my first grow

This is my first grow. I did a lot of research before I started but am broke so I'm using what I got lol.

Day 2 for all but center. Center is a week. Yesterday I moved all from window sill to closet when I found my lights.


Day 2

Day 7 ( different plant)

What do yall think so far. I will update pictures often but not daily. I only have internet on my phone thats why the pictures are so big.

They look good, it so fun with seeds. They grow daily its' amazing how fast! Good luck & Happy Growing. Peace

Thanks. Tuesday I'm buying some window plastic and foil to build a bit of an indoor greenhouse. But I'm still starting out. Lol. They are all random seeds from a bag of extras. The whole bag was good, just whatever was left over when he sold, so in the half there was probably 9 different kinds of weed. Lol each bowl was different. Let's see how the seeds grow.

sweet grow man, subd, im a few weeks ahead cant wait to see em grow

This is my technique.

Take 10 seeds, a plastic plate a paper towel and a plastic bowl that fits in the inside circle of the bowl. Fold the paper towel until it fits in the small circle. Put seeds on paper towel saturate the paper towel with clean or distilled water. Put bowl over it. Keep damp and let's sit. Allowing min light to enter and reach the seeds lift bowl and check twice daily. Allow root to grow to 1/4 inch or bigger but don't let go too long. Using the plastic solo cups and a nail poke holes in the bottom. The more holes the better draining. Too many holes wont hold soil. fill to 1/2 inch from top and saturate with same water. Using the ink cartridge from a bic pen push a hole into the soil you choose. I just use miracle grow potting soil. Use a pair of surgical tweezers (easy to lift at doctors for free) and make sure they are clean. Even if you just boil them in clean water for 30 min. Pick up the seed with the root pointing down.and ever so softly place seed in the soil and once its under about 1/8th inch of soil sprinkle more soil over whole. I do not press the soil until after it has sprouted. Once the seeds are in the soil gently as to not disturb the seed saturate the soil with the clean water but dont drown the seeds. Place 2 flur lights of appropriate size and color none are warm white, about 2 inches offer the soil and move the light daily to maintain 2 inches above the plant. I use flat foil to help reflect the light. So far I have had a 100% success rate. I am still on my first grow and am making adjustments as I go but the 7 seeds I started with are all growing well. You can check them out in my Sig.

Here are some pictures I just took. Sorry for poor quality all pictures are taken on my phone lol
This one is at day 8 the rest are day 3

This is day 3, still have to make a mount to lower lights.

This is all of them. The one cup that looks empty is growing amazingly slow but its in there

Very nice, low buget and successfull. Please keep me updated on this.

if you put your light closer they won't stretch so much. they're tryin to grow closer to the light. put the light as close as you can. an easy test to make sure it's not to close is to put you hand between the light and the plants. if its to hot for your hand it's to close but with floro's and cfl's you can put them real close as long as they don't touch

I still gotta build a brace so I can adjust the height of the light as well as get atleast 3 more lights. 2 flur, 1 hps. Put a flur vertically on each side and hps on top in center. But hps is expensive and that's why I started growing lol too poor to but. But now its a bit of an obsession lol can't stop looking at them lol.

im doing the same bro, puttin the rest together as i go. need a fan/filter ina bad way. dont forget that. i thought i wouldnt really NEED the filter until flowering. wrongo. as soon as i walk into the house you can smell skunk. my girls arent 2 months old yet, lol. doin great man. love seeing another first timer like me.

With my nodes growing so close together is that a sign that is an indica strain?

I was told by a friend that grows too that closer node spacing is an early sign of the plant being female, but I don't know how accurate that is.

The best way to tell strain is when they get a little bit bigger, the fan leaves are shorter and fatter on indicas, which tend to grow shorter and bushier in the long run, and the leaves are thinner and longer for sativas, which tend to be skinnier and taller when they grow. I have one pure indica, and one hybrid (65%i/35%s), and the difference is very easy to tell by the leaves and the plants' growth.

Things that I've learned are absolutely necessary: Lights close to the plants, I try to keep them at about 2 inches away. I use a homemade light setup of 4 26w CFL's cool white/daylight 6500k spectrum (I plan to add 2 42w CFL's warm white 2700k for flower), twisted into some socket adapters and Y connectors because the bulbs emit a fuller spectrum from the side, those are plugged into an everyday household power strip and secured in place with a few zip ties. I made my own housing for this as well, and I'm sure you could too if you're handy at all. Next you absolutely need a pH meter, and a way to adjust your pH if it's off, limestone is great. You can find some great info on here. You'll also want a way to track them temp and humidity, and a fan blowing across the plants 24/7, something that oscillates is ideal.

using the cfl lights for the seedlings makes them grow shorter than under a mh. i have 2 labella strawberries, one was put directly under 2 16 watt cfl bulbs. the one under the cfl's grew its 3rd set of leaves while the one under the mh was still on its first set, and was 1.5 inches taller than the cfl. the shortness caused the one under cfl's to have closer nodes, a bushier look. heres the 2

the only difference was the cfl bulbs over the 1
germed, cracked, planted in bags same day.
cant really tell but with a tape measure the smaller plant was 1.5 inches!!! taller

I know most people are against using foil but I'm poor so get over it lol. But seriously I added a foil barrier to reflect the light. I used the dull side and am working on building a grow box about 2 feet high out of a cardboard box cover the inside with foil and making it smooth, and am cutting another piece of cardboard to fit inside and am going to attach my 2 12in flor lights to the "lid" so I can raise and lower the lights. Once they outgrow the box I will transplant them into 3 gallon buckets not sure what soil it depends on what I can afford.and am hoping to buy 2 hps lights with my income taxes, so that will help. I'm growing in my water heater closest. It has removable shelves on the left side of it and what you see is just 1 shelf. As my ladies grow taller I will adjust the shelves to fit them correctly.







I had a slight problem, one of my plants that I thought was growing great feel the fuck over when I watered it today. Guess I didn't plant it deep enough, the roots were strong through so I sterilized a pair of tweezers and used then to plant her deeper into the soil and put more soil on the top with the leaves about 2inches above the soil. Sound like a good idea?

becarefull to don't over watter, use some organic fert

Yeah I made that mistake and overwatered for the first few days. But I fixed it.

Being a new grower (as I am too) affords you one thing especially, and that's the opportunity to learn a lot, I know I have. If your stems grow too tall because of stretching, you can use a temporary fix of cutting a straw to the right height, then slitting it down the side. Carefully spread the straw open and put it around the stem. this will work for a few weeks until 2 things happen, the stem starts to strengthen, and its time to transplant. When you transplant, just bury them a little deeper, only leaving an inch or two between the soil and the lowest set of leaves, as mentioned above. Taken from my experience, and your pics, you're getting a lot of stretch because the light is too high and too far to the side. You definitely need to figure out a way to get that light above the plants and only a couple inches away from the plants, or this will continue to be a problem for you. The longer them stems stretch, the less weight the plant can bear, and in the long run, the plant will either be very tall with fewer nodes, which equals less yield, or it won't be able to carry the weight of the buds. If your plants do get too much taller, you can always try doing LST, which will help counter both a height issue, and promote side growth countering the long internodal space, which in turn promotes more bud sites.

Good Luck and Happy Smoking.

i am growing 2 labella strawberries. the ony difference between the 2 plants is that one of them had 3 16 watt cfl bulbs hanging about an inch over it, and the other plant was under the mh 14 inches away. the ls under the mh grew slower and taller, the cfl was short bushy tight and working on its 3rd set of true leaves. the mh was still in its first set. same age to the day. like watchxyouxburn said get your lights closer, i tied mine off with fishing line so i could hang them wherever i needed to. ill try to find pics to show the difference in the 2. lookin good, lookin alot better than other people i know that still wont even try.
keep cfl bulbs about 1 inch from the girls, they wont burn unless the bulb is pretty much resting on leaves. and its super good for seedlings. o and theyir hella cheap too lols