First Grow - 400W MH/HPS - 3.5x3x7 Closet - 4 Bag Seeds - LST Practice

[Kink]

Hey everyone, welcome to my first garden!

I'd like to start off by saying this grow was never really intended to happen, I had a few bagseeds of unknown indica/indica dom hybrid strains stashed away in a tightvac that I germinated the last week of April in wet paper towels; they spent their first month in solo cups of miracle gro potting mix under 20w CFL bulbs and light from a window sill (the poor things.. ) until I recently bought them some supplies for a new home that I'll list bellow .

All criticism/feedback/advice/etc is welcomed and encouraged, as this is my first grow I have lots to learn and I anticipate learning a lot simply from this experience, I'm expecting to make royal mistakes that I can hopefully recover from but learn from and apply to future grows .

General Grow Details:

• Seeds placed in wet paper towel 4/23.
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• First Seedling (Thunder bug) sprouted 4/26.
• Second Seedling (Phasma) sprouted 4/28.
• Third Seedling (Clementine) sprouted 4/30.
• Fourth Seedling (Hermione Granger) sprouted 5/3.
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• All four plants transplanted on 5/18 into FFOF + 3 gal smart pots and put into their new home under the 400w MH.
• I begun LST on 3 of the plants on 5/20.

3.5x3x7 Closet Grow:
360° Closet Walls/Inside of makeshift door (blanket) wrapped with 98% reflective mylar.

• Light Setup: 1x 400w MH Bulb for veg, 1x 400w HPS bulb for flower.
• Grow Medium: Fox Farm Ocean Forest
• Pots: 4x - 3 Gallon 10" Roundx8"Tall Fabric Pots
• Nutrients: I'm going to be following this Neptune's Harvest Organic Fish/Seaweed fertilizer feeding schedule. Not planning to give them their first feeding for another 4-6 weeks as they were just recently transplanted into the FFOF.
• Strain: Unknown genetics, plucked from what I remember as Indica/Hybrid buds from 1/4oz bags of mids
• Training: I wanted to do some LST despite these being bagseeds and it being more effort that might ultimately go down the drain if they're males, I wanted some hands on LST learning experience for future auto/guaranteed female genetics. I'm using individually cut up strips of plastic from grocery bags and paper clips unfolded and poked into the fabric pot horizontally around the fabric pot for me to tie the strips of plastic and new top growth onto.
• Cooling: I'm currently using 1x 200mm 110cfm (Exhaust) and 1x 120mm 62cfm fan (I soldered to an old 12v laptop battery) blowing heat away from the hood and out the exhaust, 1x 18inch floor fan blowing on the hood/hot hair upwards towards the 120mm and out the 200mm exhaust. I've also added a window A/C unit that I'm planning to add a 6" vent too, directing the cold air straight into the closet; on top of the new exhaust setup I want to put in with a carbon filter and inline fan.
  Temps have been comfortably around 78-80f without having setup the venting system yet.

Journal Pictures:
Thunder bug/Phasma taproots:

Seedlings under CFL/Window Sill:

Day 1 under 400w:

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Thunder Bug (Sprouted 4/26):
Day 1:

Day 19
Day 24 (First day of LST):

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Phasma (Sprouted 4/28):
Day 1:

Day 11
Day 20:

Day 24
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Clementine (Sprouted 4/30):
Day 1:

Day 11
Day 19:

Day 21 (First Day of LST)

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Hermione Granger (Sprouted 5/3):
Day 1:

Day 11
Day 18 (First Day of LST):

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5/23 (a few days prior to seeing some really bushy growth):

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Current Garden after a week of LST, have tied down some new tops that have grown upwards (am seeing a big burst in growth now ):
5/27 (1):

5/27 (2):

The current plan for the LST is to fill up all the pot space I can for each individual plant with tops and eventually move the pots apart and fill as much surface area I can in the closet before making the flip to flowering.
As I don't know how many if any are female dreamy my plan right now is going to be to wait until I see pre-flowers, if only 1 or 2 are female I'll probably move them to bigger pots (5-10 gallons each) and focus on bushing them out more, if they're all female I'll leave them in the 3 gallons and bush them out as much as I can before making the flip. If they all happen to be male..well fml at least I'm getting some experience in for the next grow and got a setup now for myself in the future .

Thanks for checking out what I have so far, if you have any opinions/feedback/advice to provide for the grow - it's greatly appreciated, if you just wanna let me know you're here for the ride that's cool as well!

 

[Stinky Snid]

Let the bagseed chronicles continue. This is how it always begins, if you're not careful they'll get you hooked and there's no turning back. Your training looks great Kink!

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Hoping for maximum females for you, since I want to see monsters I'd rather see 2 only and some major training. Goodluck with practice run, my bagseed adventure ended I a hermie...but it was a great way to learn the basics.

KiG cheers

 

[Kink]

Let the bagseed chronicles continue. This is how it always begins, if you're not careful they'll get you hooked and there's no turning back. Your training looks great Kink!

​

Hoping for maximum females for you, since I want to see monsters I'd rather see 2 only and some major training. Goodluck with practice run, my bagseed adventure ended I a hermie...but it was a great way to learn the basics.

KiG cheers

Thank you, Snid!

I can definitely see it being addicting; especially if I had tons of them to start off with. I originally started germinating with 11 seeds, these 4 plants being my only ones that made it, 3 other ones had shown taproot in paper towel but never sprouted after 2 weeks under light unfortunately.

Hoping for at least 2 as well personally , would love a couple monsters w/ the closet all to themselves - sounds great for my lungs in the future + the included LST practice I'm looking for.

 

[apd420]

Hey man your girls are looking phenomenal! I can't wait for the next update I'm sure just in these last few days they've done allot of growing. I wish I would've started to lst as early as you I'm definitely gonna have to get some tips from you the next go around as your girls seem to be loving what your doing.

 

[Kink]

Hey man your girls are looking phenomenal! I can't wait for the next update I'm sure just in these last few days they've done allot of growing. I wish I would've started to lst as early as you I'm definitely gonna have to get some tips from you the next go around as your girls seem to be loving what your doing.

Thanks apd ! I'm very happy with the results LST is providing already; especially excited with this method of training (cut up thin strips of plastic bags + paper clips to tie onto) as I feel super confident in my training after only a little over a week without noticing much growth delay at all.

Definitely some new growth already too , here's a couple pics I took after doing some training this morning; will be even bushier as tops grow back towards the light over night :

I did have two plants start showing signs of nitrogen deficiency already, a few of the older leaves started looking like they were being siphoned off for nutes turning yellow and crisping at the edge. The plants were ready for a watering so I decided to give them their first feeding of the Neptune's Harvest Fish Fertilizer (2-4-1) @ 5ml / per gallon of distilled water, each plant takes up about a half gallon to get 20% excess run off.

Noticed some green return to the affected leaves and no new affected leaves, hopeful it was just the nitrogen deficiency.

I'm heading to your thread now to checkout your new pics .

 

[Kink]

It's been 21 days since my last update, making this grow 7 weeks old !

Between weeks 5-6 there was a period of around 5 days where the plants were unattended to but watered right before I left, came back to some wilting/yellowing leaves and watered them all soon after with plain distilled/rain water; they began to perk back up within hours - going to return to using nutes next watering.

All 4 plants are starting to show pre-flowers but are still a bit too early for definitive confirmations in my opinion so I've been checking up on them for any changes every few days while also doing training - one plant does have what appear to be tiny pistils protruding from its calyx while another is showing signs of pistils while also looking more like balls. The current plan is to give it another 2 & 1/2 - 3 weeks before transplanting into their final pots and another week and a half - 2 weeks after that before switching to flowering.

Garden #1 (6/20):

Garden #2 (6/20):

Plant #2 (Phasma) preflower:

 

[apd420]

Things seem to be going awesome kink! They're looking beautiful! I think your going to have quite a large harvest.

 

[MetalPoet]

Looking good so far, Kink!

 

[Kink]

Looking good so far, Kink!

Thank you very much, Metal!
It's been 15 days since my last update, making this grow about to approach the 10 week mark!

The biggest things to mention are the now MUCH increased amount of nutes they have been getting the past few weeks, I guess reading a feeding schedule high off your ass is not the best idea... lol, I was using the amounts needed for hydroponic systems and not soil (1oz(15ml) of Fish/10z(15ml) of Seaweed is the correct dosages, I was feeding at 5ml haha ). Nevertheless this has been corrected for weeks and I must say i do notice a fine difference.

Now the next biggest thing is my reversal in plans on waiting to sex my plants, and giving them pot sizes accordingly. I'm going to be transplanting the plants into 5 gallon smart pots tomorrow, which will be their final pots. My reasoning for this decision is I was expecting to see more definitive preflowers by now, but no luck. And with this being a bagseed grow, I don't feel like wasting anymore money/time on soil/bigger pots (7-10gals), training, nutes, etc for more than I'd like to turn out male. Next grow, I'm without a doubt going to be doing either 2 feminized seeds and slowly working my way up to 10 gals, or three feminized seeds and work up to 7 gals .

Anyways, here's the garden as of today!

My next journal update should be once I've been in flowering for a week or two, some plant(s) might go missing if they decide to show their gonads!

 

[Stinky Snid]

That's a nice healthy garden going on week 10, how much longer until 12/12?

KiG cheers

 

[Kink]

That's a nice healthy garden going on week 10, how much longer until 12/12?

KiG cheers

Hey, Snid! Hope all is well in your garden!

I'm actually 7 days into flowering now ; two plants were killed off due to my high suspicion of them being male and a few other people having the same opinion; regardless I've confirmed the sex of two females and out of 4 to start with I'm happy with that outcome personally. My major regret is not waiting the extra few weeks in veg to sex them and move these two females to bigger pots than the 5gals they're going to now finish in (they did get to let their roots explore for 8 days after the transplant before I flipped to 12/12), good news for me though is that with a 50% sex ratio I'm hopeful these females will be less likely to hermie on me with this being my first grow and all.

Minor regrets are not going more intense on researching pruning/fluxing, etc as I feel I could have gotten many more beafy hand-sized colas than the 3-5 these plants have each (I know I will get a lot of popcorn because of this, but in the end, as long as it's usable for hash/edibles, I'll be happy!); I will definitely be doing more aggressive training + bigger pots with better paid for genetics my next go around as I feel I caught the grow bug .

As for the garden of two females now (kinda sad and a big reason I'll prefer to stir away from regular seeds in the next future grows until I have multiple places to grow regular seeds, preferably); but I'm happy I got 2 females!) (7/20 - Week 12 - Day 7 Flower):

Before LST:

Day after LST:

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Female #1 (Phasma):

Female #2 (Clementine):

Male and or Hermie Preflower (Hermione Granger):

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I definitely think it was a hasty call to kill off the two as they were still early but I didn't want to play around and risk pollinating my two confirmed females. Even if they would have ended up hermie and I could have plucked some nanners to save them through to harvest.. I'd just be too afraid of missing one the entire time. This way if these two hermie, I'll know it's most likely fault of my own through light leaks, stress or what have you.

My next grow will most likely be feminized but if I were to do regular it's certainly being handled differently, by taking clones and sexing them in a cabinet weeks prior, so I can move them to bigger final pots with better accuracy.

My next update should be as soon as there's some buds forming and more substance to show off, veg can be a little boring for most people it seems!

 

[apd420]

What's up man?! The girls are effing beautiful! Can't wait to see the next update! What nutrients will you be using for the flowering stage?

 

[Kink]

What's up man?! The girls are effing beautiful! Can't wait to see the next update! What nutrients will you be using for the flowering stage?

Cheers, apd!

I plan on finishing this grow only using the same Neptune's Harvest combination (Fish fertilizer (2-4-1) and Seaweed (0-0-1)) + hi brix molasses (0-0-3) for the final waters before harvest. Following the medicinal feed schedule I'll be using the fish up until between weeks 3-4 of flowering, with decreasing fish dosages until it's completely replaced by ever increasing seaweed doses the closer I get to harvest.

Was going to grab something more specific to flowering but I've been reading about people still having good results with the fish during flowering in comparison to other nutes; it would have been interesting to see how I would have handled feeding a sativa in comparison to these two indicas as these two are some friggin heavy eaters.

 

[apd420]

Cheers, apd!

I plan on finishing this grow only using the same Neptune's Harvest combination (Fish fertilizer (2-4-1) and Seaweed (0-0-1)) + hi brix molasses (0-0-3) for the final waters before harvest. Following the medicinal feed schedule I'll be using the fish up until between weeks 3-4 of flowering, with decreasing fish dosages until it's completely replaced by ever increasing seaweed doses the closer I get to harvest.

Was going to grab something more specific to flowering but I've been reading about people still having good results with the fish during flowering in comparison to other nutes; it would have been interesting to see how I would have handled feeding a sativa in comparison to these two indicas as these two are some friggin heavy eaters.

Sounds awesome man! If you do end up deciding to add a bloom specific fertilizer I'd recommend Dr. Earth's Flower Girl, I purchased some in the interim while I was waiting for my general organics to ship I only used it once right at the beginning of flowering but it seemed to really JumpStart the bud site production. It's completely organic packed full of awesome ingredients and I picked it up at my local ace hardware for less than $10 and then later heard some great feedback from other growers about it. I think I'm gonna try out the whole line next season. Not that you need any help your growing like a pro I'm totally impressed.

 

[Kink]

Sounds awesome man! If you do end up deciding to add a bloom specific fertilizer I'd recommend Dr. Earth's Flower Girl, I purchased some in the interim while I was waiting for my general organics to ship I only used it once right at the beginning of flowering but it seemed to really JumpStart the bud site production. It's completely organic packed full of awesome ingredients and I picked it up at my local ace hardware for less than $10 and then later heard some great feedback from other growers about it. I think I'm gonna try out the whole line next season. Not that you need any help your growing like a pro I'm totally impressed.

Thanks dude, your compliments always mean a lot!

With growing I just feel there's more to learn at all times whether it's your 1st or 100th time doing it, the most enjoyable thing about this hobby for me is the fact there will be things to improve or do better no matter how experienced I get as the community is only growing larger with new passionate growers like you and I every year, and the veterans who have already been here for decades providing the widely available knowledge that for me was really the kick start to accomplishing this goal at the scale I'm now doing it, which I thought would be out of the question for at least a few more years (this grow was originally going to be either space bucket sized or an outdoor single plant guerilla grow, super stoked I went this route instead ).

That flower girl certainly looks great (looking at the liquid fert, 1-9-2) and sounds perfect for my lacking source of heavy phosphorus when I fade out the fish in my feedings here within a couple weeks . Probably going to drive to ace/my local garden store and look for some of that for the girls here soon!

As far as an update on the girls... I finally can see budlets and couldn't be a happier father!

-+-Day 16 of 12/12 (Week 13 from seed)-+-

Top view of the two girls (Clementine on the left, Phasma on the right):

Close up on some bud sites:

Still being fed 1oz fish/seaweed per gallon, 2 gals distilled/rain per plant every 3-4 days or so, I'll be feeding fish at full strength until between weeks 3-4 when I'll drop to half strength and finally take out fish in the feeding schedule entirely by week 4.

Thinking about giving them a dose of molasses at roughly day 30F as I've been reading goods things on early use of it with organic/soil grows to provide the microorganisms some food and begin creating a healthier all around soil, if anyone has experience with this I'd love to hear your opinions!

 

[apd420]

Kink I've been putting one tsp of unsulphured molasses in every gallon of water I use whether I'm feeding or just watering. I think there's something I love about the over all look of an indica dominant strain these are some beauties!

 

[Kink]

Kink I've been putting one tsp of unsulphured molasses in every gallon of water I use whether I'm feeding or just watering. I think there's something I love about the over all look of an indica dominant strain these are some beauties!

Thanks for the input dude, I think I will start feeding them some then next watering , probably won't be doing it every watering but I def want to start at least every few waters/feeds . I'll probably do molasses in every water closer to harvest.

I love the structure of indica plants too, just find them incredibly beautiful - especially when trained, I just love my little bonsai bushes haha; should give some indicas/hybrids a go yourself and do some training next grow, I'm sure you could get some absolutely massive indica bushes outdoors with a cage to tie onto + scrog with/bigger pots!

 

[Kink]

Figured the grow deserved a mini update as the buds have really started to put on some mass over the past few days

Noticed some spotty leaves on my second plant (clementine), I want to say it's PH on top of some N toxicity as there's some canoeing/clawing going on as well; tested my luck long enough without PH testing so I definitely believe it's time to get a kit along with cutting the fish fertilizer out of her diet and most likely switching to Dr Earth's Flower Girl as apd recommended earlier.

The first plant is doing great though in comparison because of the other unfortunately looking a little stunted bud growth wise, the feedings aren't different between the two as well as the water source being the same (distilled/rain water as I can get it).

Phasma Day 26 of 12/12 (8/9):

Clementine Day 26 of 12/12, examples of canoeing/clawing of my suspected N toxicity and some yellowing/spotty leaves on some upper leaves:

 

[Stinky Snid]

You're diagnosis is correct. The dark green and clawing are clear evidence. That blotch is a phosphorus def. commencing as a it's probably being blocked by the excess nitrogen. If things start to progress I'd suggest a diluted nute flush to get her straightened out. Use your normal nutrients at like 1/4 strength and flush the medium thoroughly. Get at least 20% runoff. Good practice is 3x the volume of water as the plant's pot holds. This will flush out the excess of nitrogen and leave some nutrients for her to last until next scheduled feeding. But For now you can cut out nitrogen and continue feeding P and K nutes.
Keep us posted...

KiG cheers

 

[Kink]

You're diagnosis is correct. The dark green and clawing are clear evidence. That blotch is a phosphorus def. commencing as a it's probably being blocked by the excess nitrogen. If things start to progress I'd suggest a diluted nute flush to get her straightened out. Use your normal nutrients at like 1/4 strength and flush the medium thoroughly. Get at least 20% runoff. Good practice is 3x the volume of water as the plant's pot holds. This will flush out the excess of nitrogen and leave some nutrients for her to last until next scheduled feeding. But For now you can cut out nitrogen and continue feeding P and K nutes.
Keep us posted...

KiG cheers

Thanks a bunch for the quick confirmation, Snid!

I'm going to phase out the fish entirely at this point and replace it with just Neptune's Harvest Seaweed(0-0-3)/Dr Earth's Flower Girl (1-9-2) as I'm far enough in the NH feed schedule where it's recommending half strength and I figure these being Indicas they are probably beyond ready to quit Nitrogen going into Week 4 feed schedule tomorrow .

I think I'll add an extra half gallon into Clems water today with you mentioning getting more runoff in an extra attempt to flush any extra Nitrogen.

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EDIT: Also, I saw on a single bud what looked like a nanner from one side and just a swollen calyx from another; might just be new grower worries but figured I'd post some pictures up to hear other opinions?