1st time indoor soil CFL grow

[Reg Dixon]

So I'm at the 2 week mark and quite a lot has happened. The TD is growing nicely under a barrage of CFL power. About 250w (real watts). The soil is a real concern and I'm looking to repot into something better as soon as she is out of seedling. The PH is too high and the soil gets too compacted and crumbly/flaky. For now because she is doing so well I'll leave her but I know it might hurt her in the long run.
I'm forced to think about nutes and have absolutely no clue. She is getting nutes next water and I'm TERRIFIED they will kill her etc.

My NL auto is almost burned to death by a combination of crappy soil, CFL's way too close for way too long and PH being too high. You will see from the pics. I have taken the drastic measure of repotting her (again) into something which approximates decent soil without being that great. Watered at the same time. Found while repotting that the roots just were not strong enough to penetrate the thick compacted soil I had her in.
Now the soil at least LOOKS better and I plan to put her outside in the sun to recouperate for a week and see what happens. No nutes, no nothing except water.
My Afghan Kush Ryder never sprouted after well over a weeek so I dug her up. The probelm was twofold. Soil too compact, planted too deep, Seed casing choked croylens. Tap root looked a bit brown but I cleaned her up, took the casing off with tweezers and repotted into better soil. Put her under a single grow light and will see what happens. Tomorrow will go outside into the 'recovery area.' However probably dead already.
My critical auto had spouted nicely but had almost dried up under the nasty soil I had her in so I carefully dug her up and repotted in better soil, watered thoroughly and put under a grow light. Also took the casing off with tweezers. This repot could have been a mistake.
Have germinated a Blue Widow using shot glass of water technique. It strouted a small taproot overnight so I planted in new soil mix and put under lights in warm humid place.
Well that's all for now. Nobody seems to be following this diary but it is proving to be a useful process to record my many mistakes so will keep on doing it however a little more sporadically.
Maybe weekly from now on.

 

[Reg Dixon]

Day 16 - Now I think I have a good soil mix I germed a couple more. Critical plus auto germinated successfully and is now seedling under lights with the TD. The TD appears to be fine after yet another repotting. I think I have repotted this plant 3 or 4 times alrady! Poor thing but I think I have the right soil mix now.
The new seedling Blue Widow is coming up under a single 30w 2700k nicely although the seed casing is still attached after a couple of days. May take it off with tweezers if it does not come off in the next 2 or 3 days. The NL auto is still alive - just. Repotted into good soil and left outdoors. I am afraid to put it indoors under lights until it gets a little stronger so for now it stays outside.
No pics for a while until I have something to show for my efforts. I made my own soil mix as well as starting a compost bin for nute action down the line.
Keeping my fingers crossed that I might make something happen out of all this effort one day.

 

[Reg Dixon]

Day 18. Settling into a nice routine after upgrading my cab to include hanging adjustable height lights on chains and hooks. Will take pics when I have the time. Now have 4 plants, 2 of which are seedling in the cab. They are on a 18/6 schedule now I have got my timer going. Watered 3/4 of them today purely on 'weight' as my new soil always looks moist. My NL is still alive. Still touch and go. The critical is growing fast and the blue widow is very dark coloured compared to the rest. Will take some pics in a few days of the whole set up and the plants themselves.
Still battling heat and humidity in the cab. Have a vent system of sorts with a small fan blowing air in and a water cooled fan sucking it out the other side. The water cooled fan is a pain as it needs to be fed ice water every 4 hours to actually blow cold and of course does nothing to help the rather high RH levels which fluctuate between 60-70%.
I have several small disposable de humidifiers in the cab itself but when it comes time for flowering I may have to buy a real de humidifier for the cab to bring the RH down to an acceptable 50%. For now though it works.

 

[Reg Dixon]

Day 19 Xmas day

Day 19 Xmas day

It could be that my NL might survive. Have all my plants under lights now and they are all growing however a new problem seems to be emerging. They are getting very light in color. The seedlings are still a nice rich dark green but the TD in particular is light green in comparason. Hope the light green does not start to turn to yellow!

It could be nutrients as none of the plants have ever been fed. However today I changed all that by feeding them with an organic liquid fert/nute purchased locally. I have no idea of its composition besides it has a picture of a tomato on the front with a lettuce and a flower. It also makes the water really stink rotten which I suppose is a good thing. Diluted 1/4 of the usual dose in water for starters.

Will see the results soon enough I suppose. Fed the TD and the NL as they are both 19 days old. Gave the Critical auto a tiny bit with it's normal watering and just gave the Blue Widow a light drink of normal water as it is no more than a seedling really.

The lack of a PPM continues to be a problem as to where I can purchase one locally. Will have to look around some more. Have other nutes as well as a compost heap going. Will try that when it gets nice and rotten! Am putting all kinds of food in there as well as dirt and soil.

Also included a couple of pics of my upgraded grow area. The extra de humidifiers are doing their job bringing RH to 53% and my thoughts are now turning to whether the 240w of CFL power is enough light for the 4 plants I have going. I had reckoned on only having 3 so may need more light soon.

Might leave it a while before the next update. Have to research topping, FIM and LST'ing on my TD as well as more stuff on nutes, PPM measurement and how to get rid of the huge nasty looking mosquito which is now living in the plant area and eludes my hand when I go in there and tries to bite me and transmit some awful disease. Apparently the big ones out here are dangerous like that.

 

[Reg Dixon]

Day 25 ish

Day 25 ish

Time to update with pics! Real progress!

My TD is going nicely. Topped it today so probably will die now!
NL auto amazingly enough is still alive!
Critical is growing amazingly
Blue Widow ran into some probs when I went a bit heavy on the nutes too early in it's short life but seems to be stabilizing now.
All plants are in a stable 16/8 under CFL's with RH varying between 55-70% and temp in the 26-31 degree range.
Watering them on pot weight using liquid generic nutes 1/4 - 1/2 strength every other watering. Also tried a few 16/16/16 blue balls which were a bit too much for the younger plants.
Not ideal but there you are -onto the pics... please click the link at the bottom. They are all captioned.
as you can see the plants are all different ages which could be a problem. My plan is just to veg the ones that need vegging a long as they need before going 12/12 together.

 

[Reg Dixon]

Week 5 update

Week 5 update

Weekly update time. New pics are in my album. Link is at the bottom of the page.

I think ALL my plants are showing signs of stress. I'm not sure why but have taken some hopefully non harmful action.
This week I most likely killed my Blue Widow plant through overuse of Nitrogen nutes.

I repotted all my plants into bigger pots with a better soil mix but I think I left my plants too close to the lights and they have gotten a bit too hot. The leaves are curling and twisting in various directions. The leaves of the critical are looking soggy and droopy in some places. They are brown and burnt looking at the tips. And those are the healthy ones!

It is possible underwatering but the leaves are not drooping enough for my thinking. The leaves on the TD are closing in on themselves a little and browning at the tips which points to nute burn or heat. However some of the leaves at the bottom yellowed which points to nute or nitro deficiency.

It is all a bit confusing.

First I have raised my lights. I have noticed I have very short plants with very tight spacing between nodes almost to the point where I cannot get light to the underside. Maybe a bit of stretching will not hurt.

My plan is to let the plants get very dry before watering with no nutes then repeat using 1/4 strength nutes after they get dry again with the larger plants. The smaller ones I'm just going to keep going without nutes for now and see what happens after another week.

Next problem is the fact my TD should be going into flower soon. The topping was successful. I now have multiple growth at the top of my plant but the burn may stop that so may have to wait anyway. I'm thinking another 2 weeks max before flowering.
However that means only 2 weeks more to veg my Blue Widow which is a joke the way it looks now.
The other 2 plants do not matter so much as they are both autos.

Lessons learnt this week -BE CAREFUL WITH NUTES

Don't let CFL's burn the plants. Don't let the CFL's get too close to the plants.

BE CAREFUL WITH NUTES!!!

Will I grow a healthy plant?

 

[Reg Dixon]

Tangerine Dream and Blue Widow 1st CFL grow.

Tangerine Dream and Blue Widow 1st CFL grow.

Going to put up some new pics soon. Have revamped my grow cubby ready for Flower stage next week. Pics included.

Have used xmas wrapping paper to line the new look cab. Have increased lights to 8. Have made 2x CO2 generators and have them up in front of the ventilation fan.

NL auto is stretching nicely after being repotted and flushed back to health. Still hope for that one although growing fast it is still a miniature.

Critical auto has still not recovered from being scorched by N balls. Not dead yet but tiny and burnt looking still.

The Blue Widow is growing again nicely after being topped. The 2 new tops are branching out and growing nicely after I fed both the TD and BW with a mix of 25-5-5 and 12-16-24 or something or other.

The TD had some scorched tips but seemed to recover after 2 waterings so I tried some of the mixture above with their water today.

Have some Maxigrow in the mail and from now on I will simply dissolve 1tea spoon of it into 1 gallon of water then use every other watering as soon as the plant is a month old. Maybe even 2-3 weeks if it is strong enough.

So it is full steam ahead to flowering as soon as I'm happy with both my TD and BW. The other 2 plants are autos and never going to be big producers after the problems they have had.

Don't know what it is with autos. Meant to be easy but they have been anything but with the photoperiods being much easier so far.

Thinking of having a small separate veg area and a perpetual cab going. Just so I can carry on having fun growing the various strains I now possess.

The idea of having a veg cab in the same room as the flower cab is a little scary but in my case I'll have to do it that way. I have a spare room and that is that. However it is big enough to easily enclose several 'rooms within rooms' so most likely I'll go for a basic physical cabinet design to enclose no more than 4 small pots.

Still all the time in the world to decide as I've not planted anything else yet!

Edit for pic captions left to right- left pic Blue Widow 3 weeks front left.

Next pic TD note the burnt areas and lack of stretching. I had the CFL's on top of this until last week. Hoping for a bit of stretch.

Next pic NL auto recovering nicely from burn but still small.

Right pic the Critical auto after I trimmed the worst of the buring damage!

 

[Reg Dixon]

Veg ending soon update.

Veg ending soon update.

This week will be my last week of veg. My maxibloom should be here in a week or so. When it arrives it is time to flower. No doubt my TD and BW are big and healthy enough. My NL auto is doing well now and I've taken the risk of topping it as it was growing a bit tall and thin. Topped between the 4th and 5th nodes so a bit high but better late than never!

Also am looking at NL's final repot later this next week after it has recovered from topping.
The critical is still alive just but growing very slowly. I'm afraid to feed it anything yet but will need something soon as it is in mostly coco mix.
This plant will get left behind as it becomes time to flower the photoperiods but no choice as I don't want my photos getting too big for my grow cubby!

Will post some more pics later today

 

[Reg Dixon]

pic update

pic update

Pics L to R...

Grow space

Tangerine Dream 1 week from flower.

Blue Widow 1 week to flower.

Northern Lights auto after top.

Critical auto.

 

[Guest 263194]

looking nice buddy. way better then my current cfl grow lolz cut down some nutes dosage tho. also you don't need to put your plant that close to bulbs. I am running 200w with 1/half gal it's 15cm away from the lights. good luck!!

 

[Reg Dixon]

looking nice buddy. way better then my current cfl grow lolz cut down some nutes dosage tho. also you don't need to put your plant that close to bulbs. I am running 200w with 1/half gal it's 15cm away from the lights. good luck!!

Thanks. They are developing nicely. At least 2 of them are good!
You are right about the bulbs being close. I raised them a few days ago and now they have grown up to them already they will need raising again soon!

Nutes are going on the 2 bigger plants and a smaller dose on the NL auto. The Critical is still just that - critical so no nutes!

1 more week to flower. Still need to buy more 'soft light' CFL's. Am toying around with having a seperate veg cubby but think I should prolly get some grows under my belt first!

Temp at 30 degrees or a little less and RH at 60% or less are starting to be environmental I have to live with. Might need a bigger oscillating fan for flower too!

 

[Reg Dixon]

So it all about preparing for flowering stage at the moment. Am raising my soft white light ratio. At 45% of total at the moment. By the end of the week it will be 70% total.
Looking to go 12/12 in a couple of days. The NL just got repotted into something bigger, much bigger. It was howing signs of being rootbound. Was drinking all its water,food very quickly.

Now just the critical to go. Topped it today as it is storming along after recovering from nute burn. Will most likely repot in a couple of weeks to final big pot. Might leave it a bit longer. Still a smallish plant though growing very quickly now as they all are.

My biggest problem is getting enough lumens into my 3.7sq ft growing area. Right now have 21,750. Have started a 3 inch rule to stop plant burn! With 4 plants developing nicely I'm thinking of boosting to 26.5k. Since I'm using CFL's I suppose I should pack as many as I can in there.

Should have a pictorial update in a few days.

 

[Reg Dixon]

New pics in album. Link under sig.

 

[Reg Dixon]

Flower time!

Flower time!

Now gone into flower with 27k lm on 4 plants. I fear it will not be enough! The plants have started to smell. The Blue Widow is quite stinky in pparticular!

My main concern is that due to poor ventilation issues I have had to leave a window open in the growroom. This leads to the room being light even at night. The fact I'm in a loose cab helps with the situation but I can't know for sure whether there is any light getting to the cab.

Bought a new bulb to take me to 30k lms and have repotted Blue Widow into final pot and repotted Critical auto into a bigger pot which could end up being its final pot.

Am surprised about how well the critical auto has recovered. Has not taken very well to being topped and I'm thinking its yield will be very low but it does not matter as long as it lives!

My NL auto is getting very spindly and tall without any bush whatsoever. It looks like a mini Xmas tree! Not sure what to do about it. Have topped it once only. Topping again is an option I suppose. It is already too tall to LST.

TD will need repotting this week or the next if it goes through the growth spurt it is supposed to during flower.
Have no way of knowing for sure exactly how big my pots are due to location/language problems but I'm hoping the final pots will be big enough. They had better be because there is no more room left in the cab!

Will add pics to album later.

 

[Reg Dixon]

Flowering pics

Flowering pics

So I'm on my 1st week of flowering and I think I've almost finished the cab! Got about 30k lms in there now. I'm just adding 45w warm whites here and there now because they are only $10 for 2790lms.
For me that represents my best lumen to dollar ratio

The Blue Widow is EXPLODING! It is going to get too big for the cab at this rate. Is it too big to LST? Can I find another way to stop stretching?

The TD needs repotting to it's final sized pot soon. No hurry, have to get the soil mix right. Have switched over to a mix of a local soil with perlite and some lite nutes mixed with some compost and a lot of coco, both chips and ground. Should tightly packaged coco coir be flushed the same as coco chips?

The Critical auto looks like it is going into flower HARD which is a shame as it is still too small and needs to grow some more. To encourage this I repotted it into something bigger. It may even be big enough to use as final pot if some serious stretching doesn't happen soon!

The NL auto is also showing signs of going into flower. Growing nicely at the top. Still no bushyness though.

Have realised that my grow space is jerry built ramshackle poorly planned, shoddily executed mostly using duct tape. The more I realise this the more I love it! However practical considerations such as ease of access and ability to raise lights etc easily.

As my plants get bigger and are now in large pots there is less frequent watering I'm finding. Maybe only 2 x a week in these bigger pots. One feed with Maxibloon and one water with nothing, rinse and repeat.

Since I can now leave my babies for days at a time I want to be able to do so with plants growing into lights which has been a major problem for me so far in this grow. I've burnt all my plants at some stage by having lights too close. The TD was the worst victim with a whole bud getting torched. It still carried on growing though and those burnt leaves ( the ones I didn't cut off) are still evident.


New pics on my album now.

 

[Reg Dixon]

Grow room re design

Grow room re design

Now the plants are getting bigger it was getting out of hand in the grow cab with plants getting burnt by the bulbs daily.
Hopefully going with 2 plants per 'compartment' instead of 4 crammed in one will allow for similar light penetration and more freedom to grow.
Got a tip I might be overfeeding so am going to give them all a good watering with no nutes next time out to hopefully bring them into line.
TD still needs repotting. Critical auto is going to be very small but is alive and has buds. It did not take well to being topped that is for sure!
NL is bushing out a tiny bit but still has an Xmas tree look about it.

Last night I dreamt that my plants had emormous alien style buds...
first time I ever dreamt about bud!

New pics in album soon.

 

[Reg Dixon]

LST time!

LST time!

So I have started to LST both photoperiods. Whether this is a good time or not I don't know but I'm doing it anyway. It was purely a practical decision. First the Blue Widow then the TD stretched quite violently in flower and were getting too tall. I was worried if I didn't do something now they might outgrow the cab!

The inside of the TD in particular was not getting light and dying off so it seemed like a good idea. From a space point of view it changes the dynamics but it does even the canopy out and exposes more of the plant to good light levels. I'm not sure what will happen but now the plants seem sturdy enough to give it a try before they begin to form buds.

The critical auto is continuing to bud nicely. The NL auto is beginning to bud too. My mind is turning to buying some kind of jewellers loop to look at the buds on the Critical auto.

I'm considering LSTing or at least supercropping my NL auto although it gets good light coverage all the way down so might not do anything else and just let it bud up on its own.

Amazing that I have a totally different viewpoint towards growing now. Now I'm more relaxed and practical. Willing to take steps on my own without checking (or posting) on these boards to check what I'm doing.

Now have more of a problem solving mind too with this experience behind me. However my buds turn out I'm glad I did this and look forward to doing more grows using different strains and different methods.

I basically have space for 4 plants so when the critical auto is close to harvest which is quite soon now there will be a new spot open. This one might have to go to another auto as the cab is currently 12/12 for the next 6 weeks or so!

 

[autojuice]

Looking good,at what height did you top em? Nice sig,they are kind at that facility.

 

[Reg Dixon]

Looking good,at what height did you top em? Nice sig,they are kind at that facility.

Thanks for stopping by

Quite a vital couple of weeks. If the LSTing goes as planned I'll have a couple of really good producers. If not I could have a disaster on my hands!

With topping it wasn't so much height of the plants as stage of development.

I topped the TD between the 3rd and 4th nodes. The BW the same and the NL auto between the 5th and 6th. Got to it a bit late! The critical auto has also been topped but I wouldn't recomend it.
In all honesty I topped the auto's as a bit of an afterthought.

Looking back I'd top the auto's sooner and the photoperiods at a similar time. Also i may look into topping twice (where possible) then LSTing as the plants grow and stretch during flower.

I was going to experiment with supercropping as well and still might if the BW in particular takes well to LSTing.

 

[Reg Dixon]

Well all I can say is LSTing kicks ass! Where I might have had 7 or 8 buds on my TD and BW I now have maybe 2-3 times that number through using LST. All these little nodes that were shaded before LST are all now exposed to the lights and they are growing like crazy!

Will hold off from posting any more pics until the middle of the week. There is such a big difference now with all the buds beginning to form. Exciting but I still have a list of problems/mistakes ongoing.

1 Plants are suffering heat stress. It is just too hot in the grow room and very little I can do about it.

2 RH too high. Tends to hover between 60-70%. Very little I can do about that.

3 ANTS! living in my plants under the soil. I see em running around on the leaves/stalk. They are tiny and harmless. They are attracted to the CO2 yeast mixture I use.

4 Heat spots on the plants. I actually lost the best bud on my BW plant to this problem. There is definitely something wrong with the reflective wrapping paper I have used to cover most of the surfaces inside the grow 'cab'. At this point there are loads of heat spots developing all over the place. Not sure whether to just blunder on. Take down the paper. Take down the paper then put some foil up (non shiny side of course).

5 Lamps burning plants. Due to LSTing there is a lot more overlap on plants now with branches going into each other areas. There is some burning and touching from the lights.

Right now I'm just living with these problems and hoping for the best anyway. The colas are developing nicely on the little Critical auto. I'm encouraged by that at least!