Noob's First Grow: Indoor, Coco, 4 Plants

The Bard · Apr 25, 2019

SleepDog said:
I have just finished a plant and in the middle of another being trained the same way. Only thing I will try differently is superhighway the lower branches about 1- 1.5” from stock on a downward angle to stop from buckling at stock. I am only saying this because it sucks when a big branch all of a sudden gives while training.

Cool! Yes, I had one branch just start to give a little early on. I like this solution!

Pennywise · Apr 25, 2019

If you grow them short them grow them wide or you'll lose yield.

SleepDog · Apr 25, 2019

The Bard said:
Cool! Yes, I had one branch just start to give a little early on. I like this solution!

You can kind of see where I started on the broken one but I got lazy training and tried to much to quickly, and that is the reason my highway didn’t work on that one.
Another thing I think is helpful would be to pull it down to start so the biggest lower branches are facing out to the side and not facing directly away from stock. I may be wrong but it seemed to work better on my second attempt.

The Bard · Apr 25, 2019

Pennywise said:
If you grow them short them grow them wide or you'll lose yield.

Thanks Penny. I didn't intentionally grow them short - ha! They just turned out that way - maybe too much light kept them from growing upwards to get more light? At any rate, are you saying that I should keep vegging them to get bigger horizontally? I can definitely do that, just making sure I am following. Thanks!

SleepDog · Apr 25, 2019

The way I see it is, if you have room and time, you might as well. You would be amazed how much larger an area you can cover with a few extra weeks off veg. Sorry for jumping in here, I will follow along and see how it goes, good luck!!!

The Bard · Apr 25, 2019

SleepDog said:
The way I see it is, if you have room and time, you might as well. You would be amazed how much larger an area you can cover with a few extra weeks off veg. Sorry for jumping in here, I will follow along and see how it goes, good luck!!!

No apologies necessary - delighted to have you join in. This is my first grow, so the more help the better! While I am excited to see what happens when I flip to 12/12, there is no real urgency to do so. My tent is 4'x2', so I do have a little more room to let them grow more horizontally. And I guess since they don't have much height to them, I don't need to worry about getting root-bound or maxing out the container (fabric pots)? Thanks for your thoughts and input.

SleepDog · Apr 25, 2019

I just don’t want to steal the mic away from penny on you.

Mr. Magoo · Apr 25, 2019

Flat canopy looks good! I’d let them go a bit longer just growing up now and see how they look in a few days. My blue dreams were pretty short as well. They turned out good though. I’m not sure if any bud spots are covered at the top, if they are maybe remove the leaves covering them. Then let them be for a few days without training anything else and see how they do.

The Bard · Apr 25, 2019

Mr. Magoo said:
Flat canopy looks good! I’d let them go a bit longer just growing up now and see how they look in a few days. My blue dreams were pretty short as well. They turned out good though. I’m not sure if any bud spots are covered at the top, if they are maybe remove the leaves covering them. Then let them be for a few days without training anything else and see how they do.

Thanks Magoo. I did some defoliation several days ago to uncover bud spots. Will check them again tomorrow, and then leave them be for a bit.

Do you or anyone else have concerns about the purple on the kush leaves?

Good day!

The Bard · Apr 28, 2019

Good afternoon, everyone! Hope that the weekend was excellent for all.

Here's an update on how things are progressing here:

My three photo-girls are chugging along nicely! Today is DAY 50 of veg for them. Today I pulled them all out of the tent for photos, and did a little minor defoliation to expose some hidden bud sites, but otherwise not much else. They are indeed starting to show some vertical growth. Unfortunately, got some nute burn on the GSC several days ago, but it seems that has settled down again. Of the three, she is definitely the most sensitive to fertilizers. On the other hand, I think that the Trainwreck and the Green Crack are both looking really good! Here are top and side views of each one...

Trainwreck:

Green Crack:

GSC:

My one auto-gal is a Purple Kush. Today is DAY 12 of flowering for her. She is now on 100% bloom nutes, but very diluted, as she burns really easily too. Purple in her young leaves that I noted last time seems to be subsiding - either the temperatures suit her better, or the additional P and K is what she wanted (or both). Not doing much work on her right now - just a couple of fan leaves removed to let light in. Centre branches are starting to catch up to the main tall branches at the perimeter:

And a few close ups of the buds:

Next Steps:

For the photo-trio, I am targeting next Sunday or perhaps a few days after that, as the time to flip, based on the advice that I got here. I have backed way off on the nutes again for the GSC, but will leave things as they are for the Train and Crack, as they seem pretty happy.

For the auto Kush, I will be progressing along the shift in nute ratios that comes from @Asesino85 and @TheMadDabber. It is a pretty helpful guide for the ratios, but I am learning that the PPM/EC needs to be constantly tweak (old news for you seasoned growers out there). Here's where I got that information.

Finally, a quick shot of the next generation of young-'uns. These gals (the best four of the six) are destined for my first outdoor grow. The row at the top is Critical Mass, and the bottom row is Cinderella 99 - both are "fast" types.

Any comments or suggestions would be great!

Thanks everyone.

Derbybud · Apr 28, 2019

What I do if I have a lite eater is mix my nutes for the rest of them and when I get to the lite eater I just dilute with maybe 25% more water. Works well.

The Bard · Apr 28, 2019

Derbybud said:
What I do if I have a lite eater is mix my nutes for the rest of them and when I get to the lite eater I just dilute with maybe 25% more water. Works well.

Thanks Derby. Funny you say that. Several days ago, I had mixed up the regular vegging batch of nutes, and then a separate container of RO water with just cal/mag, to use to dilute. It worked great for watering the GSC, which is the light feeder. Until... I forgot to dilute for a day (two waterings) - just got on auto-pilot and wasn't thinking. When I saw the yellowing tips, it came back to me - oops. So a great system, as long as one is paying attention. I now have a big "STOP!" sign on the buckets, and the GSC always gets fed first. No time for day-dreaming when watering....

EastCoastGhost · Apr 28, 2019

Derbybud said:
What I do if I have a lite eater is mix my nutes for the rest of them and when I get to the lite eater I just dilute with maybe 25% more water. Works well.

I do the same thing Derby.

Mr. Magoo · Apr 28, 2019

I have a suggestion for you....

KEEP ON F’n ROCKIN MAN! :headbanger:

Girls are lookin great!

The Bard · Apr 28, 2019

Mr. Magoo said:
I have a suggestion for you....

KEEP ON F’n ROCKIN MAN! Girls are lookin great!

Yay! Thanks Magoo!!

TheMadDabber · Apr 28, 2019

Hey a really great grower to watch also is @TurboBucket hes a really intelligent guy and has a good system. He has experience in coco and soil.

I'd say everything looks great the veg girls are super healthy and the auto will yield well for you. Autos vary on what they like sometimes but I do know they tend to to like a lighter feed if my memory servers.

Keep it up all seems to be going great

The Bard · Apr 28, 2019

TheMadDabber said:
Hey a really great grower to watch also is @TurboBucket hes a really intelligent guy and has a good system. He has experience in coco and soil.

I'd say everything looks great the veg girls are super healthy and the auto will yield well for you. Autos vary on what they like sometimes but I do know they tend to to like a lighter feed if my memory servers.

Keep it up all seems to be going great

Thanks MD... yes, I have visited @TurboBucket's journals a few times - really informative stuff to read about. Most recently loved his cool fan clamp idea!

The Bard · May 5, 2019

Good afternoon, everyone. The past week flew by, and so while I have been watering/feeding the gals, I hadn't done much else until today. Apparently they liked the "neglect" as things are looking pretty good, I think.

Today is DAY 57 of veg for the GSC, Trainwreck, and Green Crack. While I am, of course, excited to see what they do in flower, I am actually pleased that several of you here encouraged me to let them veg a little longer. Today I did a bit of clean up work on all three, evening out the canopy, and thinning out a few leaves, solely to let light into the centre, as well as for air circulation. I tried pipe cleaners out for the first time today, and I really like working with them. Much easier to bend and hold in place that the coated wire.

Here are pre and post pics of each (they always look a little beat up right after they get a haircut, but bounce-back within a couple of hours):

Trainwreck:

Pre:

After trim:

Green Crack:

Pre:

Post:

GSC (the yellowing is from a week or so ago, when I neglected to dilute its nutes. She gets about 70% of the strength of the Crack and Train, but full strength on the Cal/Mag). New growth is looking ok again:

Pre: