PotPie's First Grow - Quest for Indoor Gardening Nollij

[PotPie]

Hi Everyone,
I decided to start growing medicine for my wife and wanted to get some firsthand nollij (knowledge, for those of you that are not Calvin & Hobbes fans) of the indoor growing process. I have been getting valuable information from the web for years now but I never really made the time to give back to whatever community was helping me. So this time I have decided to give back as much info as I can in order to hopefully benefit others the way I have benefited. I have learned so much from this site and I want to thank all the people that take time to contribute and help out the rest of us.

OK, time to get my hands dirty. I will be growing some bag seed in this first time out to hopefully save a little money while I figure out what I am doing.

Here are the specifics at this time:
-Strain? Bag seed (schwag), so I really don't know. I've smoked a little of what produced the seeds and the effect was more high than stoned. Nice, but a little giggly.
- The girls are roughly 2 weeks into veg.
- This will be an indoor grow from start to finish
- The girls are currently luxuriating in Fox Farms Ocean Forest in one gallon nursery pots. I added one part perlite and one part vermiculite to six parts of FFOF. Or one keg cup of each to 1gal. pot of FFOF.
- I am using 3 brooder reflectors in a closet with CFLs for veg (details to follow.) The current light schedule is 18/6 because I gotta sleep. Otherwise it would be 24/7
- I am using a closet for Veg and hope to have a cabinet ready for flowering. Flower cab will probably get a 250-400W HPS. The door to the closet is left partway open and is cooled by a 24" fan running on low.
- The closet stays at about 73 with the lights on and 68 with the lights off.
- Any Pests ? None so far.
- Watering? about once a week right now.
- Nutrients? I haven't decided yet. I will probably start them on Fox Farms next week.
- # of plants? Currently at 12. I will need to narrow this down to 6 or less after sex is determined.

This is the Jiffy Rooter I used to start my seeds.



Thanks for checking out my journal. Please feel free to offer any comments or advice you think is appropriate. I will add more to it over the coming days to bring it up to date with where I am now.

PotPie

[Be IRIE]

We always like to hear when people try to give back and spread the love of our beloved Cannabis plant.
Take it easy on the nutes while it is young. You may want to throw in some worm castings in your next veg mix.
Don't waste you money on the 250, get the 400. Me personally would not have more then 4 plants under a 400, of course that just depends on how big you are going to grow them. Nice start Potpie...

[obxgardener]

Thanks for giving back, trying to do the same myself.

My only concern is those net bags sometimes don't let the roots fully develop... might want to cut them off if you haven't already.

Looking forward to watching your grow!

[Be IRIE]

Why did you have seeds in the humidity dome??

[PotPie]

Hi and welcome Be IRIE and obxgardener.

Originally Posted by obxgardener

My only concern is those net bags sometimes don't let the roots fully develop... might want to cut them off if you haven't already.

Thanks obx. I'll keep it mind for future use but I'm hoping it won't be a problem this time. I have one plant that is two weeks older than the rest that I had previously transplanted into a keg cup from a peat pellet. I didn't know how quickly the roots developed and that one was completely root bound when I transplanted it after a week and a half in the cup.

I use to spend a week of my summer south of obx at Ocean Isle. Man I love that part of the country.

Originally Posted by Be IRIE

Why did you have seeds in the humidity dome?

Mainly because I'm a rookie. Also because I was trying to germinate in soil and I wanted to keep the humidity up until they sprouted. Thanks for the tips on the lights and nutes.

Congrats on the 420 Trifecta. I was waiting to see how they fit all of the titles you've won in that little box but then I saw they made you grow support. You deserve it. I 've done dozens of hours worth of reading on this site and you are always there to help everyone.

-On to business...
I originally soaked 12 seeds in RO water back on Feb. 22. I let them soak for 12 hours sitting on top of my fish tank light where it was warm. The next morning (Monday) I transferred the seeds to peat pellets in the Jiffy rooter. I put the rooter on top of my cable box. the cable box was keeping them around 75 deg.

2 days later one seed sprouted.

Several days later I still had only one sprout.


I'm not really sure what went wrong, although I have a few ideas.
I had gotten several seeds and wasn't quite sure what a 'good' seed looked like. I sorted all of them out and planted 6 darker harder seeds and 6 light green less hardened seeds. I was reading a response from Ms. Fox the other day on another thread where she indicated that mature (and likely more viable) seeds were the brown ones. So I probably lost 50 % of the germination due to planting immature seeds.
I suspect that my temperatures were also not warm enough to encourage sprouting. More on that later. so I probably lost the other roughly 40% of the germination to low temps. Live and learn.

The sole seedling was transplanted into a keg cup about 4 days after sprouting.


-Second try at germination
2 weeks later I picked some seeds out of a bag I bought to make budder for the wife's peanut butter cookies. It looked & smelled like the same stuff that the other seeds came from and it came from the same source. I did a bunch more reading and was convinced that lack of heat was my main reason for only getting one sprout. My suspicions about heat were confirmed when I made the budder. Several seeds went into the slow cooker with the rest of the schwag. When I strained off the remaining mulch, I found all of these seeds had sprouted in the hot water/butter.

I decided to use only the brown seeds this time. I read tonystarks thread where he germinated his seeds in soil on top of his stove and the pilot light kept things warm enough to sprout. I don't have a pilot light in my stove so I grabbed a heating pad instead. Once again I soaked the seeds in RO water on top of the fish tank. I threw in a capful of hydrogen peroxide this time for good measure. I also soaked the peat pellets in RO water and put the Jiffy rooter on top of the heating pad set on low. While the seeds were soaking I monitored the temp of my poor mans rooting pad with the Jiffy rooter on top. The temps were running steady around 90-92. After 6 hours I planted 6 seeds into the peat pellets. I put the other 6 seeds on a saucer in a damp paper towel. I covered the saucer with another saucer and put that on the heating pad as well. I put everything under a couple of CFLs in a reflector for 24/7.

Sadly, I didn't think to take any pictures of this second attempt. When I got home from work the next night, several seeds on the saucer had sprouted but nothing on the peat pellets. After another 24 hours I started seeing some sprouts in the peat pellets. By the 48 hour mark all of the seeds in the peat pellets and all of the seeds on the saucer had sprouted. I planted the sprouts from the saucer in 2" peat pots filled w/ FFOF. 100% Germ. Woo Hoo!

-Seven Days In
After a few days in the jiffy rooter I noticed roots were already coming out of the bottom of the pots and the pellets. I had already picked up some 1 gal. nursery pots for transplanting. Seven days after the seeds first got wet, they were planted in the 1 gal buckets.

I still had the one plant in the keg cup that was approaching 3 weeks of age. It was starting to look a little rough. It was yellowing a bit and getting brown spots on some of the leaves. I thought at the time that I had gotten it too close to the lights (nearly touching). When I re-potted it, I found that it was incredibly root bound.

The closet was staying pretty cool so I was able to leave it mostly closed for a while. As I have added more lights and the temps here have risen, I switched to an 18/6 light schedule. I found that it was now time to keep a fan on during the light cycle and keep the closet open. Hard to sleep with all that light.

The lights as of this week.

They were moved up a bit for the picture. I keep them 3-4 inches above the leaves usually.

I had originally used soft white CFLs for the earliest part of this grow. Last week I added some 5500k CFLs because I thought the girls should be getting more of what they need right now. The reflectors are brooding lamps used for keeping chicks warm. They usually have a 250W heat lamp in them. I have 2 5500k CFLs on socket splitters and a short socket extender in the first two. The third reflector has two 5500k lamps and two soft white (about 2500k I think.) I used three splitters to do this but the lamps rubbed up against the reflector and I couldn't screw them in all the way. So I grabbed a longer socket extender and that did the trick. The lamps hang a little outside the reflector but I have been very careful not to bump it into anything. I need to buy 2 more extenders and I'll do this to the other reflectors. I tried all of this without reflectors but so much light was going up I thought, What's the point.

Here's a couple of shots of all 12. All of them are 2 weeks from the time the seeds got wet except the larger one in the foreground. That one is 4 weeks old & has recovered nicely from being root bound. I composted one of the sprouts in the peat pot to keep it at 12 plants.



Here's a closer shot of the 4 week old


Thanks for reading this Epic (lllooonnggg) novel. I was trying to cram the last 3-4 weeks into one post to get get caught up to the present. I promise the nest one will be shorter.

PotPie

[fineas]

Hey Potpie, I wanted to utilize both the splitters and the relfector, but I didnt know there was an extesion apparatus. Is this available at lowes? Sounds kool.
Hope you have succes with your grow

[l8tnightskunk]

go to home depot

[obxgardener]

Nice beginnings... I've read that it's good to have both high and low spectrums for veg stage growth... what wattage are those CFLs? They sell a 67 watt 2700K at home depot for $15... I wish I had a 400w HID though!

[PotPie]

Welcome fineas & l8tnightskunk

Originally Posted by fineas

Hey Potpie, I wanted to utilize both the splitters and the relfector, but I didnt know there was an extesion apparatus. Is this available at lowes? Sounds kool.

You can get them at Lowe's, HD or any hardware store that carries electrical supplies.
Here's a picture of everything under that third reflector. I forgot I had two extenders under there until I went to snap this picture for you. The long one is plastic and the short one is porcelain. You will need something as long as these two together to make it fit under the 10" reflector.

Originally Posted by obxgardener

Nice beginnings... I've read that it's good to have both high and low spectrums for veg stage growth... what wattage are those CFLs? They sell a 67 watt 2700K at home depot for $15... I wish I had a 400w HID though!

The 5500k are 27W (100W equiv) and the 2700k is 23W (also 100W equiv.) Every time I go to HD they are out of the larger CFLs or they only have the soft white. Regarding the HID, Me Too! Hopefully soon.

PotPie

[l8tnightskunk]

You know what PotPie everytime i go to home depot they never have bright either most of the time they have soft white, your bulbs are exaclty like mine! But i really love that idea of the "quad " ( i gave your 4way a nick name), i have the same amount of bulbs same type but i had to makeshift a thing to keep both bulbs seperated from each other but looks like you have it figured out, dont mind if still your idea would ya? lol
Thanks!

[Harry Red]

Looking good PotPie.

Nice setup for vegging. Looking forward to the 400w HPS for flowering.



Harry

[PotPie]

Hi Everyone. It's been a few days since I updated so here goes week 3

Originally Posted by Harry Red

Looking good PotPie.
Nice setup for vegging. Looking forward to the 400w HPS for flowering.

Thanks Harry and welcome. Glad to know another pro is checking out my journal cuz I know I'm gonna have a million questions. I scored the light this past weekend. Details to follow.

Originally Posted by l8tnightskunk

You know what PotPie everytime i go to home depot they never have bright either most of the time they have soft white, your bulbs are exaclty like mine!

I feel your pain. I shouldn't complain, though. I live about 2 miles from a home depot. I used to live about 20 miles from a decent hardware store.

Originally Posted by l8tnightskunk

... i have the same amount of bulbs same type but i had to makeshift a thing to keep both bulbs seperated from each other but looks like you have it figured out, dont mind if still your idea would ya? lol

Go Right ahead. lol. Glad I can help, especially since I've received so much help here.

I started noticing some gnats last week so I started doing a little research here on how to kill the little f***ers. I decided to go with neem oil because I really want to keep this grow as organic as possible. As I mentioned above, I picked up a 400W SPS this weekend. I also got a hydro hut cloning lamp and the person that sold me the stuff threw in a unopened bottle of neem oil. Score! I mixed up the oil with water and soap per the directions and it seem to be doing it's thing. I also put up a yellow paper glue strip to catch the adults. I haven't seen as many flies since I sprayed so I think I'll be OK. I'll spray again in 2 weeks to make sure I keep the little bastards at bay.

I also followed Be Irie's advice and picked up some worm castings to use for a mild fertilizer. I transplanted everybody to 1 gal. pots w/ FFOF 2 weeks ago so I'll wait one more week before I start scratching the worm casings in.

I am starting to freak a little about how I am going to handle all these plants. My original plan was to let all of the seedlings get to maturity so I could determine sex and then transplant the girls to 5 gal pots. I plan on keeping it to 6 plants tops for space reasons as well as legal reasons. Now I don't think I can do that because I think they will be way to big and root bound to let it get that far. I am considering starting flowering early to determine sex and then revegging the girls. I think I would still need to go to 2 or 3 gal. containers for this. I need to figure out if this will work for my space limitations. I have also considered just keeping the 6 best looking plants but I really don't want to lower my yield after all this work. I'm also afraid of picking the wrong six and getting nothing but boys.

If anybody has comments or suggestions on this, I sure would appreciate it.

Here's a few pics of the ladies this week (Week 3)






This one is the tallest of the bunch. It has outgrown the 5 week old plant that was root bound.


This is a close-up of the 5 week old. It's a little short but very bushy with lots of under growth.


Thanks for looking.

[l8tnightskunk]

Is undergrowth good or bad?

[PotPie]

Originally Posted by l8tnightskunk

Is undergrowth good or bad?

I'm assuming it is good but I'm really not sure. I think all if these little leaves will turn into branches and possible bud sites.

[Doctor Dread]

Bushy undergrowth is a very good thing!! This means your plant is healthy and you will have a stacked plant once it begins to fill out... PotPie you guessed right, that growth will become the branches and lower budsites of your future beast (assuming it is a female)