J.J.'s Everything your not supposed to do during a grow blog

Ok, So I am a medical patient in Colorado. I have two rare blood disorders, one is a clotting condition that requires me to inject Lovenox (low weight molecular Heparin) twice a day, the other is a Iron Loading disorder, that requires me to have therapeutic phlebotomy (blood donation is similar) to keep my serum ferritin levels below 300 nanograms per liter. When I was first diagnosed with Iron Overload, I was going weekly to donate a pint of blood. My serum ferritin levels were over 1000! But in the quest to get my levels back down, the stupid phlebotomists, blew the veins in my crook of my elbows (where you would normally would have blood drawn) in both arms. Now they have to get blood from my mid arm to my wrist. Which is excruciating because they use a 16 gauge needle for the blood collection. Think stir straw at a 7/11 :O

Anyway, because of the pain that the treatment gives me for the iron loading, I begged my doctor to figure out a way for pain management. The iron loading disease already caused me to have jaundice, and I have to avoid Tylenol, and Motrin, because they cause Liver damage, my violent allergies to just about all prescribed pain meds (we're talking about Exorcist class Vomiting here). I asked her about MMJ, and she said, I can't prescribe anything that is more effective for pain management, and nausea! I was so happy. Because the Iron overload also puts my stomach on perma upset. Nauseous, heartburn, dry heaves, etc. So she signed off on my MMJ permit in CO.

I have a local dispensary that I go to, and they have a large variety of edibles, bud, schwag, etc. But I wanted to start a grow of my own for when I didn't have the $$$$ to buy there.

So I started my first grow. I have a spot in my closet roughly 3 ft wide, by 6-7 ft tall and 3 feet deep. It's next where the Hot water heater closet is, so it has an intake vent for the water heater, and the water heater has an exhaust out to the roof. I have an Ionic Breeze pro for odor control, and a 8 inch fan on low for breeze/cooling.

My lighting was a joke, 3 60 watt equiv florescents on a floor lamp that reminds me of track lights because they are staggered in distance from each other. But I figured it would be good enough to get the seeds germd, and into seedling stage before I would need to upgrade the wattage on the lights. I was doing a 24 hour light cycle until they sprouted, and then 18/6 for seedling to veg growth.

My grow medium is Soil, and I can hear the hissing and groaning now, Miracle Grow Soil. When you live 60 miles from civilization, you get what you can where you can... Where I got it??? Walmart, more boos and hisses from the crowd... But it was that, or generic soil.

Nutes.... ahhh once again the dreaded Miracle Grow All Purpose Plant Food, for all flowers, vegetables etc. 12/4/8 for the NPK Rating. For Flowering, I bought a generic fertilizer that is 6/12/6 NPK. I mix the Nutes in with water, and check daily.

Watering. I check every day on moisture levels. In case I get stuck somewhere, I have, and the laughs will follow, an aqua globe filled with water. Believe it or not, it does empty pretty regularly every week, even though I am checking water levels by hand. My water is well water. I have no idea what the PH of it is, and other details, but my plants aren't complaining...

I don't have a PH meter, unless I can actually use the PH tester I have for my fish tank for my plants, and then I would still have no idea how to test my soil with it.... But once again, my plants aren't complaining.

Now on to my first grow.

I started out 6 bagseed seeds from some PretendaKind that I got, and planted them in 6 inch pots with the MG. Watered them really good, and stuck the lights on 24 hours until they sprouted and turned into seedlings. Believe it or not, all 6 came up! They were growing happily until they were about 6 inches tall, and then my drug sniffing kitty found them and mangled them ALL to hell.

Kitty is too damn cute to kill, so I started 4 more seeds from my Bagseed PretendaKind, and started over again. Again, 24 hours light until they sprouted and turned into seedlings. This time, I had engineered a kitty proof cage for my garden, using a mesh laundry basket with the bottom cut out of it. IT WORKED!!!! With me chasing her out of the grow room whenever I spotted her, and her inability to wrap her clawed paws around my babies, they grew and flourished into vegetative growth at 18/6.

When the plants grew to about 3 feet tall, I put them into flowering mode at 12/12. On Day 10, I sexed them out, 2 males and 2 females (1 turned hermie on me, but is mostly female). I yanked the males, and continued my flowering cycle for them. At about 3 wks into flower, my hermie showed his ambiguity towards his gender, and I started to see balls on about 4 or 5 spots on the plant. So I grabbed my magnifying glass and tweezers and started plucking every ball off of the plant. I go in 3-4 times daily to do this.... I know it won't stop ALL of them, but I can at least minimize the damage. Plus my curiosity got the better of me since this is a lush plant, and it's mostly female. My other female, is looking like a bud on a stick. I tried trimming the fan leaves on it, so the lower branches would get more light, and I might have been too zealous in my trimming.... Oh well. Lesson learned....
So we are in week 5 of flowering, and I just managed to obtain some 100 watt equiv lights that have a 1750 lumen rating per bulb, in my grow room so now I have 7000 lumen in my grow space for 2 plants. Hopefully someone will let me know if it is too much, or if I totally screwed up my crop doing it in the middle of flowering...

Next to come, pics of the garden.

Comments

Hope you had some help with your grow... I buy all my stuff from WM or HD cause I live in the hills along the Housatonic River..

You can have a mix of 2700k and 6500k for both veg and flower. I'm sure you know this by now cause 420magazine just has so many people that want to help.

I'm currently doing my first Hempy bucket... very simple so far. Only a week into it but it's looking good. Just Perlite in a bucket with a hole about 2" from bottom and feed with Hydro nutes like FF trio pack of Grow big, Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom.

Wish you lots of green luck and take care GD.
Siscokid
 
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Thanks Sisco. Basically I was a lurker here during the first part of my grow. I have pics in the completed journal of my harvest. I did pretty good. I had about an ounce and a half from 2 plants.

I got lots of help during the flower period and lots of recommendations for future grows. I plan on doing soil mamas with clones going into Deep Water Culture for my next grow. I'm getting clones from my dispensary and I am attempting to germinate seeds. So far all I have is WET seeds. They are in a dark warm spot one wrapped in paper towel, one in a small bowl with a cup covering it sitting in 1/8 water. Seeds are really hard, so I am thinking they might be bad or something...

I'll just get a packet of regular seeds and cross my fingers and toes that something happens. This is an absolute first for me. I plant seeds they grow, so it may just be bad seeds...

Thanks for the comments and I hope to see you in my new Journal Double Double Soil and Bubbles, but right now the end word should be TROUBLES. LOL
 
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