My 1st grow!

So guys. I have been growing 4 beauties for about a month now. This is my first serious grow!!! They are doing okay, but i definitely need a little advice!

First off, my set up is (2) 100 watt flourescent lights, (1) 75 Watt flourescent shop light and I have a small fan blowing slightly on them. I just recently put them in bigger buckets for their final medium. They each have around their 4th set of leaves. The lights are within 3 inches of the plants, except for the weathered plant (the last picture), which its about 4 or 5 inches away incase it was heat causing it to curl up. The lighting schedule that I have been doing since germination is 18/6, on/off. I mist them once a day, but do a heavy watering once or twice a week.

Now, I have been strictly using just water and soil. I havent bought or used any kind of nutrients yet, mainly cause I dont know when or what product to use. My question is when should I start feeding these babies? Ive been thinking ALOT about using Fox Farm products, since that seems to be a 5* product!

Secondly... I am trying to not have HUGE plants in my closet, simply for the fact of security reasons. Now I have seen some plants on here that are only a cpl of feet tall and are budding... how could I approach that? And whats the absolute quickest process to put it into flowering stage?

I know I have ALOT of questions, but I know my basics, I am like a sponge right now for information! =]

Edited by JoeyVeeDub, 28 February 2011 - 06:14 AM.
Changed to a grow journal!

product selection is a personal opinion on how you plan to use them... some prefer easy a and b nutes, others use complex solutions to nutes like the advanced line... just pic one and do some research... asking which one is best is like asking which color of blue is best... only the eye of the beholder knows which one is best

once the third set of leaves are out you start with a 25% solution of nutrients and work up from there on about a week to week basis based on how the plant responds to them...

comeon guys I need some INFO and help!!!

you need light. you have roughly 100watts. u need at least 250 to have healthy good looking plants. i would add 3 times the light you have there.

For a month of veg the plants should be over a foot tall at that point. The lack of light is the reason they arnt growing.

foxfarm has great products. Get everything, and not just tiger bloom or grow big. it will help in the long run of things.

Evil

Do u no wat type of plant u are growing? it helps me cuse ive had a wonder woman crop look like that after a month of 18/6 and then i ive had a big bud crop 4 times that size of that in the same cycle. let me no wat ur growing please m8

Since everyone has pretty much addressed the lights and nutess, I'll just say this... There are a couple of ways to achieve smaller plants, the first being just to simply put them into flower at a smaller size. They will typicly double in size durring flower. Some will tripple. You can also use a smaller container, the general thought on this is that you get 1' of plant per gallon of soil. However you still need to flower quickly or risk the plant becoming rootbound. Also the 1 foot per gal thing like alot of the "rules" is more of a guidline than a rule. I have seen 2 foot plants in 1 gal containers that are not rootbound and 3 foot plants in 3 gal containers that are.
Hope this helps. Good luck!

well the plants that I am growing are just some bag seeds from some pretty dank K that my boy had. There was a cpl of seeds in his Oscar.... as far as the lights go, I am using more than a 100 watts. Each light is 100 Watts and The shop light is 75 watts. Altogether I have 275 watts.

These plants might I add, were on the verge of dying their 2nd week in veg and I was able to revive them. That could be the reason they are goin slow right?

Is it possible to get them into flowering mode in like 3 weeks? And how exactly would I put them into flowering? Would I just switch to 12/12?

After this grow, I plan on doing another round, since I will have the right things starting out, and will have more knowledge.... but I really hope this things will be able to grow. Im possibly getting another couple of 100 watt lights within the next couple of days.

I will update in a couple of hours with some better up to date pictures.

THANKS GUYS!

It is possible to flower in 3 weeks. I would look into adding some nutes, thats probably as much a reason for the slow growth as the problems you had. Also bear in mind that plants need diffrent nutes for veg and flower. To switch to flower, you just change your light scedule to 12/12.

so I can only afford one bottle at a time, what should I get? I have been hearing alot about Fox Farm products, so should I get big bloom and tiger flower?

Also here's a update with better pictures. These were taken with an Android phone so they are better then the last ones.
The pictures were taken from bottom left, to right, to top left, to right. So you know which plant is which in the group pictures.

Also I included a picture of them after a week and a half before I screwed them up and then revived them.

Edited by JoeyVeeDub, 01 March 2011 - 04:31 AM.

also get a fan blowing on them.

Are you using the actual watts or equivalent? I think you might need more light and you can begin to flower whenever you want some people flower right from the get go, all you need to do switch the lights to 12/12. Good luck bro.

~Blizz

I have a fan blowing on them, but not RIGHT on them. Thats how I ended up with the weathered plant. So I have the fan pointed so the air bounces off a wall and lightly hits the plants.

the box just says 100 watt flourescent light... nothing about equivalent.

and if thats the case about the flowering, do i absolutely need nutes or can I do a simple water and soil grow?

get the model number of the light bulbs your using... post em up...

yes you can just use soil and water... but it wont be the best plant you can grow...

ex, yes you can live on cokes and mcdonalds for your life, would you want to? spend 20 bucks and get at a bare minimum some general hydroponics line of nutrients.. they even came out with a new line that is ONE bottle.. maybe even cheaper than 20... cut their dosage in half and you'll save some cash and still have a better plant

Looks like a normal cfl, probably 100w equivalent which is 26w if im not mistaken. Look at the package the bulb came in, there should be 2 numbers. Actual wattage - small number and Equivalent - Big number. If they are 26w just get a couple more. Your goal is 100w for the first plant and 50w for each additional plant minimum.

awesome. So what I am most likely going to do is get a couple of the y connectors, and get a couple more of these 100 wattages and I am looking at a place called Ubran Sunshine here in Orlando, and they carry a BUNCH of great products. Im just not sure if I wanna use Fox Farm or General Hydroponics.

So hopefully by friday or monday, I should have a bottle of nutes and some extra lights. What should I get as far as the nutes? Do I want just big bloom, or grow big? or what?

so I check on the girls today, and they are really really stinky!!! haha. I rubbed the stem and 2 of them are really funky smelling. So I was wondering, if I should put the 2 of them into flowering? I dont have the nutes yet, but is it okay for me to put them into flowering?

Thats up to u, i seen the size of them and if you want more off the plant id leave them 1 more week then flower, but like i said if your happy and you just want to smoke it and not sell it, you can put in to flower and youl still get a nice amount to smoke when ready, cheers:smoke:

just make sure u get that bloom in there as soon as you can afford it!

well I was definitely deciding weather or not to wait a week for flowering and I am going to. So in a week I will switch them to flowering stage. Should I give them a night of complete darkness and then switch to 12/12?

Also my girl bought Expert Gardener All Purpose/Water Soluble Plant Food for her garden and I was just curious if I could use this for my plants during flowering?

++INFO++ (back of box)

Expert Gardener All Purpose Water Soluble Plant Food 15-30-15
Total Nitrogen ---- 15%
5.7% Ammoniacal Nitrogen
9.3% Urea Nitrogen
Available Phosphate (P2O5)---- 30%
Soluble Potash (K2O)---- 15%
Boron ( ---- 0.02%
Copper (Cu) ---- 0.07%
Iron (Fe) ---- 0.15%
Manganese (Mn) (TOTAL) ---- 0.05%
Molybdenum (Mo) ---- 0.0005%
Zinc (Zn) ---- 0.06%

Now I posted this so you guys would know what it was and what is in it. I read that I can use these are tomatoes, and I hear they grow the same.

So what do you guys think? Should I give it a shot and see how they respond? OR should I use it on only ONE plant and see how it reacts??

Also did I add that they are smelling really funky right now!!

Edited by JoeyVeeDub, 04 March 2011 - 08:35 AM.

i cant tell u cuse ive never used it, but id try it on 1 plant see how it goes but seriously u wana get sum top quality bloom (ionic) it isnt that expensive. goodluck!