I never intended to go this far

[Hawk00]

Sooooo I am here and thankfully so. First and foremost thank you to anyone reading this and for all the wonderful advice given to all of the new gromies thus far! You all have been exceptional!

My adventure started with typical bag seed and a desire to see what would happen…two weeks prior my 9 year old son and I decided to grow a tomato vine on a whim…

Enter Non Green Thumb US Navy I can Do It Dad!!!

I found old potting soil in the garage
I found mom’s fancy plastic drink serving container
I found old fertilizer for hibiscus
I found a tomato in the refrigerator and we cut it into slices, filled mom’s fancy bucket with dirt and tomato slices, topped it off with more well fertilized she’d soil…watered it up and waited.

Two Weeks Later my kid lost interest and I now have about 70 tomato sprouts growing… pretty cool I thought…

Here is why I am here!!!
A new bag shows up and it happened to have 8 seeds! Whaaaaat??? I just grew a ton of tomatoes (ok not really but sprouts)…I can do this…so I did!

I planted 6 seeds in mom fancy but lonely tomato bucket just to see what would happen and they all sprouted!! Holy cow that is cool! So I waited and watched and started reading just trying to understand more about the process and what next. With everything I read, what I began to witness with growth both physical and mental, I became hooked and now I started paying more attention to these plants.

I began to understand male vs female and pulled them all from the community tomato pot and placed them into peat pot kits and put them in the sun and brought them in at night… totally messing up light cycles…
But who knew right? I was only just now reading about that in these wonderful journals.

I don’t exactly know how old they were when I placed into peat pots (2nd set of leaves).
I started with 6 and ended up with 4 and then one more had Mrs. Droopy syndrome and slowly passed away. The other two were boys trying to profess their manhood so they got kicked out. I am now down to one lovely lady but she is odd.

She is holding on strong but she had a rough child hood. Her lighting has been off and on as she was parked outside my patio door, moderate sun all day and house lights any other time.

I tried to purchase for my space and privacy and medical needs so I have since purchased a closet tent kit and am using it with her now 12/12.

Check this out at Amazon
Hydro Plus Grow Tent Completely Kit 36’‘x20’‘x63’’ Growing Tent+New Tech UFO LED 100W+4’’ Inline Fan Filter Kit for Indoor Growing Kit
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08F7BXBDQ/ref=cm_sw_r_u_apa_fabt1_F2xQFb4BHW9KF?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Again I’m not exactly sure the age but I know I placed the seed over 6 weeks ago. One day as she was sitting there short and cute like I noticed she was growing hairs so I began reading even more. I tried to hold off in hopes she would go back to veg but then hairs started turning orange and I decided to flip her from 18/6 to 12/12…nope didn’t stager or step her through it, I just flipped. I flipped last Wednesday and this is her today!

The picture doesn’t appear to load??

I transplanted into a 3gal fabric pot with Happy frog soil, phi’s 6.5-7, I ph my water and will water using my finger method coupled with a meter and lifting the pot.

I am using Bergman to feed and only last fed at flip using growtime phd to 6.7

I have read and continue to read and have fallen in love with the process and reward. I couldn’t throw her away even though she is so tiny. I haven’t done anything except try and let her grow.

Those are the rest of my pics but it doesn’t appear to upload.

She is short 4" and I don’t know what to do at this stage. She smells great but looks nothing like any of the other posts… remember she was never abused but but she had some stress. Yikes

[SKORPION]

Welcome ,I am glad to see you got the joy of growing. I am really not sure what to tell you to do, I have never had a plant go from seedling to flower completely skipping veg. However you should have a lot better results next time. Maybe @Covertgrower knows.

[Hawk00]

Thank you! It’s good to be around like minded people.
I did make a purchase and will play with WW, Bubble Gum, and AK47 once I learn more from this round. It has been fun so far!!

[Hawk00]

Maybe she was outside and it was a perfect medley of no inside lights on and 12 hrs of darkness? Old enough to flower but still too young to know better??

[Covertgrower]

@Hawk00

flip her from 18/6 to 12/12…

This is why she’s is the size she is. You could have continued 18/6 and allowed her to be larger. Welcome to the community, and hope your next grow is larger.

[Hawk00]

Then I messed up. She had white pistils all over and the top ones began turning orange. I freaked out thinking it would all get ruined so I flipped.

[Covertgrower]

That’s okay. It’s not a wrong way of doing it, just different. It won’t yield much, but you live, learn, and grow.

[pptrsha1]

happy cake day!!

[Hawk00]

Like my first born…poor fella

[Hawk00]

In an effort to see her to the end, do I just watch and feed at this point or should I remove bottom growth?

[Covertgrower]

I would continue feeding, but leave the bottom growth for now, unless it’s causing issues.

[pedally]

You, my person of interest, is/are in a fairytale state. keep us updated to see if you get a nug or two

[Holmes]

@Hawk00 Learn all you can from this one and your next grow will benefit from it! Welcome to ILGM forum, I think you will like it here!

[beardless]

What you did is a grow method called sea of green. The shortcoming was you just need a lot more plants. She is adorable.
Your introduction to growing is similar to many. My wife threw some seeds in a open garden bed and they grew. I became fascinated watching them through the summer. They were males so chopped them. By the end of that summer I had a indoor tent, lights etc. and ordered seeds from ILGM. I find the process rewarding and also challenging. Challenging in that you try to grow a better, stronger, healthier plant than before. Soils, nutrients, lights, training,… and so forth.
Sounds like you caught the bug too, so you are in a good place. Welcome.
You can check out what I have growing now at An auto, three photos and a clone

[Loneviking]

Yep, your plant is screwed up because of the lighting. But hey, that’s how you learn. I had two autos outside this year. Since they have a defined lifespan and were getting several hours of bright sunshine, I figured they’d be fine.
Nope. They got about as big as yours and went to flower. Now I know not to do that again!

Growing these plants is a real learning experience and it’s easy to get hooked on growing them.

[beardless]

@Loneviking

They got about as big as yours and went to flower

That is unusual. One of the key benefits of autos is to allow short grow period northern states’ growers to grow outdoors, My Jack Herer autos were loving it until they were infested with caterpillars. I waited too long before putting the insect cover over my frame. I would think it was either genetics or set out too early or late and not getting over 12 hours of light.

[Loneviking]

Yeah, I have a feeling that it was not enough light. They were getting about 11hours a day of high altitude sunshine. I thought that with the quality of light they’d be all right—-guess not! Live and learn.

Caterpillars? You need a garden toad and ladybugs—lots of ladybugs.

[beardless]

@Loneviking

garden toad and ladybugs

The ceramic garden toad did not do a very good job. The Asian beetle has wiped out our native lady bugs. I have not seen a true lady bug in years. Kind of like the spotted salamander. I have not seen one in our woods for quite some time.

[fano_man]

Got your self a stunted runt she wont get big but a nice 3 gram nug for your trouble wont be nothing more

[fano_man]

Yea you need 13+ to keep most photos outa flowering so they get to smdesired height thrn you drop to 12 or lower to inutatie flower