First Time Growing

Hey this is my first crop that i am making. I got my seeds to germintate and the sprouts are comming on up and leafing out. I have a florecent work lamp that produces 18 watts and at CFL lame that i think is 60 both are inside of a box that is painted a glossy black and foil on the base for relection. The CFL is on the top of the box where as the florecent light is on the side closer to the plants. I am watering the plants when need to. Some of the plants look small and week where as some of the others are small and perky. What advise can anyone give to make there plants kinda bigger and stronger looking. I am using Rain Water as well as Organic Soil called ednas best potting soil. I dont want my plants to die so what should i do to ensure good health and good crops

well one thing that i can get from what you said is that you painted the walls the wrong color, black attracts light and white reflects it so i would change that up as soon as you can, umm other than that put the cfls as close to the plants as you can 1-2" also how many plants do you have cuz you might not be getting good light dispersion explaining why some look strong and others weak get back at me and hopefully we can come up with some solutions!!!MVG

Ok i went out and made a room for it. Now it is isolated with fresh air and open space. I now am using a fish light with i think a 60 watt light and the walls and the floor are now using foil to move the light. I have about 11 plants and some are looking stong but the leaves are looking kinda dead now. I dont know whats wrong

this is what im now using

well first off i think you'll need ALOT more lighting for 11 plants to grow and trive. try going for 100w per plant? maybe less. it depends on the light. and tin foil doesn't work very well it can burn little marks in your plants like a laser beam. try mylar or something white. make sure not to over water your seedlings. are you using any nutes while watering?

At this time i am not using nuts yet as if it refers to nutrients. I do have a box of fertilizer that is organic and its numbers are 16-16-16 i was thinking of using it when it goes into a new pot. What would u recomend for a good nut. And my ph is roughly around 6.2

ur ph is good dont use nutes until ur plant is establised u will need more lights search humbolt onthis site if ur using cfls and look at his set up he is the cfl king but i hate to say it but w/ 11 plants to produce a good yeild you will need 30 cfl 3 a peice so on that note go buy a mh/hps you can find them pretty cheap if u look around i just got a mh/hps switchable ballast and what a differance it makes good luck

oh ya anything foxfarm is good but its all preff some use earth juice and a bunch others seach some grow jurnals to see what fits ur needs

yeah this morning i went and checked on my plants and there heads are looking downwards like a limp thing but there stems are going upwards. One of my plants was doing that and when i thought it was dead i saw the root and the part of the root where the stem is above the soil and the root begins looked white and choked like it was pinched to death. whats causing that im going to go to wall mart and buy a new lamp

get more lighting on those ...try cfls at least one 42watter per plant....put em as low as you can with out burning the plants...also get rid of that foil crap...had it on my grow till i started noticeing burns on my plany try mylar or get those car sun Windshield blocker and use those ....picked up mine at a local 99 cent store....

Oh ok will be going to wall mart to night what would u recomend for a source of light that is cheap and no hard to install where i can use a regular light source. I saw a plant grow light that is a florecent light at wall mart for like 10 should i get it or should i get something else that produces as much or better light for them. Also i can get a milar survival blanket or just use those window blockers

i spent about 7 bucks at home depot i only got t12 fluros but they are doing well veging the plants. i am in my first grow also and am starting to learn all sorts of shit so yeah i would invest the money in lights thats what i have noticed makes a huge difference

70 not 7 dollars i mean

Where can i get cheap milar at like home depo or lowes

I saw this on ebay will this be sufficent enough for mylar
SLEEP BLANKET MYLAR Emergency Disaster,Safety Survival - (eBay item 250195647806 end time Dec-13-07 17:03:49 PST)

SLEEP BLANKET MYLAR Emergency Disaster,Safety Survival - (eBay item 250195647806 end time Dec-13-07 17:03:49 PST)


I found this on ebay will this work

i have tried and tried and tried to find real mylar. the best i could find was metalic sheeting and it was pretty expensive. so i settled with panda film it works well and its cheap as hell about a buck a foot. you can save yourself some stress and go to yellowpages.com and look for a good hydroponics store instead of going to home depot, lowes, ace ect. i live in a small town and drove 2 hours out of my way to go to the nearest hydroponics store because as a rookie grower i needed more help and info than what all those chain hardware stores could provide. so hope this helps. my main point is find a good hydroponics store like garden tech or the grow shop the people that work there usually grow weed so they will know how to help you just tell them your looking to grow "tomatos" lol. and listen to all the veteran growers on this site, they will pretty much hold your hand through everything. anyway good luck with your grow.

oh nice buy it !!

i just went from using 4 cfl's per plant to seven...the more the better with these cfl's, and make sure you have the right spectrum...6500K daylight during your veg stage

yo if you want to get real mylar goto High Tech Garden Supply they have mylar there and it is really cheap i just got a 50' roll for $18 and try to get as many cfl's as you can, i have used only 2700k for my grows as i didnt realize that there were blue spectrum ones and i kinda lucked out cuz during my floweringt hey really helped