Captain Cow
New Member
I have been lurking on and off sites like this for years with the intention of setting up a grow. As an adult making a choice that I want to indulge in cannabis; the only bad side I see to this (other than the danger of arrest) is where my money may end up further up the chain. This combined with the fact that the price has doubled in the past 10 years, makes growing a no-brainer. Since I started growing the amount of reading I have done has stepped up (which I don't really have time for right now) and it is quite a while since it was last a topic I was researching. I have read some fantastic journals (just finished Reg's journals start to end all ~1000 pages) and have wanted to reciprocate. Yet I have held back for a few reasons, the first of which is the way I see it the first rule of growing is the same as the first rule of fight club and posting it all over the internet seems to break this rule. The second being with arrest quota policing and their greater awareness of using the internet at a local level; I don't want to make their lives to easy. I know they should have better things to do than target hobby (or any without links to serious OC) growers like me but if they are a few arrests short close to quota day I don't want them busting down my door. So I have set up a new email (my god is it hard to find an email service that does not require verification these days) and some routing which while making this a slow process makes me feel a bit safer. This brings me onto my first questions:
What precautions (with out providing specifics) do those of you (not counting you lucky legal/decrim people) take to protect your security while posting evidence that could get your door kicked in at 5am?
Does this site have a photo metadata scrubber built in? (I will do this manually anyway)
Or am I just being over paranoid? (not smoked in over 2 weeks; so that's not to blame)
So a few months back I had some money in the bank and knew my life dictated an imminent 3 month period on the wagon. So I thought it would be perfect to set up this project which has been on my mind for years with the aim to have a harvest in time for when my dry spell was over as a bit of a celebration. I always knew if I did this LED was the way I wanted to go and had selected the brand I wanted to go for something like 4 years ago (although seems the LED grow light market has changed a lot since then). Time until when I wanted my harvest dry and with as much cure as possible was limited so I selected autos. Since then my landlord has told us he wants to put the house on the market in the autumn, which has put an end in the short term to my plans for a small perpetual grow. Also introduced a new time scale as ideally I would like to get as close to recovering my set up costs in dealer savings before I move as I can, I currently estimate this in the 3-4oz range (not counting seeds for future use). This brings me onto my journal:
Set up: closet grow approx 2'x2'x4'6" roof, floor and 3 walls covered with space blankets, 4th covered in silvered acoustic barrier (think this is supposed to go under carpet in blocks of flats). Currently the only ventilation is the fans built into the light unit but have a home made carbon filter and some fans waiting for me to fit.
Lights: G8LED 240w flower/bloom with a 90w red UFO on standby. Started on 24 hour for the first few days while waiting for timer to arrive. Then I read about dark periods being important so I started switching it off as I left for work and back on when I got home for a few days (~14/10). When the timer arrived set it to 18/6. Currently on a GLR inspired 15/4/1/4 for approx past 10 days, as I sleep in the same room and the fan noise, heat and humidity were messing with my sleep.
Strains: 1x Afghan regular (the ones Herbie is giving away by the bucket load, no real info on this except pure indica.
2x Auto Blue Mystic from Nirvana; c&p from Herbies:
Seedbank: Nirvana
Type: Indoor/Outdoor
Indica / Sativa: Indica dominant
Feminized: Yes
Yield: 200 - 300
Effect: Stoney
Grow height: Low
Flowering weeks: 5 - 7weeks
Blue Mystic was especially chosen for its soft blue hues, which appear roughly halfway into flowering.
Blue Mystic grows in a very similar way to Northern Light, showing all the desirable qualities of that marijuana variety, with the added appeal of its own colourful appearance and the faintly berry-like aftertaste of its smoke.
Compared to many other marijuana strains, Blue Mystic has a neutral smell while growing.
I will update when I have something germinated in the fourth slot so far been trying to germinate 10yo seeds, which I didn't expect much from but they are not going to get any more viable waiting longer. They crack and produce small taproots but don't seem to have enough energy to turn into plants.
Pot Size: Autos in ~15L (4 US gal?) Afghan in 5L (~1.5 US gal) intending to pot up before flowering.
Medium: 3:1 generic multi-purpose compost
erlite (I have since read this is likely to be a bit rich(hot)) with about 1/2-1 pint of seedling soil around the point where the seeds went in. Pots have about 1" of gravel with a layer of perlite on top, as my mother taught me to do this then water from the drip try for potted plants sensitive to over watering. I have since read that a layer of gravel is a bad thing, however since then I have read about SIPs and this to me sounds like rudimentary SIP.
Feed/Water: Not bothering with pHing; using rain water (which should be around the right pH anyway). Nutes currently on hand: a load of stuff for the garden/house plants which won't be coming near these plants, liquid kelp, some pelleted poultry manure (I am reluctant to use poo based stuff atm as I sleep in the same room and don't want it to smell like a toilet but have no problem using it in the garden) and something called "root it first feed" which claims to replace water for the first 2-3 weeks of a plants life. It is a 2/1.15/2.3 with a full (I assume balanced) range of micro-nutes. I followed this but at half strength until recently. The autos loved it the afghan initially also loved it but not so much after a while. Anyway I have resolved to alternate water and feed from now on to avoid salt build up and potentially use more water so the plants use up the compost. Will make a visit to a garden centre to look into a phosphorus source (thinking steamed bone meal drilled/top layered) and spray gun (although tempted to buy a cheap Chinese airbrush for this as I have a compressor).
Germination: All the current plants were germinated using the paper towel method, lost 1 ABM which tap rooted and was transferred (most likely my fat handedness) and 2 10yo seeds. All transferred straight into the pots you see them in now. Trying some other stuff atm will update.
Temp/Humidity: Not going to worry about these right now unless I see signs of problems, as my time is limited and spend far more of it than I can afford right now on this site as it.
TLDR: Here are the pics, they are really bad will try and take some better ones later. Also I am bad with dates so they are not 100% accurate.
Grow day 23:
Grow day 24:
Afghan (regular): Lets start with the bad; she was the first to show above soil and the one who's age I am most sure of. She (I hope) was going great for the first week and a half apart from some minor signs of over watering, so I slowed the feeding. Then she started showing minor nute burn and more signs of over watering. So I let her dry out and switched to pure rain water and she showed signs of recovery, then I let her get pretty dry again then micro topped her at the 3rd node and gave her a little water. Following this things went down hill very fast, major swift nute burn within a day she had gone from brown tips on the lowist leaves to the damage you can see. So she took a midnight walk to the water butt (my tap water in contraindicated as it is softened with NaCl) which I had hoped to avoid as it is visible to public areas. After a flush she showed incredible recovery; by the next morning she was looking very perky. However her development of new branches is slow, which I assume (hope) is due to a combination of damaged leaves photosynthesising poorly and her focusing on root repair. I would say my noobishness has set her back 2-3 weeks. I am not really worried about the leaf damage in the long term however her stalk looks very weak. The set back while annoying is not a total disaster as I intend for her to have a photoperiod sister which I have yet to germinate.
Day 23:
Day 24:
Older Auto Blue Mystic (O-ABM): This girl is fantastic she has taken everything my noobishness can throw at her and thrived. I saw her first lady bits on day 17. I always intended to give her some LST, but held back a long time as she was so short and perfectly formed (unfortunately no pics). Eventually I gave in and started her training and am glad I did, as I now have 5 or 6 bud sites all around the same height. I also stumbled across a LST technique which I am really happy with (have nothing to compare it to). I anchored her at the bottom like normal, then make a loose lasso around the inter-node I want to train from and hook it around one of those green garden sticks. Then I pinch the wire at the stick and twist gently reeling her in each time I check on her until I am happy (although she does fight the looseness a little but that can be reeled in too). I think, but have no control plant to compare with, that I may have slowed her flower period a little by training her and redistributing hormones.
Day 20:
Day 21:
Training:
Baby Auto Blue Mystic (B-ABM): I deliberately planted her off centre with the intention of trying to train her across the pot and have started training early using the same way of LST as her sister. Although considering her sister is very short not sure how far she will make it. I may run a few more experiments on this one, not sure right now will update if I do.
Day 6:
Day: 7
So I have some questions which I suspect do not have definitive answers (I can already look up the answers to those sorts of questions on this fantastic site) but could use some experienced opinions/consensus. Firstly my autos seem to be loving their regular nutes, while I will not return to never giving them just water, I am unsure if I should continue with them quite regularly or let them use up what is in the compost, as I don't want nute abundance at harvest time; what would you recommend? Secondly I have a G8LED red flowering UFO sat in a box waiting to go in. Given my mix of photos and autos and ages ranging from still a seed to almost 4 weeks old, with the oldest auto showing pre-flowers but no real stacking of bud; when would you recommend I add the UFO?
P.S. Sorry for the really long post; guess if I had started a journal when I started the grow I could have done this over lots of short posts. Will sort some better photos asap. Also loads more I want to say but this is way to long already.
What precautions (with out providing specifics) do those of you (not counting you lucky legal/decrim people) take to protect your security while posting evidence that could get your door kicked in at 5am?
Does this site have a photo metadata scrubber built in? (I will do this manually anyway)
Or am I just being over paranoid? (not smoked in over 2 weeks; so that's not to blame)
So a few months back I had some money in the bank and knew my life dictated an imminent 3 month period on the wagon. So I thought it would be perfect to set up this project which has been on my mind for years with the aim to have a harvest in time for when my dry spell was over as a bit of a celebration. I always knew if I did this LED was the way I wanted to go and had selected the brand I wanted to go for something like 4 years ago (although seems the LED grow light market has changed a lot since then). Time until when I wanted my harvest dry and with as much cure as possible was limited so I selected autos. Since then my landlord has told us he wants to put the house on the market in the autumn, which has put an end in the short term to my plans for a small perpetual grow. Also introduced a new time scale as ideally I would like to get as close to recovering my set up costs in dealer savings before I move as I can, I currently estimate this in the 3-4oz range (not counting seeds for future use). This brings me onto my journal:
Set up: closet grow approx 2'x2'x4'6" roof, floor and 3 walls covered with space blankets, 4th covered in silvered acoustic barrier (think this is supposed to go under carpet in blocks of flats). Currently the only ventilation is the fans built into the light unit but have a home made carbon filter and some fans waiting for me to fit.
Lights: G8LED 240w flower/bloom with a 90w red UFO on standby. Started on 24 hour for the first few days while waiting for timer to arrive. Then I read about dark periods being important so I started switching it off as I left for work and back on when I got home for a few days (~14/10). When the timer arrived set it to 18/6. Currently on a GLR inspired 15/4/1/4 for approx past 10 days, as I sleep in the same room and the fan noise, heat and humidity were messing with my sleep.
Strains: 1x Afghan regular (the ones Herbie is giving away by the bucket load, no real info on this except pure indica.
2x Auto Blue Mystic from Nirvana; c&p from Herbies:
Seedbank: Nirvana
Type: Indoor/Outdoor
Indica / Sativa: Indica dominant
Feminized: Yes
Yield: 200 - 300
Effect: Stoney
Grow height: Low
Flowering weeks: 5 - 7weeks
Blue Mystic was especially chosen for its soft blue hues, which appear roughly halfway into flowering.
Blue Mystic grows in a very similar way to Northern Light, showing all the desirable qualities of that marijuana variety, with the added appeal of its own colourful appearance and the faintly berry-like aftertaste of its smoke.
Compared to many other marijuana strains, Blue Mystic has a neutral smell while growing.
I will update when I have something germinated in the fourth slot so far been trying to germinate 10yo seeds, which I didn't expect much from but they are not going to get any more viable waiting longer. They crack and produce small taproots but don't seem to have enough energy to turn into plants.
Pot Size: Autos in ~15L (4 US gal?) Afghan in 5L (~1.5 US gal) intending to pot up before flowering.
Medium: 3:1 generic multi-purpose compost
erlite (I have since read this is likely to be a bit rich(hot)) with about 1/2-1 pint of seedling soil around the point where the seeds went in. Pots have about 1" of gravel with a layer of perlite on top, as my mother taught me to do this then water from the drip try for potted plants sensitive to over watering. I have since read that a layer of gravel is a bad thing, however since then I have read about SIPs and this to me sounds like rudimentary SIP.Feed/Water: Not bothering with pHing; using rain water (which should be around the right pH anyway). Nutes currently on hand: a load of stuff for the garden/house plants which won't be coming near these plants, liquid kelp, some pelleted poultry manure (I am reluctant to use poo based stuff atm as I sleep in the same room and don't want it to smell like a toilet but have no problem using it in the garden) and something called "root it first feed" which claims to replace water for the first 2-3 weeks of a plants life. It is a 2/1.15/2.3 with a full (I assume balanced) range of micro-nutes. I followed this but at half strength until recently. The autos loved it the afghan initially also loved it but not so much after a while. Anyway I have resolved to alternate water and feed from now on to avoid salt build up and potentially use more water so the plants use up the compost. Will make a visit to a garden centre to look into a phosphorus source (thinking steamed bone meal drilled/top layered) and spray gun (although tempted to buy a cheap Chinese airbrush for this as I have a compressor).
Germination: All the current plants were germinated using the paper towel method, lost 1 ABM which tap rooted and was transferred (most likely my fat handedness) and 2 10yo seeds. All transferred straight into the pots you see them in now. Trying some other stuff atm will update.
Temp/Humidity: Not going to worry about these right now unless I see signs of problems, as my time is limited and spend far more of it than I can afford right now on this site as it.
TLDR: Here are the pics, they are really bad will try and take some better ones later. Also I am bad with dates so they are not 100% accurate.
Grow day 23:
Grow day 24:
Afghan (regular): Lets start with the bad; she was the first to show above soil and the one who's age I am most sure of. She (I hope) was going great for the first week and a half apart from some minor signs of over watering, so I slowed the feeding. Then she started showing minor nute burn and more signs of over watering. So I let her dry out and switched to pure rain water and she showed signs of recovery, then I let her get pretty dry again then micro topped her at the 3rd node and gave her a little water. Following this things went down hill very fast, major swift nute burn within a day she had gone from brown tips on the lowist leaves to the damage you can see. So she took a midnight walk to the water butt (my tap water in contraindicated as it is softened with NaCl) which I had hoped to avoid as it is visible to public areas. After a flush she showed incredible recovery; by the next morning she was looking very perky. However her development of new branches is slow, which I assume (hope) is due to a combination of damaged leaves photosynthesising poorly and her focusing on root repair. I would say my noobishness has set her back 2-3 weeks. I am not really worried about the leaf damage in the long term however her stalk looks very weak. The set back while annoying is not a total disaster as I intend for her to have a photoperiod sister which I have yet to germinate.
Day 23:
Day 24:
Older Auto Blue Mystic (O-ABM): This girl is fantastic she has taken everything my noobishness can throw at her and thrived. I saw her first lady bits on day 17. I always intended to give her some LST, but held back a long time as she was so short and perfectly formed (unfortunately no pics). Eventually I gave in and started her training and am glad I did, as I now have 5 or 6 bud sites all around the same height. I also stumbled across a LST technique which I am really happy with (have nothing to compare it to). I anchored her at the bottom like normal, then make a loose lasso around the inter-node I want to train from and hook it around one of those green garden sticks. Then I pinch the wire at the stick and twist gently reeling her in each time I check on her until I am happy (although she does fight the looseness a little but that can be reeled in too). I think, but have no control plant to compare with, that I may have slowed her flower period a little by training her and redistributing hormones.
Day 20:
Day 21:
Training:
Baby Auto Blue Mystic (B-ABM): I deliberately planted her off centre with the intention of trying to train her across the pot and have started training early using the same way of LST as her sister. Although considering her sister is very short not sure how far she will make it. I may run a few more experiments on this one, not sure right now will update if I do.
Day 6:
Day: 7
So I have some questions which I suspect do not have definitive answers (I can already look up the answers to those sorts of questions on this fantastic site) but could use some experienced opinions/consensus. Firstly my autos seem to be loving their regular nutes, while I will not return to never giving them just water, I am unsure if I should continue with them quite regularly or let them use up what is in the compost, as I don't want nute abundance at harvest time; what would you recommend? Secondly I have a G8LED red flowering UFO sat in a box waiting to go in. Given my mix of photos and autos and ages ranging from still a seed to almost 4 weeks old, with the oldest auto showing pre-flowers but no real stacking of bud; when would you recommend I add the UFO?
P.S. Sorry for the really long post; guess if I had started a journal when I started the grow I could have done this over lots of short posts. Will sort some better photos asap. Also loads more I want to say but this is way to long already.
