Am I Doing This Right? A Picture Says a Thousand Words

Hey all! I'm a first time grower. I've got 3 8 week old plants growing in my vegetable garden, 1 8 week old in a pot, a seedling in a pot and another 8 week old in a pot. The last one on that list is an experiment - well, they all are really - and I'm having a great time with it but I don't have the slightest clue as to whether or not I'm doing this right. I'm a city girl mashed up with a hippie is my hubby says. ;P I've been watching Jorge Cervantes and reading these forums and other forums and googling how to grow marijuana until my eyes are googled! I'll be honest, I'm good with creating and making stuff not so much with the growing stuff. Everything I read just seems to swirl around in my brain and makes no sense at all, I've probably over-thunk it beyond belief. ;/ I'm kind of hoping some of you veterans can take a look at my pics and offer some advice that doesn't get too complicated.

So here's my set up: I'm growing outdoors. I have no idea as to strain. My seeds came from bags. My plant emerged from the soil on May 26th. I bought cheapo potting soil from walmart it was the scotts brand. I mixed it with 1 part soil from my garden. I planted my seed in a styrofoam cup and transplanted to a styrofoam ice chest that i put 12 holes in the bottom and 3 holes around the bottom of the sides of each side. Before I put my potting soil in I layed burlap in the bottom of my container and small river rocks on top of that to help with drainage. I set my styrofoam planter up on bricks. I rotate my plant every few days. I water with regular old water from the water hose. Right now I'm watering every 3 days. I feed my plant bat guano. I use half the recommended recipe on the package. I give it bat guano about once every couple of weeks. I've also topped the plant. I have a feeling I may have topped it too short though. It was plenty tall when I topped it, I just think I topped it at the wrong spot. It's really squat. I started bending the branches just to see what would happen and now I have a plant that is growing in absolutely no sort of direction. lol but I'm enjoying doing it. it's very interesting and now I'm wondering if I can make a topiary out of a pot plant. I had all of my main branches spread out when I developed a bug problem. About 3 weeks ago the other plant in a pot got attacked by some little aphid bug that made its way to this plant. This plant wasn't as infested as the other but it still took a beating. To remedy the aphid situation I beat my plants up pretty bad. I washed the heck out each and every leaf with soap and water. I sprayed it with the water hose with the nozzle on it to knock of any bugs and then I flushed the hell out of the soil because I was worried about dishwashing soap being in the soil. I pert near drowned the thing a few times. A good lot of the leaves were eaten by the bugs so I removed those and I think the plant has filled back in nicely but I don't really know.

These were taken last week. I have more growth. I'll have to take a photo tomorrow.


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See how short it is? Did I top it too short? Should it be taller at 8 weeks? It was 7 weeks in the picture.


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^^See the spot in the middle? That's where I topped it. Is it supposed to look like that?



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Here's a picture I took tonight at 11pm. It looks droopy but it rained and the temperature suddenly dropped. It got a bit too much water today with the rain and all.

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Looks pretty alright. You will like the way the plant buds with it all trained low like that. In fa c t many growers purposely train plants like that...usually for indoor..but its np.

keep an eye out if you had aphids..they are tenacious.

Is that bark dust in your soil? They look pretty small for eight weeks veg. They look like they want to work for you, but I think you are doing so many things that is making it difficult. Soil is very important, next grow, I would get some smart pots (at least 5g), they are resusable and pretty cheap. Then I would say a good first time soil is Fox Farms Ocean Forest (once your plants are about a foot tall, too potent for seedlings). That FFOF soil will feed them for several weeks. Try some black strap mollasses on those girls, mic it one tablespoon per gallon of water and feed them that once a week for now. How many hours of light are they getting? How hot?

The stalk does look pretty mean, nice work on the lst, topping. Is that 8 weeks from seed?

Shivaskunk said:

Looks pretty alright. You will like the way the plant buds with it all trained low like that. In fa c t many growers purposely train plants like that...usually for indoor..but its np.

keep an eye out if you had aphids..they are tenacious.

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Shivaskunk I am watching it like a hawk. I had to beat my plants up pretty bad to get rid of them and I'm a no bug kinda girl. lol those stupid bugs are jerk faces!! Made me all violent and whatnot lol

Nether Region said:

Is that bark dust in your soil? They look pretty small for eight weeks veg. They look like they want to work for you, but I think you are doing so many things that is making it difficult. Soil is very important, next grow, I would get some smart pots (at least 5g), they are resusable and pretty cheap. Then I would say a good first time soil is Fox Farms Ocean Forest (once your plants are about a foot tall, too potent for seedlings). That FFOF soil will feed them for several weeks. Try some black strap mollasses on those girls, mic it one tablespoon per gallon of water and feed them that once a week for now. How many hours of light are they getting? How hot?

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I don't know about the bark dust. I don't know what that is. Soil was one of the questions I was going to ask. The soil in my garden is very sandy and I have a hard time keeping stray cats from using it as a litterbox which is why I opted to try them in pots. I do have 3 plants in the garden that are doing well but they are tall and scraggly looking. The hubby took those plants over and she says "their mine!" LMAO! One of the things about the soil I used it always seems dry on top and damp underneath but Jorge Cervantes says if the dirt doesn't make a ball when you pack it in your fist then its too dry and that confuses me because it seems like this soil is always damp and spongy feeling. This is the soil I bought, it's pretty clear I didn't know what I was doing when I bought it and I'll cop to that. (don't tell hubby, he's still laughing at me and saying things like, "ask me I know how to farm. and I told you it ain't that complicated.") http://www.walmart.com/ip/Scotts-Premium-Topsoil/16904039

See I think they look small too but then I think that maybe the smallness is due to how much of a beating it took and how much I had to take off because of those aphids. do you think it should be bigger in spite of that? I've read about the molasses and figured I'd give it a try but I wasn't sure when you are supposed to administer it. I'm confused by which stage my plant is in. Is it in the vegetation stage?

When you say it looks pretty mean, do you mean in a good way or a bad way? yes it is 8 weeks from Seed. Here she is this morning. (it IS a she right?)
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Do you think I should take off some more of those fav leaves? do you think they are keeping my plant too shaded?

hahahaha what do you think of my styrofoam ice chest planter? A friend of mine said he'd never seen anyone do that and my response is its quick and easy to dispose of if I gotta go on the lam. lol do you think its too small? Will I have to transplant it into a bigger pot later?

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had to edit this post. for some reason the last photo didn't show up. here it is.
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almost forgot, you asked about temperature and light.

I'm growing outside so the light is natural sunlight for as long as it shines. I live in the central valley in california where this time of year it is normally triple digits but this year the weather has been weird so it's been in the mid 90's however yesterday the temp dropped and it freaking rained! that has happened a couple of times this summer. I have noticed my vegetable garden is growing different this year and I think it has to do with the weather.

so I decided I didn't want to remove any leaves. I'm afraid I'll kill it if I do that so what I did was take a bunch of bread twisty ties and band them together underneath the stems. I had to be careful not to break the stems but it worked. now I have more light exposure for those little spots underneath to shoot up and i didn't have to cut anything. here's what it looks like now. I don't think I'll mess with it for a few days.





see my twisty ties?

Whats up im in fresno ca its hot as fuck here

I'm an hour or so north of you. it's been hot but you have to admit this summer hasn't been bad at all. Hell, it rained here yesterday. and we've had 2 other rains this summer. when does it rain in the valley in the summer? never. weird weather.

Yea it has bin strange this year. i was feeding my girls while it was raining on monday.the overcast was nice tho i like the way u tied ur plant down thats cool what type of bud is it?

You will like the way the plant buds with it all trained low like that.

she looks great if you ask me! you're gonna love keeping it short and super-cropped out like that
very good work and congrats on getting rid of the aphids. Those can be very difficult to deal with. I read somewhere though if you mix a little dish soap, apple cider vinegar...and I wanna say beer? it helps deter the buggers and feed at the same time.

mr sunshine said:

Yea it has bin strange this year. i was feeding my girls while it was raining on monday.the overcast was nice tho i like the way u tied ur plant down thats cool what type of bud is it?

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haha yea i was outside rearranging my pins and I got sprinkled on. I find myself shaking my head at the gods and saying "do you know what you are doing to my plants!! you are confusing the hell out of them and me. Stop it!" the hubby tells me, "stop talking to yourself Kelly." LMAO!

boydzfv said:

You will like the way the plant buds with it all trained low like that.

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I hope so. I'm worried its too small and won't bud right. I'm leaving her alone for a while now except water and feed.

roseypeach said:

she looks great if you ask me! you're gonna love keeping it short and super-cropped out like that
very good work and congrats on getting rid of the aphids. Those can be very difficult to deal with. I read somewhere though if you mix a little dish soap, apple cider vinegar...and I wanna say beer? it helps deter the buggers and feed at the same time.

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Thanks! I do like it being short but boy is it different than letting it just grow whichever way it wants to. The ones in my garden are SO much bigger but I figure if this doesn't bud right then I've had a good time learning to shape a plant and it won't matter so much because I will have the bud from the other plants.

Beer would make sense. I did a lot of reading about sugar and chlorofil and photosynthesis and molasses last night so I think beer would probably fall along those lines since it's loaded with sugar. not sure about the yeast though....

Lol yea one of my og kush clones started preflowering.sux but thats the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. Are u having any bug problems at all?

god damn, this plant is one week older than mine and its 10 times the size, I definitely do not have the green thumb like you haha.

mr sunshine said:

Lol yea one of my og kush clones started preflowering.sux but thats the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. Are u having any bug problems at all?

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Mr. Sunshine I did have an aphid or mite problem a few weeks back. I really thought it was going to stunt her and it took a while to get her back in good shape after I beat her up to treat it. Now I watch it everyday and so far no more bugs.

Reigning said:

god damn, this plant is one week older than mine and its 10 times the size, I definitely do not have the green thumb like you haha.

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hahaha that's funny because I DON'T have a green thumb. lol