first grow, currently at 175w of cfl.

Hi everyone, I'm new here and new to growing, but I have been checking these forums often over the past few weeks. Thanks to everybody for all the helpful posts already on here, I have learnt a fair bit just from reading through things.

Anyway, it all started about 4 weeks ago, I was smoking with some friends like usual and came across a few seeds.
Before now I had little knowledge about growing, so I germinated the seeds and started the seedlings under a 11 watt and a 9 watt CFL!! haha I know, it even makes me laugh now Things got long and stringy as you can imagine, but the seeds sprouted and I kept reading posts and learning, until I finally decided I would try and grow the seeds as best as I could for as little cost as possible. I purchased a 20 watt and a 23 watt bulb to slightly Improve things,this helped a bit but from reading everybodys posts - I knew this was unlikely to achieve any real growth. so i got some more bulbs!

I'm now on the 5th day of flowering after 3 weeks of veg (I was trying to keep them short due to previous space issues that no longer exist), current lighting is now 1 x 85 watt 2700k cfl, 2 x 30 watt 2700k cfl and 1 x 30 watt 6400k cfl, and things are looking a lot better with the new bulbs, I also hope to slowly add more soon.

METHOD:
- 4 plants, in a wardrobe.
- 1x 85w cfl (2700k), 2x 30w cfl (2700k), 1x 30w cfl (6400k) = 175w total
- low cost soil, baby bio, Ionic bloom feed/ tomorite tomato feed.
- emergency blanket for light reflection
- two low output fans for circulation
- 3 weeks veg, just started flowering stage recently.
- About to add a home made co2 release system.

A friend also let me borrow a few things he isn't using such as a timer, and his remaining Ionic blooming feed.
I'm not sure what the results will be but its been fun learning, and I hope to use this experience to improve my next grow, when I should have some more equipment and knowledge.


Here is an image from about one week ago, hopefully I will have something more impressive and up to date to post soon!
I--


Happy growing and toking guys, acidbass

Good start. Don't over water!!! Watch out for the homemade Co2 stuff, messy.

Thanks for the heads up LT, things did get progressively more bubbly! But no major spills yet

small update:
- added an extra 65w of light, making a total of 240w.
- Decided to germinate some more seeds and start a low maintenance 12/12 project, seems I have a ton of average quality seeds.
- I also decided to add 2ml of lemon concentrate to my feed, every other feed to try get some control over the PH level.
I don't actually have a PH meter yet oops, but it seems to me its more common to be running at a slightly high PH due to tap water PH levels etc, so I thought this may help to maintain a workable PH level hopefully without any side effects, for very little cost - welfare weed <3. Then by my second grow I plan to upgrade everything and do things a bit more accurately and see if I can notice any difference in quality/growth.
- I am also about to repot, and probably add a 60/40 mix of miracle grow high nutrient soil to some standard cheap soil I have left, I know this is risky and might result in high nutrient levels but I have also heard positive stories.

Any thoughts, criticisms, tips, or areas I might have overlooked that will impact grow conditions? thanks!!

MG soil works definitely. just not as well as FF. my grow currently has one plant in MG garden soil and one in FFOF with some MG in there too. the one in the FF soil took off in terms of health and bud size after re-potting in the FF. so all the hype that soil gets over MG is true IME.

So far, so good. Cant wait to see them with some fat nuggets on them in the near future man.

I wish you luck and hope for the best man.

Day 35, 2 weeks into 12/12 - update:
- three of my four seeds turned out to be fine young ladies, I like those odds! pistil growth is going ok.
- repotted up to 1 gallon pots.
- added a humidifier to hit that 40-60% mark.
- made a more efficient home made reflector, and mounted bulbs into it for easier height adjustments.
- one of my Y splitters appears to not work so Im down to 210 watts for a few days, boo!

Here are some pics, sorry for the bad quality on my phone!

5 weeks old, 14 days into flowering:

So it's been a few weeks since the last update, my three ladies are looking good and slowly growing, although there hasn't been a huge increase in bud size since I noticed the first white hairs about two weeks ago. I have read, and also assume that most of the growth comes toward the end, but I was wondering should I be seeing a more noticeable change in size by this stage?

Updates: (good and bad, in the rough order i did them).
- Replaced the broken y sockets and bought some spares, taking me back to 240w of cfl.
- Added a further 60w of 2700k cfl, bringing me to 300w.
- Got hold of some molasses to add to feed.
- Purchased two 80mm pc fans for air intake and exhaust.
- THEN..! I gave in to temptation and purchased a 250w hps light (sighhhh)
I'm liking it and hoping it improves yield once I get the temps under a bit more control, but I sorta regret not finishing the entire grow with cfl, I have failed you my tutors! But I do use between 60-120w of cfl for the lower parts of the plant when temperatures allow me too (can't wait for the cooler seasons!).

- Started my plants on there first feed of bloom + boost.
- Purchased a PH meter so I can attempt to get PH under control.
- Probably other stuff I forgot.

I will try get some new pics soon with a better camera, and then finally stop tainting your forums with my smelly HPS grows once this grow is over I'm sure I shall return (cfl equipped)! I hope things are going well with all your plants!

You should grab some magnesium sulfate - epson salts just encase the leaves ever start to taco on you.

Thanks for the advice mate, never really looked into it until now but it sounds good, I will try and purchase some very soon!
When you say tacoing, do you mean in a droopy sort of way? Cuz I have one plant that has about five weeks to go and I think it might be root bound, and the leaves on this plant seem to always be droopy and not looking too energetic, which I have read is common for root bound plants. Where as my other plants look a bit healthier and it seems that every time I feed them they do the opposite and get so energetic the leaf tips go crazy and start reaching up so high they turn them selves inside out almost, also causing a sorta taco shape!

So, I got a bit para half way through and stopped posting just to be safe haha (my doctor says its all the smoking, but I think he is just being paranoid), sorry for never really updating this! Anyway, for a first grow I was happy with the results, in regards to what I was hoping to achieve at least.
Dry weights:
Plant 1 - 19g
Plant 2 - 22g
Plant 3 - 23g = 64g total.

It has been almost two weeks since harvest, so I'm only just slowly starting to experience the fruits of my labour now, but they're ok fruits! Thanks everyone that helped directly, or indirectly through other helpful posts

I didn't take too many pictures because my camera sucks pretty bad, but here is some of the smallest plant from when I had a chance with my friends camera:

Hope you didn't harvest them in those pics.. those look like they have another 2-3 weeks left

I harvested that particular plant about one and a half weeks after this picture was taken, my plan with that plant was to chop sorta early and hope for the giggly energetic high I have read about. The remaining two plants were harvested another week after that, although I didn't actually get to amber trich stage as intended. But to be fair I'm surprised I managed to wait a full eight weeks, I'm not the most patient panda of the pack.

I decided I wasn't really aiming to grow the greatest plant possible this time, merely just to grow something to a bunch of basic guidelines, to be able to compare to some of the junk that people sell here. Should there be a next time, I will stick it out until amber!