Day 13 Gave the betties some nutes this am. 1.5ml micro, 1.5ml grow, .25ml bloom per gallon. They seem to be coming along great. Finally got a box built with panels painted flat white. They seem to be growing good now. Plant 1 Plant 2 Plant 3
Day 14 Ordering another Mars Hydro 300W for some more power. I feel like the girls are getting tall enough so ive bumped the light to 24 inches so they might stretch some. The new light will be here saturday so they can start doing some serious growing. I didnt expect all three of them to do well so im buying another light.
Day 16 My other marshydro 300w comes in today. I should have already had it but I didnt think all three plants were going to do so well. Im going to try to find some 5k cfls (cant find 6500k in my town) to add too because my babies are still looking a little short for their age and Ive read that ill want to add some 2600k during flower for better buds. Ive got my 1 mars hydro 300w hanging about 20inches above so maybe with the other light it will help them stretch some. Plant 1 Plant 2 Plant 3
Day 19 and the betties are growing out not up. I think it is due in part to my mixture of soil. The leaves look great though. Nice color and no tip burn or anything. From what I read I should have added more perlite. Also I shouldnt have added so much coco to the big 5 gallon pot. Its 4 days after ive watered them and the soil is still sticking to my fingers some when i go two knuckles. Im going to let it dry out so I wont miss the all important week 4-5 of explosive growth. In the future im going to use a 3 or 5 gallon air pot and use more perlite. Also Im going to only do two plants under both these lights.
Day 20 added some 23 watt 5000k cfls. It was all I could find and I figured it couldnt hurt. Making a space bucket to put my best plant in for flower. Also added a cheap led bulb I had originally bought when I didnt know any better.
Day 21 the babies are starting to grow a little, still more bushy than up. Starting to stink up that end of the house lol. Still haven't watered them again since 9 days ago. Soil is still moist at two knuckles and when I do water them it will probably be just water to try and get some residual nutes out.
If you want your plants to grow bigger you don't want them to "stretch", because that's just wasted growth. You want 5 nodes per foot, not 1 node per foot. Also, autos are always slow to develop during the early phase, then have a spurt right before they flower. If you want them to grow more, drop the LEDs back down to 12-18 inches so they have more food. Light is what plants actually 'eat' for energy, nutes are more like vitamins. The CFLs are probably redundant given you have 2x300w LEDs, especially if you lower the LEDs even by a couple of inches that will make up for the lumens lost if you were remove the CFLs. Maybe you could use them to start off some seedlings in a few weeks while you are waiting for these to finish. If it has been 8 days, if the soil is reasonably dry then I would water again even if it doesn't strictly pass the two-knuckle test. That's a rule of thumb (or finger) to stop people watering every 2 days. Despite my apparent criticism above: nice grow; good lights; white walls; great airflow. If this grow gives you enough weed for a while, consider trying a photoperiod plant in this space, you could have a mighty nice little scrog or similar.
Thank you so much for your advice. I dont veiw it as criticism I love learning from others. It really is great to have someone with experience show you the way when all you have been reading is regurgitated advice from first time growers. I fed them just now and will drop the LEDS. I was afraid I had them too close due to the manufacturers suggested height. I felt like the CFLs werent doing too much lol but I will keep one there as they are helping keep my growing space a couple of degrees warmer. I hope to get about and ounce and a half from this grow. I dont smoke alot just when I have some anxiety, but its funny because im finding growing these plants is kind of calming itself. Thank you again for your advice.
Dropping my lights due to some helpful advice. Fed the girls again tonight and also added some calimagic. Micro 2.5ml per gallon Gro 2.5ml Bloom 1ml Cal/Mag 5ml They smell great and look beautiful. Actually growing them is helping me with my anxiety some and it really has become an enjoyable hobby. My wife and I are making plans to start a small green house next spring and I hope the things I learn from this will help us be successful. I know im only a fourth of the way through this grow but I really appreciate all the help this community has given me. Plant 1 in the back Plant 2 front. Plant 2 looks like the LED bulb may have bleached it some so I moved it up. Plant 3
The LEDs can be strong and cause damage so there is a balance to be had with them with the height. You'll have to use your own judgement as well as the manufacturers suggestion, but I think my main comment was that stretching may give you a larger plant but not more bud. The light colour of the new growth on that one plant is almost certainly not due to the LED bleaching it. More likely it is brand new growth and grown so fast that it hasn't fully developed chlorophyll yet. Your most recent pic shows them covered in water. This is fine, but NOT while the LEDs are on, the drops of water can focus the strong light and cause burn spot on the leaves, which could potentially cause a lot of damage to the relatively compact plants. Otherwise all looking good
Day 23. Sunday afternoon update. My babies look and smell great. Noticed a little nutrient burn about 12 hours after feeding them. It was on all three of my plants but very hard to notice. Been about 36 hours since i noticed it and it doesnt seem to be getting any worse. Ill probably try water and floralkleen next feed because I havent given them straight water in awhile. I also attempted some minor training on two of my plants. tethered some bigger fan leaves down to try and give some smaller leaves light. Hopefully it will help with yield. Ive moved plant 1 to a space bucket I knocked together just to try. It has grown some and seems to be liking it. I made it out of two computer fans that were already wired together with a speed adjuster. It cost about double two normal computer fans but it was worth it to me. I have a 4 socket photography lamp with two y adapters. I had to go through my collection of y adapters to find two that lined up right but it was worth it. This gives me a total of 138 watts with two bulbs being 2700k and the rest 5000k. Plant 2 continues to be my best plant. Plant three is doing ok but if I use a 5 gallon container again I will definitely add more perlite.
Day 26 watered the babies again. Its taking less time in between watering now. I gave them 7 ph tap with 1tbsp of florakleen. Ive fed them twice with nutrients so I decided to give them a flush. I gave them water until I had a pretty good run off just like the bottle says. My space bucket plant is looking a little pale up top I think I may be burning it some. Im going to wait a couple more days to see if it is just new growth green.
Day 28 After doing some reading I now know that I didnt properly move my plant from LEDs to CFLs and that my CFLs were too close. I hope that my space bucket plant will recover but it was a valuable lesson for the future. My other plants are doing well and and im still trying to LST and tuck my leaves on plants 1 and 2. Plant 3 im leaving alone to see if I am properly training my plants. Plant 1 has grown about and inch in two days and tucking the leaves and pulling down the sun leaves seems to be working well. Plant two that I put into the space bucket. Plant 3
Plant two in the space bucket was definitely getting too hot in the canopy. I put a thermometer at canopy level with the fans turned up all the way and it was reading 81. My thermometer on the soil was reading high sixties due to the intake fan blowing on the wet soil and creating cold air. I was turning the fan down as low as it could to try and combat this false reading and ended up cooking my plant top. I finally understand how difficult it is to answer some beginners basic questions with growing herb. Until you grow a couple of plants and make these mistakes (some common and some rare) you can never really understand how complex these plants can be in different environments. I thought by using a good strain and the basic beginner set up it would be a breeze but I understand that every grow is different. You literally have to check on them at least twice daily and the second a problem pops up go through a grow check list to try to find the culprit.
Sunday update Day 31 My babies are looking a whole lot better now that ive raised the lights some turned my fans down to low, I think the heat and wind were drying them some. I cut 2-3 leaves off of plant 2, some people dont recommend that but some do, this is really about experimenting with plants at this point. They were pretty burnt anyway and I didnt think they would recover. Some of my leaves on other plants did recover quite well. I know ill get at least a decent lid off of these three plants and im going to start my northern lights in a month so I really just want to hone in my grow space and see whats best for were I am. Plant 1 is still doing well. Ive pulled down some branches a little to try to allow light and air to the inner leaves. Plant 2 is still looking ok but it wouldn't surprise me if I made it hermie. Plant 3 is getting bushier by the day and I am only tucking its leaves. They are due for a water today and im going to give them some nutes. Ill probably give them the same nutes I gave them last time, I did notice a little burning on the new growth and some of the bottom growth but it was literally so small you had to be looking for it. Micro 2.5ml per gallon Gro 2.5ml Bloom 1ml Cal/Mag 5ml
Day 34 Babies are looking good. Due for a water tomorrow. Probably going to give them just water since they are drinking more and alternate between nutes and water. Bent some branches down a little to expose some nodes and give the plants some air inside. Plant 1 Plant 2 Plant 3 Ive got two space buckets for two plants to flower under CFLs and one plant im going to flower under the two 300w MarsHydro. I know the LEDs wont flower the plants as good as the CFLs but I haven't seen a complete grow from veg to flower with the MarsHydro 300w. People that have posted video reviews of the 300w always flower under HPS or CFL so I want to see how the buds will be under the LED for future low budget growers growing 1-2 plants.