first time bag seed cheap operation

I have been doing this about a month and have some good sized seedlings ready to veg out. my growth was stunted by about a week or two at the beginning due to leaving my planter outside overnights while germinating, but I think that I can catch up or make up for it with some intense lighting throughout the next few weeks.

compared to a few pictures I have seen my 15 day progress is way behind that of a fully lighted germination.

germination
did this in a six pak planter, with two seeds in each area. 11 seedlings made it out. the seedlings were small but also almost rootbound and tangled because I put two in one planter compartment.

seedlings
out of my 11 seedlings, at this moment it looks like 9 will survive transplanting, and the other two look iffy, kinda wilted.

vegging
I am ready to veg, just lacking proper lights to enhance the growth. need to pick up more lights.

grow closet
I am using a small cupboard in a closet which measures 11'' by 33''. the height is about four feet tall. inside I have four 40w CFL giving off 1960 lumens. last night I realized I need more light, to the tune of 4800 more lumens, so off to the depot of homes to get more lumens.
I have a future plan to develop two boxes for growing mature plants in, details are in the works, but it is looking good.

nutes
for nutes I used miracle grow for N, and some shulz drops for P. so far havent seen any problems with thier use, although I only used each once.

if you are reading this, my postings will be retroactive for a little while until I catch up with posting my progress. Ill have some pics up soon too.
i'll try to keep an eye on my expenses and keep them posted as this is supposed to be a cheap, but successful op.

transplant
transplanted my seedlings last week, a la fin de semana numero dos. they were all rooty for thier size, i was suprized. for that next week they, all 11, were under two regular 60w icd (incandescent) bulbs, noobish.

lights
copped 4 10w 6500 cfls and splitters at the local mart of wals. soon after switching the lights to cfls two seedlings began to curl a little, mal suerte por los plantas.

on a break i shot over to the depot of homes and copped two more cfls only this time 42w 2700 models, a much warmer light.

my previous posting says i have four 40w cfls, this is not the case. I was mistaken, and they are the equivalent of a 40w icd, ojo!

estoy contento con los luzes. according to one post I saw a 1' box requires 3000 lumens. i have 2.25 sqft needing 6750 lumens, so with what I have now I should be exceeding my lumen/sqft threshold by 410 lumens! que suerte!

killer u gotta take some pics for me too peek!! sounding good so far man

so on suggestion i copped TWO MORE 45w cfls... should start to see some quik growth soon.

so those 2 42w and 2 45w cfls were almost too much so i had to split up the group, half under one lamp and half under the other. getting better temp results and humidity is now in the comfort range.

not really seeing amazing growth, but it is steady and not dying... plus im not really growing bomb, just bagseed.

this week (4) changed from a 24/7 to a 18/6 schedule to enhance rooting and vegging growth, and also take away some of the light stress.

also, lost one in an accident with a rockwool cube full of water. so now there is ten. should still end up with 5 females, statisticly.

this was supposed to be a cheap operation, when i got my gauges i was hoping that would be all i would need. lole.
so far i have spent about 75 bucks, not really cheap, but i bought all the essentials. considering that most grows use a light thats more expensive than my whole op, this is cheap.

the catagories list my components, if you want to see exactly what i used peek back at earlier postings.

lighting/parts - $45
gauges - $16
soil/amendments/nutes/ferts - $12
fan - $5

everything else i had laying around the house or yard, que suerte.
so on the scale of things, and considering most setups cost at least twice as much as what i put up, i feel like i am making a successful cheap go at this.
i should have some pix soon. packabowl

the other night i was thinking how I could use a box to get my slow growing tomatoes (real tomatoes... in the garden) to grow faster, bigger, all that. I envisioned a box or bucket that tops the small growth with a light inside that simulates the sun when the sun is blocked or bad weather.

the next day, today i was on the forum, and by chance I saw a post referring to dr. pots BOG, barrel of green. I quickly recognized this as my fix to my slow growing tomatoes and built the top of the BOG to help my tomatoes.

later i finished the bottom, and transplanted two smaller seedlings into the mini bog. hopefully this thing works out, it looked cool and yielded hella. although I am working with bag seed it should be an experiment to report on.

ya you should get some pics up, id like to take a look too

cameras busted, but ill seed what i can do...

finally got some pics up. these are about five weeks old, with about three weeks of good growth. let me know what you think of the setups. as they are they still need work, but they serve their purpose so far. more pics in my gallery.



for the rest check out my gallery.

just notchin some time in... week five, but my growth seems more like 21 days or so. i attribute this to the "week-n-a-half-outside-overnight" germination method i used. leafs in the BOG are looking a little bleached, so I pulled the y splitter and went with one 10w CFL. those things are little bastards. they dont burn hot as far as box temp, but they over radiate the leafs or something. it cant be that i ferted them, or else i would expect to see that throughout all the plants. the other possibility is that the stealthy size of the BOG and my other box are too small? i dont know. the closet is not getting scorched and it is under brighter lights.
ah anyways, each plant now has at least three set leaf patterns, and some are pushing into the next nodes from there. im gonna pick up that superthrive to see what i can do with that, maybe i can catch up on some lost time.

forgot to mention that i moved to a 18/6 pattern to induce vegitation. since the beginning of this week there has been some good growth, starting to see some five fingers, and more nodal growth, and some nice spread. all my favorite plants (6) are about 3.5-4 inches and getting bushier, the others (4) are suffering from burn. the burned ones i put in the sun to see if they can regen, if so then i am gonna veg them out in a week or two, get a wave going...

very nice plants looks like theyre gonna make it flowering.

Good Job

about six weeks in, about a week since my last progress report and there is some great growth, but theres also been a little bullshit. lost one plant in the BOG = POS. My fault for lousy construction, next time, if at all ill use a bigger pot, with a better blower, and start in that pot so theres no stress.
lost another one in a pot to light/heat damage. it shrank and died due to high temps.
so now the count is 8, with two looking a little funky, but i think theyll make it.

as far as the grow closet, thanks to shaman, roseman, catgirl, eastlosg1, and valuevariable, I got a sweeter setup than i was using AND my temps are in the green again. I used some porcelain fixtures and mounted them on the underneath of one of the closet shelves. a box fan is underneath the shelf, pulling air into the closet, and there is a gap heind the shelf so that the air is blowin through the plants for good circulation.

my survivors are doing great, although I am fearing that due to thier size they could turn out males, crossing fingers though. all have reached the four inch mark, and a few are even six inches so far. it reminds me of a crazy biology class where instead of getting a grade i get some pot for putting in this time, hopefully.

one of my taller stretched out plants I am practicing LST on. I pulled the stem down two days ago, and it is now turning into the light again, exciting!

heres a few pics of progression...

here are the other three

How old are these plants?

I believe they have been on the grow for about 5-7 weeks. I am only counting above dirt/post transplant growth because it took them like a week to germinate, and a week to get big enough to transplant.

Hey Killer I'm at 5 weeks, what size pots are you using now?