R0ck’s 1st Grow Journal: NTF and Blueberry

[R0ck]

In this journal, I will tell you everything I did wrong during the first 4 weeks of my growing career, and then we will see if I can get things right the rest of the way. If you post in this thread, fair warning I will probably ask you dozens of questions!

Ordered 3x North Thunderfuck (NTF) and received 3x Blueberry… Figuring I would be lucky if two of the seeds sprout, I buy 2 cubic ft. of ProMix and then use about 1% of it to fill 6 solo cups.

May 5th: Soil in solo cups, mist soil a dozen times, because why not that seems like a good amount… drop seeds into about a pencil eraser size hole, mist a dozen more times, and then wait… At this point, six solo cups are on my kitchen table.

May 9th: Wife wakes me up saying she thinks they sprouted… By the time I get myself downstairs, 5 of 6 plants have sprouted, one Blueberry is the lone exception…

At this point, I realize I need to buy a tent, because I read you can smell one plant from 1/4 mile away (panic mode)… Ok, I have done some research in the past and remember LEDs are good so I buy a Amazon Blurple 3000W Light… I buy a cheap inline fan and filter, and start ordering nutrients. This is during Covid mind you, and deliveries are delayed, but all of the cheap products I buy finally arrive except for the tent. Then, I read how crappy Blurples are, and the fan and filter I bought suck, so I re-order everything except I keep PH UP/DOWN and the 4x4 tent. The lesson here is do not trust Amazon reviews, do your research and rely on the type of people that post on this forum.

May 12th: Last plant sprouts after I have brilliant idea to place the plant in the darkest place I can find in my house (who knew).

Wife falls in love with the plants around this time (I have not told her what must happen to them), so we are committed to making this work.

Current Setup:
4x4x80” VivoSun (already planning to upgrade I know)
HLG 260W Rspec (will order 2nd XL for Flower)
AC Infinity 6” T6
Phresh 8” Carbon Filter
2 crappy 6” fans

After numerous false starts and lessons learned, the tent is finally mostly set up AND the plants are experiencing their first 18 hours of non-window sill light tonight.

[R0ck]

Setup and a picture of how stretchy these poor plants became without a grow light for almost 4 weeks:

I forgot to mention, on May 29th I transplanted 5 of 6 plants into 3 gallon plastic pots. Mixed ProMix (2cu. Ft.) and Perlite (8qt.) for the medium… added Myko to holes for the roots.

[R0ck]

I forgot to mention, on May 29th I transplanted 5 of 6 plants into 3 gallon plastic pots. Mixed ProMix (2cu. Ft.) and Perlite (8qt.) for the medium… added Myko to holes for the roots.

At this point, 5 of 6 plants received their first nutrients and I started PHing my water… I did not PH prior to that 3rd week transplant; however, I will be PHing water to 6.5 from here on out…

Nutrients given May 29th:
1/4 strength of the Fox Farms Trio schedule for week 2 of Veg. Thought it was important to get them both Big Bloom and Grow Big, because a couple of the plants were starting to show signs of nutrient deficiency.

Before their first nutrients feeding:

^PH issue or lack of nutrients (?), they’ve improved since transplant/first feeding day…

I have not watered them since transplanting them, I watered until runoff that day, and without proper light I don’t think the plants have been drinking as much as they should. Now, I think they will explode under ground and start drinking much more (that’s the plan).

Final pot will be 5 gallon fabric pots.

[R0ck]

June 4th Update:

Plants seemed to do great at 24” under half power from the HLG 260W for 18 hours. I just checked on them and put them to bed for 6 hours. I think this is the first time they haven’t grown vertically overnight, because they had light for the first time. Tallest NTF was The same height as when I put it in. Turned the light up just a little bit, going to slowly do so until we reach full power.

Watered the little Blueberry in the solo cup today with nutrients for the first time as well.

-1.5 tsp. Big Bloom
-0.5 tsp. Grow Big
-1tsp. Cal-Mag

Watered to run off, hoping to have him in a 3 gallon pot soon as well.

[R0ck]

June 5 Update

The theme of today’s journal entry is F*** “Flexible” Aluminum Ducting. 5 cuts and 1 torn hose later, and we still are not venting through my sliding glass window kit. Oh well, the room will smell like weed for one or two more days until I can get the filter connected and the air flowing outside. Burn in hell, ducting tube.

Plants mostly look good today- My tallest NTF was drooping a bit:

Not sure what could have caused it, but I did move my light up a bit, didn’t adjust the power, which is probably at 2/3 power.

The other 5 are doing good:

Have some spots on the Blueberry plant above, but it has recovered really well from the bad yellowing from either a deficiency or pH issue. I’m not too concerned, next watering/feeding they will get some Cal-Mag along with Big Bloom and Grow Big from the Fox Farms Trio and then we will learn.

Didn’t water the 5 bigger plants today, still holding off for the weight / knuckle test, both of which indicated that they have enough water today. I did turn the fan up because it was humid in sunny SoCal today… I’ve been running the T6 on 2, but bumped it up to 4 today.

Current Temp: 72
Humidity: 59.9

[Chasworks]

Nice looking good, nice upgrades! Along for the ride if you don’t mind. Stay lit

[R0ck]

Absolutely! I was getting a little worried it would be three months of me journaling to myself in here.

Tagging a couple of guys from Hellraiser’s thread that were interested in following as well. @NeoGroR @Blue89

Also, I received this today:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07WNK8BLN?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

It is about 1000x better than the traditional aluminum ducting. AC Infinity just seems to make high quality stuff all around. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to wait until next weekend for the 6” I ordered to arrive, but that’s fine, the smell isn’t overpowering as of yet.

[Chasworks]

I have ac infinity inline fan 4” great quality! I have just a short run so i hard piped it.

[dp69]

@R0ck your girls are looking good. Im in Hellraisers group and trying to watch and soak it all in. I am about 9 days out of soil. I’ll be following!

[R0ck]

Lucky! The best setup for my office grow room required me running the exhaust hose through the tent roof and then down toward the bottom of a sliding window, where the hose connects to a sliding window kit like this:

Sunpentown Extra Plastic Window/Door Kit and Adapter (WA-9010E) - Free...

So, you can imagine bending and manipulating a flexible aluminum duct to make that work… The infinity hoses are super easy to work with, though, so it should be much easier to connect everything. I knew from the start getting that step done was going to be my greatest challenge.

@dp69 welcome, friend. It’ll be fun to see how all of his new disciples do.

[Chasworks]

Nice i agree, i used my filter first two runs but with hi humidity year around I removed the filter altogether.

[R0ck]

June 6 Update

Plants just finished 18 hours under the light, and I got in and worked for about an hour to hang the little fans I have inside from rope ratchet hangers. This works much better than trying to use the monster size clips the fans came with. A lot of the work was trying to get the fan height correct to not create a hurricane for the plants. All six are now dancing in the breeze. I think the tallest plant was getting blown around too much and that may have led to his drooping.

Something is going on with the 2 large BlueBerry plants, my guess is they need some CalMag at this point… I definitely overwatered these guys when I did my original transplant (gave the Five in 3 gallon pots a whole 1 gallon each and have since learned a half-gallon each is likely more appropriate)… they still haven’t completely dried out from what I can tell by their weight and the knuckle test, but I think tomorrow or Monday will be the day to water them and get some more nutrients and CalMag, because they appear to be needing something.

The little BlueBerry in the Solo Cup took longer than the rest to sprout, but I think there’s a good chance it will be my best plant, because it will benefit from all that I have learned from this forum. It received CalMag along with its first nutrients two days ago, and is thus far showing none of the worrying signs the other BlueBerries did.

Planning (Hoping) to water all 6 plants tomorrow with CalMag and Big Bloom + Grow Big (1/4 strength).

[R0ck]

@Hellraiser

[Hellraiser]

They do look a bit over watered. I’d make sure they were good and dry before next watering, pick them up and feel the weight, only light pots get watered and treat each one individually, just because one plant is dry and ready, doesn’t mean they all are. I’d start the calmag and 1/4 dose feedings.

[R0ck]

Given the unconventional first 3 weeks of life, I think their root system wasn’t as developed as you’d like going from solo to 3 gallons, so I overwatered them on transplant day… they were effectively little plants in a big pot, and they received more water than they needed for sure.

Pots are getting lighter now, it’s going to take me some getting used to judging their weight, but my guess is like with solo cups it just feels obvious when they are dry. It does not feel that way yet, so I will hold off.

Only bummer is they need nutrients and CalMag especially, but waiting is better than over watering, so they will have to hang on.

Thank you for the advice, makes me feel more confident.

[Hellraiser]

Yeah they’ll hang on, better to take over watering out of the problem list. Bad things take a while to happen to plants and good things will take a while as well. Best we can do is not panic and think we have to do something right now, just need to plan the road to optimum health and know that will take time, one thing growing has taught me is patience.

[R0ck]

Understood, will wait and water each plant as they become dry individually.

[Chasworks]

There all looking good and healthy stay the course. Stay lit

[R0ck]

June 7 Update

Just finished checking on the plants. I think they are showing some signs of stress, but I’m in no man’s land until the 3 gallon pots dry out (I watered little plants in a big container too much when I transplanted).

I also have a leading candidate for culling:

Top right in first picture, that BlueBerry plant suffered from very early stretching and nutrient deficiency, and does not seem to be responding as well as the others to the proper environment of the tent. 6 plants seems to be a crowd in a 4x4 tent, so there’s a good chance I will transfer it and likely one other outside to practice growing techniques and probably get myself arrested.

Solo Cup Blueberry is starting to stack nodes at what I think are good distances… turns out HLG lighting is better than window sill. Who knew?

^Watered only solo cup BlueBerry to run-off today with just CalMag added to the water, pH 6.5 ish. If the solo cup is light in two days as I expect it to be, I will plan on transplanting to a 3 gallon pot with 1/2 gallon of water + 1/4 strength FF Big Bloom Grow Big + 5mL CalMag (mixed in 1 gallon of water).

Despite signs of stress as mentioned earlier, i am really happy with how the first 4 days of proper lighting have gone. The light is still at about 2/3 power, 24” above tallest plant. The plant are filling out really well, except for the one BlueBerry mentioned previously, and I know they are going to look so much better once they dry out and I can feed them.

^you can see some yellowing in new growth, and the 5 begging for some CalMag, but we will have to wait until dry.

[R0ck]

June 8 Update

3 gallon pots still feel heavy and the soil is still moist, which is starting to get frustrating, because I want to water and feed them again. Lesson learned for the future I suppose.

I did a foliar spray of CalMag today, because none of the 5 larger plants have received any CalMag yet, and I figured maybe it would help with some of the issues I am seeing. Kind of a frustrating day of growing.

^Solo Cup BlueBerry looks great right now. Only plant that had CalMag of the bunch and looks really healthy.

^Plant is concerning, I even noticed a couple of small holes today. Looked all over for bugs but didn’t see them. I have NeemOil arriving sometime this week, do you think it’s concerning enough for me to go drive 30 minutes to get some at HomeDepot @Hellraiser or could it be a non-bug cause? Sorry to bother you, just worried about that and don’t want bugs.