

 

Took a few minutes and poured the soil out of my 1 gallon pots into this 14 gallon storage container. It's not full, but I'm guessing its about 10 - 12 gallons of soil.
 
I still need to wrap it in duct tape to keep the light off the roots, since its clear, but other than that, I'll be planting the Sour Headband seed tomorrow, and hopefully its female.
 

 

OK, here's an update on my Afrodite. These pics are from Day 1. I accidentally cooked my Sour Headband seed, because I made some changes to the soil and didn't expect it to start cooking again. O well. Live and learn.
 
Day 1
 

 

 

Here are some pics from Day 7 of my Afrodite.
 
MISTAKE: I made a stupid mistake and didn't get all of the water off of my leaves, so I had a little bit of burning from the light. Ironically, this is my 4th grow and the first time I've done this. I just got a little careless.
 
Day 7
 

 

 

Here's an update for everyone.


1) I decided to take a soil sample. Here is a pic of the results. The package recommends holding it up to the light for the best reading, but I had to set them in the soil to take the pic. The results are actually a little bit lighter than they appear in the pic.





2) I added 32oz of molasses/water mix to my ACT. I guess we'll see if it helps are not. Here's a pic of the mix.





3) I just transplanted my girl into the 14 gallon storage bin. I bought a new one because I didn't feel like duct taping the old see through bin I had. Here are before and after pics.


Day 14 - Before Transplant





Day 14 - After Transplant

 

Quick Updates: There were a few changes made when I started over that I forgot to mention. Here's what I changed.


1) Soil Mix - It is 100% organic. I decided not to add any chemicals at all. The new mix consists of the following:

• Peat Moss
• Perlite
• Vermiculite
• Worm Castings
• Bat Guano
• Bone Meal
• Blood Meal
• Kelp Meal
• Mycorrhizae
• Epsom Salt

2) Watering - I'm using ACT + Molasses. The tea has been brewing for about 2 months now. The air pump runs 24/7 so the water is good and oxygenated.


3) Temps and Humidity - I added a wireless thermometer inside of the tent. My temps are as follows:

• Lights Off: 79 - 82 degrees. 24% - 34% humidity.
• Lights On: 85 - 91 degrees. 16% - 22% humidity.

 

Humidity is the one thing I've been working on the most. Yesterday, I managed to get the lights on humidity up to 24%. That's only a 2% increase, but I'll keep working on it so that my next grow will be better. I'll post Day 21 pics tomorrow morning some time.