First Time Grow - Starting Indoor/ Finishing Guerilla Outdoor

Hello all!

I'm brand new to the forum and new to the skill of growing this lovely plant. That being said, I'm no noob when it comes to gardening and plants in general. I was the 12 year old kid growing tomatoes, corn, peppers, and radishes in my moms backyard and went on to college to get a degree in botany. You might be thinking "well this guy should be pretty good at this!" Well, 11 days into my first grow I'm having issues already lol. I spent most of the winter trying to soak up as much knowledge as possible reading, researching, and learning, before starting on my first plants. The vast amount of knowledge I've aquired was from forums like this one. So to all the experts and long time growers, thank you for what you've already taught me thus far.


Ok, onto my grow. I ordered 15 seeds from Bonza seed bank in early January. Was pleasantly surprised with the stealth shipping and how fast they got to me (11 business days). They were 5 Dr. Kripling incredible bulk feminized, 5 dinafem blue widow feminized, and 5 Royal Queen blue cheese feminized. I received them in the mail (after being sent to a friends house) and opened the package. The package was sort of tricky to get open and when I did so they popped out of their separated spots and all over my kitchen table leaving me not knowing which seed was which strain! No big deal really, but I don't know which seedling I have going so far is which.


Anyway, I started 2 of them in a glass of water in a warm dark location on Feb 13 and they showed a taproot overnight. So the next morning I planted about a half inch deep in a 5 inch jiffy pot with jiffy natural and organic seed starting mix (contains 60-70% sphagnum peat moss, vermiculite, coir pith, and lime for ph adjuster). I filled the bottom 2 inches with perlite and then mixed a handful of perlite in with the jiffy blend that went on top of the 2 inches of perlite. By February 16th one of the seeds had popped above the surface with its cotyledons looking green and luscious. By February 18th it had begun forming its first set of true leaves and was still looking nice. The other seedling had still not popped and I got impatient and started digging around in the mix looking for it. Noob mistake as I killed that one in the process. So I was down to just the one seedling which was still looking healthy.


I had the seedling under a 4 fixture, 40 watt t12 bulb, 6500 K, system that I had from growing tomatoes a while back (The bulbs are brand new). The light schedule is at 16/8 as I'm looking to transfer outside into the ground and grow guerilla style. I've read that running the lights at 18/6 and then transplanting outside when there's only 16 hrs of daylight could result in early flowering and then reverting back to veg. If anyone has any input on that please let me know because I'd much rather have them under 18/6.
February 19- I popped 3 more seeds into a glass of water and they all showed taproots the next day so were planted into the same mix of 2 inches of perlite on the bottom of a 5 inch jiffy pot with the jiffy natural and organic seed starting mix/ perlite mixed in, combo. Also, I gave a good watering to seedling number 1. Water used was tap water that had set out for 2 days. I watered thoroughly until 20% runoff out the bottom of the jiffy cup.


February 21 - all 3 of the new seeds had broken the surface. (I'm going to call these seedlings 2,3, and 4. The original seed (seedling number 1) that was planted on the 14th was starting to show some lime green/ yellowing on the outside of its true leaves and cotyledons and was beginning to start growing its second pair of true leaves. I top dressed with 1 teaspoon of worm castings (1-0-0) and watered through again. The soilless mixture/ perlite I've been using dries out quite fast. I checked to a depth of 1 inch and it was bone dry.


February 24 - Seedling 1 growth has slowed drastically. The yellowing has gotten worse and seems to be showing in the new set of 2nd true leaves. Seedling 2 may possibly be showing some early yellowing signs and is not growing as fast and seedlings 3 and 4. Seedlings 3 and 4 both seem to being doing well. They had some slight stretching at first but are now about 1 inch under the t12's. They've begun growing their first set of true leaves and are a nice green color. The temperature of my grow area has ranged from 71 at the coolest to 85 at the hottest. I have a humidifier that I purchased as the initial humidity levels were at 20%. Now, it usually stays between 35-45% humidity. Oscillating fan on medium mode 24 hrs a day.


February 25 - My Herbies order came in yesterday. I have a wide variety of 35 new seeds to give me a total of 50 seeds. I may not end up growing all of them this year. My plans are to try to start 20-25 indoors and then go guerilla with them but we'll see what I decide as time progresses. I'm just tying to get these first 4 seedlings going and am learning and just getting my feet wet. I'm looking for help on seedling 1 if anyone could tell me what the issue is.


Thanks for reading and sorry for the lengthy first post!


Pictures
1- my setup
2- seedling 1
3 - seedling 2
4- seedling 3
5- seedling 4

 

For a condensed version of what I wrote above, I'm just trying to figure out what's wrong with seedling 1 and 2 lol.

 

Also, I've got about another $250 in the budget to put towards this grow. As far as the outdoor portion of the grow goes I have an industrial sized bag of perlite and an industrialized sized bag of worm castings already. I live in the Midwest and have pretty dang good soil so am thinking will be good on that front by diggong massive holes and amending the local soil with castings and perlite.


Any input on how I could spend the $250 I have allocated toward this grow? Better lights? Nutes for the indoor portion? I'm probably going to transplant my seedlings into Fox Farm soil and get them out of the peet pots as I've been reading some negative things about peet pots and the jiffy soil. These first four seedlings are more or less my learning seeds as I've mentioned above I have 46 more high quality seeds to work with. If the 4 seedlings I have keep going then all the better.


Any input on my questions and seedlings is greatly appreciated! (Day off work and just trying to plan this all out and get a good head start on the grow season)

 

Went out and bought two T5 fixtures. One is the sun leaves Jr. II. The other is the Sunleaves VI (6 lights x 4 ft fixture) Hell yeah. The first 3 plants I started are looking fantastic although I did lose a seedling to spider mites and am now down to 3. To get rid of the mites I used Doctor doom spider mite knock out insecticide plant spray followed by Doctor doom total release fogger right after light out 2 nights ago. It seemed to do the trick but I'll probably hit them with the spray again in a few days. I transplanted them into 6 inch pots after they started on their third set of leaves because I didn't like the soilless mix I was using. They are now in some fox farm ocean forest and doing fantastic! I have the 3 plants under the Sunleaves Jr. II T5 fixture. I'll probably be starting 10 more seeds next week... 10 the following week... 10 the following week... to stagger my transplant to outdoor so it's not all at the same time and so that if I lose one or two during transplant, I can just put a new one in its spot to replace it. The seedlings I'll have going in the coming weeks are all going to be going under the big T5 fixture until early May when they'll go outside.