Hello First time grower. I have never had any kind of plant before now. I have built my self a little closet grow space, 60x60x200cm. I have a Meizhi R600W (277 actual wattage) LED light, and I am growing in Biobizz light mix. I started up my grow last weekend by putting two seeds in wet paper towels on friday. Then when they showed sign of opening (about 24hours later), I dropped them into some dirt. Three days later, the first seedling breached the dirt. It grew 2cm over night and had some very fine first true leaves, about the size of the first leaves. This is it now, at day 5: It took another two days before the second seedling breached the dirt. This one barely grew above the dirt, and both the first leaves and the first true leaves are deformed. This is it now, on day 3: I don't know if this was just a bad seed, or I did something wrong. My tap water has a normal pH of 8.5, so I took out about 2L before I started the germination, and fixed it's pH.. Not knowing that the pH would be back to normal after about a day. I didn't realize the high pH until day 4 of the first seedling. Because of the look of the second seedling, I choose to germinate and plant another two seeds. I let these germinate for 48 hours, each seed showing a little bit of root. While these are still only on day 1 and 2, since sprouting, they look a lot better than the second seedling. I then plan to pick the best one from among the two late seeds and the deformed one, when it is time to repot. This third seedling is now on day 2: And the fourth seedling is on day 1:
Sorry for the unfocused images.. my phone would much rather focus on the background, than what I want the picture of.
Nice! Hope you end up with something good. It's also a good thing that you can go ahead and hunt out the healthiest of the bunch to make it to the flowering stage. Are you going to be using tap water all the time as well? Don't forget to let it sit out for a day to evaporate and if you can find a cheap air stone, that's a good way to oxygenate that water as well.
Yeah, I was just planning to use tap water for the entire grow. I haven't really given alternatives much consideration. I live in an apartment without balcony, so no easy access to rain water. This is the first time I see someone mention airstone and oxygenating the water. Is this really something worth looking into? The soil mix contains 5% perlite, and I've added about 10-15% coco aswell. This being my first grow, and the first time I'm even taking care of plants, I just want everything to be as simple and easy as possible.
Just because of the chemicals in the water from it being treated. Chlorine for instance. Although you can let it sit and evaporate, it's just a little bit of an added bonus. Plus if you ever decide to make any teas, that's one less thing to worry about later on. How about supermarkets that sell distilled water or the RO water stations that sell the huge jugs in like 5 gallon versions?
I am most definitely gonna be making tea from the trimmings.. I drink a lot of tea And I do let the water sit out atleast 24 hours before I use it for watering. Is chlorine the primary problem of tap water? Because where I am from, they don't add Chlorine to the tap water.
It all depends on what they add into your drinking water. Hopefully someone else will chime in that knows a bit more than I do. I think you're tea is different than the tea I'm thinking of. The tea I'm talking about is for the plants. Basically you make a compost tea using worm castings and molasses to feed the plant if you're doing an organic style of growing. Since you're growing in soil, making a tea won't hurt the plant at all. That is something you don't really need right now but it is a possibility in the future as you get used to growing and find ways of improving.
Update 1: I discarded the deformed plant, it wasn't showing signs of growing new leafs. The other 3 plants seem to be going strong, or so I am hoping. I am alittle concerned about the oldest of the seedlings. The leaves have a lighter color, than the younger seedlings. The plant has a dry look, but doesn't feel dry to the touch. All plants are on the same watering schedule: watering every 2 days, when the dirt feels dry up to the first knuckle. I have the LED light at 30". The manufacture advised between 24"-30" for seedlings. Anything I should be worried about? I haven't started adding nutrients to the water yet. From what I have read, that shouldn't be needed until after 3-4 weeks. I would also love to know when you normally repot your seedlings to their next pot. At what age?, or do you use some other metric. Seed 1, day 13: Seed 2, day 10: Seed 3, day 9: