First Grow (Learning as I Go) 1000w HID

I've wanted to grow for a while now but until recently I didn't have a suitable place to set up an indoor grow. My wife and I finally got our own place a few months ago and that eventually led to getting the equipment to try some indoor growing. This is my first real grow and I've already made a lot of mistakes but I'm learning from them and trying to get things going in the right direction. So far, things are going OK. I can already tell that I have caught the growing bug bad! Lol. Every morning I get up before work and check my plants. All day at work I wonder how they're doing and when I get home in the evening I check them, and then I usually check them once or twice more before bedtime. I'm obsessed, I think. Lol. I love growing so far. I can just sit and look at them and they make me smile.

The first mistakes were trying to use Miracle Gro and not having big enough containers to grow in. Next time I'm going organic and I've got 7 gallon cloth pots on the way to grow in.
This is a " budget" grow. I've got a little over $600 in equipment so far.
Equipment I'm using:
-Apollo Horticulture Purple Reign ballast 400-1000 watts.
-Apollo Horticulture 1000 watt bulbs- MH for Veg. HPS for Flowering
-iPower GLARCL6 Little Sun, air cooled reflector hood.
-iPower 96"x48"x80" grow tent
-VIVOSUN 6" fan and filter.

My wife is a long time smoker and she's the one who actually got things started. She started a bunch of seeds after a coworker told her about how he was growing in his closet. I started doing some research and realized pretty quickly that a tent would be much easier to grow in than a closet. So, we ordered a tent, light, fan and filter. I had the seedlings growing under CFL's until the real grow light came in. The night we got our equipment, we transferred the plants into pots and I set up the light. That same night, I lowered the 1000 watt Metal Halide way too low and cooked a few leaves. I thought I'd killed them at first and it took a few days for them to start recovering but they made it through that and they're doing much better now.

The seeds were from some marijuana that my dad was growing right before he died last year. He had started some plants and wasn't able to care for them due to his deteriorating health. I set them out and was gonna take care of them but got distracted by dad's worsening condition. When I finally went back to check on them they were full of seeds. I figured we might as well save the seeds and try again sometime. Dad always grew and smoked pretty good stuff so I'm hoping these turn out to have some "kick". Lol. I guess you could say that this grow is dedicated to my dad. He would have loved indoor growing. He always wanted to do it but my mom would never let him at their house. Lol.


This is right before I got my equipment. Still growing under CFL's.


Here's a couple of shots of the poor little plants after I fried them with the MH.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and they've really made a come back! I've started some LST on them. I waited kinda late because I honestly didn't know if they were going to survive and I actually hadn't read up on training very much.








I'm gonna let them veg a while longer. I want them big and strong before I switch to flowering.

 

Thanks. I've read a lot on that site, this forum and a lot of other places since I started. I think I understand the basics now. I've kept them alive and most of them are thriving. I'll take that as a win right now. Lol. There's more to growing than I first expected but I'm picking up on it.

I definitely plan on thinning them down. I'm really wanting to find out which ones are female first.

 

A few days ago I started having high temperatures and higher humidity.



The problem was my carbon filter was excessively restrictive and the fan wasn't able to circulate air through it very well. The outer pre-filter wasn't very dirty but I washed it anyways - no help. My filter is made so that you can switch the flanges from one side to the other. I tried that and it didn't help either. I emailed VIVOSUN Saturday night and they emailed me back early Sunday morning. They're supposed to be shipping a replacement filter to me. I've gotta say, that's pretty quick customer service. That's worth a lot.

My plants still look pretty good. I've got a few yellow leaves but nothing crazy yet. Lol. I'm going to have to get some larger containers for them. I'm going to try to do that today.







This little plant has definitely made a huge bounce back. I thought it was gonna die on me for a minute.

This was a few weeks ago.



This is a day or two ago.

 

According to the email I got from VIVOSUN yesterday, it would take 3-5 business days to get my replacement filter. I sent them an email back saying how great I thought their customer service is and how I was gonna leave them a really good review and I get an email back this evening with my tracking number... it's due to arrive tomorrow! I guess that email worked! Lol

 

So, I got my new filter and it seemed way too restricted after a couple of days. I took them out to the garage and blew them out with compressed air and now they're both flowing like they should.

I changed the soil to an organic mix I made myself. I got all of my plants repotted and switched over to my HPS bulb. I put the timer on 12/12 Sunday. Hopefully they start showing their sex soon so I can get rid of the males and thin down the herd. Lol.







I'm hoping these plants make some decent bud. We shall see....

 

It's been a week of 12/12 and I was able to identify the sex of all but one plant yesterday. I've got 6 females and 1 that I'm waiting to find out. The other 6 were male and I disposed of them.
I figured I'd try some defoliating on a few of the females. This is my first attempt. How did I do?







There is one little girl who's been barely hanging on to life for a while now that I'm gonna take better care of. My wife said throw it out. I said I'm gonna see how much bud that one little plant can make. Lol. I repotted it last night.



Here's my 6 + maybe 1. Lol.

 

It's been a while since I've updated. I'm at the beginning of week 4 of flower. These plants have stretched quite a bit. The tallest ones grew over a foot in the last couple of weeks.

My girls are getting quite hairy! I'm looking forward to buds starting to develop soon.

This pic is from August 31. My 3 tallest plants are almost exactly the same height.



This pic is from yesterday.



Like I said, they've stretched quite a bit. Now they're starting to make buds. I'm pretty happy with them so far.











My seventh plant that took so long to show it's sex finally turned out to be female! I'm happy about that for sure. I've got 7 happy little ladies. I'm excited to see how much these little plants will produce.

 

Thank you. I'm pretty happy so far. I'm sure they won't produce a huge harvest because I've limited the root size with small containers but I'm hoping what I do get will be good quality. I guess I'll find out in a few more weeks.

 

Thanks for the input man. Dad was the one who taught me what a great plant cannabis is. He's the one who taught me to ignore the bullshit that they teach in school about how evil cannabis is and how it's a gateway drug and all that other bullshit.

I wish dad could have lived to see me and the wife get our own place. He would love our indoor grow. He always wanted to have his own indoor setup but my mom wouldn't let him do it so he always grew outside.

I remember smoking some of this strain a couple of years ago when he last grew it. I remember it being pretty damn good smoke. I hope my memories are accurate. I'll have some quality stuff. I definitely remember it being better than what I've been buying lately.

 

Thanks man. My dad was always the "cool" one. My mom doesn't like cannabis. If it was up to her I'm sure nobody would be enjoying it.