So. CA MMJ Patient About to Embark on First Grow

Katatawnic said:

Thanks PuRp!

The big ones are looking puny compared to my last photo post, as I pruned them a couple nights ago. They needed it though, especially since I'm not going to flower till after T's R&R is over. And of course each time I top/prune, they get so much more bushy and sturdy; if the colas get as large in the BP as you've said, I want strong stalks! They're no longer dwarfing the clones.... all of which are showing roots now! The center clone (the first to show roots) I topped at the 1st node today (i.e., UB's "two main cola" snip) because I am sure now that the other two clones are the ones I'm going to keep full-term, so this one is giving me opportunity to see how the plant's appearance/growth/etc. turn out topping at the 1st node instead of the 2nd. For once I actually can say, "I wonder what'll happen if...." and not worry about the repercussions! LOL

I'll take some photos this evening.

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FoxCompany426 said:

Nice, nice. Happy Mothers Day!

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Thanks, Fox!

Wow, I think I've had more Mother's Day well wishes this year than I ever have before. I smiled a lot today.... you guys hugely contributed to that!

purpdaddy said:

alls lookin good to me kat.

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Thanks Purp, you're definitely someone I look to for feedback!

MrAlex said:

are those little clones that you have rooting in the back of the AG (with the cups over them)? did you just plop them in there and cup them or did u root them with some rooting gel prior?

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HAHA, funny you asked that today, as I was going to remark about this my next post! The only plants I have from seed are the two big girls in the back of the BP; all my others are clones taken from those two. The ones in the back of the AG have taken sufficient root to be transplanted, and found a new home today with my friend (also new a Prop 215 grower). To date, all clones I've taken have been just plopped into the AG or BP, no rooting gel because I didn't have any. I'd ordered a jar of "Dyna-Gro" which finally arrived today (site was back ordered), and I thought about taking a cutting or two either from the big girls or else from a topped plant, but I had just put three more seeds into the AG to germinate today shortly before UPS got here with my shipment. Oh well, I'll find out how much of a difference rooting gel makes a bit later on.... with or without it, I've gotten taking cuttings and growing clones down pretty well, so now I want to grow a few more seeds and see what kind of plants come out of them while the ones in the BP are finishing doing their thing. I don't want to limit myself to one or two decent-to-good mommies when there's a chance that something better may come along. I've really been using my son and friend as an "excuse" to grow clones for my own benefit: to get some real practice in for later when I'm pretty much counting on clones. They like having a quick start, but they can start seedlings themselves just as I did. This did benefit me, as each cutting I took grew into healthier plants than each one I'd taken before.

My "pharmaceutical lab" has kept me busy, that's for sure! Yesterday I about killed my back & hips doing an extremely thorough cleaning of the BP, and I'm feeling it even more today. I'm going to start doing much smaller daily jobs instead of large weekly ones; i.e., clean the pump in the BP one day, the irrigation tubes another, change the water another, clean the AG another, etc. I've got a couple of dry erase board calendars, and I'm gonna hang one up in the "lab" area with a daily schedule.... part of (better) coping with chronic illness consists of breaking large jobs down into smaller chores in order to get through them all without paying for it too much, and I need to apply this to my gardening, especially now that I have two units for my plants.

And how can you tell what shade of green they are? No two photos ever turn out the same, or even really the "right" shade of my plants. LOL! Really though, thanks a ton.... I watch and admire the babies daily, but sometimes I start thinking that they indeed could be better. So getting feedback from others helps a lot. (It could be better though, such as having premo plants instead of just from bagseed like I've got for now! The nearest dispensary to our house is over a half hour drive away, which is farther than I can drive anymore. When T's home on leave, we're planning on trying to hit one of the closest dispensaries for me to pick out a couple of clones and/or some seeds, and then I'll have some great potential grows coming up after that! If we aren't able to get to a dispensary with all else we've gotta do, then I'm going to ask a friend of ours if he'd take me out there when his school schedule allows. At least when we start house-hunting, it's going to be in the same city/area as the nearest dispensaries are, so once we're able to buy a house I should be able to make those trips on my own!)

Yeah, you missed me saying a couple/few days ago that I'm going to put the BP to flower when T returns to Iraq, which'll be right around June 1.... we'll be gone a lot, overnight a couple of times, and I feel less nervous leaving them here without me able to keep a close eye on them while vegging than I do flowering. I'm gonna have my next-door neighbor come over to check on my dog and my plants frequently while T & I are out and about, but although he's been learning a lot by paying close attention to what I do and why (as well as what works well and what doesn't, LOL), they're still my babies, and I feel a lot like I did when my sons were newborns and I didn't want to leave them with a babysitter just yet.

Hey SICC.... I also got my shipment of the AG's replacement sponges for the "Starter Tray" and they are not the same size as the original AG sponges; they're a bit longer and narrower. But it works out great in the long run: for my seeds I put to germ today, I cut the sponges in half lengthwise, and they were a great fit that way.... so that means keeping the other half and using it later doubles the bag! Instead of 70 sponges, I'll have 140 of them: that breaks down to $0.14 each which ain't too bad!


BTW, been meaning to say to those of you who've been posting here and have their own grow journals (i.e., SICC, Purp, Fox, Mr. A, Pickle, AK47, etc.).... I know I've been lousier than usual at posting replies lately, but I am following your threads every day that I'm reading online! My spa still isn't fixed yet which means I'm still not healing from overdoing it a couple weeks ago, and just typing really hurts my right hand (which became arthritic in the last year) a lot lately. This most recent relapse has had me so wracked up; between that and trying to keep up with maintaining/cleaning my reservoirs and waiting for T to be home for his R&R, I've been too distracted to keep up with much of anything. I doubt I'll be doing much posting or even 'net browsing at all the next couple of weeks, as T should be home by this weekend and I'll most definitely be taking my own "R&R" from the daily routine!

Speaking of: he left Iraq about 12:30am, and called me from Kuwait while I was in the middle of typing all of this (we hung up just a moment ago).... he's going to be walking through the front door around 11pm on Thursday, the 14th!!! Nine months of separation and nail-chewing, and seeing him again is finally becoming a reality! (Can you see me doing the happynekkidpagandance, per chance?! LOL) His leave officially begins at midnight on the 15th, so he'll be here till the 30th. This is the best fucking news I've had in sooo long!!!

Katatawnic said:

Well, I'm guessing this'll be the last time I'll have chance to take photos for a couple of weeks, so I figured what the hell. (Perhaps not though; there'll be things T will be going to do that I won't be able, as I just can't keep up with others anymore, so I just might have a couple hours here alone during his R&R.) Plus, I was playing around with the camera while holding a magnifying glass in front of it, and I actually got almost clear closeup photos from the two in the AG.... I'm gonna have to play with this some more, cause it'll sure come in handy when I need really close shots, such as when it's getting close to harvest time!

OH, also been meaning to say that the only two things I've changed the last few weeks are first switching to the GH FloraNova nutes, and about a week later giving my plants a good misting at night with a spray bottle right after the lights go off. It was after these two changes that they started getting such a darker/richer green.

Have I happened to mention that I'm just a tiny bit excited about this coming Thursday?

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teklol816 said:

I skimmed through most of this thread and I'm liking the results. I'm planning on doing this sometime in the near future, but i just have a question for you. Your AG seems to be sitting on a small table of some sort and doesn't seem to be in a box or closet. Can I have my AG in a room out in the open and still have the ability to grow as well as yours or should I have it in a small space(i.e closet or growbox).

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Thank you teklol816.... hope my ramblings weren't too much for ya! I was just telling SICC that I'm too much of a perfectionist, so this has taken me longer than it should have had I just gone ahead with my initial plan and had this as my first and "quickie experimental" grow instead of trying to learn everything I could at once. LOL

Vegging your plants is just fine to have in the open like I've got my AG, but when it's time to flower you've gotta have the plants in complete darkness for 12 hours a day. Since I won't be using my AG to flower plants, I'll be keeping it on the shelf as it is now. I got the tent for my BP system because I don't have a room in which I can flower my plants and have total darkness.

Also consider whether or not you want your plants to be visible to other people.... not only due to legality issues (if you're not in a MMJ state with a doc's recommendation), but more importantly so that you don't get ripped off. The only people that enter my house are already very trusted, but I'm still looking forward to when we're ready to buy our own place in the next year and will have a room that is dedicated soley to my garden. Until then, here's how I set up my dining-turned-storage-turned-grow-room....

purpdaddy said:

damn they lookin good kat!Almost flowerin time..soon enough.

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Soon, very soon! Fifteen days from now, I'll be saying good-bye to T again (BLAH!) and saying hello to 12/12.... but I'll also be harvesting right about when he gets home for good (August) which'll be a double celebration, so just maybe this final schedule was meant to be!

Katatawnic said:

Soon, very soon! Fifteen days from now, I'll be saying good-bye to T again (BLAH!) and saying hello to 12/12.... but I'll also be harvesting right about when he gets home for good (August) which'll be a double celebration, so just maybe this final schedule was meant to be!

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purpdaddy said:

Yea a double thats true kat hope everything goes ok with him going back out and best of luck going 12/12..im startin mine a 8:00pm,tomorrow,,giving them 24hours of complete darkness..and then the 12/12.

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Hi all, I've been recuperating from T's leave; he got the "R&R" while he was home, now I get it while he's gone. LOL!

First off, a question that I know has been answered in several ways, but I can't remember where I've seen what now....
Do I do the "transition" nutes before or after going 12/12? I would think after, but I'm not sure, and I've had three setbacks in the last couple of weeks. I don't want any more!


Also, I've been having trouble getting seeds to germinate all of a sudden, and I haven't changed a thing from the two methods I did before.... 1. 24 hours in water, then moved to paper towel between two small plates, sitting on my cable box for warmth; 2. plopping seeds into the AG sponges to germ/sprout on their own. Neither has had any results yet (I've got one in there now that grew a nice taproot, so perhaps it'll take). They're still bagseed, and I didn't know a thing about storing seeds till about two months ago, so I know I don't have a whole lot of great seeds right now. However, I'm kind of "practicing" germing again, because I ordered seeds from Attitude and want to make sure I've got it down to a science before trying to germ bought seeds and not having anything to grow from them! (I got Nirvana Northern Light as it's a strain I know I like, as well as being Indica-dominant for plant height and the body vs. head high, and Nirvana Indoor Mix because I couldn't make up my mind as to what else I wanted , and my "freebies" were Dinafem California Hash Feminized & Dinafem Blue Hash Feminized.)


RE: setbacks....

First I topped the clones I had going strong in the AG on May 15, and it may as well been a FIM because it was a definite "Fuck, I Missed".... I snipped both of them just a bit TOO close to the nodes, and they stopped growing! I wasn't feeling great on that day, and was trying to hurry through my maintenance stuff. Big mistake!!! Oh well, I figured: lesson learned, take a couple more cuttings and start with new clones for the AG.

Next setback was windburn in the BP. The weather was in the high '90s, and it was damn hot in the house. Not wanting my plants to wilt away, I switched the fan to oscillate instead of pointing to the back of the tent and ricocheting onto them. Another big mistake, as the fan I'd been using was a "pedastal" type and it didn't lower quite enough to be pointing up toward the top of the plants and at the lights, etc. I'd switched it to oscillate right before T & I went to Newport for Memorial weekend, so it was like this for three days. Came home from Newport to find the big girls in the back wind-burned from about halfway up. UGH, stupid mistake!!! They were dwarfing the hell out of the clones in the front anyway, so I pruned them (they've now been topped/pruned five times) way down and got the vast majority of the burned leaves removed.... I didn't want to put stressed plants to flower! (Got another new fan last night. It's a much smaller one that sits on the floor and isn't nearly the tornado that the other one was. I'm now able to aim the fan toward the bottom of the BP with the air blowing right where it's supposed to, toward the lights. Between the height difference and less powerful wind the fan creates, they should be just fine now.)

Third setback was again in the AG, the new cuttings that I took on May 27 to replace the ones I'd stunted. I'd read and seen YT videos about people cutting the AG sponges vertically when taking cuttings, so that the rooting gel wouldn't get rubbed off when putting the stems in there to take root. Made sense to me, so that's what I did. I'll never do it again.... the vertically cut sponges didn't "wrap" around the stems, therefore they didn't hold them tightly enough for the roots to be guided properly (for want of a decent botanical explanation, LOL). On the 31st, I saw that there were roots from both of the new cuttings exposed and could easily be seen from the base of the stems. So removed them (and took photos of what cutting the sponges vertically did; I'm gonna post them in the AG FAQ thread for those who haven't done it this way yet as a "warning"). One was just tall enough to simply cut it at the base and put it back to take root again; the other wasn't so I took another cutting from her mommy. And of course did not cut the sponges again, but instead made sure the holes in the center were open enough and just slid the stems down like I used to do. So far they're doing great.


And WOW.... I made "green" oil for my first time the other day, and baked that into cake (store was out of brownie mix, LOL) night before last. I couldn't believe the pain relief I had, and my head was 100% clear!!! I intentionally didn't make it too strong, as I didn't want to end up on another planet. Also my oil has absolutely NO taste to it! I used 2.96g of kief I'd collected while rolling joints in my pollen collecting box, and 2 cups of sunflower oil, and heated it for about six hours in a slow cooker for about six hours. No color, scent, or taste from the kief, so I wasn't sure if it'd work.... but OMG, it did! Yesterday I had a piece of cake about every six hours, and I kept a completely clear head at all times while the majority of my pain was SO tolerable I was able to ignore it almost round the clock!!! This was kief from VERY low-grade brick weed BTW, so I'm really wanting to see what kind of recipes I can cook up once I've gotten my first harvest done!

I've been a bit nervous about putting my plants to flower in the next week (delayed due to the stress of the windburn), but they've finally recovered wonderfully and showed a huge shot of growth just yesterday morning. Between that and now being anxious to have lots of kief to collect from my first harvest, I'm now more excited than I am nervous.... although I'm still a little nervous, just because it's the final "big" step for growing and there's a little fear of screwing up something. But, more excited than anything now, all the same!


My spa was finally fixed/running on Thursday night, and between that and my "magic" cake I've been walking without other people being able to notice that I'm hurting! Considering I wasn't able to walk without my cane for over a week now (due to all the running around we did while T was home), walking upright and not looking like it's painful is a HUGE deal to me!

That's enough rambling about updates the last couple of weeks.... I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking. (The "wind burn" photos were taken after I'd pruned off most of the damage.)

teklol816 said:

I really appreciate the quick feedback kat. Also I have 2 more questions. Once its on the 12/12 cycle and needs 12 hours of dark is it safe to just put it in my closet with like a towel blocking the bottom so light doesn't enter, and also do you notice a jump in your electricity bill?

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Hi teklol! Honestly, I can't answer your lighing question, as I've not flowered yet and I don't want to give misinformation. So far I've not had any significant change in my electric bill, and have been running both the AG and the BP for about a month and a half. (Neither modded; both w/lights "as is" when purchasing the original units.)

purpdaddy said:

Yea a double thats true kat hope everything goes ok with him going back out and best of luck going 12/12..im startin mine a 8:00pm,tomorrow,,giving them 24hours of complete darkness..and then the 12/12.

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I am so behind now! On my way to your thread ASAP, gotta see how you're doing!

FoxCompany426 said:

I think I'm gonna go without the 24 hours of darkness this time, just to see the difference.

Kat, everything sounds wonderful. I'm glad that everything is turning out just right!!!

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FoxCompany426 said:

Hey Kat!!! Disregard what I just posted on my thread. Glad to hear everything is doing fine, except for the little mishap. No big deal, what's the fun if nothing goes wrong. Anyway, sounds like you're having a good time, especially since hubby was back, HAHA!!!

Plants look good, I can't wait to put these babies back into flower. I need good bud so bad. Not for medicinal purposes, of course. Just need to stop smoking dirt, haha, makes my teeth dirty.

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Yeah Fox, I wouldn't have minded the windburn mishap in the BP so much though if they'd happened a week or two before.... I had planned on switching to 12/12 on June 1, since T went back to Iraq on May 30 and I wouldn't be gone a lot after that. So it screwed the schedule I'd finally gotten down. Oh well though, hindsight sucks, eh? However, lesson learned.... never EVER change something right before leaving town for three days, even something that appears to be as simple as a fan! ("Appears" being the key word! lol)

I won't lie and say that I don't like how MJ makes me feel aside from treating pain and/or bipolar. I'm just thrilled to death that I finally found some relief from it all.... especially cooking with it, DAMN! Actually, I didn't touch MJ for nine years, even though I always loved it. I bought into the whole Reefer Madness shit! Well not the WHOLE thing, but enough to quit.... I had kids, and didn't want to be a "bad" influence on them, even for treating chronic physical/mental illness. Then I had a severe attack of pancreatitis that the narcotics I normally took for it didn't touch, and my partner at the time convinced me to try MJ again for it. I was literally nervous about using it after so long, but the pain won that battle! That was in 2001 and I haven't stopped using it to treat the bipolar and pain since. It's also a rarity now that I even touch narcotics: as in once or twice a year. My mom is in ICU right now, just one of the dangers is that her liver is severely inflamed from all the narcotics. Never mind that MJ was what helped her survive chemotherapy when I was 10: she won't use it now, totally swallowing the Reefer Madness bullshit! It breaks my heart to watch her suffer, and it's so frustrating that she won't stop being "too conservative" to use what we both know will help her SO much!

sadiesue said:

Hey Kat!! Glad to see ya back around! Looks/sounds like things are going well. To be honest, I guess I don't strive to be a perfectionist anymore because it seems from my own experiences, that it's a whole lot more stress to end up with the same results. So, I read about my "next move" and give it my best shot. If it works, great...if it doesn't, well I'll know better next time. That's how it pretty much ends up anyhow.

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Hiya Sadie, I've missed you! I keep telling myself to stop with the perfectionism, but the OCD gets in the way! (It's funny, but at the same time it's infuriating! OCD owns me, and that just sucks!!) However, I'm proud to say that I stopped myself this morning while I was looking at my plants and started thinking, "If I top this clone one more time, and...." Instead I told myself to STOP trying to improve things, let it be, and start flowering by the end of the week at the latest! If I want to "play" with improving anything, I can do it with "extra" stuff in my AG while I'm waiting for my BP harvest. But that won't be much now either, cause I've got the two clones from the mommies in the BP in there, and the rest will be germing seeds for my next grow.

My son and his girlfriend are visiting, going home anywhere from tomorrow to this weekend. I'm planning on flowering after they're gone, so that I'm the only one here while complete darkness is needed.... the room they're in won't get disturbed when it's just me, as I certainly won't forget to not turn on the light for ANY reason. The tent doesn't quite allow for enough darkness, and I can't seem to get anyone into the habit of not turning on every freaking light in the house! T said yesterday that when he gets home he'll see to it that I've got a designated grow space that won't be disturbed even by accident. So my next grow will be a lot "safer" to be in flower no matter who's around here!

MrAlex said:

very nice......

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Thanks, MrA! I'm still floored that you've got so many plants in your AG and they're so healthy.... just WOW!