Quick update for today:

Raised the lights another half-inch. Standard water. Plants are growing strong. More pics coming tomorrow. The weather is back to normal and room temps are great!








Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

__________________
Buds,Buds, and more Buds: Purps + White Russian

Ok, today I am going to re-Ph my distilled water that has been sitting around for a few days. I have used a Ph Pen in the past, it crapped out and I have gotten used to using a test/correction kit. No calibration solution, and I know that my results are always accurate. I use the same brand of water every grow so I have it down pat. Pretty much every gallon is the same - 3 drops of the GH Ph down and I am at ~6.8 .I am not knocking pens, I will probably buy another one at some point.

I usually store 5 gallons of water in the garage at any given time. If the water is really cold when I bring it in, I usually pour about 1 cup of the water into a glass and microwave it till it is hot. Then I pour it back into the jug and shake it up. This evens out the entire gallon to a nice 68-70F or so.

Here is my test and correction kit. You can buy these sets for about 15-20 dollars at just about every hydro shop. They also sell bottles of the testing fluid ( small bottle ) for about 7 bucks.




Now since my water is at a good temp., I will skip warming it up. Now the first thing you will have to do is add any nutrients or additives to your water and shake or mix very well. I am not adding anything to the water today so I just fill up my vial about half way with the distilled water and add 3 drops of test solution. The color we are looking for here is a very, very light green color - almost a yellow-green.

The initial test is very acidic. Note the reddish tint. I will add Ph up.



I add 3 drops of Ph up and put the cap on and shake the jug for 5 seconds. I always put the caps back on the Ph up and down bottles before I do anything else! I have never spilled a bottle and I do not want to.




I repeat the first two steps and find that my water is now at the right Ph - 6.7 in this case. I allow my Ph to fluctuate by a tenth of a point either way, and I have not had any Ph issues that I can remember. There is a color key chart that comes with the kit that lets you match up the color and determine the Ph. After you use this kit for a week or so you know exactly what color the water should be without having to refer to it.

So here is a better comparison:


Very acidic water before we Ph'ed




And after adjusting to the proper Ph



Now I am ready to wake the plants up and give them some water.

Here is today's group shot:



The White Russian are still in the lead. I am going to pass on watering today. The soil is still moist on the surface on many of the cups and I found 1 gnat walking around on the soil surface in one of the Purps. I am just going to let the soil get bone dry before watering again.

Here are some close-ups:






And the deformed Purps we saw in a previous update:



All things considered, they are going pretty well. I think they are growing a bit slow, possibly from mild overwatering. I'll get things dried out. Thanks for stopping by again, I will be transplanting Thursday so stay tuned!

Shame



Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

__________________
Buds,Buds, and more Buds: Purps + White Russian

Today I gathered up some pots and washed them out. I Seem to have too many big pots and not enough 2-3 gal. ones. So tomorrow I will be transplanting into 9x 2 gal. and 3x 3gal. . I am going to try and use my psychic powers and pick 3 future females out of the WR to put in the 3 gal. pots. Can't wait to see how that works out...

Here is a nice shot of the different pots I use for stuff. The white ones are my indoor (only)1.6 gal., and the black ones are my 2 gal., 3 gal., and the big 8 gal. which I am going to put one of the Purps into later on. I will start filling them in the morning.



Today's update:

I am skipping the water for a second straight day to let them dry out for tomorrow's transplanting in the morning. Not much else to report. I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow between getting these potted and preparing to go out of town, so I will keep it short and sweet.

Tomorrow we get our hands dirty.

Shame




Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments via PMs only thanks!
.

__________________
Buds,Buds, and more Buds: Purps + White Russian

Today is the day. Time to Transplant!

The first thing I need to do is mix up some soil. I decided to use the rest of my light warrior to mix into the Ocean Forest instead of perlite, since It will be a while before I germ again and I hate using old soil for that. I did a 4 to 1 mix, the majority being Ocean Forest.




The I will pour a little perlite into the bottom of each pot. A little will spill out. I will normally cut some screen out and place it in the bottom of the pots, but I ran out and I am on a tight schedule today.



Next I will fill up the pot most of the way and then take an empty cup and
place it in the middle at planting depth. This will create a perfect fitting space for our seedlings.




Next, I pack down the soil around the cup very lightly. I pull the cup out leaving a cup-shaped hole in the middle.




I take a seedling, and place my fingers over the top, supporting the stem between my fingers. I pull the cup off leaving the seedling and its rootball upside down in my hand. This works much better when the starter cups are bone dry.



Then I put my other hand over the bottom and flip it into the hole we made earlier. You can see in this picture that it is a perfect fit and our seedling is very happy. If you are careful you can do this over and over with no problems. But sometimes the rootballs do come apart just as you get them into the hole. I had a few come apart during this transplant. It will be fine. I didn't pack the dirt down too tightly.



Then I just add a little more soil to top of each pot, and water with some Ph'ed distilled with SuperThrive in it to help with the light and transplant shock. One down, 11 more to go.



I did all the WR first, and put 2 toothpicks in each pot to mark them.




I am now done, and all the seedlings are in pretty good shape. I put them in a shady spot to adjust and recover for the next few days while I am out of town. My girlfriend will be watering them over the weekend for me.





I will be backlogging the next few days of my journal when I get home on Tuesday. Hope you are enjoying my journal so far. See you next week!

Shame




Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!
.
.
.
.
.
.

__________________
Buds,Buds, and more Buds: Purps + White Russian

Well, I am back from my trip. I am just going to give a quick summary for the last few days as there haven't been any dramatic changes.

The weather was pretty cool while I was away, Day time temps. running 69-74 and night time temps running 51-68. Humidity between 42-54% overall. My GF watered only once during this time, on Sunday she gave them 200ml each.

They have been in a very shady spot since I left, so growth has been a little slow. But they should be adjusted to the outdoors and to their new soil now and it's time to move them out into full-sun.

I will take some pictures and put up today's entry a little later today.


Shame


Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

__________________
Buds,Buds, and more Buds: Purps + White Russian

Ok, I am back with pics. I moved the pots into a sunnier location. They got about 10 hours of direct sunlight today. Some of the plants look a hair yellow, they were probably running out of Nitrogen around the time I transplanted. They now have new soil with plenty of nutrients. I will still do the first feeding of the season in the next week or so with a very light dose of Growbig.

They haven't been watered since Sunday, and I held off today as the soil is still moist due to cool temps. They survived my 4 day vacation. I am happy. Here are pics from today:



.


.





Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

.

__________________
Buds,Buds, and more Buds: Purps + White Russian

Another sunny but cool day. The plants are loving the sun and most seem to have recovered from the transplant. A couple ( that were the messy transplants where the rootballs fell apart ) are still noticeably smaller than the rest.

The pots are taking forever to dry out, they haven't been watered since Sunday and most are still wet just below the surface. I did not water again today.

That's it for today.

Shame




Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!
</IMG>

__________________
Buds,Buds, and more Buds: Purps + White Russian

Damn pots were still moist one inch below the surface when I checked today. It has been 5 days since they were watered. I think they may actually need some tomorrow if it continues to warm up.

Here are a couple of shots from today. This is one of the WR. Note the "wavy leaf" syndrom on the lowest set of leaves:








Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

__________________
Buds,Buds, and more Buds: Purps + White Russian

MY internet was going in and out last night so I wasn't able to post yesterday's update. This entry is for 4/25.

It is starting to get warm now. Today it was in the mid-eighties, The entire weekend it will be in the 90's. The pots still held quite a bit of moisture so I did not water for the 6th day in a row. There is some slight cupping of the leaves on some of the plants. If they are dry enough, I may give the first light dose of Growbig to get some micro nutes into the pots.

Pics coming later with my 4/26 entry.

Shame



Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

__________________
Buds,Buds, and more Buds: Purps + White Russian

It was very warm today, in the mid-nineties. Hotter tomorrow. The pots have finally dried out almost a full week after their last water. Tomorrow I will be watering and feeding for the first time.


They should be taking off here very soon. If the weather stays warm I could be topping and training the Purps in 3 weeks and sexing the grow in 4 or 5 weeks.













And that's today's entry.

Shame



Please DO NOT post in my journal until it is complete. I appreciate comments or questions via PMs only thanks!

__________________
Buds,Buds, and more Buds: Purps + White Russian