How bad was your first grow, ever

[Koolbudz]

My very first grow was when I was 15, it grew to 3 inches and I smoked it LOL

Next grow was 4 yrs later, family member killed all 20 seedlings (didnt want me growing)

Third attempt 33yrs after first attempt, ended up with an average of 2.5oz per plant indoor, smoked good, tasted good, smelled mellow... Lots of issues but reading a lot before starting helped me a lot I think...

My main issue is sprouting and seedling issues I create by not watering correctly, I am still figuring it out, once they have their second real leaves I do pretty good with no real issues.

 

[Icemud]

Here is my 1st grow ever... couldn't have gone better. Took a lot of research, pre-planning, attention to detail and worked out well.. Also received a lot of "coaching" from members here at 420 magazine which gave me a great resource to ask questions and learn from others experience and mistakes.

Best advice I can give: have a plan and a goal, and then use 420 magazine to find a grower that has a similar setup, similar end goal. Follow their footsteps and methods. Start a grow journal here at 420 magazine, include details of what you did, your feedings, photos etc and most importantly ask for help from experienced members. Stick to the plan that has been proven by others, and try not to "freestyle it" or "wing it" as this is when I find I mess up most of the time, when I move into uncharted waters or try experimental stuff. Also make sure to pay attention to detail, make sure to keep your room temps and humidity at the right levels, make sure you measure your feeding pH. Most importantly find a method of watering/feeding that works for you, and stick with it... Less is more when it comes to watering and nutrients. Best of all, learn from your mistakes and keep a record of what you did, so you can make sure to omit what fails, and keep what works.

I will admit, I've had plenty of failures since nailing my 1st grow, but my failures almost always are a result of me trying something new, or experimenting and going off the known path of success. Dont let failures upset or discourage you, instead use them for motivation to smash the next grow out of the park

Here is the thread to my 1st grow: Icemuds 1st grow

 

[Ravenplume]

I have had four grows so far, and only the most recent is one I can honestly call my first successful grow. The names I gave each grow (some applied retroactively) were:

Necro - 2016
Hermy - 2017
Early Bird - 2018
Tardis Lite - 2019

Necro 2016 - This was not too long after weed became legal here in Oregon and the year after I moved back here. My little brother had given me a small bottle of seeds that he had saved over the years, some probably dating back to the late 90s. Well, I knew it was time to use the grow room he had set up down in the basement back when he owned this place. So I got a single seed germinated in a little cup of water, then planted into a styrofoam cup and kept under flourescents for a couple months. After it was big enough to put in a proper pot, it was moved to the kitchen window for just normal daylight until we could get the grow room operational, That happened shortly after with a pair of Super Bright 36W Pot Wizard TM LED Grow Lights from Amazon...

Well, life got hectic with other things and she remained forgotten. And finally we determined (perhaps mistakenly so) that she was not salvageable, so we just shut off the lights and left her in there, intending to dispose of her soon. Well, almost a year later, we remember, and open the veg room to find that at some point, she had indeed flowered, budded, and cured. It was only about a 10th of an ounce, but it was adequate; nothing to write home about, but it did give a high. Even though this was a one off, of which there would never be any more, I called this Necro.


Hermy 2017 - This was a short, but tragic tale. After several more early on failures with more of those vintage seeds, I finally got another one to take. Once old enough, the youngster went down into the grow room for the 18/6 cycle. Well, if I remember right, this was late Spring of 2017, and oops! along came a couple unexpected super cold snaps. This stressed her and caused her to herm. I think that was the last attempt for that year, or at least until near the end of the year.
This one was simply thrown out, and I retroactively have dubbed it Hermy - 2017.


Early Bird 2018 - This one came soooo close to being our first full fledged success. We had exhausted all the vintage seeds by this time. However, our new neighbors ended up being growers themselves, and I was gifted a nice little sampling of his yield from his most recent grow (plus, he gave me a nice baggie's worth when I was out and didn't know about the dispensaries yet, for which I returned the favor with a bottle of Kraken later). Anyway, I was thrilled to find some seeds in what he gave me, and set about germinating. One in particular ended up being the one to go out in the enclosure we had just recently built for this. The others remained as indoor plants, which never did do too well, and neither did our star plant's cuttings we made before putting her outside.

This one was looking so promising all Summer.

But as Fall started setting in, it was looking like we might be having several bad freezes early on. After the first freeze, we panicked and harvested early. The resulting bud was adequate, and smells rather nice, but I felt it too weak to really be a full success. I got 3/4 ounce of usable bud off it (we let far too much rot due to laziness) and a half ounce of what I call Grind; the trim, twigs, dried leaves, and bits of bud too small for the main jar, which then gets ground into a fine powder in a handheld coffee grinder.

My name for this, another one off obviously, is Early Bird - 2018, and its grind, I have dubbed Hot Dog Meat. I think I will give a small bit of its bud a try on my next toke; but for the most part, the bud and Hot Dog Meat are going to be used in our first attempt at cannabutter.

All three of those were very good learning experiences, and made the next year better.


Tardis Lite 2019 - In late 2019 I purchased a couple ounces at my favorite dispensary, Tardis and Sour Banana Sherbert. In the bag of Tardis I found a couple opportunity seeds, and one in the Sour Banana Sherbert.

Both Tardis plants were female, and the SBS was male. I did use the pollen from the boy to pollinate some of the Tardis flowers because I needed seeds. The smokable bud for this grow (of which I STILL have an arseload to process, I am calling Tardis Lite instead of Tardis. Reason for this is because it came from an opportunity seed in a bag of professionally produced Tardis. That implies that the father plant is really unknown, with no such records kept. Therefore it is Tardis Lite instead of Tardis.

Likewise, the Sour Banana Sherbert pollen, also coming from an opportunity seed, would also be a Lite version. The seeds, being from Lite parents are ones I feel I can safely call Wildlings, as now 1/4 of their lineage is unknown and the other 1/4 is a total mystery. And Wildlings are what I was wanting, because they are the next step to my baseline strain (I really should be saving this for my NeoCities page which I still need to build). The grind from the Tardis Lite is called Spice, or The Spice Jar.

You can follow that one from germination to declaration of success in my first halfassed grow journal here...

Ravenplume's First Grow Journal: Random Tardis Seed Au Naturale & Cheap

So this is my first attempt at a grow journal, and what I calculate to be my 4th attempt at a successful grow. Attempt #1 got neglected down in the grow room, and was left for dead. It was actually a minor success; as it at least produced about a 10th of an ounce Attempt #2 got stressed down...

www.420magazine.com

The short of it, and now I am quoting from my grow journal entry...

"Grow was a moderate to great success in several ways. I am getting some perfectly good smokable bud despite heavy seeding. And granted, many of the buds and branches did not get seeded. It is obviously satisfying me, because I have not felt the urge to scrape the last of the commercial stuff we bought at the beginning of December (2019) for one final smoke. I am having no problem waiting until whenever before we make the pilgrimage to Sumpter again for a fresh load of whatever sounds good (and the last couple times, it ended up being one of the $150 per ounce containers instead of the $100/ounce special, which comes in zipper bags. "

Also, I have had excellent compliments on my grow from everyone I have shared it with, family, neighbors, and even total strangers (but that is posts for other sections of the forum).

Now this year's yield will be called Ravenplume Wildling 2019, with the greater majority being from only the biggest of the three surviving plants out there (all the others were male), and the two small ones will be getting pollinated with one of the male's saved pollen in order to make my first baseline. The Wildling 2019 grind will be called either Tinder or Kindling.

So that is my grow history so far. The story is just beginning though. There will be plenty more to come.

 

[thebear88]

Hey everyone:

Coming off of a really terrible first grow. I had a lot of things working against me, all which I suppose could have killed it, but the plants survived and gave me less than a half ounce. I learned a lot and I'm starting my second grow now (you can see it here).

I'm curious if anyone has a really terrible first grow story, too. I can't be the only person out there. Anyone start rough but eventually become a really good grower?

Wait till u hear this, lol, my first grow was out side Gorrilla style,
I didn't have a clue, I bought seeds and soil and went and found a good spot outdoors that was hard to get to, dug holes and planted 5 seeds,
Went back up a week later and the holes that I dug had been disturbed and nothing was growing anywhere,
But when I was about to go I spotted a seedling growing in a Ray of light, so I went and dug it up and brought it home and put it under t8 lights and grew the little seedling for a few days,


Then a about a week and a half later I was walking down the street and I noticed plants growing on the side of the railway tracks and on grass verges,,

They looked identical to my seedling,
Turns out I was growing a real Weed and not the good kind,,, I am a complete idiot haha, I brought home a natural weed that grows everywhere and thought it was a cannibals plant,,,