A novices grow diary

[Billynoshoes]

This is my third crop, the first was quite succesfull, well I was happy with it and it’s kept me happy since. The second crop is on week 3+1/2 and looks like it’s going to be a bit of a failure compared to the first. So with this third go, I thought I’d start a dairy in which I could say what action I’m going to take next, a few days before I actually do it and hopefully you good people will jump in before I make any drastic mistakes. I was also hoping you might offer some guidence and advice. Don’t want much do I ?

As you can see I’ve got 8 plants in the veg room .

The three larger ones are white widow clones, which rooted between 4 and 8 days ago. They spent a couple or 4 days in smaller pots in an equal mix of pearlite and Innes no1 compost. They’ve just been repotted into a mix of equal measures of John innes no2 compost, clay pebbles and worm castings.
The five smaller ones are feminized AK48 they sprouted about 4 days ago and are in the same innes no1 compost and pearlite.
Neither has had any additives in the mix or and food. They’ve been getting tap water which after 24 hours standing has a PH of about 7.7.
I’ve been using PH down for veg and taking that figure to about 5.7 be before using it.
Me next step will be to water the smaller ones and repot those into the same mix the larger ones are in.
I’m hoping to get the WW into the flower room asap, I was going to give them 2 or 3 weeks in these pots before moving them up to 11inch pots.
Should I start getting the soil mix ready now, I 've got loads of stuff to go in it. I’ll work out how much mix I’m going to need and a recipe tomorrow and let you know.
One question though. If let’s say I need to make a 4 gallon mix, so a third worm casting, a third clay pebbles and a third sphaguam moss, then the recipes say so much of this ingrediant per gallon and so many tb spoons of that ingrediant, would that gallon be the whole mix after the pebbles and moss are added or would it be just for per gallon of worm castings or compost used?

So help the novice get a decent crop.

[Purple-N-Hairy]

@Billynoshoes, it might be helpful if you could post pics and tell us a bit about the issues you’ve had with your 2nd crop that you have going now. It might also be helpful if you could describe your growing environment, including size, light(s), ventilation, temps, humidity and even construction (for identifying possible light leaks).

As for what you’re showing us now, your plants look healthy and happy. I’m not familiar with your “soil recipe”, but it seems to be working for now.

Oh, and for doing math for what you need to add, your clay pebbles (Hydroton), it is completely inert and is not very good at absorbing moisture/nutrients - so remove it from your calculations.

Looking forward to your updates!

[Billynoshoes]

@Purple-N-Hairy

Hi
The recipe of mix they’re in now was sort of made up on the spot by what I had available at the time.
The veg light is a 250 compact fluorescent, its a small room and I leave the curtain up all day to help with air movement. At the moment I can’t tell you what the humidity or temp is in there but I will be able to soon.
The flower room is 3+1/3 x 3+1/3 ft Sq x 7ft high.
It’s home made against a interia corner from timber found in skip and old curtains. It works, There’s a 100w fan sucking into a carbon filter outside the room with a 4" diameter flexi hose joining it from the top of the room. There’s also 2 x 5 inch 3w solor powered fans at about 2ft high. The room has excellent ventilation, you can hold a spliff about 3 inches outside the room at 1 inch high and you can see the smoke getting sucked into the middle and then up.
It’s lit with a 600 w digital all spectrum light, though this can be powered up or down to 660w to 200w.

[Purple-N-Hairy]

OK, it sounds like temps aren’t a problem atm, but I personally worry more about humidity in my flowering room than temps. Although you’re moving a lot of air, if the air you’re recycling is humid, your room would be humid. High humidity in your veg room is fine.

Is it possible your flowering room has light leaks? If so, they aren’t catastrophic, but they are problematic and practically guarantee that you’ll get hermies.

Again, it would be helpful if you could post pics of your current grow that’s having issues. If you also happen to have some pics of your first grow, which you were happy with, you should post them, too.

BTW - which pH adjuster are you using?

[ifish]

The clay balls are taking up valuable pot space : )

[Billynoshoes]

Hi
I’ll get some photos of the ones in flower in daylight tomorrow and post them. I think the humidity will be quite low. The flower room is built in a back room , 1/2 above ground and 1/2 below. It doesn’t have any windows. When the light is off it pitch black in there.
I reckon it’s more than likely me that’s done the plants in, being to heavy handed with things, I can think of at least 4 things that might have stressed them out. They were fine when the transferred to the flower, lovely healthy green fast growing babes. Then for some reason I watered them with some water I’d had moss soaking in over night. I did this without checking either the ppm or PH, mainly because I didn’t have meters at the time.
Or it could be the mix that there in, its in thirds again and is John innes no3, moss and pearlite with quite a few things mixed in, blood n bone, volcanic ash, lime, kelp the list goes on.
The last thing I reckon it could be is too much molasses and not enough food, in the first two weeks of flowering.
They’re quite light green and with out any big fan leaves. They look like they couldvr been good plants, thick trunks and branches, they’re just the wrong colour and looked stressed.
The ph down I use in the flower stage is called vitalink PH down.
Like I say I’ll throw some pics up tomorrow

[Billynoshoes]

Thanks for that I’ll just use in bottom of pot for drainage in future. Is there anything I could use instead, apart from pearlite, the reason being I have a shared garden were I can lose loads of compost and worm castings even moss but pearlite stands out like a shore thumb.

[anon81143130]

The perlite is pretty important for proper drainage. If your plants roots dont drain they cant breath. They need the oxygen to grow and a poor root system will lead to a sad plant. I would monitor your humidity in the veg room. It’s a balancing act with temps and humidity. You run your fans to lower temp and likely your humidity will drop as well unless your pulling is humid air

[Billynoshoes]

I have got a greenhouse thermometer that’s tells humidity, on route. I reckon I may be wrong about the humidity here though, outside the average monthly relative humidity is over 80. So maybe it is quite humid. Who wouldve thought that hay. And I’ll go back on pearlite when I pot up the plants in the veg room.

[Jhentz]

Looking good man

[Billynoshoes]

Nice one, mate

[MidwestMover]

Your hydroton rock is fine for an aeration substitute for perlite. I use lava rock in my outdoor bags. You may just need some bottled fertilizer for the last bit of the plants life. The soil may have been running out of nutrients.

[Billynoshoes]

Nice one,
I quite like the reusability of the pebbles,

[Billynoshoes]

Well, just been thrown into shock. How to make yourself look a total knob on the internet, its not the first time, I can assure you.
I’ve just carried some plants into the front room from the grow room, put em down in front of the window and thought “fuck me they’re quite green” not what I was expecting, theyre very light green yellow in the grow room.
They fucking look even better in the photos, the bastards.

Hopefully you can see there’s something up with them, they’re not right. They’ve lost too many leaves for 3.5 weeks in flower, the taller one still looks off colour in daylight. The shorter one less so.

[Billynoshoes]

Here are, some of my metal detecting finds

[Billynoshoes]

The food I’m using is Miracle Gro, grow your own, liquid fertiliser, 100% natural ingredients. It two quid a litre, looks good thinks me, I’ll give it a go and it’s seems sound stuff.
After reading me other thread about molassess I’ve come to the conclusion that its more than likely made from molassess and some form of manure.
So I’ve been adding molasses to a molasses based food.
Doh

[Shadey]

You certainly have got a bit of treasure there, what country are you in. There is a comedy tv series in the UK called The Detectorists, it’s also on prime tv, might still be on Netflix as well. Well worth a watch.

Your plants look like they are a little low on nitrogen, they sometimes struggle when in stretch mode flowering, to have enough to keep up and will rob some from lower fan leaves, they look ok to me. Just raise your N a bit.

[7lpdwcaw]

Damn thats super cool! are you planning on cleaning any of those up? or are they stuck like that? thats a great collection of coins

[Billynoshoes]

All the stuff was found in Wales, if you have any hassle ID ing any of it, let’s us know, more than keen to talk about it.
I have seen the tv show, tis funny, typically English.

I’ll give the plants another high nitrogen feed, by the time it’s dew it will have been two weeks since they last had one
Cheers

[Billynoshoes]

Nice one,
There sort of cleaned as far as I want to go, I like keeping a bit of the patina on them, show age.