A Medical Marijuana Patient firs growing attempt. Tips welcome!

[ZeroBuds]

Depending on where you live, it grows wild in the summer. Mine never looks quite like this, I think it's german chamomile, and the petals don't really show up.But you can tell, because if you squeeze the little button shaped flower center and sniff it, it smells kinda like a strawberry.View attachment 390369

Unfortunately I live in the damn Desert Southwest style enviroment so nothing grows here but cacti and Sage... <sigh> I really want to move to Oregon or somewhere on the east coast if I can find a MMJ friendly place that I can afford since it looks like my employer may end up forcing me into a medical retirement due to my injury and I will be on a fixed income of 1500 a month roughly plus whatever my wife makes if I can't get well enough to even hold a desk type job. Been 9 months though so I am losing hope.

Oh well, Can't dwell on that or it will bum me out too much (going from 70k a year to 1.5k a month will SUCK!)

At least if these grows I can smoke my blues away...
Zero

 

[ZeroBuds]

If they're loose, transplant when moist and see if that helps.Cinnamon is just for fungus, I sprinkle that on the top of the soil.I don't think it really has anything beneficial to add in regards to ph or anything. Loaded, would chamomile tea work in a pinch as long as it was organic?

Good Ideas Stoney! I will try that and nice point about the tea. I can get that at the grocer.

You are so smart.... kiss-ass LOL

Thanks again guys, your great!
Zero

 

[Stoney McFried]

That sucks, but don't despair.I've lived on less than that before, you can, too. Even in the desert, you can find plants good for something.Look what I found here.http://www.desertusa.com/mag03/sep/med.html

Unfortunately I live in the damn Desert Southwest style enviroment so nothing grows here but cacti and Sage... <sigh> I really want to move to Oregon or somewhere on the east coast if I can find a MMJ friendly place that I can afford since it looks like my employer may end up forcing me into a medical retirement due to my injury and I will be on a fixed income of 1500 a month roughly plus whatever my wife makes if I can't get well enough to even hold a desk type job. Been 9 months though so I am losing hope.

Oh well, Can't dwell on that or it will bum me out too much (going from 70k a year to 1.5k a month will SUCK!)

At least if these grows I can smoke my blues away...
Zero

Aww, shucks.I just have too much time on my hands.

Good Ideas Stoney! I will try that and nice point about the tea. I can get that at the grocer.

You are so smart.... kiss-ass LOL

Thanks again guys, your great!
Zero

 

[dirt clean]

I hear you on beating the rest of the pain with the oxys and I bet the morph. They start you on oxys. Good to see a fellow medical grower.

Nice choice for easy lights. If you got the room a tent will solve any heat issues you got.

If your plants are in pucks and sitting in an insert then you can move them anytime to dirt. No worries there. I have been just putting the puck in my soil then planting the soaked seed.

Nice RO system! I am envious. Make sure you remember that RO water likes the calcium and magnesium that the plants need. You can fix this several easy ways. There is Cal-Mag by botanicare. It is at every hydro shop. You can add epsom salts at I am trying to remember a tbsp a gallon for 3 of your plants watering. You can boil eggshells in ro water then add a mixture of about 10 boiled eggshells in a quart to 5 gallons of water. Boil for like 15 minutes I read. Or you can crush up like 10 eggshells and add them to the soil, like a topdress.

Roots is a good soil. Head over to the organic section and you will find what you need. If it has no Dolomite lime or any oh adjustment I would add a tbsp of dolomite powder per gallon or less. The stuff works good. If you are going to be using fish the ph will try and lower. If their is any lime in the mix forget it. If you ver have the ph get to high then use sulfur or ph adjusted water. I do this and everything is ok.

Remeber to keep the light as low as possible. Check out Victor Vicious grows as he uses t5 and swears by them. He is a big med grower too.

I am all organic soil. This is my second grow. Check out my journal. It has precious few readers, lol.

Also their is a lot about organics, like guano, like teas, like bacteria you are going to love. You wont need to feed in roots until the third node. It is good soil. Just water when the soil is dry 2 inchs down. Use your finger to check. I am enjoying writing this, sorry if I go on. Rofl, I am sure youknow the joys of pain meds and getting into a groove. If I missed anything let me know.

 

[ZeroBuds]

Thanks Dirt for all the useful info! Sorry it took so long for me to get back, between out of town Dr appts and trying to get caught up on a bunch of stuff I let slide for too long and next thing I knew it was a week since I checked the forums!

I am amazed by how much MMJ helps not just with reducing the pain and narcotic painkillers, but it also seems to help with "tolerating" the pain. I still fee it, it still hurts, but it is not the full focus of my attention when I use MMJ, which is a big deal with as long as it has been going on.

Ok, Now time for an update on my grow.

I never was a patient person, but I figured I would be as patient as possible and it turns out I may of been more patient then I needed to.

I read somewhere to grow the seedlings for 2 to 3 weeks before transplanting them so I waited like 19 days and may of caused a neutrient defiency in some of my plants that popped the earliest. I will enclose pics below.

I think its a neut problem because it seems to of affected the plants that had the fastest initial growth.

I transferred them on the 23 out of the germination tray and into 3 gallon pots (the 2 feminized and 2 largest non fem) and into smaller pots for the other 3 until i get the larger for them as well (unless they turn out to be male)

Couple a power failure and a cold snap and I woke up on the 23rd to some really sorry looking plants and one that was practically dead and very wilted that I ended up culling.

The power went out when a storm rolled in and I had the window cracked open because of the heat generated by the lamp. When the lamp went out the temps dropped to about 59 in the closet and the light was out for about 4-6 hours (plants are currently on a 24/0 schedule)

I got them back up to temp and had already soaked and drained the soil the day before since I was planning on transplantting them that afternoon anyway.

I used expanded clay pellets to form a small layer on the bottom of the buckets to aid in draining and filled it with the Roots Organics soil.

Most of them seem to be coming back pretty quickly and look ok I think except for the Gigabud and Purple lady that were grown with the Fem seeds. (they were the first to sprout and spent the longest time in the tray)

Can anyone tell me what to do about these? Shall I just give them a while to grow since they are already in this great soil or should I maybe give them a 1/4 dose of the fox farms?

What kind of deficency does it look like to you guys?

Thanks a bunch and sorry for the long delay on updating.

Zero

 

[ZeroBuds]

Here are some more pics. It only let me add 4 and then said something about a security token error so here are the rest.
Zero

Ooops, Never mind. I tried again and get them same error.

vBulletin Message

Your submission could not be processed because a security token was missing.

If this occurred unexpectedly, please inform the administrator and describe the action you performed before you received this error.
​

I will try to post them again later I guess.
Zero

 

[theloadeddragon]

Here are some more pics. It only let me add 4 and then said something about a security token error so here are the rest.
Zero

Ooops, Never mind. I tried again and get them same error.

vBulletin Message

Your submission could not be processed because a security token was missing.

If this occurred unexpectedly, please inform the administrator and describe the action you performed before you received this error.
​

I will try to post them again later I guess.
Zero

if it doesn't work again later tell a moderator.... other than that, we can all wait patiently.... for awhile

 

[Suka]

Nice Grow op you got going Zero.. theirs one thing that concerns me tho.. you are only going to need to veg for 3 weeks before you start flowering, and with those lights your not going to get much bud.. i would highly recommend you get yourself a HPS lamp for flowering.. and remember.. the plant will grow +- double in size when u switch to 12/12 by the time its ready to harvest so keep the space factor in mind.. don't be vegging to much..

 

[ZeroBuds]

Nice Grow op you got going Zero.. theirs one thing that concerns me tho.. you are only going to need to veg for 3 weeks before you start flowering, and with those lights your not going to get much bud.. i would highly recommend you get yourself a HPS lamp for flowering.. and remember.. the plant will grow +- double in size when u switch to 12/12 by the time its ready to harvest so keep the space factor in mind.. don't be vegging to much..

Cool, so should I just grow these for about another 2 weeks in veg then switch? I was planning on waiting till they showed pre-flowers before switching, should I not do that?

As far as changing the light to an HPS I would love to but dont have the money at this point, plus I wanted to do a total T-5 grow as an experiment.

I picked up separate 3K bulbs that are supposed to work well for flowering but if not I will use this light for a mother box later or something. I am optimistic though since I have heard of people getting decent results with T-5 only grows.

I know I could get much larger yields with an HPS/MH system but yield is not that huge of a concern since I am only providing for me. (although I don't want totally puny plants either.)

On an up note my buddy made it over and was able to help me get that fan and vent installed and its working wonders on controlling the heat!

I was having to leave the grow closet open and a fan in the window to suck out the heat and still hit high 80's a couple times. I hooked it up to that in-line thermostat and it just kicks on at 77 and off at 72 with the door closed and mylar is still up so I am stoked!

It is a little loud because the speedster fan controller I ordered has not show up yet (backorder) but it can barely be heard in the hallway outside the spare room as is so that should help enough whenever it shows up and not having to stress heat issues anymore is AWESOME!.

Thanks guys!
Zero

P.S. anyone able to identify the blotches on that plant?

 

[ZeroBuds]

Ok, they seem to be coming back, and the KC brains cristal paradise is looking like a micro bush, and after I talked all that smack about it, lol.

I think the Purple Lady and gigabud may be recovering but I would still like to know what those spots were a symptom of in case it rears its ugly head again.

One of the Double Gum plants looks like it is showing sex, 2 little points sticking out. I will take more pics tomorrow and hopefully it will show in a more pronounced manner after another day under the lights.

Thanks for all your help guys and please keep any suggestions coming, not just for me but for other MMJ patients as well.

Talk to you guys later and happy growing!
Zero

 

[ZeroBuds]

Ok guys, after a long hiatus here is an update on where I am at with my grow so far.

Last week I took some pictures but didn't get them up and I took more last night right before switching to flower mode so here they are below!

I think I may have a magnesium or a phosphate deficiency because I was only using 1/4 neuts the first couple times because my soil already has some in it but I think they are ready for a full dose So I watered them with the fox farms on the week 3 schedule with 2tsp/gal of Cal-mag too since I am using RO water.

The only other thing I could think may be going on is normal die off of the old leaves maybe? What do I know, I am a rookie from hell just trying hard not to kill off my plants.

These photos were taken right before watering, so they are a little dry.

Speaking of dry, I have a very difficult time getting the humidity in my grow area above 24% at best, usually 22.... Is that going to cause problems? I heard that its bad, but I also heard that low humidity is fine so long as you water the plants properly. Which is true?

Let me know what you guys think may be up with my plants if you can!

Thanks all!

Zero