First Grow, an Evolving Effort

[statik]

See, nice to get that all down so you actually take a look at what you have going on...almost from an outside perspective. Anyway, as far as the whole mother plant thing goes...

If I were you I would stick with the original plan of two LST plants in that space. You have very little room as it is. Now if you want to build a second stealth dresser...I say go for it! That way you can have the LST mom, fit some clones in there with her (in veg)...and have the other dresser (cab) for flowering/lst'ing rooted clones. You could have a mini perpetual on your hands.

Be kind of cool to see.

The rest of your planning sounds decent man. Keep the research and attention up on those plants, just dont OVER love them and you will be fine.

 

[Johan Liebert]

If I were you I would stick with the original plan of two LST plants in that space. You have very little room as it is. Now if you want to build a second stealth dresser...I say go for it! That way you can have the LST mom, fit some clones in there with her (in veg)...and have the other dresser (cab) for flowering/lst'ing rooted clones. You could have a mini perpetual on your hands.

I have a mini fridge which became infested with filth the likes of which I can hardly bear to speak. I took it out, cleaned it, and have not yet decided what to do with it. Although it's nice to have something like that, if it is now broken due to all the mess it's been through, I will turn it into a second cabinet (pending ease of DIY) and try to get the dual set up for perpetual growth. If it is still usable, I will reinstall it in my room and look at other options for a second box.

Thanks for the input and guidance. I lost track of the SD card which had some new photos, so it might be a minute before I can give a more reasonable update.

I bought a massive jug (3 or 4x as big as the one at the pet store) for $5.99 at Meijer. Epic win. However, they were sold out of the necessary sizes and shape of pencil cup needed to make the filter, so that will have to wait.

 

[Johan Liebert]

In one of these, you can see where my roomie ker-smashed one of the leaves on #...4 I want to say. Its partner leaf continues to grow, but the broken one seems to be stuck trying to regenerate or something.

 

[Johan Liebert]

If my father were alive, and not horrified of pot, he would be most proud of my craftsmanship. I'm doing pretty good for a guy who never took shop.

I've captioned the pictures that need captioning. So as not to waste a post, I'll get on to my next update. Included are some family snapshots of the children. I can no longer call them babies.

On using my mini-fridge as a grow box: This is simply not going to happen. The work needed to be put into one of these is too far beyond me. However, my roomie suggested that we go to a thrift shop and look for a cheap dresser. Craigslist may also be an option.

I have been reading about LST and trying to determine sex early. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the impression I get: I can wait until they are established (about 4 nodes) and begin a 12/12 cycle for just a week to get sexual traits to appear. Then, if I'm not mistaken, I can put them back to 16/8 and retain vegetation, after exposing my males and choosing my ladies?

It seems like a catch-22 that LST can begin as early as the 3rd node, but that I would not want to waste time LST'ing all the plants until I know their sex, but then I need to clarify the details of getting them to show sex without fully instigating flowering.

I'm so confused. And high.

 

[Johan Liebert]

Just checking in. While browsing the FAQ section I stumbled across a piece on light that gave me better perspective on whether or not I was maximizing my light usage--I wasn't. So, in what I consider a delicious twist of irony, I took all of my brainwashed Repub-literature from high school and used it to make stacks. I've got marijuana growing on top of Sean Hannity.

Just last night the first 5-piece leaves started to pop up. I'm sure by morning they'll be horizontal. I will remember this day for a long time.

No I won't. I'm baked.

Anyhow, I also decided that for the sake of my own knowledge (as I hope to someday breed as a hobby in the eutopia of my imagination where America finally legalizes it) I want to keep detailed records and profiles of the plants. Either tonight or tomorrow I'm going to start writing uniform profiles and keep them up to date. I'm also going to clean off some jars soon from the garage to store and mark seeds so that I can continue to keep around the bag seed strains I really like (for every 3 bags of crap schwag I get, he'll send one my way that fucks my world up).

Speaking of my dealer, he told me he'd hook me up with some take-root gel. That's pretty great. Hopefully I can play around with cloning in the near future. There are so many techniques I want to try. LST, fimming, topping, cloning, I could just get lost in the growing of this plant.

 

[Johan Liebert]

Last night (apparently) I went in and opened the rear hatch on the dresser (which sounds awesome) to do that re-arranging and put the conservative literature in there. Well, I noticed a big problem. The dresser itself has no floor to speak of. So the floor on which the plants and books are resting is about a quarter-inch thin. It's bending under the heavy stress of print, pot, moist soil and plant life. Try as hard and high as I could, I did not find a permanent solution. I am considering taking another piece of wood and mounting it onto the lower back fixture (connecting the left and right sides of the dresser in the back) so that the particleboard has a place to rest. For now, my Dreamcast stash box is underneath, supporting just a little bit...but it can't move when I need to twist and turn the dresser to operate on it, so I've got to think of something soon.

Whatever I do next will result in the sealing of the dresser at every possible opening in anticipation of the smell-proofing and ventilation being applied later. So, hopefully in the next few days I can whip myself up a plan on exactly how to make this dresser a solid, enclosed, permanent box.

ALSO

I need an opinion here. I am growing 7 plants right now, but as has been discussed in this journal, I don't have room enough for more than two 10" pots. Two plants are already starting to grow in ways I have not yet seen so far (looks like leaves are forming near the nodes, possibly signs of more branches to come I'm assuming) so I know they will be contestants for the final 2. Then I got to thinking about the number 2. There is no way I need 7 plants in order to just pick 2. I mean, the odds are 50-50 that they will be ladies, so wouldn't 4-5 really be the maximum I should be growing? I'm pretty sure unless someone gives me a great reason to let those things get any bigger, I'm going to remove the youngest ones for the sake of space, efficiency, and proper distribution of resources.

Which leads me to another question: I know that light has properties of both matter and wave form, and because of its matter properties, it is essentially something finite, right? So, then, if I went from 7 plants to 4, would the 4 plants inside the box be absorbing more light because it's not being taken by other plants?

 

[statik]

Last night (apparently) I went in and opened the rear hatch on the dresser (which sounds awesome) to do that re-arranging and put the conservative literature in there. Well, I noticed a big problem. The dresser itself has no floor to speak of. So the floor on which the plants and books are resting is about a quarter-inch thin. It's bending under the heavy stress of print, pot, moist soil and plant life. Try as hard and high as I could, I did not find a permanent solution. I am considering taking another piece of wood and mounting it onto the lower back fixture (connecting the left and right sides of the dresser in the back) so that the particleboard has a place to rest. For now, my Dreamcast stash box is underneath, supporting just a little bit...but it can't move when I need to twist and turn the dresser to operate on it, so I've got to think of something soon.

Try building a support system under the drawer. Some 2x4 should do wonders. I would go with an X pattern. It just seems like it would hold best to me. If the 2x4 isn't tall enough get some ply wood and nail the 2x4 to that to raise it up a bit.

OR, screw using the drawer bottom for a floor and remove that..then build a floor for the dresser. You would be able to drop your plants down a little bit further (in theory).

I need an opinion here. I am growing 7 plants right now, but as has been discussed in this journal, I don't have room enough for more than two 10" pots. Two plants are already starting to grow in ways I have not yet seen so far (looks like leaves are forming near the nodes, possibly signs of more branches to come I'm assuming) so I know they will be contestants for the final 2. Then I got to thinking about the number 2. There is no way I need 7 plants in order to just pick 2. I mean, the odds are 50-50 that they will be ladies, so wouldn't 4-5 really be the maximum I should be growing? I'm pretty sure unless someone gives me a great reason to let those things get any bigger, I'm going to remove the youngest ones for the sake of space, efficiency, and proper distribution of resources.

Keep as many as you can for as long as you can. Very often the plants that seem to be thriving the best turn out to be boys.

Not only that, but what if something goes wrong and one or two die on you?

When you start losing room and HAVE to cull out plants, then do so. This is yoiur grow though, and if you feel it would be best to toss a couple out now then by all means do so.

Which leads me to another question: I know that light has properties of both matter and wave form, and because of its matter properties, it is essentially something finite, right? So, then, if I went from 7 plants to 4, would the 4 plants inside the box be absorbing more light because it's not being taken by other plants?

Essentially yes. There is less crowding, so plants have more room to spread out and absorb more light through the leaves surface. Other than that...I have no clue man.

 

[Johan Liebert]

Wrote these up last night.

Plant Profiles

#1 – Of the first 3 bag seeds I planted, #1 was the first to pop from the soil. Obviously. It resides in the biggest pot of the bunch, which may explain why it has raced ahead in its development. As you can see in the picture, the first 5-piece leaves are starting to come out. It also has an increasingly thick and strong-looking stalk. #1 makes me nervous, because as it is my first plant, and the biggest, I am worried about it being a male. Only time will tell.

#2 – #2 continues to play a close race with #1. It is of a slightly smaller size, but it is a few days behind in development compared to its older [hopefully] sister. Its leaves are very smooth and even, and the color is great. I have high hopes for #2.

#3 – This is the plant which suffered the falling brick, and you can see it in the pictures. It seems to have stunted not only the growth of that leaf, but the plant as a whole. My girlfriend nicknamed it “Nemo” like the fish in the Pixar movie with the fucked up flipper.

#4 – As of right now, there isn't much to report on #4. It is just beginning to create its first 3-leaf sets.

#5 – This is an experimental plant, in a sense. While #'s 4 and 5 were planted at the same time, one has been buried up to the foliage and the other has not. This is mostly for curiosity's sake.

#6 and #7 – These were planted at the same time, in a pot and cup respectively. Currently nothing to report. They are still too young.

 

[statik]

Wrote these up last night.

Plant Profiles

#1 – Of the first 3 bag seeds I planted, #1 was the first to pop from the soil. Obviously. It resides in the biggest pot of the bunch, which may explain why it has raced ahead in its development. As you can see in the picture, the first 5-piece leaves are starting to come out. It also has an increasingly thick and strong-looking stalk. #1 makes me nervous, because as it is my first plant, and the biggest, I am worried about it being a male. Only time will tell.

#2 – #2 continues to play a close race with #1. It is of a slightly smaller size, but it is a few days behind in development compared to its older [hopefully] sister. Its leaves are very smooth and even, and the color is great. I have high hopes for #2.

#3 – This is the plant which suffered the falling brick, and you can see it in the pictures. It seems to have stunted not only the growth of that leaf, but the plant as a whole. My girlfriend nicknamed it “Nemo” like the fish in the Pixar movie with the fucked up flipper.

#4 – As of right now, there isn't much to report on #4. It is just beginning to create its first 3-leaf sets.

#5 – This is an experimental plant, in a sense. While #'s 4 and 5 were planted at the same time, one has been buried up to the foliage and the other has not. This is mostly for curiosity's sake.

#6 and #7 – These were planted at the same time, in a pot and cup respectively. Currently nothing to report. They are still too young.

Right on man. Keeping notes on plants is always a good idea IMHO. I started to do that when I had nearly 50 plants and about 20 of them were showing different def's. It was the only way I could keep track of what was going on with each plant.

When you rotate your plants to keep an even canopy...you lose track of things sometimes.

Don't let #1 scare you. If it's a male it's a male. If it's a girl then all the better. You'll get used to the idea of tossing the males. Took me about 20 minutes to kill my first one...besides the newly forming pollen sacs (ewww) it was a beautiful plant.

Give "Nemo" some time. Just having a "what the hell man? That hurt!" moment. It will take off again soon.

On a side note, lets get some terminology down. "Five piece leaves."

The blades on cannabis leaves are called fingers. Each new node of leaf growth is called a "Set". Right on, pushing its first set of five finger leaves.

Sorry, the way you put it just sounds funny to me.

Keep a growin, they look decently happy.

 

[Johan Liebert]

Terms learned

Just checked the kids this morning. Looking fine. I should note that for the past week and a half I've been experimenting with 24/0 veg lighting. Although I don't know how it has changed the growth of the plants since I don't have another grow space as a control box, I have been ready to switch back to 16/8 if anything seems to be going funny, but so far, everything seems to be flourishing.

I want to learn the sex in the next couple of weeks because they're getting bigger...that and I saw that LST is good to start between the third and fifth nodes, and I can already feel the stems starting to thicken and harden on some of these plants. I'm trying very hard to fight my urge to rush ahead, but with my setup I'm worried about the plants getting too big and hogging light from one another.

Thoughts?

 

[Johan Liebert]

Went out today and bought two 80mm PC fans from Best Buy. Saw that one can run 2 fans from 1 power source, so I spliced both of them onto a DC 12v adapter. Only one wound up turning on, so I imagine there aren't enough mAmps. I'll rig up a second power source (or find a stronger one) but for now, one running fan at least lowers the temp in the case. I already taped up the filter on the exhaust so all we have to do now is get that bitch spinning : )

 

[Johan Liebert]

Ooh, one other piece of news. While installing the fans, the shoddy preparation of the dresser by yours truly led to the light fixture falling down and flipping the two party cup plants, #5 and #7. They both seem crooked at right angles despite my best efforts to gently reset them. If these two don't make it, I won't lose too much sleep...they were the ones I was considering removing anyhow.

Noob lesson learned: Make sure everything is tight. If it rattles, it is bad news.

 

[HashMash]

Hey man nice grow, gotta love that cfl and bagseed. I've heard of people switching to 12 12 and then switching back but i've also heard others say this can increase your chance with hermis. I've never tried it myself but it could be an interesting experiment for your first grow.

 

[Johan Liebert]

Performed some work tonight. I rigged the second fan (exhaust, with carbon filter attached) up to a power supply, and now both intake and output are running smoothly. Never one just go to bed, I decided to get back to work. I stabilized the bottom board on which the plants rest, and began taping up edges and corners for smell and light control.

I noticed #1 went from two 3-finger sets directly to 7-finger sets. However, #2 and #4 went from 3 to five, and I believe are forming another 5. Anything that could explain this? Difference in strain? Difference in root space (#1 is in a bigger pot and has a considerably thicker stem). Maybe a gender indicator? Just trying to learn growth patterns

 

[statik]

Performed some work tonight. I rigged the second fan (exhaust, with carbon filter attached) up to a power supply, and now both intake and output are running smoothly. Never one just go to bed, I decided to get back to work. I stabilized the bottom board on which the plants rest, and began taping up edges and corners for smell and light control.

I noticed #1 went from two 3-finger sets directly to 7-finger sets. However, #2 and #4 went from 3 to five, and I believe are forming another 5. Anything that could explain this? Difference in strain? Difference in root space (#1 is in a bigger pot and has a considerably thicker stem). Maybe a gender indicator? Just trying to learn growth patterns

You may want to ask some of the guys over in the advanced cultivation section of the forum about the growth pattern there. Maybe someone there can give you an answer.

 

[Johan Liebert]

According to the fellas in the pro techniques board, finger count is meaningless. I'm still taking a mental note because it does strike my as odd that seeds from the same bag would behave differently like this. Maybe I'll discover something years down the road, or maybe I can be like Johannes Kepler and just keep going on about some theory of mine which doesn't work in the slightest until I die.

Plants are looking great today. Fed them some water yesterday when I noticed the soil around the edges of the pots were starting to recede (damn that's dry!). Today they're no longer slumping...back up and healthy, reaching for those lights.

I did notice one other thing last night when I got baked and stared intently at my plants for like 20 minutes straight: #3 (Nemo) is an incredibly short plant! What must be a result of that early shock of being hit with a brick led to more stout growth--far more growth than I gave it credit for. While other 3-node plants buried past their cotyledons are up to like 6 inches or so, Nemo has the same amount of nodes in maybe half the height or less. The newest growth area really resembles a trident. For the sake of its small stature I hope it's a she so that it can be a candidate for further growing. Time will tell.

 

[statik]

Nemo has tight node spacing...go little gimpy plant.

Actually thats not surprising. Have you looked into "super cropping" techniques yet? It's the practice of bruising fluid tissues in the plant and when they heal there are more pathways for fluids/food to pass through. Thus resulting in a stronger plant.

That's just a rough break down of the concept though. By no means is it a guide...lmao.

 

[Johan Liebert]

You said just jab and pull and cut wherever I feel like, right? Great guide, bruh, my plants are dead!

I'll definitely read into super cropping. I was thinking about testing out topping hand with some of the smaller "eh..." plants. Only thing is, since the two I would experiment on got bashed when the light fixture fell, they're probably not strong enough to get hacked away at just yet.

 

[Johan Liebert]

Just wrapped up using white Duck duct tape to seal up the cab. I'll get pics up soon. Maybe the white inside will add a tiny bit more reflection, but regardless, I'm almost stink-ready as far as odor control. My only issue now is keeping the door sealed up. I considered velcro but that seems like a poor way to contain the smell. Maybe I can just wander up to Home Depot and see what kind of latches they have. A simple hook and eye would probably work if I rigged them up in the right places and kept them mighty tight.

 

[Johan Liebert]

I read that gender can first be identified at or after the fourth node, so I went out and bought a magnifying glass. I love the new close-up perspective on my children