Day 1: First ever grow, long time inhaler. Here is my master plan.

Seeds (TSSC)

2x Auto & Feminized Skunk #1 (link)
2x Auto #1 Feminized (link)
2x random feminized seeds free with that order (link)

Materials bought or salvaged from my garage so far

• 4x 2700k 23w (100w equiv) CFLs (link)
• 6x Light bulb socket to regular plug adapters (link)
• 2x Y-shaped light bulb splitter (link)
• I also have a couple dozen different spectrum 13w CFLs in my garage after swapping all the bulbs in my house to LED. It is a mix of spotlight style bulbs and spiral bulbs. I tested several of them and found 4 spiral bulbs with a much whiter looking light than the 2700K lights which look yellow next to them. I those 4x bulbs on a power strip with the socket adapters. I believe they are either 5000k or 6500k.
• 1x 5 gallon utility bucket (link)
• 1x 18 gallon storage container (link)
• 1x pack of Jiffy 12 Peat Pellet Greenhouse (link)
• 1x bag of Vigoro Organic Potting soil 32 QT Georgia formula* (link)
• 1x bag of Miracle Gro Perlite 8 QT (link)

*the "Georgia formula" consists of 70 - 80% processed forest products, sphagnum peat moss, coir and organic fertilizer. The organic fertilizer is described as"

"0.09 - 0.06 - 0.09
Net Weight 20 lb (9.07 kg)
Guaranteed Analysis ... F1632
Total Nitrogen (N) ... 0.09%
0.005% Ammoniacal Nitrogen
0.030% Other Water Soluble Nitrogen
0.055% Water Insoluble Nitrogen*
Available Phosphate (P2O2) ... 0.06%
Soluable Potash (K20) ... 0.09%

Derived from: Poultry Litter

*This product contains 0.055% slow-release Nitrogen from poultry litter."

Grow Method / Master Plan

I want to grow in the corner of my closet. I have the lights dangling off the clothing rack. The 5 gal. bucket will probably sit in a 18 gal. rubbermaid storage container to collect drainage. I just got the seeds in the mail today. I am planning on germinating one seed at a time since the space and lights I have are not ideal for more than 1 or 2. As of this typing, I have done the following:

Day 1

• set up the final grow area
• soaked only one of the peat moss pellets in water
• put one of the Auto Skunk seeds about 1/4 inch deep and covered it with peat moss
• drained the excess water out of the container
• put the clear plastic lid that came with the Jiffy kit on
• put the container in a small box that my PC's GPU came in
• logged into rollitup and wrote this while I wait 1-3 days

Planning My Next Steps

Most of the following is based on this post (link) about germination on another website which suggests that the peat moss pellet method has a higher success rate than the glass of water and wet paper towel method. I believe this can also be done with rockwool cubes and peat pots filled with seedling soil. It is supposed to be more successful because with peat or rockwell, you don't have to touch the baby plant when transferring it which reduces stress.

• Check the peat moss pellet daily until it sprouts and
• Make sure the pellet stays nice and moist and the tray is dry
• Make sure it stays at around 70-75 F
• Drill 3/8 inch drain holes into the bottom of the 5 gal. bucket
• Prepare and amend my soil
• If / when it starts emerging from the peat moss, put the Jiffy germ. tray under the smaller 13w CFLs
• [Or should I just transfer the entire plant and pellet into the soil mix and turn the lights on?]
• When placing in final 5 gal. pot, I will bury the small seedling's stem about halfway into the soil
• Water and drain any excess
• Go buy an eighth of fire crypt to tidy me over until harvest

I did do a lot of research while waiting for the TSSC order to come in but I am sure that you guys are reading this and thinking what a total noob this poster is. I know that Vigoro is not Fox Farm but I read that it can be amended to be pretty compatible for cannabis but you need the right stuff like bat and worm shit as well as nutrients for the flowering stage, but only if the leaves are showing signs of a nutrient deficiency. This particular potting mix has many mixed reviews / results when it comes to cannabis. Could this be due to the fact that they have several different formulas for the same product in different regions of the country? This is why I included the precise ingredients so someone here might be able to tell me what needs to be added. I was also thinking of simply buying a bag of Fox Farm Ocean Forest. Would it be possible to do a ghetto "super soil" if I mixed the two? I'm thinking put the Fox Farm OF on top and the more nutrient rich Vigoro on the bottom so it doesn't get burned when small and it gets fed around the time it starts needing it. Any suggestions or comments are welcome. I'll take some pics as soon as I get one of these seeds to pop up since there isn't much to see right now except for an expanded peat pellet. As you can see with this TL;DR-fest, I am still researching and learning. I am also thinking about doing a DWC setup for the non-auto seeds in an 18 gal. storage container but that is a long time and a few paychecks from now.

Oops, I just realized you have a Grow Journal section which might be more appropriate for this post.

1 plant needs around 175 actual Watts...When they're small a couple lights will be plenty but when your plant get bigger it will need more light.....Whan they get a bit bigger I would recommend using (4) bulbs on top of the plant and (2) bulbs on each side of the plant....You will need a total of 8 bulbs, (5) socket splitters and (3) light socket cords....I use to go around on trash day and get all the old lamps people were throwing out, I would just take off all the hardware until there was nothing but the cord left and that's what I use

Careful of overwatering when u go into a pot that big with a baby

I'm probably just going to pick up another wally world 4-pack of 23 watters but this time I'll go with 6500k. That should put me close to 185w for one plant. I was planning on using the 4x 2700k and 4x 6500k for the entire grow and maybe some real sunlight? Either way, I read 18/6 was best but some say 20/4.

Thanks for the tip. So, don't water until it starts draining then? The root is starting to show. I did not cover it w/ much peat from the beginning, just put it in the hole. It looks like it is a tiny hook from the top. It has been barely 3 days so my guess it is in the 3rd stage from this illustration of germination:


I still have it in the jiffy tray, covered and in a black cardboard box. I'm planning on leaving it in just that pellet until has a stem and leaves then I'll plant the whole pellet in the bucket.

8 hours after the last post, the Auto Skunk #1 is now looking like it is somewhere between stage 3 (the one labeled hypocotyl) and stage 4 (cotyledon) the illustration. This thing is growing pretty rapidly. Should I leave it in the dark until true leaves form or does it need light? Latest pic:

Needs light, don't over do the attention. That's the #1 killer. Just throw it under the light and let it be

LordRalh3 said:

Needs light, don't over do the attention. That's the #1 killer. Just throw it under the light and let it be

Click to expand...

Thanks. I wasn't sure if those two little ball things are considered leaves or not. But, I did what you said. It is still in the jiffy pellet and tray but I took off the tray's dome cover and now it is under 4x 13w CFLs about 8 inches away. Since they are bulbs I found around the house, I don't know exactly what color the light is but they are the ones that look much whiter compared to more yellow 2700k. I'm going to do 18/6. I am still looking for a Christmas light timer I know I have to automate the cycle.

EDIT: 5 hours after the last pic, the leaves have flipped over, two "real" leaves have appeared and they now look like they are all happily sucking in CFL light. That blue thing in the middle is a tape measure to weigh down the tray so the fan doesn't move it around. I also added a couple windshield sun shades I found to reflect light off the walls better. When more light is needed, I will probably try the half soda can thing on each bulb as a ghetto reflector.

Don't allow your fan to blow directly on the seedlings, they'll tilt over and die.

Keep the light close! CFL works best at 1"-4". This will prevent stretching and help keep your

Little seedlings are so exciting!

Cyrus420 said:

Don't allow your fan to blow directly on the seedlings, they'll tilt over and die.

Keep the light close! CFL works best at 1"-4". This will prevent stretching and help keep your

Little seedlings are so exciting!

Click to expand...

TY for the help, Cyrus. I did notice that the stem was stretching even after just one day under the light. I had it at around 6-8 inches at first and I even noticed that one of the cotyledons was larger than the other and leaning toward the lights. So, I moved the light closer (by putting the bucket on a stack of old text books). It is now around 2-3 inches away and the first true leaves are nice and even and the stem isn't stretching as much. I also turned on all 8x CFLs so there is a total of 144 true CFL watts now (4x 23w 2700k and 4x 13w 5000k). I'm using a 120mm PC case fan running @ 12v. I am pointing it at the lights and the seedling is only getting a very light secondary wind off it. It is barely moving. The fan is more for cooling the small amount of heat put out by the CFLs than for the plant itself.

Any suggestions for more lighting? I was thinking about E27 LED bulbs for vegging? Or should I get 4x more 2700k's?

I found my Christmas light timer, an outdoor mechanical Brinks model. I have it set for 20 hours on and 4 hours off.

As for watering, I am letting the soil dry out and just spraying it very lightly with a spray bottle once a day (about 10 sprays). I'm spraying only a small radius of soil near the seedling to simulate a light rain. The soil and leaves easily dry out within a few hours after. This is still one area where I am not so sure how much or how little I need to give it. From what I read, it is always better to under-water than to over-water but I hope I am not letting it go thirsty. So far, the leaves are still a nice juicy green with no sign of a water deficiency. I'm going to keep using the sprayer until it is vegging then I will start to water more heavily. Yay or nay?

Finally, I realized that this wasn't the Auto Skunk #1, rather the Auto #1. Oh, well, I'll be happy either way. Looks like Skunk is going to be my 2nd project about a month and a half from now...

OmWillis said:

View attachment 3628042 View attachment 3628043
TY for the help, Cyrus. I did notice that the stem was stretching even after just one day under the light. I had it at around 6-8 inches at first and I even noticed that one of the cotyledons was larger than the other and leaning toward the lights. So, I moved the light closer (by putting the bucket on a stack of old text books). It is now around 2-3 inches away and the first true leaves are nice and even and the stem isn't stretching as much. I also turned on all 8x CFLs so there is a total of 144 true CFL watts now (4x 23w 2700k and 4x 13w 5000k). I'm using a 120mm PC case fan running @ 12v. I am pointing it at the lights and the seedling is only getting a very light secondary wind off it. It is barely moving. The fan is more for cooling the small amount of heat put out by the CFLs than for the plant itself.

Any suggestions for more lighting? I was thinking about E27 LED bulbs for vegging? Or should I get 4x more 2700k's?

I found my Christmas light timer, an outdoor mechanical Brinks model. I have it set for 20 hours on and 4 hours off.

As for watering, I am letting the soil dry out and just spraying it very lightly with a spray bottle once a day (about 10 sprays). I'm spraying only a small radius of soil near the seedling to simulate a light rain. The soil and leaves easily dry out within a few hours after. This is still one area where I am not so sure how much or how little I need to give it. From what I read, it is always better to under-water than to over-water but I hope I am not letting it go thirsty. So far, the leaves are still a nice juicy green with no sign of a water deficiency. I'm going to keep using the sprayer until it is vegging then I will start to water more heavily. Yay or nay?

Finally, I realized that this wasn't the Auto Skunk #1, rather the Auto #1. Oh, well, I'll be happy either way. Looks like Skunk is going to be my 2nd project about a month and a half from now...

Click to expand...

Good on moving the light closer, I have a single 125W CFL that I vegged and half flowered my single plant under.

When it comes to more lighting, if you're going to stick with CFL you'll need make sure the plant is covered from every angle with light from them. I used Y-Connectors and extension cords the first time I tried many small CFL's. If you can afford more though, you could easily get a 150W HPS light online for less than $80 and it would kill your current lights for both vegging and flowering!

Spraying your plant sounds fine, just be careful not to over worry about your plant and give it time to grow, if you become too bogged down in what you're doing and constantly mess with your plant you're more likely to make mistakes, like I did.

With your fans you'll want air circulation in your grow room, two fans, one in the bottom corner and one in the top corner, can circulate the air and keep your plants happy. To avoid windburn and bent seedlings it should look like a very gentle breeze is rustling your plant, VERY GENTLE.

Also, it seems you're using a medium with a lot of inert materials, is that so? Do you have nutrients you'll be adding to the soil? If so I just wanted to give an anecdote of how I messed up. I grow in coco and read to water it every day. So I added my nutrients according to the bottle, but it turns out I added too much in one feeding, 4ML. Turns out that 4ML is measured out over a WEEK according to the grow chart provided by my nutrient manufacturer. Sol if see if you can get a good watering/feeding schedule going.

Cyrus420 said:

Good on moving the light closer, I have a single 125W CFL that I vegged and half flowered my single plant under.

When it comes to more lighting, if you're going to stick with CFL you'll need make sure the plant is covered from every angle with light from them. I used Y-Connectors and extension cords the first time I tried many small CFL's. If you can afford more though, you could easily get a 150W HPS light online for less than $80 and it would kill your current lights for both vegging and flowering!

Spraying your plant sounds fine, just be careful not to over worry about your plant and give it time to grow, if you become too bogged down in what you're doing and constantly mess with your plant you're more likely to make mistakes, like I did.

With your fans you'll want air circulation in your grow room, two fans, one in the bottom corner and one in the top corner, can circulate the air and keep your plants happy. To avoid windburn and bent seedlings it should look like a very gentle breeze is rustling your plant, VERY GENTLE.

Also, it seems you're using a medium with a lot of inert materials, is that so? Do you have nutrients you'll be adding to the soil? If so I just wanted to give an anecdote of how I messed up. I grow in coco and read to water it every day. So I added my nutrients according to the bottle, but it turns out I added too much in one feeding, 4ML. Turns out that 4ML is measured out over a WEEK according to the grow chart provided by my nutrient manufacturer. Sol if see if you can get a good watering/feeding schedule going.

Click to expand...

$80 is above my budget ATM. I'll look into HPS on the next grow. For now, I got about $20 extra to spend on lights. I heard 2700k is best for flowering so I was thinking another $10 4-pack of those 23 watters. I've also seen full spectrum LED bulbs that are supposed to be specifically for vegging. Here is one I found on ebay for $30, a little over budget but I think that 80 watts of LED is more than enough for one plant combined with all the CFLs I already have (link).

I'm not planning on using any nutrients. The soil has fertilizer in it. Also, the Jiffy pellets have nutrients in it and I think that the seedling is still living off the water and nutes inside the pellet. The soil in the bucket is listed above in the OP with full details on the fertilizer and other ingredients. I'm hoping that the soil is enough to nourish the plant all the way through to harvest. If not, I was planning on either a bottle of Tiger Bloom (link) or some MG tomato food from HD for flowering. I read that when it comes to NPK nutes, MG isn't that bad. But, I also read that autoflowers could easily get over-fed and suffer nutrient burn so I am not going to add any unless absolutely necessary.

OmWillis said:

$80 is above my budget ATM. I'll look into HPS on the next grow. For now, I got about $20 extra to spend on lights. I heard 2700k is best for flowering so I was thinking another $10 4-pack of those 23 watters. I've also seen full spectrum LED bulbs that are supposed to be specifically for vegging. Here is one I found on ebay for $30, a little over budget but I think that 80 watts of LED is more than enough for one plant combined with all the CFLs I already have (link).

I'm not planning on using any nutrients. The soil has fertilizer in it. Also, the Jiffy pellets have nutrients in it and I think that the seedling is still living off the water and nutes inside the pellet. The soil in the bucket is listed above in the OP with full details on the fertilizer and other ingredients. I'm hoping that the soil is enough to nourish the plant all the way through to harvest. If not, I was planning on either a bottle of Tiger Bloom (link) or some MG tomato food from HD for flowering. I read that when it comes to NPK nutes, MG isn't that bad. But, I also read that autoflowers could easily get over-fed and suffer nutrient burn so I am not going to add any unless absolutely necessary.

Click to expand...

If you're on a budget get the 4-Pack of 2700K CFL's it will most likely be a lot better than the LED Veg light.

Your soil plan sounds good, keep in mind some plants will require calcium/magnesium later in flowering if they start to turn yellow. You can add a bit of dolomite lime to help fight this without hurting your soil I believe.

Day 9

Update/Results so far

Seed #1, the Auto Skunk #1 started to yellow and eventually kicked the bucket.
Seed #2, Auto #1, successfully germinated then suffered a similar fate
Seed #3, the freebie which happened to also be an autoflower popped but died before the first true leaves appeared

At that point, my first 3 attempts all died young.

Seed #4, the 2nd Auto #1, I decided to change things up and instead of keeping it in the peat pellet and planting it straight into the 5 gal. bucket, I completely removed the tiny plant which was still only in the cotelydon stage, rinsed all the peat moss off and put it in a solo cup with regular soil and some lime. After around 3 weeks, I transplanted it to a 2 liter coke bottle. A few weeks later, it started to flower (I was running 24-0 light).

Seed #5, the 2nd Auto Skunk #1, I germinated while the #4 seed was in the solo cup. I grew them side by side in 2 liter bottles but this Auto Skunk was much taller with leaves roughly twice the size. I was doing exactly the same things to both plants. This one also decided to start flowering the same time as the Auto #1 despite being germinated almost two weeks later.

These were the first two that I got any bud out of. The bud was strong but there was very little of it. This is a major drawback to autoflower. The veg time was out of my control and as a result, it started to flower when the plant was still very small. I learned one important lesson, though, NEVER buy autos again. That is for damn sure. If you are doing an indoor grow and own a simple light timer, there is absolutely no reason for autos. The only reason I can think of for autos is if you want to grow in sunlight and live somewhere that gets too much light like a porch grow in a city with lots of street lights. Other lessons I learned - don't put it in a container that is too big too early and lime is very important. MJ LOVES lime. I also stopped using reverse osmosis water and went with tap water that I let air out for 3 days to let the chemicals in it evaporate out.

Seed #6, the last one of the order which was labeled "Blimburn CR+" and the only regular feminized seed of the bunch. It too was one of the freebies. This one I did all the same things to but instead of a 2 liter bottle, I put it into a 3 gallon storage bin. Also, as soon as the 2nd set of 5 finger leaves appeared, I topped it. Then, I topped those two branches again about 2.5 weeks later. I ended up with 5 main colas since the first topping yielded an extra branch that I didn't notice until it suddenly started emerging out of the side of the plant. I then did some LST to create some space between the colas and now they are in a sort of circle around the main stem. After 2.5 months of vegging (18-6), I flipped the switch. Having control over when the flowering starts makes regular seeds the way to go in my opinion. This Blimburn CR+ is easily the biggest and best looking out of all of the others I attempted. It has been about a week and a half since flipping the switch and all 5 have sprouted white hairs. I plan on flowering it for at least 60 days (the Blimburn site says it takes 55 days). The only problem I have is these little annoying fleas that live in the soil. I am probably going to try a DWC next time mostly because of these bugs.

About 20 days into flowering. The cola all the way to the left is the one that sort of came out of nowhere and now it looks like it is the dominant one.

Cool, nice job on the photo period plant.

MrBD said:

Cool, nice job on the photo period plant.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I learned a lot with these 6 seeds. Mainly, how to prepare the soil, how often to water, the design of the grow area, how far away the lights should be, what household containers I already have that I can turn into a suitable pot, keeping the whole thing stealthy, things like that. This was sort of my elementary school of growing and I am still learning a lot. I think junior high for me is going to be figuring out how to get bigger yields, getting rid of those damn gnats completely and improving the nute formula. Then I can graduate to cloning and maybe try DWC or something other than soil. No matter how much you read and how many pictures and videos you look at, nothing teaches you more than actual hands on experience. This is true in all fields.

I really like photo period. If I can compare it to something, I'll use computer CPUs. Autos are like Intel's locked CPUs with features disabled and photo periods are like their unlocked CPUs that you can overclock with all the features enabled. I like messing around with my computers just like I like messing around with the "settings" on my plants; mainly things like topping, FIM'ing, training and deciding when to switch to 12/12. The next batch of seeds I order are all going to be regular feminized. I could have bought like a dozen of them with the money I paid for the 4 autos.

Autos can do alright, but not with your style of lighting and space. But a photo period can be trained and get very decent results. Just got to max out the space you have.

MrBD said:

Autos can do alright, but not with your style of lighting and space. But a photo period can be trained and get very decent results. Just got to max out the space you have.

Click to expand...

I think those two auto strains I chose were also not very good for yield. When I was shopping for seeds, all I saw was "these finish in 45 to 55 days and are very low maintenance" and thought "woah, I'll be getting stoned in less than 2 months". It was true, but I only got lit a few times. And I moved my grow space from a larger closet to a smaller wardrobe cabinet. I've only got 2 feet of vertical space to work with and the shelf is about 20 inches x 14 inches. There are only 8 CFLs, 4x 23 watts and 4x standard size 13 watt bulbs for a total of 144 watts. Because of these factors, being able to top the plant at least twice and training it to keep the height low is pretty much necessary. I can't really do that with autos. The Blimburn CR+ strain seemed to respond very well to topping. It made a full recovery and sprouted two new main stems only 3 days after the first topping and it took about the same amount of time to recover when I topped those two a few weeks later after they developed 3 leaf sets.