Speedhabit's First Grow, Chronicled

Hey, I was sorting a bunch of photos from my current grows and I came upon shots of my first grow that were never published. These were mandala satori, which started at 10 seeds, whittled down to 5 female plants that eventually yielded 20 mason jars of weed. The grow took a while, 1.5 months vegging (delay in re potting keeping them stunted) and almost 75 days flowering.

So here it is, my first grow.

Seedlings:










I started the seedlings under a bank of 6 CFLs and eventually transplanted those little square pots to these peat ones. In retrospect I do not like these biodegradable peat products. Jiffy Pots are an exception, I love them and use them often, but the bio peat pots are too constricting. Go with coco pots if you must but its plastic for my money, easy in and out and its endlessly reusable.

Also plants in the stage above don't need any fertilizer, these guys are in Fox Farms ocean forest soil which provide adequate nutrition. Furthermore I left them in those little peat pots for about a month while my stoned ass got my flowering room together and they still only began to show signs of nute deficiency.


Next chapter, HID and a new room!

So I always had it in my mind to make a secret room to grow pot in, framing and wiring was about 500 bucks, and its insulated and sealed.
Into this I put my biggest investment, an HTG supply 1000 watt MH/HPS. The Bulb, reflector, ballast and wiring was 420.00 and they threw
me hangars, temp/hyrometer, and some jiffy pots on the house.

This is with the 1000 watt grow bright metal halide.





These photos are just as I put them from their little peat pots they had been in for a month (note the yellow leaves) into 5 gal buckets with 3 gal of soil
mix in it. The soil was comprised of FF Ocean Forest, FF Happy Frog, and a local peat free potting soil.





....I would kill for these temps now that were in the summer.

Closeups:




But look how big they get once they hit the new soil.

These are like 10-15 days after replant






Oh no shit! I remember these next few pics. These are on 4/20 and we are about to go into flowering. Up to this point they have had 0 nutes, just tap water left out for at least 24 hours. They are bushy and ready to go, in retrospect I should have flowered earlier at 8in instead of the 12-14 in as they are in these shots.







Note: Tall kid in the back is a screwy skunk/haze

nice pics! how did it smoke?

Here is the start of flowering, shortly following 4/20. They were flowered for an avg of 73 days. Temps got hot, into the 90s, humidity was never a factor.

Note Exhaust: The room is exhausted by an 8" duct fan on the reflector and a 6" fan at the end of 10' of 6" tubing helping the carbon scrubber on the terminal end.

Here they are at the start of flowering.




These are some close ups of the leaf curling issue that I had at the beginning of flowering. I fixed this over a couple of weeks with 3 doses of compost tea, as well as some composed forest hummus on top.



Its important to note that while I stopped the leaves from curling, parts of 2 plants stayed looking this way through flowering, there was not a noticeable difference in buds, I just think that the curling only repairs itself to a limited degree.

Well... I'm a little disappointed that I cant find more flowering pics, but honestly, all that stuff under HPS light looks the same anyway. Thats another lesson, take pics with a lamp during dark hours, or even a flashlight. The orange does not do the buds justice.

Another note, the HPS cost 420 bucks pretty much kit and caboodle. Im used to paying 333 and ounce of decent weed. Finding a couple hundred dollars can be intimidating, especially to invest in such a dubious activity, but its TOTALLY WORTH IT.

Anyway, if I find more flowering pics ill add em, this is a fast forward to two months later at 70 something days.

If your following the numbers this is june.

Satori makes some great colas. I didn't LST, I didn't prune ANY leaves. The buds smell amazing and are so fat you cant put your hands around em

Smoked real good




I couldnt resist...think pineapple express paper airplanes.

Oh and by all means please comment or ask any questions whatever.... I wish mandala wasn't out of the game