My first grow

So, yeah, still been horrible about posting on my journal, but my grow is still going... on and on and on it seems. Kinda' frustrating not knowing how long my flowering is going to last... that'll be a good thing about using known seeds next time. Anyway, 2 weeks ago I started flushing with water, figuring the rockwool would hold a lot of nutes, and that I may be getting close to the end of flowering. I'm now into my ninth week of flowering, and the trichomes are all still completely clear. There hasn't been any new obvious heat damage in the last month, but I still have a feeling it could stand to be cooler in there. That'll be an investment for next time around. Some of my branches were starting to break and droop from their own weight, so I tied them up with pipe cleaners, which are working great. Next time around I'll have a more powerful fan for once I start to flower. The one I have now barely moves the leaves, and I think that may be why it's not as strong as it could be. Other than that... just waiting. I started a thread here: https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/148746-waiting-wondering-wishin.html to see if anyone can guess how much more flowering I have to go, and just to show off my baby. Here are the latest pics:

Ok, so since there was no sign of my trichomes changing color, and the smaller plant was starting to show some signs of nute deprevation(red stem, droopy leaves), I went back to feeding it. My PH meter isn't working, but I'm fairly confident of my mixing capabilities at this point. I still need to get a new one. I added a whole bunch more pipe cleaners to hold up the buds and keep them close to the light.

Ok, so, my trichomes were finally starting to turn cloudy(this is week 14 of flower). I think my problem was that my dark cycles just weren't dark enough. I started making sure everything was sealed up in the morning when the light came on.

So anyway, my landlord sent me a letter to say he's doing an inspection of my house... today. Never had this happen before, don't know what he's looking for, or anything.

I stayed up until 6am harvesting my plant, taking down my closet, and hiding the constituent parts. I've seen a few people complaining about harvesting being a lot of work, but I never gave it much credit... so, I don't know if I was just way too anal about trying to clip every little leaf, or what, but it took about 10 hours to harvest my 1 and a half plants. There was a lot more bud there than I thought, though, which is good. I was pissed off, and in a hurry, and sleep deprived, but I took a few pictures of the finished product.




The first pic is of my ghetto drying box that I invented... The bud that's in there is off of what I refer to as my 'half plant', because I basically threw the seed next to my other plant after it started flowering just to see what happened... it never got proper light, had full nutes from day 1... and I dropped a light on it and squished it at least once. It suffered innumberal slights and injustices, which I now regret... the bud from it smells so incredibly delicious... like blueberry but with a hint of melon or something. Unfortunately, it's really light and airy and there's not much of it. The other box is from my main plant. It is very dense, and there was a crap-ton of it, but it doesn't have a very strong smell(I know that's not necissarily indicitive of strength). I was originally thinking there'd be around an ounce on it, but now that I've harvested it, I think there's at least 2 or 3... that's almost pure guessing though, as it's still wet, and I have no experience with this. That pic's not quite all of it, as I took one of the biggest nuggs and put it in a seperate jar to water cure just to compare. Also, the box is deeper than it looks in that pic.

The landlord came in this morning, glanced around the living room and left... didn't even look in my room or closet... I wouldn't have had to do anything to hide it... now I have to collect the various bits and parts that are hidden all over the place, and reassemble my setup. The good news is, I can do a better job than I did the first time around...

I'm feeling a mix of emotions; elation that my first havest is done, disappointment that it wasn't as good as it could have been, but also proud that I did as well as I did on my first try, and that I learned A LOT, and excitement, of course, to smoke some of my own home-grown. I'm also a little sad, because I had wanted to try to reveg the blueberry-melon plant and clone it, but I had to kill it for safety's sake.

I'm going to wait a few days to put everything back together and start again, because I'm a little burnt out right now. Even after I start germinating, I'll have a little time before I need to get everything set up.

This time, I'm making some changes:

I'm using storebought seeds, (golden skunk and frostwreck, from goldenseeds)
I'm going to use 1" rockwool in either perlite or hydroton(haven't found a local place to get hydroton yet), in 6" pots
I'm going to germinate 6 seeds of each type... that still doesn't fill up my table completely, but it's a lot more than the 1 plant I grew before.
I'm going with virtually no veg time, straight to flower.
I'm going to lollipop... either half or all, I'm not decided.
I'm fixing my light leak and temperature issues.
I'm going to use organic nutrients, since I found a place to buy them here.
I'm using a larger reservoir, so(hopefully) the ph doesn't fluctuate so much.
Going to try to reveg and motherify the two(at least) best plants.
I'm getting a second pump for my reservoir to circulate and aerate the mixture. I feel my airstones weren't doing the job very well, and I was constantly having to take them out and scrape them clean all the time.
I know I'll think of some other things.

I'll probably post once more on this thread with a smoke report and final weigh in, and then start a new journal for my next grow. Thanks to everyone that helped me out along the way, especially Sparkafire, and to everyone who's experience I stole, of which there are too many to mention.

I know this post is a little rambling, but I'm still really tired and smoking scissor kief, so you'll have to forgive me. Also, any over-all critiques or specific advice as I go into my second grow would be appreciated.

r they really white or have a lil gray to it

So, when I started this grow, my conservative goal was to harvest 1 ounce. After I harvested, looking at it green, my GUESS was between 3-4 ounces, and I was ecstatic... turns out I harvested almost 8 oz. Needless to say, I'm pretty happy. The bud that came out was pretty damn good, but not quite kron. After drying/curing it came out a little dryer than it should have been, which just means it could have had even more weight if I hadn't overdone it.

Anyway, on to the next grow. Now that I have a good base to go from, I prolly won't be posting here much for paranoia/security reasons. Thanks again everyone for all the help.