The Little Bud that Grew

This is the tale of how in the last 2 months I've gone from simple balcony flower gardener to closest marijuana grower.

Nov 17th - Nov 26th: Germination


It started typically as all bag seed plants do. I was over my buddies place smoking a joint a week or so before Thanksgiving. As he's grinding up the weed, he stumbles upon three seeds. "Hmmm, you have a balcony garden don't you?" And throws me the seeds. My interest is high because ever since I was in college, I've always wanted to grow my own pot. Later when I arrived home, I walked through the balcony and dropped the three seeds into a mostly empty planter box. I went inside and forgot about them until Nov 26th. I was outside watering and noticed a new seedling. At first I didn't believe one of the seeds could have started so fast. I assumed it was a regular weed and gave it some water to see it grow a little before I trashed it. The little sprout was out in the wind and cold for a while until I realized what it really was.

 

Nov 26thth - Dec 17th: Outdoor Seedling


The little plant was outside, unprotected and alone for about 20 days. Being cold out, it's grew slowly but a little before Christmas ( Dec 17th ) it got to the point where I could identify it. A Google search on my phone later confirmed I had a baby marijuana plant on my hands. Oh what to do?? Was I ready for the responsibility of growing a full plant? First things first, I brought it inside and out of the cold. I sat down and smoked a joint staring at this new challenge ahead of me. As if in some divine blessing, I realized that a major hydroponic supply store was 4 blocks from my home. The next day I spent a good deal of time speaking with their staff and figuring out the steps to get started. I decided to keep it simple to start with and walked away with a fluorescent box light and timer. I stopped past the hardware store and picked up some chain and hooks to hang the light with. In a cliché act, I have a closet under the stairs in my place I chose to be the location. I cleared it out, suspended the light and put the plant under it. At this point it wasn't big enough to be transplanted so I kept it in the planter box. It came inside along with an aloe transplant that didn't make it.

 

Dec 18thth - Jan 3rd: Indoor Early Veg


GROWTH!!! Man does this plant grow fast when it has what it needs. Two days after being in the grow room it had doubled in size. By the very next day, it seemed like it had doubled again. The two images of the plant I attached are only 1 day apart. I wish the aloe plant would have grown as fast. It withered for a few weeks and died. This was the best pic of it. I didn't really do much but watch and water it for the next week or so. I did add two pieces of aluminum foil to the back wall of the closest. It seemed to help reflect the light back. On Jan 3rd I decided it was time to transplant to a bigger pot. I had a 5 gallon soil pot already filled with new soil. I took the plant outside, gently removed it from the seedbed and put it into the pot. I made a couple mistakes to note: first I shouldn't have done it outside in the cold and I should have been quicker as I took it out then started working on the big pot. It shocked the plant a bit to be outside and one of the leaves automatically shriveled and died. I'm slighty concerned about a hermi because of it :-/

 

Jan 4th - Jan 9th: Transplant Recovery


The plant seemed sad for a couple days but by Jan 5th is started coming back around. This is also when I decided to stick more foil up and proceeded to cover most of the closet with it. I also covered the front of an old painting, which acts like a nice reflect/divider. My closet goes all the way under the stairs which was full of junk until I repurposed it for hydro use you'll see in later posts. DEPTH MATTERS! One issue/benefit of starting off in my seed bed was the soil wasn't really deep enough as it should have been for the plant. As a result the roots spreed more outward then down and thus the plant grew outward faster the upward initially. However by Jan 9th it had about a week to finally extend downward in the new 5 gall pot and the plant started shooting upward. It also started looking finally like images in High Times I grew up with.

 

Jan 10th - Jan 17th: Indoor Late Veg


The last week has seen the most growth to date. I also have been able to start feeding it nutes which has helped. The soil used was already fertilized recently so I had to wait a month for the plant to consume it. I'm to the point now where I had to learn about tucking, trimming and lolipopping. I was scared to touch the plant at first but the guys at the hydro store kept telling me to trim back the shade leaves. At first I compromised by tucking the shade leaves under the new branch growth. I did notice a massive growth in the branches after that which got me thinking about energy flow in the plant. Over the last past two days I removed 2 pairs of shade leaf groups that were both huge and also being overshadowed by other leaves. About 6 hours after the cuts I've notice each branch pair on the same node as the leaves have had MASSIVE growth. This makes me assume the plant is pushing all the food into the branches now and trimming them was a good idea. The plant now has an awesome look to it as well. I'm going to pick up the bud bulbs for my light this week and I should be switching over to flower then.

 

Jan 17th - Upgrade Complete


After today's trimming session I realize I'm fully into this. I went back to the hydroponic store and purchased a ton of supplies. I also went online and bought some things I couldn't find there. I cleaned out my closet further under the stairs to expand on things. I now have a nutrient bucket/pump that will be constantly flowing with 5 gallons of solution for all my hydro/plant feeding. I have a rockwell cube seedbed I'm going to be using to start some non-marijauna based herbs. Basil, flowers etc. I have a 6 cup clone/seedling aquaponics system coming in that will take over after they grow out of the seedbed. I also have a new full spectrum LED bulb/fixture coming in for that bucket. Decided to upgrade the foil with mylar and replace the chains suspending the lights with an adjustable rope pully. I hope to share more of this story with you guys. I'm in this as a total hobbiest but I'm hooked!

 

Thanks! I've had a healthy deck garden going for 6 years now so I'm used to taking care of plants. I do obsess about my projects and probably have spent a total of $450 on this one thus far. I think I'm happy with what I have and will probably not need anymore. The ONLY thing I think I may grab is upgrade my 2" x 4 bulb light to a 8 bulb model in a few weeks. It's a $250 light :-/ but will round the closet off nicely.


This plant is in soil but the next one will probably be hydro. I'm also going to start growing some edible herbs and flowers as outdoor hyrdo in coco this summer.

 

That's actually a limitation. I do not have any ventilation beyond two fans that keep the air circulated. There's a large gap under the door and one of the fans pulls air in from it. I can't tell if the lack of airflow has effected it's growth at all. I have started opening the door during the day.


Everyone who's seen the plant has said it's incredibly healthy so I'm not too concerned at this point. I'm open to advice though!

 

Thank you! It is a pretty zen plant

 

? The post is full of them. Maybe you can't see on mobile?

 

Jan 18th - Water Bucket


I was advised by someone to build a 5 gallon bucket to keep a water solution around to feed the plant. The bucket has a water pump at the bottom with a hose going up out the top and then just back in spraying water. Keeping the pump going will prevent algae and aerate the water. I made a HUGE mistake in selection of a white painters bucket from the hardware store and black spray paint. A painters bucket has a coating on it to prevent paint from sticking. It's constantly flaking and will be getting a regular black bucket to replace this one asap.


The first thing I did was paint the bucket and let it dry for a day. Then I gathered everything together tonight and started building. The first thing was to drill out the holes for the water tubing and some small holes to thread zip ties around. I then touched up the paint ( a complete waste of time I found out later ) and put everything together. It was at this point as I'm trying to open the sealed top, all the spray paint came off in flakes.... so angry. Had to change out all the solution and start over. Will be replacing as soon as I can.

 

Oh man, trust me it's a main concern I have. After all the work I've done, if it does turn out to male I'm going to probably slow it's growth and then rush out to get a strong female clone and seed it. I've tended to this little sprout for 2 months now and I don't think I could just throw it out.

 

Are your buckets not black? I thought about taping but realized Home Depot is just a couple blocks away and I'd rather keep it clean looking.