First Grow: WW, CFL, LST :)

Hello everyone, this is my first grow, and I've decided to document it here so that I can see my progress, as well as hopefully get some help throughout from you helpful folks!

I'm attempting to grow White Widow using CFLs. I'm also planning on LSTing them. We'll see how this goes!

I started the process on 4/30/2008 by germinating 9 seeds: 6 white widow and 3 thai stick (that I got free with my order).

I've been keeping a log of my progress so far, so I'll back-post that now.

 

Day 1

Started germinating seeds.
6 white widow, 3 thai stick (came free with purchase)
Wrapped the seeds in wet paper towel, put in tupperware bowl and placed a dish on top.

 

Day 3
Sweet, after 36 hrs, all the seeds have germinated except for one.

I filled my planters with soil, watered until it drained out bottom, then let sit for 15 minutes.

Planted 3 of the white widows into separate 3-gallon planters. Planted the remaining 3 white widow and 3 thai stick in plastic cups. Covered them all with saran wrap or zip loc bags.

 

Day 4
Yay, one of the WW seedlings has popped out of the dirt. The others are still hiding.

 

Day 5
4 out of the 9 seedlings have sprouted out of the ground. So far, I've been leaving them outside during the day, and bringing them indoors at night (cuz it's dropping below 50F at night).

 

Day 7
All sprouts have come out of the ground. So far, so good! I'm still putting them out on the deck during the day and bringing them in at night. I'm planning on running the CFLs for a few hours each night too.
In addition, have started spritzing the surface of the soil with water to keep it moist. A bit unsure as to how “moist” to get it, but I'm trying to error on the side of dryness.

 

Day 9
Things still looking the same. The seedlings have grown a bit taller, but no new leaves or anything. Still been taking them inside at night and out to the deck during the day.

 

Day 10
\t\t\t\t\t I've decided to move my grow indoors due to security reasons (and also because it seems easier to control the grow). I've cleared out half a closet for the grow.

I've bought 6 CFLs, 2 are “bright white (~5200K)” and 4 are “daylight (~6500k)”. All are around 26 watts.


In the pics, the lighting looks a lot dimmer than it actually is. I know that I would need more lighting to support 9 plants all the way through. My plan is to try and sex them early, and hopefully have 3 healthy females that I will take through the whole grow process.

 

Day 13
I bought a cheap light with reflector today as well as 2 more 26 watt CFLs. It seems to work pretty well, and I'm tempted to buy two more for each of the other two 3-gallon planters, but I'm holding off because I really don't want to spend more money

(I've already spent way more than I was planning. Who would've thought that growing plants can be this addictive!)

As for the plants, they're getting bigger and I'm starting to see the second set of leaves coming in on all of them. Growth is still pretty slow though, but I guess that's to be expected during the seedling stage.

How do I know when they've entered the vegetative state?

I've still been just spritzing some water on the soil whenever it looks dried out. I'm thinking from this point on, I will be following the regular watering schedule of a thorough watering every 3-5 days.

 

Day 15
Not a whole lot has changed. The second set of leaves are starting to grow out. I'm hoping it takes-off in growth soon.

I find it interesting that the ones grown in the 3-gallon pots look noticably bigger than the ones grown in cups. Not sure if that has to do with the size of the pots or perhaps they just got better light.

Also, I moved 3 of the cup ones outdoors because it was getting a bit crowded in the closet.

 

Thanks, I've been trying to keep it all neat... we'll see what happens when they get bigger. I'm also constantly tempted to buy more accessories for the grow room (mylar, temp/humidity gauge, more lights, etc) but been trying real hard to restrain myself.

 

Day 16
Today was the plants first full-watering day. The 3-gallon buckets took about 2-litres of water each, while the ones in plastic cups took about 1/2 a cup.

The plants look like they're doing OK. They're still not growing really fast, but at least they're still alive.

 

Day 17
The second set of leaves have grown out quite a bit... almost same size as first set. Height-wise, the plants haven't really changed much. I guess that's a good thing. I'm hoping these suckers will start growing faster soon.

Also, as you can see, I've bought a few more lights, and added a bigger fan. Temp in the room seems to be around 85, which I think is OK. Hopefully it doesn't get much hotter.

 

Thanks, I was planning on moving the cups to bigger containers once the plants got larger. I didn't realize that the container size could affect the initial growth of the plants. Thought it only mattered once they became root-bound. So, I may consider transplanting them sooner now...

 

Day 19
4 out of my 9 plants seem to be growing fast. The other 5 are growing much slower. Their leaves are also a much lighter shade of green. I'm assuming this is some sort of nutrient deficiency, but don't know exactly what. Here are some pics from today:

 

Hahaha, I know what you mean about hiding the costs from the wifey. I also have my own wife/$ conversion rate. I'm just hoping she doesn't figure that out soon, yeesh...