Hello friends. I have always had a green thumb with all of my houseplants, so decided to start growing my own. I jumped in too soon before I knew what I was doing and drove myself crazy with every this and that. I asked a few questions in the forum and got sooooo much help. I have decided to write a grow journal....Now, this is what I am going through....I am sure there will be mistakes...but bear with me...
Week 1- Germinated 2 of my feminized seeds (cali gold indica). Within a few days they sprouted and I planted them in small pots with Miracle Grow (I found out afterwards it's not the best to use).
Put them in a humidity dome under a "Sun System" HPS 150 W light 24 hours a day. They popped out of the soil in 2 days...Oh was I excited.
Week 2- After Already completely paranoid about the bright light in my bathroom being seen from space, I bought a dark room. The Secret Jardin DR2. Super easy to assemble and it is 2 feet by 2 feet by 4.7 feet tall...all I need for a couple of plants. Now the ventilation paranoia sets in.....So it's back to the store. I got a carbon filter and filter fan...that sounds like an airplane taking off in my apartment....so I didn't turn the fan on...I put the humidity dome inside the tent...under the lamps. The humidity inside the dome was between 60-90 %---the light was about 17 inches above the plant.
(I put 2 pictures up at that point)
All proud of my new babies, I took off the dome to mist them...and OMG they fell over!! That was when I wrote my first question into the forum.
Fratdog223, Charis, The General and Taylormade420 helped me so much. Between them, they told me to take the stupid dome off and get rid of some humidity (I turned the fan on---then went BACK to the store and bought a fan speed controller--the speedster--helped a lot with the fan noise)...It also turned out the HPS light was overkill and it was too far away from the plants--so they were stretching up to meet the light. So I had soggy, humid plants that were stretching! What did I get myself into? By this point I thought it was all over... I decided to germinate 2 more seeds, just in case I killed the first 2.
Another panicked visit to the forum and I got more help....It turns out that just like my houseplants, I could gently tie my sad little plants to a chopstick in the dirt to hold them up, and more advice told me to put a small fan inside the tent, blowing gently over my plants--the breeze helps the stem grow stronger!
Fratdog223 came to my rescue and told me to get rid of the HPS light until the flowering stage, and for now just to use -daylight CLF 100W light bulbs- and hang one over each plant, just 2 inches above the plant. Off to the hardware store! Also picked up a light timer and put the plants on an 18 hour on, 6 hour off cycle.
Week 3-- 7 days of germinating and those 2 extra seeds didn't sprout...hmmmm....BUT my plants started growing more and more every day. I started to water the plant A LITTLE when the top of the dirt got dry and crusty (about every 2-3 days) and they seemed to be thriving. I decided to germinate another seed at the end of the week.
Week 4-- Those 2 seeds still hadn't sprouted...but by midweek, the 3rd seed had sprouted....but not those other 2....hmmmmm.
Things seem to be going well. I planted the sprouted seed, germinated 1 more. (I don't want to go through all of this to find out the stupid plants are males and this was all for nothing) I went out and got 2 more 100 w daylight cfl bulbs. I screwed the light bulb into a little thing that has a light socket on one end, and a 2 prong plug on the other. I just ran an extension cord for each light from the overhead framing inside the tent.
Those 2 damned seeds never sprouted, but the 4th one did...I planted it and by the next day it had popped through the soil...
So I bought 6 seeds, 2 are growing nicely, 2 are duds, 1 was planted but hasn't popped through yet and the last one popped through this morning.
Does that make sense? In total, there are 4 plants...The first 2 that are growing well, 1 that just popped through the soil, and 1 that is still under the dirt...I'll let you know if that one ever shows up....2 of the seeds must be duds--I will be bringing them back where I bought them!
But let me tell you about the original 2. I am very excited.
Plant 1-- is now 4 1/2 inches tall. It has 4 layers of leaves. The leaves are about 3 inches long and it is getting small bushier leaves shooting out between the branches. It is standing up on it's own now (the small fan worked) and is green.
Plants 2-- is now 3 1/4 inches tall. This plant has a bit of a purple hue to the leaves. Has 3 layers of leaves and...here comes a problem...I got cocky last week and decided to "top" this plant...It does not seem to have grown since, but there are many new bushier shoots growing below the leaf layers...did I screw this up?
I have included pictures of my 2 babies (hereby will be know as plant 1 and plant 2)
I know that soon I will need to transplant plant 1 as the leaves are starting to grow past the edges of the little pot...gosh, she's pretty.
So here come my questions..
1: Did I hurt plant 2 by topping it?
2: When should I start using nutrients (any advice on that would be helpful)
3: There are flaps on the lower sides of the tent (Secret Jardin) that let air flow in...they are baffled with a mesh....but if the lights are on in my apartment during the dark cycle, will it leak inside the tent? What do I do when flowering time comes?
Thanks...more to come...Jess
Week 1- Germinated 2 of my feminized seeds (cali gold indica). Within a few days they sprouted and I planted them in small pots with Miracle Grow (I found out afterwards it's not the best to use).
Put them in a humidity dome under a "Sun System" HPS 150 W light 24 hours a day. They popped out of the soil in 2 days...Oh was I excited.
Week 2- After Already completely paranoid about the bright light in my bathroom being seen from space, I bought a dark room. The Secret Jardin DR2. Super easy to assemble and it is 2 feet by 2 feet by 4.7 feet tall...all I need for a couple of plants. Now the ventilation paranoia sets in.....So it's back to the store. I got a carbon filter and filter fan...that sounds like an airplane taking off in my apartment....so I didn't turn the fan on...I put the humidity dome inside the tent...under the lamps. The humidity inside the dome was between 60-90 %---the light was about 17 inches above the plant.
(I put 2 pictures up at that point)
All proud of my new babies, I took off the dome to mist them...and OMG they fell over!! That was when I wrote my first question into the forum.
Fratdog223, Charis, The General and Taylormade420 helped me so much. Between them, they told me to take the stupid dome off and get rid of some humidity (I turned the fan on---then went BACK to the store and bought a fan speed controller--the speedster--helped a lot with the fan noise)...It also turned out the HPS light was overkill and it was too far away from the plants--so they were stretching up to meet the light. So I had soggy, humid plants that were stretching! What did I get myself into? By this point I thought it was all over... I decided to germinate 2 more seeds, just in case I killed the first 2.
Another panicked visit to the forum and I got more help....It turns out that just like my houseplants, I could gently tie my sad little plants to a chopstick in the dirt to hold them up, and more advice told me to put a small fan inside the tent, blowing gently over my plants--the breeze helps the stem grow stronger!
Fratdog223 came to my rescue and told me to get rid of the HPS light until the flowering stage, and for now just to use -daylight CLF 100W light bulbs- and hang one over each plant, just 2 inches above the plant. Off to the hardware store! Also picked up a light timer and put the plants on an 18 hour on, 6 hour off cycle.
Week 3-- 7 days of germinating and those 2 extra seeds didn't sprout...hmmmm....BUT my plants started growing more and more every day. I started to water the plant A LITTLE when the top of the dirt got dry and crusty (about every 2-3 days) and they seemed to be thriving. I decided to germinate another seed at the end of the week.
Week 4-- Those 2 seeds still hadn't sprouted...but by midweek, the 3rd seed had sprouted....but not those other 2....hmmmmm.
Things seem to be going well. I planted the sprouted seed, germinated 1 more. (I don't want to go through all of this to find out the stupid plants are males and this was all for nothing) I went out and got 2 more 100 w daylight cfl bulbs. I screwed the light bulb into a little thing that has a light socket on one end, and a 2 prong plug on the other. I just ran an extension cord for each light from the overhead framing inside the tent.
Those 2 damned seeds never sprouted, but the 4th one did...I planted it and by the next day it had popped through the soil...
So I bought 6 seeds, 2 are growing nicely, 2 are duds, 1 was planted but hasn't popped through yet and the last one popped through this morning.
Does that make sense? In total, there are 4 plants...The first 2 that are growing well, 1 that just popped through the soil, and 1 that is still under the dirt...I'll let you know if that one ever shows up....2 of the seeds must be duds--I will be bringing them back where I bought them!
But let me tell you about the original 2. I am very excited.
Plant 1-- is now 4 1/2 inches tall. It has 4 layers of leaves. The leaves are about 3 inches long and it is getting small bushier leaves shooting out between the branches. It is standing up on it's own now (the small fan worked) and is green.
Plants 2-- is now 3 1/4 inches tall. This plant has a bit of a purple hue to the leaves. Has 3 layers of leaves and...here comes a problem...I got cocky last week and decided to "top" this plant...It does not seem to have grown since, but there are many new bushier shoots growing below the leaf layers...did I screw this up?
I have included pictures of my 2 babies (hereby will be know as plant 1 and plant 2)
I know that soon I will need to transplant plant 1 as the leaves are starting to grow past the edges of the little pot...gosh, she's pretty.
So here come my questions..
1: Did I hurt plant 2 by topping it?
2: When should I start using nutrients (any advice on that would be helpful)
3: There are flaps on the lower sides of the tent (Secret Jardin) that let air flow in...they are baffled with a mesh....but if the lights are on in my apartment during the dark cycle, will it leak inside the tent? What do I do when flowering time comes?
Thanks...more to come...Jess