First Timer w/ GG#4, by i49

This was a pretty bad week with lots of problems that arouse due to a few factors that I had identified and fixed, over time, but really shouldn't have happened in the first place. I feel it was a mixture of being new to growing, impatience and lack of intuition that lead me to this point but after a full week of remedies and fixing my errors the plants bounced back. During this time, however, I feel I lost at least 3 weeks of Veg from all this stress and stunting. Here is a list of mistakes I made, compounding into much larger ones: 1. Used too tall of a germination/seedling cup (Solo) and instead of filling it only 2/3's or half I filled it to the top. The cup is about 6.5 inches high and the pots I potted up too were only 7.5" in depth. No room for the roots to grow and they bound QUICKLY. No longer filling past 2/3's to leave tapping room and also room to shore up stems if need be. 2. I know plastic pots can be fine, but the 1.57G plastic pots were wider then they were tall w/ very, very poor aeration. With improper watering (non-localized) I quickly saturated the medium with no roots to take it up. Now we are root bound and drowning...plants are not looking good. 3. Under-conditioned soil. When I opened the bag of Ocean Forest I knew something was off. It was hard as a brick and didn't fluff out when I cut the bag. I've seen and used this soil before and it wasn't right...so I used it anyway!(Not smart. Needed to pitch it). Anyways, it was not conditioned properly and I didn't take the steps necessary in adding perlite or other, to loam up the soil and make it so it didn't hold on to every bloody drop of water I gave. Now we're drowning, bound and the soil is too dense to give up water or let new lateral roots to tap into...easily at least. 4. At this point I have not watered the girls for over 8 days! since they won't take up any water but have taken the nutrients from it. Now there is a clear Cal-mag and phosphorous deficiency with a Nitrogen one on the way. But I can't feed or I'll compound the problem. I felt like there was no turning back and I had essentially failed and killed these girls off, or at least it was only a matter of days or a week. Was told by other growers I know to pitch them and try again. That it was only losing a few weeks and it would be better to just give er another go. I actually did agree with them but felt sick about terminating them when nothing that happened is or was their fault. I did this and I was responsible for it. From a non grower, I was told this. (verbatim)"If you want to be a real farmer and you want to truly learn the horticulture, the remedies and the propagation of cannabis, you don't get to cut and run. A real farmer accepts his mistakes and will do everything in their power to remedy those mistakes until the bitter end. If the crop still fails the farmer cannot be faulted for not trying. A farmer can be faulted if they cut and run without an attempt and this isn't true growing. Many farmers don't have the choice to cut and run, either. For them, their crop is their livelihood and to lose it would be devastating. So, even if you're not a true cannabis farmer yet, act like your crop is your livelihood and that it must be saved and/or maintained at any cost. In future you won't hesitate to fix your mistakes and be far more willing to accept and remedy them". There was more to what he said, but this is the long and short of it. I didn't listen to my grower buddies/acquaintances and took the advice to at the very least, try and be a real farmer and fix my mistakes. Remedies and Fixes used until Positive results: 1. Drilled numerous extra holes in bottom of plastic pots with a fan pointing into the pan and rebounding back up in an attempt to pull some of the water from the soil. Damaged roots while doing, but no choice. Result: Didn't work. Still no proper aeration and the girls stayed water logged. 2. Took 2" of top soil off the pot and replaced with highly conditioned Dutch Treat potting soil in another attempt to aerate the lower half a bit better. Result: Didn't work. Improved Aeration and dissipated moisture but I'm still root bound and semi-water logged w/ deficiencies. 3. No choice but to transplant. I knew fully that no matter what I did at this point, it wasn't going to fix all the problems I had. Time to do an emergency pot up. Purchased x4, 3 gallon fabric geopots and moved them quickly. Should have done this first. Result: It worked and again, should have been my first course of action ( You live you learn). Soil dried and I was finally able to tackle my deficiency problem now. The girls got a balanced micro/grow/bloom w/ cal-mag treatment as soon possible and both visible deficiencies subsided or halted within 2 days. GG#4, plant #1 became the runt here. The cal-mag deficiency pulled most the chlorophyll from a few of it's main fan leaves and eventually I had to cut them when they started to dry up and furl. This did fix them up. After a week or so the bound roots started to make their way into the fresh 3.5 inches of soil, deficiencies dropped, color came back in full and the speedy Vegetative growth was back in full swing. #1 just stayed a little smaller with a noticeably smaller main stem. I don't care, I was very happy and felt like a good farmer for not giving up and pitching them. At the time of this retro-active Veg diary, my plants are 4 days away from the chop w/ what looks like a very healthy, abundant and potent crop. To think if I was to abandon them like I had planned, I'd never get to see them in all their glory today. DON'T GIVE UP! IT'S NOT OVER UNTIL IT'S OVER!