OnlyAftrDrk's Anti-Disaster Grow Journal

About me
I have been growing for around 10 harvests now. I consider myself very knowledgeable in the growing department but my last three grows have been been complete utter disasters.

About this journal
This grow journal is for my own personal benefit to keep track of where I am up to, because I believe one of the reasons I have failed the past few grows has been partially for not bothering to take notes as I progressed.

About the grow
I used to grow under a stair case in a little room surrounded by wood. The wood seemed to really help the room keep dry. Since moving I have had nothing but trouble with mold and pests as I am now forced to grow in a grow tent in the garage. I will be using a 2 mtr X 2 mtr X 2 mtr Mylar grow room (indoor elements) with glass exhaust extract, large fan, coco with bucket hydro reservoir system, coco nutrifields nutes and a HPS 400w light.

I am growing two plants, Dinafem Blue Widow and Power Kush. My Last remaining seeds until I buy some more.

The Challenges
Due to the location of the grow room I will face the following challenges
Temperature
Security (if my rental property gets an inspection the operation will need to be moved into the roof for that day)
Mould (location has as much air flow as I can possible create, my city is currently in a a very high humidity period)
Seeding stage (I don't have a good history with seedlings and for my grow to work it needs to go very smooth)

The Method
As my height space is limited to 2 meters and my bucket watering system takes a good 30-50 cm I need to make sure my plants are not going to outgrow their space.

I experimented with my last grow to see what would happen if I let it grow higher in veg. It went into stress after I over trained it and produced only tiny little nuggets of buds. Also the larger plats take up more horizontal space and I would prefer two smaller plants with decent buds.

I will be flipping over to 12/12 roughly 16 days into vegetation assuming all goes well. I usually end up over feeding or underfeeding seedlings usually causing stunted or super growth once they recover.

Assuming seedlings turn out great and flipping at 16 days I plan to have a harvest in around 70 days from now.

I estimate that my new grow will be finished up on the 3-6 of March

I stuck my seeds in a glass of water 24 hours ago (5/1/2012).

So far none have cracked just yet. Should see something in 24 hours.

Once they crack they will immediately go into rockwool which has been soaked in very low dose of nutrients as around 004 on my EC meter which is about a 3 drops of nutrients in 1 liter bottle of water. This is the lowest dose I will be feeding them. From here each week (or if I see signed of yellowing) I will be increasing the dose.

I will post pictures of my set up tonight.

may viewers reply to thread?

of course! In fact you guys might learn a lot from my previous mistakes as I will be going in to great detail about why I do the things the way I do them based on my last three failures.

There will be plenty of pics included.

well I was just going to ask if you had every used the paper towel method of germinating? you have probably heard of it. you just take one piece of paper towel and place it on a plate and let tap water drip over it to soak it (but no standing water), place your seed(s) on the paper towel, and place another paper towel over the seeds and then fully soak that one as well, once again making sure that there is no standing water. finally just wrap the plate in cellophane (plastic wrap) to keep humidity up and place it somewhere dark and warm.

I am on my first grow. It is a stealth grow so I only germinated 3 seeds this way but each one had a good half inch sized tap root within 3 or 4 days. It was late November though so the only thing I did differently was I added another plate on top of the plastic wrapped one and placed a weak desk lamp facing over it. it was one of the old fashioned light bulbs so it gave good steady warmth but didnt over heat.

It is important that if you do it this way that no light reaches the seeds though. so if it is a cupboard or a closet then the plate and plastic wrap is sufficient. but if you must place the seeds in a location in which light might reach the seeds you must cover with another plate or something to keep mold from growing.

Just my two cents ha. Being that I am only in my first grow I may germinate differently and use your cup method for my next grow from seed. I love learning from these plants. While there is much information online about marijuana and its cultivation, it is still a wonder because you only hear about it unless you do it yourself. So everything you do is a step in the dark with a the internet information acting light a small candle to help you in your endeavors. I have come to absolutely love it and look forward to learning a ton more ha. hope all goes well with you and your grow mate.