1st grow: Just planted 3 more seeds

Hi all,
I am in the midst of my first grow. About a month ago I decided I’d plant a seed just for the heck of it and it has been doing really well. Just 3 days ago I decided to add a couple of more seeds to the grow closet…

Here’s my set-up:

Closet is from floor to ceiling about 4X3 feet(length by width) with shelves(perfect for hanging my lights and adjusting them)

Lights are CFL: 2 X 65w (5500K) and 2 X 23w (5000K). I just planted 3 seedlings so I definitely need some more wattage now for all of my plants. I’ve been growing the big plant on 24/0 for about a month now. Should I be gradually be switching it towards 18/6 in preparing the plant for flowering?

I put up mylar on the walls of the closet to reflect light.

My house is very cold in this part so temperature is not an issue with all of the bulbs in such a small space.

Other than adding more lights how am I doing so far? Is my big plant doing alright for being about a month into the veg stage.

I’m going to try and get a close up of big plant to see if anyone can determine its sex, I think it’s a female but I’m not sure.

Any thoughts and advice is more than welcome!

Not bad dude. Like you said, more light will be great. It looks like you may be over watering a tad. Are there holes in the bottom of the pots for drainage?If not, poke some holes in em and either buy some drip trays or find something you can use for runoff. Plant still looks too young to sex.

Roots don't like sunlight so you should get rid of the clear pot. Just cover it with duct tape or something.

Yea, I cut some holes in the bottom of the containers. The leaves are looking a little droopy, i'll hold off on the water for a few days.

Plant is really starting to take off! Leaves are starting to grow out of the stems now.

I got an up close picture of the stem. Can anyone tell if it is a female? It has 2 hairs sticking up so i think its a girl but i dont know for sure.


Do you think i should prune off the yellowish leaves on the bottom? One has a lot of purple circles on it?


Seedlings are still just getting started but are looking bigger already! I'm going to transplant the big plant soon, the roots are almost coming out of the bottom of the container.

xp0c said:

Roots don't like sunlight so you should get rid of the clear pot. Just cover it with duct tape or something.

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You should repot it now. If your roots are almost coming out you're almost rootlocked, and it's clear so you're killing your roots when they get exposed to sunlight.

It's up to you buddy, but it's going to significantly impact the plant if you don't repot it now.

Thanks for the tip! I'm going to wrap something around the container until i can get a new pot

The pic is too blurry to look for the white pistil.
Your plant has a lot of purple. It could be getting too cold when lights are off.

yeah, the red brown on the stems isn't usually genetic, that's usually a sign of cold stress.

whymedeisgns said:

yeah, the red brown on the stems isn't usually genetic, that's usually a sign of cold stress.

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Could be true, but I've had some that are reddish/purplish stemmed but outgrow it eventually. This applies to August and September when I could barely keep temps below 90 as well as now.

That plant would majorly benefit from a lighting and potting upgrade, but I've seen plants that looked like they were on death's door on this site make comebacks and turn out to be badasses. The 3 I just harvested went without water for 6 days about 5 weeks into flower when I went on vacation and my auto-watering system failed miserably. I thought for sure they were all goners. Turns out they all made vigorous comebacks. One of them, a juicy fruit, netted me an ounce dry. Not a ton, but much better than I was expecting.

Best thing you could do for that plant is go get a new pot, pronto. You're going to have to eventually anyways. Might as well do it now. You'll be amazed at how it responds to having room for new root growth.

And like the poster above said, too blurry to see white pistils. But if they're there, it's a girl.

Thinking of possibly investing in an HPS light system..

Any feedback on a 400 watt system from anyone who has used one to grow? Does it really make that much of a difference?
I figured if i had to invest in multiple more cfl lights for my plants the cost of all of them between the 5500K and then 2700K bulbs for flowering would be about the same as an HPS system. And if it is really going to increase my yield by that much it might be worth it.

I guess my main concern would be how much heat they give off if i'm going to be using it in a small 3X3 closet.
Any thoughts?!?

Thanks for the tips, I'll get on the whole potting thing asap. And I have 2 60 watt cfl's right on the plant pretty much, thats not enough? They're almost as long as the plant is

gbong17 said:

And I have 2 60 watt cfl's right on the plant pretty much, that's not enough? They're almost as long as the plant is

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The answer is yes that is probably enough right now, but it's not going to be enough really soon.

Plant growth is arguably exponential? as long as sufficient lighting is available. After about 2 pairs of fan leaves it should boom.

Yea dude if you can, go with HPS. Most of us that grow with CFLs do so due to heat/height issues. In my case, I'm growing in a 5 x 4 x 2 box that just wouldn't be able fit an HPS, plants, and a 12" buffer in 4 feet of space. Not to mention issues with heat. I have to grow in a detached garage because of my kid. Because of that, about 4 months of the year are too hot to grow as it is. An HPS would make about 8 months too hot, even if it would fit.

Bottom line is, most people flowering with CFLs have their own story and reasons as to why. If HPS is an option, I say hell yea. You'll get denser buds and more of them. A 3 x 3 closet is plenty big for a 250 or 400 watt HPS, assuming it's got 8 feet to the ceiling. Lots of info on this site about cool tubes. Read up on that and you'll see that heat isn't as big an issue as you may think with HPS, even in a small closet.

Read up a bunch on the HPS systems but I think i'm going to pass for this grow, just too much of an investment all at once, I am on a bit of a budget for now. I'm going to focus on shorter bushier plants since i'll be sticking with CFL's. I read up on topping and it seems like the thing to do for CFL grows. The big plant is defintely ready to be topped i think, right?

Also, I'm going to repot my big plant today! I'll post pics a little later.
Thanks for all the info on everything, everyone has been very helpful! I hope I can turn this grow into an oz or 2!

Repotted the big plant, I hope it starts to grow quicker now! I snipped off the bottom 2 leaves that were yellowing too.

The small seedlings are growing steadily and looking good for only 5 days.

Looking good.
Just be easy on the watering.

yea i watered prettty heavily when I transplanted bc i heard thats good to do. Plus the new soil was bone dry. But i'm not gonna water for a few days now

just topped the big plant. It looks like 2 new shoots are growing out already. Any ideas as to when to top it again? I think i'm looking for 4 shoots total. Should i wait for a few nodes to come in or do it right away pretty much?

Haven't posted any updates in a while so I figured I would today! The big plant has gotten huge and really bushy after topping it.

! of the seedlings didnt make it but the other 2 are looking pretty good.

Probably gonna buy an HPS light for flowering so that the buds are more dense.

So 1 more update before switching to flowering...

My plant has really taken off over the past week or so and is now over a foot tall. I have my 150watt HPS arriving in a day or 2 now to start the flowering stage with.

My main concern:
I can see a few roots coming through the bottom of the pot. Its a huge container( a little over 5 gallons), should i still replant it? I'm not sure how i'd even get the root ball out.

I was thinking of taking a decent sized clone from the plant. How does that work, just put it in another pot?

The 3 seeds planted on 12/7 each went through a bit of a rough patch but seem ok now, just a little small bc they lost some of their lowest leaves.

Any thoughts on the container question would be greatly appreciated!