Rookie Grower fot shits and giggles

[OBIWANdza]

Ok first off I want to preface by saying more than anything I simply enjoy marijuana, this is my 1st attempt at growing and I am not doing it for a profit or for a large yield, simply for the experience....the ability to say "yea, i tried growing it and it worked out pretty good (or not so good). Anyways, I started out with a couple bag seeds.

Like i said in the title, Im growing mostly for shits and giggles, so ive not invested a lot of money (hardly any) into a grow room or lights or anything that most of you guys are using.

Honestly i dont know anything about my lights, i know i fert with Miracle Grow (forgot the NPK values, but I know for certain that they are correct for vegging) im watering with tap water basically, cant tell anything about the pH of the soil....

I know it sounds like "this fucker is trying to build a house with no foundation!" I get that but I dont live in a Cannibis friendly state at the moment so im looking to take as small of a loss as possible if i have scrap the operation.

Moving on....initially i had 2 seeds hoping I'd get at least 1 female, I germinated them using the paper towel in a ziplock baggie in a dark closet, both seeds sprouted in less than 24 hours...from here i moved them into the pot, posted in my pictures. Right out of the gate i noticed one seedling took off very well and the other, not so well.....plant A was growing rapidly had 2 sets of rough leaves before plant B began growing its 1st set. Plant A was growing pretty rapid had a nice sturdy stalk, just overall ideal growth, whereas plant B was a slow growing runt.

Needless to say after a series of unfortunate events plant B is no longer with us today, lol, however plant A is still going strong, giving me hope that it is going to be a femme (i know nothing i said can determine that this far, just my optimistic thinking)

As stated previously I dont know much about my lights except im running them 18/6 manually (im a vampire so its simple turn them on in the morning and off b4 i crash).
I know, mostly because I am not using the correct light that im experiencing slower than normal growth. Have been growing a little over a month now, not a concern like i said im in no rush to get a yield, i rather buy smoke-ready anyways lol

in the first pic you can see I was attacked by some pest, not sure wat it was but it ate a large portion of about 2 leaves, got that handled an since have not had a problem with bugs....

also ive topped once about a week ago, and i know i can top again, please let me know if you guys think i should wait before topping again or would it be safe to top now?

Tell me what you guys think thus far based on info ive given and the pics posted below. please dont bash or tell me im wasting my time because You Learn By Doing, and i feel like to be a true connoisseur your have to get your feet wet in all aspects....so even if the plant craps out on me and dies ive tried my thumb at being green!



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[jman23]

besides being a lil strechd it looks better then some of the people ive seen how close is your light and is it a cfl do you know if it is keep it 1 to 2 inchs away and it will help to get tighter nodes

 

[Warlock1369]

Going good for first grow. You got some stretch going on. Lights might be to high. Add more soil to the pot. Then when you move to another pot have the soil about 3 inchs from bottom leaves. Give it another week before you top. And hope you have a fan blowing on it. Stock looks weak. And for now turning on and off the light will work but when you flower use a timer. It is realy important to get 12/12.

 

[jpockets420]

Looks good for a first grow, leaves are nice and green. Like the above users said..keep the light close, a couple inches from the top will work. I would transplant into a bigger pot like a 1 or 3 gallon pot. You will see it take off after that. As for the timer...its nice to have one but I like to make sure nothing gets bumped or if the timer fails I wouldnt know if it failed until it was too late so I use a timer on my cellphone and have a warning time of 5 minutes that way I know that my lights are going on and off. Keep up the good growing!

 

[OBIWANdza]

besides being a lil strechd it looks better then some of the people ive seen how close is your light and is it a cfl do you know if it is keep it 1 to 2 inchs away and it will help to get tighter nodes

my light is a basic floro tube over my kitchen sink lol.....pretty bright, lights up the front half of my house when on (i know brightness is only part of it, im not sure of the color spectrum) and im about 5-6 inches away, afraid i would burn it if i tried to get any closer.

and as of right now i dont have a fan blowing on it....guess i'll look into that as well

 

[jman23]

yeah your gonna need a fan or its just gonna fall over when it gets bigger if its a tube you should be able to get it rite on top of the plant without worrying about burning but if that what you plan on flowering with you would prob be able to pick off a few preflowers to smoke not gonna get really anything with that light

 

[OBIWANdza]

yeah your gonna need a fan or its just gonna fall over when it gets bigger if its a tube you should be able to get it rite on top of the plant without worrying about burning but if that what you plan on flowering with you would prob be able to pick off a few preflowers to smoke not gonna get really anything with that light

cool ill get a fan asap..and yea i was looking into getting a different light for flowering, im gonna see if i can get pics of my lights just to show u guys what ive been using and to get suggestions on better lights. but so far would u say that ive got a decent light for vegging?

 

[jman23]

seems to be doing the job well just make sure to get it closer to tighten things up and for not having a fan you stem looks better then some ive seen with fans on them your doing something right

 

[jman23]

o and if just that one plant just get pack of 23 watt daylight bulbs and use it with what you got should get you through veg but for flower your gonna need alot more

 

[OBIWANdza]

o and if just that one plant just get pack of 23 watt daylight bulbs and use it with what you got should get you through veg but for flower your gonna need alot more

lol light talk is foreign language to me lol this is probably the most confusing part about growing simply because the fert, light cycle (xx on/xx off) is pretty much basic biology u gotta feed (fert ur plant) and tell it wen to work n sleep (light cycle) as far as the spectrum i know lights emit certain colors that the eye cant see but the plant can, and i also know that the plant uses certain colors from light and reflects other colors (like green) from light

once i get pics of my lights up ill look into suggestions on what bulbs to use and when to use them

most of wat i have applied to growing is what i retained from high school bio classes paired with a moderate amount of forum browsing and youtube research and the such. im different from most because i look at every thing as a learning experience, ive never grown so i know i know didleysquat about how to do it right, thus i take heed to all the advice given to me and im not affraid to ask question. lol that being said please explain lights to me in laments terms

 

[Coho]

You canbury that stem some. It will pop more roots.

 

[OBIWANdza]

You canbury that stem some. It will pop more roots.

Yea im gonna go get more dirt this week, and a bigger pot, ive gone more seeds that i found that im pretty certain are mid grade seeds.....would it hurt to grow them with the 1 i have now? This plant came from a sour diesel sak i bought got lucky n found 2 seeds

 

[smokersteve]

Like the guy on first page said get some cfl's (the spiral ones). So if you do have to end your grow for whatever reason, you can simply use them as lightbulbs u put into a lamp. There the energy efficent ones

 

[OBIWANdza]

ok so ive been busy working and havent had time to update my post, again im doing this for shits and giggles as the title suggests (or should have suggested lol) since my last post i found moved my baby from the kitchen window into a spare closet.

i have since found out i was vegging under 2- 13w flouro tubes that gave off 870 lumens each so basically vegged under 26 watts with 1740 lumens

following ur suggestions from earlier on ive since moved my baby to a larger pot, added more dirt and grabbed a couple of cfls, and a timer to aid in flowering

so to bring u guys up to date:

im now running a set up in my spare closet (pics below)

my 1 plant (test plant from bag seed, no idea if its a male or femme but soon expecting to find out) under two 100w cfls (the actual wattage isnt 100w but the package says 100w replacement, same brand as the pic only i saw the brighter bulbs after i snapped the pic) about 2-2.5 inches from the light with an automatic time set for 12 on/12 off (still vegging until i am 100% clear on how to start the flowering stage)

now im growing in a 1 or 2 gallon pot, cant remember, using perlite soil that feeds up for up to 3 months, i did not add any extra fert to the soil initially, for the first 2 or 3 weeks, however i received a sample of veg+bloom that i added to my water, used for the first time today.

feel free to take a look at the pics and give some positive criticism and pointers.....please dnt nag me because i rigged a set up and didnt go buy a 400$ grow tent for my 1st grow that i wasnt even certain would work out.

i like to make trial and error runs with what i have so when i do decide to invest my money i know it wont be a total waste of hundreds to thousands of dollars....again i am not expecting to get an extravagant yield or even the most potent bud, but i do want to get a few smokeable buds that give me a decent high that dont taste like camel ass or miraclegrow lol (ive bought trees that have tasted like both on occassion lol)

<--bulb i was using <--similar to what im using now





anyways my ears are open and im ready to take some notes

ps sorry pics are sideways, thats how they uploaded, not sure how to rotate them

 

[Coho]

No pics..says invalid

 

[OBIWANdza]

No pics..says invalid

i did get the pics corrected finally, however walmart was out of outlet converters that change wall outlets into light bulb sockets, so i havent been able to add the additional lights

but i do have a question about lights.....i know for vegging i was to use some sort of daylight light, and for flowering i was to use a warm light around 2700K the packaging from 2 of my bulbs say 2550K and the other 2 are 2700K the 2550K are a little brighter but the 2700K gets a little hotter....is one of these better to use than the other or can i use both the 2700 and 2550 together for flowering?

 

[OBIWANdza]

Bump somebody got answers !

 

[OBIWANdza]

<-- my current light set up 4 100w replacement cfl's (2 of the cfls are 2550K and the other 2 are 2700K, all four are warm lights)
<-- sprouted 3 more bag seeds today, not sure what these are, found them in my junk drawer, they could be years old but they germed well and ive got3 more that havent sprouted as of yet, so i will be adding those to the grow if/when they decided to sprout.

any pointers or tips so far?

 

[dc4]

Don't knwo how much space you have but if not alot then you could just start 12/12 now on all the plants?
If you have space, def let them all veg, put the lights close to the biggest one, and put the smaller plants on some books or something so they're the same level and don't stretch. All looks good. Alot better than what is usually on newbie central

 

[RollupRick]

9/10 people who grow start out kidding themselves that they're just going to experiment and see if they can. Its not long before it becomes obsessive, and you get so into it next thing you know you're pumping out epic grows