i keep tabs on drivenone's grow http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-grow-journals/582185-drivenone-has-grow.html this grow is currently inspiring me to try an outdoor grow. definately next year, this year if i can find a good spot or get some beans for short plants. i took a walk this morning in a forest preserve area nearby with my oldest looking for a good spot to drop some guerilla girls. nothing jumped out at me as being very good for a full size bush, but theres a couple spots a short plant would do well. im going to continue to watch this area. i can see from the local growth where the good sun spots are, but i didnt see anything hidden, maybe this local growth with get taller, another reason to continue checking it out. there's a geocashe at one end of the park i should probably do so ive got an excuse to be wandering around with my gps in hand. also continued to put money back into the local economy and picked up some odds and ends including lime. i wonder if the big box home improvement stores will carry more stuff for marijuana growing if it becomes legal. hydro kits at home depot? after doing more research it seems the lime really is what im missing in my mix. ill probably get around to mixing up some new stuff in a couple days. im tempted to start germing more seeds now. i really question if the current plants will survive. decisions decisions. for the first time my wife pointed out i cant have my oldest see the plants im growing. it's pretty sad. theres so many opportunities to learn and share time together growing, but i cant have him talking about the plants his daddy grows in the basement.
so the 2 sprouts i started with are done. ive got 2 more germing using the same method as before. i cooked up another batch of soil but added lime to the mix. i filled up a new pot and watered with 6.8 ph distilled. runoff was 4.8. /facepalm im pretty annoyed. im done playing around for now. im going to line up some FFOF and perlite and start testing ph of each material individually and mix up something thats not going to burn the sprouts. i took my oldest out on another hike this morning at a different park i checked out on google maps. we were only able to confirm the river is impassible before we got rained on. this new spot looks very promising. ill have to swing by the grow area i have in mind to see if theres any sign of people traffic, there really shouldnt be. the map makes it look like it might be a hike. im thinking about picking up the jock horror autos just to compare to what im trying to grow inside.
Sorry to hear about the setbacks man. That shit is very discouraging. Hey, if you can find an outdoor area that is safe to grow I say go for it. One thing to keep in mind though is that there isnt any guarantee that this area will have the right soil for pot as a set up in home would. As far as hiding things from the kids go, you can build a stealth set up that they would not have a clue about. I just had 10 people at my house for memorial day and none of them were the wiser as to what was going on right next to them. It can be done. Fox Farm Ocean Forest is a no brainer for good soil from start to finish and I have no doubts that you can figure out the rest. My opinion, for what its worth, is to keep the grow indoors. Peace brotha, and good luck.
high and curious. i took samples of the mg soil, the earthworm castings, the new soil i just mixed, the soil i just mixed thats been watered with 6.8 ph water, and the soil from the last attempt and mixed each one with 5 parts 6.8 ph water and checked the ph. the soils are coming up with ph from 5.84 to 6.11. makes sense the runoff is in the gutter. looks like fox farms soil is in my future.
Sorry to throw confusion into this whole thing but although I do understand how important PH is, I have never checked the run off water from my pot's, never checked the PH of the soil when starting and on top of that, I buy the cheapest soil available that I can find, I buy 40litre of soil for £3, that's like $5.40, and it already has slow release nutes in em. The only thing that I make sure of is that the water with or without nutes is constantly between 6.0 and 6.2. Also during my grow, I do a total of 4 flushes minus the end flush. I have never had a PH problem, my leaves are beautiful green all the time (except for maybe when they get light burn) and although I know PH is an important factor, I think maybe you should investigate your entire grow environment and try to find out what else (if any) caused the death. It could have been humidity, if your RH was very low, with your seedlings being so young, that could have been the problem or maybe something else. All I'm saying is don't put all your eggs in one basket and go for the PH route, yes it's very possible PH could have been the culprit but what if it wasn't??? I've never added lime to my medium either (although I hear it works wonder's). Sad news about the other 2, they looked very promising, but all that said and done, all I can say is on your next attempt, just keep it simple. Don't overthink things and handle problem's as they occur. Plan ahead and dn't plan while your going, if you fail to plan your grow, your basically planning to fail on your grow and don't get headache's or fuss over them too much, they are plants and they grow naturally and have been for many years without human interferance, so just leave em to do what they do. I hope your next run is a success and of course, I'll be following
my 3 year old is growing kick ass beans from sesame street seeds and generic dirt. its embarrassing. as far as im aware, my temps and RH are within range. ph was the only thing i ignored in the grow. new beans are cooking. if they're like the last 2 they'll have popped and will be in soil tomorrow morning. i picked up some fox farms light warrior, watered and ph checked it up and down, hopefully these will make it a little longer. i took some time to really explore the spot i saw for an outdoor grow. its f'ing amazing. theres no reason to go back there except to go explore and its not easy going. its gonna be a jungle soon. theres a couple openings that look like they'll get most of the days sun. the river runs super close and theres dense trees/vegetation blocking view from the easily accessed part of the park. my only complaint is going to be making regular trips to visit them to water. i was soaked up to my knees and covered in bug bites even with deep woods off on. hiking in and out has me rethinking things.
beans went in the dirt yesterday as expected. they should be above ground tomorrow i think. my wife and i are considering a vacation soon. what cities/states have decriminalized/legalized pot to a point where i can get a good selection and no hassle? i dont want to look for it, i want it immediately available. any place like that? ill happily spend my tourism money there. continental 48 pref. id consider canada, but thered have to be decent weather in september.
ok. so things are looking like im back to growing. another week and this will look like nothing ever happened. new beans, new dirt, new potters. looks like we're right on track.
Ok ok heavy lets see if round 2 turns out better m8 and guess what i dont even bother with ph kits monitors or the pens ha i just hope n pray that they dont die, i might buy them for my 3rd grow see if it grows faster.. crossing my fingers this time for ya heavy!!! loving the grow cab though! big props
thanks for the encouragement. kinda just been waiting for these plants to catch up to where i left off. for better and worst, im there. i finally got around to installing a RO water system in the kitchen. my wife had been asking for something better than a filter on the faucet for awhile. seems ive got good water for growing without a trip to the store now. id like to share that all this paying attention to plants has me looking at all kinds of plants i see now. its a real trip the shit you notice when you slow down a bit. so these are 11 days old according to my previous sprout pictures. one appears just fine, the other seems to be having issues. i need to read the sick plants threads again.
I hear what your saying about noticing other plants lol! Sometimes I catch myself talking to people I know about their plants and about the importance of watering and good fertilizer and then I realize that I need to shut the hell up because they know I don't "know" anything about plants. Lol. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. As for your plant that looks a little droopy, what was the PH of your last runoff? When did you last water? A forum member on here by the name of Alatar taught me something very important about RO water. The quote is my question to him when I was perplexed by how high my PH was coming out of the RO. My tap water is about 8.5 and after my RO, it was 8.0. I thought it should be much lower: \t \t\t \t\t Nothing. Your pH meter is lying to you. But it's not its fault. You have asked it to do something that it cannot do. RO and distilled water have a theoretical pH of 7.0, but they do not have an actual pH that can be recorded by a meter. The pH is provided by the dissolved solids, and your very, very pure water does not have enough solids to do the job. Pure water also does not act as a pH buffer. It will jump to the pH of whatever solids are first dissolved into it. I'm guessing the trace 25 ppm has a pH of 8.0. Once solids are introduced to the RO water, it will function as a pH buffer and it will give up a valid reading, but at that point it is no longer RO water. It has dissolved solids. It is impure. You can treat RO water as if it has a pH of 7.0. Whatever reading it actually surrenders is inconsequential because its total dissolved solids is inconsequential. \t\t \t\t\t\t__________________ Anyway, perhaps this tidbit of info will help you in some way. Good luck! *EDIT* Looks like Fox Farm Light Warrior doesnt have any nutes in it. Are you giving nutes now to supplement or do you plan on transplanting into Ocean Forest or some other soil w/ nutrients?
i have to admit, i lol'd at this. i couldnt help but think about it and stopped by the hydro store on my way home from work today. sure enough, even the bag says you gotta feed them within 5 days. doh! im reading the bag again and im noticing it says to feed them with Big Bloom. I picked up Grow Big somehow. either way, i watered both with ph adjusted water and 1/2 tsp Grow Big. we'll see what happens. i guess another trip for the Big Bloom is in order. is there an organic/natural ph up i can use? at some point id like to go completely organic. as for the droopy one, the only thing i could figure was that the propagation mat had a hotspot. last time around, the right plant drooped first. i pulled the mat out a couple days after is started looking funny. hopefully its just hungry.
the healthy plant is looking super good since yesterday. even the droopy plant perked up since yesterdays feeding. +rep to zerostar for kindly pointing out my nubery
Thanks for the rep heavy. Im glad we caught the most likely problem before things got real bad. Remember to only feed every other watering while in veg. You don't want salts to build up in your soil and cause lockout.
mmm, ive got a seemingly endless supply of cupcakes currently there's an interesting curl to the edge of the leaves. a little burning? on the lower leaf tips. i expected yellowing if it were from over feeding. not sure what to make of it. they seem to be doing well.
Hmmm. Its so hard to tell with seedlings. Keep an eye on the new growth to make sure that it doesnt follow after the signs of the old growth. Most likely the old growth is just exhibiting signs of the damage that has been done. They don't always bounce back after the damage. No worries. Again, just closely monitor the new growth. *Edit* And by 'they' I mean the old growth.
growth since the last feeding has been fun to watch. always something new. Gave them big bloom this time around. the left plant seems a little more sensitive, new nute burn since feeding.