My First Grow Journal

Hello all...

Welcome to my first grow journal. I am an old time user, but stopped for awhile, then got medical problems in my life. Now I use for medical purposes. Since I do not know anyone around to supple me and my state government is still ignorant about how useful Mary is for my condition; I have to grow it myself. I am sure some of you on this forum are in the same boat I am in. With that said...

Grow Room set up:
a 2x4 area in a small closet. Using 4 x 40watt 4' florescent aquarium - plant T-12.
using bag seed this time. (any one now the safest may to get seed on the internet in the US, let me know)
germinated 10 seed (wet paper towel method), got 6 to start
Planted in 3" containers with natural potting soil (no ferts added) and perlite mix.
Using rain water when possible, otherwise, tap water with a little white vinegar to bring the PH level into range, standing for 24 hours.
Adding a little Superthrive

Everything has gone well and I have pictures below. I am at 21 days and started adding a .02-.02-.02 pour on fert yesterday. Plan to use that bottle up by adding fert every 4 days (is that to much or not enough), then start using Schultz 10-15-10 added to water every 5 days. (same question)
I will also add the Schultz to a spray bottle and spray leaves when I go into the flower stage.

I plant to transplant into 8" containers in about a week.

I want to put into flowering in 2 weeks, which will be six weeks from start. I have done a bunch on reading about lighting and know that everyone feels that HPS is the best to use during flowering, but I am still up in the air over this? I am only doing this grow for personal medical, so do not need a massive yield, as I will start another grow as soon as this one is harvested. As I have a ton of medical bills, money is a little tight! But I've been looking at the new CFL's and it looks like, if my calculations are right, that I would need a ton of them. 2x4=8x6000lum=48,000/2400 per 150watt CFL = 20 CFL's. That to me seems like an overkill. I would rather have the low monthly electric bill from the CFL's and the lower heat issue, but the set up cost looks like it would be as much as a 400watt HPS? Anyone have a word on this?

On to the next issue. I have some pics below. I was checking my babies this morning and notice that one looks like it is a male. Look at pics one and two and tell if I am right. I know it is hard to see, but they look like little balls to me. I have pulled it for now, until I get a yes from one of you more experienced growers. Also, a couple of them have purple on the tips of the bottom leaves, I do not think this is a issue, but if it is let me know what it is and how to address it.

Thanks in advance for all your help. I will keep you posted as the grow goes on.

Thanks TBG! I went out tonight and picked up 3 - 47watt (150watt) CFL's at 2700K and 2 - 23watt (90watt) CFL's at 6500K to add in with the rest. I moved the T12's to the side and put all the CFL's over the grow. I hope that will be enough.

I killed the male.:aok:

TBG thanks for the link. I decided to see if I could make this grow with straight CFL's. Then next time maybe add the 400 watt HPS.

Found another male today. Had to kill him. :hubba:

And then their were four...

Well no one appears to be adding to my thread, but I am planning on transplanting today. I am not sure if I should use the 8" containers I have or get something bigger? I want to LST them. Here are some pics. Let me know what you think.

My experience was that my utility bills went down when I switched from CFLs to HPS (slightly). I use a 150 HPS and can grow enough to keep me more than happy... just took me a while to get to that point!

booradley said:

My experience was that my utility bills went down when I switched from CFLs to HPS (slightly). I use a 150 HPS and can grow enough to keep me more than happy... just took me a while to get to that point!

Click to expand...

UMMM...

I thought CFL's were less expensive, but I guess it is the amount of watts that matters and I have a total of 187 watts, so I guess a 150 HPS would be less expensive. What about the heat issue?

triprey said:

UMMM...

I thought CFL's were less expensive, but I guess it is the amount of watts that matters and I have a total of 187 watts, so I guess a 150 HPS would be less expensive. What about the heat issue?

Click to expand...

Well, I did a side by side comparison once and buying enough CFLs to fill just about any grow space more than 2' square and it only costs a few dollars more to buy a complete HPS system and the results, my god, the results! I'm still about 2 weeks from my first harvest with an HPS and it is easily twice as much as when I was usign CFLs! Don't forget you'll need twice the number of CFLs: one set for veg and one for bloom. But yes, I spent more on my CFL set up then I did on my HPS set up. For $120 I got a 150 Floralux with a flange and duct. For the same price (well, $109) I got a Brightwing Floro fixture with 150 Watt CFL BUT I needed to buy another bulb for bloom and supplemental lighting since one CFL is not nearly enough to cover my space, no matter how big the bulb is! And I still needed some vents with the CFL so the cab didnt' get too hot.

As for heat issues, with my self enclosed, all-in-one 150 HPS and a simple duct sticking out of my cab, the temps actually went down, but you do need some vents out of your cab. If you cannot vent out of your cab for any reason, then CFLs are the way to go, but even they will probably get a too hot in a fully enclosed grow space.

in the end, I ended up with about 200 watts of floros, lots of heat issues and more electricity costs and costly bulb replacements. My HPs has replaced them all and I just cannot express how big a difference in results! If your goal is to grow enough to keep yourself in buds, you really do need to get an HPS if you can.

heh if i'm not mistaken this is a wal mart grow . I have everything your using (light wise) in my closet as well .

A general saying is to use 1 gallon of soil for every foot of growth. Another is one gallon per month of growth. So, that said, you are probably going to want to go with TBG's recommendation of the 2-3 gallon pots. Have fun with your bending! :farm:

Thanks for all the info on what size to transplant into. Since I am working on a small budget and this is my first time growing, I decided to go with the 8" I had on hand. Next time I do a grow, I hope to have the funds to go with the HPS for flowering and use 5 gallon buckets. Luckily I am just a medical smoker now a days, so I do not need a big yield this time as it is for personal use only. I will keep you posted.

Draston said:

heh if i'm not mistaken this is a wal mart grow . I have everything your using (light wise) in my closet as well .

Click to expand...

Yep Draston it's a wally world grow. Low on funds.

I have some update pictures at my thread " N problem, what is best thing to use?

Please stop by and give me any comments you have. Once that problem is addressed I will close the thread and move updates back to here. Thanks for all you guys do. Your all great!

Hey gang. Here are three pictures of my grow. It is six weeks today and I have a question for you. As you can see, these two are not growing very fast; as a matter of fact, they have not grow much the past 2 weeks. They appear to be already flowering, but I am still in a 18/6 schedule? They also seem to be just one straight stem, with no branches? Is this a special strain of some sort? I used bag seed, so do not know what I have. Do any of you know what strain this is. It has a sweet smell.

I planned to change over to 12/12 this week, but do not know now. What do you guys think? Are these already flowering? Should I go ahead and switch over to 12/12 or give it a couple more weeks in veg?

HELP!

Jeez triprey! Interesting genetics you have there I must say. Since they are already flowering, I would keep the light schedule as is so they can photosynthesize more hours out of the day. Glad to see you have some ladies!

what happend to this grow??
is it still on or what??