I'm about five weeks in but wanted to start this for my personal reference and to document all that I have learned along the way. When I started these four plants, I knew nothing about growing anything outside of a salt water fish tank. But I figured if you run a reef tank surely you can grow a few plants. I will apologize in advance as this first post will be quite lengthy. 08/16 - I didn't want to order expensive seeds on my first grow and kill them all so I got four seeds of a decent mid from a friend and put them on a wet paper towel in the sun. 08/18 - Whoa - those look like roots!!! 08/19 - With all four seeds germinated time to run to local hydro store for supplies. (I didn't even know my city had before this "science project". ) Bought Fox Farms Ocean Fresh, perlite and dolomite. Mixed the three and put in Solo cups. All four seeds showing roots from 1/4" to 1 1/2". Put in window until the weekend for warmth. Lesson 1 - Remember to mark the seedling cups after planting. (As all four of these seeds are the same, I just want to note this for future reference.) 08/21 - Hardware store. 6 27w 6500k, 1 42w 2600k all CFLs. One mylar blanket. (Barely clearing 200w and already regretting not biting the bullet and going HPS out of the gate. We'll see how it goes.) Pic 1 should show my first "grow house". Watered a very small amount every Wednesday and Sunday for first three weeks. Nothing to note for the first few weeks other than smell. For those of you that are worried, it's a problem from Week 2. It needs to be taken care of if you want any level of stealth/sanity. Even if it's not that strong - you will think everybody on the block smells it and don't know why the cops haven't shown up yet. 09/04 - Plants looked very droopy. (as shown by "grow house" Pic 1) Realized that the days of worrying about over watering were mostly over. I was vastly underwatering my plants. Started using one full turkey baster full of water and things looked up immediately. 09/07 - New problem. Plants started turning yellow and looking drab. Pic 2. Posted on question on GC and was immediately diagnosed as root bound. They were right. 09/08 - Back to hydro store for big bag of FFoF and 3g pots. Did my first transplant and all was right with the world. Lesson 2 - Transplant from solo cups to pots at 14 days. 09/15 - Decided plants were looking droopy again and upped the water schedule to every other day. Also added FF Grow Big to water. (Note: I have since learned I purchased the wrong kind. I bought Hydro 3-2-6 and should have got soil mix at 6-4-4. Hope it doesn't matter.) 09/18 - SMELL IS DRIVING ME CRAZY! Went to hydro store bought a 2x2x5 grow tent, filter and ducting. Installed. WORTH EVERY PENNY!!! 09/21 - Went on vacation. Mother-in-law watered the plants while I was gone. She's a friggen saint. 09/26 - Back home. Everything looks great. 09/28 - Holy crap. It looks like the leaves are hugging the stalk. Pic 3. Posted on GC and it was universally agreed that I was seriously underwatering with my measley turkey baster. I guess I didn't factor as the plant grew so did it's need for water. Duh. Used an entire 2 litre of water for all four plants. That's 1/2 a litre a piece. 09/29 - All that water and 16 hours turned into Pic 4. Once again, all is right with the world. Tomorrow may be another problem but I'm determined to see this through. For somebody who has ZERO experience with plants it's a fascinating process and I have read countless threads on here. Thank you to the GC community for all that you do. I plan on updating this frequently. Cheers.
Current watering schedule. 1/2 litre of pure RO/DI water every other feeding. (Every fourth day.) 1/2 litre of water/Grow Big mix every other feeding. (Every fourth day.) Currently researching.... Mexican bat guana for veg. Jamaican bat guana for flowering. Grow Big for veg. Tiger Bloom for flower. Open Sesamie for early budding. Beastie Bloomz for mid flower. Plantation Blackstrap Molasses - 1 tbsp per gallon - raise to 2 after a week.
Note: I'm on Day 42. In comparison to other grows and pics, I think my plants are definitely on the small side. I'm going to contribute the size issue to my inadequate watering, delay of transplanting and use of CFLs. If I had to guess you could knock 10-14 days off that total of 42 days.
Day 43 for my vk vanilla kush... you have some sort of build up bah i dont know but someone will answer this fo show also they seem to have lived in the small container for along time causing root bound problems then you transplanted into bigger pots well give them time to fight back bro
Thank you for the response Spike_Weed. I agree with you and I'm fairly sure the combo water/root/CFL thing has definitely slowed the process. It's all good. I'm patient. Yours looks awesome. I hope to post pics like that one day.
Not exactly what I meant. Thank you again for taking the time to respond. If you see any errors along the way, please be sure to let me know.
I'll try but everyone on here knows im lazy on posting and i new what ya meant ha practice makes perfection..
Watered them a two-litre of pure water. Either a two-litre of water every other day is too much or they didn't like the fact it didn't have the nutes because the leaves are drooping again. Since I don't know that it's even possible for a plant to have a drink preference, I will change the water schedule to every three days instead of every two. Although the next scheduled feeding is with nutes I don't even know if I will know the difference for awhile. Yes, I'm high and a little confused.
looking good! dont be afraid to top those ladies. that is if you have room for twice the amount of colas. but still great so far subbed!
Lookin good Impact. On your nute days do you pH the solution? I wasn't until a few weeks ago, turns out I was dishing it out at about 5-5.5. I'm keeping it around 6.5 now and can tell my plants are using every bit of it.
Thanks for your responses. It's funny that you say don't be scared to top them because I am. I was going to play this first one straight up before I tried "advanced" techniques. I have read up on most of the different methods; LST, SCROG, SOG, etc. but I just really don't want to screw anything up. Third_ey3 - Unfortunately, I don't have a pH meter. Our water here is really good and I'm using a RO/DI filter to 0 ppm. I was hoping with the FFoF and high quality water to avoid any pH issues. I'm sure it's just a matter of time though. Going to buy bat guana later. Never thought I would be excited about buying bat shit. Cheers.
I just read Dierwolfs 27 page thread on topping. Yes, all 27 pages. Found here: http://forum.grasscity.com/plant-training/122559-how-fimming-topping-made-easy.html I changed my mind and will top all four tomorrow. 1. It doesn't look that hard. 2. I purposely didn't buy expensive seeds to practice. Let's do it. Pics tomorrow.
I don't bother pHing my water, but my nute mixture lowers the neutral water to about 5 to 5.5, which is far too acidic for soil. I bought a General Hydroponics pH kit at my hydro store for under $20, should last a good while.
Thanks for the suggestion Third Ey3. Here's my pre-top picture from tonight. I will post the "after" shots tomorrow.
drooping of your plants normally means they need to be watered, also a ph tester is very important must keep levels just right or plant can get locked out and not intake the nutes the strips are ok but for best results get a digital on you can find em pretty cheap on ebay.. also you will need the calibration solutions. ive put together a great tutorial check it out.
Topped all four. I assume I did it right. Pics of all four attached. Any comments to my pics are greatly appreciated. Lesson 4: Remove plants from tent to top. Better angle and better view. (I just reached in and did it this time.) Headed to Hydro store to get bat guana.
Hey impact just wanted to comment on your grow. Its looking great. the pictures are a bit hard to tell exactly what you did but i get the jist of it. Try taking ones from a more side angle but still from the top it can show us here at GC what is really happening. And you most likely did it correctly. its very simple you just cut
Thanks for the reply and suggestion IamJ. I will do that. Just picked up some bat guana from the hydro store and will try to take better pics tomorrow when I feed. Cheers.
Just read the directions on the bat guano. Sunleaves Mexican Bat Guano. Older or larger plants, mix up to 3 tablespoons per gallon of water and apply during the vegetative cycle of growth. Repeart every 4 weeks. Every 4 weeks? I will be flowering in about 6. Does that mean I'm only going to be able to feed them the guano once before I flower? I thought the guano was something you added to every feeding? Please advise.