First ever grow, grow journal.

Jackbobjoe98 said:

I don't know about forcing the flowering in 10 day man.. I've forced flowering pretty early but by the look of your plants you will only get a tiny bud from each. and i mean tiny (maybe a bowl total if there both female) Plants need to become sexually mature before they'll give you buds that your looking for.. As for the smell issue, with how small those plants are.. i don't think smell will ever creep outta your grow area. On my first grow i was worried about the same things you are, and it ended unsuccessfully (i had buds, but only enough to get stoned for a day). To get plants to grow you need the right Ph, for good weed you need good nuts, for big buds you need the right lights (HPS lights are best for buding) and for the bigger buds you need all that and then c02. Time is the key, a plant wont grow overnight, they need time. I think you'll have a better chance at buds if you leave them on 24/0 light cycle until there ready to bud, then bud for a shorter amount of time. consider vegging for another week or two then bud for 8 weeks, and quick dry to smoke before your vacation. Your plants are lookin good so far! they just need time in the right light cycles to give you what your looking for. Best of luck!

Click to expand...

good post +rep

Jakebobjoe98: Yeah cheers for the advice, i understand it is way too early to put them into flower. When i did my research into growing, my time schedule that i worked out was 3-4 weeks veg + how ever many weeks the particular strain needs to flower (in my case 10-11) So i began to germ. Then i realized my idiotic mistake which was 3-4 weeks veg isnt from seed thats after they've grown a certain extent from seed..

Anyway thats why this has become such a short grow. How ever i am now contemplating leaving them to grow a lot more and sticking to a standard schedule. However this would mean leaving them unattended for just under 3 weeks. I could get a mate to come over and check on them. This would mean setting up a hefty self watering system. So im going to begin to plan this as it may be my new course of action.

Cheers again for the advice.

As for equipment im informed my new hps should be here tomorrow or the day after. and just got some cpu fans today so wiring experiments will begin shortly, May need your help toolage

I'll update with photos later, they seemed to have grown alot last night.

im here for ya bro!

Advice needed. I looked into my schedule to see what kind of timing would be better and came up with this:

Start flowering on the 8th of May. This is 31 days away and means it will have been 49
days since they emerged as seedlings. If i give them ten weeks flowering that will mean the tenth week will be the 17th of July, 11th week being 24th of July. I come back on the 18th so this is kind of perfect? or would you say leave it an extra day or so.

As far as leaving them, i would set them up with a couple of large bottles of solution with small holes in the base. These bottles will be in a tray which both pots are in. I've used this before for my salvia plants. When the water reaches below the small hole it refills it back to the same point meaning the plants take water when they need it. I know its not perfect, but its the cheapest option. If i get my mate to pop over a couple of times all he would have to do is possibly refill and check ph.

Day 19.

I have decided to leave it longer before i put into flower.

The temporary lamp ive been using for one of my plants has been doing wonders the plant loves it...

As for the dots on the other plant they are still present... Still unsure what caused this but its probably either nute burn or the light was too close with droplets of water on the leaves.

Anywho, i cannot believe how fast they are growing, compare these photos to my last lot two days ago...




Leaf development is booming at the moment.



And the other plant:




Better photo of the dots:


Im not worried about the dots, just hope im right not to.

New lamp should arrive any day now.

Cheers for stopping by, any tips on the dots would be great

oh buddy, the lil buggers look good! For the spots, that looks to be either burn marks from that halogen light you were using, or nute burn. Are you using full strength nutes or 1/4 strength. Start of light nutes and work your way up to full strength. Everything is looking good man keep up the good work, can't wait to see how fast those things grow under the new light.

Cheers mate i just looked at them for the first time today and my god i cant believe how fast these are growing! Well he wasnt under the halogen he was always under the same light. I stupidly sprayed them with solution for my salvia plants which has a standard nute solution in, i think some droplets formed on the leaves, so that could be it, plus that could have intensified the light?

Anyway i'll put some quick photos up later, these girls are looking good

As for forced lighting im definitely abandoning that

edit: sorry didnt answer your question about nutes, im not currently using any, thought it was too early? Would it be ok to slowly introduce in ratios like you mentioned?

you should start nutes 2 1/2-3weeks after you see the first 2 leaves. Usually about the 4th SET of leaves you should start off with 1/4 strength and work your way up.

Excellent cheers mate, trying to give you more rep for all this help but it wont let me yet..

I cannot believe how fast these girls are growing, i feel like everytime i look back theyre bigger lol. Sorry to be a pain but im lost again on something i thought id be fine with. My lamp arrived today and i need to wire a plug up to, i'll include photos after the pics of the girls

sorry a bit blurred:








Seem to be role reversal, the seedling that was doing best at first is now smaller and has those dots.

Getting overly excited about this grow now lol

As for my lamp, any ideas?





(Guessing wires go in this bit: )

did your lamp come with a ballast?

Am i wrong in thinking the ballast is underneath the central white block? Sorry about this i was told that this lamp is fine and works out of the box aslong as you connect it to the mains.

Day 22:

I cant believe these are the same plants, theyre growing so fast!

I need to name these two so i can compare between the both of them, as A and B doesnt seem to work as it confuses me let alone you guys..

The base of the stems seem to be becoming more "woody" if that makes sense, which i was surprised as they're quite young.

Both plants are doing well, although one a little bit better than the other. The one with dots on its leaves doesnt seem to be doing as well, but there is hardly any difference at all. The light i've been using which seems to be a small CFL has been doing wonders for the other one so that could be why its doing better.

Anyway picture time:






(Below, tried to show you what i meant by "woody"



(This is the one with the dots, and very slight discoloration)






As for the lamp i have wired it up with a normal mains plug i nicked from another appliance, and it works. But it only has a 3amp fuse... Which im guesing is completely wrong so i'm not comfortable with setting it up yet as i dont want a fire etc.. Need some help, trying to research into this now.

You're journal really set me at ease...mine are 25 days old and look just as healthy as your and basically same size...I feared they were stunted.....man plants vary. Ours look like this, then some pholks have these foot tall beasts at three weeks......I have a great setup, and was worried...now I am not. Thanks and rep to you!!

Yeah dont worry i'm sure its fine, although this is my first grow as well. As for height, i've been trying to keep the lights as close as possible without burning them so they dont stretch. You often see seedlings at 2 inches+ before they're first set of true leaves, i wanted to avoid this to be more space efficient.

ahhh giggle i'm so excited. They are beasting out more and more every day!! You are doing a wonderful job on everything!

haha you and i both!! Cheers i should have some spare time tomorrow to touch up my grow area. I have an air pump that i bought due to the fact i was going to do a hydro grow, it has two air lines so im going to set these up above the plants, it will at least add to air circulation, hopefully increase co2 slightly as well.

sweet man that sounds excellent, remember to clean that pump out every 2 weeks or so with a razor blade to get all that algae and crap off it.

Sorry i dont think i explained that well enough lol Basically i have an air pump to the side because i was going to set up a hydro system. How ever i didnt. So now i was thinking simply set it up with out air rocks, just have the tubes suspended near the top of my grow area. I'll have it on a time so its ten mins every half hour or so, in that time it'l produce a lot of air movement. The pump etc wont actually be in water so i wont need to worry about cleaning

ohhhhhhh gotcha! sweet concept bro! i might even do that myself thx for the info.

cheers i mean its probably not the cheapest method of adding to air circulation, i just happen to have one sitting around as i went a bit crazy in a garden store...

I'm really worried about my new lamp heating my grow area up too much, seeing as it is an indoor greenhouse.... So im aiming to have this air pump along with two 12" fans, one in and one out. Hopefully this will keep it cool enough...