Guesstimator's 2014 Grow Journal - 1st Indoor Attempt!

[Guesstimator]

And don't worry it takes a while to get folks Visiting your journal.

Lol, I was wondering about that. I have a lot of "proving myself" to do on here and I sure understand that. This is a great place, filled with great folks and I hope to be thought of one day and one of them.

Have a great day CO and thanks once again!

 

[COorganics]

I have had a journal ongoing here for some time, I'm just now getting the folks I really want to visit to come by it. It's really cool, getting to interact with cutting edge growers from around the globe. 420mag forum is boss hog. I was on another forum before and it was a bunch of trolls giving out mediocre, generic advice and stuff.

Check out shottafire, greytail, curso, doc bud, drdankNstein, Icemud, and the other living soil guys I forgot to mention. Shotta's manic organic journal is really good I think. And of course I am trying to hypnotize u into becoming a living soil dude and ditching the synthetic stuff. It's my duty, lol.

 

[ecdriver]

you did a great job Guess, just follow what you do, giving food / water / food / water.
what you can do is around week 4, give food / food / water / food / food / water, untill your flush , as your plant may eat more than before established flower; then you could give them a shorter food frequency.

i don't see anything else to do but a bit defo you just done.
this babe looks gorgeous.

E.D.

 

[Guesstimator]

you did a great job Guess, just follow what you do, giving food / water / food / water.
what you can do is around week 4, give food / food / water / food / food / water, untill your flush , as your plant may eat more than before established flower; then you could give them a shorter food frequency.

i don't see anything else to do but a bit defo you just done.
this babe looks gorgeous.

E.D.

Thanks so much for the heads up! This was kinda my idea for a course of action, glad to hear it sounds right to someone other than myself. Lol. I did some minor additional defol last night and may again as the LST'd branches continue to move upwards.

The MS again, keep the input coming guys!

 

[Light Addict]

Im here lol just dont get by much as I have way to many subscribed threads. Just holla at me though anytime

 

[Guesstimator]

Question folks: I checked PH last night. To do this I first fed by adding my nutes (1/2 strength +/-) to the filtered water as usual. I put 1 gallon of water per 5 gallon bucket. Only had minor run-off. I let it all sit for 10 minutes and then mixed up all the water at the bottom of my catch-can to make an "overall sample" from all three plants run-off.

I'm broke as hell from the tent build, so I use the drops to check PH. Being color blind to a mild extent I used my wife's eyes to read the chart and she said that it looked like the chart read about 5.5-6. I'd have to agree. I think we said 5.75-ish...

The drops I bought were the "GH Up / Down" kit with drops, so I have the proper stuff (I believe) to rectify this and raise it slightly, but I wonder if there is a trick to this or just follow directions? Is it too late to do this today since I fed last night?

Backing up slightly, I fertilized back to back this time (no straight watering between). The plants keep looking great and I keep using diluted solutions so since flowering began recently I decided to feed again (with a little bit closer to recommended doses of Bloom). I only mention this hoping that since there is "potentially" plenty of nutes in the soil now I can "potentially" add water / PH UP to the pots now (today) without washing out too many nutes? Or is it best to just wait, be patient and adjust at next watering (+/- 5-7 days from now).

Thanks in advance for the info folks!

 

[MKrop420]

Hey "Guess" what's up, and welcome.
So, you seem to have done a least a little research to proper PHing so forgive me if i'm telling you something you already know.
Since your growing in soil i wouldn't worry at all about your ph, part of all the natural activity that occurs in the root zone is that your roots release enzymes into the soil to adjust the ph of its surroundings as needed in order to uptake the proper nutrients which each have their own fairly specific range of absorption on the PH scale.
Now that has been stated let me give you a number to ease your mind, as long as your Ph is inbetween 5 and 7, don't worry too much, small changes are going to occur everyday, just dont let it drop too far.

Hope i could help MK all day.

 

[Guesstimator]

Hey "Guess" what's up, and welcome.
So, you seem to have done a least a little research to proper PHing so forgive me if i'm telling you something you already know.
Since your growing in soil i wouldn't worry at all about your ph, part of all the natural activity that occurs in the root zone is that your roots release enzymes into the soil to adjust the ph of its surroundings as needed in order to uptake the proper nutrients which each have their own fairly specific range of absorption on the PH scale.
Now that has been stated let me give you a number to ease your mind, as long as your Ph is inbetween 5 and 7, don't worry too much, small changes are going to occur everyday, just dont let it drop too far.

Hope i could help MK all day.

THIS (above) IS WHY I JOINED 420MAGAZINE! Thank you so very much for the quick, concise and informative answer. Why can't all sites have good folks like we do???

Thank you again. I'm gonna stay at the computer and work and not go out to the tent and fidget and mess things up. (in a whiny voice: BUT I WANNA PLAY WITH THE PLANTS NOW...!!!!!) lol

 

[David Bowman]

I'm gonna stay at the computer and work and not go out to the tent and fidget and mess things up. (in a whiny voice: BUT I WANNA PLAY WITH THE PLANTS NOW...!!!!!) lol

Yeah, but the real question is do the plants want to play with you?!?!?!

 

[Guesstimator]

Yeah, but the real question is do the plants want to play with you?!?!?!

LMAO!

I'd like to think so, just don't tell them what I am gonna do to them in +/- 50 days! lol

 

[Guesstimator]

I spent some time loosening up the LST wires last night. They were just making things far too broad and that is one direction I don't have extra room for. lol. I can go up approx. 20" more while still maintaining 20" of light/plant distance at least, maybe I have a full 2' more even. That darn Kerala X Skunk #1 freebie on the right is one stretchy little sum' bitch! Jeepers. Gonna have to deal with that daily it appears.

On Saturday it will have been 2 weeks exactly since I swapped to 12/12 and the HPS bulb. Having no other indoor experience personally to go by I have to kinda deduce my progress from what I gather online (I am smashing it compared to my one other outdoor grow that failed miserably!). And from the kind words I have received here it appears I am doing something right...lol

I am still dreaming of LED's, and will most likely (knowing me...lol) make the swap sooner rather than later.

I plan on the next watering being straight water. That is most likely to happen this Sunday or early next week. Then I will follow with a true 100% mix of the nutes for the first time.

Please keep the input coming folks! Thank you!!!

Some photos are sideways. I wasn't lazy, they show the flowers better I found.

 

[COorganics]

Nice, seems dialed so far guesstimator,
Love seeing buds forming.

 

[ecdriver]

hey Gess,
nice little girlz growing there,
about the PH, i second Mk, Ph is never an issue when growing in soil. stay in that interval of 5.5/7.5 i would say.
about the "drops Ph tester kit" , i have to say i never use it especially with organic colored solution and even with mineral nutes if the nute is a bit colored you can't properly read the results, may be more a potential mistake than an indication.
use it in plain water, adjust Ph as desired and pour in the nutrients, the only way to have a real read on this stuff.
as said above don't mess with this man, tell me what ph your tap water is if ya have a minute.
between Ph 6 and 7.5 for soil growing, don't change anything.

prefer to underfed until the become a bit pale and re-adjust to the next feed with tiny bit more nute wait a day or two and see if they come back greener.
less is lot better than too much in term of plant food and especially in soil.

i'm sure you'll get it soon.

regards.
E.D..

 

[Guesstimator]

hey Gess,
nice little girlz growing there,
about the PH, i second Mk, Ph is never an issue when growing in soil. stay in that interval of 5.5/7.5 i would say.
about the "drops Ph tester kit" , i have to say i never use it especially with organic colored solution and even with mineral nutes if the nute is a bit colored you can't properly read the results, may be more a potential mistake than an indication.
use it in plain water, adjust Ph as desired and pour in the nutrients, the only way to have a real read on this stuff.
as said above don't mess with this man, tell me what ph your tap water is if ya have a minute.
between Ph 6 and 7.5 for soil growing, don't change anything.

prefer to underfed until the become a bit pale and re-adjust to the next feed with tiny bit more nute wait a day or two and see if they come back greener.
less is lot better than too much in term of plant food and especially in soil.

i'm sure you'll get it soon.

regards.
E.D..

Thanks so much for the input. I have put the drops and adjustment solution up on the shelf, out of sight out of mind. lol. Nutes are right next to them too, I'll be watering and skipping nutes for a session or two.

I did a major defoliation and 2 days later they seem to have loved it! Light is penetrating all the way down now and I can see the "popcorn area" is thriving. Debatable topic, I know, but it makes a heap of sense to me after hours of mind-numbing research. We shall see I suppose... So far, so good.

Thanks again all, more photos will be posted soon of my "stripper poles" if I can pull away from work long enough to go play! lol

 

[cannateer]

Subbed. Good luck. Looks great. Awesome advice on extinguishers and alarms.

 

[Guesstimator]

Finally some pics from the defoliation a couple days ago (on day 14-ish of flower). These pics are recent, as of a few minutes time now. They certainly have picked up A LOT since I went gonzo and tore hell outta them! I'm continually amazed by this plant and it abilities...

This was done over a 2 day period really, with the first day being fairly heavy removal and the 2nd day being the most heavily handed removal day. I am on page 16 of 36 (IIRC) of the WONDERFUL thread on here about defoliation. See it here: (link to our forum is cool, yes? My apologies if not, Admins!) Increasing yield with defoliation indoors - What's it mean? How to do it?

Again, if anyone has any info or can steer an FNG (F'ing New Guy for those not in construction, lol) in the proper direction it'd be much appreciated! Thanks all!

 

[ecdriver]

Hi Guess,
i see you worked hard on your babies on defoliation, i don't defoliate as you but i read that it could give nice fat results in many threads or grow journals.
i'm curious to see how they react a few dayz after .
i think the only way to be sure is to compare with the same plant (clone from same mother) wich has not been defoliated.
it should be the only real answer to that question.
maybe i'll experiment hard defoliation on one of my 5 outside thinkdifferent plants soon but they will be from seeds and not clones...
anyway, post a few pic if ya have time to show us how they turned now a few dayz after...
wish you a nice green day Guess.
regards.

E.D.

 

[Guesstimator]

Thanks E.D. for following along. There were some before and after shots there (believe it or not), they were just presented poorly by myself. My bad. I have had my in-laws living with me for 4 days and pictures are tough to take about now until they leave...lol

I just checked in on the girls and holy cow are they happy!!! They are growing like weeds! lol. I will take pictures in the next couple days and update the progress.

Side note: Can anyone help me come up with a plausible description for what the heck my tent "is"? It is inconspicuous as hell, sure, but if someone asks, what does it look like it COULD be, other than a grow tent...? I'd love a good answer that makes people just say "oh, gotcha" and move on, not something that invokes a "Oh, really, I wanna see inside!" response. lol. Please hit me with any and all suggestions, it's appreciated!

 

[David Bowman]

How about telling them it is a portable closet or a closet organizer.

 

[Guesstimator]

How about telling them it is a portable closet or a closet organizer.

I like the idea of just "portable closet" and let people wonder what that is and let them just chew on that. Good thinking. I was thinking "I.T. closet full of electrical equipment, can't open it due to dust concerns" but that was a long winded description and leaves the door open for more questions / discussion. Also thought "clothing storage for my suits" but that doesn't explain the exhaust fan noise (but that is real quite if I do say so myself). I like this simpler idea you've mentioned, .

Anyone else?