My first attempt at growing. Really a learning process and keeping it simple/cheap. I have 0 experience with this and frankly don't really know how to harvest and consume, but I will cross that bridge later. Miracle Gro potting soil Miracle Gro nutrients 6000k shop lights (soon to be upgraded to a more professional Aglex LED COB light) Autoflower - 2 Blueberry and 2 Sweet Tooth So far, really pleased with how green and healthy the seedlings. I was fortunate to get 100% germination by simply dropping right into the soil. I have a lot of concerns about humidity. I'm staying around 70-80% (room is under my house). Just ordered a 30 pint dehumidifier for now and future use. Wish me luck!
Happy growing but bit of advice for future grows you should steer clear of miracle gro soil as its time release nutrients during flowering phase could cause problems
Here they are just enjoying some sunshine...rare event down here in the last few days. More rain incoming too... Pics and included pic of my flowers from seed for funzies.
Hi Noob, welcome to GC. You mentioned the Aglex light you're upgrading to. What is the model? Your plants are coming along well so far. Nice and healthy looking! Like N00bygrower said, move on from Miracle grow next grow. There are lots of great soils available that will leave you more in control of what your girls are getting.
Thanks and thanks for checking in! Definitely looking to change soil next time. Lots of good advice here for sure. I see some popular mediums such as the frog one and others. Where is the best place to purchase? I don’t recall seeing them at Lowe’s or Home Depot. The light is the aglex cob led 2000. Here is the link
They look good man, just about as good as you could ask for lol. Keep updating for sure will keep checking in, got my first indoor grow going as well if you wanna check em out sometime I got a thread up. Good luck man! Sent from my LM-X420 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
That one doesn't look bad. About 400 actual watts and the full spectrum is about half in the 3500k range. I'll be interested to see how they'll work out. Good luck with your grow!
Thanks man! When I was shopping, I did an analysis on the PPFD ratings of a bunch of different lights. Tried to find the best "bang for the buck" and something that could carry at most 4 plants. I'm hoping I made a good choice.
5/23/2020: They really enjoyed a full day in the sun. We were fortunate as it was calling for storms (again). Amazingly, it was partly cloudy to full sun all day. Looking ahead, they are calling for storms tomorrorow, storms monday, cloudy tuesday, rain wed, storms thur/fri/sat/sun/mon/tues.... Ugh. I received my dehumidifier today which is awesome. I have a feeling that the internal bucket is going to fill very quickly. I'm going to have to try to come up with a solution to drain it perpetually. Easier said than done given the room is brick, the drain has to be gravity fed with a negative slope, and I'm beginning to starve for space. A giant low lying bin isn't going to work due to the space issue. Will ponder... Guess I could drill a hole through the brick...seems overkill, but would be a sure solution. Pics!
5/24/2020 - Part A Welp - as expected, the dehumidifier tank can't hold a full night's worth of drainage. Off to Home Depot for a solution! I have the girls outside today, but I think their stems are too rubbery (since they're growing, it's now noticeable). No crisis yet. They're not falling down or anything, but I'm guessing it is because the room's humidity is so high. It could also be the shop light aren't intense enough. Could be the daytime temps outside as well. Outside it is mid 80s-upper 80s, high humidity. In any case, now that the humidity in the room is solved, I may end up: Adding about 1" of soil to put more of the stem in the dirt. I have about 1" of stem below the cotyledons available, so I could add an inch of soil and bury more of the stem. Supporting with sticks Leave alone, lower humidity, see if they strengthen on their own I like the idea of #1, but I understand that you can rot the stem. However, with the lower humidity, I hope this wouldn't be an issue. Always happy to hear advice and perspective, so hit me! Humidifier solution. Had a little fold-able table in the garage. Made some poor man's wheel chocks out of cardboard (ha). Purchased 1/2" tubing. Drilled a 1/2" hole in a "Homer Bucket". Perfect solution! You can see the humidity game here. That dehumidifier was killing it in there while running! And lastly - I am SO ready for the Aglex COB 2000 to get here tomorrow. Got the hook all set for it. Can't wait to ditch the shop lights and use them exclusively for flower growing.
Do you have a small fan occelating across your plants? This will mimic the wind and strengthen the stocks. Plants also seem to stretch more being outdoor under sunlight than they do being under a light indoor as long as it's sufficient of enough light. I had a couple plants I started indoor but moved em outdoor and noticed within a couple days they were stretching. And your stocks will seem a little rubbery being that young, or are they falling over from the weight of the leaves? Sent from my LM-X420 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
I do have a fan blowing on them and thankfully they're getting some breeze outside too - which is great. I think you saw what I'm seeing. Since I started putting them outside over the last couple of days, they seem to want to grow tall/stretch quickly! Definitely not falling over thankfully! I'll grab some pics of the plants tonight for my "part B" of today's journal and get some horizontal angles for you to check out. Perhaps it is because they are simply young and need to strengthen. Great for LST I suppose ha! Thanks for the advisement!
Yeah as long as the plants aren't really leggy like thin and stretchy as hell and falling over you should be good. Stems are really flexible when the plants are young and as they mature they begin to stiffin up a bit and once into flower they really get stiff to support the weight of the buds. But yeah never done much lst but it's always best to start while they are young from anything I've learned about it. Sent from my LM-X420 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Yeah you are solid man they look great, that stretching is def just from being outdoors I'd say. And holy shit are those all baby's in the cups? Or they diff plants lol gonna say your gonna have your hands full lmao. Sent from my LM-X420 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Good to hear, thanks for the confirmations! The rest are just flowers. I have a bunch of different flowers going from seeds so I can fill the mulch beds. Zinnias, Convolvulus, Asylum, Forget-Me-Nots, and Vincas.
5/25/2020 Was supposed to rain and storm, so I didn't bring anything outside. Didn't get a drop and the sun came out in full by afternoon. Missed opportunity there, but all good. My Aglex came in and is hung. Wow that sucker is bright and puts out some heat. Shocking. I have it on veg only right now. Assuming that's the way to go? By using the Aglex, that allowed me to add another light to my flower table, so now I pretty much cover the entire table with light. That's a great thing as I wasn't able to fully use the table width. Dehumidifier isn't cutting it. I thought a "1500 sq ft" would do it in a ~200 sq ft room, but I guess not. Being under the house, I guess the room is just too humid. That and we've had nothing but rain/humidity lately, but still, I want one that can fight that in a small room! The best I've been able to get down to is ~60%. The room does have a concrete floor, so no exposure to crawl space dirt. I reached out to the company to see if they would give me a deal to upgrade it to the 70 pint version. If not, I will return it to Amazon and purchase a 70 pint version. Kind of a pain since it weighs 30lb+, but I kept all the packaging. p.s. room starting to smell all kinds of ... "earthy" Pics.
5/26/2020 Dehumidifier was returned to Amazon and dropped off at the UPS store. 70 pint one incoming. Super pumped about that. Hopefully now I can truly control my humidity or at least get it < 60 which NEVER happened with the 30 pint. It is supposed to be here next Monday. Ladies seem to be doing well and enjoying life. I believe a critter munched on one of their leaves when they were outside the other day (circled), but it still looks happy, all good. Pics: