Gleipnir's 1st Grow Attempt

[gleipnir]

Howdy and thanks for clicking on my journal. This is of course a journal covering my first ever attempt to grow cannabis. I'm still learning the growers lingo and do-and-dont's so please let me know if I fudge up, can't get better if I don't get called out on occasion.

Well anyways I live on a home farm in the middle of nowhere. My wife suffers from crohn's disease and we live in a medical state so I'm growing cannabis to help alleviate her pain. So when grading my progress please remember I'm not shooting for cannabis cup winner, just good quality medicine.

Thanks for reading my ramblings now to the sticky icky grow details:

Strain: ???
Seeds: Just some bag seed (best seeds from my small collection), no need to spend a lot when I could goof.
Location: Indoor / Closet (3.5ft width x 4.2ft length x 7ft tall) (Roughly 12sq ft) (102.9 cubic ft interior)
Medium: Soil
Mix: 4:1 Organic potting soil to Perlite
Pot Size: 3 Gallon Plastic Nursery Pots
Lights: 1x 400w HPS/MH + Ballast with a basic four sided horizontal reflector (No Cool Tube Yet)
Ventilation: 1x 4" inline fan, 1x 6" inline fan, 3x clip on fans, 1x oscillating tower fan (240 cfm total)
Odor Control: Onablocks and 2x 2000 cubic ft ozone generators

Now a picture on how I plan to setup the grow room:

*The 4" Inline fan will be used to pull hot air out, when I get some more funds I will install a second.
*The 6" Inline fan will be used to get new cold air into the grow space.
**(Both fans will be installed into flanges so If I need to setup duct work later I can just slip it on.)
*The hooks are right behind the door so I can hang a mylar tarp to help keep outside light from getting in.
*There are hooks already in the ceiling to support the light once I get it.

Most of my grow supplies are on their way to me (Will be in by next week tops), had to space out purchases for reasons you can all guess.

Now to the plants:

Some quick bits before the photos. I decided to start these plants on a whim so they haven't been getting what they really need and I already apologized to the plants . Anyways I started them off in a wet paper towel (will never do that again btw) until i read up and realized how risky that was for the plant, so I ran down to the local lowes and grabbed some seedling starters (what they are in now). I slapped on some gloves and a mask and proceeded to made a sterile environment in my bathroom (a lot like inoculating mushrooms). I then transplanted the little seeds with tiny root to the new medium. After a few days the root shot out the top of the medium, I though shit they are upside down. After fixing them in a sterile environment I put them back on my window seal (Hence the stretching). Today i fixed another that was upside down, it's the one that looks like a small green bean on the dirt. So without anymore babble babble here they are...

*I just put seeds in the ones that have no growth, I expect to see a plant there in a week if they take.

So this is as far as I have gotten. As soon as my gear gets in I will update my journal. Once again thanks for taking the time to read my journal.

 

[oldman60]

Just a suggestion. Swap the vents around. 6 inch up top extracting and the 4s on bottom passive intake.

 

[gleipnir]

I would do that mate, but the top part there is only 5" big hence why i need two to compensate for the small size. Appreciate the input tho .

Also made small paperclip stem supports until all my gear gets in. The little bean seedling is doing much better and I got a new seedling today.

On a side note I don't quite grasp neut routines, so any input on that would be awesome!

 

[KingJohnC]

subscribed. i am not sure what brand and line of nutrients you plan to use but i use General Hydroponics Flora series 3 part nutrients, they are chemical fertilizers. if you wanted organic you could go with General Organics. i mostly use the lucas formula for nutrient addition. after they have been growing and have 4-5 sets of leaves start them with 1/4 strength nutrients, example use 4 millilitres per gallon of micro, grow and bloom. over the weeks slowly increase the nutrients by 1/4 strength increments till you reach 15 millilitres per gallon or water for micro, grow and bloom. always add your nutrients to water not to each other then water.

 

[gleipnir]

Thanks KingJohnC, seems simple enough.

So got my gear in today, but sadly my father in law is using my sawzaw and power drill so I might not be able to install it tonight. So I decided to go wire hunting since this house was built in the 50's (Still has shag carpet, awww yeaaa) the wires don't just drop from the ceiling they go horizontally. Glad I did check before using the sawzaw because I found these little buggers:

No idea if they are live (hot) but there is an outlet on the wall to the right of the closet so I'm going to play it safe and staple them to the top of the hollow space, taking care not to puncture the wire coating. This still leaves me an extra inch of room for my 4" flange. I lucked out for my 6" flange hole, no visible wires even with a flashlight and a mirror.

Did a weight check on my hangers attached to my ceiling anchors. It couldn't hold 30lbs of dead weight and fell out. So I used a magnet to fish around for studs, nadda nothing at all up there. So I ran down to the local lowes and bought a 1'x4'x1", it fits perfectly:

Now to just nail that bugger down and drill in some hooks, I plan on adding some super glue in the hook pilot holes to make sure it stays this time. It's roughly 6' 3" off the ground I hope that's enough clearance as the light will be on mover cables.

So now back to my little babies. They are doing a ok so far in the window seal no discolorations, no leaf mutations and they are perky as tits. 2 more seedlings have decided to say hello, I hope they do as well as the others. Now enough blabbering I know what everyone wants to see....Pictures!

(Yes that is the original 1990's power ranger Dino megazord in the background )

(I would use the gallery uploader, but I manually pull all the .exif data off my pictures and use a 3rd party image host so I can yank down the pictures quick if I need to.)

Guess I'm going to marathon Trailer Park Boys while I wait for my tools to get back.

 

[gleipnir]

After hours of work I finally got my grow space setup (Yay for not losing a finger to my jigsaw). I need to buy some better fans, but after an entire day my light is just slightly warm to the touch and it's been hot as tits outside today (basement grow room). Seems I need more extension cables and some twisty ties to make the closet look more organized. Other than that I'm astounded everything went off without a hitch. Here are some pictures of my grow space before I organize it:

(Sadly the people I got my gear from forgot to send my mylar tarp. No biggy, after a pay-phone call they resent it.)

(Blurred out the sticker on my light. I don't want the company to get any backlash from the feds.)

(I know I probably need to drop the light down lower, but I want to wait and see if there is any stretching first.)

Ok, so I know all the good growers are going to snap on me for the lack of a light trap on my vents. Well I can't seem to decide on a way to do it. I can't afford to lose very much fan efficiency so dark room vent covers are out and so is black cloth covers. I think I may run some black vent tubing, or a pvc pipe elbow. Any tips or ideas would be awesome and greatly appreciated.

Now to the plants, seems my other guy also forgot 5 of my other pots so my other 3 seedlings are still in the window seal until they get here. So here they are in some 2 Gallon pots:

I would like to thank everyone that has taken the time to look at my journal so far.

~!* New Stuff *!~ (As to not triple post)
So my ozone generators are FUBAR'd, ran to lowes to look for another and found this:

I'm intrigued to see if this will work on cutting down on the smell.

** Dropped the light waaaaaaay down so it's about ~14 or so odd inches above the plants now.

 

[Flower Child]

Hi Gleipnir. Looks like your off to a good start. Your babies look great!

 

[gleipnir]

Hi Gleipnir. Looks like your off to a good start. Your babies look great!

Why thank you I can only hope my bag seed turns out as well as yours.

 

[Bird25]

Hey man, the little ladies(hopefully) are looking good so far. Ill be watching. My lady grew an inch and a half overnight. I also ordered some Pakistani pure landrace seeds so I'm def pumped!!

 

[Highsenberg]

Hey Gleipnir! Nice setup I just started my grow also, still setting up as I go. I was looking at your pictures and I am also new but have done a ton of research, From what I have found and my go to guy let me know that you can have those cfl's about 10cm or so, you do not want to stretch the seedlings too much they need to grow that main taproot strong and a strong stem.

I have a pretty laymen way to explain nutes if you have not gotten you answer yet lemme know I will toss it up here. Looking great !

 

[gleipnir]

@Bird25
Thanks you for the compliment. Glad to hear your girls sprung up Also you can never go wrong with anything from the middle east (Mmm afgan hash.)

@Highsenberg
Thanks it was a pain to setup and I'm still no where near finished with it. I moved my HM light way way down last night after reading up on another grow journal. Go ahead and tell me about nutes I like to have as much information as I can before making decisions.

I will get some new photos up after I clean up my grow space

 

[Highsenberg]

@gleipnir As for the nutes I was not talking about what kind you should use, just how the numbers work. I have ran into a couple of people that did not understand TDS EC, and the ppm scales. So if you need any help understanding how ppm, tds and ec work,that is what I was offering.

If you get a sec you should check out my journal,like I said I just started mine also and I am feeling we will probably run into issues that one of us may have already overcome.

HERE

 

[Pot Priest]

Looking good so far, I'm on my first one too. Ill definitely be keeping up with your journal! Good luck!

 

[gleipnir]

Thanks for all the kudos guys and maybe gals? It helps keep me motivated to keep posting (I also subbed to everyone who has an active journal)

Anyways I moved my light down and my babies are doing very well. So here are some pictures to keep everyone entertained.

 

[Flower Child]

They are looking really healthy. Saw you have a "viva la vape" box. I have an old Revolt of that brand for my backup vape. Oh and yea there are a few females here (besides female plants)- your talking to one.

 

[CA215]

Grow is coming along nicely mr. gleipner the odor eliminator won't come into play for a few months once flowering commences I bought the same once, different scent, HAH.. I would recommend start reading into some training techniques and brushing up on them, these will come into play great with higher yields, better light penetration, etc. Some to look into would be LST, super cropping, and fim. I incorporated them all into my first indoor girl and it was a blast. Happy growing brotha, keep m green

eace; CA215

 

[gleipnir]

Thanks everyone!

Anyways sorry for disappearing, life threw us a hard ball recently and I haven't had time to get on the forums. Bad weather decided to pull down a section of our 3-4 some odd acre fencing for our 200 some odd emus. If you didn't know an emu is a 6ft tall velociraptor acting bird, it can gut you in one swift kick. Well about 30 got loose and we had to hunt them down in a 25 acre forest, a la Jurassic Park (Clever girl..). Got all of em back only to have our AC unit break down and the house was 90 degrees for a few days (luckily we kept the plants cool). Apparently I fixed it and still had to pay a 130$ AC unit repair fee from a "repairman". Anyways enough of the blah blah life is hard woe is me bullshit.

Despite the scorcher (my plants still have the signs of it, curled up leaf sides and slight drooping.) my babies still pulled through and even grew! I finally got the weight watering system (lift it up is it heavy or light?) down. I decided no nutes (Unless there is a visible deficiency or ph gets all fudged) I'm going with this all natural, so what if I don't get a lot of bud I like the taste of cannabis with no fert. So here are my babies so far:

**Did some research only growing 5 because my state only lets me have that many. Gave my other 3 to a 75 year old couple that can't seem to get their medication started. So Killed two birds with one stone

 

[gleipnir]

Sorry to double post, but can anyone help me identify if these babies are sativa or indica dominant? I know the leafs are a tell tell sign, but I can't quite tell.

 

[mcloadie]

I'm subd gleip, a little too early ta tell the dominance, but your plants look great...+reps!

 

[gleipnir]

Thanks for the sub and rep Also that's cool I guessed it was a shot in the dark. I'm using random seeds from my collection so i have no idea what I will get in the end, but I just hope it's female XD