TBE First Grow

After many years of responsible smoking I'm finally living in an environment that I feel is safe for cultivation. Plus, I spend the majority of my time at home twiddling my thumbs so what better hobby than one as demanding as this. I started out simply by sitting in front of my laptop for a few months reading message board after message board. A big goal for this project is to keep expense down as much as possible so you will see that I don't use the fancy organic soils and nutrients recommended.

I'm starting out with a grow box made out of a modified MDF foot locker, about 5' tall, 2' wide and deep, lined everywhere except the top and bottom with aluminum foil (top is where I'll be venting so haven't covered yet, bottom I figure will be mostly covered by a pot so no need to reflect). I have four A lamp (E26) fixtures screwed into the sides (2 per side, all offset by same distance).

I have 16 bag seeds to play with, need to find discrete way to get cultivated seeds before I can play with those. I'm currently germinating 5 seeds using the paper towel method, covered with an opaque bowl and under 1 5500K CFL (purely for heat). The weather here has balanced out a little in the last few days so I may take those out and leave in my closet to finish germinating (on day 2, no signs of sprouting) and try my hand at the pre-soak approach with one or two seeds. I only plan on growing one plant at a time for personal purposes so I'm hoping at least one of my bag seeds sprouts and ends up being female. I know it's a tremendous crapshoot but at least I'm having fun and learning something new while I play.

Like I said, I spent a few months trolling message boards and this one is by far the most thorough. Dr. Chronic's thread on CFL's is really what inspired me to think this was possible low-budget.

So far, with the locker my ex roommate left behind, CFL system, (bagged) sterilized organic soil and pot from my local florist and a cheap wired probe thermometer and combo PH, Light & Moisture meter from Home Depot I've spent about $80 and I'm up and running.

I'm really stoked about being a member here and I welcome any comments/ advice you may have on my set up. Happy growing,
TBE

Day two, I was starting to worry that the five seeds I'd set on a moist paper towel were not going to sprout, in part because I kept pulling them out to check, so I pulled out two of my darkest and better looking seeds and put them into a shot glass with dechlorinated water (tap water allowed to sit three days). After 24 hours of not checking in on them I pulled them out and they were both floating. I grabbed the shot glass and one of the seeds sank straight to the bottom. While I was planting that one in a small container the other one sank down.

I'm concerned that the second seed sank from shock and not because it's alive but I potted that one as well, better safe than sorry. I was not prepared for the quick rise in temp from two cfl's so I tossed a small fan in there for good measure. Can anyone tell me if there is an ideal temperature for sprouting? Right now I'm holding at 83*F, humidity is sitting around 36%. I wanted to put a dome over the containers to boost humidity but I don't have anything clear and an even mostly translucent lid seems like it would just eat up all the good light. Should I toss a wet sponge in the grow box?

Had some of the sacrament just now. Hit some Sour Berry with my water pipe, very smooth taste, pulled cleanly. It was obviously really well dried but still sticky without a huge presence of crystals. It's heady, somewhat freezing in time but you could be social with it. Good stuff to smoke at night with your girl and some good tv. Have White Rhino to try, expect it to be heavier than this one.
Peace,
TBE

First batch was disposed of a while ago because they didn't sprout. I thought about abandoning the project but germed 4 seeds and now 4 days later one of them is showing good signs of a healthy root. Some things I did differently this time: mixed in some shredded paper with my soil to keep it from caking up like the last batch, I've also taken to squeezing the cups a little to break up any caking in the soil. Also, mixed in one teaspoon of miracle-gro nute with 1.5 cups water and added to soil in batches until ph came up half a point from neutral. Let's see where this goes!

3 of my girls were showing no signs of life so I took them out of the equation, while the other one is just today sprouting her second set of leaves. She has grown at about an inch a day and I can already see ridges on the true leaves, even though they are definitely in the infant stage. I took the three cups that didn't sprout and did some exploratory work. One of them had a small root starting to sprout so I left it in the soil, watered and put it back under lights for a few more days at least. The other two were moist but no root, one had just barely opened but then seized up. Both in the garbage.

thanks for the share.