My First Soil Grow (May 2020)

BobChukowski

Well-Known Member
I got my thermostat controlled switch yesterday and put a small space heater into the tent and set it to 26C. I elevated the heater on a stand to above the plants height and pointed the heater to the back corner of the tent blowing away from the plants to minimize the chance of drying out the foliage with the dry heat that comes out of this heater. The probe for the thermostat is set in the opposite side of the tent away from the heater to more accurately gauge the ambient temperature of the tent. It ran like this all night and this morning my humidity was still at 53% so I’m happy that it doesn’t seem to be drying the air too much. My blower/filter exchanges the air too quickly for the heater to dry it out too much anyway I think which is good for humidity but does cause my heater to kick in more often than I would like but you have to choose your battles.
I am aware that a blowing space heater is not exactly the safest option and I do plan on upgrading to an oil filled electric radiator style space heater and then circulating the radiated heat with fans. But until then this will do. I also plan on moving the entire tent into my garage shortly now that the nights don’t get too cold so that will likely solve my heating issues entirely for the summer and may even require some cooling on some warmer days.
 

BobChukowski

Well-Known Member
Day 53

2 of my plants were showing nutrient burn so I figured my soil was too hot. I don’t think I allowed enough run off during its normal watering schedule and I had some build up. I thought maybe the plants would adjust but it has only gotten worse so I decided I would flush them. I put the felt pots in the bathtub and kept dumping litre after litre of water in until the run off went from a caramel brown colour to just a hint of brown. I decided to only do the two plants that looked the worst and let the third one wait until I see some results from the flush on the other two. I believe the pre-amended super soil I used was too hot for these autos. Here’s a picture of my very sick White Widow. I know I can’t reverse the damage, but hopefully I have stopped it from spreading further.

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BobChukowski

Well-Known Member
Well, I had kind of slacked off on this grow journal as I wasn’t really all that proud of my progress. I made many mistakes along the way as is to be expected by a new grower. I harvested 2 of my three plants so far, dried them for 5 days which seemed to be enough since the buds were very loose and leafy. After removing all the sugar leaves and giving the buds a little trim, I ended up with 37 grams of bud from my White Widow + 14 grams of trim, and 36 grams of bud from my Zkittles + 16 grams of trim. I’ll use the trim For edibles and smoke the rest after it cures for a while.

I have my last plant, Critical Mass, finishing up its flowering. It was severely nutrient deficient which I caused and made worse by thinking it needed to be flushed due to too much nutrients. I was wrong. This killed and browned some leaves before I gave it a good feeding and since then the colour has returned to the remaining leaves and the buds are growing nicely. I anticipate a much better yield from this third plant.

What have I learned? I don’t like auto flowers. They are way too inconsistent for me and not being able to defoliate due to stress cutting down on the timeframe, my buds got very little light through the canopy and ended up very light and airy. My Zkittles even fox tailed quite a bit and it’s an indica.

Anyway, you live, you learn, and you grow. There’s a saying I heard recently that I think really applies to growing, “You can know enough to think you’re right, but not enough to know you’re wrong”

To future growers who may come across this journal, do your research and ask lots of questions here. There are priceless resources for information on this forum, use them. Thanks to everyone who chimed in on my journal and helped me get to the finish line. I’m sure my next grow won’t be perfect either, but I’m confident it will be much better.

Cheers

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