Hittin' the highminwin road.. my first grow!

[highminwin]

hey there overgrow! long time smoker, first time grower. welcome to the highminwin grow show, where i hope to show you my wins and my losses, my highs and my lows as i work to become a grower of this beloved wheeee-eeed…

SETUP: ac infinity 3x3 advanced grow tent kit (36"x36"x72"), which comes with…

• ac infinity ionboard s33 (240w led panel)
• 4" inline fan
• 4" carbon filter
• 6" clip-on fan (non-oscillating)
• advanced controller to control the lights, fans, and filter
• misc accessories

SOIL: fox farms ocean forest

GOALS FOR THIS GROW: learn how to grow. don’t kill too many plants. grow a decent head stash for personal smoke. my grow must be stealthy and not easily noticed. tent is setup in my bedroom. i don’t think i’ll clone, breed or seed for my first grow. though i may reveg some plants at the end.

SEEDS: 3x cinderella mix from fleur du mal and 3x tropical grex from mt zion collective. dropped into water on 4/20/22. originally i was only planning on doing 6, but I couldn’t help myself and dropped 4x durban mix from fleur du mal on 4/21.

i intentionally chose at least one runty seed from each group, although in hindsight the cinderella and tropical runts don’t seem so runty. those two durbans are definitely runty though. they seem to be half the size of their sibling seeds. will that make any difference in the final product? hopefully we’ll find out at the end in a few months time.

dropped the seeds in plain old water until they sank (1 day). then put them in moistened paper towels inside ziplock baggies. fast forward another day and a half and let’s take a peek in on these babies that’ve popped their tails. 3 for 3 on the cindys…

the tropicals were a little more stubborn, with only 1 of 3 showing tails 2.5 days since first soak. we’ll revisit these babies in a little bit with my thoughts on why they might’ve been slower to germinate.

like the cindy mixes, the durban mixes also quickly germinated with 4 of 4 showing tails even though they got started a day later than the others. fleur du mal is having a good showing! just look at the cute little buggers. do you see the runts?

now for a big family photo, 8 days since initial soak. everything is looking quite nice, except tropical 2 and 3 are quite shy, still not showing any activity as of yet. durban 1 is leading the pack in terms of growth while durban 2 is trailing the pack, being the runty-est of the runts.

in my next update, we’ll take a look at what’s going on with tropical 2 and 3.

thanks for joining along on my first grow! let’s go higher!

[api312]

I’ll follow along!

Nice pictures and descriptions. Good luck with your first grow!

[potpotpot]

Awesome, I’m super excited for you, it’s clear you have tons of enthusiasm for the plant. I’ll keep any eyeball on, good luck!

[DougDawson]

Tagging along for the show, good luck with your run

[Randar]

Nice little family of plants you got there. Pulling up a chair for this one.

[Rhai88]

been curious about Fleur du mal… I will be watching!

[highminwin]

and now for the riveting tale of tropical 2 and 3…

last we saw on 4/28 (8 days since initial soak), tropical 2 and 3 still hadn’t appeared yet. let’s take a look back in time to see what exactly’s goin’ on with these two.

on 4/23, just 3 days since initial soak, after all the cindys and durbans had already popped tail and tropical 1 had popped tail, we were still waiting on tropical 2 and 3. with no activity showing, i decided to dig them out. they looked perfectly normal, so i decided to help them out by roughing them up (sandpaper) and gently cracking them open between my teeth. with some small trepidation and a slight pop, both of them cracked open. back into the soil then and i hope that was enough to jumpstart their growth.

on 4/26, another 3 days later, STILL no growth from the both of them. i decided to dig them out and take another look. you can obviously see the crack in the seed. let’s open them up some more to see what was going on inside the seed…

hmm… is this a troubling sight or anything i should be worried about with tropical 3? i dunno, i’ve never looked inside a seed before and have no idea what i’m looking for or at! it almost looks like a split coconut there. for some reason, i decided to put tropical 3 back in the soil.

just two days later on 4/28 and we see some life from tropical 3, it’s a miracle! … or is it?

uh-oh. looks like the seedling is having some problem with helmet head. i had successfully removed a stuck helmet on another seedling a few days ago, so i decided to try my luck here as well. put a few drops of water on the seed husk to hopefully soften it and then gently try to pry/tap it off. if it’s resistant, add a few more drops, wait for it to soak and try again. is there a doctor in the house?

sadly, i am no doctor but instead a cruel sadistic monster. well, at least the helmet head is off. to be fair, if you look at the pre-surgery photos, you might notice that at least one of the cotyledons already seems to be ripped off.

i have read elsewhere that without its cotyledons, a seedling will likely not make it. i decided to keep this crippled runt around to see if the spirits might have plans for this one yet.

now lets take a look at tropical 2, what’s going on there?

for some reason, tropical 2 wasn’t giving me good vibes on 4/26, so i decided to bring on an understudy in case the original tropical 2 wasn’t feeling up to the task. i selected another tropical mix seed and put both original and new tropical 2 back in the ol’ wet paper towel in a ziplock baggie.

four days later on 4/30 and new tropical 2 had popped a tail! i decided to put both original and new back into the soil, just in case original tropical 2 just needed a little more time.

after two more days and still no sign of activity from original tropical 2. it was now 12 days since the intial soak. it felt like time to call it on that seed. oh well, my first kill! how momentous.

but let’s crack it open to see what might have happened…

from what i can see, the seeds of the tropical grex’s seem to be especially thick. i think i had rushed the germination of the tropical mixes since the cindys and durbans had germinated so quickly. i’m not sure i should have cracked the seeds and put them back in soil, as perhaps that had exposed the material inside to bacteria and possibly rotted it away while the seed was still too tough for it to break through, even after i had already cracked them open between my teeth.

if i were to pop more tropicals in the future, i would perhaps think about how to wear down the shell better without exposing the insides to potential badness. maybe a longer soak, or soak it in some solution.

but now, all three tropicals are online and we’ve got a full house. it’s back to business with all engines gunning.

[firehead]

If your soil has a lot of fungus gnat larvae in it… they will attack and eat the contents of the seeds as they crack open and start to sprout.
The little bastards have wiped out entire packets of seeds on me, before I got them under control.

Just something to watch for, if you keep having germination problems.

If you’re looking under a microscope, you will see them in there

[highminwin]

alright, back to the grow show and catching y’all up to where we’re at today-ish.

on 5/4 (14 days since soak) everything is looking pretty good. tropical 2 and 3 are up and about, although very small and totally late to the party.

on 5/5, i transplanted everything but tropical 2 and 3 into 1 gallon pots. the soil mixes are all slightly different, being amended with probably too much stuff for these young seedlings. but i am drunk with the power of a new grower and i will burn these plants! must go fast in new car, vroom vroooom!

i’ll have to review my notes on what i put in the soil, but it’s probably not that important.

alright, not bad. we’ve made it to 5/13 (23 days since soak). the lower leaves on a number of my plants are showing definite signs of early yellowing. what might be the issue? soil too hot, nute burn, under/over-watering? probably all of the above. i sat for many hours staring at my plants wondering what to do about the yellowing. ultimately, i didn’t really do anything special, just kept watering them when i thought they should be watered and hoped it would work itself out.

i transplanted tropical 2 and 3 into an earthbox junior. they were the latest of the plants, having had some issues earlier. we’ll see if the earthbox can juice these babies enough to help them catch up with their siblings.

a few days later and lets take a look-see at our babies. cover crop is just starting to poke its head up out of the soil. we also see that durban 3 who used to be pretty runty is no runt NO MORE! it’s actually grown larger than many of the other plants. i’m a proud papa. durban 2 is still runty (the other light grey container).

more yellowing of my lowering leaves on the 1gallon potted plants. still haven’t figured out the watering. i think they were definitely underwatered.

but ever since i got the earthbox junior going, i would notice how the soil in that container seemed to get more moist and over the days it would start to sink down, and the cover crop was just bursting. paying attention to that made me realize that i think i was definitely underwatering my other babies.

with more watering and love, i think i’m starting to get a better feel for these plants.

these babies are now almost five weeks old. i’ve got plenty of height left in my tent. oh, and check out tropical 3 who had started life without any cotyledons (the bottom plant in the earthbox junior). look at how she’s doing now, towering above a lot of the other plants. how’s that for a comeback!

QUESTION: when do y’all think i should flip to flower?

my goals for the upcoming days are to do a neem spray soon and to add some neem/karanja meal to the soil so that i can add worm castings. i was afraid that pests would be introduced with the castings so i wanted to make sure that my plants were ready and hardened before adding that element into the mix.

[Gpaw]

Good job!
I am surprised Tropical #3 came through.

I’ve gotten to the point where I’ll just add a drop of H2O2 (3%) to the stuck shell (helmet head) and leave them alone
(or try to ).
I’ve had limited success ‘removing by surgery’.

Cheers
G

[highminwin]

@Gpaw

I am surprised Tropical #3 came through.

yea i know right? when i saw that i had ripped off the cotyledons, i was pretty dismayed. and for a quick second i thought that it was over. but something said to me that i should just let it go and see what comes of it. how happy i am that i did, you can’t even tell now that anything was wrong with that plant at all. obviously being in the earthbox junior i think really helps give those plants a smooth time growing up.

[highminwin]

@Rhai88

been curious about Fleur du mal… I will be watching!

i’ve been loving the fleur du mal seeds so far. they all germinated amazingly quickly, and i am really in love with durban 1. for some reason i get the feeling durban 1 is a male, and his growth has just been super vigorous from the get go. if i hadn’t been so inexperienced with my watering, i think he would be at least 4"-6" taller than he is right now.

but i also have to give props to mt zion for their tropical grex’s, which all three look very pretty right now. it does help that two of them are in the eb jr, which really juiced their growth and they don’t show as many issues or deficiencies because of it.

[Randar]

You planning to keep most of them in 1 gallon pots, or are you going to up-pot again before flipping to flower?

[highminwin]

i was gonna keep them in 1 gallons, as this tent is my only grow space available. i have plans in my head to add a split level to my tent, so it’ll be 3’x3’x3’ on the bottom and the same space on top. maybe make the top level adjustable so i can have it be 3’ and 3’ or 4’ and 2’. but that’ll take a little time, and for now i wanted to maximize and grow as many plants as i felt i could handle for a first time grow.

i don’t really need to go for maximum gains or yields right now. instead i’d like to pop a bunch of seeds and then be able to pick out some keepers and then go from there. i suppose the style i’m going for is sea of green-ish with multiple different strains.

[api312]

Totally get the inclination to stay in small pots. That said, for me at least I really prefer 3 gal to be the smallest. Just helps you not have to be constantly watering / feeding. That said if you don’t mind the possibility of maybe having to water twice a day I know people who are successful with 1 gallons. I also think from an organic ecosystem perspective it’s hard to get your soil very happy / alive in a 1 gal.

[highminwin]

i totally feel you @api312. i agree that the small containers are very hard to keep in a happy state for any period of time, especially for a new grower like me. i have come across very small earthbox like containers which i may look into. i’ve also seen some tall 2gallon fabric containers, which might be good for my current grow style. since they’re tall, i should still be able to fit a bunch of them in my 3x3 and the 2gallons should make my plants happier. but for sure i’d still rather have more plants in smaller containers than fewer plants in larger containers, even if those fewer plants will be happier.

i have read that the soil is going to be depleted much faster in smaller containers, but i’m not quite ready to deal with the bugs of a totally living organic system in big containers. i’m actually not really looking forward to adding the worm compost to my plants, as i’ve heard that the compost will bring in bugs and pests, but i know it will be good for my plants.

i really appreciate your recommendations though. it definitely gets me thinking about what i’m aiming for and what might help to get me there.

also, thanks to everyone else for dropping in and checking my grow out! i’m glad to have you here.

[api312]

Yep, sounds like you have a pretty good handle on the pros and cons. You can definitely use a small bed and grow a bunch of pretty small plants in it if you do end up wanting to go more towards the organic style. In my honest opinion I don’t think organic brings more pest issues. If anything often pest are just as hard to deal with / require more aggressive (and often icky) IPM strategies when you don’t have a healthy ecosystem / the ability to introduce predator species to offset the non-beneficials. And in the end, the healthier and happier your plants are the better they will be at naturally defending themselves against any pest pressures. That said, I will put down the organics proselytization pamphlets and let you do you! Either way I’m sure you’re going to end up with some flowers you really enjoy

[highminwin]

@api312

That said, I will put down the organics proselytization pamphlets and let you do you!

no no, you’re totally right, i definitely want to head down the organic road. my first grow videos were watching jeremy from build-a-soil and i’ve been reading through a lot of organic threads on here as well. i actually have some mango fruit ffj fermenting right now.

i’m sure the pests won’t be as much of an issue as i think they’re going to be. but sometimes when i see videos on reddit of growers asking “what bug is this?” and then they show a whole carpet of bugs, that totally icks me out. i’m such a city slicker, right? i’ll find out this week though, as i’ll likely be adding compost to my plants.

i have also been thinking about how to get my own worm composting bin going. i think it’s gonna be baby steps for now, but i am trying to take them.

again, thanks for your input!

[Maddawg]

Looks like you are off to a great start!

Love the detail and photos.

I will be here watching your grow.

Can’t wait to see your 1st HomeGrown Buds.

[deeez99]

So cool to see you up and running! Love the detail and close ups. Can’t wait to see those lovely flowers start blooming.