YO YO YO! K so this is my third shot at growing and my second grow journal. For this Grow I've got 4 plants in my grow cab and have 3 plants in a friends closet. We originally planted 8 seeds, 4 northern lights and 4 nightshade. They were planted on 1/9/10 and since then ( its now the 21st) one of the Northern lights plants died. At the moment i've got about 100 watts of 3500-5000k CFLS on the plants And have a 105 watt 5500k light coming to me via mail right now. once they flower im either gonna put a 250 watt hps ( if i can figure out how to put it together ) or about 200 watts of CFL flowering bulbs. For soil I got the 4 babies in a 25/25/50 perlite, vermuclite, organic potting soil mix. In a day or two Im going to add some more potting soil with bone meal on top of that for soem nitrogen. Once they outgrow their Solo cups they are in im going to transport them to a perlite/vermclite/worm casting/bonemeal/ potting soil mix i made. Ill take some pictures when i get a new phone that doesnt suck but if you want to check out the Box im growing in check out my old grow. Some key features are 2 computer exhaust fans, a 8 inch desk fan, and mylar sided walls.
So im getting rather annoyed. I figured out why my plants werent growing at all past simple seedling stage. After going over what i did in previous grows compared to this one i realized i had been using miracle grow or shultz soil and this time i used real organic soil without added ferts. So after adding some blood meal to the plants, and 3 waterings later they are starting to look better. As of now i got 2 Northern lights and 2 Nightshade going. They are both pretty similar in size except 1 of the Nl and 1 of the NS i didnt give bloodmeal at first in case it burned up the other ones, so they are a week behind the other 2. Right now im STUGGLING to keep the humidty up and the heat down. Its like battling the russians during winter. I live in the northeast so right now its fucking cold and wintery out. In order to keep temps down in the box i have to keep my window of the grow room open!!! and that keeps it at a nice 77. otherwise it runs up to 105 real real fast. Also because i have to keep the damn window open the humidty gets sucked out like a whore sucking out cum. I have a humidfier blasting into the box at the bottom full time and i can see the steam going right over the temp gauge and its still only a high of 30%. normally 20%.
Yes and no. Prior to this grow i was growing during the summer time so i could have my AC unit on in my room to keep the heat down and humidity up. without the exhaust fans or the grow fan blasting, heat sky rockets in the box. i only have a couple cfls on it to, so it doesnt make that much sense that it should be getting up to 105 in there.
ALright time for an update. Got a snow day today so had time to play around and take some pics and do some lighting rearranging. Transferred two of them into 6 inch wide pots which ill keep them in until they are ready to sex and those that are female will get a bigger pot. The soil mix i used was roughly by cups i mean solo cups ) 2 cups Organic potting soil 1 cup Perlite 1 cup vermiculite 1/2 cup worm casings 1 1/2 tablespoons blood meal 1 1/2 tablespoons kelp meal The water drainage is really nice and the soil has been holding its moisture pretty well. I am going to need a K source for them soon. Prob buy some bonemeal when they are getting transplanted into their flowering pots. ( shit is expensive) All four of them right after 2 transplants. the two that got transplants dont look to happy yet. Northern lights getting owned by the fan, needed a pen till its roots get some better grip in the soil
Transplanted the other two into a similar soil mix ( i was pretty not exact with my measurments on the soil tho so i have no idea what it all was exactly). ANyway think of any other soil admendments i should add? Ill try ferting with some Jacks classic 20-20-20 next week and see how they respond to it with a little molasses mixed in to jump start those worm casings microbial community!
A picture of #1 vs #3 right before i pulled #1 out of its roots and tossed it. ( #1 was the bigger of the two nightshades but ended up being a male!) The rest are mostly pictures before i added sulfur to the soil to lower the Ph. I ran their runoff water onto some litmus paper and got a ph of 8 for them so i bought some 30% sulfur and added a little less then a tablespoon to them to drop the Ph down to around 6-7. since adding the sulfur they have boomed in leaf size and greenness. ill post more pics after they bounce back a tiny bit. ( the biggest plant is #1, in the second thumbnail and 4th thumbnail is the same plant with a couple days in between shots.)
changed my lighting up a little bit. have a 105 watt 6500k daylight bulb and a full spectrum 5500k daylight bulb with 2 small 13 watt 3500k full spectrum bulbs as well. The #3 nightshade is def. female and the other 2 are who knows. #1 nightshade was a male. all the plants are in soil that is made up of organic potting soil/perlite/vermiculite/blood meal/kelp meal/ and sulfur ( for Ph). here is a pic of all three! Far left is northern lights M the middle is northern lights U and the one of the far right is #3.
Since changing Ph plants have been booooooming! lesson for me to learn was to check soil Ph before planting shit. Ill have to fix that before the next transplant. Got some pics So its kinda hard to tell here, but i had tryed topping this one but i guess i fimmed it and ended up getting 3 tops. i Tied the two side branches down and then topped it again so i have 4 main top branches now. the top on the very top are still pretty flimsy and cant be tied down very effectively yet. Successfully had topped this one. so its really well trained. Im thinking its a male tho. got what looks like a single ball growing at a few nodes. could be a calyx tho so im gonna wait before tossing. This is Kathy ( previously Nightshade #3 ) she was always the runt of the litter but its doing pretty well right now, has a very similar growth pattern to her older sister NS from my last grow. Has been doing much better each day, very compact branching tho.
Kathy, smallest of the group. Very compact, to the point where her branches are too small to even really tie down. looking very happy tho Nlm after having its main top branches duct taped together ( see the silver duct tape). its branch was a little to heavy for its junction and was pulling off the plant. hopefully the tape will mend it back together. Its getting some kinda of sex showing but hard to tell if its male or female yet. Unl after some serious taming. Had to do some super cropping up top followed by a jungle of dental floss tying. had to favor one side over the other in order to tie it down effectively. Hopefully the branches on the other side will get a little longer and fill in the empty space.
Those look great. Im going to be starting my first indoor grow in a few months. Just wondering, where did you get that ratio for plant ferts? Does it depend on what strain your growing?
well i guess i actually used a little too much blood meal cuz it amped up my Ph a little too much. But for the most part i just add a little less then the recommended amount on them. If its your first time growing, id suggest just getting some miracle grow soil since it has some ferts in it to begin with so you dont really need to add anything at first. then once u get to flowering and need to transplant to a bigger pot you can decide if you want to spend the money on a more advanced soil mix.
I just found out today that there is a local hydroponics shop down the street from me a ways. Someone told me if I get Fox Farms soil I dont have to add ferts to it until flowering?
I've never used fox farms but if it has N/P/K in it plus all the other micro nutes then ya your gonna be fine. If its a legit hydro store then im sure the guy who is running it will know exactly what you need, chances are they know everything to get you started with your first grow. And if the soil doesnt have everything you need, there are really cheap miracle grow ferts you can buy that will fix any nute deficiency you have, just make sure to use VERY small amounts of it since they are designed for industrial use and not for pot plants.
Sorry no recent updates. Went to Utah for spring break and skied all week and been studying the past week for Organic chem and physics tests. Got the girls under Flowering spectrum CFLS now and on 12/12 ( been on for about a week now) also put them in bigger pots. ( as you can kinda see). Here is a pic of Kathy and Shelly ( nightshade "NS #3") ( Northern lights "NLM") Respectively, before i left for spring break a little over 2 weeks ago. Heres a picture of Kathy after spring break, happy to be in her new pot. And here She is again under the lights after being tied down with dental floss! This is Shelly right after spring break when i got back ( compare it to the pic taken a week before posted at top) And last but not least a picture of the two girls all tied down take 3/29
New pics of the babys! Kathy in the corner. She is growing like her older sister did. shes short and compact and will have nice dense buds! Shelly on the other hand is long and lanky. been outgrowing the box. im thinking about making a new home for them to deal with her lankyness.
Got some more pics of the girls. They are starting to develop their buds now which is always exciting. The northern Lights plant is tall and pretty thin with pretty small buds right now but its got lots of nodes so im hoping that in the next couple days it will start putting more effort into fattening up the flowers and less into growing! And here is the Nightshade which developed a definite canopy. she looks more and more alike the last nightshade i grew every day! (in fact i smoked some of her older sister this morning!!!!) she still he more then a month left of flowering since its such a slow plant.
Just bought some Neptunes Harvest organic seaweed fertilizer at my local plant store. its 0-0-1 liquid fert. Ill post pictures when my stupid photo album stops giving me errors!!! So ill give a general update for anyone who comes into this thread now. As of now I have two female plants growing. One is a Nightshade and the other is a Northern Lights. Both i started from seed bought at attitude seed bank. I planted them January 9th with a total of 6 other seeds (8 in all). My friend took 4 and i took 4. one of His died right off the bat. All 7 had serious issues in their first two weeks. The first problem was related to the nitrogen levels in the soil. Previously I had grown in Mg Organic soil which had everything the seedling needed to get its first few weeks of growth ( i know everyone hates on MG soil but the Organic was a really good starter soil since you dont need to fert at all for the majority of vegetative). After realizing the worm casings were not a significant source of Nitrogen for the seedlings me and my friend added some nitrogen via blood meal. The difference our applications though was i mixed blood meal into my soil whereas he just applied it to the top layer of his soil. Also i mixed in prob double what he did. His plants took off whereas mine shot up a bit then halted completely. I figured since we had pretty much the same set ups i must have fucked up somewhere. I checked the soil Ph of mine and it was extremely Basic so i had to add some Sulfur to bring it back down to around 6-7. ( I used litmus paper to check the run off [ litmus paper "borrowed" from my Lab]). After adding the sulfur the Ph instantly dropped down and the plants took off! I later read the blood meal is a fast release Nitrogen source and not very good as a soil additive if you want to plants to have access to it during their whole growth. Thus next time I will find a better organic nitrogen product to build into my soil. Lesson learned. ( suggestions on what you guys use for nitrogen would be appreciated, I prefer to add fert as little as possible) Put the plants on 12/12 about 3/22 so a little over a month ago now. They had to spend a week with very little care since i went on spring break. I had my room mate watering them but i didnt trust her with moving the lights ( last set of plants she didnt secure them and a light fell on a plant breaking off a branch), so I just set them about 6 inches above the plants and let them stretch out a little. Which now is biting me in the ass since the Northern lights stretched like a mofo and the nightshade stayed Mad bushy. So now as you can see i have a battle of light placement. So at the moment the plants have been flowering for about a month. I got 2 males and 2 females out of the bunch ( the two males were chucked back into my swamp to die, or to live if they got battle the frost and various evil animals preventing me from growing outside) The plants are in 9 inch wide containers and receive watering about every 4 days. The temps tend to range from high 60s at night to low 80s during the day. As far as ferts go I started using Jacks classic 20-20-20 fert then slightly after flowering I switched to MG 15-30-15 fert while also adding in about a table spoon of molasses. Im always unsure about fertilizing so I tend to use very little. I just bought some Neptunes harvest organic 0-0-1 fert which i used about a a cap full ( which may or may not be around a tablespoon, I dont use actual measurements for anything, I just eye it out. I guess its from being a bartender) I know this post is really long but im studying for an organic chemistry final ( procrastinating at the moment) and took a bunch of ritalin / coffee and am kinda cracked out and writing things as it comes to my mind so if your reading this im sorry for the lack of general direction and poor grammar and spelling. MOST IMPORTANT: If anyone has any suggestions of fertilizing I'd love to hear it. Like I said i have a 20-20-20 ( chemical) fertilizer, a 15-30-15 Mg fert, and a 0-0-1 organic fert. I also have a bag of blood meal and Sulfur. If anyone has used any of these and has suggestions for frequency of ferting and amount it would be nice. I know the MG is a big no-no especially since everything else im using is organic but I bought it during my first grow and i'm going to get some use out of it!!! ( the 20-20-20 is chemical like the MG but ive been using it since my first grow and as long as i use small amounts its been pretty good to me during veg and i have a lot of it still) Thats all! Would love to hear some feedback about this grow so I can make improvements to my next grow which will be a complete wet run as opposed to the semi dry runs I've been doing so far. ( a good comparison for you WoW players = I've been attempting bosses with mostly non-consumables so far and I'm ready to go in fully buffed with an HPS light and lots of potions hehe)