Hi and welcome to my first grow journal! I started my first grow exactly 2 weeks ago, when I found 6 seeds in an ounce bag of mixed buds from a local dispensary. Accordingly, I don't' know what strain these guys are, but I must say that this strain is mighty hearty. Note, I plan to post updates to the grow with pictures every 5 days. June 8th 2016 - I setup all 6 seeds for germination via the "paper towel" method that we all learned in kindergarten. Ambient temp was 75-77F. June 9th - 3 of 6 seeds popped! June 10th - I went to a local grow store and got a large bag of FF, 0.5 lbs of worm castings and 2/1gal smart pots. Then, I sowed the sprouted seeds (now 4 had popped) with the taproot facing downward, approximately 0.25" below the soil with two sprouts in each 1 gal pot (I was thinking that one would die) and gently filled the hole with FF. I also put the remaining two seeds (hadn't popped yet) into the corners of one of the smart pots. June 11- All four sprouts are developing nicely and the other 2 ended up sprouting as well. This puts me at the CO maximum of 6 plants, what a coincidence! With 4 plants in one pot, I then carefully transplanted the sprouts (I have very dexterous hands/fingers) into a solo - sized cup and a large yogurt container (1/2 gal?). I have a ton of seeds from street bagseed that I'll want to grow in the future, so I tried those two containers to see if one could support growth long enough to sex the plants at 3-6 weeks (root bound= no beuno ). June 15th - Day 5 of the grow and they are looking good. All seedlings are growing rapidly. I was able to stay home one day and monitor the light these guys are receiving. I discovered that they get 15 hours of total sunlight with 3.5 hours of direct light! June 20th - Day 10 of the grow. Coming along nicely: Questions: 1) I have two plants in the 2/1 gallon smart pots. I am hoping that I can sex them before they get root bound, and transplant the females into 2 or 3 gallon smart pots. Will I be able to pull this off? Or should I transplant these guys now? 2) Tomorrow will be day 15 of the grow and the grow store guy said that I should feed the plants with the worm castings every 2-3 weeks. Should I do this now? Also, should I just sprinkle the worm castings on the soil to allow for some nute delivery with each watering, or should I make some of the worm casting tea? 3) I bought a basil plant yesterday and put it in an adjacent windowsill (I have 3 south facing ones). Do I need to worry about diseases/parasites that could be transmitted between these two, or are pathogens and parasite usually plant species specific? 4) Obviously, I would get more yield with a professional lighting syatem, but will I be able to get some yield with the 15 hours of daylight (3.5 hours of direct)? Thank you for reading, and I look forward to learning from some more experienced growers. Keep in mind that the total project cost is ~$20 to this point, so I'm trying to do a budget organic grow with sunlight only and no man-made chemicals. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Day 15 update: "Is there anybody out there?" Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Grasscity Forum mobile app
You're going to have problems if there's a male and female in the same container. Those are small containers for double plants anyways. 1 may become more dominant as they compete for nutrients and the best lighting. Separate pots would of been a better choice. Roots don't like clear containers.
Day 20 update: Thanks for the comments. I transplanted one of the seedlings and it went into shock for a couple days, but is now growing again nicely. Knowing that my transplant technique is ok, I'll transplant the other doubel pot this weekend along with the one in the clear container. Also, I've noticed that whenever my A/C kicks on, the plants "dance" slightly! Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Grasscity Forum mobile app
What should I do about odor control? These girls are growing in my studio, which shares a coridoor with neighboors. The ona block seems to be bad in growrooms, which is my entire living space! Would an activated carbon filter work connected to a scrubber, even though there's no way to duct the air in my studio? Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Carbon filter and an inline fan, duct it into another room. Has to be the right size for you're space. You may be getting ahead of yourself. Is this going to stay a window sill grow? Usable light in a windowsill is often challenging at best. A good carbon filter and inline fan set up can cost a bit. Especially since you're space is a room and not a smaller space. It would suck buying the equipement only to have issues with the window sill as the seasons change and the amount of decent light changes. I tend to read more stories about issues in a windowsill then success stories.
Awesome man, thanks for the tips. I also noticed that there is a slight negative pressure with the shared coridoor, as I feel a breeze whenever I open my main apartment door. I do have an extra case fan and small desk fan that I might be able to rig up to an activated charcoal filter or just loose charcoal and DIY it. I also found a 13w 6400k CFL in my closet, so I could start supplementing them with light at night and do 24/0. Is it worth it, or is that too little wattage? I'll also have the regular warm whites in my studio going for about half of the artificial supplemental lighting. Good or bad call? Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Day 23 update: transplanted one out of the 1 gal "double pot" and the small clear 12 oz solo style cup. Also added about a 1-2 tablespoons of worm castings to each and watered all. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Better image of overall setup. Double wide window flanked by two normal sized windows that are south facing. I have 9ft ceilings, so these guys appear to be ~6ftin height. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Day 25: The girls are vegging out and putting on noticeable mass everyday. Also, my transplants look great, they seemed to be in shock for about a half day this time. All 6 plants responded to the worm castings and are now growing at a good rate again. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Actually, from the pic I can see that plants 2-4 (numbering 1-6 left to right), are all in shock after tranaplanting. Also, you can see plant #6 is still a little droopy from the transplant last week. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Grasscity Forum mobile app
They look better than every one of my window attempts lol. I did get one to produce preflowers once it was a hairy ball the size of a pea. On a 8in plant spindly as hell lol. But I put it in direct sunlight as it was cloudy one day then went out. Ofcourse that day became a heatwave and my plant looked like it was ready to set on fire when I got home lol. Dried out 100% I was gutted. I wouldn't worry about smell tbh not until you've smelled it. I saw an ak47 last week mid bloom some nice looking bud on it. But I could hardly smell it. The next day I could but it wasn't over powerd smell and only in the room it was in. If you wanted to tho you could put a peice of wood up and box them into the window. Add some mylar or paint it white for better light too mayb. I'm presuming your legal tho if it's not legal not sure you'd want to lol. My uncle has a couple autos in a window sill they look good nice and tall in veg. But I think he has other plans for flowering. I know he has a 600w hps light. I'm not sure why he's not using it tbh. But either way his widow plants look very good. I wanted to be a low tech grower I really did, after some failed attempts I finally gave up and decided I'll buy an led light. But that's it. (Lol) it wasn't. I came to the forums and slowly people talked me round to this and that item until I was out of my comfort zone. I was really trying to resist the whole filter/fan combo based on having to wire it up myself and noise. But I found the rhino twin speed pro combo which is plug and play and runs pretty quiet. My led light is louder when the rhino is on low setting which I'm hoping to keep it at. But it's an eye sore for sure I've tried my best to hide it all tho. Luckily I have a hpi baja 5sc bodyshell for an rc truck that hides all the pipe work for me lol. It's like a 3ft 2stroke petrol rc truck. My other hobby. But visiting family last week I found somebody growing an ak47 plant. All he's done is what I wanted to do. Stick an led light over a plant and wait. He's got some nice bud too. Mayb not as much as most would get but I would have been happy with what he has for the effort he's given. Which isn't much lol. His grow is. Wardrobe with door a jar for fresh air. Led light hanging from the clothes line. A pot that looks to be the size of a pot noodle cup. Soil he doesn't know what it is but organic. I tried to dip my finger into his soil to feel it. But it was rock hard lol. Think hard play dough that's wet that's his soil. I asked what nutes he used and he said a drop here a drop there lol. That's it he doesn't know. I did see he has quite afew bottles some chemical some organic. He also has a desktop fan blowing air but the fan is below the pot, he has the pot sitting on a speaker to raise it to the light. Basically he's done nearly everything I've been told is a no no. NO lol but has results I would have been happy with. If I don't pull more than him I will be gutted now I really will. So I say if you wanted to purchase one big thing to improve your chances alot look into an led light around 150w actual draw. Mars hydro 300w pulls 140w actual it probably wouldn't give all your plants the right light but might give two a decent hit. Or grow one plant out with good results. I saw a guy pull 2oz off one plant with the mars hydro 300w which is $65 in usa I've just been told I think. Or a mars hydro 400 which might cover two plants very well or supply 4 plants with ok light. They are noisey tho like most led lights 45db I've been getting on an app test. If your budget is better check out the mars hydro reflector 96 That light is 210w true draw it has uv leds added too which help apparantly. But it uses two fans to cool it so could be even louder than 45db. But I'm reading people who are good with building pcs or just good with that kinda stuff are upgrading their mars cooling fans to something much quieter. Ide like to do this myself but not confident enough lol. Xilence 120mm fans are the ones I'm looking at. Plant photonics use those fans and they are top dollar lights. I'll post two pics of that ak47 I saw in those real bad conditions but if you want me too ill remove them later. I kinda wish I stuck to my guns and did the same thing he did ide have saved a ton of money. I'll only be happy if I produce better lol. I don't know what light he has only that it's a true cheap china light. He says 160w and it has 3 small cooling fans. I'm starting to wish my light was that red. Mayb that's the reason he's done so well whilst being so bad lol. He is young tho late teens. He said he just watched afew youtube videos and went for it.
Cool man, I was thinking about setting up a white surface right when they flower, so I can maybe increase the yield. Or would it be better to do it now, during veg? I live in a 550 ft2 studio with my girlfriend, so I just don't have space for a proper indoor grow setup. Plus, I really want to see what I can do without using electricity and just the sun. If it fails, no big deal because I can goto the store and buy an ounce of fire for $120-160 and eights at $20-30. If I yield a half or more I'll be amazed, a quarter would be cool and even a few grams would be cool. I like having the girls in my house, they bring a great vibe and it's a fun hobby! Yes, this is a legal grow because we are allowed 6 plants per person in CO. I'm interested in the carbon filter because I don't want to annoy my neighbors, some of which have kids. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Day 31 update The plants are still gaining mass, but still no sign of sexes yet. Probably for the better because these plants need to keep on vegging. Currently 14 hours and 50 minutes of sunlight per day. Note, I have kept my numbers since day 25: I can see that since moving #1&2 into the second window has reduced the mass deposition and I see some streching. #3 is still in slight shock, but seems to be ramping up in growth. #4 is the healthiest plant and I will probably attempt to clone. Recovered in no time after transplanting one out of its pot. #5 is really interesting in that I transplanted it first on day 23 (8 days ago) and after going into shock it stopped growing vertically and is just gaining leaves/mass. I recall really doing a poor transfer of the roots on that one, but hell....it survived. #6 has been a strecher since the start, I suspect that it's a male. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Forgot the pic of the 'six': Close-up of #4. Looks like a different strain than the rest, more sativa dominant(?): Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Pests detected and ill bet it was form the damn outdoor basil i bought a few weeks ago. I trimmed all leaves with signs of mites. I also hosed down all undersides of the plant leaves to get the mites off. Also, I've noticed little black gnats, which I believe are fungus gnats. Dammit, I lost a ton of leaves: Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Pests are a fear of mime too mate. I'm a true noob struggling through my first grow lol. But wanted to follow this to see what happens like yourself. To use a carbon filter tho you'd have to get one that filters the whole studio lol. That would be a big fan 10in mayb bigger. The tent tho will keep bugs out and allow for a small fan to filter the smell. But I would wait to smell it first. Might not be that strong really. Putting the white screen up asap will give the most benefit I would guess since the plant will hopfully catch more light throughout. They look pretty good so far tho for window grow. I actually found a plant I threw away last week. I emptied the pot with seedling into a bag. Then just emptied the bag in a corner outside. I looked two weeks later and it was a pile of dirt. So I forgot about it. Went out the other day and it was a near two foot bright green stinky B. Veg smell unfortunately bugs had been eating it but it looked very healthy other than the missing foliage. But I killed it Bcos it was too close to my house. I never expected it to grow lol. When I tossed it we was still getting ground frost over night. But the lil sucker just dug it's way back through the dirt and beat the odds. I'm actually amazed by it being uk and our summer isnt good this year. There's a pic in my journal "have a butchers"
Good call man! I was honestly about to just throw everyThing out, clean all surfaces with lysol and try again (probably too late in the growing season for thay). However, These plants are hardy and I'll bet since I caught it early I can still get rid of those GD spider mites. Gonna call a local grower and ask for his advice, but doing some reading, I'm leaning towards mighty wash. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Grasscity Forum mobile app