boulderrr
Well-Known Member
I started with 3 plants about 2 weeks ago. I planted one seedling in a potting mix. (1) I planted another in some type of fine soil that my roommate had. (2) I planted the third in a mixture of the potting soil and the fine soil. (3)
FIRST and BIGGEST MISTAKE: Just picked out random soils. The potting soil was entirely too course. The seedling did not get enough air and grew significantly slower (1) than the one that was planted in the fine soil (3). The one planted in the mixture (3) grew faster than the potting soil one, but way slower than the one in finer soil.
I'm assuming the very fine soil had nutrients in it because 2 looks pretty burnt. The other two were choked by the coarse potting soil.
SECOND MISTAKE: I assumed that my closet wouldn't really need ventilation if I was only doing 3 plants and using CFLs. I was wrong. The plants need CO2 from outside of the closet. To fix this, I cut a hole in the bottom of my grow box and put the fan so its intake would come from the crack in the doorway.
FIRST and BIGGEST MISTAKE: Just picked out random soils. The potting soil was entirely too course. The seedling did not get enough air and grew significantly slower (1) than the one that was planted in the fine soil (3). The one planted in the mixture (3) grew faster than the potting soil one, but way slower than the one in finer soil.
I'm assuming the very fine soil had nutrients in it because 2 looks pretty burnt. The other two were choked by the coarse potting soil.
SECOND MISTAKE: I assumed that my closet wouldn't really need ventilation if I was only doing 3 plants and using CFLs. I was wrong. The plants need CO2 from outside of the closet. To fix this, I cut a hole in the bottom of my grow box and put the fan so its intake would come from the crack in the doorway.
THIRD MISTAKE: I originally had two 42W soft white CFLs. After a few days of growing, I found out that I should have been using daylight CFLs for the vegetation stage. I switched accordingly to two 40W daylight CFLs.
I've heard that CFLs can promote a weaker plant. The fan blows a little air over the plants, which should strengthen their stems. Inside the grow box, I made a wall of cardboard to redirect the wind so that it wouldn't blow directly onto the plants and injure them.
PLANS: The plants don't look that great for being more than 2 weeks old. I decided to pull the plug on them. I've begun germinating some more seeds. I'm going to buy some regular Promix and mix some more perlite into it. I'll probably make it 75% Pro mix and 25% perlite. Should I add some lime since regular pro mix doesn't have it added? I think this time will be much more consecutive since I know what I've done wrong.
