Organic Autoflowers First Time Solo Grow

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Futures posts can be found at this thread.

Will be working on soil tomorrow!

Mixed the soil today and planted the seeds.
Did not have that much fun washing perlite but mixing the soil was therapeutic.

I decided to basically start things off by experimenting with soil and my dry amendments. Kind of wish I had done a control plant buuuut was a little too excited. That said I'm slightly concerned I may run in to some nutrient burn but hoping for the best.
I'm running x2 Banana Kush, x2 Gelato and x2 Cheese, with one of each in two different soil mixes.

I started with one 1.5 cubic feet bag of Fox Farms Ocean Forest and added 30 cups of perlite for extra airation. This was enough to make up the bottom half of my six 5 gallon pots.

For the top half I had three 12 quart bags of Fox Farms Happy Frog potting soil. This is just shy of 1.5 cubic feet that's in the FFOF. I added 30 cups of perlite to this soil as well. Additionally I added 1.5 cups of Down To Earth 3-3-3 seedlings fertilizer.
I'm hoping it will compliment the HF and early stage of development.


That's what is the same for both mixes.

Mix #1
For the bottom half I added 4 tablespoons of Down to Earth 4-4-4 Vegetable Garden fertilizer and mixed it on. Then lightly sprayed the top and added 2 tablespoons of myco.

No further amendments were made to the top half of HF besides the 3-3-3. Both Happy Frog and 3-3-3 have myco so I didn't add any additional.


Mix #2
Probably a little hotter and mostly trying it out from what I saw on a Canucks Grow video. Don't think it's exactly the same though since I'm not totally sure what the difference is between the Gaia Green soil and FFOF/HF but all the Gaia Green products are like double to get them in the US from what I've seen.
Bottom half of FFOF has 2 tablespoons each of 4-4-4 Vegetable Garden and 4-8-4 Bloom and Flower mixed in. Then a light spray and topped with myco.
The top half of HF in Mix 2 has 3 table spoons of 4-8-4 mixed in. I then dug a cone shape out of the center of the top half and added additional HF that just had the 3-3-3 so the seedling isn't jumping right into the 4-8-4 mix.


Again this mix is a little hotter and is mostly an experiment to see the amendments will are too much or work out all right.

Spider farmers are set to 20% right now.
Will start 2 more Gelato in 2 weeks as it's a advertised as a 10 week plant and then 2 weeks after that another 2 Banana Kush and Cheese plants. Hopefully find out by then if the mixes are looking good or if I need to slow my roll and run with some control plants.

Been a struggle getting the humidity and temp to the right level being winter in Michigan during a polar vortex. Have two humidifiers going in the tent and I have a space heater heating outside of the tent. I had to slow down the exhaust fan a bit and I was able to hit 73 degrees with lights on and 66 off. Humidity is finally at 45 now too.

Hoping to see some sprouts this weekend.

One of my Gelatos broke through the surface on Thursday. Seen quite a bit of growth already since then. Still waiting for the other ladies to join us. It hasn't been a full week yet so still have some hope they'll make it. If not I'll try new seeds. Just happy to one doing real good.

Day 8
My first Gelato just keeps looking better every day. Little Gelato doesn't seem to be growing quite as fast and has leaf that looks brownish on the edge. Not really sure what it is. Just going to keep an eye on her and see what happens.
Planted two more cheese since it doesn't look like the first 2 are going to sprout. Planted one more Banana Kush and have 2 that are still germinating. Not sure one is going to sprout so I started an extra. If they both sprout I'll whip up another pot and might just do a control pot without any extra fertilizers.

Also noticed a couple fungus gnats so I put down some sticky traps and lightly dusted with a little diatomaceous earth. Hopefully that takes care of them.

Day 9



Day 10





Got lazy today and just grabbed a snip from my notepad. Had to post the full size image of the Gelato. Cheers!

Day 14
Main Gelato looks extra perky today compared to last night even. Already see the next leaves starting between the second set.
Little Gelato looks like she's finally starting to make her rebound. He second set of leaves are coming in even though they're really tiny.
Waiting to see if the 2 Cheese that he good taproot join us. I really don't see why they shouldn't sprout cuz they were pretty healthy raproots.

Pics from last night

Been slacking on my updates.
Day 15
Gelatos are doing great! Looks like little Gelato is finally seeing some new growth and her second set of leaves are coming in.
Have some Cheese and a Banana Kush in soil, waiting to see what happens. Planning on planting two more Gelatos in a week. Should know by then the state of the current seeds.
Just feels weird that my Gelatos are doing so well and I'm having so much trouble getting my others to sprout. Will just keep on trucking until I have a full tent.

Wow for first grow that is pretty intense a soil mix with a large set up environment. I know I get very impatient when seeds take a while to pop. Lately I’ve gone to the 24 water soak, paper towel germination on seedling heat mat. not because it’s better than straight seed to soil but only for my piece of mind that the seed is viable. Good luck on your grow!

MickeyFins said:

Wow for first grow that is pretty intense a soil mix with a large set up environment. I know I get very impatient when seeds take a while to pop. Lately I’ve gone to the 24 water soak, paper towel germination on seedling heat mat. not because it’s better than straight seed to soil but only for my piece of mind that the seed is viable. Good luck on your grow!

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I had the budget to get the equipment for the grow I wanted to have. I've helped with grows in the past but it is my first time growing on my own from seed to harvest. I can legally grow 12 plants so I'm planning on having a rotation going and hopefully have a harvest every 4-5 weeks depending on how the autos behave. Since I'm doing 5 gallon pots and going to have 12 plants going I went with the 5x10 tent for the space so I didn't feel claustrophobic when working on things.
I'll also probably do a couple control pots without the amendments from the get go just to compare. Just got too excited and knew I wanted to try both the combos I'm running now.

Day 16
A new lady has joined the party!
The 484 mix Cheese has sprouted and is looking good. I did put a healthy amount of the Happy Frog 333 mix in the center and top before planting the seed.
Gave all the pots water today to make sure the soil doesn't dry out. Possibly should have done that sooner so I'll keep that in mind going forward. I sprayed the top of the pots and also a small amount in the plastic the pots are sitting on. They soaked it all the water up and that's what I wanted to see.
I was going to get 3 control pots going but I goofed this morning after watering and forgot to add storage solution to my pH pen and now it's out of wack. Didn't have any calibration solution on hand so I ordered some.

Zanonomicon said:

Day 16
A new lady has joined the party!
The 484 mix Cheese has sprouted and is looking good. I did put a healthy amount of the Happy Frog 333 mix in the center and top before planting the seed.
Gave all the pots water today to make sure the soil doesn't dry out. Possibly should have done that sooner so I'll keep that in mind going forward. I sprayed the top of the pots and also a small amount in the plastic the pots are sitting on. They soaked it all the water up and that's what I wanted to see.
I was going to get 3 control pots going but I goofed this morning after watering and forgot to add storage solution to my pH pen and now it's out of wack. Didn't have any calibration solution on hand so I ordered some.

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Love the variety!

Killaki said:

Love the variety!

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Thanks!

Day 18
Went back and checked my logs. My Gelatos sprouted 3 days apart but they don't look anywhere close. Definitely won't be using the 484 mix with Happy Frog going forward. I'll probably take the Banana Kush 484 pot that doesn't have anything growing and use it as a top dressing later down the road.
Got calibration solution for my pH meter so gave the girls some water. I decided to test the water coming out of my sprayer. The water coming out was testing at 6.8 even after I dropped the water in the tank to 5.8 so I used my watering can until I can wrap my head around what's happening.
I also got my 3 control pots going and went for a direct sow with a little bed of Dynomyco for the seed to rest on. A grower friend on Instagram plants all of his pots this way so I thought I would give it a shot.
Bottom half is Fox Farms Ocean Forest with a layer of mycorrhizae between the top half of Happy Frog. Added extra perlite to both FFOF and HF. Other than that the soil is unamended.

It's been 3 weeks since the first two Gelatos were planted. The other girls are all over the place.
Pretty big day!
I finally have a Banana Kush sprout! 4 days after direct sowing with some Dynamyco the Banana Kush baby has popped above ground. I can also see the Gelato in the control pot is real close to surfacing as well. I'm sure the Cheese in control pot is not far behind.
I also took some drastic measures for the plants in the 484 mix. My first two Gelatos only sprouted 3 days apart but definitely don't look like it. I decided to transplant both the ladies out of the mix that is clearly too hot to handle and put them in control pots with some mycorrhizae to see if that will ease shock of the transplant. I might lose them but I don't think they would have really done much if I had left them where they were.
I'll be watering the main Gelato tonight after the lights kick back on.

All the ladies got water today.
Also did some LST on the Gelato.
3 weeks and a day since the first Gelato sprouted above the ground. Girl was looking thirsty and I was already planning on watering her tonight. I also top dressed her with 2 teaspoons of mycorrhizae, 1 tablespoon of Down To Earth 4-4-4 Vegetable Garden Fertilizer, and 2/3 cups of the soil mix from the 4-8-4 pots I reclaimed. I'm kind of just guessing here at this point. Watered the top and also sprayed water in the tray that the pot can soak up.
Both control girls shedded their shells and popped open.
The 484 girls seem to be just kind of hanging out.

27 days since the Gelato was planted. Not sure if I will LST every plant the same way I'm training her but it's pretty fun.
The Control plants seem to have passed the Cheese - 333 but I'm not sure why.
Finally able to get the tent to the right temperature without needing to run a space heater so that's exciting.

4 weeks since I started growing and planted the first set of seeds. I went ahead and planted 4 more pots. 2 Cheese, 1 Banana Kush and 1 Gelato. They're all in the control mix half and half FFOF on the bottom and Happy Frog on top. I'm also trying out Jiffy pucks to start the seeds. I still added the DynaMyco with the seed so we'll see how that works.

Also performed some maintenance to keep the tent clean. Used the shop vac to clean up the loose dirt that's been occasionally spilled and dog hair I've tracked into the tent with me. Cleaned my main humidifier and letting it dry out. Good tent hygiene is important! Keeping things clean as you go is definitely the way to go when getting a perpetual grow going.

Things certainly haven't exactly gone as planned but I've been enjoying every day of it. Looking forward to learning more and trying different things out.

Had an oops today while training the Gelato. Was a little too rough with one of the fan leaf branches and she snapped right off. I hope it doesn't shock her too much. Other than that she's looking beautiful.
Controls continue to look great. 3 of the 4 I planted on Tuesday are starting to break through to the surface. One of each strain even so hopefully the 2nd cheese with pop through by tomorrow or Sunday. Getting pretty stoked to have more to take care of.

Zanonomicon said:

Had an oops today while training the Gelato. Was a little too rough with one of the fan leaf branches and she snapped right off. I hope it doesn't shock her too much. Other than that she's looking beautiful.
Controls continue to look great. 3 of the 4 I planted on Tuesday are starting to break through to the surface. One of each strain even so hopefully the 2nd cheese with pop through by tomorrow or Sunday. Getting pretty stoked to have more to take care of.
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I'm sure she'll be fine. Look at it as a learning experience and remember it next time. Looks good, keep it up.