Hi all, Thought I'd join the club and post a few pics and journal of my first ever attempt from a couple of feminized seeds I got free from a mate. This is purely an experiment really as I don't know the first thing about growing plants of any kind but thought I'd give a try and see what happens. Both seeds were potted on 15th April in the black pots shown in the pictures, the soil is 'multipurpose compost for seeds and seedlings' from a nearby garden centre and I put two Miracle-Gro All Purpose Continuous Release Plant Food Tablets in each pot (these supposedly last 6 months?). They both popped their heads through the soil on 20th April with Jack Diesel slightly ahead of Vintage. At the time I had no propoer lighting so they sat on my balcony/by the balcony door (depending on weather) and were receiving direct sunlight from about 7am to midday (on a good day) . I was actually very surprised that even worked, but I just watered a little daily and slowly but surely things began to happen. By 24th April both had started to grow their first leaves, JD still ahead of Vintage. by 6th May JD had well and truly taken the lead with a second pair of primary leaves developing and two more secondary sets (JD pictures only below) Skipping forward to around 10th May, I got hold of a 125w maxibright CFL 6400k and put both plants under the light, making a make shift grow box under a storage unit covering the timber walls with tin foil (as its all I have to hand at the minute!). I generally switch the lights on at around 7:30am and it stays on until around 11pm at night, so roughly 15-16hours of light per day. By 15th May JD was looking like this: Soon as pay day arrives i plan to improve my grow box, look in to buyiny some nutes and get a ph tester for the soil an water, but so far i think the plants have grown pretty rapid in about 6 weeks? However, my concern is that over the past week the leaves have started to look a little leathery, wrinkled and a little droopy (but that's mainly after watering) i've read this could be to nutrient deficiencies? The bottom leaves are also losing colour, and are a lighter shade of green on the verge of starting to look a little yellow. Comparison of JD and Vintage below: JD Left and Vintage on the Right: At the moment I am watering every couple of days, re-watering once the top inch or so of soil is dry. I generally put just under half a pint of tap water in each. Unfortunately the pots don't have holes in the bottom and I dont want to risk disturbing the plants by drilling a hole in while they are still potted? Looking a the pics, can anyone advise how well they think these are going and what I could do to prevent further wrinkling? I know the tap water in my area in pretty hard, normally 7-8ph so maybe that needs addressing? I also have a 3000k 125w CFL for flowering, when do you think I should be changing over? Any help would be most appreciated!
Sofar they look pretty good. I would recommend letting your tap water sit out for 24 hours before using to evaporate the chlorine also check out your water companys website to see if they add chloramine to the water. As for a PH tester I would suggest a digital one for liquids, some PH Up & Down buffer solutions and some calibration solution for your meter. Most digital PH meters say there pre-calibrated at the factory but I don't trust that and would calibrate it anyways. Try to get some nutes made for growing pot most other nutes you find at like Lowes, Home Depot and other stores like that don't really have the right NPK numbers for growing pot. Also when feeding nutes to your plant for the first time start out at like a 25% mix ratio of what the directions say to see how your plants respond and slowly work it up from there. Adjust the PH of your water and or nute mix to 6.5 if using regular soil and water till you have about 20% as run off then test the PH of the run off. You want a PH run off reading of 6.5 that's like the safe zone. If the soils PH run off is to high certain nutes will get locked out and to low other nutes will get locked out. Don't waste your money on a soil PH probe there not known for accuracy and can still be off just enough to where your plants have a problem. What your temps when lights or on and off, what is the humidity and would would also suggest getting a timer for the lights.
Hi Tplat, Thanks for the response. I've checked the the water report for my provider and it contains on average Chloramine at 0.45 mg/l. Regarding nutes, I just picked up a bottle of Tomorite (Liquid tomato fertiliser), this was before i read your response. The NPK no's are 4-3-8 - do you think this would be ok to try? From what i've read elsewhere people seem to have had pleasing results...just as you say start low and work up. I was planning on buying a PH meter, can you recommend any decent/cheap ones? looks like I can pick up the up/down solution off ebay for a decent price. I also picked up a timer today and have set the lights for 18/6, Temperature wise its about 24 celsius with lights on, and probably 2-3 degrees lower during lights out/night time. The plants are in my living room in a storage unit, however there are no doors so I just have a roller blind set up for reflection/privacy so the condition are similar to that. Not sure about humidity. Couple of questions... I was wondering about setting up a scrog system as I dont have an awful lot of space, do you think its too late now? they are currently about 8-10inches tall. And, at what point should I be looking to change lights? I've heard that the plants can grow 2-3 times the size of what they are currently? Would you be at all concerned about the slight wrinkling of the leaves? Thanks for your help, much appreciated!
For pot plants in veg the N should be the highest and the P&K lower and in flowering the P&K should be higher then the N in the NPK numbers. In flowering plants can stretch 2X to 3X their height in flowering so if your plant is 10 inches tall now and you started flowering it could finish out at 30 inches. How much grow height do you have to work with? Wrinkling of the leaves could be a nute deficiency or just a trait of whatever strain it is. As for nutes if you haven't used them yet I would look for something better. I would check out Amazon for a digital PH meter for liquids, PH Up & Down buffer solutions, some calibration solution for the meter and some nutes. There are several different manufacturers that have that will have boxed nute sets that have everything you would need for a couple of small plants from start to finish.
Hey, by way of an update here is how my plants are looking 10 weeks in. I have just changed to the 12/12 cycle and switched to the 2700k light. tplat, I took into account your comments above and bought the Biobizz Indoor Try-Pack which contains Bio Grow 250ml, Bio Bloom 250ml and Top Max 250ml. I also bought a digital PH meter, up/down solution and have been leaving my watering/nute solution out for 24hrs before using. Now the PH of my solution is 6.5 however my run off is closer to 5.5 which i believe is way too low!? How do I balance this out? Just add PH up to my water? Also of late I have noticed to really strange things happening on each plant. Now whle they have grown considerably in the last 3 - 4 weeks, filling out around the middle and becoming more bushy the top leaves on Jack Diesel have become really deformed. See images below, they actually look like they're been eaten by something?!!!! the bottom set of leaves have also dried and died. The tips of the top leaves on Vintage are yellowing also, now this hasn't really worsened over the last few weeks, it just appeared one day and stayed.
Two weeks in to bloom and i'm starting to get a little worried.... Think I went a bit heavy on the nutes and the leaves are turning yellow, and in some cases burnt! Admittedly I think a few leaves got too close to the light and got singed that way, the little bugs still seem to be feasting awa on some of fresh leaves too, I have sprayed with insect killer from a local garden centre.