Dollar Store Grow

I'm on an extremely limited budget with time and money. I have a closet but chose to keep it as small as I can in there. (I'm actually growing on a table that is a little less than 2'x2'.) This is my first grow.

Without getting too detailed, I have enough time for one grow. Afterward my living situation changes and I might be able to do this the "right" way. But for now I wanted to just go for it and see what happens. I bought a lot of stuff at the dollar store! Say what you will but hell, I've got nothing to lose with this grow. Other stuff I got or had for free. I did buy the light bulbs at a hardware store, but even those are nothing special. More on that later. My seeds are from a bag and I have no idea what they are. My best guess is low-grade indica. I live in the Midwest and it's similar to what I've always found here (i.e. crap, lol).

So here goes:

6/6/10 (approx.): Soaked 12 seeds in shot glass filled with filtered water. Soaked in dark cabinet for 24 hours.

6/7/10: All the seeds sunk, yay. Cleaned a clear CD case and drilled holes in the lid for drainage. Drilled side up, laid wet/drained paper towel on top. Spread seeds on that, folded over so three layers of paper towel covered. Watered a few times a day. They did dry out a couple times but I caught it soon enough.

6/13/10: Filled peat moss cups with dollar store soil. Planted sprouts as directed in High Times Grow Guide 2010 lol. Put the cups on a cookie tray with raised edges. Put that on my table in the closet. Mounted a power strip on the wall and used plug-in sockets for the bulbs. 4 x 5000k 27w CFLs, 24 hour schedule. Mounted foil (matte side out) on back wall and hung some from a hanger for a ghetto curtain. (Later I made a "lid" from foil and taped it up so less light is lost going up from the bulbs.) Mounted a curtain behind the door—one of the light-blocking ones from Walmart we already had. (A lot of light still escapes up but not a problem.) The back is whitish so not perfect but seems to be okay. So far been keeping it all closed, watering (with filtered water) when they seem dry.

In between here I watered once or twice with MG bloom fert. They seem to like it. I also had a couple sprouts fizzle out and one seedling turn out to be a mystery plant. So 7 plants doing well. I had some bugs (probably drain flies—our apartment plumbing is HORRIBLE) but some soap killer stuff from Target seems to kill them or at least make them hide from me. No effect on plants so far.

7/5/10 (approx.): Plants are growing quite big and I finally had time to switch them to larger containers. Bought these 6" tall plastic tupperware-type things from the dollar store. Only had four though and 7 plants. Transplanted the biggest four, the next three will be ready shortly for other containers. Cut big slits in container bottoms with rotary tool. Filled with an inch or two of aquarium gravel, then soil on top. Poured water straight from the filter tap to drain through completely. Trimmed tops of peat moss cups and cleaned the plants up a bit. Planted cups in containers and covered with plenty of dirt. Watered some more, and gave a little fert water that evening.

All transplanted plants did very well and showed no bad signs. Grew quick that night.

***

So, any thoughts? Right now I'm not sure how much I can change, but I definitely appreciate suggestions for now or the future. I got chicken wire and dowel rods intending to scrog but now I'm not sure. (The table is basically becoming a movable unit for maintenance; I put wheels on it.) Should I just tie down some branches? Something else? I have a lot of ideas but I think I need help from someone looking at my actual plants. They look thin and small to me for how old they are. I have some ideas for why and it's probably a combo of all of them.

I don't have any ventilation yet. This closet is in our bedroom. So during the day I can keep the door open and at least it gets air from the room. We have an AC window unit now. Worth running that? How much? I'm not sure what to do otherwise due to limited space, outlets, no window/outdoor access, etc. My security situation isn't particularly worrisome but I don't want to take any chances with smell of course.

I don't know when I'll switch schedules (I'm looking at other journals here now for examples). But I'm going to try 12/12. Then I'll harvest when they're ready or when my time is up. I'm reading Closet Cultivator and it's really helping a lot.

Thanks for looking! I'll update as it goes.

not bad for a half ass grow cant say much mines not to much better but only thing i would't use clear cups does somthing to the roots that could be just with sunlight tho i just rember hearing about it

good luck man

Hi )

Awesome ... just shows how easy ( and cheap ) the first steps can be .. good job !

I will get in first and say " Tin foil = bad " causes heat spots and will ( maybe ) burn your plants "

Also " Clear cups = Bad Roots need to be in the dark ( or at the least coverd )

But ... great

Good Luck

Thanks! I never heard that about clear pots but it makes sense. Thanks for the tip, I'll keep an eye on them. I have different containers for the last three so they might be better.

Thanks! And now since two people mentioned it maybe I'll make some covers for the cups, lol.

Someone on this forum said white paper was better than foil. True? I'll fix that too at the same time.

Forgot to mention I'm throwing out the males when they show. Which is why I'm hesitant to scrog like I wanted. I read somewhere you can change the lights for a short time before flowering to check sex, but now I can't find it. Anyone heard of this?

white anything would work there is a kind of foil you can use but kitchen tin foil is't to great

well i know space is a problem here but if you clone your plants and flower the clones u will be able to figer out the sex and grow ur plants biger if u want?

willyjackson said:

well i know space is a problem here but if you clone your plants and flower the clones u will be able to figer out the sex and grow ur plants biger if u want?

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That might work actually, there's more space in there than I'm using. Do you know how long you'd have to wait after planting the clone to flower it?

Yesterday I switched the three plants in peat cups to containers. One is a chocolate soy milk box, the other a milk jug cut in half. Two plants share the milk jug. Will be interesting. I also started tying down the four previous plants. Hole punched around the edges of the containers. Tying the anchors to those. Was harder than I thought but they seem to be adapting.

Today I replaced all the foil with white paper, covered the cups with strips of tin foil inside/paper outside. My husband dug a little fan out from somewhere and it's working magic in there! It has some kind of ionizing thing, so I think that's killing the smell. A few hours after all this they had already grown noticeably. It's starting to look nice in there.

No pics tonight but I'll have some up tomorrow.

the roots in the milkjug eventually will compete for space under the soil. transplant them asap

Plants are doing okay. Not growing very fast but I'm not sure why or how fast it's "supposed" to be. Not worried about it but of course I'm impatient.

Still on 24/0. Fan is really working well. Smell is MUCH better and doesn't leave the closet. Even in there it's very slight.

http://www.rollitup.members/at0m666-255345.htmlat0m666 you're right, I'm debating on whether to move them and when. Seems like I have plenty of plants to let them go but who knows which are female. Watch those be the only two, lol.

Pics are from this week, when I fixed up the closet and some from today. You can see one plant is getting some funky color in the leaves. I think the yellow is probably from the fertilizer? It's not bad and is slowly going away. The bigger leaves are starting to show some dark purple (?) color. It's slightly darker and more purple than the camera shows.

Oh and I started tying them down for LST. Not sure if I'm doing it right and the ties are CRAPPY. There's one thing to not get at the dollar store, lol. If it doesn't work I'll just cut the ties and try something else. They've all adapted well so far though.

I made covers for the containers with paper (and foil inside to block the light). Glad I did it this way because I can check the roots. WOW they grow fast.

Forgot to say I ran out of soil while doing the milk jug. So that's why there's two plants and not a lot of soil in that one. I don't want to buy another bag at the moment, so I'm trying to hold out.

djewrecked said:

That might work actually, there's more space in there than I'm using. Do you know how long you'd have to wait after planting the clone to flower it?

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if you want to take clones to pre-sex all you need to do is take your clones put them in cloner or your pellets or rockwool or whatever. then keep them on a strict 12/12 lightcycle for a week or 2 until it shows hairs or balls.

gl any question pm, i hav e only done this once, but it works well for me...i used a cheap homemade bubble cloner, maybe $12

DAMN looks good, Dollar store... NICE.. looks like you will be taking out of those cups soon, they look great!!

i gotcha yeah watch them too lol. for the hell of it throw an am/fm radio in there with a classical station playing. i gave my gals 4 speakers and a Mozart playlist, usually for about 3 hours a day. they seem to like it!

Go to walmart and get some emergency blankets and rplace the foil with these. use these and its the best thing aside from real mylar for reflecting light. Their located in the camping section. hope this helps.

itl be much better than the white paper. good luck on the grow bro.

Lol I have an alarm clock radio with iPod dock and an iPod I'm not using. Perfect. Thanks for the idea!

Gonna get some extra bulbs, flowering bulbs, light cords, and now emergency blankets this weekend. Thanks!