Very 1st grow, free seeds rule!!!

freedomiskey · Sep 9, 2009

Hell all, I am a super newb grower and a vetran smoker. I am posting a journal to get feedback on what I'm doing right and wrong from the pros. I will stay on top of this intill the day when I replant me 2nd crop.

Room: I bought a house that has a sealed cooled wine cellar in it and don't even like wine so the choice was obvious. The dark cycles are perfectly dark and the room already had cooling and ventilation built in.

Light: 8 4ft 80w aquarium flourecents for the first few weeks. I have built a frame that houses 6 150 cans for either Mh or HPS, still trying to decide, that runs up and down on a pulley system for when my babies get bigger.
I will only be running 1 crop at a time for now so when I get to flowering I will just re set the light cycle to a 12/12 from the 18/6 I have now.

Soil: Fox Farm Happy Tree soil. I have purchased FF grow big for the 1 month aniversary of my babies.

Seeds: I really couldn't tell you. I have a friend of a friend that is a generous grower and has promised me an unlimited supply for as long as she was around. All of what I got had either stripes or spots on the cases. We will see what happens but she promised supers.

Today is the 2 week aniversary of the planting.
Pic1 is the spotted
Pics 2+3 are the striped.

Once again, please send me all feedback as I am very new to this. Thank you all once again for getting me this far.

dirtyolsouth · Sep 9, 2009

HI,

Welcome to MP! There are lots of very cool growers here that will help you learn about growing this amazing plant. I suggest that you do LOTS of reading in the FAQs, Stickies, and grow resources to learn more. There is a wealth of info from past threads and it's all at your fingertips if you master the search function.

It's late and I gotta hit the hay but I'll try to give you a few quick pointers and check back tomorrow. Seedlings don't need any added nutes for the first several weeks of growth so wait another week or so until you give them the nutes. If you already have, no biggie but I'd just give them water for another week or two. A good tip is to let your soil surface dry out thoroughly between waterings. Water enough to saturate the soil and get some slight runoff and then let it dry out well. Marijuana likes drying out well between waterings and it will encourage more root growth which will ultimately give you more buds!

Your weed cellar sounds great! Standard fluoros - T12's are not the best for growing. They work very well for seedlings and rooting clones but for vigorous veg growth newer T5 fluoros are much brighter and in a smaller package. HID lighting - high pressure sodium and metal halide lamps are the best for yields and vigorous growth but they present more challenges in keeping temps in the 70's for flowering and require strong fans to ventilate the heat off the lamps. Since you are using fluoros, keep the plants as close to the light as they can get without touching the lamps. This will encourage tighter node (bud) spacing and more compact, less stretchy growth and this will allow more intense light to reach more buds.

Do you mean Happy Frog soil? I had some bad luck with a strain of seedlings in Happy Frog but if your plants are happy and not showing any leaf burn you're probably fine. Foxfarm also makes a soil called Ocean Forest that is arguably the best ready to go organic soil mix commercially available. If you get FFOF to transplant to when your plants are a few weeks older for flowering it will only require minimal feeding from nute bottles to get some good results. Right now your main limiting factor is your lighting... but you have a setup that is allowing you to get your feet wet and learn about growing.

Happy Growing!

freedomiskey · Sep 10, 2009

Thanks dirty. I have rad a ton of your posts in the last month and congrats on MVP this month. With all the threads I see you on and the lack of nonsense, I'd say you deserve it for sure. I Haven't started nutes yet, just got them for week 4. Thanks for the heads up on the FFOF. It is at the hydro store down the street so when I am rady to transplant I will for sure take advantage of the low maintence. I am saving up for the HPS lamps as we speak and am luckily more of a DIYer so I am taking full advanyage of the depots prices. One question I can't seem to get a clear answer on though. Is there a huge difference between a "clear" HPS with a color temp of 2,100 and the reds I see at the hydro store for 5 times the price? Thanks again for all the help. You rule. Peace over and out.

freedomiskey · Sep 28, 2009

Yesterday was the 4 week bday for my ladies and the growth in 2 weeks blows my mind. They will start Fox Farm Grow Big tomorow and I had to add a homeade odor machine to the mix this lasyt week after coming home to a house that smelled like I had been there all day. I also added 4 more 4" 40w flourecents and 6 120 wat cfls at random angles and have noticed a dramtic increase in growth under the top leaves. Below are the pics. The 1st are the stripped seeds and the 2nd pic has the same strain closest and the 2 spotted seed plants past that are growing taller then the stripped. And the 3rd pic is the new lighting. That entire shelf I have made so it can be removed and placed on the next rung so that I can have it at 3 different heights. The 4th pic is of the odorizer I got an idea from here and man does it work. So well in fact that I made one for my living room. Tell me what you think. Hows it look??

the chef · Sep 28, 2009

looks good, always wanted a cellar to do a grow. What strains ya growing? breakin out the vape for this one.

prosport00 · Oct 1, 2009

Lookin good there Freedom!! I have my 1st grow going about 2 weeks behind you and mine is also of unknown origin but seems to be going well. I have 400 MH with exhaust duct and fans. I thought best to do a bagseed grow to start. I just germed 2 northern lights and 2 kazar X afghan cross I am calling lazer tagged. I am going to follow along with this grow so keep the pics coming and good luck!

freedomiskey · Oct 3, 2009

prosport00 said:
Lookin good there Freedom!! I have my 1st grow going about 2 weeks behind you and mine is also of unknown origin but seems to be going well. I have 400 MH with exhaust duct and fans. I thought best to do a bagseed grow to start. I just germed 2 northern lights and 2 kazar X afghan cross I am calling lazer tagged. I am going to follow along with this grow so keep the pics coming and good luck!

right on man, hope all is well with your grow. I will have pictures up for week 5 tomorrow so check back.

freedomiskey · Dec 8, 2009

So everything has been going great since my last update. I have swapped over to all the fox farms flowering nutes. Beastie blooms and all that. Obviosly only one at a time with big bloom and tiger bloom the whole way through. I had some problems where my plants grew to tall for my shelf so you might see some string that I tied them over with. In the long run this really helped the lower flowering points to mature. The majority has been hanging in my dry rack for almost a week and a half and only a few have been pulled and trimmed and brown bagged. There are still about half the branches with buds they will be picked this weekend as the triches are just starting to cloud. When I psnipped all of the current the trices were everywhere and clear as the day is long. What a beautiful thing.. Tell me what yall think.
-Freedom

Pics info:
Pic 1 week 7, the flowering maddness begins
Pic 2 week 7, 3 of my ladies werent as tall as the other 2 so I had to improvise
Pic 3 week 7, THE MALE!!!! 1 out of % isn't bad in my book
Pic 4 week 7, more flowering maddness
Pic 5 week 7, so pretty, even as a baby
Pic 6 week 8, Flowering just the way I had dreamed
Pic 7 week 9, The same flower a week later, I think it just grew triches all week
Pic 8 week 10, One of my tops, getting there
Pic 9 week 12, one of my tops, 6" bud is awesome
Pic 10 week 13, It's about time for the snipping
Pic 11 week 14, This is the first piece I snipped off Such a beautiful thing..
Pic 12 week 14, this is the other strain. Still no idea of what these may be so any heplfull suggestions would be awesome.

Anyway, Hope you all like what I have done. Please give me feed back and in a week or so I will show off the manicured product..