My first legal grow!

Not to imply that I've grown illegally before or anything. But it is my first legal grow. And my first post to icmag!

I've had access to medical cannabis here in Colorado for a while now, but now that things are moving more toward full legalization, I'm seeing the industry change. To make a long story short, it's time to start growing my own.

I've been reading for quite a while and thinking of how I wanted to do this. I actually didn't think I could pull it off where I live until I discovered grow tents.

A few trips to the store and some scratching around the garage and I have a grow room! It was a breeze to hide a reflector, carbon scrubber, and fan upstairs. My 400W bulb only keeps the tent 3 degrees warmer than the room it's in.




All the electrics live outside.



It's kinda late in the season to get picky about things, so I needed to find clones. I don't have A/C here and it can get pretty warm in late Spring. I think I'm good on time, but I wanna leave some buffer space - crazy Colorado weather and all.

So after some poking around, I wound up with 4 different strains - Mendocino County Diesel, AK Cherry Lime, Master Kush & Blueberry Indica. It's hard to describe how awesome it was driving across town with 4 pot plants in my front seat...totally legal



Everybody tucked into their new homes




One week later




I didn't expect too awful much after a week, but on the 4th day they started showing some nice growth. This is after trimming/topping. I'm not sure if I started too early, but I took that opportunity to do some trimming and topping. 2 of my plants seem to have loved what went on there. The other 2 - not so much. I'm not so much convinced that I shocked them into what they're doing by trimming, but who knows? I'll post more on that in a bit. I need to get in there and take some pictures. They've grown quite a bit since I took that last photo 5 days ago.

More to come shortly....

I guess now's a good time to go on and welcome any constructive criticism. Or, if you aren't having a constructive sort of day, I'll play along. Err, and I would typically use smilies to convey sarcasm and such, but I just learned that those count as an image. I also learned that I can only post 5 images in one post, so I'll save my image points for real pictures...I'm a picture whore...as illustrated below

Here's my Master Kush at 12 days (in my hands). I guess now's a good time to just say that when I reference a time, it's gonna be from when I got the clones. I don't know how to put an age on those, but for the sake of putting a number on something, I'll consider them roughly 2 weeks old as they had solid roots. Who knows...maybe this is time for that constructive criticism.

What was I saying? Oh yeah, the Master Kush:



It was the pappa palm tree before I took the scissors to it, but ever since, it's been kinda just holding that shape. It's growing, like getting bigger, but not really putting out much new growth.

And after a half dose of Bio-Grow, I almost suspect it's showing signs of nute burn.



Then again, I keep thinking that this plant and one other may not dig the conditions I'm providing as much. Then again I keep thinking maybe these varieties prefer warmer climates and I'm locking out nutes by temperature. The grow room stays just below 74F when the light is on...upper 50s when the light is off...I just happen to be turning the heat down then. I understand something near a 20 degree differential is good and near 60 for a low is fine. Again, maybe a decent place for constructive criticism?

Up next...MCD....

I just noticed I can't edit these posts. For what it's worth, I can't see the lighter parts of the fan leaves with the naked eye. I'm not sure these aren't the way the light's playing off the leaves. The part that's evident and worrying me is the smaller leaves toward the lower center & center of the frame...not the fan leaves.

Oh yeah, the Mendocino County Diesel. This one isn't looking too bad - just has a couple of spots which I'm watching as they're creeping up a bit. Slowly, but creeping. The rest of the plant looks good.

Oh, and these pics are looking very yellow to me. I've let the camera do the white balance and it seems to prefer yellow. These look much greener in person.



I got pretty aggressive trimming this one as well, so I sort of suspect that has something to do with the slower growth compared to the 2 coming next. I also didn't notice the necrosis until after the trim, so maybe this is my fault.

This is the worst location...can't figure out what's going on.

.

My instinct is to give it water only for a few days and see how it responds. In the absence of a moment of clarity here, I think I'll go down that road.

Here's a closer shot of another one. I think there are 4 sites on this plant and they're slowly growing as of now




Now for the good news......

Next up is the AK Cherry Lime. This one has been the comeback kid. I was a little worried about it right after the transplant. I was a little worried about all of them after the transplant as I've never dealt with a clone before, but this one especially. It just looked sad...like it was saying goodbye. Then out of nowhere, it started turning into a tiny, healthy shrub.



I've looked this thing up and down with a microscope and loupe and can't find any reason to worry any more. It's something new to look at each day. It's loving the food. I started foliar yesterday with the healthier-looking plants and sticking to water for the other 2. Speaking of healthier plants...

At this point, the Blueberry Indica is the king of growth. It's dwarfing my problem plants and outrunning the AKCL at a good clip.



She's also drinking faster than the others. I'm not doing any more trimming for right now. I think I have the 2 larger plants where I want them...just gonna tie them as needed at this point. Holding out hope on the other 2 as well...just keeping a close eye on them.

As I've done little more than toss seeds in the ground and checked on 'em once in a while, I'm holding out hope that I can work up some smoke better than that. We'll see. If nothing else, I'm having a hoot with it. I have too many hobbies & I can see this is gonna worm its way in nicely.

'till next time,
peace & cheese,
feature

welcome to ic Rob Feature. Good to see Jo Momma let you lose over here. You guys on that forum peaked my interest causing me to find this site.

Great start would love to be legal.I doubt you need to add any nutes..I think some of the plants may be nute burned.If you dont make any mistakes you wont have anything to learn from.Id say give them water for a couple weeks and see what happens.Im gonna follow along to see your progress.

kitesurfer said:

welcome to ic Rob Feature. Good to see Jo Momma let you lose over here. You guys on that forum peaked my interest causing me to find this site.

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Heh, small world

Figured this might be a better place for details. Gobs of good reading over here too, eh?

tokersmoke said:

Great start would love to be legal.I doubt you need to add any nutes..I think some of the plants may be nute burned.If you dont make any mistakes you wont have anything to learn from.Id say give them water for a couple weeks and see what happens.Im gonna follow along to see your progress.

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I'm starting to think that may not be it. My MCD started showing signs of calcium deficiency today. pH is good, so I'm starting back on nutes - some CaMag with Bio Grow. I gave 'em hardly any food before the water only treatment - all organic, so I'm gonna try in the other direction. I've also put a thick foam pad under the slower girls for insulation. Oh, and I just installed a new bulb which brought up the temp a couple degrees...staying about 77 in there now. They're growing nicely again, but I'd really like to see these few leaves knocking off the funny business. I also think my early and aggressive trimming didn't help these any either. The eager plants were hardly trimmed at all until they put on much more mass.

The other 2 are growing stupid fast.

Oh, I almost forgot - I got a new toy yesterday.

I have a Milwaukee pH51 which started acting funny the other day. I was having some trouble calibrating at first. Then out of the blue it started giving nonsense readings. I started looking around for replacement probes and they're like $50 on the cheap end. After reading lots of Amazon reviews, I found the opinions of some of the cheaper meters were better than some of the good meters and decided to take a chance.

And the price was right. $17 shipped in 2 days for a meter with some of the better reviews on Amazon? Okay

Meet the Etekcity pH meter



It comes with a case and screwdriver for the single potentiometer adjustment, a couple packets of calibration mix and 2 sets of instructions. It was only .3 high after I got it set. And setting it was a breeze...WAY easier than the 2-pot on the Milwaukee...WAY easier. Readings seem genuine so far. I've used it 4 times now. It's not totally waterproof, so I'm being careful with it. It locks onto a number far faster than the Milwaukee and seems more interested in staying there.

Batteries don't seem easily replaceable, but if the unit lasts through the batteries, I'll be thrilled. I'll bring it up if it starts going dooky on me. But for the time being, I'm all giggles!

Not much drama to report as of the last check in. That's always good, right? All the girls are growing nicely now. The 2 slowpokes have finally decided to join the party

This is the one I was really worried about. In the last few days, the MCD has really snapped out of it. I think I'm gonna top it one more time before flower.



Master Kush has bounced back nicely as well.



AK Cherry Lime is still looking very nice. It's staying short and bushy compared to the others & very dense.



The Blueberry Indica's getting crazy again. I'm gonna trim it back a bit and start tying it down probably tonight



Pretty sure I'm gonna get to flowering in the next few days. I planted these almost exactly 19 days ago. I'm pretty thrilled with the way they've come along so far. Can't wait to see what they look like in 19 more days.

The feeding treatment seems to have worked on the slower plants. For now I'm convinced I slowed 'em down & freaked 'em out by early trimming.

I've used the pH meter 2 more times and so far I couldn't be happier with it. Okay, yeah it could be waterproof all over, but I paid less than 20 bucks for it. I'll dry my hands.

'till next time
peace & cheese
feature

Congrats on getting legal the only way to go ...and those cheap ebay pens are great just get a big bottle of calibration solution and check it often....grow looks good!

cheifnugget said:

Congrats on getting legal the only way to go ...and those cheap ebay pens are great just get a big bottle of calibration solution and check it often....grow looks good!

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Thanky! And legal's the only way I'd post...another nice thing about it

It's pretty damn cool to be able to walk in the grow store and chat it up about a specific strain. And I'm lucky enough to live near a shop with some pretty crafty hands. It's funny what the legal brings out in folks.

Hopefully legal for all soon

Let it grow!

Wow Rob, very nice grow so far. The pictures are fantastic, and it shows how quick this wonderful plant can grow when given the right amount of love. Its obvious from the pictures you are doing things right. Good job man

welcome...i'm posted... let's see what cha got...

tech138 said:

Wow Rob, very nice grow so far. The pictures are fantastic, and it shows how quick this wonderful plant can grow when given the right amount of love. Its obvious from the pictures you are doing things right. Good job man

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Thanks! And I hope you're right

I noticed a slight smell in there a few days ago. Today I went up & spent the day in the mountains. When I got back around to checking on the ladies this evening, I noticed they've started wearing perfume. Like yikes! I can't smell anything 'till I open the tent though - so looks like the odor control's working nicely so far


I've decided to let them grow a little more before flowering as well. I was thinking I might have to deal with heat, but I'm gonna run the lights at night and let 'em sleep during the day. So I'm probably okay out to early July and I'm pretty sure I don't wanna take 'em that far.

I'm sure they will give your carbon scrubber a workout once that tent is a forest of colas. Keeping the electrical outside of the grow space and air cooling the hood will really help with temperature control. It looks like you have a green thumb, so now the hard part--the waiting!

Hey Rob, nice plants. I'm always curious how people choose what to grow. did you pick these because you like what you've used before or because they were available as clones or other reasons? hope you don't mind sharing your reasoning. Thanks for sharing the journal. keep the pics going. looks like the more you shoot them, they better they're looking

onavelzy said:

Hey Rob, nice plants. I'm always curious how people choose what to grow. did you pick these because you like what you've used before or because they were available as clones or other reasons? hope you don't mind sharing your reasoning. Thanks for sharing the journal. keep the pics going. looks like the more you shoot them, they better they're looking

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Hey, thanks! I'm happy with them so far.

I did have a wish list when I went looking for clones, but couldn't find what I was looking for and wasn't sure about flowering times anyway. I wanted short-flowering strains because I started so late and don't wanna get into heat issues, so that drove the decision. I know little about these strains, or did when I got them. Thing is, I've tried lots of strains and I always find something I like in each. Some I like more than others, but my wish list is fairly long and I didn't find anything on it local.

For next year however, I've just come across some Flo seeds that I plan to try next Fall. I'm also gonna try to get a few other things in here by the next grow - Larry OG, Sour Diesel, Space Queen, Green Crack, Rascal OG are all on the short list...just personal favorites of mine for various reasons. Not that I'll be able to grow them all at once, but I have a feeling finding all these may be a bit of work.

I think I'm getting close to flowering finally. I'm about an hour over 29 days & am kinda thinking a month will need to do as heat is concerned. But beyond that, I think my Blueberry Indica has gotten as tall as the tent is gonna allow...flippin' thing is reachin' for the moon. Pics to follow as I get everything uploaded.

In anticipation of turning them over, I've been sort of reading & thinking about what I'm gonna do for flower food. I have an almost full bottle of Tiger Bloom on the shelf, but it's pretty old - at least 5 years. I figure if I'm gonna put this much effort into this, I might as well make sure I have decent nutrition for the rest. I've been using Bio Grow for the vegging and it's probably around the same age, but for the most part, it has gone over well. I've read that Tiger Bloom has a short shelf life though, so I may just leave it where it is for now.

So I took a trip down to my favorite grow store and asked where to find the Maxibloom. Finding it was easy enough, but the guys who run this store are total pot geeks & steered me in another direction. They were all of the opinion that Maxibloom was a fine bit of grub, but I could do better.

So here's to trying something new



I've been using the +Life, BioGrow & CalMag along (err, after the first week...stepping them up slowly). However, the Veg+Bloom & +Size are new to me.

The totally awesome cats at the store sent me home with a feeding schedule as well



Took some more pics of the ladies this evening too...soon come...