GreenThumby's not so Green Thumb Journal

So this is my first time actually putting in effort and time to research and plan out a grow. Overall, I'm starting my seeds inside, and plan on transplanting guerilla style outdoors around the end of may. I have learned so much from this great community on RIU and want to journal mainly as an information log for myself and also so maybe some of you can help me along the way. Cheers, to a great grow season!

Current setup:

Light:
4' T8 light w/ 2 40W 6500k bulbs

Soil:
Currently (Seedlings) Experimenting with multiple blends- will explain later but overall, 70/30 organic potting soil/seed starting mix

Water:
Tap water w/ 1:5 part 3% h202

Strains:
Photos-
2 Cheese (Dinafem)
3 Frisian Dew (Dutch Passion)
3 Silver Surfer Haze (Blimburn)
10 Afghani (Herbies Freebies)
Autoflowers-
3 Amnesia Haze XXL (Dinafem)
3 Haze XXL (Dinafem)
3 Think Different (Dutch Passion)

I'll try to update photos bi-weekly and post daily. This all started as a spur of the moment thing and has turned into me spending half of my day reading everything on earth about growing.

Old notes I have had up to date...
FD (Frisian Dew) SSH (Silver Surfer Haze) C (Cheese) A (Afghani)

4/18 paper towel germ'd in pastic zip-lock bags
3 FD
3 SSH
2 C
6 A

4/20
Transplanted popped seeds to solo cups w/ seed starting mix from local hydroponic shop
1) ran tap water @ room temp through solo cup w/ soil
2) poked holes w/ pencil tip 3/16" down and planted seeds, white taproot-down. Covered seeds up 3/16" down.
3) sprayed top of soil w/ tap water

notes: noticed cups were still very light even after running tap water through them. Soil mix "repelled" water at surface.
All FD and C popped, 2 SSH, 2 A popped.
Green SSH didn't pop. Looks small & green (doubtful germ rate)
Afghani seed germ rates much slower than rest

4/21
Sprayed all solo cups ~7 times a day, keeping surface moist. Cups still light in weight

4/22
Accidently spilled one afghani cup over. Soil spilled out... all of it was bone-dry except for top 1/4"
Panic ensued... purchased jiffy seed starter pods w/ dome, 2 grow trays w/ domes, new organic local made potting soil mix, .5gal grow bags
Transplanted w/ spoon from previous seed starter mix into new solo cups consisting of 1:1 organic potting soil mix:seed starting mix. This time, completely saturating seed starting mix in a bucket with warm tap water and mixing till mix absorbed water.
transplanted 1 SSH to solo cup, 1 to peat pellet
2 FD to new solo, 1 FD stayed in old mix b/c it had good growth and seemed happy.
1 C to .5gal, 1 C to solo
1 A to solo, 1 A to peat pellet

*Started paper towel germ of 3 Haze XXL auto flowers

4/24
all 3 Haze XXL popped, placed into .5gal bags w/ 50/50 mix of organic soil and seed starter. Watered w/ tap till runoff drained through

fk'd up... pulled seed pealing/film off of SSH b/c it was stuck on for a few days. Took off some green matter with it.

4/25
Changing light cycle from 24/0 to 18/6
transferred 1 A to solo from peat. strong seedling but small

notes: 1 SSH (green) still not popped
1 A popped in pellet (prev thought wasn't going to make it
noticed cups were heavy still... decided not to water for day, just mist tops
cut a few more drainage holes/slits in side of cup at base to improve drainage incase any blockages

4/26
noticed FD stem is "kinked" about 15 degrees @ 10am
@4pm, FD is completely over, bent >60 degrees
Immediately made some supports out of toothpicks to hold it up and try to get flow through stem

4/27
sunny day, moved seedlings from under light to patio door, allowed them to get natural sunlight for ~3 hours
seemed to really like it, leaves upward toward sun some curling/crimpling at leaf edges.
FD in critical care... still haning in strong but stem is still very weak with kink apparent in stem. Keeping it on toothpicks

4/30
FD not improving stem development. taking advice of other RIU member and adding soil to cup to bury the stem. unfortuinately, the stem injury is up pretty high and soil is almost at top of plant. Don't have high hopes.

Noticed C1 has developed very twisty/contorted leaves. I'm concerned with the organic potting soil could have too high of nute levels... Flooded solo cup 2x's to maybe help the problem

5/3 finally up to date... Sunny day finally. Moved plants to patio door for some light only 2 hr b/c sun angle went away quickly.
FD that has been in critical care for the past few days looks terrible. I'm praying for the best though.

Twisted up leaves on C1

Okay, now that my scientific/boring journal entries are in let me explain what has been going through my head. I tried a guerilla grow about 4 years ago. It was with bag seed and was done with limited research. I had health problems and couldn't check-up on the plants to pull any males. Come september, I went to check up on them. They were all 6ft sativas, healthy looking and I noticed that the males had already pollinated the females in one of the two spots. I pulled the other male. Then I went back around oct. and all my plants were cut at the bases. One was left but it was a seeded female with some bud rot. Long story short after a half-ass cure process I junked all the bud because it developed mold and gave the seeds to a friend who wanted them. So it was a fail.

This year, I did lots of research and still keep reading. I ordered all my seeds and wanted some sativas because that's what my friends like to smoke. I'll be honest, I smoke about once a month. Mainly because I go to college and don't have money for it and have just been out of the smoking scene for years. I chose the autoflower strains because I wanted somehting that I KNEW I could harvest in a grow season. It wouldn't get moldy sitting around in the fall and would stay relatively small for stealth.

This year I planned on doing some novice breeding. I was going to selectively breed some of the female bottom branches of a few plants but it isn't looking good with my Afghani seeds sucking ass. So after reading up in the breeding section here I think I'm going to buy some CS and spray one of the females to get her to nut up so I can then do a few crosses. I also am contemplating doing this to one of the haze auto flowers.

Feel free to comment, make suggestions, tell me what looks good or what looks not-so-good. Like I said, this is a growing experience for both me and my plants.

Does anyone have any ideas with the weird bending on my Cheese? It seems to have gotten better since I've flushed the soil.

I've noticed most of my plants have a light-green color with hints of yellowing. Maybe it's time I add a very dilute nute to my water. I have held off on doing this though because I don't want to rush anything.

It isn't looking so good for the one FD still.

I'm considering going out and buying some nutes and start feeding them very light blends next time I water. Their color seems very light gren. Still slow growth too. I haven't fully watered them in a few days still. Just misting with water because soil has been moist just under surface. Will water today probably.
Anyone think they're light in color too and I should feed them lite dose of nutes?

Almost newb here: I'm not a fan of seed starting mixes, except for the finest, smallest of seeds - seeds that are very fine. Which MJ is not. My experience with the starting mixes is there are minimal nutrients and odd water holding capabilities. The bag should indicate if the blend has any nutrition and/or a (very) light feeding may be in order. Are you still under the T8's? How close to the seedlings?

Update to the journal... Everything is going good. They are all getting bigger. I bought some Maxsea 16-16-16 fertilizer and fed them a very lite dose (1/4) strength. At first they seemed to look over fertilized with slight tips becoming burned. I flushed the next day and it straightened them out. I've been watering only twice a week and they are super green now and seeming to thrive. The one Haze XXL auto is still struggling and I have low to no hopes for that one.

WV: Jetson said:

Almost newb here: I'm not a fan of seed starting mixes, except for the finest, smallest of seeds - seeds that are very fine. Which MJ is not. My experience with the starting mixes is there are minimal nutrients and odd water holding capabilities. The bag should indicate if the blend has any nutrition and/or a (very) light feeding may be in order. Are you still under the T8's? How close to the seedlings?

Click to expand...

They are still under the T8's and seem to like it. During the day if it's nice I move them outside for fresh air and sun. I definitely notice the difference when I do this because they seem to respond well to the natural light. The light is about 3" from the tops of the tall ones, 6" above the tops of the small ones. They haven't been stretching at all which is a good thing but at the same time makes it almost impossible to top/FIMM when it comes time so I guess I'll wait to do that when they go outdoors at the end of the month.

I start mine under T12's and I keep the lights right on top of 'em. I, too, was putting them out on sunny days. I didn't top mine until they were in gallon pots. There is some golden rule around here as to the minimum number of nodes required. I topped mine at four nodes. FWIW - I have no experience with autos.

Yeah, mine are only at 3-4 nodes. Waiting till one more shows then will FIMM a few

So a little updates.. I transplanted a few of plants to bigger pots. One of Haze XXL auto that was left in a solo was transferred to a 2gal grow bag. Also, the Afghani went from a solo to a 1gal and the Cheese went from a solo to a 1gal. All the plants are still going pretty strong. I have started to pH the water for the past couple weeks to 6.5 and have seen a huge difference in growth since I've done this. The tap water I was using before was up around 7.8 pH. Only watering about twice a week. Placing them outside under the sun during the day then bring them inside for a few extra hours of light which are set still to 18/6.
One thing I've noticed is that the leaves all point upward after a few hours outdoors and the leaves almost cone/ form a V shape around the spine of the leaf.

So I tried FIM'ing my tallest cheese. It was starting it's 5th node so I wanted to give this a try. I was hesitant towards where to cut but after watching videos and looking at posts and images I gave it a try. I think I may have messed up and cut too high even though is was definitely atlas 80% of the new growth cut off. I'll post pictures to see what you guys think... It looks like after I made the cut, the next day the leaves I cut just started growing back and no new branches developed. Next time I'm going to try to FIM again or just top the frisian dew so I need to learn what I did right/wrong before then.
Just after I cut:



36 hours after I FIM'd:

Next plant that I have concern over is the FD, It was doing very well. I have been watering it the same amount as the other plants and this it has been droopy-leaf'd for the past 4 days or so and doesn't seem to get better. Mainly just the top fan leaves. The soil does still have some moisture under the surface. I have been putting it outside the past couple days to help dry it out/ give it sun because it looks like over-watering yet this hasn't helped. The leaves perk up from the heat/sun when outside then get droopy again when I bring it inside under the T8's. I'm starting to worry about a possible issue with root rot.

Let me know what you think. Thanks for dropping by. I'll have more interesting posts coming soon as these babies get placed into the ground outside in the next week.