Newbie(Old guy) needs advise

!st, a lttle about myself, Cancer survior,OLD-71, On OXY for 1 1/2 yrs., want to try MJ to control immense amount of pain. Want to grow my own, got a medical MJ card here in AZ. usa.
Found Nivana and bought seeds and other things I will need. Been reading a lot about how to get started.
I have a temperature controlled greenhouse normally kept at 85 degrees Farenhite. I included some pics.
What I need help with right now is, I have 2 seedlings that a friend gave me, my stuff from Nirvana will be here in a couple weeks. These are in 4" pots with Black Gold, pic. attached.
I have no idea what strain they are. but I would like to try to grow them. Today I went to SEA OF GREEN, a shop here in Tucson. This is what I got, Ocean Forrest, Light Warrior, Perlite,
Vermiculite?, Dolomite lime,Ready grow Plugs,ect..
I will talk about what I have coming from Nirvana later but right now I need some advise on the next step with the 2 seedlings that I have right now.
I bought 2 3 gal nursery pots today and I hope t put them in those pots.
Now my questions are,
What do I do next with these 2 seedlings.
My intention is to put them in the 3 gal. pots.
Any advise will be more than greatly appreciated.
In the meantime I am going to keep reading this forum and learn as much as possible beffore I get my seeds and stuff from Nivana.
Thanks Bill
YOU guys are Great and thank god for this site!!

From the looks of things you've got a green thumb all ready. They look a bit wet, don't overwater them. Remember they're plants from earth. Most the problems people have is trying to control them too much. I'd mix the O.F. and l.w. 50/50 with 25% additional aeration if you want. Someone else will chime in on the dolomite. I'd upcan to a 1 gallon (after a few weeks) then a 5 later myself. I'm running some 10 gallon fabric pots. Welcome to riu. And keep up the good work getting away from the pills.

Hey welcome to rollitup!

My advice would be to give your seedlings 1-2 weeks before transplanting. Especially the plant on the left in the second picture. Let them grow in the pots you have now so they can fill those out a bit more before transplanting. You could transplant now but I like to let my plants have a nice root system before I transplant into my final pot.

You've got some good material to work with, which is a good start! If you have any other questions feel free to ask!

I would agree with the above in terms of mxing the Ocean forest and Light Warrior together. You can add some of the perlite or vermiculite to that mix, maybe 20% or so since the Light Warrior is pretty heavily aerated as is. Both those soilds should already have dolomite lime mixed in and should be pH balanced out of the bag. If you have soft water you might consider adding 1/2 cup per bag or so of the dolomite lime. Wait for those pots to COMPLETELY dry out and then transplant into your 3 gallons, I would say you should aim to do that after a week or so. After the transplant, you are probably going to need to start feeding them some sort of nutrient after a little under two weeks or so of being in the new pots. It is important that you do not feed them until they get into those 3 gallons and youve waited AT LEAST a week and up to 2 depending on the rate of growth and the needs of those particulate strains. Your soil will have plenty of nutrients mixed in the keep them going until that point.

Decide on one of the many nutrient lines, I suggest something organic since you're already using organic soil. Don't give them as much as the manufacturer recommends, at least not at first, start at a 1/3 recommended dose and see how the plants react. The best thing to do would to read one of the grow journals around here that use the line of nutrients that you are interested in and see what dosages other people use throughout a grow. You don't need any of the fancy additives that the hydro shops are stock full of, it might be easy if you find a 2-part nutrient(a bottle for the vegetative cycle and a bottle for the bloom cycle, nothing more). Once your start feeding, alternate it with water only. Good luck, enjoy the journey.

Hey guys,
Thanks for all the advise and it brings up a couple more questions.
I have a 40Watt led grow light ,1st and 3rd pictures, that I just put above the seedlingss last night.
I put it about 3/4" above the seedlings yesterday and by midnight when I have the lights set to turn off the tall,4" one
had sprouted up to where it was almost touching the light. Question is should I even be using a light since they are in the greenhouse.
And if you think I should use it, then how high above the seedling should it be and how many hours should the light be on?
As it is, my plants in there all get natural daylight of about 12 hrs. a day and 12 hrs of darkness.
I was taught at a very young age that there is no such thing as a stupid question, I hope that applys here!
Thanks again,
Bill

Your right, there's no such thing as a stupid question!

How big do you want your plants to get? If you want them to get fairly big then I'd suggest using the LED light to extend there daylight to about 16-18 hours a day. If size is not an issue then you don't necessarily need the light. You could just leave them to nature and have 12 hour days for your plant which will put them in flower much sooner. Meaning, you would be able to harvest in roughly 2-3 months. It up to you really and how often you'd like to harvest. Hope that helps some!

Cereal box said:

Your right, there's no such thing as a stupid question!

How big do you want your plants to get? If you want them to get fairly big then I'd suggest using the LED light to extend there daylight to about 16-18 hours a day. If size is not an issue then you don't necessarily need the light. You could just leave them to nature and have 12 hour days for your plant which will put them in flower much sooner. Meaning, you would be able to harvest in roughly 2-3 months. It up to you really and how often you'd like to harvest. Hope that helps some!

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yeah, i agree with this.. cannabis is a photoperiod plant, meaning it flowers when x amount of darkness builds up the flowering hormones in the plant, signalling it to start flowering.. indoors, we usually go with 12 hours of light, and 12 of darkness because it's easy and works for all strains, although that's not really the exact amount of dark hours needed to build up flowering.. i won't get into that to confuse you now..
but like has been said, i'd use the led just at night time, real night time, when it starts to get dark outside in your area.. i have no clue how many hours of true light you get in your area, but the plants will need a good 18 or 20 hours of straight light per day in order to keep them from flowering, so i'd turn on the led at w/e time t starts to get dark outside, dusk, to extend the day hours the plants get, to keep them from flowering too soon..

How close to the top of the plant should I keep the light? I can adjust it as needed.
We get about12/13 hrs. of daylight here and I have the lights set to go off at midnight
which totals about 18hrs of light.
They can grow as tall as 5 1/2 ft. where they are at, but I don't really know what strain they are
so that is the mystery.
Now here is the most stupid question I have asked today, can you just harvest these plants 1 time
and then you pull it and throw it away, really shows how much I don't know.
also when I transplant them to the 3 gal. pots, I know to let the pots they are in topretty much dry out and then when I take them
out of the 4" pots do I try to knck off as much of the dirt on the roots as possible before I put them in their new home?new soil?
Thanks for your Help.
Bill

yes, cannabis pretty much only has a short life time, once it flowers, it basically completes it's life cycle and will then die.. you can reveg a flowered plant and make it flower again, but for all intents and purposes, don't even worry about that right now..
i'm not too familiar with leds, but i'd say probably a good few inches away is what you'd want, we do have an led sub forum, maybe you could go there and ask as we have plenty of knowledgeable people who can help you with an answer...
when you repot, or when i do at least, i try and disturb the root ball as little as possible, that means no beating off of the soil or anything like that.. sometimes i'll even just cut off the bottom of w/e they were first in, and carefully slide the whole root ball and soil out without disturbing it too much, and plant in a bigger container. the les you mess about, the less shock they'll go through..

yes, of course you can move the led as often as need be.. some days you might need to move it every day as it grows a lot...

as far as the finished height, cannabis will usually at least double in size from when you put it in flower, the first two weeks or so of flowering is usually considered the stretch phase, and like i said, it'll more then likely double or so in size in those 2 or 3 weeks.. so, if you have 5 1/2 feet of flowering height, just make sure to begin flowering when they're about 2 or so feet tall by switching the lighting to 12 hours on, 12 hours off..

http://www.gaisma.com/en/location/tucson-arizona.html racerboy to the rescue again + rep. 14 hours daylight in 2 months, you should still flower fine. I would extend the light cycles as you guys have talked about. I wish we got that much sun throughout the year. We get down to 6.5 hours daylight during the winter.

Thanks, Stoner Racerboy Cereal Box Southerner and anyboby else who tossed in their 2 cents worth.
With all your advise/input I am actually starting to feel as though I can make this happen.
I know I will have more questions, especially about the type of nutes to use. I want to keep it as simple as possible
I started reading about what some people do and I am no chemist. Simple is better for me, at least for now.
I want to be ready when my good stuff from Nirvana gets here, Aurura Indica and Bubblelicious both feminized
plus a Propagator Pro and a Germination Kit and some 3 gal. root pouches.
I am in training mode and sucking all this in like a sponge.
Till later,
Bill

Hey guys , the OLD Goatman is back.
I just put the larger seedling into a 3 gal pot today. It was 5" tall and I thought it was time!
Attached are some pics. and I would like your opinons if I did the right thing in potting it now.
Also as you can tell the stem is kind of crooked and I am concerned that is not a good thing.
I put them in an equal mix of Light Warrior and Ocean Forest and threw in a couple handfulls of perlite
and mixed it all up. I them gave it a good drink of water, about 12 Oz. with a ph of 7.0.
Am I doomed or did I do the right thing. I threw a popsicle stick in the pot as I read somewhere that
you can get an idea of when it needs water again by checking the stick for moistness!!!
Any thoughts on what I did will be appreciated.
Bill

71? So, I'm not the old man anymore?

I don't know how to feel about that

The plants look fine BTW

That is a Red 40 watt LED Grow light above the plant. I haven't turned it on yet as I want to try to figue out how much above the plant I should put it.
We are getting 12/13 hrs of daylight. Should I set it to come on at night and how long would you leave it on? There is very heat that comes from it.

I also don't know how to feel about it.

as stated, it looks like you have a good idea about growing already. first, ditch the vermic. you don't want to use anything that extends wetness. it's important to let them dry up a good bit between feeding/watering. i wouldn't go crazy with the perlite either. 10-15% is plenty. the bigger plant could easily take 4-500 ppm of feed once a week. the small one looks like it's struggling a bit. time will tell. between feeds, if it dries up, water with plain ph'd water. for soil, a ph of 6.5 is optimal. dolomite lime will/should keep your ph in range, but i don't know what amount to use, someone here will. final container size depends on how tall you want them to end up. rule of thumb is, one gallon of medium, per foot of vertical growth. you can start them indoors, and put them outside later if you want. i don't care for led's myself, but they do work. you just won't be growing any monsters with them, very little penetration into the canopy. veg times can vary. 18/6 is pretty standard, but there's 24/0, etc. i use 16/8 myself. i use to live in tucson, and know your temps. in summer can get very high. keep that in mind, you don't want your root-zone getting real hot. you should do fine with your grow. remember it's a weed, and try not to baby them too much.

From what I have read about 6" above the plant will be fine for your light. I would definitely use the light to extend the light schedule to 16-18 hrs of light until the plant is bigger.
That plant will not need much water for a while, don't water until the pot feels noticeably light and then water evenly until there is runoff. It will not need nutes with that soil for several weeks. Good Luck

Edit: the dolomite lime should be added at 1 TBS per gallon of soil.

Silky Shagsalot said:

• first, ditch the vermic. you don't want to use anything that extends wetness.​
  
  
  
  

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Sorry... Vermiculite helps aid in the oxygen flow to roots by keeping the soil well draining and aerated....
You are correct in a opposite world...Vermiculite is something everyone should add to their soil...
Now if you want to be against it because it could also contain heavy metals and other stuff go ahead....
But saying it helps hold moisture in your soil that has vermiculite is simply incorrect...
Google it