So I thought I'd start me a proper grow journal, any and all feedback and advice will be much appreciated as although I know most of the basics this is only my second grow (and hopefully my first successful one!) My strains are non-feminized Blue Mystic, Jungle Wreck and Ati Tundra (although from reviews i've seen since I bought the latter, I wish I hadn't been so hasty to buy). It's a very low budget grow as I have fuck all money. I'm growing in Bulgaria and brought a few 2700k CFL's with me that I already had. Trying to keep temps in the low 20s, although the weather is temperamental here at this time of year, so they've been from freezing temps to high 30's (celsius). I've managed to keep the humidity in the 55 - 65 range. So yeah, enjoy, and please leave feedback and advice if possible as I really want to do the best I can and get as much decent smoke as possible
Probably around day 7 or 8 (03/04/17) although it could have been later, at this point they were being put outside during the heat of the day (23+ degrees and strong sunlight) and then under the lights for the rest of the time, so 24h light. They're under 2x23w (100w eq) 2700k CFL's and 1x 7w (46w eq) 2700k LED. Forgot the lumen ratings tho.
13/04/17 - Due to various circumstances, starting on the 7th they were kept in the dark for 3 days, and after that only got around 8hrs of sunlight a day for 3 days, which I really hope didn't mess them up too much. They got rootbound and were in a pretty sorry state. These pics were taken just after I repotted them into 20L grow bags and set up the lights. Pics are bad quality as my decent phone broke so had to use my backup. I added a 20W 2700k (right)
17/04/17 - After a day or so of recovering from their abuse they shot up, and I tied them back to give more light to fresh lower growth. I think on this day I watered them with their first nutes, a bottle of 8-8-8 standard stuff. Unfortunately, shortly afterwards my friend's dog attacked the bottle and I had to buy a 7-4-6 as they'd run out of 8-8-8.
20/04/17 - They seemed to love the nutes and shot up again, with the one in the back (Blue Mystic) in particular showing lots of new growth. However they all also showed signs of nute burn, including very dark pigment, burnt-looking patches, crispy leaf edges, and claw leaves. These didn't show up in the pics very well, I should've taken more closeups. On the day these pics were taken I gave them a load of water to try and counteract the burn. I also added a new light on the 19th, a 10w 6400k 806 lumen LED.
23/04/17 - As you can see, they are showing more signs of nute burn even though I gave them a flush on the 20th. They are still growing fast but aren't looking quite as healthy. The odd thing is, two of them have 'scoop'- shaped leaves, as if they are wanting water, however the soil is still damp. In contrast, the one with the dryest soil (back left) is showing downward-sloping and claw leaves. So I'm not sure what to do on the water front. I feel like I should water the back-left plant, both to help dilute the nutes and because the soil is dry. But looking at the leaves, I'm not sure if I should or not. Any advice would be much appreciated.
You don't need to feed them yet! What soil are you using? Most soils have enough nutes in it for 4 to 6 weeks depending on what your using. They look good, you need a few 3500k the 2700k will be better for flowering, with the 6400k is more for veg. You could get them Cfls 1 1/2 to 3 inches from the top of plants. I would take out all the dead leaves out of your pots IMO. They can bring bugs. All in all not to bad. See the brown tips on your seedlings that's from the nutes you gave them. Next time try and add Perlite to the mix 60% soil to 40% perlite. So they have better drainage. throw all the dead leaves in your pot in the trash. you have them in big pots which will be easier to overwater. Put your finger down the soil to the first knuckle about 2 inches if it's moist let them go for another day or two. With them big pots your going to get bigger plants with the right lighting. That little Grow space is going to small real quick. See if you could get a hold of a clothing wardrobe or if you have a small closet. Or make something if you can. I would lower your lights first because CFL's don't get the best penetration. But they look pretty good to me. Nice strains your growing! Good Luck Btw: it looks like your using splitters. I would try and even the light out a little more. If you have 6 bulbs use 2 per plant. You could buy a UFO led there like $25 and full Spectrum.
Something like this but you could save your money until they need more light and buy a 300 watt led panel if your budget permits.https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01M..._SY340_QL65&keywords=ufo+led+grow+light&psc=1
Thanks for the advice, I have no idea what soil i'm using, it was £2.70 for 20L of it though so I don't think it'l have a lot of nutrients in it. I told the shopkeeper I wanted soil for tomatoes, I can't read the packaging either as I'm in bulgaria and can't read bulgarian But you're right, I used nutes too early, I had some problems earlier on that stunted them a bit so I guess I got a bit impatient. I'll take those leaves out now and water the back-left one as the soil is bone dry to the forst knuckle. Hopefully that'l dilute the nutes a bit too. I'm planning on getting a load more lights this evening, mostly 6400k as I know they're better for veg. Thanks for recommending those lights, but honestly I doubt i could find any round here, I will keep my eye out next time I head to a city though. I haven't heard of 3500k being used, are they more of a universal spectrum, good for both veg and flower? The reason the lights are so high up (5"ish) is because i'm hoping they'll stretch a bit so i can LST better, and also because if i lower them i can't get even coverage on all the plants. As soon as I get more lights I'll spread them around more evenly and lower them. I have two more boxes of about the same size, so when I have more bulbs i'll have enough space for them all hopefully. I'm considering moving the back-left one into a separate box and switching it to flower soonish, as they're standard seeds and I don't want to waste too much power on them in veg when they could be male. I'm planning to take cuttings and make clones as soon as I know the sex and make a perpetual setup. What d you think, should I switch it to flower in the next few days or wait longer? I'm just wary of the fact it'l take at least 6 weeks to flower and i don't even know it's gender yet.
24/04/17 - LST'd the Ati Tundra (and may have removed a few too many leaves) and had a go at topping the Blue Mystic. Gave the Blue Mystic a good water in an attempt to counteract the excess Nitrogen from the nutes and gave the others a little to keep them all around the same. My first time topping, I tried to get down inside the new growth and cut away the top of the main stem, however I'm not sure if I got it properly, I think I may have fimmed by accident. Just gotta wait and see what happens I guess haha
smoked one and spend 10 mins adjusting my light to the perfect lumen angle ratio. why do they grow so slow..i just want them to grow. ho ho.
They are growing slow because your lighting is grossly inadequate. Sadly you will likely yield much less than you could have just bought for the same amount of money you've spent already. It's very simple, you have several serious issues that should be addressed. The most urgent is do a few days of research on how to grow cannabis. Then getting some proper lighting will absolutely necessary if you don't want this grow to fail. Good luck, hope you make the changes needed and grow some killer smoke.
Thanks for the advice but I already know this. I literally don't even have enough money to buy any more 10w LED's right now although I will hopefully by tomorrow, when I'm going to do a proper shop around and buy the best LED lights I can find so I can finally get some decent lumens. Then I'm gonna look for a more powerful warm white / full spectrum LED while I switch the biggest to 12/12, so I can check its gender and hopefully take some cuttings, which I can put under my improved lighting once I know that I'm actually going to get a guaranteed bud plant. By the time the first plant has showed its sex the other two will hopefully be bigger and I can do the same test on them. I'm sure I'll definitely get more smoke than I could've bought normally, due to my previously stated negligible power bills and the fact i've only spent £15 total so far on bulbs, soil and nutes, which is 1.5 grams.
Got £50, drove 80km to the nearest DIY store and spent most of it on supplies. Who needs food anyway? Acquired: 1x 10w 2700k 855 lm LED bulb 3x 10w 6400k 957 lm LED bulbs 1x 8w 2700k 806 lm LED bulb 1x 20w 3000k 1600 lm LED disk 3 x E27 light fittings 1 x electrical plug 1x extension cable 6L of perlite 250ml liquid fertilizer N- 3.5, P- 7.0, K- 4.5, M- 1.0 And what is hopefully rooting powder - I also wanted to get people's opinion on these LED lights. If I bought some of these strips and a power supply (or used my own), I don't see why I couldn't use them for growing as long as the spectrum was right?
30/04/17 - Moved Blue Mystic into a separate box and hooked up some of my new lights, the 3000k 20w led disk along with a 10w 6400k and 8w 2700k. Am thinking of switching to 12/12 in the next day or so to determine gender. Am quite worried about this plant as it's still got claw leaves and it showing some new issues: The other two are showing a lot of growth and are currently under 3x 10w 6400k LED's and 2x 23w 2700k CFL's. They both look a lot healthier than the Blue Mystic, which is odd as they all had the same amount of nutes at the same time but these aren't showing any signs of nute burn. So far i'd say i've spent the equivalent of about 6 grams total on this grow, and if I buy another 20w LED panel it'l be 7 grams. Hopefully that'l be all I need to spend, so if I get 15 grams out of these three plants I'll be happy as I'l about double my money. Then I can start on my clones / new seedlings and it's all uphill from there
I think it's been about 35 days from sprouting now, but they did get basically no light for 5 days and got rootbound which put a delay on things
05/05/17 - No big changes, gave them some very diluted nutes (N=3.5 / P=7.0 / K=4.5 / M=1.0) two days ago and did a bit of LST yesterday. Almost all signs of previous nute burn have gone now and the plants seem to be thriving. I think they're still very small for 40 day plants but that was unavoidable. Might have to put them ouside for a day or two as having work done on house, so i'll wait til after then to switch to flower to keep stress to a minimum. Hopefully they haven't already been stressed too much, I could really do without hermaphrodites..
Haven't updated in awhile as I haven't seen much interest, but here's what's happened.. On the 9th May i had to move them to the back of a van as the house was going to have the electric wiring redone. I also switched them to 12/12, as that way i could time the 'off' stage for when the guy was working on the electrics. However. The electric guy still hasn't been so they are still there. They have had various problems including temps reaching 44+ degrees centigrade, the power cable being cut with a strimmer so no light for 36 hours, and lkast but not least the LED light falling on top of one plant and staying there for 6 hours, burning it to shit and killing the two main stems (topped). So yeah. Good news is that 2/3 are female, and that one of them is the biggest plant. However, that was the one the light fell on..
Blue Mystic 19/05/17 - So it's been about a week since the LED light fell on it and burned the two main stems off, but the rest of it (apart from the burnt bits) is looking good. Plenty of budsites and almost no clawing. I've seen a few pistils and no balls so far, so hopefully it'l be a pure female: The red circle is where the 2 main stems were burnt off