I am growing for the very first time and I am psyched out of my gourd! I'll journal my babies all the way to the end. Grow Room size: 6'x3'x8' Equipment: 600W Earth Worth Gorilla Farmer grow light and ballast. In-Line exhaust fan mounted at the top of the grow room connected to 6" flexible ventilation tubing which exits outside. 42" oscillating tower fan. Sunleaves hygrometer/temperature gauge. Sunleaves surge protector. 1 gallon capacity humidifier. Rapitest pH tester. Watering can and spray bottle. 12-3 gallon pots filled with the following soil mixture... Growing medium: 40% Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil 40% Fox Farms Happy Frog soil 20% Perlite Nutrients Advanced Nutrients: Ancient Earth (veg and flowering) Advanced Nutrients: Iguana Juice-Grow+Bloom Advanced Nutrients: Mother Earth Super Tea-Grow+Bloom Advanced Nutrients: Bud Blood (flowering) Advanced Nutrients: Big Bud (flowering) [/U]Advanced Nutrients: Ancient Earth (veg and flowering) Advanced Nutrients: Big Bud (flowering) First grow seed selection: White Widow (5) Outlaw (5) Chemdawg (1) Afghan Kush Special (1) [these last two were freebies. They are similar in habit and flowering period as the White Widow and the Outlaw. Here's where I am at.... 9/21/2012 (Friday) Grow room completed and ready for plants. Seeds arrive in mail! Seeds are planted 1/4" deep in 4" plastic drinking cups filled with moistened growing medium. I sprayed the top of the soil after planting and covered each cup with plastic wrap and a rubber band. Then I put the cups on a tray and set it in the grow room under ordinary lighting conditions where I could monitor them. 9/23 One seedling pops the surface, followed by a bunch more over the next several hours. As seedlings emerge, they are uncovered and put on another tray under the grow light with maximum distance between seedlings and light. I give all my new seedlings a girl name to help keep track of issues that might occur with particular plants during their growth cycle. The unsprouted seedlings are kept just outside the grow room with their plastic covering still on as I monitor for their emergence. 9/24 The final seedling emerges. Now they are ready to sturdy them up over the next week or so before transplanting into their 3-gallon. Right now my babies are in the grow room soaking up the light and getting bigger and stronger. I'll post lot's of pics as soon as I get my camera up and running again. Casey J.
Thanks. I am a prolific picture taker so I'll get some pics up when I get my camera charger back this weekend.
I'm a little late, but here's my first "First Grow" update..... On Sept. 21st I finished up my grow room and got my weed seeds in the mail. 5-Outlaw, 5-White Widow, 1-Chemdawg, 1-Afhgan Kush Special. That evening I planted my seeds in 4oz. drinking cups. I used a FF soils blend and covered the cups with plastic wrap after spraying with water. Sept. 24th, nine seedlings emerge [In the nursery, each seedling is given a girl name] Sept. 25th, the final three emerge. White Widow=WW Outlaw=O Chemdawg=C Afghan Kush Special=AKS My girl's name's are... Sophie (WW), Shannon (WW), Opal (WW) Avery (WW), Iris (WW), Summer (O), Teela (O), Bonnie (O), Mila (O) Lindy (O), Betsy (C), Lexi (AKS) October 3rd, All seedlings transferred into their home 3-gallon pots using a very dilute solution of the Advanced Nutrients uptake nutrient, Ancient Earth. October 8th, WOW! All seedlings are now plants! Veg stage officially begins. Seven of the twelve are topped and all are fertilized using the Advanced Nutrients line. I am going organic! I made a weak fertilizer solution, for each gallon of water I added 10 drops of the AN Ancient Earth, 10 drops of the Iguana Juice-grow, and 10 drops of the Mother Earth Super Tea-grow. I only used 25% of the recommended amount because I have heard bad things about nutrient burn! I also made an even more dilute solution of the AE, IJ, and the MEST, to spray the foliage and especially the sites where I topped the plants. Everything looks great! All my girls are now relaxing under the 600W HPS grow light, temps upper eighties, humidity in the 50's. There are size discrepancies between my girls, and the White Widows are just going nuts. Bonnie (O), is the smallest of the bunch at around 4". The shorter ones have been raised on boards to get then to "canopy level".
nice, im curious to see how 12 plants turn out under a 600w. i was planning 4 - 6 (max) for my 600w probably stay at 4. veg 2 weeks flower for 8 ish giving me a harvest every 2 months. ill ride it out thought to see how this goes
I saw one dude's grow very similar to mine, 12 plants under a 600W and it looks like he had a fantastic grow. My biggest concern is keeping my grow room from becoming a wild jungle and my plants from stretching too much, but I have already begun the topping and manicuring bit, so as long as I keep on top of that I should be ok. I know that I'm not going to let my plants get any taller than 12" before flowering though. I'll keep you updated.
Here's an update and a few more pictures of my girls. Notice the size disparity between my largest and smallest plants. Sophie, like all of my White Widow's [except for Avery] is putting on some serious green. She is breaking 8", and I swear she was only 6" yesterday when I topped her! I think it's her fan leaves that are stretching upward. On the other hand, Bonnie (Outlaw) is the smallest plant, only half the size of Sophie. She looks much better today over yesterday when I fertilized her. Needless to say, I topped her today before taking her picture. She had three true branches then the terminal growth, so I'm OK with topping her while so short. Her inter-nodal length is pretty tight. I also topped the remainder of my plants as well. Overall, I am amazed at how frickin' awesome my first grow is going!
^gotta rotate them. I do 8 babies under a 600W and they rotate every day. I'm getting a light mover soon though so that will help. I'm thinking with that I can add 2 more girls. Looking good casey j! Are you going to do any LST or scrog or anything like that? It would be a good idea since you've got so many-it would keep the canopy even and help prevent it from becoming "a wild jungle".
I do turn them in their 3-gallon pots when they tilt toward the light, but the way I have them set up on the grow room floor I have the shortest plants closer to the light point source and have those shorter plants built up on boards so their tops are even with the tops of my tallest plants. In terms of keeping my grow room under control, all plants have all been topped and will super-crop or LST when the tallest terminal stems or colas exceed the 12" maximum I set for vegging. This will allow some of the shorter plants to get caught up before I go to 12/12. Once I go to flower I'll have at about 28" more for vertical growth. I have no doubt I'll have to stress, bend, and tie my most vigorous plants, but since I am unemployed at the moment I have a lot of time to devote to daily grow-room assessment and decisions that my first grow requires. I have noticed that the large fan leaves on my bigger White Widows are exceeding taller than the terminal shoots, so I think I'll experiment with tying those big leaves down and out of the way so the light can penetrate some of the lower branches.
Your set up looks good and the plants look healthy. I do agree with others about flowering 12 plants in a 6*3 footprint. I have a 8*8, and even then I have a tough time with spacing. (Please see below for a pic of my flower space) The most compact I have done was 5 plants in a 2*4 with 400w HPS and 2 125w CFL's ... now that was crampt! I had branches (and flowers) under the canopy that died because of lack of light penetration. I hope you are able to keep them trained and get sticky. dank buds! I am interested in seeing Lexi finish out. I have grown Afgan based strains in the past and not had one come out. Like yours, I grew them along side with other strains in the same grow conditions. They would go 10-14 weeks without getting frosty, or would go back to vegitative growth under 12/12 while others flower beautifully. I suppose that Afgan strains are my unicorn. Happy gardening!
Ragz, nice grow room pic. Is that your current grow? They do look sweet and healthy! Sorry to hear about your Afghan strains Hope mine turns out ok. My Chemdawg Betsy is another plant that looks markedly different from the others with it's large, broad leaves; it just looks awesome and hope it flowers well. My strategy with a twelve plant setup in my tight space is to top my plants, which I have done, and focus the bud production on the two cola's that result from the topping. Almost like a modified SOG, basically ignoring the growth below the canopy. If I get twenty-four colas, holy crap! that's a lot of bud! Does this sound reasonable? If thing get out of control, I may have to sacrifice plantsin order to reclaim some grow space. This will allow those I keep to grow much better. We'll see... I do have a question about the side branches that emerge just above the big fan leaves. Will these turn into budding sites if left alone? Because if they do end up as bud sites down the road, I might keep a few high up the stem and treat them as canopy, if space permits. This being my first grow I wanted to try some different strains, but I'll probably stick to one, or maybe two strains per grow in the future just to make life easier. I know for a fact that I plan on running Dutch Passion Blueberry for my next grow. If I grow another strain along side Blueberry, I was thinking Dinafem Amnesia, any thoughts? And depending on how twelve work out this grow, I may have to cut back on the number of plants for my next grow. As I understand it, whether you decide on four or twelve, you will end up with about the same yield. I do want to try some smaller grows in the future, two, maybe four or six plants, because it is difficult attending to all my plants needs, especially those that are farthest away. Plus, I want experience being in the presence of big, beautiful, and impressive Marijuana plantsfrom top to bottom, and you just can't do that with my twelve plant set-up.
Gracias. Yes, that is my current grow. It is a perpetual grow, adn I harvest 3-4 plants every 2 weeks. Took a long time to get it there, but now that it is there, it is worth it! If you are asking about the leaves that come up the highest off the top, usually 2 at a time in opposite directions - these are "water fan leaves". These leaves primary use is breathing and photosynthesis. Most of the time, these will get no sugar on them at all and are just discarded at harvest. Blueberry is Sativa dominant so it will stretch to the roof. I would match it with other sativas. This way you have matching grothrates and height. I am not familiar with Dinafem's "Amnesia". Ill google it
Hey casey J, looking good! Ragz, not trying to call you out friend, but Blueberry is definitely an indica dominant strain. Almost all indica, in fact, so you shouldn't have too much trouble with it stretching casey.
You're not calling me out, just pointing out my misnomer. I have had blueberry stretch to the hilt right alongside my sativas (Super Lemon Haze). With the thinner leaf patters, I just assumed. My bad.
Every strain acts differently, no? You might've had a different pheno. I've got Blueberry Gum (G13) going right now and these girls are just as short and stocky as they can be. Seriously, almost no stretch. But crazy dense foliage. Talk to me about Smurfs for my garden. Is that something I can pick up at my local hydro heaven brosef?
The bluberry I had was a clone from a dispensary, so it is entirely possible to be a different pheno, or even a different strain just labeled wrong. I only grow from seed now. I like to eliminate guessing games and embarassing forum posts. This one was my wife's doing. She had a bunch of these little 1 or 2 inch tall plastic smurfs so she took certain ones and placed them in each container. She told me they would help. I giggled and said "sure". The next day all the plants leaves were really green and reaching for the lights and the flowers branches were starting to bend over from weight on the buds! The part of the story omitted, the day the smurfs went into the garden I had also given them a vigorious feeding and intorduced CO2 into the garden, but I will hold firm: it was the Smurfs doing!
your off to a hell of a start man... great choice in soil mix... Nice job on the topping.. very refreshing to see someone start up that did the right home work... Im subbed ......Great job
Thanks! I feel pretty good getting kudo's from a dude named Yoda with 21, 000 posts. You've been around the forums for awhile, eh? I love forums. I used to follow a fishing forum here in Minnesota; it's incredible how much I have learned about fishing from others peoples experiences and willingness to share over the years. I'm a total rookie and newbie here, but willing to learn from anyone's successes or failures, so if anyone has ever experienced a bad grow, now you know you're failures were not in vain!