First "serious" grow - Rubbermaid stealth

hey you back from the trip yet.. i would like to see these ladies..

majikninja said:

hey you back from the trip yet.. i would like to see these ladies..

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Got back last night. I really expected the plants to have packed it in and while they aren't really all that nice to look at, the buds seem to be growing in an acceptable manner.

Figures that B, which was the most sickly early on, seems to be doing quite well.



Here's some close-ups of A and the buds. A is pretty thin and sickly, but the flowers look pretty good, especially the main cola.





Here's B:

i like the bud development... you add nutrients yet? they gonna need it bad for good sized buds...

majikninja said:

i like the bud development... you add nutrients yet? they gonna need it bad for good sized buds...

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I gave them 1/2 strength last week before I left and gave them full strength yesterday. Provided they don't have a bad reaction, I'll keep that up for the next few weeks and hopefully those buds will fatten up.

Yeah, it's been a while since I last posted an update. For any of you actually interested, I apologize for that.

We're just over 4 weeks into flowering now and the buds are looking great. A is still looking pretty sickly, although bud development still seems ok. B is looking great.

Here's A. Lots of buds, although unhappy leaves. Still suffering with the calcium deficiency, I think.



Here's the main cola:



And here's B, kind of from underneath. It's definitely in much better shape - leaves are looking pretty good.



Mmmmm... buds.



So, about 4 weeks to go, plus drying and curing time.

While the buds are growing nicely, I'm a bit surprised to see that the plant itself isn't growing a whole lot. I was expecting the plant to double or triple in size, but so far that isn't happening. Still lots of growing to do, I'm sure.

Another week, another update.

A great week in the bud department, especially the last 3 days - the buds are starting to pack on the weight. A still looks miserable, B still looks great.

Here's A:



Ack... blurry pic. Sorry about that.

Here's the main cola.



Mmmmm... Tasty.

And here's some shots of B:





I couldn't get as good a shot of B's cola because of all of the leaves, but trust me, the bud is getting nice and fat!

There were a few very small buds starting to form from shoots coming from the bottom of the stems. I pruned these to direct more energy into the existing buds.

So, about 3 weeks to go. It's been a difficult grow, but it looks like I'm going to get something decent out of it.

It's day 71, 6 weeks into flowering. The plants added lots of bud this week, as you would expect.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been really pounding the plants with nutes (somwhere around 1400 ppm), including them with every watering. They haven't shown any sign of burn, which is why I kept up pace. Today, though, was the last nute watering before harvest.

One other thing that's changed... throughout the entire process, I've been using water from my regular RO system. However, I decided to check out the water from the regular tap. The pH for that water is about 6.4, whereas the RO system tends to be about 5.5. I figured that the RO system may also be taking some minerals out of the water, such as calcium, so I decided to use the regular water for a couple of waterings to see how the plants would react. Interestingly enough, they seemed to take the regular water quite well. Sure wish I would have tried this a month ago!

Anyway, so pics. Here's A:




And B:




Two weeks to go until harvest - hopefully.

Very nice buds, Worped!!! +rep

hey wor

what strain you got going on here?

great recovery btw from early on... were you able to pindown the exact causes?

landoficensnow said:

hey wor

what strain you got going on here?

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BC Early skunk. I originally chose that because it supposedly stays short and is ready earlier in the season. Since I was going to try an outdoor grow (which I did, and failed miserable), it seemed like a good choice. Now that I'm doing it indoors, not so much. It ain't called "skunk" for nothing.

great recovery btw from early on... were you able to pindown the exact causes?

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I'm not exactly 100% on the issues, but I believe they were:

1. heat stress - this one I know for certain, since it was 90+ in my box
2. pH problems - the pH of my soil was in the 5.4-5.5 range. Marginally acceptable for soiless, NOT good for soil
3. calcium deficiency - this one I'm not positive about, but the plants definitely show similar symptoms

The plants certainly did better once I brought the temperatures down.

The pH work took quite a while to kick in. I haven't measured the pH in a while, but it's likely just about 6.0 at this point. I did several waterings with dolomite lime (good for pH and calcium). I also bumped my solution up to 6.8-7.0 when watering the plants.

For the calcium, I've used the lime. That really didn't seem to do a whole lot. For the past few weeks, I moved away from RO water to just plain tap water, as I mentioned perhaps 2 weeks ago. The regular tap water has a higher pH and, if I remember the water test correctly, has a good calcium level in it. They're still suffering a bit, but it's too late now to be worried about trying to fix it up. If I saw this behavior again, I'd definitely try a calcium supplement in my solution.

Not an ideal grow by any means, but if it was easy it wouldn't have been nearly as interesting, I think.

hey was wondering wat soil and nutes are you using? did you hit the girls with co2? are you using a odor filter of some sort? do you think you could get more space out of square pots? would you do this grow again if you had to or just scrap it?

eyesdembleed said:

hey was wondering wat soil and nutes are you using? did you hit the girls with co2? are you using a odor filter of some sort? do you think you could get more space out of square pots? would you do this grow again if you had to or just scrap it?

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For soil, I'm just using some "Black Earth" stuff I found at the garden center at the grocery store. Other than the pH problems I had, it seemed to work pretty well. The early pics of my plants show really good, strong growth. I didn't check the pH of the soil before I started, so I don't know if the soil was the culprit or the RO water that I used for the first 9 weeks (which I definitely know was low). I'd probably try different soil the next time.

I was using a 2-liter pop bottle filled with water, sugar, and yeast for a little while, based on some other grows I read about. I got pretty lazy, though, and eventually stopped.

No odor filter. I tried putting together several things to combat the odor, but I couldn't get anything working. I had a look at Wolfman Zen's DIY carbon filter, but I couldn't find cups reasonably close in size to make it work.

Since a 10" square pot would have more volume than a 10" round pot (assuming they are the same height), I would say yes. In my case, I don't think it would have made much difference.

I'm moving on to a bigger setup using hydro, so it's doubtful I'd do it this way again. Based on what I learned and the problems I've already solved, I would certainly do it again if I didn't have the opportunity to build an "official" room. Really, heat and pH were my big problems and now that I know how to deal with them a second crack using the box would likely go much better. I may try anyway, just to see.

Well, we're getting near the end. I think. I've been checking the trichs, but they haven't started changing from clear yet. Hopefully it won't be too much longer - the wife is getting pretty annoyed at the smell, which is unbelievably strong.

Here's A, which has really started making a great comeback. The cola is looking great and the smaller buds have really increased in size.




And here's B. The leaves have started turning purple, as you can see. They're also showing significant signs of other problems. The buds still seem to be developing, so I'm not too worried about it.




B's cola hasn't grown nearly as much as A, but the smaller buds are still growing.

I'm going to let them go as long as I can, but when I get told "enough is enough" they'll be coming down.

As I've mentioned before, I've thought about building Wolfman Zen's cheapy carbon filter. The problem I had with this is that I could find a really big cup and a really small cup. The big cup was perfectly sized, but the small cup, while an appropriate width, was just too short (by a couple of inches). In my mind, the height difference just couldn't easily be overcome.

This is the part where the fact I'm an idiot comes into play.

It finally dawned on my yesterday how to deal with the problem. Since I needed to put a bit of charcoal at the bottom of the big cup anyway, why couldn't I just add MORE charcoal to make up the height difference?? Simple, eh? Like I said, I'm an idiot.

As it turns out, I didn't actually have enough charcoal to make up that difference. Instead, I cut a couple little circles of wood that would fit in the bottom of the big cup and stacked them up. I put in a bit of charcoal, inserted the smaller cup, and filled in around it. Presto!

I taped the contraption to the exhaust on my box and within an hour all of the smell in my garage was gone. I was completely amazed.

The duct tape I used doesn't appear to be very good, since the heat from the lights and the weight of the cans is causing the tape to slide and stretch a bit. I've put some reinforcing tape around the original job and hopefully that'll do the trick.

Supposing I have to retape one or two times a day, the smell problems are gone and I only need to hang on for (hopefully) a few more days until the buds are done. The important part is that now I will be able to wait.

Well, this is it. It's been a long 13 weeks (4 weeks of veg, 9 weeks of flowering) and now it's harvest time!

Here's a final look at the girls before they get chopped up:





Both plants look like they've produced some good size buds, especially given their small stature. B is completely covered in purple leaves, while A is just starting to develop some.

Overall, everything looks good.

I didn't take any pictures of the trimming process because I was concentrating on doing a decent job. That, and I ran into a little problem, which annoyed the hell out of me and sort of sucked the wind out of my sails a little bit.

I started with B. The stem on it was very thick and took some effort to cut. I really had no idea what I was doing, but I'd read that the basic idea is to trim the leaves as close to the bud as possible. Some people dig rig into the bud and others don't. I did a little bit of both, but I'm a bit lazy, so I didn't work too hard at it.

The buds on B were nice and dense. The scissors were covered in resin from the leaves in no time at all. I think I did a pretty good job with the trimming.

Happy with the results from B, I moved over the A. The stem on A was even more difficult to cut, but I eventually got through.

As I started trimming up the main cola, I noticed that the bud wasn't nearly as dense as with B. After some more cutting, it seemed that the bud was a little... squishy.

You know where this is going.

I cut a little more and then a small chunk fell out of the middle of the cola. I peered inside and saw the tell-tale grey.

Bud rot.

I dug through and more and more of the cola turned out to be hosed. I found the bottom of the cola and just snipped the whole thing from the plant. Fearing the worst, I poked at a bunch of the other buds. While certainly not as dense as B, I didn't notice any further problems, so while I was losing the cola, as least I didn't lose the whole thing.

I managed to save only the top 1/2"-3/4" of A's cola. *sniff* However, everything else seemed fine and the buds look good.

Once I had the plants trimmed up, I set up a couple pieces of string in my box and hung the stems. I've got a fan inside the box to keep the air moving and I will be checking VERY regularly to make sure that things are still ok.

I have no idea when the rot started, but perhaps the extra week might not have been a good thing. However, they just didn't look "ready" last week. I will note that the air movement in the box wasn't all that good last week. After I attached the filter, I found that the air pressure from the second fan was causing the filter to be pushed off. When I shut the second fan off, the filter removed all of the odor, but the air movement was reduced in the box. I'm guessing that's the cause of my rot.

For drying, I've placed a small desk fan inside the box. It doesn't appear to be affecting the filter, so hopefully I won't have anymore problems.

Here's a pic of the hanging buds:



Not too bad for a first grow in a couple of rubbermaid containers. Once they've dried out sufficiently, I'll cut away the stems and get a final weight.

The buds have been drying for a week now and seem suitably dry. I weighed them and then put them in a sealable jar for curing.

Total weight: 11.5 grams. I was certainly hoping for more, but it's better than having lost the whole crop for whatever reasons (rot, sick plants, etc). I don't smoke very often, so these buds will last me for quite a while.

So now they are in the jar. I'll be opening the jar up a couple of times a day for a few minutes over the next week to ensure the moisture content is ok, then they'll be closed up for several more weeks.

success! cheers on the grow. im using a rm container as well. i could use any advice on rubber maid growing,

cheers