Junior Grower First Time

[Fogarty420]

Your soil still looks very moist, I would wait another 2 to 3 days before starting the small dose of water. You really want the top inch of soil to crust over which then gives you some insight what the wetness level is below that. You can poke a finger hole in the soil away from the area of the plant to better gauge the wtness, but I promise, you want it more dry than wet. Seedlings more than anything are especially prone to damping off from a mold growing on the young stem where it meets the soil. If you feel the need to wet the media despite our warnings, that's fine, but consider taking a capped ink pen and poking a hole at an angle that will intersect with the tap root about 2 inches (50mm) below the surface. The tap root will be better equipped to deal with your affinity to keep the ground wet, but where the stem meets the soil you really do want to keep the ground dry, at least till the stem thickens up and gets woody.

The cotyledons will be there for a while. Here are my seedlings that I posted pics to my Herbie's Bulk journal last night. My cotyledons are just now starting to wither almost a month in to life.

Ok, will wait another 2 days, but just for safety, even if i underwater, seedling can still recover from it in short time right?

 

[Skybound]

Ok, will wait another 2 days, but just for safety, even if i underwater, seedling can still recover from it in short time right?

You won't under water, that soil looks plenty wet on top still, but if you want to play it safe, poke a hole in the soil away from the plant, and aim the channel towards the plant, but so they intersect about an inch or two below the soil. This way you can water the soil where the root is while not watering the soil where the stem is. You gotta protect that stem or it can damp off. If you have multiple plants going at the same time, I'd fall back with my suggestion so you could learn the hard lesson, but my memory tells me this is your only one growing.

 

[FelipeBlu]

Love the little rock wool cubes. Do you recycle?

 

[Skybound]

No, one and done. RW breaks down fairly easy, so the efforts needed to recycle would mostly be in vain.

 

[FelipeBlu]

That’s one thing about the perlite - I just give it a brief soak in 3% hydrogen peroxide, a good hot water rinse, and it’s good to run again.

 

[Skybound]

As I said, perlite, I can get behind that ... Any kind of rocks I'm a fan of. At the end of my driveway (25º slope) is a bunch of 1/2" stone I was thinking about digging up, washing and using. The only thing holding me back is knowing how forgetful I can be and 2 days with no drink equals dead plants. My grow literally would not survive my own stupidity.

 

[Fogarty420]

10th day, it still here with me, I got question, there's shiny coating on the soil surface, looks like cracked crystal. I never water it for straight 5 days already. Is this normal?

And my seeds arrive, the auto flowering white widow from attitude. Will start germinate them asap.

 

[FelipeBlu]

Sorry, but I really can’t see from the photo what you are talking about.

Is it possible that you might be seeing some salts from your water as the surface of the soil dries out?

 

[Skybound]

Are you using a brand of soil, or something you put together? It looks very lumpy and not too grainy.

 

[Carcass]

You may have to start feeding it a little-those cotyledons are about done,if the color
in that photo is accurate.
It's also a little worrisome that there's not another set of leaves starting yet,at least none that I can see...

 

[Fogarty420]

Sorry, but I really can’t see from the photo what you are talking about.

Is it possible that you might be seeing some salts from your water as the surface of the soil dries out?

There's shiny black pieces like this all around the surface. When i touch it it'll shattered in to pieces and no more shiny. I hope you get what i mean, and sorry my potato phone photo sucks.

 

[Fogarty420]

Are you using a brand of soil, or something you put together? It looks very lumpy and not too grainy.

This is chinese brand soil. It says suitable for vegetable and fruit. I mixed in 10% perlite.

 

[Fogarty420]

You may have to start feeding it a little-those cotyledons are about done,if the color
in that photo is accurate.
It's also a little worrisome that there's not another set of leaves starting yet,at least none that I can see...

It got a tiny little pointy green coming out from the center.

 

[Skybound]

There's shiny black pieces like this all around the surface. When i touch it it'll shattered in to pieces and no more shiny. I hope you get what i mean, and sorry my potato phone photo sucks.

This photo, more than the other depicts the soil is starting to dry as Carcass suggested. Today might be good to start adding in 10ml of water as we discussed days ago. I've seen those black things that crumble when gently squeezed. I'm not entirely sure what they are, maybe some lightly compressed silts or something like that. I've never heard bad things about Chinese agriculture so I have to believe they make good soil, or at least workable.

 

[Carcass]

It got a tiny little pointy green coming out from the center.

That's good,then-I just couldn't tell from the pic.
I don't know what that stuff on the soil is either-not much use worrying
about it-it's this plants home now,so you kind of have to go with it.

 

[Fogarty420]

@Skybound @carcass thanks guys, will feed it right away.

 

[Carcass]

Go really weak on the nutes at first,like 1/4 of the recommended
dose-it doesn't need much at all right now,don't want to burn those nice green leaves.

 

[FelipeBlu]

I don’t really want to comment on what might be in this particular soil, but may I suggest that it is a very good idea to know exactly what is in the medium (soil, etc.), nutrients, and water used to grow a plant intended for human consumption.

 

[Skybound]

I don’t really want to comment on what might be in this particular soil, but may I suggest that it is a very good idea to know exactly what is in the medium (soil, etc.), nutrients, and water used to grow a plant intended for human consumption.

This is why I make all my own nutes from salts, trace elements too.

 

[Fogarty420]

Day 11, still looks good, temperature 30 celcius, 61% humidity.

Just started to germinate 2 white widow auto.

This time I start on small pot, lesson learned. If sprout come out I'm gonna start another journal.