First time grower (update page 2)

Hey everybody! I'm a first-time grower and I wanted to share my grow as I progress through the stages. I would love to know any ideas or thoughts on how I'm going about my grow. I'm very open to critique or better ways to go about my grow. I've been reading up quite a bit and I think I have a decent understanding of how to grow properly. I will post pictures of my plant and how it looks at its current stage. It looks like so far I only need to water it every 2-3 days. I hope that is not too little or too much. The only problem I foresee occurring is the limited amount of direct sunlight that my balcony gets. Only get direct sunlight from sunrise (unless its overcast..which it normally is) until 12:30ish pm.

Other than that here is what I'm doing:

Soil being used: Miracle-Gro Performance Organic...Now I know there is a lot of back and forth about this soil. Some say its good, some say it's decent and some say its crap compared to what's on the market. I would love to know your opinion. Being that I live in Cali, I have access to whatever I want from what I can tell. I'm just on a budget right now and I wanted to see how this soil will perform. Will be adding nutrients to the soil.

Nutrients: I purchased Flora Nova grow and bloom so when the nutrients run out in the soil I will be adding the grow formula into the water. This is the proper thinking correct? I made a mixture just to get an understanding of how much of the Flora Nova grow I need to put in a gallon of water. I put 3mls of the Flora Nova grow into 3/4 gallon of purified water and my reading came out to 739ppm. So 36ppm of contaminants were in my purified water so I put 703 ppms of FNG in the water. This will be my first time adding nutrients into my grow as I got this plant a little later in its stages.
Am I adding too many nutrients in the water? According to the FN chart, this falls between the seedling and early growth stages.

Accessories: Purchased a TDS reader, Ph/water/sunlight soil reader, and a basic two-gallon black plastic pot which I think provides adequate drainage (would like to know your thoughts).

Well, thanks for reading and hope to hear from you!

 

Thanks, I really appreciate! Hope that it's getting enough of sunlight! Would really like to yield a decent amount of bud by the time its ready to harvest.

 

Thank you! So you posted about your grows on this forum? Definitely would like to check it out and learn from you. I will post updates of the progress for sure.

 

Update!

New set-up: Went to Home Depot and bought a heat lamp but put a plant light in it. This seems like it will take care of my light issue. Also, bought a timer for the light so I can keep it on a schedule. I went to a local nursery and bought Fox Farm ocean forest soil and a 5-gallon pot for when I transplant it into the 5-gallon pot. Let me know what you guys think? So it's been about 5 days since it's been the 2 gallon pot. How long should it stay in the 2 gallon before I put it in the 5 gallon? I was thinking about 2 weeks. Going to post pictures with this update.

Ph/light/water meter:
Water- Seems like the soil is holding the water quite a bit so I think it won't be another couple days before I water again. The topsoil is dry but deep down in the soil, it is still very much wet according to the meter.

Ph level- So the Ph level in the soil seems to be around 6.5ph-7ph. From what I've read this is the ideal ph level. I haven't added any of the flora nova yet and this is only from the Miracle-Gro Performance Organics soil/purified water.

Light- I just started using the light today and I can already notice the difference. It really is reacting well to the plant light. I want to keep it outside so that it can get the fresh outside air. Let me know what everybody thinks about using the light like this, would really like the input!

Okay now for the pictures!

 

So I think I'm about to learn from my mistakes as a first-time grower. I wasn't sure if I should try super cropping so early in its veg stage and if I'm being honest, I could have read more on it before trying it out. I'm feeling like it was way too early because it's just dangling and the wind just flops the branches around. I really hope I didn't make a stupid mistake. As you can see from the pictures the branches are yellowing and browning just within an hour.

Can somebody let me know If I just made a mistake? Thanks!

 

From what I read it said to bend the branches connected to the stem of the plant. So I bent the branch.

 

Ah...yeah my apologies. Man...feeling stupid. Yeah, so I bent the leaves then. Can it bounce back or did I just destroy those leaves? I'm guessing that this means that I can't try super cropping at this stage in its veg period?

 

Where would you suggest that I bend the plant? on the actual main stem?

 

This is what I was trying to initially do.

 

I haven't picked any growth off the plant. Should I?