First harvest thank-you thread

Yesterday I chopped down my first plant and hung it up to dry. It's just one plant, so it's a pretty modest grow, but it's a good beginning.

I started by germinating 4 seeds from a packet purchased from Dr. Chronic. The first two that sprouted I named "Mary" and "Jane", then because I used to read Spider-Man comics the next ones became "Watson" and "Parker."

Parker didn't make it. I gave her every chance, but where the other three sprouted in just a few days, I gave her weeks and nothing happened. I tried scraping the hull, nothing. Then one day I pressed against it, and the insides came out as a little white paste.

Mary, of course, was the first to sprout. Jane was maybe a couple hours later. Of the two, Mary was the pretty one, but they both looked nice. Mary was always a beautiful dark green, nice and bushy. Jane, over time, grew taller than Mary, and it became obvious that some kind different genetics were in play.

Watson was like the retarded step-child. Always lagging a stage or so behind in development, only growing about half as tall. She also seemed to be the temperamental one, with leave always drooping for no obvious reason while Mary and Jane were just fine. On top of that, since she was the last to sprout, I finished her hydroponic bucket in kind of a rush, and cut the hole for the net-pot a little bit big on one side. On several occasions that pot fell through, and Watson took a bath. Hydroton floating in nutrient solution looks a lot like cocoa-puffs floating in milk, and that red dust they're coated in turns the water about the same color.

As a result of these dunkings, Watson didn't sit quite right in her pot anymore. In addition to being short and moody, now she was also slightly crooked. I considered getting rid of her to save time and resources for Mary and Jane, but my wife said no. "She's going to be something special. Wait and see." My wife always had a soft-spot for the underdog.

Mary was the first to flower. Although not as tall as Jane, she was always the star and my favorite. I was delighted when I saw those flowers beginning to form. Every day I'd check them out with my magnifying glass and compare them to pictures I've seen here. I'd never done this before, so it was all new and exciting. Eagerly, I showed my wife the new buds, and she seemed excited too. "How do you know it's female?" she asked. "Well, because I've looked at a lot of pictures, and they look like female buds." I answered.

Only they didn't really. I wanted them to, but really I was in denial. Sure, a part of my brain suspected the truth, but Mary was my favorite so I ignored it as long as I could. Then one day one of Mary's flowers opened up and dropped pollen all over it's lower leaves, I knew I had to face the truth.

But the denial part of my brain still hung on. Maybe it wasn't really a male, maybe it was a hermaphrodite! This could be cool, I could have a generation of feminized seeds! Or maybe I could just cut away the male flowers and still get good bud from the rest of the plant!

Frantically, I grabbed my digital camera (my wife's, really) and snapped some pictures. I was going to post them here in the GC forums and get advice from some real experts. Unfortunately, I'm not really a very good photographer and all the pictures were too blurry to see anything. After an hour or so of tinkering with them, reality set in and I faced what I had to do. I didn't need advice from GC on this, I already knew what I needed to do.

Mary wasn't a hermaphrodite, she was a guy. There was nothing that could be salvaged and no feminized seeds would be produced from her. I had to cut her down, which I should have done weeks ago. Sadly, but with determination, I grabbed my leatherman, murdered Mary, and hung her corpse up to dry in the corner of my grow room. It was a sad task, and I think I felt a sense of betrayal from Mary, but I had no alternative. For weeks after, I felt a little sad every time I saw her drying corpse over there in the corner.

One good thing; once Mary was gone, that left a good bucket available for Watson. She was still growing a little crooked, but the new bucket would guarantee no more baths for her.

That was a tough time for me, but I learned the important lessons on marijuana gender. Later on when Jane started to take after Mary, it wasn't nearly as emotional. I didn't hesitate to do what needed to be done, and soon Jane's corpse was hanging next to Mary's.

Now they're both in a tupperware box, waiting for the right time to make honey-oil or budder. It's amazing how small a space you can scrunch all that leaf in when it dries.

So my wife was right about Watson. I don't know if Watson will be "special", as she said, but she is my only female. And she became obviously female when her fowers grew long white hairs! Not only that, but making up for lost time, she grew as tall as Jane had ever been.

The weeks went by and those buds got bigger and bigger. I'm not going to claim this is an exceptional grow, or even an above average grow, but it's a grow I'm happy with. When it's cured, I'm going to have a nice stash, and that's what I wanted. More importantly, now that I have a better idea of what I'm doing, I can do it again and (hopefully) do it even better.

I want to say thank you to the GC community for making this possible. It was fun, and I never would have done it without the help and advice from these forums. I want to give specific thanks to:

KamelRedLight

If it hadn't been for your thread on growing with fluorescent lights, I don't think I would have started my grow. It may not be the best way or make the biggest yield, but using florescent lights makes it possible to do a grow without complicated heat venting systems, and it also makes it possible to put out the money a little at a time, rather than spending hundreds of bucks all at once. I may switch to HID later on, but fluorescents were the right choice for my first grow.

Mr. Postman

For writing a grow journal that made me want to grow. All those pictures of all those different varieties made it exciting.

Rumpleforeskin

You are my role model! Your tutorial on making grow-buckets are what I modeled my own on. You explained it in clear terms, and made me realize I could do a hydroponic grow. I really wouldn't have done a soil grow, I think hydroponics eliminates a lot more problems than it creates.

Mordgrow

Your projects are all fascinating, and I want to do something with foggers, but mostly I like looking at your avatar.

Al B. Fuct

My grow isn't anything like yours, but you straightened me out on what I was doing wrong with cloning. I got it to work a lot better and a lot faster after reading your tutorial.

DierWolf and DrBudGreengenes

You guys always seem to be around with common-sense and straight-forward advice on all the little details of growing. Thanks!

And to countless others. It's impossible to credit everyone I've learned something from, it really is a community.

I've learned a lot, and I know I've got a lot more to learn. Thanks everyone!