New Grower My First Grow Journal!

[Trapper]

Damn that Dr. Frankenfurter! I was hoping that my warning would be simply academic....that sucks! Well, so much for my interest in THAT strain. Sorry to hear the Psycho tried to get its freak on....Here's to hoping that you broke up the party before the clothes came off..... Everything looks nice and developing perfectly Fingers crossed.....

That RRF does, in fact, look impressive! I'm hopeful for the Sweet Skunk too...

 

[GMan]

Day 46

She was slaughtered in front of the others in case anyone else had similar ideas.
:

Funny as f* man. Sorry to hear though. Were you not tempted to move her to another room to collect some pollen for a future seed run?

The other girls look fantastic, well done.

 

[Grateful Zach]

Funny as f* man. Sorry to hear though. Were you not tempted to move her to another room to collect some pollen for a future seed run?

The other girls look fantastic, well done.

Thanks man! Hell no, don't ever use pollen from a hermie.. they tend to pass on that hermie gene. I've got enough beans from Attitude and Seedsman to seriously last about two years, probably longer so no biggie. I did consider hanging the buds to dry but it's way early and even with the frost I'm sure the high would have been sub par at best. My other option was to put her outside to finish but it would've had to been somewhere beside my yard.. and I didn't want to be driving around with that huge thing in my truck, haha. Not a big deal and the other plants are enjoying the extra room they have, just hoping for no seeds.

- - - Updated - - -

Funny as f* man. Sorry to hear though. Were you not tempted to move her to another room to collect some pollen for a future seed run?

The other girls look fantastic, well done.

Thanks man! Hell no, don't ever use pollen from a hermie.. they tend to pass on that hermie gene. I've got enough beans from Attitude and Seedsman to seriously last about two years, probably longer so no biggie. I did consider hanging the buds to dry but it's way early and even with the frost I'm sure the high would have been sub par at best. My other option was to put her outside to finish but it would've had to been somewhere beside my yard.. and I didn't want to be driving around with that huge thing in my truck, haha. Not a big deal and the other plants are enjoying the extra room they have, just hoping for no seeds.

 

[Grateful Zach]

Damn that Dr. Frankenfurter! I was hoping that my warning would be simply academic....that sucks! Well, so much for my interest in THAT strain. Sorry to hear the Psycho tried to get its freak on....Here's to hoping that you broke up the party before the clothes came off..... Everything looks nice and developing perfectly Fingers crossed.....

That RRF does, in fact, look impressive! I'm hopeful for the Sweet Skunk too...

Thanks homie.. Yeah I busted in the door on the party and ruined the fun I guess! I can't imagine the male sacs were out for very long, I know they can pop out fast but I'm thinking only a few days at best. I've been really trimming and staking up these girls to keep them vertical, and I think I would've noticed them. I had last watered four days prior so I think the sacs were either just forming or not showing at that point. They were very noticeable so I don't think I missed them.

Looking back now, I should've known something wasn't quite right when she didn't show sex like the others and then shot up like a frickin male does. Lesson learned I suppose, another lesson learned is to not over do it with plants. Seven is too many for my room, six is too many actually. I think I'll stick with four from here on out, it's much easier to give them the attention that they require.

That said, I've decided to do a photo run next time around. I'm loving these autos and I know the harvest will be sweet, but I'm worried about heat issues with my light on a minimum of 18 hours in the summer. We are just getting into summer here and hot, hot days are on the way for the next three months. It'll be much better running my light 12/12 with the light at night.

I'll be dropping four photo seeds when I get home next Tuesday or Wednesday.. stay tuned my friends

 

[Grateful Zach]

OK we are back from our little vacation and the ladies are just fine! Five full days without water or the grow room being opened and they look great. I will update later with pics I took this morning, just taking a little break from working outside in the veggie garden. By the way.. tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, they all love the Fox Farm nute runoff! And Happy Frog veggie nutes at planting help as well! I've got a jungle out there with more veggies than we can eat. So anyway, before we left early Saturday morning I stayed up all night (I work nights) and watered each with four full gallons of water, a slight flush but did not use Sledgehammer. Left a little water in the dishes as well. I feel my soil is still running hot, still seeing some clawing and tip burn but cal/mag issues seem to be almost gone. I gave each 2 plain water gallons and 2 cal/mag gallons, runoff into bucket for outdoor use. I also ran my light at 75% while we were gone to keep heat down, and dropped my light to 17-7. In another week I plan to drop to 18-6 and get these babies done a little sooner hopefully! Will update later with pics and what I fed them this morning

 

[Grateful Zach]

Day 53

Plants seem to be recovering from the cal/mag issues as I continue to supplement every watering. Last weekend the girls received a light 4 gallon flush so hopefully ph is increasing in my soil by now. Gave each plant a gallon of plain water again this morning and even though it had been four days there was some runoff. Things are progressing nicely and the smells are awesome.. a little bit of everything as you can imagine. The +Speed and Sweet Skunk are "50 day" plants but they certainly aren't ready, not even thinking about flushing them yet. With only six girls now, I have a little more room in the grow so I added a small fan in the back to help move air down low.

I haven't really fed anything since the burn a couple weeks ago so I went ahead and gave them a little food after the gallon of plain water. I mixed up 1 gallon and split it six ways between them all so it's a strong mix but each plant only received 1/6 of the gallon. Added: 2 tsp cal/mag, 10 tsp Big Bloom, 3 tsp Grow Big, 4 tsp Tiger Bloom, and 1/4 tsp Beastie Bloomz.. Hopefully they're hungry, I think they are!

Random bud and room shots from this morning



Sorry about the yellow, the HPS makes taking photos difficult!



Starting using pipe cleaners to help support and pull side branches in, if you see white fuzzy things

 

[Trapper]

Looking Great in there, GZ!

 

[Grateful Zach]

Day 58

Man these autos are kicking my ass! As a photo grower I seemed to have my nute schedule pretty much nailed down but these autos are a whole new plant.. Last week I gave an extra four gallons as a light flush due to leaf burn, cal/mag, ph too low, etc.. Five days ago, another full gallon chased with a small feeding (trying not to feed much) and still seeing clawing the following day.

Enough is enough, gave 1 gallon plain water, 1 gallon with Sledgehammer, followed by 4 more gallons of plain water and a gallon of water with light cal/mag, Microbrew, Kangaroots, Big Bloom, and Boomerang to give the soil something. Pretty sure that soil is neutral now and the plants are thanking me for it. They're getting darker and the smell has exploded in the past few days.

That flush was four days ago.. today I picked up some LIME and mixed a tablespoon into the top inch of soil and watered in with two gallons of plain water for each plant. Hoping the lime will keep my ph a little higher. I also gave each lady a light feeding afterwards with 1 tsp cal/mag, 1 tsp Tiger Bloom, 1/2 tsp Grow Big, 4 tsp Big Bloom, and a touch of Beastie Bloomz per gallon of water.. each plant received a third of a gallon with this mix. Hopefully that won't be too much for them, I feel like I'm getting things under control so we will see!

I haven't started a journal yet but I dropped those four photo seeds the other day and have 100% germination, they all popped up yesterday! I will start a journal in the photo forum and have a link in my sig if ya'll want to follow along! Will be running Critical Jack, Kalashnikova, Widowmaker, and Lemon Thai Kush

Snapped a few pics.. HPS is not on, it's a big cfl on the ceiling and my reflector blocks most of it so sorry for the blur!

 

[Grateful Zach]

Day 60

Was going to water tonight but the ladies still haven't dried out quite enough yet. They've had a lot of water flushed through at various times in the past two weeks so I'm going to let them dry out another day, might help raise the ph a little too. I think things are looking up, starting to get some more green in the leaves now and the clawing is gone! I don't use a ph meter because it caused more harm than good in the past, but I really feel like as a new auto grower I need to have a better handle on my ph levels. For that reason I ordered one of those Oaktons that ya'll are always raving about! Seems simple and accurate, and if it saves me from another nute lock out then it's worth it. I'm interested to see where I'm at with the flush and the lime added, should be here in a few days.

I also made a trip to the hydro store and grabbed a few new things.. Instead of Ocean Forest and Happy Frog, I'll be using Sunshine Advanced #4 (no nutes) mixed with the remainder of my OF for future grows. Also grabbed some Big and Chunky perlite which is fantastic, some Bembe, ph7 calibration solution, and a bottle of ph Up. Have started a photo grow in that forum and have already mixed and transplanted seedlings. It won't let me put a link in my sig, says I've got too many characters or something. Anyway, it's over there if you want to check it out.

That's it for now, I will try and get some pics up tomorrow when I pull them out to water..

 

[Grateful Zach]

Day 62

I will figure out these autos sooner or later! A lot more difficult than I thought going into this grow to be honest with you, but I do like a good challenge. It's been almost a week since the Sledgehammer flush and four days since I added 3 tsp of lime to the soil. The lime was dolomite lime and was very very small granules, completely disappears when it gets wet so I'm hoping it's already working to neutralize the soil. I've been a little frustrated and have been running straight tap water with these flushes instead of letting it sit out like I should. I know, I know, I'm just being lazy but damnnit.

So I've spent about a 100 hours on here in the past week, learning lots of new things and trying to fix my issues without doing anything drastic. I've learned the chlorine from straight tap water will kill the micros/bad for plant in general. Water will now sit for 48 hours before use. Also think I'm running too much water through when I water. From now on, with good ph (hopefully that Oakton will show up soon) I plan to just water to slight run off. There's a lot more involved but you don't want to read all that.

Along with the added lime, I've also started using diatomaceous earth to help with fungus gnats. I don't really have a problem with them, just a few here and there.. Anyway it's super cheap and totally organic, kills the gnat larvae that eat our roots and doesn't hurt the plant at all. It's just fossilized shell that has been ground to a powder, microscopically it's very sharp.. punctures the larvae and they bleed out basically. We actually spread it on our carpets sometimes overnight and then vacuum it up the next day. It kills flea larvae and so we use it as a natural way to kill fleas on our pets. Never knew I could use it for the plants as well.

Anyway, went and bought distilled water to feed tonight since I didn't have any good tap water to use. Gave a light feeding, I really think the soil is pretty empty with all the water I've been pushing through. Starting completely over today basically. Each lady got 1/2 cal/mag, 1/2 Grow Big, 1 Tiger Bloom, 2 Big Bloom, 1/2 Boomerang, and 2 tsp Bembe to a gallon. Did not feed to runoff, just enough to fill them up and leave those nutes in the soil. Those nutes are all half strength according to the schedule. We shall see what happens, hopefully my ph meter will show up soon! Check a few trichs under the scope tonight as well, Blue Cheese is showing a lot of orange but she is only about half cloudy. +Speed, my 50 day plant still has mostly white pistils, showing about 75% cloudy, with a few ambers showing as well. She has another 2-3 weeks I'm guessing. Thought maybe the 17-7 light cycle would speed things up but doesn't appear that way. Or maybe they're just waiting for me to get my shit together so they can have the nutes they need.

Pics!

Bud shot of Haze 2.0 right in front

Blue Cheese

The Russian

Sweet Skunk

Jack47

+Speed

Couple room shots, Haze 2.0 in the front

:Sharing One: