Jessica2 - First Grow - Journal

[jessica2]

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

 

[HiTimes4Me]

No you didn't mess up the one that you topped it'll pick up pretty soon it'll be fine...You really not going to need nutrients anytime soon because the MG soil you have has nutes in it right? I see the MG soil all the time when I'm shopping for other things and most of it says feeds up to 6months so if you use nutes it will overpower your plants because there's already nutes in the soil....maybe not lol depending on which MG soil you used...Im a hydro and hempy guy myself...They're looking good though good job so far...And as far as the air vents if you can see light coming through them then yes it will leak but you really don't have to worry about it until you go to flowering...And as far as the last question could you be more specific...What do you mean by what do you do in flowering? When you switch to flowering switch your light cycle over to 12 hours on 12 hours off...that's about all I can say until you have specifics lol Good luck

 

[Icemud]

Wow...I gotta say I am really impressed with your grow journal!! great detail, photo's and most of all you have quite a nice setup going so far.... I am definitely in for this grow and will try to chime in when I can with help..

As far as your questions, I can only help with one of them

So here come my questions..

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?

I had the same concern with my tent, so I ran some flexible ducting from outside my tent, in through one of the ventholes, on the side of the tent, and down to the ground next to my pots. (inside the tent). With the fan sucking air out of the tent above, the negative pressure sucks air into my tent via the ducting, no extra fan needed. This solved my light leak issue... In the daytime on hotter days, I will open up the vents for additional air if needed and crank up my fanspeed, but most days, the vent ducting works great..

If this doesn't work, I would recommend getting some heavy dark fabric and maybe some cardboard and fashioning up a sort of wedge shape design...kind of like you would see outside a house where the drier vent's out.. somthing that would direct the air opening downward to help limit the light that seeps in...and then the dark fabric hanging over it to help even more...

 

[jessica2]

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I will be adding to the journal mid week.
Thanks again
Jess

 

[GodSpeed]

Hi Jessica welcome to awesome start to your journal sounds like you have had quite the adventure!

1: Did I hurt plant 2 by topping it?
No topping is perfectly fine causes minimal stress but nothing to worry about.

2: When should I start using nutrients (any advice on that would be helpful)
As you are using a heavy fertilized soil with potting up through veg you shouldn't need to feed in till flowering should you notice any deficiencies before then a light dose of grow formula should be added (Have you chosen a feed yet?)

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?
Yes you need to cover these up during lights out even for veg cannabis requires total darkness to start photosynthesizing, i had a similar problem get in the tent with lights out and you will see they let a lot of light through surprising, to stop this i got some sticky Velcro run it around the edge and stick it to the tent works great, if you are using them for passive inlet then un-sticking it every day might make the Velcro fall off i keep mine closed all the time.



Subb'd for more action!

 

[Twelve12]

Looking forward to your grow.

So here come my questions..
1: Did I hurt plant 2 by topping it?

We are not sure if plants can feel pain. Topping promote growth so it's a positive thing.

2: When should I start using nutrients (any advice on that would be helpful)

As soon as your leaves are turning light green. The color scale range between yellow to dark green. Yellow being starvation, and dark green represent well feed. Growing in soil mix should give you enough for 2-3 weeks (depends on container size), after that a light nutrients strength is required.

 

[jessica2]

WEEK 5-6-7-8

I must appologize.. it's been 3 weeks since I wrote last. In the last couple of weeks plant 1 started to get yellow edges so I transplanted the babies into larger pots. I switched the soil to pro mix and did not start using any nutrients. The girls kept growing nicely.

Plant 1 ---I topped her, and she seems stressed about it. She appears to be scrawny and ragged now. When I topped her, she split into 2 new sprouts, but nothing grew in between those 2 sprouts until just today. Maybe that's a good sign. Here's a photo of the area affected by my topping it.

Plant 2–Is growing beautifully! I am so excited by the way she looks. When I topped her, she grew two new sprouts and kept going strong. When I imagined what an mj plant looked like, it was this. Oh great, now watch someone tell me it is diseased and possessed! Hopefully not.

Plant 3–She popped through the soil on January 25. (2 and a half weeks ago) She has been growing very well. I planted her in pro mix soil.

I have a 100W CFL over each plant. Within 2 inches above the plant. I also have 1 more bulb hanging between plant 1 and 2, to add some extra light to the lower branches.

So this is where I am at.
CFL light bulbs. 100 w daylight, hanging 2 inches above each plant
Bamboo sticks to help hold plants up (I had flopping problems when I first started this grow)
Planted in Pro mix
Watering plants 1 and 2 (born Jan 6–5.5 weeks ago) once a week..watering plant 3 every few days.

plant 1 (born Jan 6–5.5 weeks ago) is
8 inches tall (17 inches from floor)
looking scrawny
is a bit droopy
Has 7 layers of leaves so far
Has many new smaller leaves growing all over the place, below the larger leaves
This plant seemed stronger at first, so it may have taken more of the wind from my little fan....would the breeze from the fan have made it look like this? Is it okay looking? Am I just being a nervous new mom?

plant 2 (born Jan 6–5.5 weeks ago) is
7 and a half inches tall
looking lush and full
has 8 layers of leaves so far
Has many new smaller leaves growing all over the place, below the lower leaves

plant 3 (born Jan 25–2.5 weeks ago) is
3 and 1/4 inches tall
looking perky
has 3 layers of leaves so far

I COULD USE ADVICE ON...

--LIGHT QUESTIONS
-My tent is 4.7 feet tall 55 inches
-I have not started flowering stage yet–still on CFL's, but when I do flowering stage, my flowering light is a Sun System 150 Watt Grow Light Fixture Sun System HPS 150 Grow Light Fixture | Sunlight Supply, Inc. - Indoor Gardening Supplies, Grow Lights, Hydroponics, and Lighting
- The highest my light can be is 45 inches...3'9"....The plants should be at least 15 inches from the light...meaning the plants would have to cap out at 30 inches tall...2'6". Is this even realistic? Do I need a different light for the flowering stage, meaning different from the HPS that is causing me these height worries. (These are indica, which is supposed to be a shorter plant, but everything's relative)

--Can I use the HPS and have a crop that tops out at 2 foot six inches tall in my 2 x 2 x 4.7 tent....or should I switch to another light system for the flowering stage...if I should switch, please let me know your recommendations.

--Is this a healthy height for my plants? Are they doing ok or should I be using a nutrient fertilizer...using pro mix soil.

-When is it time to go into flowering (12 /12) ? Do you go by height, or by appearance, or by number of leaves? What is the magic formula?

And On A Side Note...nice to know, not need to know

- Are these two plants the same strain, or were the seeds mixed up? Plant 2 and 3 look the same, but plant 1 seems so different.


And a big thank you to everyone who has chipped in with their insights and advice. I could not have done this without you.

 

[ggrant]

Hey Jessica,

Plant 1 looks like it's suffering from overwatering. Is this one still in MiracleGro or did you transplant it to the Pro Mix? If it's still in the MiracleGro, repot it. MIracleGro has killed more pot plants than you can possibly imagine. The U.S. Government subisdizes MiracleGro as a means to eradicate the entire U.S. supply of Cannabis.

Your other plants look great. You do have a green thumb. (By the way, if Plant 1 is in Pro Mix and still has this problem, post again with another picture. No need for any sick plants!)

As far as floweing goes, you can put a plant into flower at any time, even from two weeks old. You won't get much yield from a 2 week old plant, of course. There is no magical age of maturity when you should flower your plants. Just do it by size.

A plant (MJ plant, of course) will grow about 30% after it is put into flower. Your grow tent is 55" tall. If you leave 5" as clearance (more about this in a moment), you can flower your plants when they reach

55 " / 1.3 = 42 " tall​

To optimize the height of your grow space, try using CFL bulbs instead of an HPS lamp.

CFL's come in three spectra:

1) 6500K - this is the blue end of the spectrum and is great for vegetative growth;
2) 2700K - this is the red end of the spectrum and if perfect for flowering;
3) 5000K - this is a warmer feeling light, shading more toward the red end of the spectrum. It's a good compromise between the first two.

You can put a CFL bulb 2" away from a plant without hurting it. If you put a couple of these on the sides of your grow tent, the plants can grow between them and even touch the top of the tent!

By the way, when you describe your bulbs, say the actual wattage they use, not the incandescent equivalent. I expect your bulbs are 23W CFLs? It gets confusing to see "100W CFL," unless it actually it a 100W CFL, which is a huge whompin' lamp. Every knows about the actual wattage of CFLs and if they don't, you shouldn't be pay attention to their posts.

I know you have an HPS light and it's a shame not to use it, but the heat it gives off and the clearance required make it awkward to use in a limited height space. You may want to use it during the early stages of flowering, then swap it out when your plants start getting too close to the light.

Are they doing ok or should I be using a nutrient fertilizer...using pro mix soil.

Do not touch that dial! This is a great mix. It has no added nutrients. YOU, as a good mom, want to decide your girls diet, not some manufacturer. If you get a soil with nutrients in it, you may end up with mineral deficiencies which are hard to diagnose. All you need are two basic fetilizers, one for vegetation and one for flowering. There are lots of other nutrients you can buy that enhance blooming, etc., but for basics, just two are fine.

For vegetation, you can use any reliable company's products. I use Botanicare PureBlend Pro (3-2-4). For flowering, there are lots of choices: pick a manufacturer you like, Fox Farm, General Hydroponics, Blue Planet Nutrients, something like that and get one of their fertilizers geared towards flowering.

If you're not familiar with the N-P-K numbers, there are for:
N = Nitrogen: important for leaf development;
P = Phosphorus: important for flowering;
K = Potassium: important for mobility of nutrients

A vegetative fertilizer is geared towards nitrogen, a flowering fertilzer is geared towards phosphorus.

I also recommend buy Blackstrap Molasses, which is very high in mineral content and helps prevent mineral deficiencies. You can find it in some major supermarkets. If not, any health food store will carry it. Get Blackstrap Molasses, not some other kind. It has the highest mineral content. Avoid any molasses that had sulphur in it.

Add one tsp per gallon along with your nutrients whenever you fertilize (which should be about once a week.) Besides the mineral content, it has simple essential sugars that your plant can use to aid in its growth.

By the way, Plant 1 and Plant 2 are really boring names! How about something like Betty and Eudora? Or something distinctive like "Miss Droopy Leaves" or "Curly Top."

And one final piece of advise. Post more often! People lose track of growers if they spend two weeks smoking pot in their grow tents. This is not The BBC World News, where people tune in to see bad news. Marijuana users love to see uplifting stories about successful grows.

Also, LST (Light Stress Training) is a great way to keep down the height of your plants. I am currently growing a Sativa strain. By using LST, the tallest plant is 26" inches tall. You're welcome to come by my journal to see the results.

 

[jessica2]

Hello friendly strangers. It has now been exactly 3 months since I first planted my seeds. I have not written in a while as not much was happening during my vegetation phase. I think I must have waited too long to start adding nutrients, and the plants were slow to grow.
I took your advice and got some Pure Blend Gro and started to notice a big difference. The plants grew another 4 or 5 inches and I could really start to notice the effects of topping my plants. They started to get quite bushy, so I was happy.

Ggrant was incredibly helpful to me. Rather than use the big HPS light that I have, I took his advice and bought some cfl lightbulbs for the flowering stage. I got simple lights from the hardware store. I got the curly 150 w cfl light bulbs that only use 40w of power (2700K) . I hung them with reflective lamp shades and the girls really loved it. I highly recommend this simple solution to anyone doing a small grow. It's cheap, energy wise and easy. I hung 1 light above each plant, raising it as the plant grew. If I wasn't fast enough, the plant grew into the light and burned the leaves.
I decided to add more light yesterday. I got a little lamp and took the shade off. I put that lamp in the bottom of my tent, and put another cfl bulb in that. I put the lamp in between my 3 plants so they can grow around it.

Once I put those lights up, I switched to 12 hours of light, 12 hours of darkness and started adding Pure Blend Bloom to my watering. I water each of the 3 plants a litre of water once every 5 days or so...Otherwise they became terribly droopy. One day they were fine, the next they looked like they were about to die! So I upped the watering frequency to avoid stressing my girls.

I found a great little fan at a home depot that is tall and skinny, shaped like a cylinder so it doesn't take up much room at all i the tent. It oscillates back and forth across the plants, giving them the breeze they need.

I have been watering with Pure Blend Bloom for about 2 weeks and they have started to flower! Oh how exciting to see the little flowers start to form on the plants. I am delighted to say that I don't see any male balls on the plants, so they are in fact all female.

Now I guess I just have to sit and wait until it is harvesting time....I may have actually pulled this off!

 

[doublejointed]

a big two thumbs up from me...ur plants look really good. it's so exciting when you see those first flowers. i just started one of my girls in the flowering cycle...it's only been 4 days but i keep checking for flowers...good luck with them

 

[Icemud]

Definitely off to a great start Jessica! your plants look very healthy and happy !!!! Green thumb natural!!!

 

[peanut0862]

Looking great jessica how long have they been in 12/12?

 

[CronicHempHog]

nice pics
more weed porn!!!

 

[jessica2]

Looking great jessica how long have they been in 12/12?

They have been in 12/12 for about 3 weeks now.
I was going to stay in 12 hours of light, 12 hours of dark until it was time to harvest.
Does that sound groovy?
Thanks
Jessica2

 

[ggrant]

They have been in 12/12 for about 3 weeks now.
I was going to stay in 12 hours of light, 12 hours of dark until it was time to harvest.
Does that sound groovy?

That sounds very groovy! As far as watering goes, don't go by waiting a certain number of days. When the pots feel light, water the plants. Almost all of the weight of the pot is the water inside of it, so you can almost lift the pot with two fingers when it's time to water.

Keep an eye on your plants' leaves. If they start to look droopy, they probably need to be watered. Lift the pots to confirm (they should feel light.)

I'm on my fifth crop and sometimes I miss when they need to be watered.

You should buy a pocket microscope or a high powered jeweller's loupe. You can use this to look at the trichomes and tell when it's time to harvest. You should get at least a 10X power magnifier. I think Radio Shack sells a 50X pocket microscope complete with a light for around $10 - $20.

If you don't know already, the minimum time for flowering is 8 weeks, but some people go longer, 10 - 12 weeks, depending on the strain and how intense their lights are. The magnifier will let you decide exactly when to harvest.

You should post more often. Even though it doesn't seem like there's much to say between posts, people enjoy watching the progress of a crop. Also, if you want lots of adoring fans, you need to keep them up to date. Think of this as Twitter for marijuana.

You hadn't posted in so long, I thought you were a new grower. Imagine my surprise when I found one of my posts on your journal! Itds been so long, I'd forgotten.

 

[jessica2]

Well here we are.
It has been about 105 days since I planted Plants 1 and 2 and about 84 days since planting plant 3.
They are all thriving in the flowering stage.
They have been getting 12 hours of light a day, 12 hours of darkness and Pro Blend Bloom nutrient in the water, about every 5 days or so. Plant #2 seems the thirstiest.
They have been flowering for about 29 days. Have a look at some flowering photos.

Thanks for checking in..more photos to come. It just takes forever for the pics to upload! There will be more pics very soon for those of you who like weed porn.

 

[Mr.M]

Buds look Delicious!
How many CFLs were you using to flower with? Also, I don't know if you figured this out but plants can't absorb light from the bottom of the leaf. But side lighting is great for better penetration/coverage. Looks like you have even bud growth as well as healthy leaves all around though.

Also you should think about incorporating that 150w HPS, I used CFLs for my last grow but there's no way no how they can compare to HID lighting. HID is too strong for the weak sprouts you had it on at the beginning of your journal, but for flowering there's no comparison if you're looking to get a higher quality yield. Like Ggrant said though, if your plants are stretchers it could be a problem when they get up close to the light. It was a good idea to take a simpler path your first time, just gotta get familiar with training techniques, such as neck breaking in vegetation can help with predicted stretching in flowering.

But anyways, best of hopes with your plants, your green thumb is showing.

P.S. I like bud porn
I'll be able to post some of mine next month.

 

[Deege420]

bud sites everywhere! I love IT! your a natural!!! GREAT GOING! how far into flower are you? I'm excited to see how these finish up!

 

[Mr.M]

Also I have to disagree with what Ggrant said about there being a magical time to switch into flowering.
A plant, grown from a seed, will produce buds, no matter what stage you put her into flower by manipulating the light schedule. Although the magical time Ggrant decided to forget was puberty, when a hatchling reaches the age of maturity, and is able to reproduce. For a plant it is very similar to that of humans. They need to reach that point in time where they can handle the stress, and be strong enough to hold themselves up.

The way you can tell when a plant reaches this point is by paying attention. haha no, just look where the buds will be developing, a female will grow pistils while still in vegetation when it's ready to bud. Another sign are the nodes. Majorly, plants start out pretty symmetrical (there are mutants). But once a plant is mature, they should start growing alternating nodes and branching off in different ways.

Paying attention to these things will help decide when to start to flower. But reallyy... those who start each grow from new seeds would need to pay attention to these details. Clones can be taken from a mature plant, which in turn mean each clone is mature and ready to produce it's best, healthiest buds. Having a momma plant really speeds up your harvesting periods, no germing, no chop sticks, no wondering when you should flower. You just chop, root, veg if you want bigger plants, then flower.

 

[4twenty4all]

Wow, good looking buds and plants for your first grow. I'm impressed....