My First Ever Grow :peace:

Hey folks, I thought I would start a journal on how my first ever grow is coming along. I've found it pretty interesting researching all about growing, though I'm new to all this I still have loads of questions about growing.
Im keeping this a purely CFL grow, I know there's benefits to other forms of lighting but I want to give CFL's which im more confortable using.


My set-up is as follows:

• Grow area, cuboard, (roughly) 80cm x 50cm, and plenty height available,
• 4 CFL'S
• 1 x 125 watt Dual Spectrum ( not sure about lumens )
• 2 x 45 watt, one blue/ one red (3000 lumens each)
• 1 x 30 watt warm white (1700 lumens).

I used an emergency blanket to cover the walls, they are white underneath which I read was fine, but the blanket only cost a couple of pounds so just bought one to see if they were any good, it seems fine, I just pinned it up with some pins.

I bought my seeds from seedsman.com (http://www.seedsman.com/en/super-bud-feminised-seeds) 5 Super Bud feminized, Greenhouse Seed .Co, they all sprouted fine using the wet papers towel and plates method, though I lost one shortly after they began to grow due to my medling trying to remove a bit seed shell from its leaf, I dont have any photos of the first couple weeks as I wasnt planning on starting a wee journal, so things start at week 3.


My soil is Asda's own compost, which says it has some added nutes but doesnt go into specifics from some reason. Its been working fine so far though no complaints. My watering reigeime so far is to water them twice aday, once a couple hours after lights go on and once more a few hours before they go off if needed. I've been trying to be careful not to over water, would rather add two smaller amounts than one bigger water to be safe. Also been checking soil for dryness and the state of the leaves to judge watering too.








Week 1-2
Sorry I dont have any photos off this stage, but nothing too exciting happened.
I germinated the 5 seeds using paper towel and plate method before planting them, this took about 2 to three days, they all germinated fine. I didn't stick them under lights for first few days/week, I read a guide that said to give them a few days before doing so. It was pretty sunny outside so they just sat in a little propagater on the window ledge.


One of the plants had quite a steep bended stem, so I covered it up a little to try encourage it to grow straight from then on, it worked fine.


Week 3
These are my plants at week three, I tried finding some pictures of the seeds im using for reference to see how the end product should look but couldnt find anything sadly. Would be helpful to know how big they should be / or can be.

Theres a little plant in this pot, not sure how it happened, its not a cutting or clone, just appeared, I dont think itl grow into anything though hmm.





Week 4

I didnt think they had grown much, but looking at the previous weeks pics they have quite abit.

I decided to try some miricle grow multi-purpose food, I used a very dilute concentration on one plant and left it for a day to see if it had any ill affect, all was fine so I added it to the other three the next day. Im planning on using this once every two weeks, and adjusting the concentration when needed.


I think i'll leave them for another week and see how they are, I know there's no set time for vegging plants, and from what ive read indica's only increase in size about 50% to 100% more when flowering, I think six inches is the minimum to start flowering, theyre slighly below this about 4 inches. And ive read to look out for alternating nodes for a sign for when to start flowering, which hasnt happened yet and pre-buds (not sure what they are I'll have to read up abit about that).
Here are some close ups of the stems:





Oh I took that little tiny plant out off the pot it was in incase it caused problems. I put it in its own pot, Im surprised it survived my transplanation to be honest, was the equivelant to letting Dr Nick from the simpsons do surgery on you. I dont think it will turn into anything though it a strange little thing.





Im also going to add some more lighting in the next week, not sure what though, I could realy do with a refelctor for the 125 watt cfl as im finding it difficult to postion due to its weight. So I might buy a reflector and two more 45 watts, or I was thinking of getting a 300 watt duel spec with a reflector but not sure off how good quality it is so im still looking around.

Week 5
Had a few problems this week.
I re-potted my four plants into larger containers which went fine.
I also rearranged my lighting set-up after adding the 300 watt red spectrum cfl with reflector, the two 45 watts cfls are on a photography double socket light socket which after I moved the lights around fell on top of two of the plants and damaged them quiet severly, I noticed this after a couple hours when I decided to check on things


Here are some pics of the damage to the two plants, i trimmed some of the leaves off as they where beyond saving.



Adding the 300 watt CFL to my set up this caused some issues with temperature increase, though I didnt really notice how much it would affect the plants. Im using a fan inside my cupboard but wasnt using it all the time ( I am now!).


This was a mistake as a a couple days after adding the 300 watt it stressed the plants and caused the leaves to point upwards, and some burning. I think theyre recovering now, but abit annoyed it happened. I gave them a good water and some nutes ( mg multi-purpose) to help them along.
These are the temperature damage,



The temperature problem has stopped, Im just using the 300 watt at the moment, to give the plants a chance to repair themselves, the leaves have went down abit more, they where nealry vertical before.


These are some pics of them now

Very nice, I'm also starting my own grow. I'm only about 2 1/2 weeks into it. Just joined this website today and saw your journal that your making, so I think I'm going to the same.

Hey BTG,

Ive just decided to flower now, theyre all about 9 inches tall (indicas) now, these seeds take around 8 weeks to flower so it says.

Im hoping for somewhere near 2 oz from all four plants ( 1/2 ounce each) , this is my first grow so no idea what to expect tbh.

Good luck with your flowering stage, hope all goes well. How's that 5th small one doing? Think it might produce?
I just posted my journal, you can see it in the journals section. How does the size of my plants compare at week 2 to yours? Just want to make sure they growing at a good pace.

I only have pics from week 3, but they look good , its hard to judge how well they are growing if its your first time, but if you have week by week pics you can see the difference.

Im not sure what the 5'th plant will do, its barely grown but hopefully get a little nugget from it ill keep for keeps sake

I went into this grow knowing the basics but contiued to read up about things as im going on. You said youre doing this for fun/free smoke, I'm basically the same, just some personal smoke, found it really interesting though.

What you growing indicas/sativa?
You using cfl's? .

Think it's possible to get a clone off that 5th one? If it happens to be female of course.

I'm growing indica but outdoors. Strain isn't good enough to go through the effort of getting a nice indoor set-up.

Week 6

Good week, plants are recovering well from all their injuries, leaves have healed up nicely from burns, falling lights, heat.

One or two had slight nute burn i think last week, they had little brown spots on some leaves and slight brown edges of the leaves, but thats also sorted itself out, couldnt find any signs of it today

I decided to flower this week, they havent started alternating nodes yet but someone said i should be able to get around 2 ounces which would do me fine, they have had 3 days flowers so far in this pic, the smallest / most damaged one has bushed out quiet abit which is good.

Im going to wait till next week before giving them some more nutes i think.






Here's the same plant a week later

Nice going mate. Good to hear that your plants recovered from the obscure accident

Week 7

Hey folks, little update:

So, they are on day 9 of the flowering stage.

All is fine this week, just been watering them most days when the soil gets dried out.
They have continued to grow well, after week 5 damage's.

Here are some photos




Decided to give them some MG multi-purpose nutrients

Gave them a quick measure they are all around 32 cm's roughly, about 12inches.

From what i've read indica's tend to do most of their growing in the first two weeks of flowering, so they might not grow much more.

Here's a comparision of the same plants 14 days later

Week 8 Update


Hey folks just some more pictures showing how things are coming along.


So, I'm on week 8 in total from seed, and on week 2 of flowering.


Not a lot to say this week, had some good growth, buds sites are starting to stand out a little which is nice to see ( pretty sure they are bud sites).


One plant is slightly ahead of the others.


Some measurements, Tallest one is 17 inches, and the other three are around 16 inches.


I decided to 'flush' them this week, watched a video where they done this a couple times during flowering stage, think this increases the oxygen levels.


These take 8 weeks to flower, so might have around 6 weeks left if things go well


Managed to find a grow video using the seeds I bought, really good website which has detailed grow videos for their seeds, didn't think to actually try looking at the companies site

http://www.greenhouseseeds.nl/shop/super-bud-feminised.html

These guys managed to get a whopping 850 grams of bud from one plant! This is wet, but still....WOW. Obvioulsy this is optimal conditions etc, with pro-guys. I think they used a 600 watt hps for their grow.


Anyway here's some pictures of my lovelies.

Week 9
Hello again,
Just a little update on my grow;
Not much changed this week just some more growth on the bud sites, three of the four plants are showing clear bud site growth, but one is a week or so behind I would say not a problem if the three others are ready at the same time to harvest I'll just leave this one in for a week or two longer if needed.
They're into their 4th week of flowering now, so maybe another 4 weeks left to go, hopefully not much longer
Here's some pics....

Week 11


Hey folks, I'm on week 11 now and 5 weeks and two days into flowering.


I gave them some treacle at the start of the week 3 big spoons into 2 litres of water. I'll try and give them it every third watering from now on.


I also gave them some more MG multi-purpose plant feed today, been giving this roughly every 2 weeks, might give it once more before the plants are finishing flowering.


They seem to be coming along fine, theyre all at slightly different stages of maturing, one is a little further along than the other two, but one isnt doing much which I'm worried about doesnt seem to be flowering at all.


I'm going to make another post about it see if anyone can shed some light into the situation. This is my first time growing so not sure if some can take their sweet time flowering, hope its just something like that.


Not sure how long they have to go, the furthest one looks like it wont be to far off I would say, got noticeable red/orange hairs starting to change.


Here's some pics anyway, If anyone can help with the non-flowering plant please do, or had similar problem. Also I know every first time grower will ask this at some stage so....How long do you think till they are ready?

Peace


Plant 1




Plant 2



Plant 3




Plant 4

how many watts did u use?