My ongoing grow shenanigans.

What's up fellow weed heads?

I am a long time hobby grower. I have had a small, personal indoor garden of some sort or the other for most of my adult life and have always enjoyed growing cannabis. I have always grown indoors and have followed many different growing regimens on my path to finding the style of gardening that works best for me; everything from the standard Fox Farms trio, to no till and lots in between.

I have never been much of an active member on any online forums, but I have learned most of what I know by reading through this and other online cannabis communities. I have always enjoyed reading through people's grow journals and figured I'd finally start one of my own.

First things first, my setup. I am running a 2x4 foot Apollo grow tent with 2 Viparspectra reflector 450, 450 watt (210 watts actual draw) LED grow lights, a high velocity fan and carbon filter, and a Vornado Flippi V8 fan. I also have a small closet running 2 40 watt CFLs and 1 85 watt cfl running 18/6 for all of my clones and seedlings. I am growing in Soil King Big Rootz, and top dressing with organic amendments once a week. During veg, amendments are: 2 parts kelp meal, 1 part crab meal, 1 part glacial rock dust and 1 part neem meal (every other week). Water twice a week during veg. During flower I top dress once a week with Vermicrop Organics VermiBloom, and add their PK Boost week 5 on. Week 2 and 4 I will add a light dose of neem meal. Water 3 times a week during flower. I have a small window AC in the grow room as well so I can keep things nice and cool without freezing out the rest of the house.

Flower Day 1.
Currently in the tent I have a couple strains from Jordan of the Islands; (2)Deep Purple (purple kush x blueberry) and (1) God's OG Kush (god bud x OG). The Deep Purples are clones from a plant I grew out from seed and was running outdoors and never got to finish. Thankfully I had these two cuts to run it again. The God's OG I really wanted to love, but it hasn't really shared the sentiment. From a 10 pack I got only 2 females and one of them was a really skinny plant that looked like it would fall over in a gentle breeze. The one I am running has decent structure, but I am going to run this cycle and then move on to a different strain.

Tonight, after a heavy watering last night and an extended dark period (20 hours), the plants are officially on day one of flower. The light timer was set to 12/12, and I will lower that to 10/14 at week 6.

Currently in the closet I have 3 Grape Ape plants that are just about ready to move out of their 1 gallon pots. And 3 Peshawar Afghani seedlings that are still in half full 18 ounce Solo cups.

My wife and I have a baby on the way and my grow will soon be upsizing and moving to the garage, and I can't wait to get started building that setup!

Thanks for checking out my grow! Follow along and feel free to chime in.

Peace.



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I will try my best to keep this journal updated and filled with as much useful information as possible.
Here's a couple random pics from yesterday.

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Thanks guys for the kind words!

Tonight I planted my last 5 Deep Purple seeds (Deep Purple #6, #7, #8, #9, #10). I am planning to pick up some new genetics very soon, so I figured I would pop these last 5 seeds and see if I can find a nice pheno.
There is a lot of debate online about what is the best way to germinate seeds. I have tried all of the different methods and to be honest, I have had similar if not equal success with each one. For the last several years, I have germinated directly in the soil and have had about an 80% germination rate.
To germinate seeds, I fill an 18 ounce solo cup (with holes cut in the bottom) half full with soil, I pour a full 9 ounce cup of warm purified water into the cups to fully saturate the soil. I dig a small hole about 1/4" wide x 1/4" deep and drop the seeds in and cover with a bit of soil. Twice after that I saturate just the spot where I planted the seed and place the cups under the lights in the closet (which stays about 80°f) with a sheet of glass covering the cups.
Using this method, I have great success germinating seeds and this is probably how I'll always do it.

I got rid of one of the grape ape plants. #3 never quite recovered after being topped so away it went. The other two; #8, #10, are growing well, but are a bit skinny and are in need of a transplant, so tomorrow I'll move them up to 3 gallon pots with heavy amendments and do a little lst and they will bush right up.

Not much else to report at this time, everything is running as expected and I'm mostly excited about adding to the setup and debating with myself on exactly what I want to do.

Time to go smoke a bowl...

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What up weed heads?

Flower day 3 in the tent and nothing to report there. We have some triple digit weather in the forecast in the East Bay for the next couple days, and that always makes it hard to keep temps down in the upstairs bedroom I use as a grow room, but it's nothing I haven't had to deal with before.

The Grape Apes I had in the closet really didn't have the structure I was looking for and were a bit out of sequence with everything else I have going, so I decided to call it good and pull those 2.
I havent had any action on my 5 Deep Purple seeds, but I expect to see the first sprouts in the next 24 hours, and in the next week or so I plan to order some new seeds. I'm gonna pick up some TGA Conspiracy Kush for sure, and possibly something from Humboldt seeds.

I've been planning to build a grow room into my garage for a long time, but think instead I'm going put together another identical tent setup, so I can stagger harvests and have more consistent weed to smoke.

I'll be back when something changes.

Peace.

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I always start my seeds in these 18 ounce cups, half filled with soil. Starting in the full cup of soil tends to get me taller more stretched seedlings, so I've always started with a more shallow base of soil for germination. They'll be transplanted soon to 4 in square pots.
I agree that I over watered them...I do have drainage holes, but I think I gave them about twice what they needed; and I had just watered them right before snapping that picture, they have perked up a bit since then. They'll be ok though, I put the fan on them, and by lights out in the morning they will be doing much better.


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Thanks ParanoiaKills.
They are in Big Rootz just like everything else. There is definitely a lot of lava in the soil, just not much on the surface in these cups.
Solo cups have always been the way to go for me. Mainly because they're cheap and disposable. I did a round of seed starts in rapid rooters recently and a bunch of the sprouts came out all twisted up. A problem I've never had starting directly in soil.

Peace

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Another day, and everything is coming along nicely.
Today is day 5 of flower in the tent, and the plants are starting to react to the change in light cycle. The God's OG Kush, which is the oldest plant, seems to be changing over the fastest. Also, I watered tonight, but other than that, they are on auto pilot for the next couple of days and I won't be doing anything with them besides monitoring the temps/humidity.

In the closet...my 3 Peshawar Afghani sprouts are growing quickly, but #2 isn't really looking like it's gonna make the cut. I was going to transplant today, but decided to wait one more day to see if #2 can straighten itself out, otherwise I'll just transplant #1 and #3.

3 of 5 Deep Purple seeds have sprouted and made their way above soil, still waiting on 2 more.

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Tonight was transplant day for the Peshawar Afghanis. #2 was a weak little plant, so now I'm down to #1 and #3. #1 has been growing vigorously and is going to make a nice plant. Hoping for a female there for sure.
I transplanted to 1 gallon pots of Big Rootz and dusted the roots with Azos and Mykos. I added a bit of kelp meal to the soil and top dressed lightly with neem meal. I watered to runoff and put them back under the cfls in the closet.

Transplanting is one of my favorite parts of growing cannabis; it's always a good time to inspect the plants and look at them more closely than you normally might, and I love seeing how some plants really react to the extra leg room and start taking off.

In the tent (flower day 6) the plants are starting to stack, and will have flowers very soon.

One more of the Deep Purples sprouted, so that makes 4/5. And I believe I see the fifth about to push through the soil. Of those 5 I'm hoping for 3 females, preferably different phenos, so I can take some clones and find something different from the cut I already have.

It's been about 105° the last couple of days, and my grow room, which is an upstairs bedroom, has been a staying a bit warmer than I would like, even with the ac on 24/7 right now. Temps are still acceptable though and after the heat wave this week, we probably won't see many, or any more triple digit days this year.

Peace

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What up tonight weed heads?

Tonight is Flower day 8 in the tent and the ladies are all starting to stack. The Deep Purples seem farther along today, but both strains seem to be transitioning at pretty much the same pace. Tonight I top dressed them with a very small amount of neem meal, and a fairly heavy feeding of Vermicrop Organics VermiBloom. After watering, I trimmed some more of the leaves that are under the scrog screen and tossed those on the top of the pots as mulch.
I also added a couple of deep red 12w LEDs for some supplemental red spectrum, as the Viparspectra lights I'm using really lack in that area. I only put 2 of them in, but will add a third tomorrow once I can go grab an outlet splitter to use on my timer.

Things are also going well in the closet. The Afghanis are looking super healthy and are definitely loving the bigger pots, and all the fresh amendments they got.
All 5 Deep Purple seeds are sprouted and looking great; look closely at the last photo and see some nice fuzzy roots on beast mode.



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What up weed heads?

Flower day 11, and the plants are all starting to develop "buttons" and starting to really smell delicious.
Outside temperatures yesterday and today were 110+ and that has made it difficult to keep the grow room cooled off, but I've been able to keep temps at a manageable level and have given them a bit more water than I normally would, and they have not shown even the slightest sign of stress. Tomorrow should be just above the 100° mark, and then cooling down to the 80s over the next couple weeks, and this should be the last of this kind of weather we have to deal with this year.

Otherwise, there's not much to report. The Afghanis in the closet are doing good, but it looks like #1 will be the last one standing. I will keep them in the 1 gallon pots until they show sex, and if #1 is female, I'll be taking clones and using it in a breeding program. This Peshawar Afghani is a strain that was created in an attempt to re-create a true old school sativa. It has a long flowering time of 12 weeks, but tends to be a big yielder. If I can cross it with something that tends to be an early finisher that has a nice sweet taste to offset the sharper flavors of this strain, I may be on to something.

Also, all 5 Deep Purple seedlings are doing great. I'm hoping to get at least 3 females from these, but since my ratio was so bad (4 out of 5 were male) on the first 5 seeds of this 10 pack, I'm thinking the odds might be on my side.

That's it for now...

Peace.

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Flower day 14/15.

Starting the third week of 12/12 tonight, and everything is going pretty well. Outside temps have gone down about 30 degrees over the last couple days from about 112°f to about 80-85°f. This has brought my high temps in the tent down from about 88° to about 80° and my lows from about 75° to about 68-70°.
The plants are doing great and starting to build up some nice little buds.
The only problem I'm dealing with is a few fungus gnats in the tent. Last night was supposed to be a water night, but I decided to wait and let them dry out a little more. Today I'll head to the grow shop and pick up some nematodes and some yellow sticky traps and tonight I'll water in a heavy concentration of the nematodes and place the traps on top of the pots, and usually with a couple weeks I'll stop seeing the gnats. Fungus gnats are the main pest I've ever dealt with on indoor grows, and never really end up being a major problem, but I always work to prevent them and/or take them out if they show up.
Also, I found a single green leaf hopper on one of my Deep Purple seedlings. I noticed that it had done a bit of damage to a leaf (I'll post a pic) on each of the Afghanis as well. I was able to catch and kill it between my fingers, and I looked for well over an hour on all my plants and found no other signs of leafhoppers anywhere, so I'll keep my eyes open, but it looks like this may have been an isolated incident. I sprayed water with neem in it on all of the plants in the closet, and watered some neem into the Solo cups with the deep purple seedlings.
All in all, it's not a major issue, just something I have to stay on top of to prevent a real problem.

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