On a whim I decided to plant a couple seeds that came in a Baggie that I got. When I did it, I hadn't done any research whatsoever and I honestly didn't even think they would grow. Well, one did, and its even female! So now I have a plant! But I feel like I must be doing something really wrong. I look at other people's plants and mine seems like its reeeeeally far behind in production. It seems healthy enough, but its small and it's taking forever. So here's what I've got. There are 4 fluorescent tubes in there that I got from a pet store for growing plants. I'm not sure what wattage they are, honestly. And I have one 100w (equivalent) cfl bulb in the warm color spectrum. We have been fertilizing with tomato food every other watering. It was planted the 3rd week of August, and I ran it on 24 hours of light until 4 or 5 weeks ago when I switched it to 12 hours. So this is what it looks like now: So am I being impatient? Are there things I could change? I started out expecting nothing but now that I've gotten this far I want it to be happy and healthy.
I'm not sure how much total wattage because the fluorescent plant lights didn't list their wattage. But yes, the 100w cfl is actually 23 or 24 watts. And yeah, its aluminum foil. I thought that would be a good thing?
It is behind in production, small, and taking forever compared to other grows because it has been grown without having enough light to flourish. If you add more light now you should see slightly better yield but at this point your kind if looking at what you are going to end up with regardless.
Try and add some more light,also try some unsulphured molasses in the water during the last two weeks,it might give a little more bud yeild.Kinda behind in growth but its green and budding!...good job.
Looks like the flourescent t5 lights are 24w each, they are these: Zoo Med T-5 HO Flora Sun Max Plant Growth Fluorescent Bulb at PETCO So, total wattage is... About 100w between 4 lights.
Try looking on Amazon for a T5 lighting fixture or use 2 hanging light sockets with a splitter for a total of four CFL bulbs get a miture of spectrums like two 2700k and two 6500k.This are very versatile for single plant grows like yours.You might want to add a small fan and replace the foil with Mylar this will help enhance your lighting.Foil burns like a magnifying glass.
Tonight I added another 27w 1700 lumen cfl light to help out. If my math is right, that brings the total wattage of all the lights up to a combined 90. I'm going to try and get one more in there to get it over 100. I also have some questions that I'm really hoping you all can help me with: 1 - I haven't trimmed the plant at all. Should I? I've seen people trim lower leaves, and/or smaller buds at the bottom of the plant to boost production of the upper buds. Is this something I should be doing? 2 - after months of problem free growing, I'm noticing some yellowing on the tips of some of the leaves, and some of the tips are curling under. Is this just age? Or is it a nutrient deficiency? I greatly appreciate everyone's help. I'm looking at this plant as a learning experience. Hopefully the next time I will have a better idea of what I'm doing.
1. You can trim the oldest, lowest leaves if they're dying. If they aren't than I wouldn't bother 2. Newer growth or oldest leaves? How often do you feed nutrients? What are the ingredients of your nutrients? What size pot is she in now? I recommend transplanting into a 5gal
You can see in the first pic I posted above what I'm talking about. It's the VERY tips of the leaves. Some old, some young, here and there around the plant. It isn't every leaf, maybe 7 or 8 of them. The food I've been giving her is "Miracle Grow Bloom Booster Flower Food", and it's a 15-30-15 food. I've seen lots of people condemning Miracle Grow stuff... so please steer me in the right direction if that's not right. I'm getting the feeling that whatever this thing is, it's HARDY to have endured my noob self growing it. We've even been using plain old tap water to water it, which apparently is bad too. And about the trimming thing... she just has a LOT of buds on her. Some are getting to be about an inch tall now, some are just hairs. I didn't know if I should trim the smaller ones so it can spend its energy growing the big ones, or just leave it alone. Oh, and she's in a 3 gallon pot, I think. It's the biggest I had on hand. And she's in an unused fridge, so space is limited.
The miracle grow is most likely the problem. Purchase the Foxfarm nute trio on Amazon or eBay for cheap. It'll be a lot better for the plant. Tap water isn't bad. Leave it out over night or add worm castings to get rid of the chlorine and other things added. I wouldn't trim the pop corn buds. I'd just let her go for your first grow
You seem to have a pretty cheap grow going, which is cool. Not bad for a spare fridge, a cheap household bulb and some tin foil, good on you! You've already added some more light - that will help now but in your next grow it will help a lot more while the plant is developing. See how that works for you before you start spending money on fluorescent tubes and stuff. It still wont be as good as a more expensive lighting system, 100+W of CFLs will see an improvement over 23W you've had until now. If you look at the tin foil, although it's kinda shiny it's not actually all that reflective. You might even be better off with the white interior of the fridge itself. Mylar looks a bit like metal foil but it is MUCH more reflective, that's why people use it in grow rooms. It can be expensive though, even if you've only got a small space. People say that emergency/'space' blankets work well. They're not Mylar specifically (I think, I'm reasonably confident that Mylar isn't just a brand name for a generically metallised polymer sheet), but they are similar. I bought some recently and they are certainly way way way more reflective than tin foil. They are kind of thin and I can see that the coating would be damaged by a lot of handling, and that's probably part of the difference between these and branded stuff. They don't tear easily though, don't get me wrong they are quite tough, and they are quite large sheets usually about 2m x 1.5m. One of these for under $2 from a camping store (Walmart ones are probably going to be at least twice the price and for the size of your fridge you might be better getting a 1m sheet of Mylar from somewhere) would be a good investment. Cut it up and replace your foil. People will always pop up and say "you should get a 150/400/600W HID" or "try this soil-less mix of pixie dust and badger shavings", but you've proved it can be done with 23W of lighting and some tin foil! You don't need loads of special stuff to grow a bit of weed, just if you want to grow a lot. The problem with your leaves could be a few things, and it's possible that it's nutrient burn. Since you've got such a spindly plant it wont need all that much. I see lots of people recommend using 50% strength for healthy cannabis plants, but for yours even that may be over feeding. Skip feeding it a few times and keep an eye on it. It's possible that you're over watering it too, so consider if you let the soil dry out or if you just water it if the top looks dry. If you don't think either of these are likely then some more thought is needed, but don't panic yet. Unless you have especially hard water in your area or they put a lot of chlorine in the supply, the tap water should be fine but letting some water stand in an open bottle or jug or something ready for the next watering isn't a bad idea.
Yeah, I started out with a very cheap grow with stuff injutnhad around the house. But I'm trying to improve things. Now that ivenhad success at this I'm thinking about ordering seeds, and if I drop $50+ on seeds I want to do it better than I have. So.... On top of new lights I've started sitting water out overnight before watering. After some research I've found that the fertilizer I've been using had no magnesium at all, so I added a bit. I've been fertilizing every other watering and I let the plant get completely dry between waterings.... So it's possible that it has too much fertilizer, but I don't think it's been over watered. I've read Epsom salts are good too? Keep the info coming, I really appreciate it!
From what you said it looks like you are comparing people with an actual weed setup to you which is just someone who wanted a plant. Not saying you aren't serious, but like your lighting and stuff goes, it seems like you just kinda shopped around town and got what you could. Like getting lights from a pet store and using tomato food. You needed to go to a grow store and ask for a setup, they will usually hook you up.
You've done way better than I did on my first plant,you have gotten bud with minimal tools....to me this means you have some skill.I burned my first plant down witn Neem on a 90degree day....yep I sucked royally.
He also started growing in winter, so don't feel completely bad =] I started growing and two weeks later it was over 100 out with 75% humidity for a whole week and I had no way to cool down my box. Lost 10 out of my 12 plants that day :'(
Yeah, I actually worry about the plant getting way too cold at night when the lights are out. It gets down to the low 50's where it's at during the night. And I will say, this is my first marijuana grow, but I'm no stranger to gardening. We usually grow a large garden of various veggies and greens every year and do so successfully. Doing things like trimming popcorn buds makes sense because we do it on other plants, but I'm finding there isn't much carry-over knowledge from veggie farming to weed farming. Regardless, the plant seems a lot more perky with the additional light and other improvements. I'll post back updated picks as time goes on. While I'm typing... if I were to buy seeds for another single plant grow, does anyone have recommendations? Something that helped with depression/anxiety and fit in a fridge would be great.
So... Some more questions.. Since this plant has been so tolerant, I'd like to attempt cloning it. There isn't a branch on the plant that doesn't have at least a popcorn bud on it... So if I take a clipping with a bud should I trim off the bud to let the clipping focus its energy on roots? Also, some of the buds are getting brown hairs now.... Is it almost done? Oh, it now has 3 more lights.
