Hittin' the highminwin road.. my first grow!

[highminwin]

lets check in on our second grow, for which we ordered a second 2’x2’x4’ tent since the plants in our main tent won’t finish flowering for another few weeks. i would’ve preferred to get the taller version of the 2’x2’ tent but it wasn’t in stock, and i think the 2’x2’x4’ will be alright for early veg.

i put in the opprui 420w led panel which i had picked up from amazon a few months back when it was on sale. it fits snugly in my 2’x2’ tent, with just enough wiggle room on the sides. it’s nicely manufactured, although some of the design details seem half-baked, or maybe just budget conscious.

for example, the hanging wires they come with create a huge amount of wasted space that doesn’t really need to be there. this means you can’t raise the panel as far as you could if it had been engineered differently. i can probably re-rig the wires and make things more efficient, but for now it works.

at low output levels the panel gives off an acceptable amount of heat. from mid-power on, i would start to actively cool the panel.

i would like to find extension cords for the led power cables so that i can move the driver outside the tent. they’re weird looking half-pie shaped connectors. if anybody has any idea where i can source some, that’d be greatly appreciated! i’ll have to upload a picture.

i transplanted the seedlings on 7/14 up to 1 gallon containers. the bigger plants were showing spiraling roots at the bottom of the solo cups, so i probably could have transplanted a few days earlier. they were transplanted into fox farms happy frog mixed with pumice. i amended some insect frass in the first two containers, but then i forgot to include it in the rest of the containers. so it’s just happy frog with added pumice mostly. i was happy with how the seedlings responded to the soil, so i thought i would let them ride early veg out in similar fashion.

some notes on transplanting that i learned from this round…

for your first transplant volunteer, you should probably pick your strongest, healthiest plant. so if you do fumble the transplant, at least it’s your best individual taking the brunt of the issues. instead, for some reason i was looking at my smallest plant when my first container was filled with soil and ready for transplant. and obviously i futzed the transplant pretty badly on the first go-around. i felt pretty bad.

so yea, it’s not a good transplant if half of your rootball is sticking out of the soil. at least i got a photo of the disaster before i fixed it. i ended up having to carefully dig out the whole rootball again, reset the soil in the new container, and shove the original transplant back into the new, hurriedly dug hole. it felt traumatic (to the plant too, i’m sure!).

what i learned after the first botched transplant is that you can use the old container to create a little transplant wiggle room. you do this by placing the old container in the space it would occupy in the new container, and then after you fill the surrounding space with new soil, you gently rock the old container round in circles so you create a gap or moat of space in the new soil. this will give you extra space to plop your transplant in and is easy enough to backfill with soil, or if you just gently shake or pound the new container, the soil will fill in that space.

all of my following transplants went very smoothly after i started doing that.

when i went to check up on the transplants a few hours later, i was surprised that NB5S “shorty” (the traumatised transplant) was doing alright. maybe the transplant wasn’t as bad as i thought?

her leaves are perky-ish, even if they’re not prayer hands. i was expecting droopy and sad, if not wilted or visibly spotted leaves. this in comparison is two thumbs up! still good transplant lessons learned.

lets take a peek at the nanan bouclou twins, shorty and taco.

taco (on the right) looks to be recovering from his spotted leaf issue (still waiting on gender confirmation). you can see i fimmed him as well, or at least that’s my best effort at fimming. i’ll be fimming all of the plants in this second grow. shorty (on the left) has dug in nicely and is starting to show nice development.

[ReikoX]

@highminwin

why do you think this is reikox? i read that gnats like wet damp soil, so do you think the blumats are keeping your soil conditions moist but less than what gnats would like?

Part of it is due to the predators in my beds. I have applied stratiolaelaps scimitus mites, rove beetles, and s.f. nematodes when the beds were first built.

The other part is how the blumats water. Since they are a dripper, they don’t get the whole top surface wet, only a small spot under the drippers.

[Tejas]

One thing you can do to eliminate half of the wasted space is to double over you guide wires. There are four equal length wires, two on each side. Instead of connecting the eyelets to the carabiner on the light and pulley, loop the wire through the pulley connecting both eyelets to the light. For that matter, remove the wires altogether and fashion shorter stay with wire coat hangers.

[HeadyBearAdventures]

@highminwin

it’s not a good transplant if half of your rootball is sticking out of the soil

I recently re-read Bonanza of Green, and the “half-in” transplant is something BOG recommends doing several times with each plant. Something about encouraging downward root growth. I’m in your camp of fully burying it, after I tried the BOG method, just saying that there are alternative perspectives.

[highminwin]

@Tejas

One thing you can do to eliminate half of the wasted space is to double over you guide wires

that’s exactly what i was thinking of doing when the time comes. although you’ve probably got the right idea with the wire coat hangers. i don’t think i have a single coat hanger in my possession though, lol!

i was just a little disappointed that the light company hadn’t ran their product through any sort of real-world grow, otherwise they might have caught things like that. it’s not a huge complaint though, since i can work around it and it doesn’t affect the use-ability of the product.

@HeadyBearAdventures

the “half-in” transplant is something BOG recommends doing

oh i think i know what you’re talking about headybear, except i think in bog’s technique you leave the container on and just cut the bottom out. in my transplant, the old container has been totally removed, so the half rootball stuck above the soil surface has exposed soil and roots which is probably less than ideal.

while i’m getting a little better with transplanting, i think it’d be awesome to just cut the bottom out and stick the whole container in the new soil. it would save the plant from any major transplant shock.

[LennyB]

You can just eliminate the 4 hanging wires, and use the two adjustable hangers directly on the 4 hanging points. Bring each adjustable up and over the hanger bar, point to point.
Looking good !

[potpotpot]

So idk about the half out method, and I don’t have any sources to support this, but is not uncommon, for plants generally, to be planted with the root ball a bit proud of the surrounding soil. I would in fact recommend in most cases as opposed to burying the stem under new soil. If the rootball is proud, worst case is some shock and the plant is encouraged to grow roots down, if them stem is buried it can rot and once that happens youre pooched.

The only situation I know of where it is routinely recommended to plant the stem under the soil surface is tomatoes, but even in that instance sometimes that is a bad idea, in the case of grafted plants for instance. I know that’s not what you’re doing, but just wanted to have a rounded thought out there.

[highminwin]

oh man, has it been two weeks since i last updated? i’ve been busy with life and such, but i am still tending to my plants and keeping things moving. there’s so many little things that i’ve been meaning to post about but just haven’t really had the time or energy, depending. so hopefully i can squeeze in a quick update here.

firstly, many thanks to @Heliosphear for the huge generosity of spirit in sharing and caring and cultivating such a community vibe round here. my overgrow sticker came in and is now keeping a watchful eye over the plants in my main tent. i’m so happy to have the positive vibes and totally appreciate what you do!

secondly, (drum roll) i harvested my first ever plant earlier this week!

my tropical 1 with its enticing blueberry aroma was showing a decent amount of amber heads, so i decided to chop it down and harvest after about 9 weeks of flowering. (confetti, balloons, elephants!)

she came in a little small at ~20" of overall height. but we’ll have to wait and see if her flowers make up for that short stature.

the trich shots are from two days before chop. lots of cloudy heads with some amber showing.

honestly i felt like i let it go a little longer than i wanted to, but general advice seems to lean towards giving more time rather than less. and since it was my first go round, i figured i would be more conservative and let things go longer. but who knows, it might have been just the perfect amount of time.

i started curing it by putting it above the led panel in my second smaller tent with a small fan blowing underneath it. the panel is only at ~35-40% power, so it’s not giving off huge amounts of heat. i wasn’t sure whether this was too quick of a dry, so a few days later i moved it out. i think for my next cure i will try to find some place not as hot, to go for more of a slow cure.

but for now it’s sitting in small mason jars and i am eagerly awaiting the moment when i can blaze that fresh homegrown!

i’ve kept her lower half going, as that’s where the seeds are and i wanted to let them mature and ripen. it seems like some of the lower buds are now starting to ripen up as well.

[DesertHeartGardens]

That’s exciting news that first plant harvest gotta feel good for sure slow cure the better I dry at around 65 f and 60 rh for around two weeks it allows the chlorophyll to release and not get trapped in the plant resulting in a super smooth tasty smoke been real busy the past few weeks too had my niece and nephew over at my place for a little over a week was pretty hectic stoked for your smoke report blueberry sounds awesome much love @highminwin and happy growing

[highminwin]

oh yea for sure it feels really good, DHG! the last few weeks have been me drumming my fingers, all sorts of impatient. but i am starting to see the trichs fatten up on some of my other plants as well, so it’s definitely feeling like that patience is paying off. i’ve even been holding off on germinating my third set of seeds as i’m seeing how things just need time.

[Limeflavouredheadbut]

its 4:20 somewhere!! here right now yaaay

hello mate all lookin tickaty boo
i would defo do a slow dry and dont jar it till it sorta feels slightly chrisp on the outside but sorta spongy in the middle keep it in the dark if ya can to

[highminwin]

lets take a look in the main 3x3 tent during these last few weeks of flowering on my first grow. it’s normally much more packed, what with my second set of plants in there. but i’ve cleared those out for this group photo of my first set of plants.

what a journey it’s been since 4/20 when i first germinated these seeds! it’s funny because i remember being so caught up in how the plants were doing during most of my first grow. each day i would check in on them and note progress. but with my second set of plants, i barely even remember their veg period and now they’re already onto flower. i didn’t even have time to think about how i might overfeed them with amendments. my how time flies!

we’re coming up on week 10 of flower for my first set of plants, and it’s really nice to see them start to thicken out with trichome development and overall frostiness. tropical 1 had been good in that department from relatively early on, but these other three had been slow walking it until just recently.

durban 3 just keeps slowly climbing higher and higher even though she’s long done with her main flowering growth spurt. she’s pretty much almost at the same height as my led panel now, and i have maybe just another inch or two i could raise those lights.

she’s still having some sort of issue (watering?), showing up as yellowing of her leaves. but it’s relatively minor and overall she looks good, so i’m not gonna worry too much about it. she’ll perhaps be done in another two weeks or so?

cindy 2 is probably the next plant closest to being ready for chop. her frost has developed nicely within this last week.

and here’s tropical 3, also starting to frost up more than before. still another two weeks or so i think. i’ve harvested about 3/4’s of the seeds off of her, which has yielded two nearly-full film canisters of seeds. i’ve also noticed that she’s drinking less water than she used to.

i’ll have to come back with notes on stem rub and scent later on.

oh, and i forgot about cindy 1 which i got a chance to check up on when i dropped plants off with my san diego grower buddy last week…

she’s been on extended veg outdoors and has recently started into flowering. standing at person height (~6ish feet or so), she’s bushed out nicely but not too heavily. i gave her a top dress of some build-a-bloom as well as alfalfa meal when i saw her, since her lower leaves had started to yellow.

oh, and i also forgot about my durban 1 male, which has been chilling out in the convertible ac infinity cardboard box all this time.

he’s just been chilling and trying to sex himself up with his own seeds even though he’s been under an 18/6 light cycle. there’s been plenty of new growth, but he still puts out pollen sacs and occasional female stigmas.

there had been enough new growth that i’ve been having to water him every day, so recently i trimmed back a lot of his leaf matter. i might chop off some of his roots soon as well, and maybe give him some new soil. but really, i just want to ignore him as much as possible until i get a chance to plant his seeds and see if they’re any good. so i suppose i just have to keep him alive for another year or so.

[ColeLennon]

nice update bro

[LivingBlackSoil]

Very nice. Looking forward to that smoke report.
Yes

[Tejas]

Nice update, how long do you figure the Tropical and Durban are going to go?

[highminwin]

i think the tropical and durban have maybe another two weeks to go? it’s my first grow though, so i’m still learning how to read the plants and understand their full development cycle. i’m hoping i can chop and clear them out soon though, as i’d like to get my third set of plants going. i suppose i’m a little impatient right now.

[DesertHeartGardens]

Ohh what’s goin to be your next pop I’m so curious with that stash bag of yours @highminwin

[highminwin]

oh, i had it planned out since like a month ago, but i’ve just been biding my time waiting for my tent space to clear up. i was hoping to pop two seeds of each of the following…

• esb by oldtimer from fleur du mal
• magic medicine from landrace preservation society
• jack herer from AzSeainDooin420
• satori from mandala seeds
• putang x thunder fuck mountain from bad dawg

[Hemp]

Transplanting 3 times is best. Each time you can drop the plant lower in the containers. Works great with clones. The roots don’t get as deep if you don’t do this method. The step method has been around for ever. The fresh dirt is candy for your plants. I learned from high times and doing it myself. I didn’t have the internet when I started. I just grow basic now.

[Heliosphear]

Sticker looks good and your plant’s are amazing!
“putang x thunder fuck mountain from bad dawg”
I’m outta likes, I’ll be back when I’m recharged to talk about those beautiful buds.