1 week without water or anything?

Hello! It's my second grow but my last one was over 10 years ago! Anyway I was gifted 3 plants almost 3 weeks ago today and I'm a bit worried because I've only watered once and they drooped a bit for a few hours when I did (looked overwatered). They seem ok for now but I’m wondering if this is gonna cause problems down the road? I realize it’s a drainage issue but the plants don’t seem to be dying... idk I’m still new. The soils never been ‘bone dry’ but hasn’t been sopping wet either. Instead fairly damp if I stick my finger in it about an inch.

^^^this pic is of last week it barely started recovering from its transplant (it had been severely dropping for 4 days) I watered her about a day after I took this pic

This is one week later July 9. Nearly a whole week without a drop.

So to recap, got them june28 (fri) waited til July 2nd to water even thou soil was kinda damp, noticed the drooping and haven’t watered since...
Do I need to transplant again? When I did water them, barely any water came out the bottom.
Ty for any help!

they don't need transplanting, the pots way big enough but in saying that more perlite would help.
I always suggest people buy a digital water meter, takes the guess work out of watering

Lucky Luke said:

they don't need transplanting, the pots way big enough but in saying that more perlite would help.
I always suggest people buy a digital water meter, takes the guess work out of watering

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whew, i was hoping I didnt have to. It's wasn't so much for a bigger pot, but because these babies started outside in the ground. The grower was already at his plant limit and gave them to me. Took his shovel scooped 'em up and plopped in there, covered with miracle grow soil on the top and watered heavily! So its got a bottom layer of dirt, top layer (about 3 inches or more) of bagged soil.
I know generally taking them from outside to inside a 2x6x8 closet with a blurple probably isnt ideal but its all i got :/
ty for the quick response!

Boofyblitzd said:

whew, i was hoping I didnt have to. It's wasn't so much for a bigger pot, but because these babies started outside in the ground. The grower was already at his plant limit and gave them to me. Took his shovel scooped 'em up and plopped in there, covered with miracle grow soil on the top and watered heavily! So its got a bottom layer of dirt, top layer (about 3 inches or more) of bagged soil.
I know generally taking them from outside to inside a 2x6x8 closet with a blurple probably isnt ideal but its all i got :/
ty for the quick respose!

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if u have a layer of dirt in the bottom then yes id transplant. Just tip the contents of the pot in a bucket or barrow and give it a good mix around, add some perlite if u can and then back into the same pots. Give em a top and a maybe some training and back under lights.

Lucky Luke said:

if u have a layer of dirt in the bottom then yes id transplant. Just tip the contents of the pot in a bucket or barrow and give it a good mix around, add some perlite if u can and then back into the same pots. Give em a top and a maybe some training and back under lights.

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Much appreciated. I haven't done a transplant like this, any tips? Im mainly worried about the roots...she had a run in with a caterpillar and seem to struggle with the first transplant home.

Boofyblitzd said:

Much appreciated. I haven't done a transplant like this, any tips? Im mainly worried about the roots...she had a run in with a caterpillar and seem to struggle with the first transplant home.

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roll the pot to loosen the soil. Hold the base of the plant in between ur fingers and tip upside down, give it a shake if needed. Nothing to it really and something that you will have to get used to if ur going to be growing. Not much can hurt cannabis plants so don't stress to much.

Ty so much

...and consider fabric pots in future... for their drainage benefits.

I don't grow in plastic pots as i've had horrible first experience with um. not only that though but because i have to deal with heat issues i try to get as much air circulation as possible with what i can and since i can't run much fans/an ac unit i opted for fabric pots. i personally do not add extra perlite into my mixes at first i used FFOF, then Roots Organic, now im sticking to Pro Mix HP. FFOF imo was the 2nd best i tried so far only thing it lacked was some perlite. Roots organic same issue but i kept getting fungas gnat issues with that brand.

your pot looks like it has very little perlite i'd add some. Idk about the dirt issue on the bottom so i can't give my advice on that.

as far as Luke said it's as simple as that. If you ever transplanted from say a solo cup it's the exact same way but with a bigger pot. if the pot/plant is too big/heavy get help. the roots can handle it. i transplant extremely early to the point the roots are not even established yet and this causes transplanting issues since the soil is loose and so when the soil falls right out it can tug on the roots and break them off. plants still do fine. People do cut them up and rough them up intentionally i don't remember exactly why but i believe they usually do this to root bound plants. if you check out some bonsai grows they do the exact same thing and it's nothing different in this hobby.

TintEastwood I've looked into them and was thinking about doing that with this transplant... need to get some first
Lethidox Luckily my temps don't go above 81F, and thanks for the reassurance about the roots! I'll update when its done

As a side note I fimmed the one in the pic above last night... so I might wait a bit? Just in case too much stress

Boofyblitzd said:

TintEastwood I've looked into them and was thinking about doing that with this transplant... need to get some first
Lethidox Luckily my temps don't go above 81F, and thanks for the reassurance about the roots! I'll update when its done

As a side note I fimmed the one in the pic above last night... so I might wait a bit? Just in case too much stress

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lucky my tent this summer is hitting fucking 90F lmfao. i usually hit about 86F though. idk about the transplanting after fimming thing i usually top then transplant in the same day but with my current grow i topped then waited a few days then i transplanted. seems to be doing best out of my other methods so far though.

plastic pots work fine i would suggest mixing in more perlite with your soil next time see where that goes if still have an issue buy fabric pots or make your own. What you can also try and do idk if this works with plastic pots is buy pot elevators. they are just these little plastic discs that go into your drip tray and raises the pot off the drip tray. supposedly allows more air flow to get to the bottom. since your using a plastic pot idk how well this would work though. you could also drill holes in your plastic pots as well make a ghetto air pot. idk how well that works but the air pots on the market people say they work better then fabric pots. idk if that is just opinion based or what.

I went ahead and decided to transplant into smart pots and when I did this is what was under there

hard as a rock under the surface

I ended up just ploppin it in the smart pot and filled with FF Ocean around the sides... I didnt water it thou

Boofyblitzd said:

I went ahead and decided to transplant into smart pots and when I did this is what was under there

hard as a rock under the surface

I ended up just ploppin it in the smart pot and filled with FF Ocean around the sides I didnt water it thou

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yea that is your issue bro that shit looks nasty. if i were you i would personally break that shit up toss it in the trash and fill with FFOF. idk how you'd do that safely to not destroy as much roots nor would i know what would happen as an end result but to me that thing looks like mud that dried up and got hard as a brick

Lethidox said:

yea that is your issue bro that shit looks nasty. if i were you i would personally break that shit up toss it in the trash and fill with FFOF. idk how you'd do that safely to not destroy as much roots nor would i know what would happen as an end result but to me that thing looks like mud that dried up and got hard as a brick

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Yea me either... when I saw how hard it was I kinda panicked and just put it in the 7g fabric pot and filled in the sides. I don’t own a garden hose and don’t really want to be outside with it in my neighborhood lol

Edit: the one I transplanted was the plant in the background of the other pics the fimmed one is still in the plastic

Boofyblitzd said:

Yea me either... when I saw how hard it was I kinda panicked and just put it in the 7g fabric pot and filled in the sides. I don’t own a garden hose and don’t really want to be outside with it in my neighborhood lol

Edit: the one I transplanted was the plant in the background of the other pics the fimmed one is still in the plastic

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you just got to remember health roots and soil plays a huge role in growing as well.

So an update;



They’re both in fabric pots now but I chickened out and didn’t fully remove all of the solid mud rock stuff in the roots
As a result I watered once more (last Saturday?) very modest amount just to see if they’d perk up, and they did for a while but now they’re back to this

Droopy and drowning probably, it’s Tuesday now and the soil just under an inch next to the main stock is still very damp...
I’m going to atempt to remove it much better this time, but does anyone have a suggestion how I’d even start? Should I wet it and gently handle the roots til they’re clean? Wait til it’s dry again? I’m at a loss

if those were my plants i'd just say fuck remove the mud clump out the pot take a hammer smash that shit open and remove as much mud as i could without further damaging the roots. i figure at this rate your better off doing some damage to the root zone versus continue growing it in that mud brick.

I did it. Man it felt awful. I filled up a 5g bucket of lukewarm tap water from the tub pick up the clump of mud it was easy as it was all still molded together and like dunked the ball with both hands woulda take pics of the roots but my hands were full :/ this was the aftermath in the bucket

A complete slop of mud

And even a stick!
It all melted away I could feel cool water between my fingers as I massaged the roots gently
(Must’ve been the water from Saturday)
My poor baby’s I’ll let you know if they survive :/

Boofyblitzd said:

I did it. Man it felt awful. I filled up a 5g bucket of lukewarm tap water from the tub pick up the clump of mud it was easy as it was all still molded together and like dunked the ball with both hands woulda take pics of the roots but my hands were full :/ this was the aftermath in the bucket

A complete slop of mud

And even a stick!
It all melted away I could feel cool water between my fingers as I massaged the roots gently
(Must’ve been the water from Saturday)
My poor baby’s I’ll let you know if they survive :/

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They’ll be fine. Give them a bit of time. Don’t overwater. Any transplant you should break up the hardened mass under the plant. Spread the roots out and cover with new medium.

So they survived! (As you guy said, they are pretty tough) I’m LSTing em now and they are in need of some defoliation I think. However... I do want to mention that it seems to still take a while for the soil to get dry. My temps get around
77f-84f and humidity 34%-40%, don’t know if that matters or if it’s bc of the LED (21” from canopy/ 38” from soil) anyway watered them again today and now they seem... overwatered. It’s been 6 days now, I’ll update again in another six days