Boocoo's Ghetto Grow

[Bucudinkydow]

I vacillated about starting a journal; actually began one a few days ago but decided with the problems I've been having & the lackluster results I'm experiencing, there appeared to be little I could offer of interest. It then dawned on me that sometimes mistakes can offer as good of lessons as success stories & I've got a long list of "don't do's"! Plus, I'll have to admit, I'm going to be trolling for some guidance from some of you more experienced farmers. This is my first grow & my head is an empty vessel. So here goes. Hop in, buckle up & hang on. Backseat driving is not only allowed but solicited. Hope you folks will chime in when you see me stumbling.

My goals are simple. I hope to determine what I think I know but may not and set a baseline with my first attempt to build upon for subsequent grows. Hopefully, I can nurse a couple of plants to maturity & if I'm rewarded with a little smoke in the end, that'll be icing on the cake! Irrelevant of the outcome, it's only a failure if I fail to learn.

I've chosen heavyweight fast and vast. This is a feminized auto that is 80/20 indica/sativa. The 60 day from seed to smoke was appealing to me since I get wanderlust quite often & find it difficult to stay put much longer than that. Accounts of harvests of this strain seem to have been mostly mediocre at best.

After studying all the different variants of grow medium, I've decided on a mix of coco coir & perlite 75/25. What I thought I knew but didn't: coco is more forgiving of mistakes made in watering. I think this will eventually turn out to be factual AFTER the plant has a better established root system. Right now, I think I'm probably drowning my newborns; pix to follow. Also, what I think I know but may not: coco will allow for more rapid corrections of feeding mistakes or improper water quality. A quick point for all who are new to coco. If you don't plan on utilizing all of your coco brick & choose not to soak it all, have a good plan in place to cut it. They don't call it a brick without reason! I finally cut it on my table saw. I've got a 5k brick coming shortly & im not sure what I'll do with it. Also, have something handy to strain it with when you rinse it. My first experience with coco was similar to the monkey's adventure with the football. I read an old post where someone placed a 5k brick in a pillow case while soaking it so it would be easy to strain. That was just SO wrong!

The nutes I'm using are floranova grow & bloom. Most of the equipment I ordered has been held up (thanx mr bezo) including my ph meter. After soaking my coco & germing my seeds in my well water, I thought it might be a good idea to pick up a standby unit until it came in. Found my water was a ph of 4.9. I also have municipal water that I seldom use & it checked out at 7.8. Bought some ro water & it was 7.5. Ph up & down in the held up order (thanx again mr bezo) & none to be found in my Podunk lil' town so I carefully mixed my well water & ro water to come up with a stabilized ph of 5.8-6.1. All's good.

My grow box is a hashed up unit that's built primarily from repurposed junk I seem to not be able to let go. A friend once said I was the combined spawn of Fred Sanford & macgyver. It measures 16"X46"X48". I'm using cfl's & have a capacity of 9)23w. I have an inline 6" duct fan of 240cfm. It's located in a large building I use for my cabinet shop. Unfortunately, it's not climate controlled & im at the mercy of the weather gods. Temps in the box are running 80-88 & rh has been ridiculously oppressive, most days 60-70%. Hurry up fall!

Well there's the skinny. A quick break & I'll give a shot at loading some pix.

 

[OldMedUser]

Whatever you are using to check pH must be out of whack. RO water has no pH unless it is of poor quality.

I use RO water only with pH Perfect nutes in ProMix HP straight out of the bale. It's full of perlite and has myco as well.

Make sure that coco is pre-washed to get the salt out too or flush it good yourself.

A lot of good growers start with less than top gear and up their game as they go along so you should do ok. The higher RH is good for young plants and should be down by the time you want to flower.

Waiting on pics.

L8r

 

[Bucudinkydow]

Lurking & learning for a few months, I read grow journals for hours on end. Armed with a wealth of knowledge, I finally mustered the confidence to give it a go. So many epic first time grows & monstrous harvests from experienced growers left me with illusions of simplicity. Hell yeah, I can do this. I'm quickly finding in spite of all the researching, dreaming and planning, you don't always get a flawless grow right out of the gate. My first attempt at germing a couple seeds was dissappointing.

I dropped a couple of seeds in what turned out to be 4.9ph water for 24 hrs. One sunk, the other didn't.

 

[Bucudinkydow]

thanx oldmeduser. I scrounged through the offerings at the commisary & found a gallon labeled as reverse osmosis. While reading labels, I found zephyrhills water was simply drawn from the municipal water system so who knows. The coco is cocotek. I let it soak & expand, rinsed twice, let it soak for 12 hours & rinsed once more until I got fairly clear rinse water out of it. Great to have you pop in.

 

[Bucudinkydow]

Placed the 2 seeds in a damp paper towel for 24 hrs. One sprouted a nice little sprout, the other didn't.

I then put the sprouted seedling & the stubborn seed in a qt plastic container. Within 12 hrs, the sprouted seedling was standing above ground proudly. This is where I went awry. I placed a dome over the new seedling & laid a couple of 23w cfl's in direct contact with the dome. I effectively created an oven in this 90 degree ambient temp & cooked my fledgling plant!! This was more than a rooky mistake; it was simply a dumbass thing to do.

So strike one. The "unsinkable Molly brown" seed failed to do anything other than lay there for nearly a week. I pulled it out of the coco & laid it aside. So strike two, maybe.

 

[OldMedUser]

Just use a little shot glass to soak your beans and touch the top of your dishwashing liquid bottle and put a very little smear of the soap in the glass. Acts as a surfactant so they sit lower in the water. 2 or 3 drops of 3% peroxide/oz of water seems to help too.

Another trick I use is to line a pill jar with sandpaper, put the beans in there and shake gently for a full minute. I plant those directly into small seed starter 9-hole pots like this one. Even old beans germ pretty good. I use ProMix that I have screened with mosquito screen, 1mm mesh, for beans and cuttings.

Get a water report from your town and post it up here so I can have a look. Should be able to get a free one emailed to you or it might be online at the town website. Tell them you want to make bee and you need to know what's in the water if they get nosy.

Bummer on the loss. They don't need a cover once they poke out of the dirt. Now you know better.

L8r

 

[Bucudinkydow]

Thanx, oldmeduser. I remembered reading the med bottle trick in one of your earlier posts. Also read where one member took a seed that failed to pop & sanded the pointy end. It then sprouted into a nice plant. After laying around for a few days & with nothing to loose, I used some tweezers & an exacto knife to trim a small portion of husk from the root end of the seed. I literally just laid it on top of some moist coco & within 6 hrs the seed pod had split almost completely around & exposed a healthy root. For round 2, I opted for some peat starters from HD. I placed my unsinkable seed & 2 new ones in these moistened starters & they all broke ground 8/15.

I'll see if I can get a water report. Thanx.

 

[Bucudinkydow]

On the third day, one had a taproot hanging out the peat plug.

Figured it was probably time for a new home so they went into qt container of coco I had previously prepared.

Up until this point, they had been under 23w cfl's 24/7. Now it's time for there new home with an 18/6 regimen.

My lights are stationary in the top of the grow box and I adjust the height of the plants using chains on each end of the temporary cradle they're in.

On day 3, the day of the transplant, I moistened their new coco digs with about 2 ounces of water each. This was the first time the coco had been watered in 5 days. There was disappointingly little change for the first five days. The only thing I noticed during this period was a slight thickening of the stem. On day 5 I finally saw the second set of leaves appear, minute but they were there. On day 7 I fed them with a couple of ounces of floranova grow mixed at 1/3 strength. That evening one had a slight amount of mute burn on one leave. The next morning, all were looking happy, happy. The one with the burn already had new green growth encompassing the burnt spot. I cut the mute strength to 1/4 strength & fed another couple of ounces. That evening the leaves were all droopier than Uncle John Roy's ol' three-legged blue tick hound! Sad looking sight.

 

[Bucudinkydow]

I've compared some pix from the sight & i think my problems stem from overwatering. In studying different coco grows, I saw several declarations that it was difficult to water too much; some actually watering multiple times per day. I think my misconception was the fact that I accepted this as factual with any size plant. I think I'm learning the hard way that this probably applies only to plants with a well developed root system. I'm most likely loving my plants to death by overwatering. This is the afternoon of day 10. It's been almost 60 hrs since last feeding & I still feel moisture when I pinch the coco.

 

[Bucudinkydow]

Plant #1 seems to be making a pretty good recovery but the first set of true leaves are yet a bit droopy. I was excited today to see numerous little leaves popping out from everywhere. Hopefully it's on the verge of making some real growth gains if I quit abusing it!

#2 is still quite pitiful & I sense I may have inflicted some irreparable damage.

I hold little hope for #3. This is the seed that failed to sink & required a lot of help in germinating. There's been almost no growth at all & is far smaller than the other 2.

Thanx for looking & appreciate any comments.

 

[OldMedUser]

Sounds like overwatering to me Buc.

Over-feeding too. Seedlings that little need just one 1/4 strength feeding until they get some growth happening and roots in the pot to eat that food. Should have about 25% coarse perlite in there too for better drainage and easier digging for the roots.

I would have those lights right down over the plants with an oscillating fan on low wafting a gentle breeze back and forth across them. Right in the middle between the two bulbs about 2" away on both sides with tinfoil on the backs of the bulb to aim all the light at the plants. Wasting over half of your lumens the way it is now.

What are the little sticks on the sides of the cups for? Stabilizers?

L8r

 

[Bucudinkydow]

Thanx, OMU, for the advice. Tomorrow a.m. will be 3 days without water or nutes but the coco is still moist when I squeeze it a bit. What should I look for as an indication when to water again? And would you recommend just water or 1/4 strength nutes? Also, do have perlite in the mix. I'll work on the reflectors & fan tomorrow. Thanx for your help.

Those are actually wire ties that attach the the cups to the red plates I'm using to catch the waste water draining from the wholes in the bottom of the cups.

 

[OldMedUser]

Go by the weight of the pots. Should feel really light but the plants aren't drooping yet. I think you've fed them more than enough for now. There are still lots of places in those pots that roots haven't grown into yet so no need for more food. Just water now until they have a few nodes and some decent leaves on them.

Should put up a group pic so I can have a look.

L8r

 

[Stage]

Got a good feeling about this grow.

 

[Curly Beaver]

I'm subbed in.

 

[Bucudinkydow]

Thanx, OMU. I'm away for the day but will definitely take a group pic in the morn. Made some reflectors from aluminum foil (I see I'm not the only MacGyver here), moved the ladies up closer & mounted a fan. I was delusional thinking that small fan would reach across all three plants. Have purchased a second but haven't had a chance to mount it.

 

[Bucudinkydow]

Thanx for joining in stage. Off to a rough start but have hopes.

 

[flexy123]

I could offer of interest. It then dawned on me that sometimes mistakes can offer as good of lessons as success stories & I've got a long list of "don't do's"!

This is exactly how I see it! I had so many problems at the start I saw it as totally senseless to make a "journal", especially seeing how everyone else is growing monster plants while mine were sitting at an inch for 5 weeks.

But then...you learn so much that it can be very helpful ESPECIALLY if you have troubles and then how they're solved.

You know...some journal could have the prettiest pictures of 6ft plants but it would be less helpful than a journal of a newbie who made mistakes and then found solutions And: Uhm...everyone was new at some point

 

[Bucudinkydow]

Welcome, Beaver. Been watching your journal & have to admit I'm a bit jealous at this point. With a little help from my friends, I'm in hopes I can get these babies back on the right track. With all the precautions about overwatering, looks like I committed the cardinal sin!! OMU "has been holding my hand" in an attempt to keep me from killing my babes.

 

[Curly Beaver]

Yeah, hard to get a handle on it as a green horn. I was probably a lil too stingy with my water but I think I have a pretty good grip on it now. This new adventure adds a little excitement for me, looking forward to a payday.
Best of luck.