I don't join forums much and especially those that ask for registration in order to view pictures, I NEVER do but I made an exception for this one and I am glad that I did. I ended up at dharma bum's journal while link hopping on something I was looking up and read it in one go. There was no way I was not going to not see the pictures, so that was the main reason I initially decided to join but I just made sure the rest of the forum had decent stuff as well as I hate ending up joining a forum only to receive dozens and dozens of spam messages from both members and advertisers. I've been reading anything I can digest in the past few weeks or so and as I wrote above, I'm glad I did I put a semi-thank message at the end of dharma bum's thread so some of the stuff I am writing here is a copy/paste of that as well. The last time that I have grown anything was in the early 90's in college and they didn't even name strands where I lived in Hawaii. Pot was pot and aside for 10 different names for it, ppl would have probably looked at you as if you were crazy if you did ask for a specific strand lol. Though I may lack the experience in growing weed, I do grow all my veggies and fruits and have been for about 7-8 years now so I have a sense of what is what when it comes to gardening or growing things but almost everything is new in regards to pot. We (my roommate and I) had a high power tabletop lamp with the strongest bulb that we could find and ended up growing over a dozen plants while we remained roommates and after I moved out in 1992, that was it for me. But anyway, after I read up pages and pages here, I ended up ordering 5 seeds from Attitutde since they were one of the few places that sold SINGLE seeds, the price seemed right and I liked the "guaranteed delivery option". I wasn't even going to join the forum if my seeds wouldn't arrive but they did and here I am. Everything arrived perfectly well, along with 2 bonus seeds and I got them into starting mixes on the 23rd. The seeds that I have are: Original Granddaddy Purple (this one is the only one that is not feminized and hopefully it will not end up being a male), Psychofruit Auto (this was a bonus seed and even though I personally would prefer not to mix an autoflowering seed with the rest of my seeds, it would just be rude to look a gift horse in the mouth. This whole batch is mostly going to be experimental for me anyway so I can live with it ). Tangerine Dream Purple Haze Afghan Haze 33 White Widow Underdawg OG I live right in the middle of Florida in terms of North/South and am almost on the Gulf Coast. So the wheather may be considered tropical but we do go through 3 seasons with the exception of winter even though the temperatures will occasionally go below 20 but cold weather for here is usually 20 to 30's at nigh and 50's during the day. Aside for a few weeks in winter when there is danger of frost and 4-5 weeks in the summer when the sun scorches everything (there are no record highs over 100 ever where I live and even though it is in the low 90's usually, we had constant 95's this summer which felt like hell on earth), it is perfect to grow almost anything. Due to the high humidity, everything grows extremely fast as well as long as you don't let anything scorch in the sun. Anyway, that's it for the basic info and here comes the relevant part. I put all 7 seeds in a started mix on the 21st of August. On August 23, the AH 33 had a tiny piece of root pop out of the side and on the 24th, the cotyledons were visible and the stem was about half an inch above the surface of the soil. On the 24th, the Purple Haze already sprouted and was above the soil. On the 25th, the Psychofruit also emerged from the soil and right now I have 3 out with the other 4 still not showing any activity except for the top soil having moved a little. The other interesting thing actually is that the AH33 already has 2 leaves that formed perpendicular to the cotyledon leaves and that's about the fastest I've ever seen any plant grow leaves. Right now, I'm using a 4ft. T5 fluorescent light and the seeds are all in a germination container. However at this rate, the AH33 will no longer fit in the box in about 3 or 4 days and I will have to separate it from the others. Since I live in Florida, I have a room which is supposed to be a "sun room" but is more like a structure with 3 walls, 3-4 small windows and a glass sliding door with a roof on its top. The house is elevated and this structure connects the house and the garage and even though it looks lik a room, it has no insulation and is more like an outside room with a roof on top of it. It has no heating and if you remove the side panels by the house side, you can see all the way through the bottom of the house, all the way to the street side through the pin holes of the side panels on that side. The sliding door is made of dark glass with an IR/UV shield and is about 3.5 feet wide; it is always open since I use the room as a smoking room and the part that the door slides behind is also made of the same dark glass. The room always gets direct air flow and it also sun access, with the double glass part serving as a filter that blocks out the killer sun rays in the summer. Any type of blackberries or raspberries will not survice the summer heat when they are still in the growth stage but behind the door, they absolutely thrive since most of the harmful rays are blocked by the glass. I'll be growing the plants in that room and I also have a "sun shade canopy" outside which only allows about 4-5 hours of direct sun into the room, with the green canvas type material blocking it the rest of the time. The canopy also blocks all prying eyes (only the nosey neighbour would be trying to look but most of the room is not visible at all to anyone outside unless you have the blinds open (and that does not happen), and that will be the safest and most ideal place for me to grow the plants. I have 2 T5 lights, a 125 watt compact fluorescent grow light with a dew guard and that thing does wonders on my regular veggies and fruits, and is way stronger than the T5 lights which I only use until the plants are over 4-5 inches tall. I also have 14 watt spectrum light with 225 bulbs (165 red at 630nm and 60 blue at 645nm wavelength) which works great on tomatoes and I really haven't tried it on anything else since it is always working for the tomatoes. I also have a full Apollo MH HPS Growth system that consists of a 42x13 inch reflective umbrella, a 1000 dimmable eletronic fan cooling ballast with both a 140k lumen HPS and a 110k lumen MH bulb. At 6 feet from the ground, I can get a 9x9 area to be perfectly lit by the light and should have no problem fitting about 15 plants underneath without any loss in intensity based on location. I suspect the light may be too much for young plants though but I may be able to use it in the flowering stage though. I am pretty sure I have ADD (more reason to smoke for me lol) so when my posts get as lengthy as this one, I tend to jump from one topic to another. However I tried to remain absolutely related to this topic and am going to stop writing before I lose it hehe. That was a basic description of my growing location and the equipment I will be using. I will eventualy post pictures but probably not for a week or two. I am waiting for my new computer to arrive and since the old one's card reader is kaput, I have to wait for the new one to arrive before I can get my photos into the computer.
Life's been hectic with all sorts of unexpected crap that needed to be taken care of And to top it all, the seeds have been crap kinda hehe. My card slot doesn't work on the computer so I can't put the pictures yet but the seedlings that popped out were really really weak except for the Granddaddy Purple and the Afghan Haze 33. The weather has been really nasty as well with temperatures up to a steady 95 for weeks when those are supposed to be record highs and it affected the seedlings as well. I had the 2 under the 125w light until last Monday to avoid extra heat from the 1000w light since even on the dimmest settings and the room fully open to the hallway with 2 fans, the temperatures were over 95 in there. I didn't want to run the ac either with the 1000w as the house is old and I didn't want to start an electrical fire. The GDP may turn out to be a male eventually and I haven't figured out what I am going to do. I'll hopefully have 6 more strands growing soon and I may take multiple clones of each and then let the male do its thing on all of the mains (aside for regular plants - especially veggies and fruits -, I have been growing ayahuasca plants for years and regularly clone those as the need arises so I am not totally clueless as to how it's done). I started them off at 50% setting and left them like that for 2 days. I switched to 75% for 2 more days and went full power on Friday. The GDP was about 6 inches and the PH was only about 4 on Monday. As of this afternoon, the GDP is about 11 inches and the PH is 9 inches. I really DON'T know whether I have the light close or far enough but I got one of those 10 dollar tools from ebay that came from China which has 2 rods sticking out and measures the PH level, the moisture and the lumens. It runs without battery and the reviews had over 4 stars in average on Amazon. I tested it with neutral solutions and the PH meter is very accurate and so is the moisture meter. The light is good as well I assume even though I am not exactly sure. I am saying it must be since it does increase and decrease based on the type of light I hold it under and when I use it outside in the sun. I have the light fixture at about 4 feet from the top of the plants and the lumens at the top of one reads about 1400 and the other one 1300. If I get it any lower and put my hand where the plants are, my hand starts getting really hot, so I left it where it is. Any higher and the lumens drop below 1000 as well. And before I forget, I surrounded the 7 gallon smart pots with a 4x4ft frame I built to which I attached mylar sheets (3.5ft high and looks like a playpen kinda). I have the top room fan running at full speed in the middle of the room while the grow area is on the wall that has the door facing the hallway and it is 1 foot away from the door. I have a small table top fan blowing on high speed towards the 2 plants from a distance of 5-6 feet and it slightly moves them without putting much pressure on it. During the day, I have the door wide open and it gets very good circulation. Once it gets dark, I push the door until it is about 10 inches ajar since otherwise the light will go straight to the bedroom which is about 25 feet down from the room, at the end of the hallway and it will beam out of the bedroom windows So far the plants have no negative reaction to the light whatsoever. The first 3-4 days, I was barely giving about 1 liter total to the 2 plants every other day but since I switched to the full 1000w, the water consumption rocketed. I gave about 1 liter again on Friday night and it was almost cracked dry the next night. Last night I gave about 1.5 liter and it was slightly moist a couple of hours ago. The lights are set for 18 hours and I water them anywhere from 10-15 minutes before the lights are set to go out to 10-15 minutes after the lights are out. I also got new seeds for 6 new strands from somewhere else of which 3 arrived on Wednesday and 3 on Thursday. The first 3 were Blueberry, White Widow and Purple Haze; however there was a mess up and I don't know which is which, and won't know until they start growing. The thing too is that I got 2 seeds of each strand and I was able to divide them in 3 groups of 2 as each strand had very distinct seeds: 2 were twice as large as the other 4 seeds, 2 had long line markings that enveloped the seeds and kept looping around and around, and the last 2 had lighter color borders around the seeds with the colors being lighter. I marked them in pairs so once the seeds grow (if they do grow), I'll know what the other 3 seeds are. The other 3 strands, I know what they are and those would be 2 each of Jack Herer, Super Lemon Haze, and OG Kush Indoor. I soaked the first 3 in water overnight on Thursday and placed them between wet napkins around 6am on Friday morning. By Friday afternoon, all three had germinated and I transferred them to jiffy pellets. The seedlings had already popped out when I checked them early Saturday morning but one still had the seed husk on it that looked as if it were strangling it. The stem on it is monstrous compared to the other ones and is almost as thick as the 2 I put under the 1000w MH. The husk was really hard as well despite the fact that I buried it deep enough but that thing came out really really fast. I was affraid it was going to eventually kill it so I removed the husk with a needle and tweezers, hopefully with no damage. Each of the cotyledons looked like they were injected with juice and almost looked like fat aloe leaves. I hope that one makes it, I am praying that if anything is going to happen, I am willing to watch them all die to have this one survive lol I did the same thing to the other 3 seeds Friday night and as of this afternoon, the Jack Herer had germinated. It went straight into a jiffy pellet and hopefully it'll come out tomorrow. I noticed it has HUGE seeds though. Compared to the other 2, it is about 3 to 4 times larger and the other 2 actually seem a bit smaller than the first 6 seeds I got on Thursday. As for additives, every other day I add half the recommended amount of liquid of worm castings, B52 and twice I used Alaska Fish Grow 5-1-1. I have Sensi Grow A&B and Voodoo Juice as well which I haven't used yet. I also have worm castings and Superthrive but I burnt one too many plants with that and am not going to touch it untli the plants fill up quite a bit. The soil I use is organic 8-6-6 and I added a bit of dry worm castings when I planted them. The PH remains steady between 6-6.5 but so far the plants have a nice uniform green with no change in color except for 2 leaves on the GPH which had yellowed a bit when they burned after I watered them under the 125w light. I actually snipped those and smoked them just in case the plants may have been unusually potent lol I wrote a lot but I wanted to put down every detail as I really don't want to fuck this up All the new seeds are feminized btw, I think I forgot to add that. All the crap I put and I still forgot something And I ended up converting the spare room to a grow room as the 1000w would have attracted way too much attention from the sun room. I have 2 neighbours, 1 on each side and they are very nosey. The sun room has 1 window facing 1 neighbour, and the canopy/sliding door facing the other one. To grow it without attracting attention, I would have had to build a partition with light cancelling material and I didn't really want to spend money on it. The room I'm using has a 5ft wide and 4ft high window so I boarded it with an 8x8 plywood sheet and then put 2 layers of carton board on top of that; I used duct tape but then I also stapled it in case it peels off with all the heat in the room. And for good measure, I laid an old queen mattress against the barrier and there will be no beams of any kind that will be escaping from that room. That window is definitely zombie proof though, of that I'm sure hehe
The first 2 photos are from September 3: The first one is the Afghan Haze 33 and the second one is the Granddaddy Purple. I started vegging on September 23. The next photos are exactly 1 week into vegging from September 30: The one closer to the camera is the Afghan Haze 33 which is denser than the Granddaddy Purple. I didn't top them or do anything other than cleaning up 2 leaves from the GDP which were yellowed out from seedling stage. Right now they have maybe 2 dozens of leaves starting to come out. I'll take photos again on Monday at week 2 and post them. I don't know if I want to do anything to them at this point other than letting them grown naturally but there is a lot of time to figure out what I want. The plants right now are using about .5 liter of water each per day and that 1000w really dries everything out since they seem too small right now to be consuming that much water. But hey, better use water than not I guess Gotta say I'm really disappointed with Attitude Seeds since I got 2 out of 7 that were viable with 1 weakling that survived for 2-3 weeks. The first 3 strands I got from ilovegrowingmarijuana are all doing great with their stems being almost as large as the older 2 that are vegging. However the next 3 that I got didn't work out since 1 did nada, and 2 of them had the seed crack with the tap root showing but not coming out of the husks. It may be my fault as well since I think I soaked them in tap water vs distilled water. My tap water's PH is 8.1 with the water from the yard being at 7.6; the rain water which I usually use is 6.9. I put the Jack Herer in a JIffy pellet nonetheless and put it on top of the metal frame of the 125w light for the heat but it probably won't do anything. I was really looking forward to the Jack Herer and the Super Lemon Haze but I may have to wait 3-4 months until I can germinate them since the other plants will be way ahead in their growth cycles if I try germinating the spare seeds. I could have left one or two outside for a while if it were spring but it is fall and the weather will mess them up since it is very unpredictable. On a side note, I got my power bill today and with the T5 running for 30 days, the 125w light running for 16 days and the 1000w 10 days, the bill was $50-60 higher than my usual. It seems that the 1000w is going to cost me an arm and a leg but hopefully the plants will be bountiful and make it worth it
The 2 plants are getting really bushy but there are damn soil gnats in the room now. There is no way of not getting these where I live in Florida, they pop out of everywhere. I'll buy some sticky traps this afternoon or tomorrow and then treat the soil with hydrogen peroxide I don't know if neem oil would help but I could give it a try as well. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
I took some photos on day 14 of vegging right after I put a stick trap. I don't think the gnats will go to the white trap but there weren't any yellow ones at the Home Depot that I went to but I'll try Lowe's in a couple of days. I added 2 garlic cloves per pot since most bugs/parasites can't stand garlic and garlic doesn't leech off too much nutrients. May try basil as well but I'll wait and see how the H2O2 and the traps do first. The little whitey dot looking things maybe from the H202 since even though I tried not to spray the plants, they got some water. I'll wipe the leaves later before watering the plants tonight. The Afghan Haze 33 is getting pretty bushy and it is barely supporting it's weight when fully wet; not like it's going to break or anything since it is very strong but it sways to one side from the weight. I have no experience with either one, let alone growing any weed so I don't know yet whether I should leave them as they are or top or ScrOG them. Any feedback and/or suggestions would be appreciated. View attachment 127002 View attachment 126995 View attachment 127001 View attachment 127000 View attachment 126999 View attachment 126998 View attachment 126997 View attachment 126996 View attachment 126995
Since I see the plants daily (more like 40 times a day lol), they look the same to me but I just realized when comparing the weekly photos side by side that they did actually grow considerably. My mind's been telling me they maybe grew slightly but since I took the photos today, I just had a chance to see them side by side and there is a huge difference. Could anyone tell me if it is normal for the plants to grow considerably in girth but not in height or does it depend on strand? Like I said, I have no idea how either plant will turn out and looking at other same type plants is misleading as it totally depends on the individual seed that you get as same strand plants vary greatly based on where the seeds are coming from, who the growers are, etc... Here are the side by side photos: View attachment 126833 View attachment 127002
Been extremely busy with real life. Medical crap, trying to find a place to move 1500 miles away, dealing with WC and all. The computer I use to upload the pics has less than 20 gigs and my 32gb card is almost full since I haven't copied anything in months. So gotta clean up first but I'll post pictures in a few weeks once I do that. I've been taking pictures religiously every Monday since I planted the seeds and it shows the whole progress. I also had the worst frigging luck as well. I had 4 1000w bulbs as well, 2 for vegging 2 for flowering (I only use 1 but the other is a spare). We had no rain for weeks and then all hell broke lose with a deluge coming down on us. After 2-3 days of lightning storms, the bulb just exploded during vegging. The timer was fried as well so I put the spare bulb and the spare manual timer. The timer was way off, so I ordered another one. It kept continuing to thunder for days and I finally decided it was time to go to flowering on the last week of December. I have had them vegging for about 4.5 months and the Afghan Haze 33 was getting out of control at about 5.5 feet tall, and the GDP at 4.5 feet (not from the ground, from above the surface of the pot). I had also planted a Blueberry, White Widow and Purple Haze. One eventually died before even growing over a sapling but the other 2 are fine. Unfortunately they were about 1.5-2 feet high when I decided to go into flowering and since I am focused on the other two, these just basically tag along those two and I don't really care at the output on those since I have more seeds and will give it a go again when I move to my new house in 3-4 months (I'll have plenty of acreage so I may grow them outdoors as well or inside one part of the house since it has quite a few skylights). This monday will be week 4 of vegging and the GDP has lost all fan leaves. The remaining leaves were all green but LITERALLY OVERNIGHT, the leaves turned purple on Tuesday, January 14. The buds are starting to turn yellow as of yesterday (also instant from white to yellow). It stands at about 5-5.5 ft right now and the buds are starting to thicken up. The AH33 is past 6 feet and keeps thickening and thickening. It also lost a lot of fan leaves but it's still got about half left whereas the GDP looks like a plucked chicken. The 2 of the 3 are abut 2 feet each with only a few buds but since nothing changed color yet, I can't tell which 2 of the Blueberry, White Widow and Purple Haze they are but I suspect it was the PH that died since there is not even a purple pigment on the remaining two. But then again, the GDP was also lush green until last Tuesday, so I'll have to wait a few more weeks at least to see what they are. That's about it with me Edit: I forgot to mention but the GDP smells crazy. I haven't put the charcoal filter but I have an ozonator and 2 small ozone/smell filters running (the ozonator, I run in the hallway with closed doors and leave it closed for 4 hours since that one is used for crime scenes and nothing alive is supposed to remain there for about an hour after it is used). My next door neigbour who was at about 40 feet from me moved, so I'm not too worried about the smell going outside since it's also cold and I have the heat on. But man, does that shit stink. I came home from the store and got in through the kitchen door which is about 40 ft away from the room the plants are and there are two doors and 3 walls between them. It didn't matter, I almost couldn't breathe from the smell in the kitchen hehe. The leaves are amazing as well, I have almost two pounds of leaves from the GDP and AH33 and I may actually turn them into a kind of hash. They dry very fast despite the Florida humidity and once I grind them t fine powder, it would take me a day or two to make a hash paste. I'll mix them as well, I don't care about keeping them separate but the GDP is at least 5 times stronger than the AH33 in terms of leaves, and it's a total body high so far for me. If I smoke the AH33 straight up (freshly fallen, semi-humid leaves mixed with organic American Spirit tobacco and rolled into a cigarette), it makes my head spin quite a bit. And btw, all turned female. The GDP was a regular seed and if it was a male, I was going to let it get all over the other 3 and then was going to cultivate those but it turned out to be a female. I used a 2 liter watering can for the both of them every night for 2.5-3 months and then had to up it to 1.5 can and then 2.5 total with the other 2 small plants. Now I use about 2 again. I stuck 4 nitrogen sticks with the 2 tall plants and 3 with the small 2. I still feed them with at least 4-5 ounces of liquid worm juice in the water (which I have been using from day one basically). Once a week I add voodoo, and depending on how the plants look, I may use anything from fish food to guano. I used to get panic attacks from weed in Hawaii (the pakalolo strain caused it I beleive) and then I had it stuck in my head that I would get one but like I said, the GDP is amazing on how it relaxes my whole body. I've been literally smoking the first thing when I get up until I go to bed lol The funniest thing too is that I take 4 pain pills a day plus 2 time released ones am and pm. Normally at 4.5, maximum 5 hours, I will start getting the shivers because my muscles will start to twitch as the pain is coming back. While I've been smoking this for the past 2-3 weeks, I can go about 8-9 hours in between pills. I had told my doctor I was going to be trying it and he had said that I should (even though it's illegal in the state). If this continues though, I'll ask him to reduce the 4 pills to 3 when I see him in 3 weeks.
I definitely have ADD and smoking this doesn't help either lol. I edited the previous message 4 times already so adding to a new one instead. I was saying I had the timer go all slow and stuff after the first one had died. It turns out the socket is screwed up in the room, and I realized that suddenly it felt weird (I have the hallway open and the light brightens up the whole hallway and since this is a 100 year building, I have little square openings on the wall between the hallway that's about 1x1ft at the top of the all at about 9ft high below the ceiling. It turns out the bulb I put on brand new for flowering exploded and I was feeling weird because the light had gone off. I looked and the socket was extremely hot along with the plug. I had a 100 ft cable on a roll for crap to use in the backyard, so I brought that in and I connected everything to the wall on the other side of the house to see if that was going to help with the power. And it did since even the timer started working right. I won't be using anything electrical in that room again and hopefully I'll be out of here in 2-3 months, so the landlord can deal with it. The house was built in 1920 but it also seems as that's when it last had a replacement part for anything. The landlord is cool but he is like McGyver with a duct tape. Amazing what he can fix with a duct tape hehe Anyway, it will be his problem once I'm out. However I was really freaking out when the light died during vegging and if I had continued to veg, it would have been my second and last bulb that would have gotten destroyed. Good thing I had spares of everything or the plants would have been semi-dead unless I paid extra for overnight delivery for the bulbs. Neither Lowe's nor Home Depot carry 1000w bulbs of any sort here and one of them doesn't even have any that can be ordered online. But like I said, if I end up with acreage, I may try some outside plants this year or try some in a room full of skylights (or more like try both).