Mary Chiva's Papaya Aurora Indica Grow Journal

Hey there.

Well...here's my grow journal . Let's get to it shall we?

The seeds I have are Papaya and Aurora Indica bought from Nirvana. Neither are feminized, so let's hope for the best.

I'll be using a 400w HTGsupply.com light fixture. Vegging will be with a MH conversion bulb and flowering will be with an HPS bulb. I plan to veg until the plants are about 12 inches tall and then going to 12/12. During veg I plan to do 20 hours on - 4 hours off, instead of 18/6.

This is a soil grow and will be done with good ol' Fox Farm Oceans potting mix and assisted with Fox Farm fert's; grow big (have to buy still), big bloom, and tiger bloom. I am starting off with 2 gallon pots and will transplant to something in the 3-4 gallon range a week before going to 12/12.

The grow area is in a recently insulated attic with a space heater to keep heat 70 or above. I'll be installing some mylar eventually, but for now the 400w light should be plenty for veg. Mylar will be more important when they start flowering and the plants are taller.

Germination started at 9pm today and is taking place in moist paper towels inside open sandwich baggies. The bags are near my computer to give some heat. I am germinating 3 seeds from each strain (so, 6 right now), but I plan to germ a total of 4 more seeds (2 from each strain) to have a total of 10 plants. I am using distilled water. I'm still new at this, so I am trying not to waste seeds if I screw something up. Once I get these first 6 going, I will start the other 4. Plus, these aren't feminized seeds...so the more seeds I grow the more chances for more baby girls .

I will be taking some pics of the grow area soon.

Not that they'd be ready, but, I checked the seeds, nothing yet. I'll check again this evening. Also, I'm a jackass...it looks like one of the 3 AI seeds I was germing got lost somehow, there is 2 rather than 3 in the AI germ bag... So, I've got 5 total seeds germing right now. I'm going to germ more anyhow once these crack open...if they don't...then I'm probably going to by one of those nice 40 dollar germ kits >> https://ssl.cgicafe.com/clients/hmoonhydro.com/germination_station.html

subscribed mary.chiva


good luck!

Thanks Flower Pimp .

Just picked up some Grow Big today and still waiting for my babies to crack open. I checked and the AI seeds seem to be germing faster...they are swelling up alot more than the Papaya seeds.

Yay.

I just did a temp check near my computer to find the temps of the 'germination area' and it was 88 degrees. I read something online saying 70-90 was a good range to germinate. I also started one more seed from a REALLY REALLY REALLY good bag I bought last week (2 hits and your stoned for a couple hours). It was the only seed, nuzzled in a nice bud. If it's a female I should have lots of yummy, different types of bud to smoke. So that's a total of 6 seeds germinating now.

It looks like yesterday, however, my germination area got to around 95 for a few hours... This was because the keyboard tray was pushed in. The seeds were on top a folded piece of paper on top my computer and the computer is under the keyboard tray. I purposefully left the tray OPEN so the temps would stay in the 80's...we can thank my wife for the 95 degree exposure cause she pushed the tray in...damn it.

I moved the seeds from the top of the PC to inside a drawer next to the PC. The temps are right around 80 and they don't fluctuate much, which is better. Hopefully yesterdays 95 degree exposure didn't screw me...I'll be beyond pissed.

you got really lucky to find a seed in that bag. now if only you can be so lucky to get a female from it...

i would bet youll be ok with those seed temps. i didn't know about the seed temps. i just put my on an exposed area of the hot water and wha law. i bet the water temps were above 90 at times.

waiting game number 1.

i am thinking i might put a few new seeds down just to join you! (more bag seed)

It looks like I'm in good shape. All 3 of the papaya seeds now have a small tap root and the 2 AI seeds have cracked their shell. That just leaves the 1 bag seed germinating.

I'll probably be planting them tomorrow once the root grows a little longer. Then I'll start 4 more seeds, probably 2 papaya and 2 AI...or possibly 3 AI and 1 papaya...not sure yet.

FLOWER PIMP said:

you got really lucky to find a seed in that bag. now if only you can be so lucky to get a female from it...

i would bet youll be ok with those seed temps. i didn't know about the seed temps. i just put my on an exposed area of the hot water and wha law. i bet the water temps were above 90 at times.

waiting game number 1.

i am thinking i might put a few new seeds down just to join you! (more bag seed)

Click to expand...

Yeah man! Start some more plants with me!

seeds are down...

Glad to hear you have seen legs!

I just finished making up my soil pots and I was able to make 8, 2 gallon pots using fox farm oceans forest.

Since I have 2 pots left and I ran out of oceans forest, I am making the remaining pots with 2/3 'regular old potting mix' (generic miracle-gro moisture control) and 1/3 earthworm castings. I'm also layering a thin layer of castings on top because I read it helps with germination and seedlings.

I'll plant 1 AI seed and 1 papaya seed in the last 2 pots. At first I'll use up all the oceans forest pots and then move on to the potting mix/castings pots.

It will be interesting to compare which top soil is better. I suspect it will be the oceans forest. Regardless, everyone will be fed the liquid fox farm ferts.

Today I moved 6 flower pots to the grow area and planted the 3 papaya seeds. The 2 AI seeds still need some time to germinate along with the 1 bag seed. Hopefully I'll be planting the other 3 seeds tomorrow.

Looking at the positioning of how the light spreads out on the pots...I think I am going to grow 8 plants instead of 10. Not all with be females, so if I get too many males, I can make a clone or two. I sure hope I get at least 3 or 4 females from seed.

I'm going to germinate 1 more papaya seed and 1 more AI seed now.

Here are a couple pics of the grow area. The pics were taken by a crappier camera, but I'll eventually update with pics from the good camera.

Ok, I just started germing 1 papaya and 1 AI seed, making a total of 8 plants if all seeds germinate.

I'm going to use all 8 of the oceans forest pots for this grow and do my soil comparison in a future grow instead of this one.

I need to buy some of those things that go under the pots to collect water. It's not good (I've read) to leave the roots in the standing water, so I am going to get a 5 gallon bucket to pour the water into after it drains. This is only if it comes out the bottom of the pots. I hope to master watering these pots with just the right amount, without having water come out the bottom and losing ferts/nutes.

For those that want to see what's helped me get to where I'm at...check out the below posts...

https://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/119240-custom-growbox-progression-using-cfls.html#post1454480
https://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/121325-exhaust-fan-recommendations.html
https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/127868-pot-size-recommendations.html
https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/128507-alright-start-seedlings-under-400w.html

good luck, subscribed. isn't it fun getting everything setup? i am a newb on my first grow, but I would not get mylar. get the black and white poly plastic. you will be much happier and it is only slightly more expensive. also get your ballast off the ground. hang it from the ceiling or place it on a shelf. you don't want any spilt water getting on it. remember, saftey first.

i also think the paper towel method i over rated. i just dropped my recent beans in moist rockwool with a ph of 6.3 and all beans came up.

Da Kine 420 said:

good luck, subscribed. isn't it fun getting everything setup? i am a newb on my first grow, but I would not get mylar. get the black and white poly plastic. you will be much happier and it is only slightly more expensive. also get your ballast off the ground. hang it from the ceiling or place it on a shelf. you don't want any spilt water getting on it. remember, saftey first.

i also think the paper towel method i over rated. i just dropped my recent beans in moist rockwool with a ph of 6.3 and all beans came up.

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Thanks, stay tuned . Your right, it's very fun getting things set up. Expensive too!

Thanks for the tip on the poly, I read about it as well, and it does look like a great option. I just might take you up on that .

Your right, I need to hang the ballast. I'll do that soon. I will just have to be careful for now.

You may be right about the paper towels. So far though, it seems to be working just fine .

it looks like youve been busy this morning.

just wondering... can you raise or lower your light?

i would be willing to bet the panada plastic is much easier to work with, but it doesn't have the same awesome look. i know you will keep us posted, so i will know soon enough...

thats a good idea to collect the water, don't want your ceiling showing water spots.

what will your light foot print be wiht the 8 plants?

FLOWER PIMP said:

it looks like youve been busy this morning.

just wondering... can you raise or lower your light?

i would be willing to bet the panada plastic is much easier to work with, but it doesn't have the same awesome look. i know you will keep us posted, so i will know soon enough...

thats a good idea to collect the water, don't want your ceiling showing water spots.

what will your light foot print be wiht the 8 plants?

Click to expand...

I was busy this morning . Next morning will most likely be busy as well...I'll check the seeds in a bit...I have company over at the moment .

I can raise it, but not lower it any further. It actually can stand to be lowered though. The light is 3 feet from the top of the pots but I'm at the bottom of the chain. No big deal, I'll go to the hardware store tomorrow on the way home from work for a foot longer chain. I can use the chain I have now to hang the ballast.

I bet your right about the plastic. I'm pretty sure that's what I'm going to buy. I'll pick some up after payday on Friday. My local hydro shop sells it ...very convenient.

Well, the light will cover 8 pots just fine, I shouldn't have a problem at all. 8 is probably about my limit, however.

your super set up! nice job!

its nice you have a local shop. i got nothing.

just wondering about the footprint cuz we got the same ballast and hood, i think.

how do you access your space to the attic?

FLOWER PIMP said:

your super set up! nice job!

its nice you have a local shop. i got nothing.

just wondering about the footprint cuz we got the same ballast and hood, i think.

how do you access your space to the attic?

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I access the attic via a typical attic door .

More updates tomorrow.

get another 3 ft of chain. 12-18 in from plants. in the attic this time of year i t is probably cool, right? get it close.