Goin Loco, First Colorado Medical Grow, Lots of Learnin

Wow what a journey this has been!

I am currently 3 weeks into flower with one plant (there is bud porn posted in my nutes on a budget thread) but I wanted to document the journey (have lots of pics) and the learning experience.

I posted some of the relevant common sense points that I have discovered in my NooB Advice thread and ask that if you have comments or questions please post them there (link in sig) for now.

I want to acknowledge and thank several people on this site that I have followed and learned from,,, Uncle Ben, Mammoth, Tahoe, Fdd2blk, Masterofgenetics, Doubious, theLoadedDragon, IllegalSmile, Roseman, GardenKnowm, Mindmelted, Gypsybush. I can tell ya if your a NooB startin to learn these folks advice and experience is spot on! I try to read everything they post as I have learned so much from them.

I will try to post daily (if I can) to bring this journal up to speed so that others can learn from my mistakes and believe me I made em

I picked the title Goin Loco from a Nazareth song off thier 2008 album The Newz, I love the line "I'm one stop short of a bus ride" I think it's thier best album ever!

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And we're off

This journey started almost a year ago, you see I'm a research whore so instead of just throwing beans in soil I bought books and movies (got lots of em)

Problem was the more I read/watched the more contradictions I found and some of the books were old and had a lot of out dated info. I also noticed that they spent a lot of time on the history and the mystique of growing rather than actual growing info. I came to the conclusion that there were a lot of folks workin hard to keep the mystique and myths alive to make it "harder" to grow, seems a lot of first timers kill more than they grow. So off I went to find more real info and I landed here.

I read threads for months before joining at that point I wanted to see the pictures and wow was I right because I found that I learned a lot just by looking at the photos people were postin. But once again as with the books the more I read here the more contradictions I saw. I also noticed that once folks get something workin they are inclined to stick with it and defend it. As I said in my NooB Advice thread, I discovered that there were gems of info and they would stick in my head and I would see them repeated by experienced growers, As a result of this I now felt that I had a foundation of what I thought was solid info and I put some bag seeds in a paper towel,,,,,,,,,,,,,

some of them germed so I planted em,,,,,,,Nothing? most of em did not germ,,,,,,, more reading, I decided I was fighting low temps so I tried puttin em on my DVD player (on top of the pwr supply) where there was a bit of heat,,,,,,,,,,,,,,nothing?

I went out and bought a Jiffy heated green house from lowes $35 but by now I was out of bag seeds so off to the attitude where I ordered some KC Brains Northern Lights Special, 2004 Cup winner(they were cheap and I had read that the smell was not so intense)

By now I decided to give up on the paper towel method and did a seed presoak in tepid water in a shotglass for 6 hours then put 2 beans in the jiffy garden (only have space to flower one plant at a time) they both popped in 2 days and were lookin good and healthy.

Mistake #1 I took em out of the jiffy garden to early, should have waited till the first true leaves were showin!

I put em in 16oz red party cups (with drain holes) and used FoxFarms Happy Frogs soil, we were off and growin. I put em under 2 26 watt 6500K cfls in a Y thingy one above each of the seedlings, based on all I had read I put the lights 1 inch above the babies

Mistake #2 the lights were to close and while I was at work both seedlings were badly burnt

I decided to wait and watch em to see what they would do, moved the lights up to 4 inches away and low and behold they did not die but rather they fought real hard to survive and it was an incredible thing to watch, I became fasinated at how tough these little plants were.

My girfriend and I decided to name them, we picked Cozi and Matilda, I wrote thier names on the party cups and we waited,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

NOTE; that in the recovery photo Matilda (who turned out to be the female) is the runt (smallest) as she was burned the worst.

more later,

Ok so now I got 2 plants recovering and I know that I will need a flowering light(s) so I'm doing research once again as I know I have a few weeks.

As I said I love research so I'm reading and whew there are so many lights and so many opinions ( hell the question "what light to use" gets asked 10 times a day here (or more)

I learned about lumens and that the minimum is 3000 for 1 sq ft, that the sun is 10,000 lumens per sq ft at noon, at the equator. Everyone kept saying more is better? But I discovered in my research that this lumens thing was a rule of thumb for noob's to go by that what is more important is the PAR of the light and the spectrum and that there is such a thing as TOO MUCH LIGHT, saw photos of bleached plants, I kept reading.

Well as I said I only had room for one plant so I get the idea to use just one 65 watt 2700K CFL that was rated at 4200 lumens, minimum is 3000, so 4200 should be good? my area is 1 sq ft. I went out and bought this car windshield sun blocker thing it folds up when not in use and the folds were 6 inches so if I fold it into a square it is a perfect sq ft and wow the bright reflection blinded me (it's the light in my avatar). Bought the 10 inch hooded clamp light, removed the clamp and added a chain, put up a hook, now I'm ready, I kept reading.

Now I'm finding post that say add some blue (6500K) mixed spectrum is better, just put lots of cfls all around the plant, but I don't have room for that so more research. I knew that they make the circle bulbs (I use a magnafier light at work that has one) so I looked and found that yes they do make them in different spectrums and they come in different sizes, (biggest is 16 inches) so I ordered a 12 inch 6500K T9 32 watt 1570 lumens and a little ballast. I hung it from the 10 inch hood using a fine wire and it is also seen in my avatar. I now have almost 5000 lumens in my little sq ft box and 360 degree below canopy coverage without having to move lights. Though it is experimental, I am satisfied with my choice but, I kept reading.

I stumbled upon Ceramic Metal Halides and discovered after a lot of reading that this light is the bomb, no other light has the spectrum it has but it had limitations. I decided it was the light I want but because I already had the cfl plus T9 setup decided to finish the experiment if for no other reason to learn from (my next grow will use the CMH). I was done reading about lights (at least for now).

NOTE; I am not disappointed with this setup as Matilda is now doing really well under them, but I am looking forward to using the CMH in the future.

stoked about your gj good luck .hum i 'm first in line to ya lol . i hope u r nutes on a budget gets u good yeilds . i m also going to check to see if there good in hydro, cause if they that'll be the bomb . i got my chair and table ready with my fav drink " gonna sit a spell and watch you grow good as hell "

Well it's been a busy holiday week, I did not find time to get back to this, so now that christmas is over going to try to get it caught up.

I discovered that I can not edit (or add to) post in this journal, was going to add a pic to the lights post to show what it looks like all closed up

lights are so bright it glows thru the layers of mylar, kinda cool, anyway here is the pic

In an effort to bring this up to date, I decided not to spend a lot of time following Cozi (the male) there is no real reason other than to explain the big,,,,,,,,

Mistake #3 treating forum info as a fact

most will say that females are bushier, that males are lanky, that males grow faster. Armed with this info and seeing the huge difference in the way that Cozi and Matilda were growing I decided that Cozi was the girl (even though I had not sexed it) I put Cozi in the big pot (avatar) and started experimenting on Matilda (read NooB Advice)

At this point I also stopped taking as many pics of Matilda (but have a few)

I touched on how tough these plants are a bit earlier, I am adding a pic called push that kinda shows more of the burn (it's blurry) I had just gotten this new camera and was still gettin used to it (pics do get better)

What she (matilda) did was beef up the damaged cotyledon (why I call it push) to me it seemed as if she was trying to get light, in the pic you can see the little bit of green that was pushing up and out and the new growth that was begining. (why I say just watch em and learn)

also posting a few compare photos so you can see the difference in the way they were growing. Internode spacing on Cozi was less than 1/2 inch and on Matilda was over an inch

there is also a pic called help showing a makeshift humidity dome, I left out that I had done this in the begining (after the burn) to help Matilda survive she was under this dome for 4 days before the push began. Thought I better add this info to help others that might encounter a similar problem.

These pics lead up to my putting Cozi in the big pot (week 5) Cozi showed balls after 5 days of flowering and HE is now gone so as I said we will jump ahead to bring Matildas progress to date after one more post,,stay tuned.

in the 3th and 4th week I stumbled upon a thread (in another forum) called the Banana Relegion, it talked about how Ethelyne gas is used to make more females and how bananas give off ethelyne gas as they rot (other fruits do as well, apples more, but I chose bananas)

With nothing to lose and being an experimentor, I got some naners and put em in my veg box (see pics)

As you can see I put more under Cozi (thinking already that it was the female) so I have to say this experiment was a bust and did not work at all (with only 2 plants, the only way I could say it worked would be if they both went female but with 50/50 I have to say things were normal and the nanners had no effect)

I will add that I did turn the fans off at night to allow the ethelyne gases to stay in the veg box, my thoughts on this are that you would have to put like 100 naners in your grow box for this to have a chance to work and at that point seems redundant to me

So to sum up I am not a believer in the Banana Relegion

While Cozi was growin balls, I ended up topping Matilda twice, first time above the second node, got two colas. Then topped the 2 colas was trying to keep it short, experimenting with bonsai as it were. My thought was to allow it to make balls so I could get some pollen for seeds (remember at this point I thought it was a male)

During this time she became rootbound in her little red party cup and on one of my trips to the nursery I had bought these 6 inch coir pots (I love em, no more party cups for me) So I repotted her into the coir pot and a few days later Cozi showed male.

I could have waited and gotten some pollen from Cozi but decided not to (still have beans, can get pollen later)

I also could have moved Matilda to the big pot but told her that she had to drop her panties first, was not going to waste dirt and time on another male.

So in the first pic you see Matilda in her coir pot with her 6 main colas under the the flower light, it took her 13 days to show sex and then pic 2 she went into the big pot

What they say about the push is true expect her to grow 2 to 3 times bigger when flipped to flower.

Mutant Matilda was approx 6.5 inches when I put her in to sex her, she doubled in size by the time she had showed sex and is now (beginning of 4th week) approx 18 inches tall.

It was always my intention to LST her to grow up and around the 65 watter, the way it hangs this just made good sense to me so the attached pics are of the first LST where I started this NOTE I have had to make a few minor adjustments along the way but it is working beatifully

Before we get to the good bud porn (coming soon) I thought I should talk a bit about soil.

As I said earlier we started this journey in Fox Farms Happy Frogs, the only thing I added to it was Dolomite Lime (1 tablespoon per gallon of soil)

When I went into the big pot, I put a layer approx 1 inch deep of perlite and then used this soil mix

One part Happy Frogs
Two parts Ocean Forrest
1 cup Sphagnum moss (a handful)
One tablespoon Dolomite Lime (per gallon of soil)

my big pot is 2 gallons

I have posted this soil mix in other threads to help others out, I got the recipie from a tomato forum where I also learned about the lime

Seems that is the question I get most "Why add the Lime?"

So let me explain,
A. MJ loves mag/ca and Dolomite lime has it and
B. It acts as a buffer over time to stabalize PH (it is a ph upper) but is released slowly with every watering. I might also note that the sphagnum moss is a low ph (around 4.5) it adds to drainage and water retention the lime balances the ph after adding it. Because everything we add lowers the ph (nutes, mollasses, etc) the Dolomite is just a good thing to have to prevent problems down the road.

I might also note that I have not (yet) had any problems with soil or ph, so thank you tomato forum

Not gonna spend a lot of time on nutes here, lot of folks here have read my nutes on a budget post where I talk about Jack's Classic

So no surprise that I am using Jack's Classic for this grow.

The veg nutes NPK are 20-20-20

and the Bloom nutes are 10-30-20

They cost $4.99 each for 8oz tubs

No point in talking about the feedings that Cozi got

Matilda got one dose of veg nutes while in the coir pot (bonsai veggin)

and she got her first dose of the bloom nutes after she went into the big pot, watering after that was 1 teaspoon of mollases and today she got her second feeding of bloom nutes

Now this part is tricky but let me explain,

With Jacks the instructions are to mix 1 teaspoon with 1 gallon of water and use every other to every 3rd watering,,,,,,,,,,,,,OR,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Mix 1/4 teaspoon to 1 gallon and use every watering

I use a quart bottle to water (1/4 of a gallon) with so I used 1/4 of 1/4 teaspoon for the first feeding and 1/2 of 1/4 teaspoon for the second feeding.

You will see that she is doing great so far (pics coming)

This is the end of week 2 flowering pics taken after she has shown sex, moved into the big pot and got LST'd

She is lookin good

These pics were taken in the middle of week 3 She is still growin (though it has slowed) and the buds are gettin bigger

There is a purple tint to her, one of the reasons I call her a mutant, cause she started showing lots of purple after the initial burnning

To me, she is started to show good bud growth and development

Looks good man! I'm watching, you don't need to add lime to ocean forest either, I see people do it all the time.

Ocean Forest has crushed oyster shells that provide even more mineral nutrition than lime while at the same time providing a pH buffer.

Happy frog works great for veg and if you transplant from it into Ocean Forest in a big enough pot you can get away with just plain water most of the way through flower.

These pics were taken right at the begining of week 4 and she is still growing nicely, I like being able to see her progress via the pics, so glad I decided to document her grow

After posting this we are up to date, future pics will happen as they happen (but I still have 2 more post to fill in the journey)

In the last pic, if you look closely you see the leaves touching the T9 light are curled so that they get light from the T9, I have noticed this on several leaves while looking at her.

Seems the ones closest to the T9 move to get more light there and the others face the CFL it is really cool to watch how the leaves move to get more light

Am posting a close up of the leaves curling on the T9 so you can see it better.

And posting a mutant pic, another reason I call her a mutant is because her lower leaves look like indica and her top leaves look more stativia, I got a feelin she will be some killer smoke

Ok just one more post to be current WOO HOO

I was talking to an old hippie grower friend of mine that told me about bud topping, supposed to give you bigger buds. As you may have figured out by now I like to experiment so I picked the smallest bud and gave her a hair cut. (first pic)

It is kinda like fimming you cut into the fresh green new growth right under the white hairs on the top of the bud.

I will also document the development of this bud so we can see if there is any truth to this technique?

second pic is 4 days after her haircut as you can see she is starting to grow out more to the sides of where I cut.

We are current,,,,,,,,,,,,

Well I was sittin here thinking that there are 2 more things I could touch on for any noob's reading this,,,,,,

One is the budget thing after all this grow is running on a ghetto budget the whole growin under one CFL to prove ya can thing

So lets see how much did I spend to get this girl?

seeds $43 (includes stealth)
soil $48 (includes everything)
2 veg cfl's $7
1 flower cfl $16
reflective hood $11
2 gallon pot $7
coir pots $5
nutes $10
mylar car thingy $8
heated greenhouse $35
T9 & ballast $35 (includes shipping)
ph drops $5
fan $4 (closeout at wally world)
Time spent reading books/forum post PRICELESS

so all in all $234 (if she yeilds an oz I'll think I did good)

This does not cover all the $$$ I spent on books & such, hell just ordered 5 more for another $60

At the very least I have proven that just one CFL will work

Well this was where I spent a lot of time in the beginning,,,,,

I got one of those 3 in 1 testers from HD for $10 (ph, moisture & light)

discovered it was crap, threw it in a drawer

Then read where some one was using drops from aquarium isle at walmart. Thought oh I can do that cause I used to have an aquarium and had used them back then so I was familliar with em.

Now I know some folks would say just buy a good digital ph meter but one of those gems I talk about was from a post where someone compared the drops to a digital tester and said it was about 3 points off so they reccommended that you go towards the yellow more than the green/yellow. I have been following that and so far have had no issues.

And actually I don't test every time, more like every other and then just to check consistency.

In the beginning, I tested my tap water it was 7.8. I use a Brita filter for drinking water and tested that it was 6.8 so I could drop a whole point just by using the filtered water. I also test after adding anything to the water and I test the run off as well.

As for when to water, I decided to let em go early in veg with no water till they drooped (wanted to see it) and now that is how I decide when to water, it's so cool if you watch em they will show you they are thirsty at the first sign of droop they get water.

DO NOT be confused by the drooping thing, it's simple, they droop when over watered as well. The difference is that when UNDER watered the stems will droop as well, key is to water em before the stem droops.

As a result of this method have not had the dreaded over watering problem.

Well it has been 7 days since I gave the smallest bud a haircut.

I have tried real hard to get pics to show you what I see,

and that is that the topped bud is frostier, has more trichs forming than any of the other buds, I have included 2 compare pics. 1st one is the next biggest bud and 2nd one is the next to biggest bud.

I am thinking of topping another one to see if this happens there as well?

any opinions? anyone ever done this before?