Yeah that works, used a calendar like that for many years.
Watering
Seems like an easy thing, water when the plants need it, yet watering is one of the biggest challenges to new growers.
Only water when the soil is dry. Never water moist soil. A couple ways to determine if your soil is dry, pick up the pot, if itâs heavy, itâs full of water, if itâs really light, itâs dry. Water is heavy, 8.34 pounds a gallon. Get a feel for how light the pot is before you water the first time, this is how light it should be when you water it. Pick up your pot after youâve watered and feel how heavy it is.
Marijuana plants like wet/dry cycles, also referred to as the flood/drought watering method. Water fully til there is a little runoff then let it dry out and repeat as needed.
In some cases you may not to able to use this method, if you have a small plant in a big pot for example, like say a sprout in a 5 gal pot, flooding the pot is not going to work as it will take weeks to dry and your sprout will be suffering from over-watering and may even damp off or get root rot and die due to staying wet for too long.
In that case you should give small enough amounts of water that will dry up within a few days. This is why I donât do small plants in big pots, start in a small pot where you can flood/drought without issue and move up to bigger pots as your plants get bigger. this is the way for fast plant growth. Will cover transplanting in more detail in a latter post.
Over watering
One of the biggest problems I see with new growers is over watering. Over watering occurs when plants are watered too often (or too much in a small plant/big pot situation). In a proper size container for the plant, you canât really over water by giving too much water at once. When using a good potting soil like Happy Frog and pots with proper drainage, the soil is only going to hold on to so much water and the excess will drain off (donât let your pots sit in that excess water as it will eventually absorb too much water, empty your trays after watering).
My large plants in 7 gal fabric pots will only hold on to about a gallon of water, the rest will drain off. I could give it 2 gallons of water and 1 gal will drain off, I could give them 10 gals of water and 9 gals are going to drain off. As long as the drained off water is removed, it doesnât matter how much water I give them at once, it will not cause an over water problem. This is why flushes donât create an over watering problem. What will cause an over watering problem is if I water them again before the soil has dried out. Watering too soon/too often causes over watering.
My plants are droopy
The #1 sign that you are over watering is droopy plants. A tiny bit of droop at lights on and lights off times can be normal but if droop persists for an hour or more before or after lights on/off or if droopy all the time - most likely your plants have been over watered. How do you fix it? Stop watering and let your soil dry up before watering again. If your plants are droopy and you usually water every 3 days, push that to 5 days and let them dry up more before watering, just watch them, droop is not as bad as they look when they hit the âreally need water now or Iâm going to dieâ look, which is completely limp leaves, looks way worse than the droop.
Donât buy the âThey look droopy cause the lights just came onâ. Over watered plants will typically look the most droopy at lights on and lights off times, they may perk up some during the middle of the light cycle but will droop a good while after lights come on and before lights go off.
My light just turned on in my flowering tent, those of you familiar with HPS lights would know the light just came on because it hasnât gone yellow yet, takes a minute or 2 for that to happen, letâs take a look
No droop here at lights on since they are not over watered.
My over watering story
Yes, even an experienced grower like me can over water. I recently over watered the plants in the flowering tent, same ones above in the picture, they did recover quickly. After moving my girls from the veg tent to the flowering tent and setting them up on the screen. I continued the watering at every 3 days and they were fine for a week (a couple waterings). But then I noticed a little droop, the droop lasted a couple hours after lights came on, then they perked up for most of the 12 hour light cycle and then started drooping an hour or 2 before lights out. I recognized it as over watering but my mind kept trying to think of other reasons they might be drooping, just pruned a lot, change of light spectrum (from MH to HPS), etc⌠I tried to convince myself that it was not over watering. The plants being SCROGed now, you canât pick up the pots, and even digging my finger down a few inches wasnât telling the whole story in the big 7 gallon fabric pot. But after arguing with myself breifly, I accepted that they were being over watered. The change of light schedule from 18/6 to 12/12 (and less vegetation from the pruning, trimming, and defoliation) was enough change that the plants were no longer drinking up all the water in 3 days as they did in veg. So when day 3 came, no water, just watched the plants to make sure they didnât go limp (dying from thirst mode), then day 4, no water, just watched them, didnât go limp, hell they started losing the droop already, day 5 droop mostly gone and soil was dry, watered the plants fully, droop did not return. Over watering problem solved.
@Hellraiser can you talk us through the pot sizes you use and when you typically change them?
This might be a bit much to ask because you are not there yet but how do you apply your mykos? I mixed it with my soil before putting my seeds in. Hope that is correct. Thanks.
@Capt.Cola, some people do that and lots of good soils has myco mixed in so canât be a bad thing, some people put a little pocket of myco under the seed for the root to grow through. I donât know if there is really a wrong way to use myco. I only use myco when I transplant, but Iâm considering using it with my seeds in the future.
So I get the new pot ready and fill mostly with soil and then use the old cup or pot to make an hole/impression in the new soil of the perfect size, then I apply the myco around inside the hole so the roots will make good contact with it, take plant out of old container and place in the hole, fill with more soil as needed and water fully til some runoff.
@Zee, I do 2 transplants during the grow, the first will be from solo cup to a 3 gallon plastic pot, then from the 3 gal to a 7 gal fabric pot. I only use fabric pots for the final because I donât like pulling plants out of fabric pots, not fun and could cause some root damage, which slows down growth.
First transplant will happen when sprouts are about 3 weeks old, my sprouts are 13 days old today, I start counting from breaking ground, not planted. So about another week. The sprouts are drinking more, their first watering lasted them 5 days, now its down to 3, then itâll be 2 days, then every day. Itâs best to transplant when the plants are slightly root bound, meaning there are a lot of roots in the cup/pot and the rootball is going to hold together when removed from the cup/pot, I also like to transplant when the soil is dry, less weight in the soil, less likely to fall apart. But some people do wet transplants and thatâs fine as long as there are sufficient roots to hold it all together. Final transplant from 3 gal to 7 gal will be when the plants are about 7-8 weeks of age.
This is why I like to transplant more than once:
Small update
The sprouts are 14 days old today and ready for another watering, 3-4 oz of water, PHâd to 6.5 as always, let excess drain out, back on dry tray.
The clones are showing new growth, always takes about a week after moving from aero-bucket cloner to soil for them to accept and adapt to the new medium.
@Hellraiser man, you did amazing for 14 days, great inspiration! Mine popped through the ground on Thursday, so am on day 6, not to bad, right?
Top one is bubble gum, bottom is Ak47. My first WW didnât germ, through another one in, and it just popped through this morning
@Zee, looks great for day 6, nice and healthy, keep doing what youâre doing, good job. Iâve grown all those strains over the years, Bubble gum and White Widow being a couple favorites. Iâve smoked so much Bubble Gum over that last 4 years that Iâm taking a break from it.
@Hellraiser, Great forum post. Love seeing your grow and learning from a seasoned grower. I hope you do not mind me hopping on for the duration. First time grower from the great state of Louisiana.
@LAnewgrower, he is! Am excited about trying his methods.
@Hellraiser, yes, much better in the natural light.
this hits home i have bugs in my grow and next time i will do all the things that are listed to prevent this thanks
Wow they are growing fast, that aero bucket with clones never seen one, would like to try clones someday, did you say youâre in happy frog? Nice healthy looking plantsđ
Yep, I only use Happy Frog.
The sprouts/clones really take off after I put them under the 400 watt metal halide, older tech but great tech for veg. The bulb Iâm using, only cost $12.99
Judging the weight of water in the solo cup
Should have made this post much earlier, but I smoke a lot of pot, so sue me.
If you just pick up the cup as you normally pick up a cup, the water weight in the cup will not be obvious, so try this method. Pick up the cup by the edge with just your thumb and forefinger (donât be a clumsy oaf and drop it) and swing it back and forth a little, it makes the water weight much more obvious, if it has water, you will feel the momentum of that weight in the little swings, if not much water weight, itâll feel almost like swinging an empty cup, try it with different moisture levels and get a feel for it.
When I watered my sprouts today, the clones did not get watered by doing the above cup swing. The sprouts had very little momentum weight, so got watered. The clones, while the cups looks dry, and many people would be tempted to water them, did not pass my cup swing test, felt some weight there, so they will wait til tomorrow for water. Donât fall for soil that appears dry.
Nice tip! I always struggled with solo cups getting too much water or not enoughđ