Hey guys nice to meet you all, spent a few weeks doing some research before i went out and gathered my supplies so here are my specifications and set up. I am using a small closet grow tent (It's a re-purposed closet organizer but I get good discounts where I work!) My light set up so far consists of: x2 CFL 55w 3,800 lumen 2700k spectrum x4 CFL 23w 1,600 lumen 5000k spectrum (that's the ACTUAL wattage not the "equivalent") I purchased some reflective material at home depot, guy said it was mylar but I'm pretty sure it's just a type of insulator, which is a good thing anyways because it gets cold in Oregon. It mostly helps to just reflect a little more light. My soil mix consists of some Black Gold Organic Potting Soil, Coco Coir and a little extra Perlite. I decided to go with some hard fertilizer spikes one of my friends uses to good results, ratio is 10-10-4. Using plain old 5g nursery buckets. I've some modest gardening experience so I'm going to try and see if i can train my first two plants to get more use out of my grow space. I have a lot of friends who grow so i should have emergency help if anything seriously stupid happens. All I'm waiting for are some seeds or plants, whichever comes first. Anyways, I'd be happy to receive opinions and any words of advice on this journey im about to start and during the journey as well.
Is that organizer lined on the inside? If not, you're going to run into issues when you flip the lights for flower because it will allow light in. Something to think about. One other thing I see that you might consider with your next plants/seeds is to start them in Solo cups. By confining the space that the seedling has to root into, you speed up the foliage growth. The more area (larger pot) they have to get rooted into, the longer it's going to take before you see foliage start to grow and then it will grow very slowly until the plant has gotten sufficiently rooted in. So, don't think they're not doing anything or that something is wrong because it takes them a little longer than you expect to get growing good. Next time, start them in Solo cups. It generally takes about 9 or 10 days for mine to get as wide and tall as the cup...which tells me it's time to pot them up to a 1 gallon pot. In the 1 gallon pot, it's about the same length of time before I go into 3 gallon pots, etc. By potting them up as size requires, you have them in fresh soil for a great part of the time and your plants don't require nutes since there is still good nutrition in the soil. Nutes are meant to be started once the plant has had time to use up the ones that come naturally in the soil. Most start nutes way too early and use WAY too much. Also, you need to be managing the pH of water/feed solution for your plants to a range of 6.3 to 6.7. Not adjusting to the proper pH range will eventually lock up the roots of your plants and they can't take in nutrition and will become sickly. You could throw in some more of the CFLs in the proper spectrum too. You can't get too much light around those plants and you want to get them as big and healthy as you can before flower. CFLs grow very light and arid buds, so when it does come time for flower, you need to put as many lights in there around those plants as you can. I really don't think you have enough room in that organizer to flower 4 plants. You might consider cutting it back and only doing 2 so you have enough room to deal with them. Even if you try and train them, you're still going to run out of space and end up with severe shading on some part of the plants. You can harvest more off 1 plant that has the optimum conditions than you can by crowding 4 into the same space. Read on the new grower threads here for more on the basics of soil growing. One more thing...you can toss that Coco. If you're not growing hydro, it serves little purpose. Good soil and a healthy dose of perlite 60/40 (soil/perlite) will provide just what the plant needs. Good luck. Hope all goes well. TWW
Hey thanks for the reply and eyes of wisdom! No plants yet, but i will go get some more nursery pots today then so i can slowly size up. I have some small solo cup sized "seedling" pots and those jiffy peat pellets for seeds. The actual tent material is pretty thin but its in the closet so i can close the doors to make sure no more light gets in. I also figured that by the time im ready to flower my first plant ill have more lights or a nice LED fixture. As far as the PH I've got a small hand held reader so i can keep an eye on it, right now the PH is around 6.5 which like you mentioned is best for absorbing most of the nutrients. Speaking of nutrients thank for giving me a heads up, i was afraid it wouldn't have enough nutes for them. I probably would've over dosed them with food if you hadn't told em that. So is Coco Coir completely useless for soil grows in your opinion? OH and im not going to grow all 4 at once, the right side has a couple shelf so i can have some seedlings or very small cuttings ready for the next grow. Still have to pickup a small fan for circulation, im afraid it will get too warm in there.
[UPDATE] So, just got back home from some errands, stooped by the dispensary on the way home and picked up a clone, strain is LSD, a hybrid. Pictures will follow this post, I feel like maybe they over watered the plants a little too much at the dispensary because the leaves looked a little more dark and droopy than most pictures. Either way the plant is just chilling now, everything seems fine other than the water. In the pictures 4 lights are turned on but my friend suggested cutting back on the light for now since its still young and just got transplanted so its currently running on two lights. He seemed very certain that if i ran all 4 lights at the moment that it would kill the plant within a few days. I had the opposite idea and i thought it would need more light? If anyone can validate or debunk his statement would give me a little more certainty.
First weekly update. Temps running around 77, going to turn fan setting to high and see if it can lower the temp just out of curiosity. BOOM!!! Pretty sure I see a little bit of new growth on the pilot plant! Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Plant is responding well to LST, Ive got its main stem growing at a soft angle and the top is already facing back up towards the light after 1 day. Also I rearranged the lights i think the plant will receive light better now. Humidity keeps dropping to mid 30's does anyone have any ideas on how to keep it higher? Also here is a picture of the lights now. Tell me what you guys think?
Well Ladies and Gentlemen. We are doing very well so far Plant growing fine, gonna try a tea tomorrow and other than that next update next week and here's a picture of the beauty. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum mobile app
So I blame my stores garden associate and his advice for the tea. If I wasn't upgrading my setup in a couple weeks I wouldn't know what to do. Two weeks I'll have a large garage setup going. 37% relative humidity 73 degrees and all is growing well. Leaves reached up and one of them get scorched on the tip, gonna prune it up some me today and see if I can't get any of the cuttings to root. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Just mid week update with some pictures for you guys. This thing is taking off, the main stem in the picture is actually to the left there, the stem to the right is actually just one of the lower branches. I tried to root a couple cuttings I took a couple weeks ago, they were both off to a rough start. One is doing much better now and is growing. I know the other one put out some roots buy I'm not sure if it will make it. Got 6 more I just put down in some peat pellets inside a humidity some. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Hey everyone and anyone, just noticed some of these growths, can anyone confirm my suspicion that this plant is starting to preflower? Or are these just small leaves coming in? Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Alright, couple days off schedule, been busy and lots of stuff been happening, changed the title of the thread now that I've got some new equipment and a better setup. Upgraded to a 600w HPS for flowering and have a tent set up in my garage. Now I can place plants in the flowering tent when they are ready and harvest every few weeks. The temperature floats a steady 80-100 there is not much I can do during the summer until I can find a small AC. heres some picture progress for you guys. Strain is LSD for anybody who missed it, I'm going to get a Diesel strain and probably an MK Ultra clone in a couple more weeks. All the nutes I'm using are in the picture, if anybody is curious about my feeding process just ask. My very first plant grew almost a whole foot the first week I started new nutes haha.
Just an fyi black will absorb light white will reflect it. Sent from my SM-G925P using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Just an update. Temps rocking steady 60-80 all day/night RH around 34% Trimmed up the mother plant, just about all the fan leaves had to go, I think she is still doable, gonna finish flowering her out. The buds are still growing bigger so no reason to kill her when she wants to live. Take some pictures of the wee clones next week. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Asshole cat. But I love him This guys picks at leaves from half the plants in the house. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum mobile app
My cat wont eat the leaves but he loves the smell of the plants. Blow some smoke in his ear it kills parasites and gets him stoned some cats may not like it though. Sent from my SM-G925P using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Here guys!!! Some much needed eye candy for everyone <3 Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum mobile app
FINALLY!!! Much cheaper and lasts longer than pesticides. I put these in a small cage and keep them alive and use as needed for my plants Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Temperatures staying between 73-83. RH is at 29% and goes up or down 5% depending on what time of the day I mist. The largest of my clones the Indica on the right has grown quite a bit and the Sativa on the left has almost doubled. I'm training the Sativa tho so it's over sideways. Will post more pictures soon. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Got my seeds in from HerbiesHead shop. Some Blueberrycheesecake also received some free seeds 2 afghani reg and 1 dinafem Kush fem. gonna start germing some of those tomorrow evening. Lastly, the picture of my LSD is a couple days old, I spiked it with a nitrogen heavy watering and the thing freaking exploded a couple inches and went bright vibrant green, she looks sexy now. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum mobile app