JimiGrows' Soil Blueberry - Regular - Journal - 2017 - First Grow

JimiGrows

Well-Known Member
Garden Info
  • Indoor 48"x48"x80" Tent
  • 600W HPS/MH Cool tube lights
  • 6" High CFM fan with filter
  • Generic, un-enriched potting soil for seedlings. Looking at other soils to use during veg.



Plant Info
Original Blueberry from CropKingSeeds (CKS)

Current status
I wanted to start this journal the day I put the seeds in the cup, but the rest of life got in the way. I received my Blueberry seeds on 30-Jan-2017. After work, I put 6 seeds in water to soak over night. Fingers crossed for 50% female. After 17 hours in the cup I transferred them to a plate with wet paper towels. This evening I noticed I have 2 seeds with visible tap roots. It's cool in my basement, so I'm letting the space heater keep the garden at 78F during germination.

Garden plans
Fully automated garden: I'm creating my own software and using hardware attached to a Raspberry Pi Zero to automatically control fan speed based on temp and humidity and water from anywhere via app.

Hopefully, will have daily updates if they're meaningful.
 
My morning check of the paper towels revealed each of the 6 seeds had a tap root longer than 1/2". I'm a happy gardener this morning since I wasn't expecting to see long tap roots 2 days after I soaked them. I moved the seeds into some generic, non-fertilized potting soil. That was a little bit of a pain. I think I'd rather start the seeds in soil, but I wanted to make sure I could get the CKS guarantee if they didn't germinate. Six tiny Jiffy pots are all lined up under a single-bulb T5 lamp I had in storage. Lighting is set to 18/6 about 6" above the soil level.

TL;DR: Transferred seeds to Jiffy pots. Put them 6" under T5 light on 18/6 schedule.
 
Five out of 6 of the plants are now growing their first set of real leaves. I'm going to give the last one a couple of days before I give up on it. Here's my "proud papa" collage.
 
I checked in on the kids today, and the 6th one has just started to pop it's head out with its helmet still on!

I was looking at some other newbie posts and there was a lot of talk about quality soils. I'm currently using Pro-Mix All Purpose Growing Mix.
025849001056sm.jpg


Does anyone have experience with this specific brand? Can I use it for the next stages or should I switch to something like Fox Farm Ocean Forest?
 
My tallest seedling fell over last night. I topped off the planter with some more soil and gave it a full watering. This morning it's looking as good as new.

The runt hasn't grown any... still level with the soil with its helmet on. It's trying my patience as much as my kids do.

My question of the day is do I continue to use the same soil I have been (see previous comment) and feed with General Organics GO Box or do I use a soil with additives already added? I feel like the rest of the 3.7cu.ft of soil would go do waste if I don't use it, but I want to do the best thing for the plants.
 
My second tallest plant collapsed over night. I don't know if it was due to a thin stem (which it did have) or if I over watered it or a combination of the two. The soil was pretty wet in the morning. I'm still holding out hope that it revives itself. I've propped it up with a piece of drinking straw.

The good news is that I was able to get the cap off the runt. So I have that going for me.

Lastly, I turned on the big-boy lamp. Now my precious-es are getting 63,000 lumens of goodness. It seems overkill, but they look healthier already.

My current garden view

 
When they fall over because of thin stem, it's almost always a sign they're not getting enough light. They try to stretch towards the light and end up falling over.



Sent from my SM-G935F using 420 Magazine Mobile App
 
Thanks for the info, DeVille. It looked like a sad candy cane. Just bent over right near the leaves. I think I'll lower the light (it's well cooled) to make sure the others don't suffer the same stretching fate.
 
It's a very common mistake. Did it myself the first time. Totally panicked and believed my plants were dying.

Now I know it's almost impossible to kill these amazing plants. They sure are sturdy. Worst thing we can do to them is to overwater or to give them too much nutrients.

Sent from my SM-G935F using 420 Magazine Mobile App
 
Some of the leaves are looking a little light in color (yellow-ish, see pictures) and seem like they aren't growing much. I looked on the bag of soil (Pro-mix All Purpose) and it recommended feeding after 2 weeks. Is it OK to feed them at 1/4 strength at this point? I think my local garden store carries both FoxFarms and GeneralHydroponics:GO... now I need to get myself shoveled out from this blizzard.

 
From some reading I did, I may have had the light too close to the plants causing some bleaching. It was 11" away from the top of the tallest plant. I raised it up 5" just to be safe.
 
I got the GO Box from General Hydroponics/Organics. Last night I fed them 1/4 of the normal strength of everything for week #2 except for the Bio Marine. Since I'm down to 4 plants this was basically a drop or 2 (roughly 0.5ml) of each solution in 16oz of water. It's been 12 hours and they didn't die, but they didn't really perk up either. The leaves are still a little droopy and yellow-ish. The next watering (probably in a day or 2) I'll continue with the nutrient ramp up with 1/2 strength.

Note to self: Self, start out with Fox Farms soil next grow instead of "blank" soil.
 
Leaves have perked up and some are getting greener after 36 hours. New nodes are coming in, too. Will feed again at half of full strength later today since the pots are looking dry and feeling light.
 
The plants have perked up and there's new growth after feeding them the past 3 waterings. I'll post pictures soon.

In the mean time, I'll leave a screenshot of the first version of the custom software I'm writing for my garden. This is all running on a Raspberry Pi Zero with a TEMPerHUM connected to it. Measurements of the temperature, relative humidity, and dew point are captured every minute and stored with rrdtool. It currently takes a snapshot every 15 minutes and saves and motion detected with the "motion" software package.


Next up is to connect my drip irrigation system to it so that I can water the plants while I'm traveling.
 
Nice rust! I see we're tent twins. I'm using the same Apollo tent. I'll be keeping an eye on your grow. My BBs seem to be growing very slowly and I'm not a very patient person. Also, I'm planning on open sourcing my software and hardware stack.
 
I'm not sure if I have an issue or not with my tallest plant. Its oldest, bottom most leaves are yellowing and have brown spots. Any ideas would be appreciated. Pictures:



Using tap water (as directed by GO Box) for feedings. It's ph is around 7, maybe slightly higher. Used a liquid drop test to measure.

The following are the latest entries for my gardening

Date/TimeActivityBioThrive Grow (ml)BioThrive Bloom (ml)CaMg+ (ml)Bio Root (ml)Bio Weed (ml)Bio Bud (ml)Bio Marine (ml)Diamond Black (ml)Notes
01-Feb-2017 08:00PMTransplantAll six have tap roots. May have buried them a little too deep
08-Feb-2017 08:00AMLight AdjustSwitched over to 600W MH light at 75% (450W). Light is 24" from top of tallest plant
09-Feb-2017 08:00AMCheckOne is bent over. Maybe over watered
12-Feb-2017 08:00AMWatering
14-Feb-2017 05:00PMFeeding0.310.000.310.310.310.000.000.311/4 dose in 16oz water (4oz each plant)
16-Feb-2017 05:00PMFeeding0.630.000.630.630.630.000.000.631/2 dose in 16oz water (4oz each plant)
18-Feb-2017 09:30PMFeeding0.630.000.630.630.630.000.000.631/2 dose in 16oz water (4oz each plant)
20-Feb-2017 02:10PMWater4oz each plant
22-Feb-2017 07:30PMFeeding0.940.000.940.940.940.000.000.943/4 dose in 16oz water (4oz each plant)
23-Feb-2017 12:30PMLight AdjustSwitched down to 450W since it only needs to cover small area. Light is 15" from top of tallest plant
25-Feb-2017 08:00AMFeeding1.250.000.631.250.630.001.251.25Full Dose - 16oz water (4oz each plant)

Past 24-hours of temp and RH:
 
Back
Top Bottom