here we go, yo

royalnobody · May 5, 2008

on april 22nd i used the plate and upside down bowl method to germinate some seeds i found in a bag from january. after five days, i planted them in pots that are way too big, but alas my first little grow began. as i live in the northeast, i was hoping to do a windowsill grow and plant them outside. after reading so many of the grow journals here, i changed that plan which you can see from the accompanying photos. i just set up the lights, which are cool white fluorescents, about 30 minutes ago. i put a small fan on low to strengthen up those stems. does anyone have an opinion about using sunlight and floros together? also, i see a lot of people do 24 on and some do 18/6? i'd like to do 20/4 so the roots can do their thing. thoughts?

Lacy · May 5, 2008

I wouold just go with 18/6
plants cannot absorb any more light after about 16 hours so anything after that is just wasted.

Maybe bring the light closer instead of blowing a fan on them.

royalnobody · May 6, 2008

thanks for the reply, lacy. i changed the old ge bulbs to new phillips cool white. on the box it says, they're 48 inch, 3200 lumens, 40 watt, color rendering index 70 and color appearance 4100K. there's a pic below of the old & new bulbs side-by-side. hopefully these brand new ones will be more effective. i let them sleep for 6 hours last night and i turned the fan off a few hours ago. most importantly, the leaves are now less then 1 inch from the bulb. this will be the first full cycle of floro's for them so i'm hoping for good things. plant 'a' picked up a bit after stretching for the sun on the windowsill, so she no longer needs the bamboo support. oh, and i answered my own question from yesterday...if you have lights, don't even bother with the sun.

80degreez · May 6, 2008

They look a bit stretched, make sure when you aren't using a HID light to keep them as close as possible without burning

royalnobody · May 6, 2008

yeah, they're totally stretched. i started out on the windowsill with the sun and just rigged up the grow room yesterday. so yeah, i'm a bit behind. they've only been in soil for 10 days now...how much water should i be giving them?

newtoit · May 6, 2008

just a idea, but with how stretched out they are, why not bury them deeper in the pot? that way they would grow some more roots in the stem that is buried... if you can take them out of the pot, or at least get some of the soil from the bottom without damaging the existing roots... I am just throwing the idea out there, as i have seen a few threads where they did that. I would wait to hear from another more experienced grower before doing it

royalnobody · May 6, 2008

i was thinking of filling up the pots with more soil...i still have plenty left from the bag i used. thanks for the tip.

newtoit · May 6, 2008

royalnobody said:
i was thinking of filling up the pots with more soil...i still have plenty left from the bag i used. thanks for the tip.

from what i have seen on here, if you do the plant will start to grow roots from the newly buried stem... I have spent a fair bit of time surfing thru threads as i have started my first grow/journal

royalnobody · May 6, 2008

newtoit, it looks like our little ones are close to the same age. i added some extra soil and gave them a drink. yours are looking great.

newtoit · May 6, 2008

royalnobody said:
newtoit, it looks like our little ones are close to the same age. i added some extra soil and gave them a drink. yours are looking great.

mine are about 6 days old(planted them in the soil on the may 1), the bigger ones anyway. Yours look a lot better with the extra soil... did you drop them down a bit? or just add to the pot?

royalnobody · May 6, 2008

just added to the pot. i should have started them off in smaller pots and then transplanted to the 3 gallon pots. clearly, i didn't think this through before i planted them. like you, i was planning on moving them outdoors so they would flower in the summer when the sun is good. now that i figured out the lights, i'll flower them indoors because it's safer for me. with my luck, the deer would eat all my bud.

newtoit · May 6, 2008

royalnobody said:
just added to the pot. i should have started them off in smaller pots and then transplanted to the 3 gallon pots. clearly, i didn't think this through before i planted them. like you, i was planning on moving them outdoors so they would flower in the summer when the sun is good. now that i figured out the lights, i'll flower them indoors because it's safer for me. with my luck, the deer would eat all my bud.

better than the black bear i saw at a potential site... there is a pic of it in my journal, page 4 i think

royalnobody · May 6, 2008

i saw that bear pic, crazy! holy wilderness planter, you are. there was a bobcat in my town over winter, but definitely no bears around here. the deer are out of control, though, so i decided against the outdoor thing. i subscribed to your journal so i'll be sure to follow your adventure. that will be tough to get the young plants out to the sites in a kayak. you're brave.

royalnobody · May 13, 2008

So the kids are growing at their own pace, which seems to be pretty average. It's been 17 days since they went in soil, but the lighting has been totally erratic. For example, they were in the dark for 24 hours over this past Saturday night. I watered them before I left and plant A had 1 droopy leaf from overwatering when I got back last night. Now it seems to be doing fine after 24 hours of light. By the way, plant A will now be referred to as Stretch. Plant B will be referred to as Momma. Hope rocks. I'm going to get some blood meal tomorrow to start a bit of fertilization. I'm planning on going 12/12 once they are 1 and a half feet tall. They're 4 inches right now so we're 1/3rd of the way through the vegetative stage. Math is fun. So here are the latest pics in this order: Momma, Stretch, Momma, Stretch. All thoughts and advice will be greatly appreciated.

newtoit · May 13, 2008

looking good, alot better than before, but before adding nutes I would wait to see what others have to say... they still look a little young to me... thats just my opinion tho... not very educated, but I was under the impression you should wait till you have a couple more nodes before adding nutes

p.s. if you want them to grow to 1 1/2 feet in veg you are just under a 1/4 of the way there... 1/3 would make them 1 foot at the switch to 12/12...

royalnobody · May 13, 2008

i totally thought about that after...16 inches divided by 4.

i got a ph tester today and picked up houseplant food that's 8-7-6/N-P-K. the soil i used had nitrogen added, but that is used up after 3 weeks. i kind of don't want to screw too much with them so i'll only add it if the ph is too high.

royalnobody · May 13, 2008

i just read that i should wait 5 to 6 weeks on the nutrients. i did the p test and it's 6.5/7.0 so that's good. i don't know what i was thinking earlier about the ph being related to the nutes...i'm retarded. anyway, so now i just wait.

royalnobody · May 16, 2008

so here are the plants 3 weeks after being planted in the soil. the lighting was sketchy at first, but they seem to be happy with their current set-up. stretch is now 4.5 inches tall with a leaf span of 5 inches. momma is 3 inches tall with a 4 inch leaf span. i'll be planting them in 3 gallon pots and adding 2 more floro tubes this weekend. then it will be 3 more weeks of veg, for a total of 6, and then on to flowering. i've been going lights and fan pretty much 24 hours with only short breaks for watering or when someone is over here. i definitely need to get a timer soon. here are pics of stretch (A) and momma (B).

here we go, yo

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