Hi all! I’ve been scouring this forum for weeks soaking up as much information as I could as I prepared my first grow! I finally got my seeds in today and started the germination process. I soaked them for 12 hours and 4/5 of them sunk, and then I moved them to the paper towel method where hopefully they will pop soon. I chose a nice Sour Diesel auto strain. I’ll be planting them in 3 gallon fabric pots with a 30/70 mix of FF OF/HF, with happy frog being at the top because I heard the OF is too “hot” to plant directly into, so it should give the plants a little boost later down the line once the roots get there. As I also understand I won’t be having to use any nutrients on the soil for about 4-6 weeks until the runoff PPM goes below 1000. I’m still debating on which nutrients I would like to go with. I’m contemplating between the Fox Farms Nutrients, Jacks 321, or the Bergman nutrients. I’m leaning more towards the Jacks/Bergmans. My tap water PH is a little high at 7.4 so I’ll be adding ph down to the water until I start needing to give nutrients, and then I’ll see what the PH is in my feed solution and take it from there, but that’s down the line. I guess my first question would be, is it worth it to pre water your soil before putting the seeds in? If so, how much should I water each 3 gallon pot for the pre soak? Any other tips or anything would be greatly appreciated! I’ll start posting pics once I get to the seedling stage. Let me just be the first to say before anyone even reads this… TY FOR THE HEARTY WELCOME!!!
Welcome to forum Jilli 
Welcome to the community FF soils will not need nutrients for 4to 5 weeks so you have some time to decide on nutes
Which nutrients do you prefer
Hey @Jilli
Welcome to the forum.
I have used several nutrient lines and Jacks 321 is the easiest and works fine without the need for anything additional. Later on if you want you can try adding different things along with the Jacks, but you can do just fine with Jacks only.
On pre watering the soil, yes. I dampen the soil completely for a couple hours to make sure its all moistened. You don’t want sopping wet, just moistened. If you can take a handful and squeeze it with no dripping then its fine. It should hold together if it has enough water in it. If it falls apart in your hand after a good squeeze then its too dry. A seed planted in dampened soil wont need water for several days. The roots will grow fast. You will want to add 10 to 20% more perlite to the soil too. I skipped this on my current grow and have regretted it. The plants are growing ok but are a little stunted from the soil density. Cannabis likes looser soil.
There are a couple sellers on Ebay that have smaller kits of Jacks that you can get and try it out.
Update: all five seeds have popped and I’ll be transplanting them into their 3 gallon pots this evening!
I don’t have any perlite on hand but the best I can do right now is pick out some of it from the leftover soil and put it on top of the pots. Do you think it’s worth doing that?
I also did the pre soak and my runoff is coming out around 5.5 ph. I’ve read that people are always fighting the PH levels on FF soil so maybe for now should I keep my tap water ph at 7.4 until the runoff starts coming out at 6.2-6.5? And then when my runoff is where it needs to be then start using ph down to get my tap to 6.5? What do y’all think is best
@Jilli that is what i was going to suggest. Also you might wanna set out a bucket of water you plan on using and let it sit for 24 to dissipate any chlorine.
Makes sense I think I’m going to buy like a five gallon jug thing that has a release at the bottom so i can fill it up and let the water sit for a bit and it’ll also be way easier when watering lol
Welcome to the community stick around .
Update: planted the seeds here’s my first pic even though there’s nothing really to see right now lol
I have a humidifier going right now and it’s telling me the humidity in the cabinet is around 85%. Should I take the humidity domes off in this case? I have a humidifier as well that keeps it above 70 at all times
I would leave the domes on, misting inside of them to create food for the little ones.
Sounds good they’re staying on for now but I might take them off after they all sprout since my humidity is around 80 in my setup. Although if you don’t think even that is a good idea then LMK.
The seeds have been in the soil for about 18 hours now, with my DLI averaging 12-14 across all plants for now. That’s around the correct DLI to have for seedlings right? I’m going to leave the lights on until about 6pm Est and then start on an 18/6 light cycle. On average how long can I expect to see a little stem pop out
Did you put the seeds directly in dirt? Did you sprout the seed first?
They were germinated before hand they all popped and had a little tail before I put them in
You should see sprouts any time from now to a week. Depending on several things. Depth, Strain, position of seed in dirt, etc…