My First Grow (Mistakes, Pics, and Personal advice)

Key:
= Personal notes or advice
BOLD = Definition or Key word other growers know or new growers may want to become familiar with.
Italics = ​Definition of Key word

Current Investment (using only "affordable items"):
2x Planting Pots - Dollar General $3.00 (x2)
1x Bag of Starter Soil - Dollar General $2.50
1x Bag of Soil - Wal-Mart SuperCenter $3.50
1x 4 Pack Great Value CFL 100 watt Bulbs - Wal-Mart SuperCenter $9.99
4x Indoor Grow Light - Big Lots .75Cents (x4) ----- DO NOT USE OR BUY!

Total Investment (Current Time): $26.00

Strain: Unknown - (Nickname from this point forward, "Juicy Dreams")x4

Edit: 9/3/2013
Today I am going to start off with some beginner mistakes I made. Newbies listen up.

1) I bought into the "I know how to grow herb! Shit, Imma just go buy some grow lights!!! DUH!"....
* NO! NO! NO! NO! NOOOOOOOO! Literally! don't do it. Any affordable grow light at Wal-Mart, Big Lots, Dollar General (Dollar Tree, Cost Co, Family Dollar) are probably not worth buying! I bought 4 Bulbs that specifically said Grow lights from Big Lots for 75 cents a piece on sale for summer clearance. Now these may be good for some uses but after vigorous amounts of research I discovered that they are Incandescent lights. WHICH ARE TERRIBLE FOR GROWING HERB! In fact, useless. I thought they where helping my plants but they weren't. Don't waste your time or money. If your looking for affordability use CFL's to start out with. They work so well for me personally! (CFL bulbs for those of you who may not be familiar with modern terms, are the spiral energy efficient bulbs you use in your house {Be sure to get some good wattage})

2) My plants look a little stretchy, let me replant them real QUICK!
* STOP DUDE! First off, don't do it quickly. I started off with 8 little soldiers but because of my carelessness during the replanting (to make them shorter by transferring them into deeper soil) killed 4 OF THEM! The Roots are sensitive. Imagine untying a knot in a dark room. If you make 1 mistake you could ruing THE ENTIRE ROOT SYSTEM and kill your crop! Take your time and do it right. Exercise extreme caution amigo, in fact, I would only recommend you do this if absolutely necessary.

Let me start off by saying that I had just literally typed my entire grow journal up to my current point before a thunderstorm knocked the power out and lost all my work. So this is what I am going to do. I am going to start from where I am currently at today and I will go back and add the old material tomorrow.

9/2/2013
Grow Set-Up at Current Point in Time:
1x 24" Inch Fluorescent Indoor Grow Light
2x 100w (1,600 Lumens) CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lights) Bulbs
Partially Tin Foil Lined Closet Space
Dual 8" Inch Fans


Journal, today the plants have undergone a watering and will continue on the 24 hour light schedule. Juicy Dreams appears to be very tall (relatively speaking) and is showing signs of further leaf development. Plants appear to be healthy and Juicy Dreams #3 appears to have fully recovered from the near stem breakage as a result from a poorly executed replanting. The oddest thing today is that Juicy Dreams #1 located in the Black Large planter has already caught the others height wise despite already being replants 4" inches under the soil. I plan on doubling the CFL lighting tomorrow and bringing them a tad closer.

I have attempted to grow in the past and before they where destroyed by a curious little ferret, CFL bulbs where working flawlessly for me. So for this grow I am only going to use CFL's. That and personal finance limits me from expanding to more expensive lighting sources. I am using this first grow of course expecting buds but I also want to personally experiment with lighting for future grows. Use what works for you!

Your plants deffinately are stretched, you need more lights and keep them as close as possible not to burn the tips....best of luck.

Yes definitely get more lights and get them alot closer here is a pic of some random bag seed i have going. You can see the nodes are close together and thats only with 3x26w 100w equivalent bulbs just keep them close roughly an in or 2 above the tops

ADriftingGinger said:

Yes definitely get more lights and get them alot closer here is a pic of some random bag seed i have going. You can see the nodes are close together and thats only with 3x26w 100w equivalent bulbs just keep them close roughly an in or 2 above the tops
View attachment 2802376

Click to expand...

Dude those are beautiful!!! Good job man!

Yea guys, I meant to go out today and get another fixture so I can place more lights around them. Yesterday I discovered that only 1 of my bulbs will currently work in the Flood light fixture I use. idk, maybe to much required wattage? I am going to look into it. But there will be more bulbs ASAP! probably Tomorrow. I will also post a pic of my set up. Thanks for coming by guys!

Thanks and no problem im subscribed. Ive never used a flood light fixture so couldn't really tell you much about it. I normally use a power bar with 3 lights plugged in using adapters all can be got at any local Walmart, Home Depot, and or a Lowes. Another method you can use if get one of these. and get some Y socket adapters (might have to order these online) you'll need 3 of the Y sockets per 1 reflector and you will be able to run 4 bulbs that way. Id do 4x26w 100w equivalent 6500k for veg and 2x26w 100w equivalent 6500k and 2xand 150 or 200w equivalent 3500k and try to get the largest reflector you can more light coverage

Hey ginger havn't talk in a bit just stopping in to watch the show. yeah budget is always the B in the grow LOL lookin nice how are the JD's doing managing that stretch?

*Updated 9/9/13*

9/9/13 UPDATE:



Here is the main assortment! The grow is going good. Still giving water every other day. I did get around to wrapping more of the room in foil but I can see that I am going to need at least another light fixture and probably some good reflectors. They are growing very rapidly. As you can see this is about 7 days progress! They are still stretchy but they are sprouting leaves like crazy now! I am having really good success now using the CFL's and switching from those shitty grow bulbs.

Guys if this is your first time like mine I must inform you that my plants have begun to smell pretty epic. However, to most this is actually considered an odor. lol. Time to look into types of Air Filtration to reduce the smell. My next update will include a small pic of the ionizer I am picking up. Its a very small affordable rig and I will give you details about it on the next update!




I replanted JD #1 into its own pot. I am using soil for this one. I just kinda want to see personally, which one is better. JD #1 is growing very well too

i would add more perlite it helps on not overwatering

You might wanna re-pot those, except for the one or two in the large pot. Especially cause you won't wanna deal with tangled roots when the two in the same small pot grow.

Yea I just stared that one in the small pot. I will be replanting it very very soon. I will also look into adding more soil. Imma have to check out on the perelite

Perelite is inexpensive and does help alot with airflow and drainage I wish I would of been able to pick some up before I transplanted

Just coming by to say that I will be updating my grow journal tomorrow! its amazing the growth that has happened in the last 15 days. Let me go ahead and say that who ever invented "Topping" and "FIM'ing" is a complete fucking genius. I honestly thought it would kill my plants. The Top did very well and the one I FIM'ed actually sprouted 3 TOPS!!!!!! Pics and advice coming soon

WOW I can't believe I have forgot to update my grow journal shit!!! Okay guys, Its november and I started these babies I think back in Early august. They are doing very well. I don't want to show any spoilers so I will be giving a full post tomorrow night. Including pics and this time I will not forget lol. I will probably be seeking community help on confirming the sex. So for all those who check this out I appreciate you guys stopping by and stick around tomorrow night for a update.

okay I don't really update this as much as I should or even as much as I wanted to. I was hoping to document a whole grow here but just got caught up with too much stuff. Anyways, he is some developing buds on the plants now. They had what I believe to be Nitrogen Toxicity and I pretty much just fixed that by flushing the plants. I could not find anything on the net that would guarantee a good fix so I just decided to flush and it worked out very well.

Anyway, here is the pic. This plant here was Juicy Dreams #3 which was the smallest and it ended up hitting a huge growth spurt and would appear to be WAY ahead of the other two in terms of bud and pistol production.