First Closet Grow - Northern Lights Auto Fem

Discussion in 'First Time Marijuana Growers' started by Conlin, Sep 25, 2015.

  1. Hey everyone. I've been looking around GC for a lot of help and figured I would give back to the community a little bit if anybody finds this interesting. Although a little late in the process, I decided I would like to share my first experience of growing cannabis with a newbie journal.
    I am currently 6 weeks in from seed on my Northern Lights Autoflower grow. This is probably a super average first grow so I do apologize if it's nothing cool. I just wanted to do something different and fun that got me connected with nature.


    Where it all began: I was pulling a random all-nighter and somehow came across the idea of growing some marijuana. After a bit of research, I decided it was time to take action. I came across Bonza seed bank and ordered three Vision Seeds Northern Lights Automatic Feminized seeds, as I figured they would be a good learning experience for a beginner while still producing some crop. I'm very happy with the service the site gave me, got my seeds about a week later in an awesome package.


    The purchases: Money was tight when I started this grow, so I decided to try and make a cheap yet efficient system. These are the things I bought:

    -3x beans, $40 (guaranteed shipping is expensive, but worth)
    -6x light fixtures w/ cords, $20
    -3x (2 gallons or something?) plant pots, $15
    -6x 23w cool spectrum CFLs, $10
    -6x 23w warm spectrum CFLs, $10
    -Timer switch, $5
    -Miracle Gro Moisture Control Potting Mix, $10 (I'm seeing a lot of things saying Miracle Gro is really bad for plants... Oops... It's all I have access to really. Hopefully I can get something like Fox Farms in the future, but Walmart doesn't have the goods, man.)
    -Did I miss anything? I spent around a total of $70 for this set up I guess.


    The grow room preparations: My closet has a built in dresser with some table space above, which is where my two plants are resting. Above the plants is a shelf where I'm holding all the cords and junk (and I just started another plant up there, non-auto, so I put the autos on 24 hour light and gave this little guy the timer set to 18/6).

    I had some scrap foam board<span style="position: absolute;"> laying around from some promotional thing. They're Star Wars posters. I basically just built a wall out of the stuff, and with intuitive <span class="skimwords-potential">duct tape</span> use, I made a door that I can swing open and shut. I put up flat white printer paper on the walls for reflection. My closet is equipped with hooks that I'm using to suspend the CFLs over the plants. I have a fan facing down at the two plants.</span>

    IMG_0011.JPG IMG_0010.JPG




    Here we are now: <span class="redactor-invisible-space">I germinated two of these seeds using the paper towel<span style="position: absolute;"> method between two plates, and when they sprouted I put them directly into the growing medium and watered them. 6 weeks later, I think one is growing pretty good and the other seems to have some seriously stunted growth.
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    <span class="redactor-invisible-space">Aside from that, I do have some problems. I have some of my leaves curling down on the small plant, and both plants are showing signs of rusting leaf tips. They seemed to have both slowed down a bit with the growing, so I'm a little bit spooked. I'm pretty sure they are just getting ready for a growth spurt though ( I hope!).</span>
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    <span class="redactor-invisible-space">Smaller one at 6 weeks: IMG_0012.JPG </span>Bigger one at 6 weeks: IMG_0015.JPG
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    <span class="redactor-invisible-space">I'll start logging plant progress once a week up until they get all cut up.</span>
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    <span class="redactor-invisible-space">Please feel free to give questions, comments, suggestions, etc. Did I miss something? Any tips for my little rust problem/ the dwarf plant? Thanks. </span>
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    <span class="redactor-invisible-space">I'm really happy to be able to try out this fun and exciting past-time. I have no idea what to expect out of these plants, as no amount of research can substitute for real life experience. Though I hope these babies DO turn out to be more than just a learning experience, if ya know what I mean ;-)</span>
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  2. #2 PNWClosetGrower, Sep 25, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 25, 2015
    It's probably just the miracle grow, not one person but almost everyone says to stay away from that for cannabis. I've seen people pull off miracle grow just watch the nutrients if you add any it's probably going to be kicking out too much for the plants whole life, at least i think that's what they're getting at when they say stay away from it. it looks like a gnarly nutrient burn to me on the left one, maybe heat and light burns. Why is the fan blowing top down? Won't that pull the hot air from the top of the box and push it down to the plants? You should have it blowing sideways across the plants and soil to move them a bit and strengthen them up and have one at the top blowing out of the box exhausting heat, exhaust is important for fresh air too not just heat.. Can't see the whole box interior or exterior so sorry if i don't see something, just trying to help out where i can in my infinite noobness. [​IMG]
     
  3. Yeah I'm going to agree with you on throwing Miracle Gro under the bus, as that seems to be the general consensus. I'm doing this without nutes because I heard MG beats the plant to death with them already. Hopefully on my next grow I'll be able to find something better from a local store. I did at first have the fan blowing sideways but it soon got in the way and became inconvenient. You are right though, It's really a bit pointless having it up there now that I think about it. Unfortunately I don't have an exhaust fan, as I didn't think it was needed for CFLs, but I definitely can feel a bit of heat when I go in there.


    I'll try my best to make adjustments. Thanks for the awesome feedback!
     
  4. Try cutting your soil with a little peat moss or perlite. Should thin that miracle grow out. It's cheap and check out feed stores. They are very reasonable. Good luck
     
  5. You're right it is nute burn.


    To the OP, Miracle Grow has time release nutrients. Meaning after a certain stage of life more nutes wash into the mix of the plant, making it get sudden surges of nutes. So feeding is an extreme hazard. With that much nutrients your plants are going to be a little stunted, i would transplant into a promix, bio, fox farm sort of mix before flowering just to give their little stressed out leaves a break. Will also get you back on track for being stunted. If you don't they might stay that size for awhile and the flowers won't do much.


    It looks like you might be out of room for transplanting right now, so just watch your feeding. And flush between every watering.
     
  6. Thanks for the enlightenment, Jay. I'm going to really look into a different soil mix. When you say I've run out of room for transplanting, do you mean because it would cause too much stress on the plant, and I should just let things play out with what I have? I just flushed for the first time yesterday because I figured it was nute burn... Though hopefully that doesn't lead to overwater issues.
     
  7. Well guys. A week later and the plants appear to be dying a painful death. The nutrient burn got extremely intense in just a couple days, and there was no recovery. All of the leaves started wilting, and now both plants appear to be just hanging on to life. I think it might be time to just let these ones go. If there's one thing I learned from this, it's NEVER USE MIRACLE GROW.
     
  8. My first was in some MC organic shit. On top of me overwatering, not adding perlite, and ultimately finding it to be a male, I learned so much I could hardly look at the experience as a waste.

    My next grow in ocean forest is seeming to be a success so far. It's actually amazing how resilient these plants are. Trust me, you've learned a lot more than you could have by just reading about it.

    http://forum.grasscity.com/index.php?/topic/1383387-2-Bagseed-Northern-Lights-Auto-250w-CFL
     
  9. Miracle NO..
     
  10. I use a mix of 1.5 parts ocean forest, 1 part black gold, 1 part perlite and 3/4 parts coco-coir and i'm getting really pretty not bad results with that mix. They do seem to like the mixture. I've been through over watering and some major ph issues that were all my fault and even some gnats but they still keep truckin. 2 weeks 1 day into flower.
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