Fromage Bleu's Noobie-Grow

This is my first grow, plus a second added in. I think I made almost every mistake in the book despite help from folks here. But I have one blooming female Orange Bud and 7 seedlings that I am putting into bloom too young. I just got my medical card and am almost out of medicine, so time is of the essence. I have no idea how much I will get from my one plant. I can say that although I am an experienced outdoor vegetable gardener with lots of fruit and berries, hydroponics indoors has been tougher - more science than I have used before (tho it may make me a better gardener over-all). But I thought I had better put up a few photos to remind myself I am legit, noob or no.

In fact, if anyone wants to help me estimate roughly what crop size I might get from my big blooming Orange Bud which is only about 2 weeks into blooming, maybe three and is ten weeks old (I just checked; had thought it was 9) and roughly how long it will need to go to harvest time, I sure would appreciate it. I have absolutely no idea.

My ballast went out - wasn't ignition or capacitor, so have new unit coming but all that testing out took time - it's been under HID again for a week (still 12/12) and will probably have to go another week till the new ballast arrives. Will that affect my yield? It probably didn't get quite enough nutes at early bloom due to other problems, so is running a little behind.

Thanks in advance, folks. This would be almost impossible without your help.

mabe a ounce dried ,lokkin nice all in all

Thanks, tleaf jr. - that's a help.

i don't want to estimate what you'll get but everything looks great id be well buzzing m8 if i was you

Thanks for the encouragement, bambam, even if everything you say is BS But I'm noob enough I don't know what "buzzing m8" even means - sounds good, though!

Progress report - photos coming later. My main plant, the orange bud, looks pretty good considering HTG still has not gotten my replacement 400 ballast to me and I am having to run on 250 HID for this stage of bloom. From what I know this will reduce my yield. Hoping that ballast comes soon - it's been two weeks - we started by trying replacement parts, but that didn't work. I think I have managed to get every noobie problem possible, but maybe I better not say that as more could come!

I really prefer dealing with my bucket the big girl is in to my ebb and flow - I have the plants in the same medium, but for some reason the ones in the ebb and flow, though fed the same, are behaving like they have some nutritional problems. I will post photos later for comments. The bloomer looks good. No pre-flowering yet on the transplanted seedlings, which is frustrating as I want to know what is what, and maybe take a clone mother candidate out and put her back into veg.

Nice to have a place to keep track of this and know I can get some help.

guessing size would be easier if we knew the dimensions(sorry if i missed them)

if you can get an estimate of the weight when its wet just assume you will lose 80% and you'll get a fairly rough idea of weight i usually get an ounce or so with a 2 foot plant

Hi cbraaszsy

I think this plant is about 2.5 feet now, and will hopefully go taller. I am trying to estimate now, before I can harvest and weigh it to see if I have enough for my medical needs and how to plan. Counting my chickens before they are hatched, ya know! Thanks, tho - that will help at that stage.

Had a kind of interesting experience. My seedlings looked ratty after I put them into the ebb and flow. I was using some hydrogen peroxide in water in a seed sprouter (for growing edible sprouts, not MJ) so I put a quarter cup in the ebb and flow. Wow. A day later everybody looked incredibly happy, green all over. I knew plants liked this stuff but not that much. Anyone have good knowledge on using H202 with plants?

Semi-update and pondering my first/second (mixed together, sort of) grow:

I bought Skunk #1 seeds and Orange Bud seeds - Have sprouted 7 of the Skunk and yet to get a female, tho I have one seedling growing that has not preflowered and might turn out female. The OBs did 4 females out of 6 seeds. All raised in identical conditions. Is this a thing about varieties, er what? I am hoping to get at least ONE skunk female for a clone mother.

So my little room doesn't have a lot in it, but I am going to clone from one of the preflowering OB females and put them back in veg and take one of those for a clone mother. Since they are preflowering, it should work okay, I hope.

ALso trying to figure out nutes - it's hard to do all the measuring I need to do with my health issues. I'm afraid the pH doesn't get tested often enough, nor TDS. I am kind of winging it - changing all the water and nutes every 2 weeks minimum. I add some H202 every week and they seem to like that a lot. I want to use some "sweet" molasses type enhancer but have no clue whatsoever where to start. Have a hard time finding what I need on the forum when I don't know what to call something.

Will try to get photos this weekend. The sodium light is hotter than the HID - am getting too much stretch. Am interested in the new cool lights but know nothing about them. Must say this isn't just a walk in the park. But beautiful buds are a real encouragement and so is pain relief. Not to mention the usual perks of smoking - getting high.

i have a 600 watt hps with only a 50 cfm fan directly above it with the reflectors on either side with an 18 inch fan blowing towards the leaves i manage to keep the temps at 24 c. as for the molasses i'd just concentrate first on trying to keep the water at the right ph(i tested my water once my area has a good ph as is so i dont have to test regularly) then focus on the nutes (my formula calls for 1 gro, 2 micro, and 3 bloom during its ripening stage 2/2/2/ during transition to bloom and 3 gro , 2 micro and 1 bloom during veg this is all per gallon

I dont know if this is a good idea but its worked for me so far i fill 3 4 gallon buckets with the mixes i need and just use it til its done (takes about a week)

this may not be good for the nutes.. i dont really know.. but it works for me
cuz i hate mixing fresh batches every other day

So I am going to harvest this weekend - it's been about 3 months since I put my one female (Orange Bud) into 12/12 - I thought she would be done before now, but I think she is about perfect now. I will include photos from harvest, but today will put up some from a few weeks back, heading to the end, but not quite there. She is so heavy headed she is drooping over a bit.

I harvested one small bud early - I was not satisfied by the high - it was strong enough but didn't have that really high load I was going for, the sort of instant connection to the universe I like. Some of what I read suggests the older harvested buds will be even less that way, but I won't really know until I get there - picking and drying yet to come.

My next batch are smaller plants, having been grown not in a bucket but an 8 unit ebb and flow. I had to literally hack them off to keep them from stretching so badly they would be burning themselves even with my light as high as it would go. They responded by making a lot more buds fast. The Skunk #1, however, is really slow - I only got 1 female from seven seeds, and she is thin and wispy and slow to develop. I assume it's the specific breed. It will take her some months to fully produce, I would guess.

It's been hard fighting serious medical problems and doing all this, too, but the plants are so beautiful. I just hope what I get is actually going to work well for my medical use. It's certainly very sticky and also a good thing we have actual skunks in our area - they smell (great to me) even with the charcoal filtered exhaust. I have my card so don't actually worry.

This would have been close to impossible without help from the list! Thanks so much to all.

So I have finally completed my 1&2 compound grow. I got a fairly large amount from my orange bud - one large single plant and 4 (as I recall) smaller ones. The buds were huge, some a true handful. I paid attention to detail in harvesting them - the first batch had orange pistils and the trichomes were just turning milky. I dried and cured it patiently - and it does make a difference as I tried some along the way and it's better later. The second batch which gave me only slightly more with the smaller plants, I let go until the trichomes were turning amber. The stone is somewhat different - better I think. I would guess I have somewhere between 4 and six ounces but it could be more or less - I need to weigh it. I managed to get only one female skunk #1 out of 7 seeds tho most of my orange bud in the same circumstances were female. The skunk took forever to flower and then forever to finish, really forever - around 12 weeks. I doubt if I have an ounce total from her - it's drying and curing now - very loose and fluffy. I like the odor better than the heavy mud undertone of the orange bud, but she is not cured up enough yet to really assess the stone.

I am happy with my first grow and am going to try outside even though it's way too late. I am starting some seeds inside and will take them out later and hope that though I get a tiny yield, I will at least get some variety so I can see what is going to work best for both stone and medical. I like up stone but a lot of medical is supposed to be with varieties with a down stone. But the cannabidiol content is supposed to be what's best medically, tho I think it depends on what it is for - THC is good for some, too. I am going to try growing some Himalayan Gold which is high in both THC and CBD with a supposedly up high - trying for the best of both worlds.

It would have been very hard to get through this without the help on this forum. It's been hard work. But of course, very rewarding. There is just nothing quite like the beauty and productivity of these wonderful plants. Not to mention the high and painkilling. Thanks, folks (I will upload some more photos)