Xin's first grow

My first setup is really ghetto - a large rubbermaid bin precariously perched on a toilet in a small closet-like bathroom. This room was chosen as my grow space due to having pre-existing ventilation (bathroom fan) and its own heater. I live alone in a large house (owned by me) so I have my choice of space and stealth is not an issue. Funding is, however. But, I am tired of putting this off so I decided to start up an El Cheapo ghetto grow, learn and improve my space as I go, and just see what I can pull out.

Medium: Potting soil from the local dollar store
Light: Presently 1 26w 2700k CFL + 1 13w 6500k CFL (looking to increase this asap)
Strain: Northern Lights - Feminized. From seed bank seed.
Water: Tap water set out in the room to let the gasses evaporate and warm to the room temperature
Nutes: None yet

I plan to convert the entire room into a continual grow room with two chambers and have a lady in the flowering chamber at all times. For now, my seedling is confined to a rubbermaid container simply due to light-containment considerations. She doesn't need a whole big light rig yet and I don't have one set up anyway.



-as I touched on, I don't expect spectacular results from this setup. I just want to get the ball rolling and improve as I go -

My first attempt to germinate a seed in late January failed, I believe, due to the hanging light bulb pulling free from its anchoring tape and plunging straight into the solo cup where it sat on the soil and shined merrily until I found it a few hours later. Probably fried my seed. Also, I planted the seed in potting soil rather than seed germinating soil so it is possible the seed also drowned. .. derp XD
Well I learned some lessons and moved on. I anchored the light with Duct tape, left it off while germination occured, buried the seed very loosely and misted instead of watering.

Happily, early last week my second attempt popped out of the soil. I named her Consuela and fell in love <3

On Saturday Feb 8th I wrapped a mylar emergency blanket poorly and loosely around her space+light bulbs to contain more light. Its really wrinkled and cruddy but she has grown a lot since then (possible coincidence noted) and doesn't show any signs of burn so I am keeping it as-is for now. I make sure there is a gap at the bottom of the wrap and a gap at the top for airflow and I no longer close the rubbermaid container door. I intend to paint the container white on the inside and build a reflective hood for my lights as well as adding more CFLs soon. But as long as she looks healthy and keeps growing, I'm content enough for the time being

I mist her space and her dirt with a spray bottle twice a day to try to up the humidity in the room and I only pour water into her cup every few days.

Her first leaves are expanding rapidly and new one are starting to appear at the top

She has some mold on the surface of her soil. I should take care of that.



It may be noticable that her leaves appear to be facing away from the brightest light source in the second picture. This is because I just turned her cup this morning to correct her lean.

This is such a strange setup, lease some rooms to growers, and charge them bud for rent ...?

Lol, I know, right? Edited-in the pics, my friend
I have practically an entire finished basement available as well as a bedroom upstairs. *shrug* Like I said, I know it sucks but I'm low on funds (going through a divorce, vet bills blah blah) and just wanted to get something started. Its working so far

Late last week (Feb 13th ish) my girl started looking droopy with her leaves hanging down. I was told here that it was overwatering (facepalm, noob mistake)


So I left her alone for around 3 or 4 days and she perked back up and more leaves came in nice. I also added another 6500k cfl (23w - 1650 lumens) to her room and positioned her directly under it. Now, at 2 weeks old, this is how she looks:


Its been suggested to me that the bend in her oldest leaves is due to magnesium deficiency so I sprinkled a few grains of Epsom salt on her dirt and watered her this morning. I also added some Epsom salt into a pitcher of water that I plan to water her with going forward (a few days from now of course, wouldn't want to over do it! ). Going to keep her in her cup for now and probably look into transplanting her into a bigger pot in early March.


Note: In correction of my first post (can't edit it anymore apparently) my CLFs are as follows: 1 x 40w 2600k, 2 x 23w 6500k
Had my wattage wrong.

Here's my poor baby at 3 weeks old.
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On Friday the 21st her top leaves touched a CFL and she got some light burn on a few of her leaves. I was sad but not too concerned about it. However, just yesterday (or the day before?) she started developing some crazy brown splotches and discoloration on her lowest/oldest leaves. It makes me sad to see the difference in her coloration from this picture to the lush green that she was last week. I hope I can pull her through. Thinking about repotting to a larger pot (cleaning out the mold on her surface dirt, and adding pearlite to her new mix) and starting some faint nutes soon and see if she improves. I don't want to do too much and possibly shock the poor thing and make her worse, though.... on the bright side she's got lots and lots of leaves compared to last week!

I am wondering now if this new development is actually from the Epsom since I only started her on that last week. I guess I should let her chill for a few days, water with normal (non-Epsom-added) water and see if she comes around. Maybe I am doing too much. I'd hate for it to be a different deficiency though and for it to get worse by my non-action....

Consuela's necrosis spread to her next level of leaves. It started out as grey spots on the leaves and spread until the edges of the leaves are crispy and whitish yellow. I am still not sure exactly what her problem is/was but on Friday I bought some different potting soil, mixed it to 25% pearlite and put her in it in a nice big pot lined at the bottom with cocofiber. When I transplanted her, I saw that she had a good sized rootball, so that is good. Additionally, I am only watering her with filtered water from now on. Her lower leaves still look awful but her new growth has visibly grown & multiplied since the transplanting. The new growth is a better color of green but still seems possibly slightly speckled in color. I'm really trying not to over do it but I may try giving her a tiny bit of nutes soon. I dripped a drop or two onto her soil when she was looking really bad last week before the transplanting just in case.. figured she was probably doomed anyway Not sure if it had anything to do with her seeming improvement... Going to take it slow and easy and hope that she will still pull through!!



Also probably going to trim off her lower necrotic leaves and hope I don't see any more of that popping up anywhere else.

When Consuela was looking really bad last week, I was worried that I was going to lose her so, I started her a little sister. Unfortunately her sister is deformed and emerged without leaves so that's going to be an abortion sad times.

View attachment 3012845

hope she makes it through, it seems like were working with about the same setup/ budget so ill be following this ta see how things turn out, hope all goes well, how old is it now?

Consuela is 1 month old. She is really small for a month, I think she should have bigger leaves. Her big ones all got necrotic, though, and her growth was stunted. She still looks like a seedling.. I think she should be more plant-like by now. The good news is that I gave her a drop of liquid nutes and the baby leaves at the top turned greener (less yellow!) within minutes! So maybe the poor thing just had a N deficiency. I've looked at picture guides and blah blah but nothing really looked EXACTLY like what she had. Honestly I think I had several issues.. overheating, the soil she was in cracked a lot when dry, possible N deficiency, possible too many salts/minerals in my tap water... Anyway with the repotting into a better soil+pearlite mix, trimming off her bad leaves, feeding her liquid nutes and filtered water, I think she is going to make it She looks pretty good now. Just small. Thanks for the encouragement, man!

yeah no problem;/ what soil are you using by the way, i did plants in miracle grow potting soil before and had some similar problems , it being a "hot " soil its hard for young plants and seedlings to grow in , and every time you water more nutrients are released because of the slow release nutes in it . My girly didnt seem to halt growth tho, and worst case scenario if she dont pull through jus consider it a learning experience for next time. If you can id try getting some fem/autoflower seeds , they are alot easier to grow and some go from seed to bud in just 60 days . A good route to go if your just looking for some high quality quick smoke, they dont yeild as well as photoperiod plants but there speed makes up for it in my book. Dont give up,!! maybe post a pic??

Just plain old cheap as I could find potting soil. No nutes at all, I think. Maybe I will try autoflower later. I've already got a bunch of Northern Lights seeds that I ordered from a bank. I heard NL was a good strain for beginners *shrug* - 3 seeds and 1 month later I've got only a small seedling
But the learning experience is good anyway.

Just for the sake of consistency I've been taking pics of her every Tuesday so that the picture progress will be exactly 1 week apart. So I'll post another one on the 11th I think they will show some positive growth!

alrighty man ill be checkin back with ya best of luck

Here's the baby as promised. One month + one week from when she first popped out of the soil. I took off her necrotic leaves which were pretty much all the big leaves she had at the time. So this is all new growth! She looks much happier if I daresay. If you look close you can still see some yellowish speckling in the interior of the leaves but overall she is much greener. I think she likes her new pot and food There's no size reference in the photos but I'd say she's about 6" tall from the soil? I'm pretty optimistic about her continued growth and, if all goes well, going to consider flowering her in early April



My main complaint would be that she's too dense right now. But since this is all new growth, she doesn't have much length to her "branches" yet.... I may look in to start training her but for now I'm just happy she's growing

yeah theres def. alot more to her now then tha last picture. the leaves stil look a little unhappy but hell shes growin lol could it possibly be to hot ?? anyway lookin better for sure

Yeah she's not in perfect health still but looks a lot better. It has been getting a bit hot in there lately, yeah, trying to avoid that.

maybe put a fan in there to get the air moving but better for sure

how things lookin man??

I thought she was still looking really good and green and growing... but just last night I found a whole branch of leaves on the back side of the plant that had suddenly turned BRIGHT solid yellow!!! WTF.... Rest of the plant still looks good .. trying not to panic lol. Pics tomorrow.