Garage Grower's First Grow - First Journal - Soil - CFL

[Garage Grower]

Filling out a bit nicer, and some of my FIMmed spots on the side are showing up a little better. I've grown it nice and wide, so I think I'm done adjusting and adding LST tie-downs. I think I'm going to let it veg another week or so and then flip to 12/12. Going to be lots of bud sites on this plant. Hopefully will have some of decent size.

Question to those who use the Fox Farm nutes... I've been using the Grow Big during veg. I plan to use Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom for flowering. When I switch to 12/12 and start flower nutes, do I STOP using the Grow Big? or is that meant to use for the entire growth? Couldn't find that info on the FF website.

Some pics from tonight:

 

[Nicopalm]

Looking very nice!

I know very little about conventional nutes, I'm a DIY type. One thing I can absolutely swear by is unsulphured blackstrap molasses. It is a godsend for soil growers, as it acts as a chelating agent in the soil and helps with nutrient uptake, as well as feeding all the little microbes in the soil and providing a readily-available glucose source for your plant. It is also the main ingredient in products such as Carboload and others which promise to fatten your buds up by way of carbohydrates.

 

[Garage Grower]

yeah, I knew about the molasses from reading around... I just failed to mention that one. I'm going shopping tomorrow to pick up molasses and the flower nutes. I was planning on starting the molasses and the big bloom right away and continue til flush time. I know the big bloom is "meant" to be used for the entire growth - it has very low NPK, but is said to have other macros which help the uptake of other nutes.... that's what FF says anyway, though I've seen most use it during flowering only.

I'll search around a bit more and see what I can find out about Grow Big if I should stop at flowering or not. if nobody here more experienced chimes in by then, I'll post my findings (IF I find anything)

 

[Garage Grower]

ok, I found it... right there on the FF site LOL. Guess I must have been looking in the wrong place or something. Anyway... yes, at least according to the FF feeding schedule, Grow Big is used for MOST of the grow starting in the 2nd or 3rd week, with the last 3 & 4 weeks before flush being at 1/2 strength then stopping for the final 2 weeks.

Big Bloom is intended from seedling right through to final flush, and Tiger Bloom is supposed to start the last week or 2 of vegging and continue til final flush (but the last 2 weeks at 1/2 strength)

If anyone's interested and doesn't have it already, I can send the link to the FF PDF for the schedule (also includes all their other supplements too). I'd post the link here, but being new I'm still not 100% sure of the ins and outs of what we're allowed to link to or not

 

[Garage Grower]

went shopping this morning for the bloom nutes & molasses. while I was out stopped at Radio Shack and picked up their 60-100x lighted scope. Mixed up a couple jugs when I got home and gave her a good feeding. While I was in there, also gave her another slight haircut to open the budsites up for air & light. Down the home stretch for vegging now, will flip to 12/12 at some point next weekend. Will add some more pics either tonight or tomorrow

 

[Garage Grower]

might seem like more of the same pics, but after the last 2 haircuts, I could easily see soil looking down from the top. now, not so much. The tops seem to be filling out nice and I can see what I THINK are the start of preflowers... as this is my first grow that's made it this far, I'm not 100%, but that's what they look like to me. I'm not worried too much on sex, as these are SUPPOSED to be fem seeds, but it's the only plant in there, so if it herms on me, I'm not going to worry about it - I'll just cut off whatever nanners may pop up and work with what I've got. if nothing else, I'll at least be able to get some concentrate oil out of it... even herms make SOME THC & CBD, right?

well, here we go at approx 6 weeks veg:

 

[Garage Grower]

I wish my pics more clearly showed the differences I see in person. maybe to some of you they do, but sometimes it feels like I'm putting the same pics up LOL.

Anyway, I gave her a bit of straight watering this evening and readjusted a couple of the tie-down wires... nothing major, just attempting to level out the canopy a bit. Looking around the plant, I can see the beginnings of preflowers as well as some very fine pistils forming... WOOHOO!!!! No nanners anywhere so far, just beautiful tiny white hairs. I tried to capture them in a couple of the pics, but with the auto focus (no manual focus control at all) it seems the camera has a mind of its own regarding what it wants to focus on, whether in standard or macro mode. I'll have to read through the manual a bit more and see if I can work around it. In the mean time, here's some more pics from just a few moments ago:

 

[Equanimity]

Shit gettin real blud you get me. lowwit.

 

[dustypropcrop]

Hey garage grower,reading through your journal and viewing your progress so far has been an interesting read. I look forward to seeing how she turns out for you. So far its looking very good buddy,keep up the good work
Subbed

 

[Garage Grower]

OK, did a little more reading in the manual for my camera - I've only had this for about 4 months. I think I'm getting there on the closeups. will continue tweaking in hopes that by the time I actually have buds, I'll be able to get some real quality shots of them. in the mean-time, only a couple new pics... one more attempt to show the hairs, and I actually took it out of the cabinet to get a couple decent overhead canopy shots.

Also while I was in there, I changed the timer to start 12/12 once lights go out... so at 9:00 tomorrow morning she'll start her 12 hours dark - and then the REAL fun begins

Random node hoping to show preflower/hairs

Canopy - no flash used

Canopy - with flash

 

[GreenKitty]

Wow that plant looks amazing! So low and so wide and awesome! So many tops! What a great job at training that you did!

 

[Metjohnny]

Looking good man, really good. I would just give it a clean up, cutting the leaves that are blocking the light and keeping de moisture in the plant, it can cause you some fungus.
Now your plant is going to start to stretch a bit and (this is just an oppinion obviously) then you should cut the weaker and lower branches of the plant, this way she will produce the same (or more) in denser and tighter buds.

 

[Garage Grower]

I probably will give it another slight haircut in a few days to maybe a week, once it starts stretching so I can see where (or if) it really NEEDS any further trimming... There's really not much underneath right now that's being blocked from light except for stems and dirt. Airflow is good between the soil and canopy - sort of an umbrella effect.

based on my check-in on her last night, she should be due for water/feed tonight when I go in. I'll take a closer look at that time to see if there's any that desperately need it right away, otherwise I'll let her stretch a bit before another trim

 

[Celia Jr]

Hey Garage Grower!

For your first grow, this is really impressive! So low and wide, she's gonna be a monster!

For 10 years I have always topped and supercropped my plants to achieve higher yields but after seeing this, I am definitely gonna FIM

 

[Metjohnny]

I subscribe to every single word Nicopalm just said. Its exacly how I do it, if you take the thieves away (lower and weaker branches) all the strength of the plan will go to the main tops giving you a guarantee of max production and denser buds. I would advise you to take away some of them sunleaves as well, as they are taking the light from the rest of the plant and increasing the amount of moist in between the plant, increasing the chances of mold and stuff.

 

[Garage Grower]

just a small update - nothing (to me) worthy of pictures yet, just a brief verbal.

She just came out of her 2nd night of 12-hour dark and she's looking good. Gave her what I believe will be her final haircut. cut off the largest fan leaves on the lower half and cut away any upper fan leaf that was blocking a budsite. on my first count from just the last overhead pic (just before the light flip) I roughly counted 30 bud sites.... well after a little closer inspection while pruning this evening, I can say there are a LOT more sites that aren't shown in that pic... but they're all getting good light now. will give it a couple days to recover from the cut and will take a few more pics at that time.

on another note, Placed an order tonight from Herbies... Wanted to try a sativa-dominant my next grow, so ordered a pack of Heavyweight Fruit Punch, and getting a couple freebies - 1 Dinafem Feminized White Widow, 2 regular Afhgani (they don't say Afghani WHAT... Skunk? Haze? Kush? no idea), and also 1 Heavyweight Dream Machine Feminized.... so between this order, plus the Nirvanas I still have left, I'll be growing for a while since I'm only doing 1-2 at a time

 

[Metjohnny]

Well, if you just started on the 12-12 hours of light, they will stretch a bit for the next 2 weeks and this is when I would look at them, see which lower branches to take out (thieves) and the sunleaves that are taking light from the others. Keep posting some pictures so we can keep seeing your beautifull grow.

 

[Garage Grower]

OK, been a few days so figured I'd update with a couple pics. Today marks the 5th day of 11/13 lighting (a wee bit extra dark just because)
over the last couple days, I've fed, foliar sprayed, trimmed a couple of the bigger leaves to open up a couple more bud sites, and removed the LST tie-down wires to give it room to grow & move as it blooms.

The canopy is still nice and flat, but between a couple days growth and the release of the tie-downs, she's gained close to 2" in height. That's ok, because she's still plenty low for the cabinet at the moment.

 

[Equanimity]

How much headroom you got? girl's gonna grow man. big time lol

edit: really beautiful plant though, seriously, well done. you should enter that in one of them there competitions.

 

[Garage Grower]

cabinet height is slightly over 3'. I didn't take a tape measure to it, but I've got just under 2' available to grow. what doesn't show in the pics is that I've got my light rig hung by almost 2' of paracord.