beginner grow

week 3 pretty much same as week 2, everything looks really healthy and is vegetating nicely, not sure there is anything else I can do. I had a go at making a co2 generator but have not mastered it yet, they reckon up to 20 days, I am managing 2 to 3 days and its spent, not sure what I am doing wrong but will master it, I am using sodium bicarbonate and citric acid in separate containers and a co2 kit bought off eBay.

For some reason I cant find my nutrient in the list but I am now here...COCO A and COCO B (20ml of each per 5L) , CAL mag I did get some starter stuff for the coco, it turns out to be mealworm shells or something equally bizarre.....hmmm, its a minefield... End of week 4. Everything was put into coco and clay pebble bags yesterday, I had some light yellowing of the leaves before transplant and wondered if it was the process of switching pots that did it. Nah, fucked up my nutrients is all, 10ml should have been 20ml p/L so I was under feeding them. I have a few thoughts though so here goes, feel free to answer or comment or message... I was told this week that coco was a medium sold to inexperienced growers, allows no flavor, doesn't hold nutrients correctly and I should think about aeroponics instead, can I take out my babies and change them to aeroponic now or should I persist with what I have, but if I do persist, should I add some soil to my coco and pebble mix? I am hand watering 500ml with feed every other day (5Gal cloth bags) or when I deem the bags to be dry enough 2-3 days.!! its chilly in there but managed to bring up the temperature a bit today with a new cellotex(similar brands are available) house inside the shipping container around the bud box, but not the door, the outcome was I used 6 sheets, one top, one bottom, one left, right, back and far right of full 8 x 4 sheets, all upright sheets cut supported off floor sheet (full width and length) and under ceiling sheet to hold it up. Figure I can get some flexible aluminum multi layer foil backed stuff to use as a drape door, its pretty quiet and off the beaten track here so not much chance of anyone nosing around, more for me to keep the heat and light in and control the environment a bit better. My bud box has a Zeus 300w led light set and now I have created a small germination/seed/ flowing room ( to the side of the bud box with the extra 1200mm of cellotex) see photos., I might put my old HID in there and use my spare fan as a remover of heat into my bud box (to bring up the temp a bit)? and out through the carbon filter. sounds like a plan, Does that make sense??? I do think and having done sone homework on it, that I do like the look of the aeroponics and will likely try this as my next attempt if I don't swap out all of what I have, it seems like a no brainer and talking to a few already, better yield, better quality product...

Wow, It was f*&$£$n freezing this last 2 weeks, last week I made a cellotex house for my grow tent as its in a cold container indoors but outdoors. It worked a treat, inside temperature was a good 5deg warmer. but I did have major issues last week, yellowing on leaves, burning on a few tips, and as this is my first serious attempt at this (last year I grew 2 clones, easy he says, got 4 oz dry was well happy) I was all over the place, but I stuck to my principals and changed one thing at a time and monitored daily. From seed to sprout really has been 3 weeks in total, I ran them on ph balanced water but no feed, week 4 they went into 5l cloth bags and clay pebbles and coco and had half feed (all of this has been decided based on what I have seen online or been recommended). Now seeing as I don't have a dripper system and am hand watering its a fine balance between giving them too much or not enough, I had the lights at the wrong height and managed to mess up the feed ratio the first 2 feeds but I think th major problem was light burn, the Zeus 300w is a really powerful light compared to my sodium, I mean, visually its bright, I have now moved it up to 24" turned it down a notch or two and balanced out the feed, they all seem to getting better, I found a random sprout, I don't know where the hell it came from, I think there was an extra seed in my seed pack, winner, but she is struggling you can see it in the tiny pot on my images. Well, they are growing, not as quick as I thought they would, I look at other peoples photos and mine seem tiny compared to some, maybe something is wrong in my setup, maybe they got a better camera than my phone, I don't know, learning curve this one. I have ordered an aeroponic system for my next attempt, I did ponder moving this lot, but figure the tank, pump and pipe work should be super clean, so don't want to go anywhere near it with coco fibres attached to the roots.

Wow, been chasing my arse on these babies, obviously not all 8 ball, but thats all I am focussing on for this diary, I may add further dairies, but tbh the photos and the chat would be the same, needless to say, they are growing slowly, they are all either hybrid or indica, which I know from research are short and bushy, which is cool as I have 9 in my 1m tent. I think I managed to correct my light and nutrient issues over the past few weeks and started to LST. The main stalks on my plants are about 20mm thick and the root systems are poking out of the new pots I put them in a few weeks ago, I did state them in cloth bags, but.... couldn't monitor run off as the bag was retaining too much liquid, as my medium is clay pebbles and coco the water I do give them seems to just run straight through, I have had to water at 250ml twice a day when I choose to feed, watering twice a week, once with PH balanced and once with feed. I have been adding calmag at a rate of 2ml per litre when I do feed, on top of coco A and B. I have my carbon filter attached to my external fan and if I leave this off there is soooo much moisture in my tent, its almost raining, so I have to keep my fan on permanently, as well as my tower fan to help strengthen the plants, the result of that is the average temperature is around 20deg.

Not a lot to say about the week, bought an aero kit for my spare room, so when I built my cellotex house around my 1m tent I was left with a new room of approximately 1200mm2. So thought I would make use of this and start an aeroponic grow, please have a look at my other diary. I planted all the rest of my free seeds I got when I ordered the seeds for this grow, have Skywalker cookies, Girl Scout cookies and Dr lemon by Dr Ray. Lets see how we get on. Oh, Just a footnote, I have been checking my water quality and levels, generally I fill a 5L container and leave to stand for a few days before using it in front of my radiator, primarily to reduce chlorine but also to heat the water up a fraction so I am not going my babies a cold shower, they are getting a tropical downpour.. Generally sticking to 5.5-6.5 for my PH levels, which I check before I add notes, usually the notes bring it down a fraction more so I normally aim for between 6 and 6.5, by the time I add nutrients it knocks it back down to 5.5-6. I am sure this is different for every nutrient mix so please check your own and don't blindly follow the blind...x

Hey, missed a couple of week there, this is week 11 and I flipped them at week 9, not a lot to say, they were doing their thing and I was taking off huge fan leaves to prevent shading, so my theory seems to be working, I have pretty much managed to stress the plants almost every week since the beginning, be that wrong feed schedule, overwatering, wrong nutrient mixes, incorrect light position, good god its been a roller coaster. lmao. They are all indica so will be short and bushy, if it wasn't for the constant trimming they would be wild, I leave them for a day or two and its like jurassic park in the tent. I did buy a new 600w HPS with new ballast as the 2nd hand one I had was running mega hot and the lamp too, the new kit seems to be doing its job, I think I need to stop faffing for a while and let them get on with it, upping the nutrients in line with the canna feed schedule, gotta love canna. I continue to LST as I go, The more I can stretch the branches down to the same levels the more evenly I think it should flower, there will be no dominant main stem as the were filmed and trimmed and also they are all set around the same height so I am hoping I can fool them into thinking they are all main stems. and I am pondering lolipopping them as I dont see any point in leaving on branches that barely get any light..continuing the stressing, but only once a week. the plants seem to be thriving, this also should put all their energy into the main cola's.

The photos show a span of two weeks, so they may not be in order. Who said this shizzle was easy.... man have I had a stressed out grow, as its my first I have invariably made loads of errors, but I finally now start to see flowers forming, the plants all look healthy though with a nice field of green, i think due to the cold, a bit of overwatering and general lack of knowledge I will be happy if I can get my money back for my investment on equipment. The plants have gone through changes in this last 2 weeks though, as they were trained to remain small ahem, (overtrimmed), lol, at the beginning of the two weeks I was having problems trying to LST them, the main branches were so thick and short that I could barely bend anything in fact breaking several smaller stems, ffs, but over the course of the fortnight they grew sufficiently to allow me to bend more easily, I have tried to LST consistently just to try to keep the canopy at the same height. I downloaded the Canna feed schedule for my respective setup and am gonna try to stick to that a bit tighter. According to my diary I have about 5 weeks left until the end so I am really interested to see what I end up with, I try to glean information out of the guys at my local grow shop, is like getting blood out of a stone and when you do, the difference in opinion is so vast lol. I have tried to not over water, I have tried to measure my nutrient perfectly, I have checked my PH consistently, I have bought a ppm meter, I have monitored daily and I guess the reward is seeing what comes at the end. I have cracked a few new seeds too, going to persist with this as I am enjoying the process, 3 blueberry OG and 3 purple lemonade, all auto flower, thought I would try to make my life a bit easier, only 6 plants next time, the are already at sprout height, single shoot, small green leaves, 2 weeks I think. 9 was optimistic last time, I have had to keep everything small and seriously trimmed to stop it taking over, I have lots of bud sites all the same level now and will continue to train as such, possibly introducing some HST towards the end, but going forward I am seriously thinking about a Wilma dripper system or super soil, according to the guys on my fav shop "The super soil is wicked yeah, you just plant it, water it and you don't need anything else and its natural", " The Wilma system is the nuts, it just drip feeds your shit constant, innit". I am blessed as much as I take the piss that we do get on and as time has progressed they are all too happy to show me photos of their grow on the phone, I gotta say, impressive, both the Wilma and the super soil method, I don't want to be greedy, I just want to make my life as easy as possible whilst enjoying the process of growing. I can get 2 super soil container in my tent, maybe 3 but at a recommended 45l about £42 for pot and soil assuming nothing else required, no nutrients etc,,,, it don't matter what size the pots or how many its all based of wattage per metre anyway so makes no difference other than to the judge..... Check in soon........

week 14. Week 6 of flower. I feel like I really stressed my babies out at the start, but they are bouncing back nicely, one thing I learned is less is more, I mean I planted 9 seeds and tending nine plants has been a pain in the arsenal and seeing that the yield is governed by the size of tent x W then it makes no difference if I have 9 or 4, so next time I am doing 4 in each room and making my life easier. according to my diary I should be due to flush in 3 weeks time but looking at the heads I don't think so, I think I have another 5 weeks before I flush, they have taken ages in the tent but I did have the cold weather to contend with not so long ago.