Salutations and first grow experiences

hey guys, just want to firstly say hello. I've been growing now since the start of this year and this website has been a source for a lot of my searching for information and why I chose this forum over others. I had four bag seeds I've saved over time (not a frequent smoker anymore) and I decided to experiment. On January 5th, 3 out of 4 seeds germinated and I got them into some crappy soil the wife had around the house. 4 small CFL's and quite some time later I chose to transplant into some 2.5 Qt Hempy buckets. For my first grow I have let those 3 grow in those 2.5 Qt buckets just to get my feet wet. I am now 6-7 weeks deep into flowering and buds are starting to fatten up. Three plants are definitely under minimal light. I have 3 flood light styled CFL lights now for the plants under 12/12. This is all ancexperiment for me and if I get an ounce in the end then I view it as a success. Tomorrow I will get some photos of my grow closet. I've utilized some heavy defoliation techniques and LST on 2/3 plants and they have some great results. From the plant that I think grew the best, I have taken 2 clones that started with better lighting and hempy buckets from the get go with some test results. I hope I surprise some people with my first-timer results and very low cost grow set up. I know a larger investment would have resulted in a much better end result, but I was recently laid off and money has been tight. In fact, I haven't even smoked for about 6 months now! Hopefully future employment will be relaxed as far as drug testing and I can try these girls out. Thanks for reading my saga if you've made it this far. Very happy to share my grow and pictures to come tomorrow.

jape said:

hey guys, just want to firstly say hello. I've been growing now since the start of this year and this website has been a source for a lot of my searching for information and why I chose this forum over others. I had four bag seeds I've saved over time (not a frequent smoker anymore) and I decided to experiment. On January 5th, 3 out of 4 seeds germinated and I got them into some crappy soil the wife had around the house. 4 small CFL's and quite some time later I chose to transplant into some 2.5 Qt Hempy buckets. For my first grow I have let those 3 grow in those 2.5 Qt buckets just to get my feet wet. I am now 6-7 weeks deep into flowering and buds are starting to fatten up. Three plants are definitely under minimal light. I have 3 flood light styled CFL lights now for the plants under 12/12. This is all ancexperiment for me and if I get an ounce in the end then I view it as a success. Tomorrow I will get some photos of my grow closet. I've utilized some heavy defoliation techniques and LST on 2/3 plants and they have some great results. From the plant that I think grew the best, I have taken 2 clones that started with better lighting and hempy buckets from the get go with some test results. I hope I surprise some people with my first-timer results and very low cost grow set up. I know a larger investment would have resulted in a much better end result, but I was recently laid off and money has been tight. In fact, I haven't even smoked for about 6 months now! Hopefully future employment will be relaxed as far as drug testing and I can try these girls out. Thanks for reading my saga if you've made it this far. Very happy to share my grow and pictures to come tomorrow.

Click to expand...

Welcome to RIU, and the wonderful world of cultivating the world's most misunderstood and feared medicines!!!

The only 'advice' I can give you or anyone is to read and learn and then apply what you have read and learned to your garden and you cannot fail. Anyways, remember the search tool is your friend...Lots of folks here willing to help a new farmer get up and growing. But at the end of the day your grow will be only as good as the knowledge and work you put into it.

It is always great to ask questions but do not take anyone's advice or opinions and follow blindly. Do your own research, you will be much happier knowing you have done it for yourself and by yourself. The first buzz you get from your own budz...is by far the BEST high you will ever have!

That said...

jape said:

This is all ancexperiment for me and if I get an ounce in the end then I view it as a success.

Click to expand...

I wish you success and hope for the best for you...

Please keep in mind that cannabis will lose 70-85% of it's weight in drying and curing.

I am very interested in seeing the pics...

Thanks for the warm welcome BKB, Now onto the pictures!
Here is my luxurious grow room

The two lights on the left are either 2300K or 2700K and put out around 900 lumens while the one on the right is 3200K ( I know its too blue) and about the lame amount of lumens.

Next we have one I've named biggie.

He started in a Solo cup on 1/3/16 and was named biggie because he had larger root growth as a seedling. It's vegetative growth was slow, but she now has the thickest stem and the largest buds so far.

Biggie:

Biggie got nute burned pretty bad when I switched to Tiger Bloom from FF. I didn't do my homework and found out the hard way how hot it really was. I've since reduced it to a quarter of what the bottle was recommending.


^ The white hairs on top have just recently sprouted up. Over the past four days or so, I've noticed the calyxes multiplying and swelling. Hopefully they keep it up! It may be hard to tell, but so far I have yet to see many amber trichomes. Two of the three plants were showing sex on 2/26/16 and all three were switched to 12/12 on 3/18/16. It has been 5 week and 6 days of flowing light schedule and that is the time I am using to guesstimate maturation and harvest.

Next up is Smallz. He was also put into a solo cup on 1/3/16, but was smaller than Biggie.

She's got about 6 main colas, but also smaller colas that have reached up into the light. Due to the LST, most all budding sites are getting light. Her buds are starting to multiply, but have yet to swell heavily. I am thinking she may need a longer time than Biggie. Also, you may notice some minor nute burn also attributed to Tiger Bloom.

Last (and least) there is Tupac. Tupac was planted 1/5/16 and showed the fastest vegetative growth out of the three initially.

Unfortunately one day during a flush, Tupac bent over at the base due to some unseen stem rot.

I had given up on Tupac, but figured what the heck, I'll try and give her a cane to stand up and if it died, it dies. Lo and behold she bounced back pretty well. I keep the supports just as a precaution. I tried to FIM Tupac like I had done to the others, but it still became a tall plant with one main cola with a few much lower. But shes got a wide spread of trichomes on her leafs unlike the other two. Also her pistils are bold and long and very few have turned red yet. I suspect she will be harvested last.


Now, with a few months of research and practice I have taken two clones from Smallz. I started them in shot glasses filled only with vermiculite and sure enough they took off.

They were planted in solo cups on 3/23/16 and then into 2 gallon buckets on 4/2/16. Going by the solo cup date, they are 5 weeks and 1 day in Veg. They will switch to flowering as the others are harvested. They are under one CFL 5600K flood light. I have been using some super cropping techniques as you may notice on the one to the right. The stems have been growing much thicker than the previous generation was at that age and hopefully become much larger as the container is almost 4x the size.

Also, another contributing factor that has probably really helped these plants has been me putting them in the sun through the window on sunny days. Being laid off and home more often than not allows me to set these guys up once the sun shines in. I know UV-B rays really help bud growth and they probably would be much less developed if I never moved them.

Also, I just want to add that I have done a ton of research and I am not unknowingly half-assing my grow. I know that I should have MH lights for veg and HPS for flowering and that I would see much better results. As I have said above this started as an experiment that surprisingly worked and any bud successfully grown and harvested was more than I was predicting. I know they have low light levels. I only use GH's pH up and down and test vial to get my pH around where it needs to be with no meters. So I ask that any judgement being made is with understanding my conditions. Unfortunately, I probably won't be continuing after the clones are done, because fortunately my first child is on its way and my grow room must revert back to a bedroom for the little guy or girl. But I will continue to post some updates and any questions I can think of. Thanks for reading.

~Jape

$bkbbudz$ said:

Please keep in mind that cannabis will lose 70-85% of it's weight in drying and curing.

Click to expand...

That's weight though, not volume? I'm speculating end weight based off of what the volume of buds looks like rather than how heavy or dense I think they will get.

Also, is there a decent method to dry with low humidity? Right now I could dry in a room that is 74 degrees @ 35-35% humidity or I can dry in my basement which is 65 degrees and supposedly 25% humidity. I need to get a new humidity and temperature reader though because I have severe doubts that my basement has less humidity.

jape said:

Also, is there a decent method to dry with low humidity? Right now I could dry in a room that is 74 degrees @ 35-35% humidity or I can dry in my basement which is 65 degrees and supposedly 25% humidity.

Click to expand...

Pick the room with the higher temps and RH. To get the slowest dry possible try to cut the whole plant and hang dry if you can, I know sometimes that isn't possible. I've dried in low RH many times you just have to check 3-4 times a day to make sure you don't overdry cause it can happen quickly

astronautrob said:

Pick the room with the higher temps and RH. To get the slowest dry possible try to cut the whole plant and hang dry if you can, I know sometimes that isn't possible. I've dried in low RH many times you just have to check 3-4 times a day to make sure you don't overdry cause it can happen quickly

Click to expand...

I should be able to do that. I've been using an indoor/outdoor thermometer and humidity device to move around the house to get a guess of where would be best. If humidity is too low I might see what I could do with a large storage container and suspend the buds inside then use the humidity/temp device to make sure the humidity doesn't spike.

I just swapped a different temp/humidity monitor into the basement and it read 68 degrees and 46% humidity which sounds a lot more accurate. So that is where I will do my drying at.

Yea that should be good, best of luck man hopefully you can pull a decent amount. But yea if you can just cut the whole plant down and hang it, it will let it dry even slower

jape said:

I'm speculating end weight based off of what the volume of buds looks like rather than how heavy or dense I think they will get.

Click to expand...

HMMM....10 large but airy budz or 10 smaller but thick, resinous, and dank.... ...I think I will choose smaller budz myself. But, do as you will.

jape said:

Tiger Bloom from FF. I didn't do my homework and found out the hard way how hot it really was. I've since reduced it to a quarter of what the bottle was recommending

Click to expand...

I am using all the FF nutes on the soil feeding schedule. BUT, I never start full strength. I start at 1/4 strength and build from there at the rate of 1/4 dose every other watering...note on that... After the switch to flower I usually water only 2 times per week with a full gallon per plant. Since the FF schedule shows to feed 2 times a week, I just feed at every watering by then I am at full dose of the vegging nutes. I start the flowering nutes in the same 1/4 strength build up method. This may help...

$bkbbudz$ said:

HMMM....10 large but airy budz or 10 smaller but thick, resinous, and dank....View attachment 3669231 ...I think I will choose smaller budz myself. But, do as you will.

Click to expand...

Oh I would much more prefer small and dense. But I don't know that I can control that at this point.

jape said:

Also, I just want to add that I have done a ton of research and I am not unknowingly half-assing my grow. I know that I should have MH lights for veg and HPS for flowering and that I would see much better results. As I have said above this started as an experiment that surprisingly worked and any bud successfully grown and harvested was more than I was predicting. I know they have low light levels. I only use GH's pH up and down and test vial to get my pH around where it needs to be with no meters. So I ask that any judgement being made is with understanding my conditions. Unfortunately, I probably won't be continuing after the clones are done, because fortunately my first child is on its way and my grow room must revert back to a bedroom for the little guy or girl. But I will continue to post some updates and any questions I can think of. Thanks for reading.

~Jape

Click to expand...

Congrats on the kid! Proper growing of a human being is much more difficult than growing a few cannabis plants! And, much more rewarding if you ask me.

can I suggest instead of taking cuttings that you spend some cash on decent genetics.
you can have great results with T5 floros and don't need MH etc. its just nice to have.
i'm a soil guy and think its easier for growers just starting out.
otherwise ur grow looks great.

dannyboy602 said:

can I suggest instead of taking cuttings that you spend some cash on decent genetics.
you can have great results with T5 floros and don't need MH etc. its just nice to have.
i'm a soil guy and think its easier for growers just starting out.
otherwise ur grow looks great.

Click to expand...

Well at this point the cuttings I have taken will be the last of my grows for a while. Also I don't live somewhere where I can get a clone of good genetics nor do I feel confortable about ordering seeds in the mail. If I feel I need more light with the new round of plants going into flowering then I may invest into a T5 set up

dannyboy602 said:

otherwise ur grow looks great.

Click to expand...

Thanks!

$bkbbudz$ said:

Congrats on the kid! Proper growing of a human being is much more difficult than growing a few cannabis plants! And, much more rewarding if you ask me.

Click to expand...

Thanks, man. I wish it was going to be as simple as a light timer and watering every other day.