Not My First Grow (this doesn't count)!

"Not My First Grow" and when I say that, what I mean is, this doesn't count lol. I've technically been experimenting with popping seeds and vegging small plants since around March 25th. Some outside and some in my closet with the cheapest viable led light I could find for veg only. A $20 4" Hyper Tough LED 5k spectrum, Wal-Mart special =). Believe it or not the light is quite impressive.

I had about 130 bag seeds. The original plan was to attempt to get ONE plant going outside and I tried with less then desired results. I used old miracle grow potting soil and way over watered. Had Slow germination and slow growth. Lots of seedlings died and many seeds drowned lol. I went through about 30 seeds and ended up with 3 living.

I quickly realized i was having issues and ran out to get that light immediately, In an attempt to germinate healthier seedlings in the house. I also tried mixing my own 3 part potting soil. Consisting of peat moss, perlite, and composted forestry product from Kellogg lol, the cheapest one. It really wasn't to bad after I screened it at about 1/4" inch. I managed to get a few more seedlings outside that where much healthier but the soil was still bad.

This is what the outdoor ended up looking like lmfao.


I realized I wasn't going to get anything up and running outside. So after figuring out all the stuff I did wrong. One of the main things I wanted to correct was my timing. Well I can't try that again till next year lol. So now I've been practicing in my closet. Its become quite entertaining.

First main correction was to just get some decent soil. I went to get Fox Farm Ocean Forest but the hydroponics guy talked me out of it. He explained to whole adding 20% drainage situation. Then suggested Roots Organic Original. I like roots now =). Second correction was water less. I've even went through a phase of under watering already lol. I think have it dialed in now.

My experience consists of about 50 seeds now and things are improving rapidly. I wouldn't consider anything im doing as a "grow" lol. More of just a learning experience of sorts. Never the less I would like to share. I have a small grasp on the basics and have been keeping decent track of what I'm doing. Possibly even a tiny bit excessive, no problem =). It might not be good content for you pros lol but it's the kind of stuff I was looking for when I first started. Plus organizing it in a journal will put it into a better perspective for me and possibly anyone else at my level of experience.

I'm a couple weeks in at the moment and I'll date the pictures. I'm going to add time stamps to the germination stage. I have no intentions of flowering as I do not have a flowering light, no biggie =(. I'm still learning and even the harshest of criticism is welcome =). Please enjoy

7/8 12:06am:
Placed 7 seeds in water to soak. Two floated, most likely little air bubbles attached to the seeds. I gave then a little poke but they kept floating.
Lights are on 24h
Watering with un-PHed RO water



7/8 11:50pm:
Transfered seeds to a damp paper towel after about 24 hours and placed them in a plastic bag at room temperature no extra heat.



7/10 6:27pm:
As soon as a tail popped out on the last seed. I transferred the sprouts into Roots Organic Original, using 18 ounce cups. Double cup method to catch any runoff and clear cups on top for humidity domes till they sprout. I numbered the seeds 1-7, 1 being the strongest seed and 7 the weakest. 7 does have a tiny tail.


This is my cup setup, its slightly different, I like it =).





Does that make scene? Lol

The cups where filled with Roots Organic Original.


If you look above at the sprouts. The longest one that busted out of the shell, I've labeled it number #1. The cotyledons where exposed so when I transferred it into the medium. I left them sticking out above the dirt. It worked out.



The cups where placed under a Hyper Tough 45watt led shoplight with daylight spectrum, from Wal-Mart $18.99. The light is hung about 8-10 inches from the top of the seedlings. Then i moved as close as 3 inches as the leaves developed keeping an eye on node spacing.


I've been using clear cups as mini humidity domes =) 7/10



7/12 12:35am:
4 of 7 seeds broke the surface.

7/12 5:20pm:
6 of 7 seeds are sprouted. Seed 7 seemed to be the weakest seed from the beginning but did have a tiny tail when it entered the medium. The seeds entered the water at 12:06am on July 8th. 6 of seven seeds are sprouted and above ground at 5:20pm july 12th. That's right about 3.5 days.


July 17th, they are in order...
#1 #2
#3 #4
#5 #6
Day 10 from soak. I can't remember if i watered here or not but I am using Un-PHed R/O water this time. Un PHed because I don't have any testing equipment at the moment. R/O because i do have one. I was not using it before because it was faster to use the tap and in was all worried about wasting water with the R/O run off but no biggie. I just got a 5 gallon bucket and I'm going to see how much runoff there actually is. Then use it to water yard plants maybe. I also started using the R/O because I have a water softener hooked up with salts in it lol. I'm still researching that. Im also not sure how old my filters are and I've heard stories about older filters putting out higher TDS than the tap. I'll get a meter soon lol. My tap water is 7.8 PH average and 500 TDS for reference.


I picked up nutrients for my older plants that are starting to show signs of everything lol. So I have some stuff mixed up at 50% and full strength. I just dilute if necessary atm. I decided to experiment and plant #1 is getting 1/4 nutes on every watering for now.






July 20 day 13, I probably watered I can't remember.
#1 #2
#3 #4
#5 #6

7/22 day 15
Starting to realize the light is to close the leaves are (tacoing) so I moved it up a bit. Or actually I revmoved one of the boxes my seedling are boosted up on lol
#1 #2
#3 #4
#5 #6


7/25, day 18 up to date atm.
It might be difficult to tell but seedling #1 that is getting 1/4 nutrients seems to like it. I kinda move the plants with my finger sometimes to tighten them up,I have no fan atm lol. But it's super obvious that seedling one was way stiffer than the other 5 and slightly greener. They are super green almost burning. The leaves are flattening out now that I moved the light.
#1 #2
#3 #4
#5 #6

 

I forgot to mention R.I.P #7 =(. I'm going to take the blame on this one because it did have a tiny tail. I wanted to keep it in the paper towel a bit longer but in an effort to keep everything constant I dropped it in the dirt when the others went in. I went shallow too but oh well. That cups soil got used in my cloning adventures. Which I'm sad to say is at 25% success rates right now. I'm using the $5 Wal-Mart rooting hormone and gong straight into Roots Organic original. It technically works every time but only two of 8 rooted in like 7 days and immediately started growing.

My "favoritest" clone cracks me up. I've been LST training it and it responds well. Then I came up with great idea to water it twice with 1/2 strength nutrients twice in a row and almost zapped it. I'm also insisting on keeping it in the cup for practice lol. If you can grow in a cup, you should be able to handle a bigger pot.

Here is that clone and a small progression.
7/12


7/15


7/15 about 2 hours later


7/25, I burnt it with two 50% nutrient waterings. One leaf got so green and just curled up.


I bent the crap out of it lol. It has 8 heads all ready to go. I'm so tempted to black box this clone for 12/12 right now in the cup =). Its been 13 days since this clone stabilized.

Thanks for peeking in.

 

I fed everything 1/4 nutrients last watering because #1 seemed to not mind it to much. Now #4 is letting the tiniest little bit of burn creep in on one leaf. I would have figured #1 would have but maybe #4 is a little wimp. Not looking for diagnosis or solutions atm just sharing =).

 

Lol good one =). I'm not going to micro manage every leaf hehe. I just posted that one cause it was funny that number 4 was being all wimpy and what not rofl. It might not even be nute burn, but its definitely a non issue =).

Thanks friend, I have a decent grasp on the vibe around here. I've been lurking for 3 months about. I use the search function a lot and shouldn't be to bad about starting or making useless posts . I've been a tiny bit over zealous the past couple days but hey, I'm brand spanking new lol. I just created my account 2 days ago.
Thanks for looking.

 

I picked up a new 5 gallon bucket to do some testing on my R/O system. The backwash drain easily unscrews and has a decent length of tubing already hooked up to it. That made it easy to divert the water into the bucket. The R/O unit seems to be a 5to1 system. For every 1 gallon of R/O water made it was wasting 5 gallons. It also takes 1 hour to make 1 gallon of R/O water, and back washes 1 gallon every 12 minutes while filtering that R/O gallon into the holding tank. So I made 5 gallons of R/O water last night. Collected all the runoff and watered everything around the house. It took a bit but not to big of a deal. I still don't have a tds or ph tester, so still no info there yet. I made a small order of supplies, one being the cheap ph testing gear and a bottle of ph up and down. It should be here Wednesday 2 days.

I want to get them out of the cups soon but won't transplant till the package gets here in 2 days. It has Great White in it. I'll lightly dust the roots when I transplant. I barely have any room so I'll be transplanting from the cups into 1 gallon trade pots. Trade gallons are actually .71 gallons. I wanted to use the next size up 1.4 gallon pots but I don't have room (This whole trade gallon thing is silly). A couple of the seedling are starting to show node 5. With a distinct node 3. I'm not going to top it till it's been in the new pot for a couple days. So I'm still looking at 4 to 5 more days before I consider what type of training to do.

I was initially fascinated with aggressive high stress training. Cutting at node 3 the second the scissors would fit, and that does work. Trying lots of stuff though and my favorite plant was cropped at node 4. Training nodes 4, 3, and 2, while removing the branches on node 1. I'll be training one that way this time. I also want to top one of the plants at node 4 and strip everything accept the two branches on node 4. Then crop that same plant two more times on each side for 8 mains. The other 4 are still up for debate if anyone has a suggestion. Might let one of then grow natural and top at 7 or 9 maybe? Then lst from then on.

July 25th, day 13 from above ground. When I first started I would have snipped it @ node 3 today =). This is #2

 

Day 15
Everything is going well. Roots Organic original might be slightly hot for seedlings. 5 of 6 plants have minor tip burn on a leave leaf or two. While being extremely green. I do like it though.

When the cups went almost dry before the last watering I payed better attention to how much water I used. They accepted 3oz of water and had about 10 drops of runoff into the catch cup. I may transplant tomorrow regardless if the Great White arrives or not. They are looking amazing and I don't want to show them down.







Really nice node spacing.

 

Sweet, the package showed up. I was waiting on the Great White before I transplanted.

Mixed a tiny bit of the Great White into my transplant soil. Using 1 gallon plastic gro-pro pots (actually 0.71gallons). The pots are really sturdy. I Formed the soil around the cup and dusted the empty hole before transplanting into it.

Pre-drilled holes for future training.


The Great White is sprinkled all inside there ya just can't really see it. It in there though, and I added some to the actual soil.


The roots are a bit wild. I wanted to transplant earlier, but was waiting for the Great White.


They looked great immediately after the transplant. The soil was perfect moisture to allow a small watering in. They did get a little sad a couple hours later from transplant shock I assume.




I had to make room. Got rid of my Jenga stack of boxes. It's a tiny bit cramped but will work for now.




This is a few hours later, #1 got the droopiest, but 5 and 6 didn't react to badly.
#1


#5 and #6 did well.

 

5 out of the 6 are perking up already =) about 6 hours after transplant. #2 got a bit more droopy =(. I'm sure it will recover nicely.


I tested my R/O water and it's seeming to come in lower than I expected. I'm gathering up better testing gear asap. I was expecting 7.8ish and it looks like 6.4ish. Maybe 6.5


I have bigger pots ready for later. #5, 5 gallon fabric smart pots. They might actually be close to 5 gallons. Hmm this company may not use trade gallons. I'll measure later and run the equation. I still think I'll hit a 2 gallon plastic pot in between the 1 gallon plastic and 5 gallon fabric.


I had fungus gnats in force. I tried small shallow containers with 50/50 apple cider viniger and water. It brought the numbers down by more than 90%. When first mixed the viniger does smell, bad! It seems to evaporate a bit over time. As you replace the water the smell begins to go away and your left with the more sweet based apple cider. It does seem to work very well for a smaller space. They used to be full of gnats but I just cleaned and replaced the solution =). Lol #2 is sad right now.

 

Day 20.
Its been 4 days since transplant. Plant #2 was being kind of dramatic (went limp for 24 hours). While #5 and #6 where barely affected if at all. Everyone bounced back quickly. I added another light, same type. For a total of 90 actual watts of 5k LEDs now. Plants look great and I made cannabis leaf #number decals for the plastic pots =). I almost mixed them up but now they are numbered.

When watering, the 18 ounce cups would accept about 3 ounces of water when almost dry. My first real watering in the 0.7 gallon containers took about 12 ounces before runoff.

I topped everything today, trying different trainings with each plant. #1 got it the worst. I'm going for 8 main colas off of two main branches with this one. There where three other plants that would have worked better for this technique but they had better structure for other stuff I wanted to try.

So #1 it is for the nug bucket. I topped #1 at node 3 and removed everything below node 3. I would of liked node three's branches to be a little bit longer but this was my least desire technique and the only plant that I was left with. It will be fun to work with those tiny nodes =). I also cloned the top of plant#1.









Plant #2 was topped at node 4, kept 3 and 2 but removed node 1.



Plant #3 was topped at node 4 and kept everything underneath including node 1.



Plant #4 was topped at node 6 but I also removed the feeder leaves on node 6, so that's different for me lol. I was going to top plant #4 at node 5 but figured i would try at node 6 but didn't want node six's feeder leaves to cover up anything underneath them, so removed them but kept the tiny new growth. It's an experiment for me =)


Here is the top of plant 4 where I removed the feeder leaves but left the new growth. Well see what happens.



Plant #5 was topped at node 4. I removed node 1



Plant #6 was topped at node 5, I removed node 1.


Here is everything before and after

 

I'll admit #1 was making me slightly nervous lol. But I just took pics less then 24 hours after the topping and she looks happy. Those two lil nodes are going to have lots of work to do =)

Before:




After:

 

Day 23, three days after topping
Everything looks good, I started very light lst on plant #1. Plant #4 is a strange one. Plant #5 is showing beautiful node branching =). Just wish i did first transplant and topping about 6-10 days earlier. I was waiting on great white though =). Next time I will top at day 10-14.

Plant #1 I put a little pressure on those little nodes. I want to flatten them out if possible.




Plant #2




Plant #3




Plant #4 This plant is definitely the oddball. Very short and stocky




Plant #5 This guy has very appealing node branches atm =)




Plant #6




I'll start training the other plants in a day or two.

 

Plant 5 is my favorite now. I cut some nodes and trained some branches today.

 

I'm coming out of the closet =)


And into a 4x4 tent =). Wow I have my closet back but ummm. I've given up my bedroom lol.

The plants look great. I trained a couple more and moved them into the tent. Don't laugh at my shoplights rofl. They are proven veggers lol.




I'll move the power cords after I get the proper extension cords.