TheNarrator Learns to Grow - Multi-Strain - LED

[TheNarrator]

Hi I'm TheNarrator and this is my first ever grow, so happy with my decision to start doing this and can't wait for the results. Would have loved to be able to show you all my plants journey from the seed but that will have to wait until the next run!

Please bear with the lower quality of the photos to begin with as I work out the best way to provide the beautiful pictures that you all do

Heres some details as suggested.

What strain is it? 1 x Heavyweight 2 Fast 2 Vast Autoflower (2F2V) 2 x Barney's Farm Pineapple Chunk Feminized (PC)
Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? What percentages? 2F2V Indica 80%, Sativa 20%; PC 'Indica Dominant'
Is it in Veg or Flower stage? 2F2V is a long story which I will tell below but looks to be finishing in a week or 2. PC has been flowering for around 3 weeks.
If in Veg... For how long? PC vegged for 30 days
If in Flower stage... For how long? PC has been in flower for nearly 3 weeks
Indoor or outdoor? Indoor, grow tent 80*80*160
Soil or Hydro?
Soil: Searles Kickalong
If soil... what is in your mix?
Searles Kickalong
• 5IN1TM Organic Plant Food Pellets
• SeaMax® Fish & Kelp
• Blood & Bone
• Potash Bloom Booster

Also added roughly 20-30% perlite

If soil... What size pot? 12L standard black plastic garden pot with drainage holes
Size of light? 600W Old Model Mars Hydro
Temp of Room/cab? 80F with lights on, dependant on bedroom temperature.
RH of Room/cab? Unsure but humidity is constantly above 60% in my area currently so hoping its not an issue.
Any Pests ? Not so far, something had a nibble on a few leaves but I never saw anything and it didn't have much of an appetite so no big deal. I reckon a rogue caterpillar but beats me how it got in there.
How often are you watering? At the moment 1.5-2L every 2-3 days or whenever the bottom soil is dry.
Type and strength of ferts used? Canna TerraVega and TerraFlores, been using the recommended 5ml per L and haven't seen any burn.

A Few Other Things to Note

Location
Tent is setup in my bedroom of a rented apartment. Housemate is down with it, real estate agent and landlord probably not so much so but what they don't know doesn't hurt them. Funnily enough in a horrible turn of events my real estate agent ended up being in the same room as the tent only 2 days after I had set it up, but I'll tell that story soon. I'm confident my setup is stealthy enough not to alert neighbours or people outside the building.

Topping and LST

2F2V hasn't been topped, just some minor LST to get the lower bud sites to stretch up a bit. One PC has been topped twice, and once PC has been topped one and FIMed (sort of) once.

My 'Scrog' After seeing lots of photos of them on this site in action I got really keen on the idea and made a SCROG setup. I realised that with 3 plants in my space things were going to get messy by the time the vertical growth filled the SCROG so ended up flipping my PCs to flower and letting them stretch with only some branches getting tucked for the first 10 days. So basically I know its not really a SCROG.
I also made the mistake of using quite stiff plastic coated wire for the mesh, will be using string next time round.

 

[TheNarrator]

So some photos so that you know that I'm not lying when I say there will be more and much better ones to come (apologies if they are hard on anyones eyes).

My setup appears to be defying gravity in the photo but sadly it is a standard vertical setup in real life (love making a dad joke and I don't even have kids...) just didn't realise about the photo rotation. Pretty standard stuff, upside down 30cm oscillating fan hanging from top corner, carbon filter up top, and I have my half hearted SCROG hanging on ropes. Passive intake is ducting running to open window with inline fan exhausting to a vent. Have the fan in a cardboard box stuffed with sleeping bags etc taped up on top of the tent. Tent appears to have pinpoint light leaks from the outside but a zipped myself in with full daylight in the room and couldn't see anything so figuring I'm all good on that front?


Without further ado heres the line up. Top right is PC1, bottom right is 2F2V and the entire left half of the tent is PC2!! The flash made the buds look almost bleached in the photo without the LEDs on but I assure you theres plenty of green under those pistils.




I plan on making a longer post about how I arrived at this stage so won't delve into the earlier life of my plants in this post. Regarding 2F2V, for now lets just say its coming up on around double the suppliers predicted 8 week harvest time but this is entirely my own fault. Happily the plant seems healthy, the buds are covered in trichomes and are swelling. My uneducated eye predicts I will be chopping them within the coming fortnight, hope to have some close ups soon.

As I'm sure someone will quickly notice I have an auto flower and a flowering photo in the same tent and the light is on 12 - 12 of course so I'm expecting the 2F2V yield may be slightly diminished.

PC1 was smaller then the other 2 plants when I switched to flower so it stretched a bit to catch up but I'm hoping its gonna come through hard at the end.

PC2 continues to exceed my expectations as it has for its entire life, it is easily 2-3 times bigger than its sister even though it is actually 2 days younger! It has tighter nodes then PC1 and have big hopes that it will provide a big yield.

Both PCs seem to be flowering fairly rapidly and with more then a month to go until Barney's suggested 55 days is up it might come in not too far over schedule!

Any questions/tips/suggestions/whatever will be gladly accepted, hope I can provide some entertainment. Will be back soon to tell the story of all the hurdles to get to this point.

TN

 

[glimmergrass]

Hi, TN! Welome to 420Magazine! I'm a new grower, growing autos, so I'm super interested in the 2F2V. I will look at close up photos with great interest and can't wait for the long story of her long journey!

This is a great community, full of experienced, inquisitive, smart and KIND people who really want to help. I'm so glad you're here, and I'm looking forward to following along with you.

 

[TheNarrator]

The 2F2V has had an interesting life! Headed for bed soon but will type it up tomorrow and get some photos

And thanks for the welcome, from what I have seen so far you seem like a great bunch look forward to spending some time on here

 

[Faic]

Cool. I'll give this a peek when I get the cookies made.

 

[Faic]

Hah, I wont' do a journal because of the TOS but yeah I got plenty of stories already..>

Couple things strike me off the bat. 1. I have zero clue on your nutes and I don't go for the hand mixed stuff lol.

Pinholes in your tent can fubar your photo plants in flower. Make sure there aren't any, since I'm guessing you have lights outside during lights out inside. Since you checked from inside, just stick some black duct tape over what you think is a pinhole outside.

The downside to growing an auto next to a phto strain is the same with growing mutiiple strains at once. Your finish times will all be different, and this can be 1-3 weeks or more. Time into the dirt and genetics play the most part here. This means with 1 tent, you will have to delay any additional photo plants going in, until your 12/12 is over. Autos grow regardless of light, they can go 24/7 under lights.

But take your calander expectaitons of harvest and bin them. Do you have a good scope to check your trichomes? That's how you tell when to harvest your weed.

 

[TheNarrator]

Thanks for stopping by Faic!

Not sure what you mean by TOS? I wasn't gonna do a journal either until I started again but got talked into it.

Well we can relate on having zero clue about my nutes, my research was turning me in circles so a just chose almost blindly, at the least I have had no nute burn from them at all so figure I'm not causing any damage. What do you go with for nutes?

If I can see the LED through pinholes on the outside but can't see the pinholes when I zip myself in does that just mean the LED is heaps brighter than the ambient light? I generally keep the blinds down so the room is fairly dark anyway but a hermie would suck (touch wood)

Yeah the auto in the photo light cycle is fully my own fault, got carried away in the depths of beginners syndrome and thought I could achieve an ambitious schedule with autos and photos which has since been proven completely unachievable but you live and you learn. There will definitely be no plants being started until these 3 are pulled.

I'm in the process of writing a post explaining the life of the plants, the 2F2V is my true first plant and its been through all sorts and I disregarded its calendar long ago. I'm not relying on Barney's dates for sure but the PC looks on track to come in not too much over their times.

I have the bottom of the range 60* loupe off of eBay, but have gotten fairly good at using it (can see the trichomes clearly) and am waiting to see a decent amount of amber trichomes before I harvest the 2F2V. As that is a true test plant I'm hoping it will give me the knowledge to harvest my PCs more confidently down the road

 

[TheNarrator]

By the way Faic, how did the cookies turn out?

 

[Faic]

TOS = terms of service . TOS here says , if it ain't legal where you are, no journals. They also say not to link to any competitors (a non sponsor) product. Thier site, their rules. I can live with that.

My loupe cost all of 3.50$ but it's outstanding. If you see pinholes from outside, plug them with tape. Flashes of light during dark is ok if it's at a total minimum (like once or twice ever). But even a small constant light could possibly probably be enough to mess with her hormones. Better safe than sorry.

Heh nutes. I started with mg, then dyna grow. The soil and my backyard garden experience led me to drowning my plants, the wet soil developed mold along with a nice infestation of gnats (thanks oragne box for the sterile soil), and I was measuring the nutes wrong, or using them completely wrong regardless , and along with the wilting, deficiencies and bugs, I started smelling this _____. Yeah toss some root rot onto that newbie growers plate just to teach him a lesson! My plants were almost dead. And I couldn't figure out what was happening other than failure. That was when I read someone say "If you don't have a green thumb and are technically oriented, try hydroponics".

About 12 google hours later (8 hours real time) I ordered some buckets and the general hydroponics 3part system (non organic, don't get me started there lol) because it was inexpensive, apparently had everything I needed it to have, and it mentioned nasa and space on the label. Honestly lol I got a kick out of that bit. But it was also seemingly very straight forward. It's also commonly mentioned in top three, so I knew I wasn't going with a total unknown.

I also picked up hydroguard, a bacillus (sp) enzyme treatment, and silica blast, a silica additive to help the plant put on meat and fight off diseases and pests. These are what I consider the basics with one more thrown in. The last thing you'll want to be prepared to buy when you need it, is cal/mag or some other calcium/magnesium suppliment. I got it because it's common in hydro to need it. But it's also very easy to 'need' it in soil, because of the windows of availability for the various nutes. Have a look at the table.

I'm growing meds for family, so it's mission critical. So a bit of added pressure on top of being new to growing heh. As a final desperate measure to save my first two plants, I went ahead and fed them the same mix as I did my new hydro girl, properly pH balanced for soil of course (by now I'd gotten my replacement pH pen and knew the drill there). GH line you can do soil or hydro, doesn't matter. And I crossed my fingers.

Things leveled out and I harvested all three. Getting a handle on pH and a proper watering cycle stopped the drowning and gave them the opportunity to get the most out of the proper nutrients (proper pH= no nutrient lockout). The hydroguard went to work right away and cleared up the root rot in a week, and the silica blast doubled the size of the stalks in short order. I went from a table of puzzle pieces to 1.1oz, 1.3oz and 1.9 oz harvest and the best weed I've smoked in my life. That's not an understatement (well except for that tai stick 30yrs ago). Properly dried and cured weed is so smooth compared to the rushed out the door comercial weed. You read people saying it, but it doesn't really stick till you take that first hit and just smile. A lot more on that as you get ready for harvest.

Oh yeah, your emergency kit needs h202 and a bag of sand.

I keep a print of this next to my girls since I'm mixing for soil and hydro. More on that if ya want but this post is way too long (that's how nice the cookies are ;D)

 

[Faic]

For soil, watering in @ 6.4 will give your plant time to get it's fill of manganese and iron, then will creep up into the 6.5 range and everything else becomes available. I didn't grasp this concept till I was reading heavily about hydro requirments. You can collect your run-off and check that pH as well, but that's got a lot of fiddle in the numbers coming so quickly through your soil, but it's a good excercise and can help identify issues.

Oh I read a while back, it is FIMM, someone's handle (the person who developed the technique), not fk.i.missed.

edit: Oh, and I'm not quite sure what you mean in describing your venting. The exhaust fan is pulling through the carbon filter yes? Which is attached to the fan how? If your concerned about odor, your tent in flower is going to smell like a dank bordello. My grow is in the basement and when I open the door, I can smell it upstairs in minutes.

 

[TheNarrator]

Don't stress about the length, read it start to end!

Ah yeah, fair enough about not making a journal.

The one I has has a good LED light pointing at the viewing area as well, I think mine was about $1.50 delivered! The benefits of China's manufacturing power.

That sucks real bad about the gnats and root rot, not a fun way to be starting off, I really tried hard to make myself be very sparse with my watering, was a hard battle. Soil appealed to me more for some reason and haven't had issues with mold or pests so far so hopefully that continues.

I've got some aluminium tape up the seams and around the intake socks so I think thats taking care of most of the damage, I try and hang a blanket over the door when I remember as the zip has some of the pinpoints but that side of the tent faces away from the window which is covered by a blind. Regardless am on the watch for any gender changes.

For the rest of this grow as all my plants are all fairly deep into flower I'm going to avoid introducing new things. However you have dealt with a lot of the issues I hope to resolve in my future endeavours so will certainly be seeking your advice at that point if thats ok.

I am at least confident that I am not overwatering and have learnt lots about how to read the soils and the plants needs in that respect.

Craving cookies now

Am trying to upload some new photos but my connection is bad down and appalling up so its a really slow process.

 

[Faic]

I'm happy to answer whatever I can, just ask.

I'm impressed. But I think you may need a certification board to actually verify things if you're really the very first person not to overwater. But you are the first grower I've heard say it and back it up with nice looking plants.

I had a tiny one, promptly misplaced it. The one I have now I can tape to my camera lol. It's in my gallery if ya want to have a look, but not worth posting I don't think.

Are you after couchy weed? You say you're going to let your girls get some good amber before you pull. You might want to sample a low bud to see how the smoke is before you commit to lots of amber.

 

[TheNarrator]

Just saw your other post then!

Yeah its something that I still need to get my head around properly to be honest, pH will be a focus of grow 2.

Thats a much better story about FIMM, theres too many skills around here for people to be missing things.

Was a little and did a poor job of describing my venting you are right. The tent has one sock on the side down the bottom which is ducted to the window to pull fresh air. The carbon filter is mounted at the top of the tent and has ducting running through the top sock to the inline fan which then outlets to a vent. 2F2V isn't smelling too crazy even though its starting to make some serious crystals but definitely can't smell anything with the tent closed, the negative pressure is there.

 

[TheNarrator]

I'm happy to answer whatever I can, just ask.

I'm impressed. But I think you may need a certification board to actually verify things if you're really the very first person not to overwater. But you are the first grower I've heard say it and back it up with nice looking plants.

I had a tiny one, promptly misplaced it. The one I have now I can tape to my camera lol. It's in my gallery if ya want to have a look, but not worth posting I don't think.

Are you after couchy weed? You say you're going to let your girls get some good amber before you pull. You might want to sample a low bud to see how the smoke is before you commit to lots of amber.

I say that with a good deal of hope! And I definitely overwatered at the start. If I haven't then the only reason is because I read so many people on this site advising others not to.

Now that you say that, I couldn't spot mine just before but it must be lurking around somewhere. Looks like yours would be much easier on the eyes even without the camera.

Honestly I am not really sure, if I wait until the top cola is showing some ambers and harvest the whole plant is it possible to get a spread of effects or will the lower buds be just as mature?

Edit: Would be extremely nervous if the certification board were to visit

 

[TheNarrator]

The Story so Far

Wanted to do a post detailing how I got to the point where this journal was started at. Has been a wild ride for sure.

So after my initial research I first went with a 400w HPS setup but with only a batwing reflector. I'm sure you can see where this is heading but on hot days it was getting well over 40C in the tent and to cut a long story short killed two seeds but somehow 2F2V popped and began its life!

I had planned my grow so that I would start it just after an inspection, giving me 6 months, or more than enough time for anything to finish up before another potential inspection. Neither me nor my housemate were home at the designated time but the apartment was spotless so we assumed the agent had come and gone without an issue. A few days later around 9am I awoke to the sound of a key struggling to turn in my front door. I knew my housemate was away so rushed out of bed and opened the door to a startled really estate agent. I instantly became more startled as I had planted my seeds and setup the whole HPS grow area and ducting after assuming the inspection had passed already. Apparently me and my housemate had both missed an email changing the date of the inspection . I used my surprise to buy a few minutes to 'tidy up' and compacted my ducting, covered the tent in blankets and sleeping bags and opened my wardrobe door so it was mostly blocked from view and would just look like a massive pile of stuff from where she was standing. I'm not too bad in a pressure situation like that and thankfully it went fine, was nearly all over before it started.

Things were slow going for her to begin with, the heat issue was unresolvable without further purchases so I switched it off for good and left 2F2V with a CFL in a dodgy lamp holder that would randomly flicker out some times, but at this point it was getting 24 hours of light (or it was meant to be.) This, combined with some overwatering and the lack of an oscillating fan left her showing only slow growth for weeks, for a while it looked like it would be a little bonsai auto. Eventually got some money together and as I was doubtful that even an air cooled hood would mend such severe heat issues I spent a little more and got the old model 600w Mars LED.

As soon as I got it 2F2V began to look better and grow faster. At this point I planted PC1 (the smaller PC) and when that popped I planted PC 2 which popped 48hrs laters (no idea why I did it like that). PC2 was bigger than its sister from the moment it broke the soil! It shot straight up and its first set of single leaves were long and wide. That trend has continued ever since, PC1 grew more delicately and sativa like while PC2 went ballistic and was a huge bush in no time, it has good stems to all of its bud sites with not much stretch, c'mon PC2 baby!

I was raising the light to avoid burning PC2 and 2F2V which was growing almost as rapidly as PC2 by this point, it really was like 2F2V went into stasis for a few weeks then resumed its lifecycle. This caused PC1 to get a bit left behind as it didn't have the height. When I switched to flower it responded by shooting up to the same level as PC2 but its stems are quite thin and stretchy so not sure how well its going to bulk up.

2F2V is around 90 days old now and I'm so happy to see it alive and happy after the childhood it had. Its lived through three different light cycles, overwatering and crazy heat so I vouch for it as a hardy strain once you get it going.

glimmergrass this is the best I could get with my G3, it does not do well at all any closer than that but at least a crystal or two made it in, maybe not a close up but its a closest up. .



A nicer one of the gang together


For those who don't mind getting sideways:
2F2Vs main cola

From a little further back

 

[OlderGrower]

Good morning TN,
Glad to see you decided to start your journal and enjoy in the fun. Since I have 3 plants in flower all of different strains and 2 of them are under the same scrog what I did was put a marker, piece of twine, on the center of the scrog. Then as I was tucking branches I made sure to keep each branch on its own side of the scrog. That way if one finished before the other I would know where to stop choping. As it turned out it was really a non-issue.

Your garden looks great by the way

 

[Faic]

The top coala will mature first. All the buds on the next highest tier will mature next, along with the rest, top down. This is due to auxins in the plant, and the intensity of the light reaching each particular bud site. So you will get tiers of effect from one plant normally grown pulled all at once. I don't notice a difference from top or bottom buds, but this could be for several reasons.

If you scrog, you level the bud sites, and the auxins will spread out and you get more uniform growth, and uniformly potent weed and one harvest. And increased yield.

You can also stagger your harvest. Pull the tops, wait a week or two while she reorganizes her auxins and pushes out some new bud volume, repeat and take the rest of the plant or another tier, and take the 3rd or lowest tier another week or two later. Staggering is how you'd try to get things consistant.

As far as wanting amber, do you want to sit and drool, or smoke all day and go about your fun day? (oversimplified, but basically that's what amber vs cloudy is) The body high is seperate from couch lock, and is a function of strain, not maturity according to my personal tests.

 

[TheNarrator]

Good morning TN,
Glad to see you decided to start your journal and enjoy in the fun. Since I have 3 plants in flower all of different strains and 2 of them are under the same scrog what I did was put a marker, piece of twine, on the center of the scrog. Then as I was tucking branches I made sure to keep each branch on its own side of the scrog. That way if one finished before the other I would know where to stop choping. As it turned out it was really a non-issue.

Your garden looks great by the way

Credit to you for the final push good sir.

Nice idea with the markers but because the SCROG was added fairly late and I got lucky and they stopped stretching just when I wanted, they haven't gotten tangled with each other so unless I indulge too much beforehand, should be able to chop the right stems, would be devastating making a mistake doing that

Thanks for the compliment, probably give the girls some water when they wake up today.

 

[nuggs78]

Wow you went through some stuff for this grow ya you really need use ac unit with a 400 watt I have 600 watt hps and I bought a portable ac unit to run next to my tent because my wing reflector put out heat my temps used to get up to 97-100 with out the ac unit I had buy one there not cheap either thats why I started growing with led lights way less heat and your grow looks awesome man that svsf seems be strong auto man think if yours went through all that and still back on track my little mishap be ok I had good see your journal up will definitely follow it want see that pc and how it turns out looked at this strain few times never picked it up

 

[nuggs78]

To answer your question the spider cob doesn't put off bearly any heat it runs the same or cooler then the mars old model my temperature hasn't been over 81" it stays at 79" most the time which im impressed with thought using 2 lights in my small space would get hot but it hasn't