Hello guys! I wanted to share a full list of every single mistake i made in my first grow earlier this year. Hopefully this can help other growers avoid same mistakes and also we can chat and elaborate about it 
The Beginning of the Mess
I always wanted to try growing cannabis at home, but i did not know how to start or if its even possible. In April of this year a instagram paid ad came in my feed selling cannabis seeds, i didn’t even knew this was allowed (it wasn’t haha).
I took a look at the website and saw many types of plants, i’ve never even knew cannabis strains were a thing. I decided to purchase a seed and give myself as a birthday gift, i asked chatgpt for a good relaxing seed that was available in the website and bought the Orange Bud seed.
To study and learn how to grow i bought a book called Cannabis Grower’s Handbook: The Complete Guide to Marijuana and Hemp Cultivation by Ed Rosenthal. Very very good book, learned alot!
And its crazy that by writing in my obsidian grow journal every single mistake that i was doing i was able to learn and fix them much faster, this post is basically a compilation of all my notes distilled in a more friendly manner.
Now let’s start! This was my first ever mistake!
Mistake #01 - Bulk Seed.
I did not know anything about cannabis seeds, strains, seedbanks, etc. I basically bought a bulk seed!
After this i learn that the seedbank is very important to have a good harvest, easy grow and strong plant.
And after this…
Mistake #02 - Bad light
I thought that i would need just a basic light to grow the plant and i bought those cheap 12W Purple LEDs from aliexpress.
Result? The seed didn’t even germinate.
Then i did some research and found all about the big world of Cannabis LEDs, quantum stuff, etc and i bought a starter chinese one from YXO 60W. But…
Mistake #03 - Light too far away from the plant
The LED was like 1 meter away from the plant and the little seedling stretched so thin that it damped off.
Well, this one pissed me off hahahaha, i bought this LED for about $100 (R$ 500 brazil currency) and why is my plant NOT GROWING? Then i learned about PPFD, DLI, Full Spectrum and other stuff.
Fortunately i still had a third seed, this time the led was kept at 30cm away from the plant and everything worked out fine.
But…
Mistake #04 - Light distance is not only the solution
Yes, keeping the light closer to the plant helped but the intensity was just too strong! My plant got a little bit stressed and i learned about the PPFD values and the app Photone to measure it using my iPhone.
Mistake #05 - Too complicated substrate to start
Well, since i had no previous knowledge on growing anything i used the book i mentioned earlier to study and learn how to grow, and one of the suggestions was the coco and perlite method and i thought: “Well, this one looks cool and it has less problems, let’s go with this”.
The problem is… I did not know that coco was inert and that i had to water it everyday or very often with nutrients. The result? The plant wouldn’t grow and also…
I forgot to buffer the coco! The most basic thing, can you imagine that? Hahahha
Then fortunately i found about the Dr MJ Coco and bought his book and then i understood what to do.
After this i bought the Flora Trio nutrients and man, the plant started to grow SO much i was impressed and very happy!
Mistake #06 - No proper ventilation and air exchange
Yep, i mentioned earlier the plant was in a warddrobe, but i forgot to include ways to exchange air in and out. It was a quick fix actually, somehow i managed to make a very good airflow by using PC fans and a table oscilating fan.
Mistake #07 - Incorrect pH measures
Yes… I know… I won’t even go too much deep into this hahaha.
But basically cheap pH pen doing crazy readings and i thought it was alright. Plant stemas started to look weird and reddish thats how i found out.
Bought a AKSO pH reader and it was solved. Much better.
Mistake #08 - Incorrect EC readings and burned the plant
Instead of using a EC pen to read the EC to feed the nutrients i was just using the label indications.
Well… The plant got nut burn because of that and also because i wasn’t doing frequent fertigations.
Mistake #09 - Did not pay attention to the EC of inflow and runoff
After i bought the pen i still made this mistake… I had a hard time understanding all the stuff of inflow and runoff.
Luckly i understood that if i have a inflow of 1.0 EC, the runoff should tops 1.4~ or 0.8~.
Since i knew that it was very easy to know when to fertigate more or less.
Mistake #10 - Did not used a VPD chart
I had hidrometers with RH, etc, but i did not know about VPD! I found out about this only later and i discovered that my VPD was very bad in the entire cycle.
I solved this somehow with more airflow in the grow room.
Mistake #11 - Too much PPFD on flowering
In my genious mind i thought: “Well, lets give this girl alot of light so she can make big buds!”. The result? Light stress. ahahha
Well! That’s all my mistakes from my first ever grow cycle. I must say, it was a big 4 month journey and i couldn’t believe that i actually managed to harvest the plant, it was amazing!
Growing cannabis has became my favorite thing this year, there is SO much cool stuff to learn and study, i’m very happy to share all this and to learn with you all in this forum! Thanks for reading, and the photos are the final result from this first cycle. The bigger plant is my current cycle, its a Charlotte’s Angel CBD from Dutch Passion.
Cheers and hugs from Brazil!
