New Grower Starting my first official grow

[NekoSempai]

THose buds are looking pretty killer.

How tall is that RQ dwarf getting?...and nvm about the LED question in my grow journal. I just answered it by coming back over here heh.

 

[Son of Hobbes]

Horten, that looks great bro! Can't wait to see your other ladies fatten up! Frosty treats for sure! :Sharing One:

 

[Horten229]

OK, I'm finally back on here with some time to post....about my latest failures and successes. One huge thing I've learned now is: proper PH levels are crucial! But first....what has happened to this grow since I got my LED light.....

Since my stealth cab wasn't finished by the time my LED arrived, I hung the it in my closet and set my young ladies under it.....maybe 18" or a bit more distant from the light. All was well with the world--then came the fly in the ointment: instead of driving my mom to meet with my brother and sister halfway between here and where my brother and sis live (a 7-hour drive!)...it got changed to my brother and sis (and my sister's oldest grandson) coming up here for Easter weekend--from Friday afternoon until they left to go back Monday at noon. All this meant that I had to finish my cab--pronto!--and get everything hidden away from prying eyes!

I managed to get the cab finished--even jury rigged a couple of fans, one for intake of fresh, cool air from behind/beneath the cab....and one at the top in back to exhaust hot air--even though the LED gives off minimal heat there still is SOME heat buildup to deal with. So.....my plants went completely undetected for the duration of their visit--of course the two times during their stay that I had to work I just put a padlock on it.

It was a day after our company had left that I realized that my cab was too small for my LED--I literally "burned up" the NL x BB and the Dark Devil because they were both too close to the LED--it wasn't heat that killed them but the intensity of the light being too close.....at least that's what I figured. My one Med GOM 1.0 survived because it was in a shorter pot and was thus further away from the LED.....but it did have at least SOME leaves that turned completely brown and died virtually overnight, which did stunt its growth. Now in flowering stage, it's no bigger than what the Royal Queen Dwarf got to be! Curiously, both the RQ Dwarf and this Med GOM had identical LST done to them and perhaps this may have also contributed to their stunted overall growth habit.

So.....after losing the NL x BB and DD, I dropped my last Med GOM 1.0 bean.....except by now I had discovered the cause of my PH issues and rectified that--I'll take photos of both Med GOMs tonight to add to this post.....so you can see how nice and healthy Med GOM no. 2 is compared to no. 1!

As for PH probs......when I first got my PH meter ( a Milwuakee ph 600 for roughly $34) I tested our tap water and it said 10.0! I didn't completely trust my ph meter, so I just switched to buying gallon jugs of purified water, assuming that they were lower in ph--so I didn't bother testing its ph--BIG mistake!! So all this time I've been having issues with nute lockout without understanding why.....until I tested the ph of the purified water....and it was 9.0! There was my problem! So I've gone to using lemon juice to bring down the ph of my water.....and Med GOM no. 2 shows the results--no browning of leaf edges anywhere and growth is healthy and robust!

NOW my problem is that I have no more beans--and issue which I'll go into detail as to why in the specific forum for the breeder whom I recently ordered from after he sent me a PM saying he could help me. Actually, I had two bagseeds, age unknown, that I germinated in paper towels and now have sprouting (both in the same pot). They're both photos so I won't be harvesting them until early fall at best. In the meantime I have to save up some $$ to order some more seeds.....hopefully by first week of June. I'm thinking about getting the Sweet Seeds auto fem. 10 pack of seeds--partly because I'm a big fan of Sweet Seeds to begin with and partly because the cost works out to be a bit over $5 per seed!

OK, so that's all for now--back later this evening with pics hopefully!

 

[Horten229]

OK, the latest shot of Med GOM 1.0 number 2 at about 20 days old since breaking the surface of the coco--it's in the airpot that has the yellow bottom, I think it's a 2 gallon. Only 6" tall but growing nicely--more importantly it seems I've finally got my ph issues sorted out! I've noticed a few white "hairs" here and there so I'm sure it's a girl. I'm debating on whether I should keep her inside under the LED until harvest.....or put her outside in the sun. Since this is the only true medical plant that I have until I get more seeds I'm leaning towards keeping her inside. The two photo bagseeds that I've germinated I'm putting outside for sure--they're outside already getting used to real sunlight.

The white twist tie you see isn't for LST but obly to keep that bottom leaf from resting on the "soil" surface. The last two I've grown I did LST on them....while I'm pretty sure it wasn't the LST that stunted their growth (ph issues most likely) I'm still going to grow this one out naturally just to be 100% certain.

 

[Darth Vapour]

She's lookin beauty dude, sorry to hear bout your family visiting and your other plants, they looked awesome, I'm extremely baked right now lol did you say the led light was 18" away in the cab and they still got burnt!

 

[epenguin]

Horten, you will love the Sweet Seeds Mix pack. Top strains. But be warned-there are two versions of the mix pack. One is just that, a mix of unlabeled seeds. The other pack has them individually labeled!

 

[Horten229]

Gilly, when they were under the LED in my closet they were about 18" away....but when I moved them into the cab, LED and all, the plants were then less than 12" from the light--for 5 or 6 days at 20/4. Now I have the LED back in my closet with my 30 day old Med GOM 1.0 sitting about 18" under it. The cab I'm planning on using CFL's with--right now trying 3 x 40W CFL, 2 are 2700K, the other is 6500K. Thanks to a generous donor who wishes to remain nameless, I have an 8 day old KVS sprout and a 5 day old Sweet Red Poison in the cab under those CFL's. For whatever reason my freebie NL x BB auto broke the soil and then sat there doing absolutely nothing for several days--when I gently dug her up to check the root it was about 1/8" in length and brown at the tip as if it were dead--it was going nowhere so I threw it out.

So here's a pic of my Med GOM at 30 days--I gave in and did LST, which seems to have temporarily stopped the growth of the main stem--everything else looks fine though. This photo was taken with flash so it washes out the color--believe me, the leaves on this lady are such a lush dark green!


I'll most likely still get that Sweet Seeds auto fem 10 pack next month or Aug. and start some for a fall grow--I'd love to get the pack where they're all labeled. I have another donation of seeds (from a different and most generous person!) that should be arriving soon....this summer's grow may turn out fantastic after all! I'm just so pumped since I got my PH issues with my water sorted out and how the results show so well on the Med GOM--I wish I had the capacity to grow more plants at the same time.....but space is limited inside. Outside I'm experimenting with those two bagseed photos.....I just don't think there will be enough sunlight getting to them once all the trees have leafed out.