Yet another newbie first grow...

Hello All,

This is my first post to RIU but since over the past couple of months all of you have been so helpful while I've lurked around I thought it was about time I got involved.

Basically I got sick of paying for rubbish buds, which almost put me off the green altogether. So I thought I would have a crack at this growing thing. Since this is a first grow Ive tried to keep everything pretty simple and low cost and a few things have evolved along the way.

To start off here's a run-down of my setup...

-Very small space, 2"x2". It's an old disused cupboard in the garage.
-Small scale Flood and Drain system based around storage tubs and using clay balls/rockwool as media.
-Nutrients are House and Garden Hydro
-Lighting started as a crappy ebay LED UFO which I then supplemented with some e27 LED globes and have now replaced with another crappy, but larger, ebay LED panel.
-Since this is a first attempt I've started with just Bagseed. Honestly I'm surprised that I got 100% germination of the seeds I tried. Some of the ones in my little pot would be close to 10 years old!

I wasn't really expecting much from my first grow so I thought I'd have a go with some LST and ScrOG as well. Mixed results there but I don't need to explain the learning curve to all of you sinceyou were all once newbies as well.

Please feel free to chime in with tips and/or tricks. The idea of this thread is to show what I've done so far and try to get some info to improve for the next one.

So no more messing around, Let's have some pics

Please excuse my lack of photographic skill. All pics taken with an older phone with very little effort.
These are the earliest pics I could find. One thing I will definitely doing for next time is keeping a better grow journal from the beginning with pictures. Not even sure how old they were at this point (or now for that matter) but this was about four weeks ago and about two weeks before I flipped them.




...and this was the first incarnation of my lighting setup...

...Yes, I was using the cooling fan from the light as an extraction fan also. It actually worked surprisingly well but I did end up getting a better fan with the new light.

This is with the new light after I had installed the screen. I think this was about a week before I flipped them. Again, top of the list next time will be a better grow journal!...

The bucket of clay balls on the door was to try and get the humidity up slightly. No sure if it work but or not but the humidity did go up a bit after I did it. I also added an extra feeding event to the timer at the same time though so it could've been either.

This is about a week after I flipped the light schedule. In hindsight I should've done it a bit earlier I think because I very quickly ran out of room...

...you can also start to see the other problem I've ended up with which is, because I used bagseed I have no idea what the strains are and the one on the right quite obviously went a little more nuts than the left.

That brings us up to today's pics. I'm pretty sure I'm three weeks into flower (again, grow log, yeah I know). Plant that took off at the flip is kicking along pretty well but the one on the left still hasn't totally shown sex yet but it's stretch seems to have taken off in the last week. Any suggestions there are welcome. My current theories are it's a male that didnt respond to the flip or I somehow managed to stumble upon an auto flowering strain. My very inexperienced eyes still tell me it's a girl but I realy would like it to confirm or deny that...

...Very crowded now!



...REALLY bad picture, I'm sorry



Space is obviously too small. Going to have to look into something larger or go back to one plant.
 

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Couple more pictures because I have them...



This is as close as I could get the the smaller plant. There are some very small pre-flowers but I cant quite tell which way it's going to go..


Like I said, any hints or help would be more than appreciated. Thankyou in advance if you have anything to share.

An even bigger thank you if you made it this far through and for all the help I pulled from these pages already!

...I think it's time for a spliff :p...
 

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Chef420

Well-Known Member
Looks really good. Nice little space you have.
You might want to figure out a way to get your electrics off the floor. Like mount the bar to something. For safety. Great job.
 
Looks really good. Nice little space you have.
You might want to figure out a way to get your electrics off the floor. Like mount the bar to something. For safety. Great job.
Little being the key word there! Next time will definitely have to be in a larger space.

I'm not really happy with the electrics in general, but you're absolutely right, they should be up off the ground. Since I didn't really plan this grow as well as I would have liked it was all sort slapped together. I sort of just started germinating some seeds and went from there. I've been playing around with the idea of using an Arduino to control my next grow. particularly to control the little things like switching off the reservoir heater when flooding so that it doesn't burn out when the nute level drops. If I do that it will all be run out of a box on the wall with proper breakers etc rather than multiple timers on a power board... Just another project to add to the list. I have started collecting Arduino system parts already though. Watch this space as they say :wink:
 

VenomGrower6990

Well-Known Member
Couple more pictures because I have them...



This is as close as I could get the the smaller plant. There are some very small pre-flowers but I cant quite tell which way it's going to go..


Like I said, any hints or help would be more than appreciated. Thankyou in advance if you have anything to share.

An even bigger thank you if you made it this far through and for all the help I pulled from these pages already!

...I think it's time for a spliff :p...
Smaller plant looks to be female too imo. Looks like its showing some white pistols in the last picture. Very healthy looking plants too btw.
 
Smaller plant looks to be female too imo. Looks like its showing some white pistols in the last picture. Very healthy looking plants too btw.
No white pistils unfortunately, just bad lighting. Was out in the garden just before and spotted a cluster of balls on one of the further back growth tips. Will check again tomorrow but think he's bared his balls, so to speak.

I've attached the best photo I could grab but phones are terrible cameras. USB microscope is now on the shopping list as well.

I would love to say that they look healthy because of something I did, but since I'm a total noob, I can't claim that... More accurately, I did it, I just don't know how :lol:... Thank you for compliment though, I appreciate the feedback

It's also a bit of a mess in there! need to spend more time trimming and tidying next time for sure. Just can't get over how quickly they bulk out
 

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That's a male. Sorry.
Unfortunately yes, He got the chop out yesterday morning. The joys of growing with bagseed right? Starting to think now about getting some fem seeds organised for the next grow and get ahead of the curve. Strain recommendations for small spaces and ScrOG muchly appreciated.

On the plus side I got some valuable experience sexing plants in both directions. Still a bit of a shame though, he was such a healthy little guy. Now he's mulched and chilling in the compost to make a return on the veggie bed. Nothing goes to waste around here!

The lovely lady has already taken advantage of the extra space and it has to a point alleviated my concern about airflow around the base when there was such a solid canopy. All silver linings I guess.

I thrown a couple more progress shots in. She seems to be coming along quite well and from all signs seems to be quite healthy. I will however never underestimate the stretch these plants are capable of again! Seriously thinking I'm going to have to consider a second screen or similar support because some of the bud sites are up to 2' off the screen. In hindsight I really needed to have to screen set much higher but that's another one to chalk up to experience.

This would be about 25 days into flower. Assuming that they've got at least another that again to go (all guesses as I don't know strain) is it fair to say that more support will be needed? How much more should I be expecting the buds to bulk out?
 

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Coco0503

Well-Known Member
Looking excellent man! And don't feel like you have to scale up in size right away, unless you're really trying to grow a ton of herb. I've been growing in a 2.5'x2'x7' tent and I got half a pound out of it with a 200w LED light, which is plenty for me to smoke and still lots left so that I can smoke down anyone that wants to kick it at my house. If you dial in your environment, you can get an excellent yield.

Can't wait to see how this turns out!
 

Chef420

Well-Known Member
Looking good GM. Like you I'm concerned about height. I'm in a 2x4x5 tent and I'm leave to make do until I can upgrade to a taller tent. I'm vegging two sativa dominant plants that I started too early as my flower tent won't be available for 6 weeks or so.
So...I manifolded them tonight. Could be great, could be a disaster. Lol.
 
Looking excellent man! And don't feel like you have to scale up in size right away, unless you're really trying to grow a ton of herb. I've been growing in a 2.5'x2'x7' tent and I got half a pound out of it with a 200w LED light, which is plenty for me to smoke and still lots left so that I can smoke down anyone that wants to kick it at my house. If you dial in your environment, you can get an excellent yield.

Can't wait to see how this turns out!
Wow! Alright, maybe I don't need any bigger. That would last me a year at least at my current rate... My goal has always been to just supply myself with good quality bud with enough left over to sell on to close mates and cover my costs. Judging by your results I should be able to manage that.

Thanks for stopping by. It's good to know that I'm on the right track
 
Looking good GM. Like you I'm concerned about height. I'm in a 2x4x5 tent and I'm leave to make do until I can upgrade to a taller tent. I'm vegging two sativa dominant plants that I started too early as my flower tent won't be available for 6 weeks or so.
So...I manifolded them tonight. Could be great, could be a disaster. Lol.
I've been reading a bit about the manifolding idea and really like it as a concept. Like I said, I was aiming to ScrOG but she just got away from me and didn't really work out that way.

Thinking my next grow will be fairly similar to this with some better genetics (well, better known) and see if I can replicate the result at least. Then I might try some more intensive training after that.

Have you got a grow journal going? would love to check it out.

That goes for everyone actually. There's a lot of grow journals on here and can get a bit daunting. If there are any I should be checking out, please let me know.
 
Just a quick progress update. Had to leave to lovely lady alone for the weekend as I was away for work. She took the time to herself perfectly and seems to be coming along quite nicely. By my count I am now 28 days into flower. A little on the leggy side but I'm still very pleased with how it's going for a first grow.

Have just ordered some fem seeds for the next grow as well. A long time ago I got my hands on some White Widow and it is still one of the most memorable smokes I've had so I decided to start there. Also picked up some OG Kush regular seeds because it's been on my bucket list for a while and it was on sale... and I can never resist a good discount!

Might now start looking into a better quality light. Unfortunately there's not a huge amount of choice where I am when it comes to ready made LEDs so I may look into a Cree CXB based DIY light. Have heard a lot of good things about them. Probably won't be ready to go for the next one though as I tend to work fairly slowly on these things with all the research I end up doing.

For now though, I'm just enjoying poking my head in and seeing how she's going. There's always some tidying and reservoir testing to do of course but it has slowed down a lot... Perfect opportunity to do some more research and read others grow journals.
 

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