Mary Chiva's Papaya Aurora Indica Grow Journal

Da Kine 420 said:

put the plastic on the floor for spillage. it is a must. you will not regret it.

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Yeah, your right...plus that will reflect the light back up, which is good.

I'll get it done next week and will show pics of how it looks. Pics of babies to come tomorrow.

Here's a few pics...still on the crappy camera. I keep forgetting to bring my good digital camera to the grow spot...sorry. I'll remember soon...see what happens when you smoke to much? ha!

The first pic shows the 4 growing papaya's, and the other 2 pics show all the flower pots. The 4 pots on the left are papaya's and the 3 on the right are aurora indica. I tell you what...these papaya's grow alot better than the AI's. I planted the 2nd AI 2 days ago and it hasn't cracked soil yet (it better) and I planted the 3rd AI yesterday, but there is still only 1 AI actively growing...sigh. Every one of the papaya seeds germinated and every one cracked soil within 1 day.

The last papaya seed isn't ready to be planted yet, but it will be tomorrow. If these other 2 planted AI seeds don't grow...then I'm going to call it a wash and stick with the plants I actually have growing. I'll save the rest of my beans for a future grow....I'm done germinating with this grow.

Also, I still have flies giving me a fit. They are dying and most are stuck to fly paper, but there are a TON of dead flies, I'm not kidding, I mean a TON. I just today put out a fly trap where you mix water with a special attractant and the flies fly in through holes to get to the solution and then are drowned. Hopefully this works better and I don't have dead flies laying around everywhere. I have to get a dust pan and brush soon to sweep them up. It looks like a battle field of dead flies right now...lol.

Here is the fly trap I used >> http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1280010 BTW, this thing stinks and is REALLY only for outside use. I'm just sick of seeing these bastards in my area. Hopefully I only have to keep this smelly thing in the area for long enough to catch all the flies. I mean, it IS getting to be winter...they have to go away eventually, I hope.

i am really interested in knowing whats going on the AI's? r they just super slow starting? just for a reference the bag seeds that i put down (i think a day after you) as of last night popped out of the dirt with no seed leaves yet.

i keep waning to say congratulations but i'm waiting on the total of all to pop out first.

haha, funny stuff, a fly battle field. i like it. it looks like your papaya are stretching a bit. I would get the light lower and get the chain now. i don't think my plants are that tall and they have been in there for 3 weeks. it won't burn them. i have mine at 6 inches in one room. i need to raise it, but they are not getting burned under the cooltube. my little plants are 4-5 inches away from the light and it is hot. i think you will be happy with the results of lowering the lighting. how far are the plants from the bottom of the light?

all else is looking good and yeah, those fuckers should die soon. I remember when I lived in CO and all the fucking moths everywhere. i fucking hated it. anyways, later bro!

Da Kine 420 said:

haha, funny stuff, a fly battle field. i like it. it looks like your papaya are stretching a bit. I would get the light lower and get the chain now. i don't think my plants are that tall and they have been in there for 3 weeks. it won't burn them. i have mine at 6 inches in one room. i need to raise it, but they are not getting burned under the cooltube. my little plants are 4-5 inches away from the light and it is hot. i think you will be happy with the results of lowering the lighting. how far are the plants from the bottom of the light?

all else is looking good and yeah, those fuckers should die soon. I remember when I lived in CO and all the fucking moths everywhere. i fucking hated it. anyways, later bro!

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Yeah, I think all the plants stretched a bit, but I don't know if they are doing it anymore now that they got a little closer to the light. Right now, the light is about 20 inches or a bit less from the top of the plants. I have some extra chain, I'll see if I can lower it when I get some time. I don't want stretchy plants... I just need about 1-2 hours in the grow area to get the stuff done I need to do (hang ballast, hang poly plastic, lower light ,etc).

My folks are finally leaving town tomorrow, so hopefully I can now get the time I need either tomorrow and/or next week to get some work done...

FLOWER PIMP said:

i am really interested in knowing whats going on the AI's? r they just super slow starting? just for a reference the bag seeds that i put down (i think a day after you) as of last night popped out of the dirt with no seed leaves yet.

i keep waning to say congratulations but i'm waiting on the total of all to pop out first.

Click to expand...

You know, I'm just not sure about the AI's. Hopefully when I go to the grow area tomorrow the other's will have cracked soil. They definitely are a bit slower to get started than the papaya's, that's for sure.

I'm glad your's are growing. At least I have 5 babies actively growing...I just hope the rest catch up. If not, I'll just clone a female for more plants later.

You can say congrats now, I'm still happy

mary.chiva said:

You can say congrats now, I'm still happy

Click to expand...

well in that case then.......


CONGRATULATIONS!!!

onward to the veg stage. i'm anxiously anticipating the growth difference between your last plant and these. I would love to use that 400 watt conversion bulb i got with my ballast. with the addition of the GROW BIG, your better regulated area and of course your greener thumb.

FLOWER PIMP said:

well in that case then.......


CONGRATULATIONS!!!

onward to the veg stage. i'm anxiously anticipating the growth difference between your last plant and these. I would love to use that 400 watt conversion bulb i got with my ballast. with the addition of the GROW BIG, your better regulated area and of course your greener thumb.

Click to expand...

Well, now...you can REALLY congratulate me! I just planted the 5th papaya seed this morning, but not only that, all 3 aurora indica's have cracked soil and have begun their journey! Sweeeeeeeeeet!!!!

Some updates...I cut the chain to size this morning to allow the light to hang lower. I'll have to take a ruler out to measure it, but it's a lot lower now (see pics). Also, this morning I added a top dressing of earthworm castings to all the plants that stretched to provide them more support (see pics). I still plan to add a top dressing to the rest of the plants once they get tall enough. This will REALLY help with their veg stage....lots of nitrogen in castings. In a little more than a week I also plan to start feeding them grow big.

So, we're NOW officially in veg. I'll be hanging the ballast and installing the poly plastic next week.

man that is just beautiful.

congrats on the AI!

It really is beautiful....."I promised myself I wouldn't do this..." sniffle.

Thanks my RIU pal's!

I gave the 2nd and 3rd AI's their top dressing of earthworm castings today. The newer plants that have popped up aren't stretching, but the ones that did...well, did. It looks like the first AI stretched the worst. All plants that popped up first are now forming new leaves, per the usual.

I also wanted to show you all a pic of the chain setup I'm using to hang my light.

Pics away!

Quick update...the 5th papaya cracked soil yesterday 11/19. So that means I now officially have all 8 plants growing, 5 papaya's and 3 aurora indica's. Let's hope for lots of girls!

The one AI that stretched a lot seems to be a 'stretchy' plant...it is furthest away from the light, but the other plants that are the same distance from the light aren't stretching like this one...oh well. If the stretchy plant is a male then I don't care anyhow.

I should have some time today to get some of the poly plastic up. Once I do I will take some pics with the good camera and I'll show the babies' progress too.

Updates soon.

on your chain set up, is the chain wrapped around the light fixture wire and then both ends are connected to the caribener(sp) hanging from the ceiling? on my set up, i have a D ring secured to the loop in the ceiling and the other end of the chain has a D ring on it also and it is connected to the light fixture wire. i move it from the bottom and go up. one of my chains is for less than 100 pounds. your chain is HUGE! your light ain't dropping.

congrats on all 8 popping. spend a lot of time and money on these babies so we want to maximize our success rate. i hear ya on the time issue. my wife would get pissed because I would spend all day in the room building and watering and tweaking and admiring and all the stuff that is enjoyable in this journey toward harvest.

just 1 more good job post!!!


can't wait to see the new area. it should help the heater run less to.

i would be thinking of ways to hang more blankets directly behind the plastic. winter hasn't began to show us its cold side. that is if you have winter.. i think the extra effort would be promissing, anything to keep that heater running less. i bet the heater will even take away the humidity some. but then again you have a newly insulated attic so you might not have that much of a cold issue. I'm just thinking your like week 2 in flower and temps drop to like 2 degrees. but im sure you will be on it.


time to sit back and watch them grow...

Dakine - on the chain, I have 4 of the clamps (whatever they're called) you see in my picture. 2 are at the top of the chains and 2 are at the bottoms. It's very easy to move the light up and down. The chain is big, I know, but it was cheap and it works great, so...

Pimp - I STILL didn't get a chance to hang the plastic. I am going to try this weekend. As soon as I get the plastic up I'll get the new grow area pics. Your probably right about the blankets helping with keeping the heater running less. Right now, it's running a lot...almost non-stop I think. The insulation helps keep the temps stable, but now that its getting colder doesn't help keep the heater not run as much. I think I will take you up on hanging more blankets behind the plastic...it will definitely help, and it is definitely going to get colder. Looks like I'll need to buy some more blankets .

Grow my little friends, grow.

Quick update...

I took a couple pics to show progress.

It looks like the plants on the outside have stretched a little bit, mainly the AI's. I'm wondering if this is how they grow, not sure. Anyways...just to be safe, I lowered the light more. I've got it about as low as I think I want to. If I now put my hand about 2 inches from the tops of the plants you can really feel the heat from the light. I'll probably keep the light at this same distance for the remainder of the grow.

So far so good.

the featured plant in the picture is looking awesome.


and i seem to have the same winter issues. i was able to stabilize temps and now it seems i have 2 do more work at getting some temps up. everything ok, but in a few weeks it could be bad. i don't know what kind of stuff you got laying around... so theres tons of possibilities.. adding insulation behind the plastic would of course work the best. but it could be hard to hang like that. I know you added a bunch of insulation already. but the idea here is to have your hot spot - ur grow and then a buffer- the area between your grow and the roof. this will help keep the temps regulated and better controlled. maybe you have some plywood or something to kind of out line a few walls of the grow? it would also be ideal to build a box around them... just think if you get a few inches of snow on the roof. you might actually get a no snow zone from the grow heat.

oh, did you here? i got my seeds.... but i'm holding off till the end of the month to put down...

i use reflectix for insulating my rooms. works pretty good, but it is 50 buck for a 50 x 4 foot roll, kinda spendy.

I'm probably just going to hang the plastic and then blankets behind them. If I get a 'no snow zone' then I'll make some drastic changes. I think I should be ok though, we'll see...

I was looking into reflectix before I bought the panda plastic, but now that I have it, I'm going to go with what I said above and hang blankets behind. Right now, temps are decent, it's just the space heater runs all the time. Hopefully with the plastic and blankets I'll be good.

Pimp - congrats on the seeds! I can't wait for you to get them started!