first serious grow. seriously.

So I might as well start a grow journal. I currently have 4 plants growing at varying speeds inside a grow box. I started them about 4 wks ago from bag seeds. I actually sprouted like 15 of those little buggers and set them in front of my window. Most came up and I took four of the best and potted them with peat moss and potting soil in some plastic gardening buckets. I ordered a 70 Watt HPS light off eBay for less than $50 and also picked up a 18" fluorescent and two cfl's from wal-mart. My roommate also had a 2'x4'x4' box that I am using. Secured the sodium light to a board and hung the board with rope, pulleys, and two metal cleats i tie the rope to. I have two fans: one running air in from the outside, and the other blowing on the lights. The vent system could be much better, but I am imporving that as I go along.
So far two plants have been growing well, with one doing by far the best. The other two had problems with tipping over early on so I tied them up using toothpicks and twist-ties. I think this may have slowed down their growth a bit, but they were starting to pick up today after I hung my cfl's real close to them.
When the temp got up to mid eighties I backed the lights off a good but and they cooled back down to about 80 or so. I think tomorrow I will keep the HPS light about a foot and a half above the plants with the cfls right on the plants and the long fluorescent between them all. I watered them a good bit this morning, so I may wait until late tomorrow to water more if needed. I have also been spraying the soil with some nitrogen fertilizer every couple days to get them to grow bigger. I dont know if it helped but Im gonna keep doing it sparingly until im sure i wont overdose.
If you have any comments or suggestions feel free to post.

Plants look good don't kill them with love or fertilizer though

nice grow!!!

Thanks for the tip NewGrowth. I am using 24-8-16 Miracle grow all purpose soln. I think it might be a little strong for my small plants so I dont give them much and I usually chase with water.

note the duck taped box fan. may be reassigning that thing soon. Also note the extension cords wrapped around my HPS light. Those my have to be moved farther away from the HPS since that thing puts out so much heat. Yes, my grow box is my tv stand. Sorry the pics are poor. My VIAO's camera decided to stop working so i cant take any more right now.

I moved some stuff around in the box today. The plants looked a little droopy so I lifted the lights up off em. I also put my cfls on stands so i can manipulate them separately Hardware store was closed so I am going tomorrow to get cfls and sockets for them tomorrow. The CO2 tank I made yesterday is chugging away now. By raising the lights I lowered my temp down to 81ish, but I have kept the door open a lot today for more ventilation. My camera worked for about 20 minutes this morning when i turned my computer on so I snapped some pictures. Those are guitar stands on either side holding 1 cfl each. I have 3 seedlings in those red cups. They get moved around a lot. big plant still a bit droopy today. Feel free to leave some commentary.

my camera still sucks, so no new pics. But some good news i think. I got a 100 and a 90 watt cfl and positioned them directly above each of the plants and they perked up a lot. Also, I refrained from watering today since the soil was still wet from yesterday. I think i was overwatering them. Also, a seedling I planted two days ago is starting to come through. I dug around in the soil a bit and found it pretty deep down there but rooted well so i uncovered some of the dirt from on top. Hopefully it will pop out tomorrow. I was contemplating putting some of the plants that I dont flower outside guerrilla style, but im not sure if they will live through the winter. I would probably wait 4 weeks or so before i put them outside, but that seems kind of soon. any ideas, questions, or comments please post.

Camera is fixed thanks to a patch offline; so in the words of doctor Shockla, "here go":
nothing very different, just the two new bulbs and hanging apparatuses. those are two clamps out of my toolbox and guitar stands. I like having that long fluorescent chilling in the middle. It gets pretty close to the plant at times but doesn't put out much heat. after keeping the new bulbs on the plant tops all day, they all perked up. One plants leaves are still a bit droopy and small, but i put the 100 watt bulb over that one for tomorrow so it gets some more light. hopefully these will be the last of the bulbs i have to buy. Between the 70 watt HPS, the two 70 Watt CFLs, the 90 and the 100 CFL, and the 26 watt grow fluorescent, I have over 400 Watts of light on these. My power bill is probably going to show an increase now, but only time will tell about that. Now all there is to do is wait and see how much these buggers turn out for about a month or so before I start thinking about flowering.

400 watts aint shit dont worry.

if you're still sorting out temp and ventilation problems you could probably just hold off on using the hps until flowering, bright white CFLs and flourex bulbs veg plants just fine imo and without nearly the temperature. I have a 600 watt hps so i dont know how much heat yours is generating compared to mine but i need an ac unit running all the time when the lights on to keep a good temperature.

Thanks for the tip Trawe, will definitely consider turning the HPS off tomorrow, since it has been bringing my temp up to 86/87 deg F today. I could go for some more fluorescent tubes as well, but i have been spending a lot on this first grow so far and I want to keep it profitable. Thanks again for the tip and don't hesitate to leave some more!
btw-ran outa bud so im smoking my keefe. damn im glad i bought this grinder.

So here we are again. Same thing every day. I wake up next to the plants, don protective eyeware, check on the plants. Sit around and smoke lungs for a while, check on the plants. Go to the store to buy some shit. Install the shit. Water the plants. Talk to the plants. smell the plants. I want to hurry up and do this shit. lets get this train on the road. grow dammit. grow quickly before i spend every cent on lights fans and root growth hormone.
...
That was my message to the plants. I'll e-mail that to them later on tonight.

Anyway, I bought some more stuff today, root growth hormone and a big fan. The fan is a nice, big, box fan and is probably should have been the first fan I bought and not the third. I had that sucker blowing out of the box on 3 power and watched my temp go down to 82 in 5 minutes. No more temp problem.

So I wake up this morning and a pleasant black woman is sitting on my couch. I will call her Latoya but that's not her name. I know through a friend that she is growing a plant she got from a friend so I asked about it. Apparently all the bottom leaves and branches fell off from the bottom of the plant while flowering so there is just a tiny bud at the top left. This sucks, but I figure why not try to clone her plant since I know it is female. I bought some RGH at the sto, so tomorrow I may become a mad scientist and try my hand at some cloning.

I also topped one of my plants today. I would post a pic but you underestimate my laziness in this matter. It was like the white tea commercials, "when the bud has 4 nodes, we puck it" kind of thing. There are three branch intersections left now and I am already seeing the little green branches coming out from the top of the stem. If it works on this plant, im gonna do it on the big momma and cousin next week.

By the way, just wanted to voice something. I paid 60 bucks for an eight yesterday. WTF? It wasnt even heady brand shit. It was good beaster, at best. Why I am growing weed, case in point. Now to go smoke a lung. Peace be with you.

So that plant I had in that tiny box is now about 30" tall covered in buds. They aren't huge or anything, but Im excited. Im guessing by the looks of it I might get an oz or two off the first girl. Would be more, but I used a 70Watt HPS for the first 6 weeks of flowering which made it stretch a bit it think. Its all good though, because now the rest of the plants are in flower too. One "bush" which is actually two plants in the same big pot which both miraculously turned out to be female. I call it the bush because I supergrowed the thing by bending its branches down, allowing all the smaller shoots to come up. It looks like a hedge right now (with little buds on it of course). The cherry on top is the Medusa plant that I put in the flower closet yesterday. Its been showing its sex for 3 weeks or so, and it is ready to go. I am really proud of this baby. It has hardly any imperfections, a couple of the small leaves at the bottom of the plant turned brown before i realized it was low on Mg, but now that is corrected. I want it to be done by Christmas, but this might not be possible. If its not done by then, I guess I can leave it for a couple of days, not something I want to do when it is in full flower, but I dont want to harvest it prematurely. Cloning the Medusa never worked out, but now the failed medusa clones and the retard plant that had deformed leaves are all in the bud box for one last chance to do something with themselves. Now we wait. More pics after harvest. Peace.

by the way, I am now using a 400 w and a 150 w HPS together and it is like a second sun coming out of the closet door when I check on them in the morning. I seriously use sunglasses when I am looking at my plants.

Hell Yea
the day finally came to cut down the first female plant. I did it this morning at like 9:00. She was going on 8 weeks in budding, and had stopped growing and the hairs were starting to turn brown. I'll be smoking soon. Actually, I smoked a little today after drying it out in the oven for ten minutes or so. It was ok, but i am expecting much better after drying and curing. They are hanging upside down in the box in the dark with a couple of cups of water in there with a fan to move the air around. I'll probably prune the bud in a few days then let it dry for another 3 before i put it in jars for a week. --big breath-- and then the smoking.

smoked some of the bud today after pruning. Ahhhhhh. Tastes like headies. Gonna let the pruned bud dry for another 3 days or so then put it in a jar for a week at least.