First Grow Ever! Please Give All The Advice! Aurora Indica, Coco Coir, Indoor, 2018

[BlackThumbofDeath]

Hope all is well in your world.

Is this grow still alive?

We would love to be updated with some pictures and info.

How about posting a 420 Strain Review?

If you need any help with posting photos, please read our Photo Gallery Tutorial.

I am moving this to Abandoned Journals until we get updates.

Sending you lots of love and positive energy.
switch to

Hello @Amadeus Forzin !
I apologize for the disappearance! I got super busy with life and hadn't had time to update this grow journal. I do have a bunch of pictures that I plan to upload and make a few posts updating various things that went wrong or right for me. The grow is still going strong. Should be harvesting in a week or two. Hopefully by the time you read this I'll have already posted my updates. I don't know if abandonded grows can be moved back to active, but if that's possible I'd apppreciate it! if not, oh well, lesson learned haha.

Have a good one!

 

[BlackThumbofDeath]

Ok wow, a ton has happened with these girls since December 21st haha. Been a roller coaster of emotions on this first grow. I have gone through phases of very happy with doing the grow and also been fed up with it and couldn't wait for it to end so I would never grow again haha.

I took plenty of pictures during the grow but stopped taking notes really. I've been playing with nutrients and just really doing whatever I felt they needed. Which was a horrible idea, because my experience is zero haha. I stopped writing down my nutrient mixes and feedings and just yea did whatever.

But I want to update this now that I have a little time, so at least if someone is new they can learn from my mistakes. Also, I think I only found 1 or 2 other Aurora Indica grows in Coco. So I know when I was first searching I always wanted pictures to compare my plant too, in order to see if it was normal.

Alriiiiiight! Well, I'm figuring out which photos to post but thanks for the patience and help everyone!


Pic was taken Dec 23rd

 

[BlackThumbofDeath]

So on December 24th I measured all the girls. The thing to note here is the one with the measuring syringe in the soil (that was my "tag" for that plant). When I was planting the seeds I put this one upside down in the Rapid rooter. I read that it would fixed itself and that it was important not to touch a seedlings first root. So I was worried I would damage the root by pulling it out and turing it around. The plant is still the runt and has a gnarly stalk base that I need to upload a picture of. Anyway this photo shows just how much of a difference there was from that.

So I still had some notes from feedings for this one.

I was super paranoid about something (i hontestly don't know what exactly haha) and I thought my plants needed better nutrients. So I went to my local hydro shop and was recommended to use Advanced nutrients Sensi Grow and Bloom. So I did that. Also I thought I had identified an Iron deficiency and ordered some iron supplements lol. anywaay

feeding on 12/23 (day prior to the pics below)
-Mixed in a 5 gallon bucket
-pH 5.71
-ppm 1600 (wow lol, I've had super high ppm's this entire grow and they've been ok"ish". honestly think i over did it too early in this area but oh well. I'll fix it next grow.)
-Sensi Grow A&B- 75mL (of each)
-Advanced Nutrients Piranha - 36 mL
- CaliMagic - 12.5 mL
- Southern Ag Chelated Liquid Iron - 2 mL

 

[BlackThumbofDeath]

These pictures are just progress and something I thought was cool. These were taken on 12/30 (six days after the last pictures) and they've all put on some height. Kind of amazing now, but at the time it seems like they're not moving when you're staring at them everyday hahaha.

 

[BlackThumbofDeath]

January 5th, 2019


This is embarrassing but I for some reason didn't feed my plants in time. I've had issues with remembering to water multiple times. I would go out of town for the weekend or this or that and maybe even think I could stretch it another day because I was busy. Then I'd come to check on them and they'd look DEAD! This was for a few reasons. 1) Laziness I admit 2) this seems obvious now but as the plants and their roots grew, they needed more and more water. I would learn the hard way that they needed more frequent waterings. 3) I had read somewhere that it's better to underwater at first than to overwater. It said this would cause the roots to stretch more. So I was trying to push waterings to the max, and I was too busy to actually watch for when I pushed too far.

 

[BlackThumbofDeath]

January 21, 2019

Nothing new that I can think of. progress picture really. Oh, I think I got my RO water system around this time. Which I love. I rigged it to a 10-gallon trash can I bought at home depot and a little ballcock floater valve like what your toilet uses. The system comes with a 3 gallon one but it's small and takes FOREVER to get the 3 gallons out lol. I thought the 10 gallons would be plenty, but now I'm at the end of the growth and I might need to bump it up to the next size up.

 

[BlackThumbofDeath]

January 30, 2019
First Day of Flower 12-12 light cycle

Switched them from the 18-6 light cycle to the 12-12 on this day. No rhyme or reason why hahaha.

I found a website, which I'm sure everyone on here has seen it. LED Grow Lights
Anyway, so I'm not rich by any means, but I had been salivating over LED lights. I don't know why, but I wanted one of these bad boys haha. So I'd scroll through the site and watch reviews cause they do personal reviews for most of the major brands. It's just a great site. Anyway, they have this payment plan that's not based off credit and I jumped at the chance and scored a NextLight Core. Customer service is awesome, turnaround time was awesome. Got it at my door like 2 days later I think. Anyway, this is the last picture of the plants before adding the LED light.




I'm not getting anything for plugging that website. Although I am not above that by any means haha. I would love to get another LED light and if they want to give me discounts I'll plug away. Because as you'll see, the plant that I gave all the LED love to, has the biggest buds by far.

 

[BlackThumbofDeath]

February 1, 2019

Again just for date and comparison purposes this is Day 1 with LED installed

 

[BlackThumbofDeath]

Montage Photo Progress Dump

Feb 3


Feb 4


Feb 9th


Feb 10th

Feb 11th

Feb 11th

Feb 17th


Feb 19th

Feb 19th


Side by Side

 

[BlackThumbofDeath]

I need to fill the gap some more. I had an issue with trimming. I really want to post that in case any other new people come along and are searching for advice. I pruned HEAVILY and for the first time in the second week of flower. I had been pretty religious up to this point about reading and learning as much as possible before doing anything to my plants. So that I wouldn’t hurt them. I had actually decided to just go natural this first grow because I was too scared I would mess up. And as you can see from the pictures they were just exploding. They looked great. No signs of deficiencies or issues. Just green leaves and tons of growth.

Well I talked to an old army buddy who retired in Colorado and let him in on my latest adventure. He then let me be privy to him have had been growing a fairly large scale operation since he got out also. (Large scale to me. It was a 50 plant deal, but to me that’s insane haha) so I mentioned my pruning conundrum. I knew I could get better yields from pruning but was worried I didn’t know the proper ways. He told me some tips and I did a small section and sent pics and he said yes that’s the way and to continue on the rest of the plants. Well I guess I never told him I was in the second week of flower lol. Which now that I’ve done research, it’s super bad to do extensive pruning at this point.

I had never pruned my plants. I had done some topping but that’s been it. So as I’ve read. There can be some pruning in flower but nothing extensive as it could shock your plants.

Well lesson learned. My girls were PISSED! They immediately started showing signs of deficiencies and Nute burns and just wow it was multiple assault of problems lol. So I saw negative side effects and did research and saw that I had put them into shock. I really think I messed up my yield from this mistake which sucks but now I know.

I did a flush and also had to drop my PPMs and nutrients and alter my feeding schedule and also just wait for the plants to recover. So it was like 2 weeks almost of panick and complete halted progress.

So kids, don’t prune for the first time in week 2 of flower. Lol. So here’s a little before during and after of that operation lol

 

[BlackThumbofDeath]

Ok just a few current pics cause I’m drunk and want to catch up. I’m drunk but I’ll add dates to these pics later so you can see timeline.

 

[BlackThumbofDeath]

More

 

[Archiweedies]

Yeah man, I’d say your first Grow is going well. Seems you’ve learned some stuff along the way.

Sounds funny, but the plant continues to teach us lessons the more we grow it. You may change your mind at some point about pruning in flower. There are plenty that do a nice pruning of about 1/3 of the lower part of the plant once the flowering stretch is done. That may be two weeks may be three. As you’ll see, each strain responds to different things in different ways.

As you’ve seen there is conflicting info out there on numerous topics. My advice is to first try and change as few things as possible from grow to grow. I’d also encourage you to look into how your environmental factors affect your plants. There’s a link to an article I wrote in my signature about Vapor Pressure Deficit. Environment is king when growing indoors, I’d argue more important than lighting even.

Last, I’d encourage you to reflect on your grow and decide what you liked and what you didn’t care for. Maybe watering daily and checking ph is like jail cause you have to always be home to water. Growing in soil is very easy and intuitive and you will water less often.

I’ll get off my soapbox here You’ve done a great job persevering with this grow where some might have given up. Cheers and looking forward to seeing some harvest pics.