Hi, This is my third grow and my first organic grow. The first two grows were not that good. I found my lighting was very lacking and the soil was not very good. Since then I have upgraded the lighting to a 600W ballast/hood with an Agromax bulb, lined my grow room with Diamond Foil and hopefully mixed a great soil. I am very excited as this will be my first full grow with great soil, great lighting and a hopefully properly lined grow room! I am also very excited about growing completely organic herb! Here is what I did for the soil and it is all thanks to Jerry! Thank you Jerry for all your help!!! With this mix I end up with 3 usable gallons of soil per 5 gallon bucket. For the base soil: 24 cups of Pro-Mix BX 8 cups Coast of Maine Lobster Compost 8 cups Worm Power Earthworm Castings 8 cups Buckwheat hulls For the Amendments: All from Fedco Organic Growers Supply 1.25 cups Soybean Meal 1.50 cups Kelp Meal 1.25 cups Alfalfa Meal 1.25 cups Fish Meal 1.25 cups Neem Cake .5 cups Hi-Cal Lime 2 cups Granite Meal All these mixed together gets me 3 gallons of usable soil. The soil has been cooking for 7 weeks and looks really good. I started the process of germinating 8 seeds yesterday. I wish I knew what they were, but I do not. They did come from some very good bagseed. I used these seeds for my first grow and it was ok. It would have been much better with proper lighting and soil, so I have a good feeling about these seeds. I hope to germinate 6-7 of the 8 seeds and get 2-3 females. I did some reading on the 12/1 light cycle and that is what I am going to use. I have tried 18/6 first grow, 12/12 second grow and now 12/1 for this grow. I guess that is all I have for now until the seeds germinate. Wish me luck!!
I have used the paper towel method on my last two grows and it has worked well. Doing the same thing this time. It averages about 3-4 days and this is the start of day three. I am going to post pics as soon as they germinate.
Well this stinks! My seeds do not appear to be germinating. I have germinated seeds from this batch before without any problems. This is day 6 of germination. It usually took about 3 days. I will try a different set of seeds if they do not germinate soon.
You're not kidding. I am going to get another set germinating today. Hopefully I will have some luck.
OK. So I am trying to germinate another 7 seeds from my first grow and 7 seeds from unknown bagseed. We will see if I can get any of these to germinate.
YAY!!!! I have one seed that has germinated and it looks like I am going to get a few more. I will take pics when I get home and post them tonight. These are from my first grow. None have germinated from the unknown seeds I have. I am going to try and find some pics of my first grow so you guys can see what the plants grown from the seeds I am germinating look like. Am I the only one who gets excited because some bagseed germinated? On a side note, it is pretty funny that the only person to comment in my journal so far has been banned! lol
These are pictures from my very first grow and are from the seeds I am currently germinating. You can see the floros (8), the aluminum foil and the dirt is Pro-mix BX with nothing added.
It looks like I am going to get another 2 seeds germinated. I see 2 seeds split open and white inside. Hopefully when I get home there will be a tap root and I will get to plant 2 more seeds! I will post pics as soon as they pop out of the soil.
I planted 2 more yesterday and 2 more this morning! That is a total of 6 planted. The first 2 are starting to poke through the soil! We have life!!!! I will try and get 2 more to germinate for a total of 8. I will post some pictures this weekend.
Here are some pics of the seedlings. They seem to be happy so far. I had my ballast at 75% and just switched it to 100% this morning. The pics are also from this morning.