First..Well, Second Attempt at Proving to Wife We Can Support Ourselves

[MyNameWasTaken]

Hello everyone,

I started my first grow in order to stop having to pay exorbitant amounts of money on our medicine. Unfortunately we are both in jobs that will not allow medical cards or legal smoking. My wife is very skeptical as I have absolutely no experience in this area. I started with 10 bags seeds from some unknown strain and all 10 popped. I kept one, but was chomping at the bit after perusing on here and bought a small starter autoflower pack. My wife panicked as we waited for it in the mail, but holy cow did they arrive quick and inconspicuous.

Before I get too deep I just want to say, this is an awesome group, everyone is friendly and it really looks like you all give noobs great advice and I have never experienced someone down talking to anyone. Props to the stoners, we really get a bad rap sometimes. I feel if more people smoked there would be less war…anyway…back to the topic at hand.

The one I kept turned out to be male, and after waiting so long for a sign, I was quite disappointed as the wife took this as a chance to roll her eyes…she loves me to death, but I swear a battery has more positive sides than she does, lol.

Luckily I had the package from ILGM and had already popped one Lowryder seed 13 days ago. Also, today I started germinating 2 more using the paper towel in a container method…this worked for every seed that has popped so far, so I figured why not.

My set up is small, one plant until I get a good yield and a thumbs up from Household 6. The tent is 2x2x4 with a 1000w LED…but from what I have read the LEDs don’t really add up to the 1000w and fall a little short. Fine with me though because the window sill has been working and the male plant shot up like a weed in the tent. I have a decent exhaust and am able to keep humidity and temp almost perfect. Anyway, for now I am just sitting them on a south facing windowsill.

I am using organic soil and have dropped the PH to 6.0 - 6.5 for the 13 day old, and used plain old tap from a spray bottle to start germination in the other two.

I have not added any nutes to the 13 day old and plan on starting small come Monday. I am unable to purchase top notch nutes because…well once again…I am trying not to make a big deal out of this until I get it right and get a thumbs up to ramp up personal operations. So, for now, when I start I will be using Dr. Earth’s Homegrown Organic 3-2-2 pump fertilizer. 1 pump a week at the base.

Today I just realized how damn small the pot I put the 13 day old in and bought a 4 gallon pot to plant one of the other two, unless I can figure out if it is worth it to transplant as I know autoflowers have a short life cycle and I do not want to stunt it at this point.

Ok, so, I think that about covers it. The main point of this journal is to appease my cabin fever during this fucking pandemic and because after lurking in the forums for about 2 months I realize that there is an amazing amount of information from the people in here.

This is the male, 5 or 6 weeks old, small pot.

This is his nut sack. Dude has been pulled.

This is the 13 day old. I realize her pot is small, I am hoping this doesn’t give the wife another chance to roll the eyes, lol.

And finally the two babies waiting to sprout to life

[Spiney_norman]

Hey, Welcome to the forum.
Check out Mega Crop from Greenleaf Nutrients.
They have a sample size bag for the cost of shipping that will grow 2 or 3 plants.
Sometimes out of stock it will show back up usually in a few days.
Cannabis formula. I have used it over the last year with good success.

[MyNameWasTaken]

Excellent, I will check it out.

[MyNameWasTaken]

So, after looking around, I went ahead and got the Fox Farm Trio

only 33$ so not a big expense. I’m pretty stoked. Sticking with the organic soil, it seems to be doing well. Not going to transplant the first one I’ll just roll with it, as long as the smoke is good the wife will join my side.

[Eagles009]

Haha I feel you with the wife rolling her eyes. I grew a horribly sad little plant a year or so ago that yielded next to nothing after growing in my closet for like 3 months with 40 watts of light. She kept bringing that up when I wanted to grow again. She has since stopped rolling her eyes after my plants exploded. Now she’s excited, but won’t admit it. She acts disinterested but I’ve caught her looking in there .

I will say though I started with xxxx watt blurple lights and got talked into a nice light after cruising around here awhile. My takeaway is that those lights will trick you because they effectively veg a plant. But when it comes to flowering they will let you down big time. I wasn’t willing to waste the time and be disappointed. Or taste defeat again!

Good luck on your grow!

[Tastebuds]

So, the new plants are all feminized autoflowers now?
I hope someone with more experience touches on this, but with a 4 foot high tent and an led light, I think you will have to train them to stay low with a net so you can still maintain the proper optimal distance between the light and the canopy.
Wishing you all the best with your growing.

[GreenSnek]

Good luck mate my recommendations is to only use full spectrum lights and do lux readings with a phone app 7k lux for seedlings, 2 weeks in slowly up it to 20k until preflower then slowly up to 40k( or even up to 60k) to get great flower debelopment( natural sunlight is 80k-100k during noon)

[MyNameWasTaken]

The new plants are feminized autoflowers. I will try photos once I get a bigger area to use. The tent is small and I have been studying up on LST which will allow me to wrap the girls around their pots and save room…I’m sure you know this, but that is my plan, use a lot of LST. I have realized though that with these autos I can just use the windows in my house and follow the sun like the wife does with her indoor houseplants. As things progress I will either use the tent for the new babies with a big pot, or will be blessed enough that the wife will be cool with me taking up a bit more room in the closet.

The first poor little girl gets to be my test dummy for LST.

[MyNameWasTaken]

This is the light I have, I am open to all ideas on equipment as long as it does not break the bank. I would absolutely love to get a bigger tent or anything to make life easier, but the sun and good nutes will hopefully work for now.

It does not heat up the tent and with a small humidifier and the exhaust I am able to keep temp and humidity at an almost perfect level. I probably should use the ten instead of the windowsills, lol.

@Eagles009 yeah, I have caught her seeming interested, and if I can get just one good smoke she may be sold completely.

[borialis]

A lot of nutrients companies have sample sizes for cheap

[MyNameWasTaken]

Started the LST on the oldest, read on here that starting early with the autos is a good idea. She is still flimsy and seemed to respond to it. Shes not thirsty and might not need a feeding until her first nutes on Monday. We will see.

Does this look right for this stage? The top was bent over but has lifted since this morning

[Deepsix]

Personally i would just pull the top over like you have and keep tighten it as it grows. A undo the bottom string

[MyNameWasTaken]

Good Idea, done.

[Tastebuds]

You said they’re on a window sill, I hope outside in direct sunlight. If not and the light comes through a window, it may be reduced a lot through the glass. I’m also thinking of the hours the plant receives direct (although through glass, direct as in the sun shining directly on the plant) versus how much direct light the plants could have available and use per day in the tent.
I mean, you won’t impress her with a mediocre grow, so you need to think seriously

[MyNameWasTaken]

Yeah, I think the first one will stay on the sill and the other will go entirely in the tent. I get great direct sunlight in that window for about 6 hours in the afternoon and in the morning she sits on an eastern facing sill that get a good 4 hours of direct sun. I am lucky to be in a place that gets little rain.

[MyNameWasTaken]

I spoke too soon, got cloudy today so I ended up putting her in the tent. I will put her in the sill again in the morning.

[creekcaster]

I’m a new grower my self… I just harvested my 3rd plant and it looks like I’ll get about 5 or 6oz out of it.
I use a standard plastic utility cabinet, 600w led light (will be using 2 lights for the next one), and use a deep water culture system in a 7 gallon container.
I use the fox farms nutes and follow the hydro feeding schedule. . basically changes the reservoir with new water and nutes once a week. Other than that really all I do is watch the Ph like a hawk. It really couldn’t be easier.
The biggest thing I’ve learned is keeping it trimmed to keep it from getting unruly and the colas in the light.
My first grow I tried 2 plants at once but the second 2 I’ve gone with only 1 plant and the amount and quality of buds doubled. I didn’t need 2 plants competing for the space and light.
I guess my point is consider fully hydro… It really couldn’t be easier IMO

[MyNameWasTaken]

I’ve thought about going hydro. I don’t really know what I am looking at yet to be able to order a single plant system online yet.

She is back on the sill this morning and looks great. The other two have popped and are showing tap roots so I’ll get them going. Don’t know how I’m going to grow the third one and I sure don’t want to waste it.

[MyNameWasTaken]

https://www.htgsupply.com/products/bubble-boy-single-shot-dwc/

How does this look for a noob hydro system for one plant? What is the consensus on soil vs. hydro? Is it worth it?

[creekcaster]

I’ve never grown weed in soil… To me it seems pH is critical and more challenging if you have pH issues with your soil.
That bucket you shared looks like a pretty good set up I suppose… Of course you could always buy a bucket, lid, and aquarium aerator for $10… But I tend to like to DIY things.
Here is a pic of the one I made… I have two 7 gallon tubs (reservoir) I bought at HD for $10 each I think… Cut 2 holes in the lid for the cups, and drilled a small hole in the reservoir for the tube to send air to an aquarium aerator stone to supply O2. Each week I mix up a new batch of water and nutes in the vacant reservoir… Move the aerator and the lid (with the girl of course) to the new one and repeat once a week. Pretty simple honestly.
This was my first grow where I’d did 2 plants… Now I just do 1 plant and use the other as access to test and treat the water in the res.
It ain’t sexy but it works!