Wow! My first grow! And its in a greenhouse!

[bythesea]

I’m really kind of excited about this. I’ve wanted to grow for a very long time, and now its legal here in Cali. I ordered Blue Berry auto and Gold Leaf seeds from ILGM. While I waited for the seeds, I put up one of those aluminum framed, poly-carbonate greenhouses.

I’ll be growing in containers, using potting soil.

I put 5 BB seeds and 2 GL seeds in water to germinate, and let them set for 1 1/2 days. Before I soaked the seeds, I could tell them apart. So I soaked them together. Now I can’t tell them apart. Well, it’ll be interesting to see if I can tell them apart once they start growing. After 1 1/2 days of soaking, all the seeds started germinating, the hulls were split and I could see the little root poking out. Into the potting soil they go. That was last Sunday morning. (June 11)

In retrospect, I think they ended up a little deeper than 1/4" at planting, but I think it will be okay. I moved the pots to the greenhouse, where I run to check on them at least 4 times a day. There are stairs involved, so I’m getting exercise too. Did I mention I’m excited? The greenhouse is on the opposite side of the house from the garden, where my tomato plants have a spider mite invasion. Last year it was flea beetles, horn worms and grasshoppers. Oh, lets not forget the snails. I am getting the upper-hand on the spider mites. They are a fact of life here, they live in the oak trees.

We’re having a bit of an early season heat wave, and the greenhouse was hot. Worried that the little seedlings would roast, I dug out some shade cloth to cover the greenhouse, and converted some of the greenhouse panels to screens. That helped. I brought an irrigation line down to the greenhouse and set up a drip system. I’ll be away for a few days, so I’m worried about things drying out. I’m also worried about over watering. But the pots have good drainage. I think everything will be okay for the next few days.

Just this morning (June 15), 2 of the seedlings are up and a third will be up tomorrow. I’ve put plastic water bottle ‘domes’ over the planted seeds to help protect them from munching monsters. I’m hoping they’ll all be up and thriving by the time I’m back Sunday night.

Thanks, I’m happy to be learning and cultivating! (post edited to include dates)

[bob31]

Welcome to ILGM Forums @bythesea I love what your doing there! I hope i can convince you to post some pictures?

Sounds good! The Gold Leaf will be twice the size of the BBA in about a week. that is how you will know the difference!

Coincidence, I’m also growing BBA and GL!

[bythesea]

Well thank you, @bob31. Maybe the Gold Leaf seeds were the first 2 to pop up. I have 4 seedlings up now, and hoping to catch sight of the rest soon. Here are some baby pictures.

This is the first sprout. Its either GL or BBA. Its all good either way.

Belt and suspenders. The babies are in the greenhouse, and under plastic bottle domes. I’m a little paranoid about munching monsters.

[jeffro]

You could maybe try some squash from seed. planted as a decoy. I have mice in my greenhouse, They will definitely munch on the squash starts. And squash germinates quickly so you could know by next week if you have pest issues. Then if you do those sonic noise emitters work great for getting them to vacate. It takes a week for them to work though.

[miller97]

Nice set up!

[bythesea]

Hey @jeffro, thanks for the tip!

[bythesea]

Thank you @miller97, its working well so far…

[bythesea]

June 21 update

The 4 babies that are up look healthy to me. I’m still hopeful the other 3 will make an appearance. I’ve noticed that 2 of the seedlings have narrower leaves and stockier stems, and the other 2 have wider leaves and thinner stems. Maybe this is indicates 2 GL and 2 BBA? My first grow, so I don’t really know if its possible to tell?

I want the plants to have more light, so I’ve set up the shade cloth so I can fold it and unfold it over the green house roof. Here is my green house with the shade cloth. I use bungee cords hooked into eye-bolts in the 4x4s to keep things from blowing away when those ocean breezes kick up. I increased ventilation by popping the top door panel out, (that came after this picture) and putting in a screen. I had some window screen material on hand (thank you dogs) and attached it to the aluminum frame with adhesive backed velcro. Later, I can put the plastic panel back in, and remove the screen or leave it in.

[bythesea]

The four babies continue to do well. They grow so fast!

Sadly, still no sign that any of the other three are coming up. A lost cause. Too much heat and water, and unfortunate timing. Well, live and learn.

[miller97]

They seem doing really good!

[bythesea]

Thank you @miller97.

I made what I guess is a rookie mistake, and fed the babies just a few drops of fish emulsion in about a pint of water. I thought that such a tiny amount couldn’t possible do any damage, but I was wrong. One of the girls started showing signs of leaf burn the late the next day. I flushed the soil, then flushed it once more a day later. She’s going to make it, but I think it slowed her growth a little.
This is from 4 days ago.

This is from today.

Here are the other girls. They have such wide leaves!

Tomorrow I leave town for almost 2 weeks. I’ve given my husband instructions on what to do while I’m gone. I sure hope everything goes okay.

err… some of my pictures are sideways. I don’t know how to fix that, sorry.

[bob31]

cropping the pics a little will do the trick. Sideways pics means they are too big. Great looking grow @bythesea

[bythesea]

I’m back, and the plants look like they’ve been growing well. I’m so happy!

Now its time to transplant. A local soils company has a ‘medical plant mix’, so I’m off to get a pickup truck load. I didn’t have access to the forums while I was away, I’m looking forward to getting caught up on how everyone else is doing.

[bythesea]

Dirty, happy hands!
Things I learned today. A cubic yard of planter mix is two, maybe three times what I actually needed. But, that’s okay, the raised bed veggie garden will benefit. And I still have extra soil, stored in plastic trash cans. So maybe the next grow will benefit as well.

In addition to the ‘medical plant mix’, I added a transplant solution to the water, and soil acidifier to the dirt. I’m sure the soil is fine, but our water source is very alkaline. While the plants were still small and in small pots, I could water with our filtered drinking water, but that isn’t practical now with the bigger pots. The pots are likely 20-25 gallon size, but I don’t know for certain, other than bigger than 15 gal size.

Here are the happy plants, after transplant;

Here’s how the roots looked on a couple;

Three of them are showing the little white thready things, pistils? Two of them look a little leggy to me, is it too late to do anything? Or maybe now that they have their big girl pots, things will spread out some?

The shade cover is back over the top of the greenhouse for at least tomorrow and possibly the next day depending on weather conditions. Right now, the plants all look happy and strong, and transplanting went smoothly. Here’s hoping that they look just as great in the morning.

Edit to add: Today is day 36 from sprouting. Three of the plants started flowering while I was away, so I don’t know the exact date. There were definitely pistils there yesterday. Based on the flowering, I’d guess those 3 are my BBa, and the one that isn’t flowering is my GL.

[bob31]

The GL will most likely be larger as well @bythesea

They are looking great! It does look like they stretched a little. Maybe they need a little more light?

And I like that “Medical Mix” That should last you for quite awhile!

If you whnt us to use the zoom to look at anything, post one pic per post and we can use the zoom function. It works great!

[bythesea]

Roger that, @bob31, thank you for the advice.

The plants might’ve stretched a little. I had the front half of the greenhouse under a shade cover while I was gone, in case of heat wave. Figured I’d rather deal with stretched than toasted. Two days after transplant now, and everything looks good, so the shade is off. I don’t know if its related but before transplant, 2 of the girls were planted in short (4" tall) 6" pots, and two in tall (6" tall) 6" pots. The two plants in the tall pots grew about 4-5" taller (stretched) than the short pots.

What I’m trying to decide now, is should I start another set of plants? I have more seeds of both the BBa and the GL and plenty of soil, but do I have sufficient daylight here in So. Cal? I guess the autoflowers will do their thing, no matter what, but what about the GL. We have a long growing season here, I’m getting ready to plant some late season corn, would it be wise to germinate more seeds? I think I’ve just about talked myself into it.

[bythesea]

BBa baby

[bythesea]

Update! Aug 16

I could use a little advice.

Thing are growing well. Looks like the BBa’s are getting close to harvest time, but can any one give me an estimate as to how much longer before I should harvest? This picture was taken yesterday, and this plant appears to have the most amber pistils.

I ask because I’ll be out of town for a week, I don’t want to come back and find I let things go too long. Edit to add: Based on sprouting date, tomorrow is week 9. I guess things are right on track.

The GL is growing well, and now pistils are showing at the nodes. I’ll post that pic later. I love going into the greenhouse and sniffing the buds on the BBa’s. Does anybody else do that? I love that smell!

Since these plants were transplanted late, once they’d already entered the flowering stage, I’ve wondered if they’d of gotten bigger if they were transplanted earlier. So I germinated 3 more BBa’s on July 26th. Only one survived, because I messed up. But that one is doing well and at 2 weeks after sprouting I transplanted her into a 15 gal pot. Just to see if the results are different. So far she’s making great progress.

Which leads me to another question. I’m growing in a greenhouse, in coastal So. Cal. Would it be possible to grow autoflowers through the winter? Nighttime temps in Dec, Jan, and even Feb will drop into the low 40s, and we do see frost sometimes. But maybe the greenhouse is enough protection?

Well, I meant to post more often, but this has been one busy summer for me. Probably not an ideal time to start my learning curve as a grower, but I didn’t want to wait.

Thanks in advance!

[GetbackJoJo]

First off, your girls are looking very very good! Sounds like you were very close to being finished.

I would certainly think in Southern California you could grow all year. Your temperatures are not that far off from where I am at, and I am planning to grow during winter. May need a small space heater at some point.

[bob31]

you have time @bythesea The pistils are showing lots of white, but it’s the trichomes that we need to watch and based on the pistils they are still clear.

First how old from sprout is she and how long since first pistils?

You need a jewelers loupe or a strong magnifier

The pictures are clear trichomes, milky trichomes and amber trichomes. You will want a great deal to be at least milky.