Up’s First Indoor Grow: 400/600W HPS Soil Sour Diesel & Aurora Indica

[Up in Smoke]

Day 06:
A few days later and some beautiful growth to be seen.
Even the OG Kush girls have come out of their shell, well kind of....

As you can see the Cheese,Blue Cheese,Aurora Indica and Sour Diesels have all started showing their second set of leaves!!
The Kush girls, well let’s just say they’ve woken up out of their slump but to be honest they look damn dreary and seem like they’re having a tough time.One even looks somewhat deformed haha.... Being that they’re autos maybe it’s just bad genetics, but let’s give them a few weeks. If I do see they’re weak I might take them outdoors and just keep the “stronger” photos indoors.

The more I think/read about the idea of the autos I might end up only doing 1, or even possibly none of the autos on this grow. The idea of having to finish them off on the MH bulb only doesn’t fancy me (because the autos will finish before I switch to the HPS bulb for the photos, and also it will give me a chance to really see what I can do with these photos if I put all my effort into it and not get sidetracked....

Other than that temps have stayed reasonably stable. Yesterday we had a scorcher outside of 38C but the tent only managed to reach a high of 33C.
This only happens for a day or 2 at a time, and not very often so I think the grow should be manageable throughout.
I have set the timers so that the lights are on during nighttime 6pm till 12 the next afternoon. This way the lights are off during the hottest times of the day...

Was hoping there was more to show and talk about but not yet....

 

[Madkushy]

I think they look great, even the autos. If you give them some time to catch up they might surprise you.

The setup looks nice too. How goes the outside grow?

 

[Up in Smoke]

I think they look great, even the autos. If you give them some time to catch up they might surprise you.

The setup looks nice too. How goes the outside grow?

@Madkushy lets give them a few weeks then. Reason I’m hesitant on the autos is merely because I’m adamant in wanting to try and produce the highest quality bud I can(even tho this rarely happens on first time grows). And seeing that autos generally produce smaller plants I think I will leave that for a next grow, maybe a “auto-only” grow.
I really want to do this right!!

 

[Up in Smoke]

I think they look great, even the autos. If you give them some time to catch up they might surprise you.

The setup looks nice too. How goes the outside grow?

@Madkushy the outdoors (namechange required > greenhouse) are still coming along every nicely. I might have burned one of them a bit (which is weird cos I always do 1/4 or 1/2 recommended dosages).Some of the leaves on 1 plant are showing some rusty spots on the leaves, discoloration on the leaf tips and some dry tips.
currently I’m unsure exactly what the cause is. the new growth on top seems fine tho so I’m not too worried.(I’m wondering if this could also be part of the cal-mag deficiency mentioned below??)

I had some yellowing leaves on the bottom of all the plants 2 weeks ago but some extra Cal-mag added to the water , on top of the nutes has seemed to help. I have lowered the Nitrogen on all the feeds from now seeing as they’re going into flower now. Also I upped the FloraBloom a bit.
Q:I trimmed/defoliated about a week ago. But seeing it’s going into flower, the top especially has become so bushy already it seems it needs another defoliation!
Is it safe to still trim some leaves off?eapecially some of those huge fan leaves are still on..

Besides all this they are all stretching nicely, most becoming very bushy, while the only untopped plant(the tall one on the left) seems to want to go through the roof. I’m gonna have problems with height issues on her for sure..

Even the single sativa is becoming very bushy again!

Can clearly see the rusty leaves here?what could this be?

but overall they seem happy and healthy for the most part

The sativa girl

 

[Up in Smoke]

Day 08:
Just some pics today. Nothing special.

I’ve lowered the light to about 22cm from the plant tops. It was about 40cm before but because I’m still running the light at 250w the heat was low enough to do this safely.

I think if everything goes well I will raise the light to full strength 400w next week

 

[ScrogNub]

I like your greenhouse! Wish I could grow outside.... but its -40c with the wind out atm.
(which also happens to be -40f as well lol wtf) That aside from what your growing outside looks like you know what your doing. Main difference is mainly temps/humidity and trying not to get water everywhere. Following ^^

 

[Up in Smoke]

I like your greenhouse! Wish I could grow outside.... but its -40c with the wind out atm.
(which also happens to be -40f as well lol wtf) That aside from what your growing outside looks like you know what your doing. Main difference is mainly temps/humidity and trying not to get water everywhere. Following ^^

Shot a lot @ScrogNub !!
Thanks pal, it’s really a added bonus to be able to grow outside, I have to be honest.
-40 is no joke!!!at work we have walk-in freezers that run at -20 and I know how that feels!!i can’t even imagine -40!!!!im sure nothing will grow at that temp, or very very slowly only
But our temps also isn’t ideal everywhere. At the coast where it’s cool yes.
But here where I am in South Africa this greenhouse will see temps of up to 40+C still in the next month or so. Well I guess it’s better than the cold, but heat will stunt growth during those hot days!
I keep the greenhouse open because of the heat as you can see

We all have our battles to fight it seems.

I’m happy to have you along for the show....things will be a bit slow at the start, but in a few weeks the indoors will have something to shout about , don’t worry

 

[Madkushy]

Loving the updates. I would think it's still safe to trim, as long as its just fan leaves I always trim.

 

[Up in Smoke]

Loving the updates. I would think it's still safe to trim, as long as its just fan leaves I always trim.

I trimmed quite heavily yesterday to be honest. Probs around 20 leaves each plant. But for the life of me I can’t understand it!!!!i went to feed them just now (I’ve been out at work all day) and they seem to look almost as bushy as yesterday!!But there’s no chance I’m chopping more off so soon....Maybe in a few days....

 

[Up in Smoke]

Day 09:

So I really wasn’t planning to post today but I was so surprised about the amount of growth in the last 24hrs I just had to brag about it!
This brings back recent memories of how my outdoor plants also shocked me!The rate they grow some days is astonishing!

As you can see some are already starting to show their 3rd set of leaves, although tiny, it’s there.

I believe lowering the light to roughly 20cm has helped a lot!this coupled with me misting them with water a couple times a day has helped keep the climate very comfy in here

I reluctantly want to increase the light strength to it’s 400w maximum output, but feel the added heat (it’s feels significantly hotter at 400 when doing the palm-test vs 250) will force me to move the light further away from the plants to prevent cooking/burning them. And this, I feel, will slow growth at this stage.

Q:what do you think?stay at 250w for now?or up it to 400w and move the lights a bit?

As a sidenote I must say that the plants seem very happy as it is now, so maybe that tells me everything I need to know...

That’s all for now...
Grow strong....grow wise...

 

[Up in Smoke]

Day 11:

Not much to say, just a bit to show....

Seems the girls are coming along nicely, even the runts are settling in well...

The plants are reaching for the light so I adjusted it just a few cm’s upwards to prevent them from possible burning...

I’m still misting them a few times a day as I can, seems they really love that!

I’ve decided to make a microdose nute mix with the Flora-trio I have. I’ve decided to keep it minimal and only use half it’s recommended dosage “for a plant showing it’s first true leaves” as they put it. My thinking is these plants are much further along than that and are on their 2nd/3rd set of leaves so I’m thinking it should be safe....??

Let’s hope so....

 

[Up in Smoke]

Day 11:

Plants are showing their 3rd set of leaves.
Only one of the cheese girls is a bit small.

@Madkushy do you think it’s safe to move the light up a bit and turn the light up to 400w?maybe just for a day to see how it goes?

 

[Up in Smoke]

I went ahead and did it anyway. Made sure to do the palm test for heat so we’ll see tomorrow how they hold up...

 

[Up in Smoke]

Day 13:

So I decided it’s time to up-pot into bigger pots...
And it seems it was the perfect time as you will see below in the pics. The roots are forming beautifully!!

I’ve decided to pot them over into a mix of Best Green soil and 50/50 coco/perlite mix.

I gave them a very good watering so that the roots can adjust nicely to their new environment.
I also noticed some yellowing/lime green coming through on the leaves so I added a little more cal-mag to the water on top of the nutes. Hopefully the soil will also give the plants the extra nutrients it needs from the compost etc.

Keep on growing folks....

Look at these lovely roots!!!!

The runt of the bunch is still small compared to the rest. But she’s a Cheese strain so I’m being patient with her...

 

[Up in Smoke]

When would be the right time to start LST?after the 4th internode or so right?!?
And do I top first?or LST first?

I think it’s top first. Then give it some time to grow/recover and after that start LSTing the new growth right?!?

 

[Madkushy]

Top first yes. Your plants are looking great. I've missed a few days but oh my they look super nice. Good call on increasing thee lights.

Great stuff buddy!

 

[Up in Smoke]

Top first yes. Your plants are looking great. I've missed a few days but oh my they look super nice. Good call on increasing thee lights.

Great stuff buddy!

Oh thanks @Madkushy
Yeah they’ve really come up nice. Today it looks like they have adjusted to their new pots and I’m happy to report they all look very happy indeed!

 

[Up in Smoke]

Day 15:

So, as I’ve mentioned above it looks like they’ve all adjusted well to their new homes and seem to be loving the light!

So much so that I think it’s time we went for the 600w bulb
Hopefully I can get one from the hydro shop tomorrow.

I think a week or so in these 15cm pots and it should be time to top these girls..
After that another week or so to recover and into their final 5lt freedom pots they go, so that the LST can begin.

 

[Up in Smoke]

 

[Up in Smoke]

I should probably mention that Ive watered earlier today with full strength nutes as per labeled instructions.
I did add a little extra cal-mag to the feed to compensate for some yellowing/lime-green I’ve seen on some of the leaves.keen to see how fast they respond compared to how quick my greenshouse girls recovered outside....

That’s all for now....