My First Real Grow

This is actually my second attempt at growing. The first only lasted like a week and a half and i only had one plant under a blacklight, lol. Well this time i have about ten plants all from seeds i got from recent bags i had. I have them all in a 2' x 3' space in my closet under two 2' fluorescent "OTT-LITE" Natural Light Suppliment Indoor Grow Bulbs. Not sure of wattage or lumen output, not marked on package or bulb. They have been under this new setup for about eight hours now and i can already tell an increase in growth rate. Before i was using a single 4' 40w Cool White Fluorescent. I also started watering with SuperThrive as of today so i think that might a little something to do with the growth rate increase as well, although obviosly due mostly to lighting upgrade. They are about two to three weeks old as i started some about a week after the others. I haven't taken any pics yet, my digi cam broke. Will get some up as soon as i can. I am curious tho, i can't let my plants get any taller than 3' tho due to space limit. So roughly when should i start 12/12? Right now three of my plants are develping their third set of leaves, still no branching out yet tho.

welcome to the forum. few good links in my sig. glad to have ya lotsa cool peeps around. hey hold this a sec. :48:
flowering depends on maturity....everything you need to start is in the links in my sig. unless you know wattages, gonna be tough without pics to know how your holding up for veg. be light with the 'thrive. seen it help a ton and kill a ton.

Yea i only put about a half cap full of ST per one gallon of tap water left sitting out overnite. I attached some photos i just took with a $20 digi. I know they're not the best quality but hopefully they will do for now. Thanks for making me feel welcome here!!! :holysheep:

I haven't updated in awhile mainly because i only got one reply like two weeks ago. Well since my last update i built a grow box to keep them in, they we're behind a speaker box covered by cardboard boxes so they aren't discovered. My box is 2'w x 2'd x 4'h. I have a latch on the door so i can lock it with a combo lock. I still only have a two-tube 2' fluoro light with ott-lite bulbs. I have purchased a 150w HPS and a 150w MH bulb. I still need to buy light systems for both bulbs, but funds are short right now. Will hopefully have a switchable ballast within the next two weeks. For my ventilation i was goin to buy a digital fan controller/temp control box for a computer and hook three or four fans up for exhaust so i can prevent odor leakage or over-heating the box. As far as watering and nutes go, i'm keeping it simple. I only water when the top 2 inches are dry then i add water till a little starts dripping from the bottom of the pot. I alternate between pure water and water mixed with Miracle Grow Liquid Houseplant Food and SuperThrive. I mix about half of what the labels call for per gallon of water. I've read alot about noobs like myself over nuting and watering and i want to try to avoid that as much as i can. I think from what i've read i feel confident i will have a successful grow. But i still like confirmation on my thoughts and some incouraging advice and praise from fellow growers. Here are a few pics to add to my update.

Congrats on the growbox. Those plants are gonna outgrow that speakerbox. Have any plans when they do that?

Well if they start getting too tall for the cabinet then i planned on trying some low-stress training, but with the cab. only being 2' wide and deep i might not be able to do anything but top them. I don't know but i will cross that bridge when i get there. But anyways, yea i have alot of things i wanna do to upgrade my set-up but i can only afford so much at a time. I'm eventually going to design and install a ventilation system that should be more than sufficient for the hid lighting i will have plus keep most odors under control by utilizing passive intake/active exhaust into a filter box on top of the cab.

You should be able to have room but you should use LST no matter what to maximize your space. Not all of those will be female so we'll see, it's hard to tell right now. GL

Ok now that i've done a little reading up on fluorescent lights i know the wattage of my bulbs. They are 20w each... not very much i know. Well last night i went out and bought another two bulb 2' fixture. So now i have 4 2' 20w Plant Lights on my babies, 20w per sq. ft. They seem to be liking the increase on lighting. So as of right now i've decided that this being my first full grow, i'm going to keep it simple and stick with fluoro's for the whole thing. I don't expect a spectactular yield, i just want to get one successful grow under my belt before i spend a bunch of money on this. I'm installing an exhaust fan sometime today. I will take pictures afterwards and post again. I also bought some organic soil last night, will transplant today also. Hopefully my plants like it better than what they are in now. Two of them started looking a lil sic, from the time-release fert. in the soil plus what i was giving them, i don't think they liked that too much. This is a fun learning experience, and if done right i should have a decent reward. :hubba: Well i'm gonna go start getting everything ready to get started on the fan and transplanting. Anyone else who uses fluoro's tell me what you think of my light setup. Oh yea, i almost forgot, the lights are about 5" above the plants now.

Some new pics from today

check out Hazewarriors micro grow going on. they're using LST but its just holding the tops from growing upward. instead of directing them outward.

Florescents can be put closer to the plants, a good rule of thumb is about two inches from the plant.

Ok so my tallest plants are only about 4-5" tall but they have about 5-7 nodes already so i went ahead and started them on 11 on/13 off last night at midnight and i've got the lights coming back on at 1pm. I know they wont get very big but for me that's ok. I want to see how tall plants will get with the setup i have now. I would like to see what quality i can produce here, i'm not too concerned with quantity yet. I figure i'd like to have a lil something to smoke on around Christmas and New Years so now would be a good time to start flowering. If anything maybe they'll atleast grow a lil faster and get a lil bigger before they start flowering.

So i was just thinking, if these plants do get alot bigger, i might just clip the buds off and top the plants if i don't end up with that many females. This way i can try to re-enter them in to the veg cycle and maybe take some clones? I haven't read much on cloning but i think i should be able to do that. I think i might stick with a sea of green method, based upon how much space i have i think i might be better of that way. I have 16 cubic feet of space in my cabinet so i think i'll be ok, hell i might section it off and run two levels of s.o.g. so i can double my overall yield. I don't know, just ideas for future grows. I've always been told i'm a dreamer... look i'm already planning future grows and i'm not even half way through my first one, lol. Oh well, i guess this way i'll atleast be a little more prepared than i was this time around. I'm definitely going to atleast double my lighting in a week or two. I might even add a 120w cfl to the mix as well. If i do all that i'll have 280w total, i think that's enough for 4sq. ft. Oh and i did install a couple fans that really help with ventilation. Lights are in dark cycle right now, will post pics this afternoon when lights come back on. The exhaust fan is a lil too noisy for where i live when another certain person is home, but the intake fan can run 24/7 unnoticed.

Ok well as of today i noticed new little leafs growing from where every branch meets the main stalk. I guess these are the second leaves for each branch? Am i correct in assuming that my plants won't actually start flowering until they are mature enough-instead growing faster to maturity, or will they just start flowering while still premature? Since i've switched the light cycle they seem to be growing a lil faster now, by the way my plants LOVE being sprayed with tap water mixed with SuperThrive as a foliar mist. Since i've started misting them with that their foliage is a lush green and smells quite healthy as well. This will be their fourth night so to speak, tomorrow will be day 4 of 11on/13off light cycle. Should i be ok if i switch them back to veg for another month or so once sex is shown? I've read of some people doing that but i want to get some opinions before i go doing anything drastic like that.

Ok, yesterday I switched the nutes since i've flipped the lights. I'm now using Miracle Grow All Purpose Water Soluble Plant Food 15-30-15 @ 1/2 Label dose, SuperThrive at label directions mixed with 1 gallon of tap water left sitting uncovered for 24 hrs. Once the lights turn back on today at 1pm i will take some new pics and upload them. There's been a few lil changes in a couple of my babies, oh and i think i might have 1 fem showing!! I hope it is, i'm starting to see the first signs of pistils... on a few actually but i don't know if my cam will show them (some are barely visible). Oh well i'm sure all of you who know will help me out when i get some pics up here later today. I know i need more light than i have but until i get paid again i won't be able to get any more. But when i do get paid i plan on doubling my lighting.

sounds like things are going good for ya....keep it up and congrats on the ladies....

Well as of today i have all males. >=-( So they're all dead and gone now and i'm closing up shop. Was fun while it lasted.

Well dude don't give up, give it another shot! Just from reading the thread, I have a few questions:

1) Why 11/13 for the lights? Never heard of that, most people treat 12/12 as a golden rule.

2) It seems that you went to the flowering light cycle early? You posted pics on the 16th of really "infant" plants, and then you posted on the 18th that you started the flowering light cycle (11/13). It is quite possible you stressed any females you may have had into becoming males.

Yea i kinda figured that, i should have waited to switch the lights. I was using 11 on 13 off trying to get them to show sex a lil faster. I guess this is how the saying live and learn came about. Well i will germ some more beans and see how it goes next time around. Thanks to everyone for all your help and support. I will start a new journal as soon as they enter veg. stage.