Chocolate Haze Indoors - First Grow

Welcome to my first grow journal! I’m super pumped. Initially I tried to grow a strawberry cough seed by Dutch passion, but never saw a taproot. Tried a few different measures to get her going, but nothing worked. Tossing her in a peat pot just in case. As for the star of the show, Chocolate Haze germinated almost overnight, taproot was nice and ripe within 2 days. I planted her in a jiffy pellet (which was soaked in water, squeezed out a bit, and then refilled with some diluted coffee). Another 2 days and she broke through the surface of the soil. The shell of the seed had kept the cotyledons closed until she was about 2 inches tall, so I carefully removed it. Another day and the cotyledons has unfolded to reveal two nice little true leaves, as well as a super strange brown growth on the tip of one of the cotyledons.... does anyone have any clue what this could be? I tried to VERY CAREFULLY poke it off, but couldn’t. Is this a problem that I need to remove? I scoured the Internet for answers and didn’t find anything. She seems to be growing just fine though? And she loved that coffee - I read that coffee has a good amount of nitrogen, potassium, magnesium, and is safe to use as a pH reducer (which was necessary thanks to the alkalinity of the jiffy pot) - and it seems like it was really effective! I plan on giving her more when I transplant. Last question, I’m currently using an old 70W LED that I had bought years ago for indoor gardening, but hoping to upgrade lights after I get a payout from a job I recently did. Anyone have any recommendations for ~$100?

Looks like she had a little too much coffee, the tips of the leaves have a slight burn from too much nitrogen. I've transplanted to a small solo cup, and watered a little extra to help the roots out. The solo cup had a mixture of peat moss, topsoil, and Fox Farms Happy Frog potting soil. I additionally fixed up my two inline fans and filter, the intake fan is pumping air in right at the stem to hopefully give it a little strength. She seems to be growing strong. Not much else to report. I am hoping to have enough growth within the next couple weeks to start some low stress training. Topping for the first time after that.

I didn’t realize you could detect smell so early! Yesterday evening, I went into the grow room and thought I detected the faintest smell of weed (which I’m a bit of a bloodhound for), and sure enough, when I leaned in and gave it a good whiff, her aroma is starting to show! That’s probably the most exciting news this week. I feel like I’m getting a better grasp on the watering cycle, and I also really need to get a new grow light because I feel my current light isn’t strong enough. But other than that, just waiting for a few more nodes to show up so I can top (which I am sort of dreading) and train. Slow and steady. She’s still looking a little sad from the nute overdose (and a little droopy because I let the cup dry out a bit too much), but we are on the road to recovery. By the time we get to the next pot, I’m sure she’ll be ready for more coffee!

Turned on the exhaust inline duct this week, that smell is starting to become more prevalent. Not super strong, but I’m playing it safe. Additionally, I felt that the new leaves were looking a little too yellow for comfort, so I did some research and I think my leaf coloration issues were due to a pH problem. I bought a second pH meter, and sure enough the first meter wasn’t reading accurately. I was at almost 8. So I flushed my soil with some pH adjusted water (used a couple drops of lemon juice) and brought it down closer to 7. Every watering since I’ve been using more pH adjusted lemon water, and she’s sitting closer to 6.5 now. Much happier looking leaves, nice and green. In a week or so I may try adding a teeny bit of fertilizer to see if it helps or hinders. When do you guys normally add your first batch of veg fertilizer? And is it better to wait longer before fertilizing if you’ve had nutrient problems (due to pH issues)? Still waiting for a payout on a recent job so I can get a light upgrade. The wait is killing me!

My poor bottom leaves :’( What am I doing wrong here? I thought the PH adjustment would help, maybe I need to go lower? This definitely seems like a nutrient problem to me, and I thought that was caused in this case by my pH, but it seems that after flushing and adjusting the problem continues. The new growth still looks great though, it’s just my bottom leaves. Should I just continue and ignore them? Or is there a continuing problem here? I plan to decrease the pH even more (still gradually), and maybe add a very small amount of water soluble fertilizer. If anyone has any advice here, it would be EXTREMELY appreciated.

It’s been a busy week! First, thanks to the advice given, I upgraded from a plastic cup to a 5 gal. bucket. I probably should have transitioned to something smaller first, but fuck it, decided to go all the way. How do you typically determine when it’s time to transfer btw? Anyway, she’s loving her new home already. Leaves started looking happier almost immediately. I also added more lemon juice to keep that ph down, and even gave her a teeny little bit of fertilizer (I think it was like a 30-15-12 mix or something). Next big item of business, I got my light upgrade. It’s a full spectrum 1800W COB LED. The difference is night and day. This light is far, far superior to the old light, and pictures don’t do it justice. I literally cannot look at the light when it’s on. Opening the tent is like walking out of pitch darkness into direct sunlight. Seriously, this is one bright fucking light. And little c. Haze seems to be loving it already. All the new changes have pushed growth pretty rapidly, and the smell is getting stronger every day. I’m hoping to do another baby dose of fertilizer next week, but this happy frog soil should also be providing some good nutes as well, so we will see how the new leaves look when they start unfolding. Last pic looks a little droopy, but I think that’s just because I misted the leaves a little too heavily (and the new light is keeping the tent quite a bit warmer than it used to be, so maybe that is a contributing factor?). My goal for the coming week is to setup a little homemade CO2 generator to help her take advantage of all the new light. Any advice from anyone? Am I doin alright? As always, constructive criticism is extremely welcome!

Good week so far. This plant is looking much healthier. Yellow veins are less prevalent, it’s outgrowing it’s red stem, leaves are starting to get pretty big, and it seems to stand taller during daytime hours. I added some calcium and magnesium rich fertilizer (something called rootblasted I think?) that I picked up from a local grocery store, and have been giving a slow drip of my water soluble nitrogen heavy fertilizer as well (twice a week, and some very light foliar feeding as well). The pH is adjusted with every watering, still just using lemon juice. As shown in the pictures, growth has picked up quite drastically! Maybe this grow won’t take a year after all? As always, advice and constructive criticism are encourage!!!