Documenting 2nd Go Around... Learning From Mistakes Journal

LadyKimi

Well-Known Member
Hello All! Here goes Nothing!!

First things first.

I am writing this more for me right now although I hope someday someone can learn from it. I may ramble occasionally and I t4end to talk to myself so I am sure I will "type" to myself as well. I may also leave stuff unfinished and come back when I can finish hours or days later. I will mark these things with a :joint:

CFL Grow: 6500 k for Flowering, 2700 K for Vegging, exact wattage will be added later when I can get out of bed. :joint:

18/6 Light cycle

4 plants: Femmed seeds from Attitude. 1 each of Sour Cream, Cheisel, Rocklock and Sensi Star.

Medium: Sunshine Mix #8 mixed 50/50 with perlite. Mix #4 is recommended but I bout a boat load of 8 when I first started growing before I knew what the what was but the Perlite takes care of the drainage issue. It is a "soil-less" mix (I actually did not realize this until 2 weeks after I started growing, U can def tell I have never grown anything in my life)

Nutrients: Jacks Classic for both vegging and growing


Grow is being housed in a 4.5'x3' closet. I have an entire room but my 1st grow (which had a hermie caught late that pollinated all 7 plants) was on a table with a blacked out window. Among the other mistakes, that may get referenced through out the journal, I think this was 1, I had a very very mild light leak from the edge of the window, it was so minor I did not think it would be an issue. Also the space under the door was blocked with a blanket the the dogs would occasionally play with and cause light leak # 2. Something caused the hermies, no guarantee that this was not the cause.
I also think I will "lose" less light by using a smaller confined place. I will also have less trouble keeping this area totally sterile (another possible mistake, with my back, I can not always clean things up immediately. The best examle I can think of is after transplanting the last 7 girls at 1 week into flower due to being root bound, after the tp I could hardly stand, yet alone bend over so the dirt and such stayed on the plastic in the middle of the floor for 3 days.)

Now 4 The Grow!

Germinated over night in tap water that had been left out for well over 24 hours. They were then planted into Jiffy Peat Pellets and placed under a cheap blue spectrum grow light for 24 hours and then switched to a 26w 6500k CFL.
Sour Cream popped soil in 5 hours
Cheisel in 11
Rocklock took 17 hours
Sensi Star is just now poking her head out at day 4, was just about to break her out myself when she peaked out.

We are now turning the lights out on day 4, the current plan is to plant the pellets at day 10 of breaking earth into the growing medium. The logic is that the stems will have some strengthening time and I will have enough time to finish the sterilising of the grow room. My first grow was not really ready to be replanted at 10 days ( if memory serves and it doesn't always) so I may revisit this. I see pics online of 15 day old girls with 3 or more nodes and I KNOW I did not have that with the first grow..

I plan on writing SOMETHING every day. It may not be much on slow does but I am trying to build habits here :roll:

Till Tomorrow! Pics will be added tomorrow then periodically....
 

LadyKimi

Well-Known Member
Here we are on day 5, Got some advice yesterday to "help" Stella (Sensi Stars Name) thru her shell a little bit and this morning you can see her trying to pop thru! If all goes well my 100% germ rate will hold!


Cheisels ( Charlie) stem is looking a little wimpy to me today so she might just go into dirt early for extra support. She has the very start of new growth that I think will be more noticeable tomorrow.

Sour Cream (Sara) still has that "Olive Oil" look, a little taller than the others and skinnier but it looks normal somehow. She has a couple pretty little leaves growing in. I'm hopeful they will be out and about by tomorrow.

Rocklock (Rocky) is going to be a BEAUTY! She is about 2/3s as tall as the other 2 girls but man she looks "Stout", her stem is noticeably thicker and her leaves just look better! Right now she is my favorite but lets face it I can be fickle! :lol:

They look much healthier than my first girls, it's funny how you can think something looks great and then you see something (in person) that makes you realize that it did not actually look nearly as good as you thought it did!

Kimi

Note: made the canna butter last night and had some on toast this am, its not the best tasting stuff in the world but it actually gave me some pain relief with no "head buzz" which rocks cuz I don't like the head buzz feel.

I am going to post again tonight with Pictures!! Finally!!
 

LadyKimi

Well-Known Member
Well, today I decided to go ahead and transplant them into the first "real" pots. Sour Cream and Chiesel were looking "Stretchy" but since the light was literally a 1/2 inch over them for their short lives I don't think that was the issue.

On my first grow I kept them in the jiffys for 2 long and when they were transplanted I had to prop them with pipe cleaners till the stems strengthened, did not want to do that this go around, hence the reason for my transplant.

My Sensi Star girl is still struggling just barely showing stem out of the dirt, I helped her crack yesterday and she almost immediately poked up like she was going to "pop" but still no pop, not sure what to do there. Just wait I guess, I hope I don't lose her as I hear great things about her. Open to suggestions!

Onto Details and Pics:
First is the current vegging room. We are going to "upgrade the other closet during hubbys vacation, this was my best go at it with my back issues.

View attachment 1003710

Lights:
2 26w 6500K CFLS 2 23w 5000K CFLS (these will be changed to 6500K tomorrow hubs grabbed wrong lights) and 1 Blue Spectrum "grow light" I don't know if U can tell in the pic but they are about 1.5 inches above the plants. Will be adding 4 more 26w over the next week or 2 as I think they might be too young to be hit with a ton of lights just yet. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Second and Third pics are the girls side by side. Sour Cream, Cheisel, Rocky and Sensi Star in order. Rocky is my favorite from jump, sturdy very green and just pretty!! She is a little shorter but she was the last of the first 3 to pop. The foil there was her marker so I knew who was who....

View attachment 1003715View attachment 1003717

The rest are pics of Rocky from different angles. I did not want to get pics of Charlie and Stella right now as they are a bit wobbly and I didn't wanna move them around for the pictures.
View attachment 1003725View attachment 1003726

Here is a decent pic of Rockys root growth already!!!! Keep in mind she is planted dead center of the pellet!! View attachment 1003727
 

quietguy420

Well-Known Member
Looking good, the only those jiffy pellets work great for seeds dont they =D
If only they did as well on clones.
 
@ OP I'm subscribed I enjoy CFL grows.

@quietguy420 the first and only time I ever cloned was with jiffy pellets and some rooting hormone and it worked great. Try again. :)
 

LadyKimi

Well-Known Member
Very quick update today as I am pretty sick. The 3 big girls seem to be doing well, no major growth but they were just transplanted last night.

Sensi Star girl looks to be fighting for a comeback (can U call it a comeback when she was never really here to start with)

All of the girls are within 2 inches of the lights but Sour Cream and Chiesel still look "stretched" Who Knows?

Till Tomorrow,
Kimi
 

riddleme

Well-Known Member
still stretchin eh? if that pic of your garden is still correct then your lights are hanging wrong, with cfl's the highest lumen output comes out of the sides (output on the end is less than half) you want to arrange the cfl's so that the side is dirrectly above the plant (and for thier current age) about 2 inches, here is a pic to illustrate,,,
 

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LadyKimi

Well-Known Member
still stretchin eh? if that pic of your garden is still correct then your lights are hanging wrong, with cfl's the highest lumen output comes out of the sides (output on the end is less than half) you want to arrange the cfl's so that the side is dirrectly above the plant (and for thier current age) about 2 inches, here is a pic to illustrate,,,
Why didn't I read that already? LoL Lord knows I probably did and "missed" it. What would I do without U Riddle! I can't believe your goin out of town! Whatever will I do??? LoL


Bonzi....Huh?????
 

riddleme

Well-Known Member
Why didn't I read that already? LoL Lord knows I probably did and "missed" it. What would I do without U Riddle! I can't believe your goin out of town! Whatever will I do??? LoL
Not going out of town, just moving, buying a new house, close this week then will be offline till the cable guy shows up, can't call him till house is mine HaHa, could be one day , could be 4 who knows?

Been waiting months for "my new garden" so I am stoked to get things going and know that others are waiting to watch
 

newbieharvester

New Member
Go Kimi! Crossing my fingers on this grow! Will be healthy and good! Btw, my first grow was killed by my gf (almost an x because of that :D ), and were grown with similar lights that u use, and I was happy. Now with a 250w hps I see that what I was thinking was great was not even close! They really love that light, short, bushy and growing like hell! You should try it out, bought my system here in Spain for 70euro including ballast and a gro&flo agrolite bulb.....
 

LadyKimi

Well-Known Member
Riddle, Congrats on the house! I remember the days... I bet your new garden is going to rock!

Newbie: Thanks! I have actually decided that when we get new lights I am going to go with CMH, can't remember who told me about them (might have been riddle) but they seem to be the way to go for color spectrum...

Will update entire grow tonight, but Sensi finally popped tall this am!! Shaky but standing up!

Kimi
 

LadyKimi

Well-Known Member
Going to be short today also, still in quite a bit of pain...

Kind of an awesome looking thing going on with Charlie the Chiesel girl.. She is already showing color! The middle of her new set of serrated leaves have a purple hue! I am unsure if this is a bad thing or not, will try and do some research but even using the laptop is a bit of a struggle.

Rocky is still looking strong and healthy, I will post new pics as soon as my new camera arrives, maybe Friday.

Stella the Sour Cream girl is still looking "tall" but I am hoping she will even out with growth.

Now for my little challenged Sensi Star girl.. She is really trying! One of her cotyledon leaves almost looks rotted part way down the stem from being stuck in the shell for so long. Again, more research as soon as I can, might send riddle a PM.

Pictures as soon as my camera gets here and I can move a little better..

Kimi
 

riddleme

Well-Known Member
If you read my goin loco grow you would have seen how I used a water bottle to make a little humidity dome to nurture matilda that is what you should do for like a week till it gets its first serated leaves set the light at like 4 inches (on the side like I showed you) growth will slow a bit but it should pull it thru

purple can be the strain or it can be cold nighttime (darktime) temps usually around 60F
 

LadyKimi

Well-Known Member
I was reading my way thru ALL of your threads before the injury. Plan to start again when I can sit up for longer. She is under a little dome and chugging along.

I think its Charlies Strain cuz my temps have been steady witha low of 64 @ night...

Thanks! Back to bed 4 me...
 
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