My First Grow: Journal

Space: 2x2x8
Seed: Northern Lights Auto Flower/Fem.
Plants: Two plants.
Lights: Cfls 4 X 23 watt (6500), 1 x 23 watt (2700) (I just ordered three 105 watts toreplace three of bulbs).
Soil: MG Moisture Control (NKP: 20-7-14). No supplement nutes.
Pots: 2 1/2 gallon pots.

My idea was to keep this as simple as possible. I know everyone says not to use MG soil, but the mositure control and auto nutes seemed worth it , as most mistakes made by noobs is to over water and nute their plants. Below are pics of my two plants, day 7 after germination. They a look a little small to me, about one inch high, but maybe thats the normal height of a AF. Let me know what you think, suggestions. Thanks

Day 10. Lots of growth in three days, very pleased so far.

Good job, that is a big change for three days! If MG is working for you then keep using it! I see alot of people talking crap but if it works use it! The only thing I have read is be real carfull when you start adding nutes! I want to watch this auto flower so I am going to subscribe to this one. I am interested in your yeild cus I am growing NL Fem.

Plants look good .+rep.They are praying to the light.

I notice that too. The leaves are real perky (praying to the light). Is that a good thing? Does that indicate I may not have enough light on them?

It could be from a little too much heat from the lights.

I just noticed that have three small brown spots on the leaves. Two at the tips of two fan leaves and the other is on the middle part of the leaf on the edge as well. Might try to raise the lights an inch or two and see what happens

Make sure your PH is good to go also! At your water and your runoff from your pots too. Don't make the mistake I did! GL

I think I have a little heat stress. The spots are tiny. I took some pretty good close ups and you can not see them in pictures but can see them with the naked eye. I raised the lights a bit, moved out faux wall for more vent, and move the fan closer so its blowing over the tops of the plants. My reflectors are now cool to the touch. That should fix it. Not to worried about. Leaves are already starting to flatten out so everything looks good. Amazing how you can make a small adjustment to these plants and they respond almost immediately. I need to get a PH meter, I dont even have one. Will do that tomorrow.

You really need a PH meter! You saw my first grow and how it went sideways! Get a good one though! Don't go cheap on it! As soon as I figured out I had a PH problem then fixed it they bounced right back. Are you using distilled water or tap? If you are using tap you will need to adjust the PH in that. I even have to up my PH in my distilled water, not by much just a cunt hair but I still try to get it around 6.8 or 7.0 for my soil grow.

I was using bottled spring water, but the last two waterings I've used tap water thats been boiled and air for two days. PH meter tommorrow I promise lol

I have been reading around here that Distilled water is the best. And it is less than 1.00 a gallon so maybe switch to that? Oh and I have to add one drop of PH up to my distilled per gallon. I just got done mixing 12 gallons to get the right PH! LOL But I know it will be worth it in the end.

Ok think I've got fungus nats in my soil. I was watering my plants today, and because I'm such a newp, I'm watching the soil very carefuly, seeing how the water permiates the soil, attempting to gauge how much my plants need for each watering. I see a "gnat" like bug crawling on the surface of the soil. When stopped moving he well camoflouged. They are in both plants, and they were not flying. I've done some research before my grow, and the two pest that come up the most frequently are fungus gnats and spider mites. First question: how can I tell what king of bug it is? Second question: how the hell do I get rid of them. I've heard that MG soil can carry fungus gnats and thats my bet to what they are and how they got in my soil. Any help would be appreciated.

I just got back from my local hardware store, where I picked up Neem concentrate and some bug strips. I was looking in the soil section for sterile sand but they didnt have any. So I thought maybe I could use Perlite as a replacement. I went to pick up the bag and it had a fucking fungus gnat on it! lol. Needless to say I didnt get any perlite today but I will tomorrow. Thats the same place I purchased my MG soil from too. Lesson learned. I churned up about one to two inches of the top soil and sprayed it down good w/ Neem. Place the bug strip in my grow room.

Here's my plan: I will dig up two inches of soil, lay a layer of Diatomaceous Earth on the new top soil. Then cover soil w/ two inches of perilte. Then treat top layer of Perlite w/ Neem oil. Also, I will leave the bug strip hanging and refresh when needed. Hoping this will solve my problem. Any suggestions are welcome. Also today I added another light: 23 watt 2700k. Up to this point I didnt have any red spec light for my plants. I'm sure this will help growth. Also I odered three 105 watt cfl's (two 2700k and one 6500k). This is primarily for the flowering stage of plants that should start in about 10 days or so.

Sorry to hear about all your problems bro! Comes with beeing a noob I guess, I have had my fair share of pulling out my hair! Not knocking MG at all but do you have a place you can buy Fox Farms by you? Or do you have a place that you can get all the stuff to mix up your own soil? Maybe do a side by side compairison next time and see what preforms better with less problems. Just a thought brotha, hope your plants don't get too stressed.

I want to get rid of this problem asap. I think I will buy the mosq. dunks and use them. It has the same bacteria in as the gnatrol only its in a time released tablet. I think if I cut it up and shake in a jug of water I can then just pour it over the soil and get the bacteria to working. My understanding is that the bacteria cause larvae to stop eating immediately and in about 10 to 14 days. I will spread perlite on the top soil to kill the adults. Since I cant use bug stips, I will place a bowl of beer in the grow room: the sweet smell attract the adults and the drown in it. I will also keep using the neem to provoke the adults to go to the beer trap and to also help in prevention. Thats four methods that should address the larvae, adults, and prevention.

Day 14 of grow, two weeks into the veg. My two plants have shown alot of growth over the last 4 days and are starting to get bushy. Many five leaf fan leaves. It now looks like a real pot plant. Before it looked like was growing. basil or something lol. I haven't seen a mature fungus gnat in three days so I think I caught that problem early and its under control now. That being said, I am continueing treating the fungus gnats will do so for next thirty days. The larvae in the soil (u cant see them) live there for about 10 days before turning into adults. So a word of caution to any out there that have fungus gnats, dont stop treating because you dont see any adults.

I built a new light platform that I like very much. It give the room much more circulation, easier to position the lights and view my plants without any obstructions. I removed the reflectors and turned all the lights sideways, as now believe more light gets to the plants this way. I didnt put faux ceiling on the the platform as I wanted more circulation, and the reflected light (travel distance to the plants is about 19 inches) would be of no use the lumens would be below 1 per sq. inch.

Plants should begin to flower in about week. Overall, my first grow is going well.

Those plants look fucking amazing bro good job! Keep up the good work and the close attention and I am sure you will be happy with your return! Just don't harvest them too soon! LOL get your eyeclops on it!

Haha, I want one of those kid toys so bad! It's funny how they market that as an adolecent toy, but they would be way better off marketing it to pot heads, they would make way more money.