First Grow! ~2'x4' Closet with LEDs

[Closet-Gardenholic]

Yo amigo, I am worried about your foliage sitting too close to your soil. The node density is awesome, but your plants are a bit squat. Using a couple of CFLs to supplement your LEDs and hanging them a bit farther from your plants may help you stretch them out a bit.. Would hate to see you get mildew, gnats, or damp pests before you see your first flowers.
Other than that, make sure you're letting your root zone dry up real well before you water. (I know a few have said that already, but we just want you to know that it's important haha).

But otherwise they are looking good! Keep it up mate.

The squatiness is due to a few things with that first plant. I thought she was starting to stretch a few days after breaking the soil so I moved the light down to 24" and buried the stem a little. From there the height pretty much stopped. The other two aren't quite as stacked, seem to be growing taller.

 

[Closet-Gardenholic]

Blue Dream and Critical Kush females are looking great!(with the exception of being a little over-watered) It's funny to me that the Critical Kush which is supposedly 100% Indica is growing taller and lankier than the blue Dream which is supposed to be 70% Sativa.
The mystery Indica is back to her bushy self. I am going to take Perkele's advice and use nug buckets guide to get a nice little manifold going. My 4 main branches are about 5-6" long now, so I'm going to top towards the end and get rid of all the growth shoots and leaves below these 8 new mains. This will drastically clean things up, get the leaves out of the soil, and get an awesome 8 way manifold right at the base.
My cal mag will be here Tuesday which is the next scheduled watering.

 

[Closet-Gardenholic]

Today is day 24 from seed for this mystery plant. Since this plant is quite a bit ahead of the other two, I decided to try my hand at mainlining.

I strayed a bit from the tutorial because I already had a nice 4 way manifold going where I accidentally topped the plant about a week ago.

Today, I topped those 4 mains and filled nugbuckets tutorial for picking symmetric nodes and getting rid of the extra shoots and leaves.

I couldn't believe the pile of green after taking everything off. However, I bet the 8 new mains are completely formed and growing nicely in the next 3-5 days.

Should be a nice and even!

 

[Closet-Gardenholic]

You know it's cold when your soil arrives, and the whole 40lb bag is frozen solid....

 

[Closet-Gardenholic]

Today was a good day. Well, aside from the frozen soil, but hey it's January. After 4 hours of thawing the block of soil next to the wood stove, it was finally up to room termperature and time to transplant.

I wish I would have ordered soil sooner because I waited to transplant a few days too long. The very first set of leaves were starting to yellow on both plants, and wow were there a lot of roots developed when I pulled them out. I didn't waste anytime looking at them, as the rest of the plant seems to be thriving and I wanted as little stress as possible.

I'm happy to say these are nowhere near as close to ground as the mystery, but the nodes still seem to be pretty stacked.

Barney's Farm Critical Kush


Humboldt Seed Blue Dream

I can't believe how well the mystery plant is responding to being topped and trimmed. Wow, all 4 tops have already shown growth, stem is much thicker, and signs of calcium/magnesium deficiency are going away. It's going to be tough for the other girls to catch up!


Also, this thing is starting to show preflowers. At just 4 weeks, it might be a little early to tell, but I'm definitely seeing what looks like calyxes and short pistils on the 2 tallest new growths. (Hopefully it is a bad picture making it look like balls right next to it!!)

My Cal-Mag and other nutes will be here tomorrow. The mystery plant is 4 weeks old and *MIGHT* get her first feeding. She's been in this container for 3 weeks and watered at least 6 times. I will start with half doses first. Working with Aurora Innovation Root Organics liquid master's pack.

I will be transplanting the mystery plant into HER(I'm 75% sure) final container in the next week or so once she recovers just a bit more from the haircut.

I should have my diy cob parts in the next week or so as well.

Here we gooooooooo!

 

[Closet-Gardenholic]

So all of the nutrients came today, and the pack I ordered actually came with even more than I expected. All of this for the same price as the Fox Farm trio.

All of the plants got a small amount of Oregonism scratched in, but other than that I'm waiting until the next watering to worry about anything else.

The two babies still don't seem too excited about their late transplant. They are growing, but the lower leaves still have not perked up and are still yellow. If I choose to mainline these like the bigger one, these leaves won't be there anyways.

Barney's Critical Kush

Humboldt Blue Dream


Mystery plant is looking great. Filling in and growing very nicely without much LST needed! (I do have the 4 main branches
staked down somewhat.)


I am still happy with how great things have gone these first 4 weeks minus a few Snafus. I'd say I'm 20% of the way to harvest! I plan on vegging for another 4+ weeks before making the flip. Unless I run out of room before then. I have space to spread things out once I build my COB fixture.

 

[Moishe]

Looking good... but BE CAREFUL haha... that's a lot of food. Do lots of research on these, as using the wrong one at the wrong time could fuck you up. The search tool should get you a good way there, if you have questions that you can't find, feel free to ask me. I know the Roots/SS line pretty well.

View attachment 3872294

Also, this thing is starting to show preflowers. At just 4 weeks, it might be a little early to tell, but I'm definitely seeing what looks like calyxes and short pistils on the 2 tallest new growths. (Hopefully it is a bad picture making it look like balls right next to it!!)

Haha that was my first thought. If you do get a herm and let it get along far enough for pollination, the bright side is you have all sorts of original strains to try out! haha
Apologies for double post

 

[Closet-Gardenholic]

Looking good... but BE CAREFUL haha... that's a lot of food. Do lots of research on these, as using the wrong one at the wrong time could fuck you up. The search tool should get you a good way there, if you have questions that you can't find, feel free to ask me. I know the Roots/SS line pretty well.


Haha that was my first thought. If you do get a herm and let it get along far enough for pollination, the bright side is you have all sorts of original strains to try out! haha
Apologies for double post

I was definitely surprised to see how many different bottles. I plan on going very light my first run through. I feel like I have a good shot at this point, and would really hate to screw it up by OVER doing it.

I ran back after looking at that picture and that's definitely not a ball. I still think I have another couple weeks to be able to tell for sure. I don't think my yield will really be affected if I have to take it out for some reason.

The other two will fill my closet just fine, I'll just have to wait longer to flip.

Crossing my fingers it's a girl! She's too beautiful to be a male

 

[Moishe]

I was definitely surprised to see how many different bottles. I plan on going very light my first run through. I feel like I have a good shot at this point, and would really hate to screw it up by OVER doing it.

I ran back after looking at that picture and that's definitely not a ball. I still think I have another couple weeks to be able to tell for sure. I don't think my yield will really be affected if I have to take it out for some reason.

The other two will fill my closet just fine, I'll just have to wait longer to flip.

Crossing my fingers it's a girl! She's too beautiful to be a male

Absolutely. If you raise em right, 9 times out of 10 they'll wind up female. Gender isn't quite the same in plants as it is in humans obviously haha... Otherwise every stressed out teen would be a herm.... HAH! (not that there's anything wrong with being a herm, just thought it a bit funny)

 

[Closet-Gardenholic]

Absolutely. If you raise em right, 9 times out of 10 they'll wind up female. Gender isn't quite the same in plants as it is in humans obviously haha... Otherwise every stressed out teen would be a herm.... HAH! (not that there's anything wrong with being a herm, just thought it a bit funny)

Thank you Jerry Seinfeld (not that there's anything wrong with it!)

 

[Closet-Gardenholic]

Absolutely. If you raise em right, 9 times out of 10 they'll wind up female. Gender isn't quite the same in plants as it is in humans obviously haha... Otherwise every stressed out teen would be a herm.... HAH! (not that there's anything wrong with being a herm, just thought it a bit funny)

I've never seen a male plant this low to the ground and stacked with nodes. Not much stem at all. I will be very surprised (and sad) to see balls lol

 

[perkele]

haha, great setup and the plants are looking mighty! the yellow leaf is just a bit of over water I think.
Lovely green in them!

 

[Closet-Gardenholic]

haha, great setup and the plants are looking mighty! the yellow leaf is just a bit of over water I think.
Lovely green in them!

Would it be ok if I rearranged the plants so that the smaller two are directly under the light and the one that's further ahead off to the side just a bit?

I don't know if this would make the situation better or worse, as the seedlings may grow faster, but the mystery may stretch. I guess I could try it for a day or two and see what happens.

At this rate the mystery plants going to cover half my area leaving the other 2 only about 1.5 sq ft each lol

Also, is it ok to leave water in the bottom of the Rubbermaid tubs, or should I be emptying once the plants are finished draining?

I want to keep the area as clean and pest free as possible, but I also don't want to jiggle the fabric pots around too often trying to get to the tubs.

I think I'm going to go back to my original plan and brace the racks with 2x4s and find a slightly less deep tub that can slide underneath.

This way, I can empty them without jostling the plants around.

 

[Closet-Gardenholic]

I went ahead and rearranged everyone and emptied the tubs. I can only imagine standing water would be inviting to bugs.

The seedlings are starting to grow fast again. Maybe an inch since yesterday. The bottom leaves are still yellow, but all of the other leaves are very green and starting to perk up.
Blue Dream
Critical Kush
This mystery plant is a beast. Even off to the side, it has filled in more since this morning. Almost time for some more LST.

 

[Closet-Gardenholic]

More bondage on the mystery. Almost a perfect circle

 

[DankTankerous]

I'm having the same problem as well, but with drainage and evaporation. I watered my plant like once every 5 or 6 days but it would not dry out. The reasons I can think of are because of the super cold temps outside, it soaked up the humidity. I also use LED lights, so it doesn't get too hot, although the temps were in the eighties. I know the outtake fan that I have sucks quite a bit. I think the plant is also stunted

 

[Closet-Gardenholic]

I'm having the same problem as well, but with drainage and evaporation. I watered my plant like once every 5 or 6 days but it would not dry out. The reasons I can think of are because of the super cold temps outside, it soaked up the humidity. I also use LED lights, so it doesn't get too hot, although the temps were in the eighties. I know the outtake fan that I have sucks quite a bit. I think the plant is also stunted

The fabric pots definitely dry out faster than plastic. 5 gallon was dry in 3 days, 2 gallon plastic (with the bigger plant) is taking 4.

I don't think the lower leaves are going to recover on mine at this point, but I'm not messing with them until after I top in a week or so. I'm more worried that the mystery plant is going to take up all my space before my other 2 can fill out lol

 

[DankTankerous]

I just took off the pot and it's definitely rootbound. I will be transplanting tonight.

 

[Closet-Gardenholic]

I just took off the pot and it's definitely rootbound. I will be transplanting tonight.

I was shocked at how fast it happened
to mine in the solo cup. Granted, the soil was about 1" below the top, but I waited until day 10 to transplant and should have gone around day 6 or 7. Pretty sure it stunted for a few days, but we are back in business now. Transplant asap and you should be fine

 

[DankTankerous]

Yeah dude, the roots were a foot long and wrapped around the bottom. I started to suspect it has outgrown the pot when I saw the roots coming out of the soil on top. the plant is so small but has an expansive root system. They will blow up tonight when I transplant them, the soil has been cooking and sprayed with Garrett juice to jumpstart the microbes, it's gonna be tight