188w CFL Day-by-Day First Grow

[LadyLargely]

Oh, and not just correcting for the sake of correcting, but I'm a lady grower

Perfectly reasonable correction to make dear! So much so that I just make it preemptively, a measure that isn't for everyone.

So hi there! Welcome, by the way. I hope you find success in gardening. Anything that can provide for your needs while alleviating the need to trade federal currency for a controlled substance is a worthwhile pursuit.

Anyway, let's see if we can get you a yield!

Also, before plowing on, I want to commend you on your Diary-building etiquette. Your photographs are detailed and consistent. This concise documentation makes it very easy for others to track your progress and lend assistance. Good job, keep it up!

Day 15

Okay so these guys seem frustratingly sensitive to watering!

You now have enough entries to have really developed some trends. Healthy parts of the plants are reasonably dark green. The plants are bushy with short inter-nodal gaps. No problem with the lighting. Your room temps are completely reasonable. Your humidity is on the low side, the plants should be getting less susceptible to that problem as they get bigger.

This only really leaves us with one last major system and its the big one: root zone. Given the symptoms and conditions we shouldn't be surprised.

You say the plants seem "sensitive to watering". Does this mean both extremes? Does the soil dry out quickly? As in just 24 hours or so? Does it turn 'muddy' very fast when you start to water it? Does water start to drain from the pot as soon as you start to water even when the pot is dry? Is the runoff quite muddy? Does the soil seem to be shrinking substantially over time?

Your plants seem to have unhappy roots in general. I would point a finger at the soil in use. If you just have some bagged potting soil with sand mixed in then your soil is going to be lacking in structure. This can cause a problem which is what I think you have: a root zone with low water-holding capability. The soil doesn't hold much moisture on it's own, so you have to water the plants frequently which pisses them off. So you take our advice and dry them out excessively which also pisses them off.

The problem you have is the narrow margin that your root zone has for an ideal moisture content. Cannabis wants to have plenty of water available to it's root's without being wet. This is a bit of an oxymoron and it creates a challenge for getting a good soil-based medium that will keep big cannabis roots happy.

Meeting this challenge is best done by adding things to the root zone that hold both water and air. Things like coco moss, vermiculite, Soil Moist, pearlite and such can all add structure and water-holding capability to a soil mix:



Additionally, if you can get strong colonies of Myccorizhae living in your soil the capacity for water-holding can be dramatically increased. Myccorizhae will soak up excess moisture into their mycelium network, keeping it on storage for the plant to use but also keeping it from making the roots 'wet':



If that sounds difficult, you can always cheat by adding a super-simple air pump to the equation so that roots won't get upset even when an excess of water is held in the root zone. This guarantees that the plants won't suffer from over-watering symptoms and it can mean holding a huge amount of water in your pots. This can make for some very low-maintenance soil-based pots.

Transplanting is a good opportunity to change the composition of a soil mix. Simply puting the plant in a larger pot with the same mix as before is still an improvement. However as the plants grow I think you will find those old frustrations returning.

Good luck with it either way. I think that your ladies should chill out a bit as they stretch out into that bigger, more appropriate root zone. Even though they're out of sight, you've got to keep those all-important roots in mind.

Lady growers represent!

 

[SeaMaiden]

Thank you for this I didn't know there was such a thing as this VPD, but to answer; temps in the box drop to their coldest at 70.9 at night when the lights are off. Daytime temps since I've repotted average 78-81. Humidity however has only been 35ish the entire time until I put those bigger pots in there, now it's around 45.

See if you can get the relative humidity above 50%. I bet you'll see a big change in the position of the leaves doing that.

They all still look underfed to me. I also wouldn't worry about repotting until you're more certain that the volume of media has been filled well with roots. I find repotting to be much easier if I wait til there's a nice, solid rootball.

But right now, most important, raise that humidity for them so they can transpire. It's that transpiration that helps circulation within plant tissues. Right now their size limits how much they can affect humidity within their growing area, once they're bigger they'll be moving larger volumes of water through their tissues.

I personally am still seriously debating the true utility of mycorrhizae (as opposed to other beneficial microbes) use with a short term annual like cannabis. Mycorrhizae are typically associated with perennials, and I believe there's information that suggests, if not stating outright, that mycorrhizae take months to become well established, which puts their true utility outside the time parameters we cannabis growers usually go by. I hope that makes sense.

In any event, they *are* good to have, but they're not the only good thing to culture in your soils, there are bacteria, protozoa, all kinds of little microbes that help make 'bio-available' the nutrients you feed the plants. However, there's a caveat--they're more difficult to culture if you use chemical salt fertilizers (the blue stuff like Miracle Grow), especially anything with high NPK numbers. High NPK numbers are basically anything over 10, though I have in the past pushed some 12s.

I think I agree at this time with LadyLargely about your soil's texture, it appears that it can easily become compacted, which absolutely will inhibit the ability of the roots to grow through that medium as well as affecting moisture uptake and retention. The way I deal with pots that have dried out too much is to simply set them in a tray and bottom-water. In fact, it's the only way I grow out my seed starts. They begin life in beer cups with holes poked in the bottoms, that are set in a tray (it's actually one of those boot trays that you set by the door for muddy boots, works GREAT for my pots) and I keep 1/4"-1/2" of water in the bottom until they're ready for transplant. That occurs when they're about ready to show sex, which is when they've grown to 6-8 nodes up and are falling over. I have found that, up to this point of growth, it's IMPOSSIBLE to overwater them using my techniques.

I've lost plenty of good seedlings to drying out, but have never once lost one to overwatering. That occurs when they're mature.


Oh yeah, here's another lady grower, representin'. Booyah!

 

[Mitch971]

Hi Bro I've read from the start and I think that you have real bad a** start !
But you should start thinking about LST right away Dude it would help the lower leaves to get some light => More yield

 

[MileHighGuy]

Keep it as simple as you can.

I see Calcium and Magnesium Lockout and other PH related issues.

Which would account for the root issues.

This was most likely caused by the daily small watering in the very beginning and the combination of a soil that is less than ideal.

If you don't have a really living soil, full of beneficial bacteria and fungus, then you must check the PH in some way to make sure it's not hurting the plants ability to uptake nutrients and grow.

In the end, all this is the best learning you could ever have and you will be fine with a little slow start.


Do you have a way to check the PH, or am I that guy who's just repeating the obvious?? Sorry if that's me tonight, I'm a little extra stoned haha

 

[LadyLargely]

See if you can get the relative humidity above 50%. I bet you'll see a big change in the position of the leaves doing that.

They all still look underfed to me. I also wouldn't worry about repotting until you're more certain that the volume of media has been filled well with roots. I find repotting to be much easier if I wait til there's a nice, solid rootball.

Absolutely. The plants seem underfed, yet with over-watering symptoms. These ladies aren't getting as much nutrient-rich moisture solution in the root zone as they would like to have. This is where I come to suspect 'bagged soil from wal-mart'. Better soil structure would mean you could feed them more aggressively without them acting all pissed like they've got wet feet. They just need food and water with at least enough oxygen in the root zone to keep the roots happy. Submerged roots that get starved of air will die back, cause rot and stress the shit out of the plant. This phenomenon, in it's mildest form, may be a part of the source of stress in Sassafrass's garden. And SeaMaiden is dead-on with the humidity. With my location I have trouble keeping humidity down, even in the winter, so I take having adequately high levels of it for granted. Very important though.

...I personally am still seriously debating the true utility of mycorrhizae (as opposed to other beneficial microbes) use with a short term annual like cannabis. Mycorrhizae are typically associated with perennials, and I believe there's information that suggests, if not stating outright, that mycorrhizae take months to become well established, which puts their true utility outside the time parameters we cannabis growers usually go by. I hope that makes sense.

In any event, they *are* good to have, but they're not the only good thing to culture in your soils...

Oh my good gracious! This one is on me again. When I said "Mycorrhizae" what I really should have fuckin' said was Beneficial Microbes!

Durrr

That's what I get for throwin' around technical terms. Somebody who knows what they actually mean will show up. Yea, "Mycorrhizae" is too specific. I meant 'bennies' in general. These tend to come in various "Myco"-related packaging. In truth the bacteria are probably doing a lot more of the heavy lifting than the fungi.

This is why when it comes to beneficial microbes I just do it Shotgun Style. Get a whole bunch of dormant beneficial bacteria and fungi and a bit of food they like:

Mix them into a basic well-ammended soil mix, wet only very lightly and give them a 36 hour head-start:



Meanwhile, brew up some reliably non-pathogenic local beneficial microbes through a time-tested process such as lacto-culture:



Make a mildly diluted solution of this local lacto-bactilli culture and use it to wet the soil heavily. Sit back, smoke a joint, and wait.

Presumably, a MASSIVE FIGHT breaks out. The microbial turf-war goes into full swing as large colonies of a baffling variety of microscopic life bloom outward and begin to run into themselves. Varieties with a relative advantage in different parts of the root zone will thrive as the less effective ones begin to parish.

And then whichever microbes who's pimp hands are the strongest are able to take part in the privilege of caring for the roots of my cannabis plants.

Weather it be Mycorrhizae or Aerobic Bacteria or Trichoderma or whatever I don't really care. Somebody very small in there has taken hold and is kicking ass.

This is totally the way to go for soil growing. Don't be like a man. Don't micro-manage it. Don't fuck it. Delegate the the minute-to-minute water and nutrient delivery duties to some microscopic denizens who actually give a shit. Be an evil genius, minions are the best!

Like SeaMaiden says, these microbes are sensitive to salt-based fertilizer. However having them increases organic nutrient availability so much that the need for heavy salt usage decreases dramatically. Just a little dab of mild P/K-only salts in the heavy parts of flower is all even the most non-organic grower would need.

Hi Bro I've read from the start...start thinking about LST right away Dude it would help the lower leaves to get some light => More yield

Nice attention to detail in your reading Mitch, especially those more recent posts!

Its OK dudebro, I made the same mistake. Sassafrass is actually a lady gardener! I used to think there was no easy way to tell, but now I think she's intentionally misspelled "sassafras" to make her user name. I mean she's put ass in there twice, its kinda our fault for not getting it :friends:

Joking aside, 'ole Mitch here does bring up an interesting point.

Sassafrass: What's the maximum overhead space for your plants? How tall can they get before you run out of room? Your girls are nice and short and bushy for now, but that could change come 12/12 and stretch. A gentle bending regime like Low Stress Training is way better for plant health than topping or cutting the plant if it gets too tall. LST and similar training techniques can also increase yield-per-plant even if you aren't dying for headspace. Such practices are especially effective when budding under florescent lamps.

I have yielded quite a bit of top-quality bud from all-organic, all-florescent grows. More than 1 gram of cured bud per watt of lighting, all head-stash potency, etc. Over the year I've had plenty of opportunity come to grips with the strengths, weaknesses and various quirks of florescent lighting:




Florescent lights are great for growing dense, bushy, leafy vegged-out plants. Wonderful for clones and moms. However when it comes to flowers, as in actual finished, smokable bud florescent lamps tend to disappoint. It takes some doing to get floros to preform well in this way.

I would say that a good training regiment is vital to yield the best under floros. You don't have to do anything like as extreme as full ScrOG training, heavy supercropping or any of the mega-high-maintenance stuff I show in the above photographs. Basic string-tie-down techniques such as LST like Mitch suggested can be every bit as effective.

I really believe that with good nutrient delivery, a high number of high-wattage CFL lamps in the correct heavy red + mild blue color spectrum and some moderate training a very respectable yield could come out of this grow-space without much difficulty.

Good luck as ever Sassafrass!

 

[SeaMaiden]

A'ight, LL, I feel a hug comin' on here. MmmmMMMM!!!! <hugs>

Great information. I wasn't intending to correct you, just musing, offering my own thoughts on mycos based on numerous discussions of the subject with some other organic-heady friends of mine.

Oh! Regarding Sass's spelling of her nick, I recently learned that bug poop is called frass. Sass, whatcha gotta say about that?

 

[Sassafrass]

Oh my god, did this thread ever blow up since the last time I was online!

Thank you for everything people! There's so much crazy good information in this thread now.

Oh, and the name Sassafrass is my cat's nickname, for those who are curious :3

I'm literally about to grab my camera and go take Day 20's photos, but in the meantime, here's yesterday's:

Day 19

I'll type a little more in a few minutes! Gonna go get those pictures.

 

[Sassafrass]

Day 20

Now, my original intention with this grow was to be as low-budget as possible.

I don't have a big grow space, so I pulled out plant #1. It was getting really really sad, and it's way behind the others in terms of size. Since I only planned for 2 plants from the beginning, I don't mind not growing out #1. So I renamed #3 to #1 for simplicity with future pictures.

So everyone has an idea of my space limitations, etc, here's my box:

You say the plants seem "sensitive to watering". Does this mean both extremes? Does the soil dry out quickly? As in just 24 hours or so? Does it turn 'muddy' very fast when you start to water it? Does water start to drain from the pot as soon as you start to water even when the pot is dry? Is the runoff quite muddy? Does the soil seem to be shrinking substantially over time?

I find this to not be as true as before with the bigger pots. The soil seems to be holding moisture far better, it's not muddy. The runoff only has small amounts of soil in it, just leaves a dusting in the tray when it dries. The soil compacted a little, yes, but I think the problem is starting to ease up. The plants look much better, #1 has grown lots of new leaves and has bounced up so it's not all droopy anymore.

Thank you for all the lovely suggestions, I just really have almost 0 budget left for this grow. I'll need to buy those warm bulbs when its time to flower, flowering nutes, and I still haven't managed to rig up a working carbon filter that will work with my PC fan.

If that sounds difficult, you can always cheat by adding a super-simple air pump to the equation so that roots won't get upset even when an excess of water is held in the root zone. This guarantees that the plants won't suffer from over-watering symptoms and it can mean holding a huge amount of water in your pots. This can make for some very low-maintenance soil-based pots.

If you could elaborate on this, however, you've intrigued me. I do have some spare air pumps laying around from fish tanks.

But right now, most important, raise that humidity for them so they can transpire. It's that transpiration that helps circulation within plant tissues. Right now their size limits how much they can affect humidity within their growing area, once they're bigger they'll be moving larger volumes of water through their tissues.

Humidity since repotting has been averaging about 47% now, just a little more growth and I think they'll hit 50 easy.

The way I deal with pots that have dried out too much is to simply set them in a tray and bottom-water. In fact, it's the only way I grow out my seed starts. They begin life in beer cups with holes poked in the bottoms, that are set in a tray (it's actually one of those boot trays that you set by the door for muddy boots, works GREAT for my pots) and I keep 1/4"-1/2" of water in the bottom until they're ready for transplant. That occurs when they're about ready to show sex, which is when they've grown to 6-8 nodes up and are falling over. I have found that, up to this point of growth, it's IMPOSSIBLE to overwater them using my techniques.

I actually bottom-watered the other day due to your suggestion, and the plants seemed to like it! I'm going to keep doing it. Thank you.

I see Calcium and Magnesium Lockout and other PH related issues.
Do you have a way to check the PH, or am I that guy who's just repeating the obvious?? Sorry if that's me tonight, I'm a little extra stoned haha

Do you still see these issues in the newest pictures? I really don't know what I'm looking for, I have been browsing the infirmary but I still find lots of it hard to understand.

I haven't actually got a PH test yet :S I know I need one, I can get one but it won't be for another week or so. Payday and all that.

Absolutely. The plants seem underfed, yet with over-watering symptoms. These ladies aren't getting as much nutrient-rich moisture solution in the root zone as they would like to have.

Does this mean I should start adding nutes again? I'm going to keep watering from the bottom, it seems to work well. I still have a jug mixed up of half-strength 20-20-20 but I've been too scared to use it. Suggestions?

What's the maximum overhead space for your plants? How tall can they get before you run out of room? [/I]Your girls are nice and short and bushy for now, but that could change come 12/12 and stretch. A gentle bending regime like Low Stress Training is way better for plant health than topping or cutting the plant if it gets too tall. LST and similar training techniques can also increase yield-per-plant even if you aren't dying for headspace. Such practices are especially effective when budding under florescent lamps.

The overhead space from the top of the soil is about 2 feet. I've been planning LST from the start, thank you again for all your information! You should make some stickies or something, it's a shame all the guides you've posted for my benefit will only be seen by people reading my journal!

Oh, and though I do really appreciate the time you took to type up all that stuff about organisms for the soil and such, but I really don't have the funds to work with more than what I already have. But thanks again for all the info and effort into your posts!

 

[Sassafrass]

Day 21

Wow!! They grew quite a bit in the last 24 hours!

Still wondering if anyone has suggestions for when I should feed again? I'm scared to xD

Thanks for looking!

 

[SeaMaiden]

I can save you some money right now, Sassafrass. You can stop using any bottled nutrients for vegging and switch to urine. Yes, you read that right. Start out diluting it at a 10:1 water:urine ratio. This is assuming you have a good diet and no infections, of course. I've used it for flowering as well, but that is using well-mineralized/amended soil.

 

[Rjstoner]

I can save you some money right now, Sassafrass. You can stop using any bottled nutrients for vegging and switch to urine. Yes, you read that right. Start out diluting it at a 10:1 water:urine ratio. This is assuming you have a good diet and no infections, of course. I've used it for flowering as well, but that is using well-mineralized/amended soil.

my plants would be drunk if i used this method

 

[Sassafrass]

I can save you some money right now, Sassafrass. You can stop using any bottled nutrients for vegging and switch to urine. Yes, you read that right. Start out diluting it at a 10:1 water:urine ratio. This is assuming you have a good diet and no infections, of course. I've used it for flowering as well, but that is using well-mineralized/amended soil.

Errr... I think I'll pass on this one, but thanks for the suggestion XD Besides, I already have the stuff bought so the money is already spent

Now, I haven't watered anymore since the last time I mentioned it and 1 is going a little droopy again. Hmm.

But holy crap, #2 keeps surprising me every time I open the box XD She (hopefully) is growing so fast!

Day 22

 

[LadyLargely]

Day 20

Now, my original intention with this grow was to be as low-budget as possible....

...The soil seems to be holding moisture far better, it's not muddy.

I understand completely dear. I put together my first grow for a grand total of $48 in supplies! This was years ago and I used a lot of re-purposed, second-hand equipment. It sounds like you are equally as pinched for your own first grow and are relatively stuck with the supplies you have at hand.

We'll do our best to see you through with what you are able to get your hands on. You must keep in mind that, with the equipment you currently have, your root zone is going to be the bottle-neck in this grow. Your low-performance soil and salt-based fertilizers will make it necessary to feed very lightly! Flowering will be quite slow. I imagine you will have to be in 12/12 for at least 70-90 days in order for your ladies to fully mature. You can always harvest them early, but you will be short-changing yourself on yield and quality of THC.

I'm not trying to chide you or be mean. I've been pretty much exactly where you are now. I've lived through it so I'm just trying to let you know what to expect going forward. It is also not to dissuade you from what you are doing. First grows are hard when you don't have an experienced mentor IRL. First grows can be very discouraging. It can be a major blow to your motivation when you work your ass off and wait up to 120 days just to get 20-40 grams of fluffy, moderately potent bud. Been there girl, done that. I know that final weigh-in would've felt a lot less brutal if I'd been expecting it. Hopefully we can get you to at least a slightly better yield than that though.

Anyway, if you intend to stick with soil growing then you will have to make a choice between salt fertilizers or an organic nute regime at some point in the future. For now you are stuck with salts and that's fine. If you intend to do another grow after this one you should seriously consider living soil. It is very cheap to switch and cheaper to use in the long-run than salt ferts. I know all those pictures of fancy amendments and stuff that I posted LOOK like a king's supply, but they are not that special. A small amount of basic living soil could be put together very cheaply:

small bag of Bio-Tone: $8, small bag of quality soil like FFOF: $20, some rocks: free

And that's all you need. Espoma's Bio-Tone Starter Plus contains quality organic fertilizers AND a decent variety of dormant beneficial microbes. It is sold at big-box stores like Lowe's or Home Depot. Espoma's Plant-tone and Tomato-tone are more common and still have beneficial microbes, but their nutrient ratios aren't as desirable. This kind of setup would drastically reduce the feeding and watering needs of the plants. Other than these supplies you would need just a couple of liquid nutrients. A good high-nitrogen organic food (like fish emulsion) a high-phosphate flowering food (like Budswel) and a high-potash flowering food (like liquid kelp). Pessimistically these three would set you back an additional $60. Now you could switch to living soil for even less money, but then you'd be getting into making your own teas and such which is much more complicated. The rough guide I've outlined here represents the cheapest solution for switching to living soil that is also very low-effort. This sub-$100 investment would give you enough for many yields in your current 2-plant configuration. Unlike all other soil setups, Living Soil can be re-used again and again.

So keep that in mind for your next grow, that is, if you make it that far (I hope you do! ). It would make running your plants much easier than what you're gonna have to deal with this grow. Living soil would mean that you never have to check the pH, or much of anything to be honest. Pour water and food in and watch 'em grow. No fretting over soil chemistry like you already have done here quite a bit!

Nice as that is though, it does fuck all to help you right now, so let's get down to brass tacks.

Does this mean I should start adding nutes again? I'm going to keep watering from the bottom, it seems to work well. I still have a jug mixed up of half-strength 20-20-20 but I've been too scared to use it. Suggestions?

Still wondering if anyone has suggestions for when I should feed again? I'm scared to xD

Well dear, we'd LOVE to make some suggestions, but I'm afraid we can't. We don't have enough information to advise you.

This is why user MileHighGuy was asking about the acidity of your soil's runoff. Without a solid pH number we can't tell you for sure what you need to do for feeding. If we suggested feeding and it turned out your pH was off then we could hurt your plants and NONE of us want that!

However if one of your plants is starting to droop and loose turgidity you should definitely at least water it. Cannabis plants are not drama queens in this way. If they look thirsty then they are thirsty; water them. You will get better at recognizing what 'thirsty' looks like with time. I assume you are using tap water? That is totally fine for soil grows, and is actually ideal for organics, but consider letting the tap-water sit in an open container for a day before you use it. This will eliminate most of the chlorine that is present in tap water, a step that should improve bacterial action in your soil.

Also, your 20-20-20 fertilizer is less than ideal. It has the wrong nutrient ratio for this stage of growth. Its actually wrong for every stage of growth. 20-20-20 has equal amounts of N, P, and K. This means that the nutrient ratio is 1/1/1 (N/P/K). Not really what we want. To give you an idea of the target you are trying to hit, good ratios are:

For Veg: 3/1/1 (such as a 30-10-10 salt fert)
For stretch and early flower: 1/2/1 (such as a 15-30-15)
For late flower, budswell: 1/3/2 (such as a 5-15-10)

Now the cool thing is that you can combine different fertilizers in order to hit these ratios. So ideally for veg you would add a high Nitrogen fertilizer to your 20-20-20 mix. For stretch you would add phosphorus to it and for flower you would add phosphorus and potash.

This is why user SeaMaiden suggested fertilizing with urine. I know, its icky, but there are a lot of up-sides. Urine, as a fertilizer, offers up only nitrogen which makes it's ratio 1/0/0. This is very helpful for cannabis plants that are in veg. Urine contains Ureic Nitrogen which is the best mineral-based nitrogen source. It is way better than the much more common ammoniacal nitrogen which is deeply inferior. Go look on the back of your package of 20-20-20 fertilizer. I guarantee that the ingredient break-down will say "Ammoniacal Nitrogen"; I'd bet ya a hundred bucks on it. Yes, that's right, your nice purchased fertilizer contains a nitrogen source that is inferior to a different nitrogen source that you piss out and flush away every day. Swear to dog.

If I had to pick between urine and a generic 20-20-20 for veg nutes I'd go with diluted urine every single time. And that's not because I'm a hippy-dippy all-organic gardener either. Urine is less concentrated, higher quality and much closer to the ideal nutrient ratio. If it where me I would feed with 10:1 diluted urine and a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of that 20-20-20 to add just a bit of P and K.

However I wouldn't do any of that without knowing the pH of the soil runoff first. We need that number girlie, get on it!

However, there is something in the mean-time which you can add without fear of pH issues and should help a lot. I believe this comment is dead-on:

I see Calcium and Magnesium Lockout...

Something that would help with your Cal/Mag situation would be some quality blackstrap molasses. If you can't find blackstrap then regular unsulphured will do:

Blackstrap molasses is high in calcium, magnesium and iron. These "micronutrients" are probably not well represented in your basic potting mix. Most plants don't need much of this stuff, but cannabis tends to suck them down with gusto. Blackstrap will also help stimulate bacterial activity in your soil which should help boost the rate of nutrient availability. However in order to do that it must be used with some regularity. Start off with a heavy dosage. The first time you use it add 2 tablespoons per gallon of water and apply to the girls when they are dry. Next watering take it down to 1 tablespoon, then one teaspoon and finally a 1/2 teaspoon. 1/2 teaspoon per gallon is a very low concentration and would be safe to add with every watering to keep the few bacteria you have alive and happy.

I know you hate the urine thing, but those two changes would carry you all the way into flower. Otherwise you're going to have to come up with some other way to boost Nitrogen. More ferts, more money.

So everyone has an idea of my space limitations, etc, here's my box:

The overhead space from the top of the soil is about 2 feet. I've been planning LST from the start

Wow, damn, you are pretty confined in there. Keep in mind that your plants will at least double in size when you go to 12/12. You should probably consider bending the plants over within the next week or so. Use a "U"-shaped double-length of string around the midsection of the plant. DO NOT tie string directly to them with a knot as this will constrict the stem as it grows. Make sure to only ever train them 12-24 hours after they get watered. At this time they are at their most compliant. If you try to train them when they are drier you are far more likely to break them. It can also help to dig out a little bit of the soil from around the base of the plant, especially the first time you bend them. Once the plants are bent over their little secondary side-shoots will get more light and start to grow vertically. This will increase your number of good bud locations. You have to keep in mind that, because of your lights, buds that are shaded by other parts of the plants will be somewhere between crappy and worthless. All of your good bud locations will need direct light from those CFLs.

and I still haven't managed to rig up a working carbon filter that will work with my PC fan.

Uh Oh

Yea that... that could cause you problems

Here's the thing with fans; there are two aspects that we are concerned with as growers: Volume and Pressure. Volume is the amount of air a fan will move over time when unrestricted. This is usually expressed as CFM (cubic feet per minute). Pressure on the other hand is a bit less tangible. Basically it is the fan's ability to resist restriction, usually expressed as mmHg (millimeters of Murcury). High-pressure fans can still move a lot of air even when the air is meeting obstacles on it's way through the system.

PC fans have great volume characteristics. They can move a lot of air for their size and power level and they are just nice and efficient in general. However, PC fans have dreadful pressure capabilities. For this reason you will find that most manufacturers don't even bother to give a pressure-rating for their PC fans. The rating would be so low that nobody would even care. There are some notable exceptions, but these are all crazy-loud, high-powered units like the Vantec Tornado.

This tends to cause major problems when you attempt to connect a carbon filter to a PC fan. The fans just don't have enough 'oomph' to pull through an effective filter. I have seen a lot of cheap PC-fan based filter solutions. I've never seen one that actually works.

Now that isn't to say that home-brewed carbon filters are worthless. Indeed, I build all of my own filtration systems and they work beautifully:


There's a 12 pound 6-inch unit I built, its mounted on my trusty S&P TD-150 fan. See the brownish outer skin? That's queen-sized PANTY HOSE! LoL.

However it is not easy to make an effective carbon filter and in my experience smaller filters are harder to build. It took me a few tries to make the one you see above and it was FAR from perfect. The ones I build now are fucking sweet, but it took me a half-dozen tries to get good at it.

What I'm saying is that you could throw a lot of money at a little carbon filter and still not have good smell control.

Never fear though, there are a few good alternative methods for smell control. Here's one I've used before that is crazy-cheap and works exceptionally well on small box-based grows that sit in a larger room.

The trick is Pine-Sol and knowing the right way to use it.

Get a 5 gallon bucket. Partially fill it with water and then for every gallon of water you put in add three table-spoons of original formula pine-sol (none of that weird orange shit). Place the bucket somewhere in the room that the plants grow in. Then get a small aquarium air pump with a small (1-4 inch) air stone attached with appropriate hose. Turn the air pump on and drop the stone in the bucket. Walk away.

That's it. This solution will completely control the smell produced by a small cannabis garden. The recipe isn't an exact science. If the pine-sol smell is too strong then try a lower concentration. If you can still smell ganja then try a bit more. Replace the water every week or so, or just when you can start to smell a whiff of the ganj.

Now let me be clear: this technique is NOT just 'covering up' the smell.

There's more to it than that. Sciency stuff. The active ingredient in Pine-Sol is all-natural pine-oil. This complex carbohydrate has the tendency to bind to smelly organic molecules which makes them too heavy to float so they drop out of the air. Then you can just mop/vacuum them up. This is the exact same process which is behind the magical smell-killing properties of Febreeze. However instead of pine oil they use beta-cyclodextrin, also a carbohydrate, in that product. Same deal though.

It is a very effective technique and it does not make your house reek of pine-sol too strongly once you've found the concentration that works for your room. Just a mild piney scent in the room you grow in and pretty much nothing in the rest of the house/apartment. Pine oil is non-toxic so it won't hurt your plants, animals or anything else.

If you can't do that then I really think you'll be wasting your time trying to hook a carbon filter up to a PC fan. That sort of project will absorb a LOT of work and money before you get it right. Most people just don't have the fabrication skills to pull it off. You'd be shocked at how quickly you can burn through $100 on a project like that.

At that point you'd have been better off just buying something like this in the first place:

A 4-inch can fan and filter kit. This one is sold by Sears for just $110. There are many other kits like it at a similar price and a little shopping around will find you a decent one for even less money. It would be a bit over-kill for your little box, but 4 inch kits are the smallest you will find. The extra capacity would mean you'd get a looooong life out of such a kit. It would also be rough and ready if you ever decided to run a garden that's a bit bigger.

You should make some stickies or something, it's a shame all the guides you've posted for my benefit will only be seen by people reading my journal!

Heh, already on it love. I've got a new thread in the works which will contain pretty much everything I know about cultivating cannabis. I'm getting photographs and notes together and will be making it happen very soon. It'd already be up if my silent partner didn't drag his feet so much.

Anyway, good luck and much love deary!

 

[SeaMaiden]

Wow, LL, that's a hell of a post! So much information offered up, well written... do you write professionally?

In any event, I just want to let Sassafrass know that, yes, I am a hippie-dippie organic gardener (I wanted to be a hippie as a child, and whenever people asked me what I wanted to be, that's what I told them). I also grew out my entire outdoor crop last year using little more than diluted urine and various sugars. The sugars have to do with helping to build soil life as well as, I believe, helping to bring out the best each lady has to offer. I don't think my yields suffered at all for going with urine over other pre-packaged nutrients.

Of course, I have come to the conclusion that using potable water to flush waste is damn near immoral, if not straight up so.

Btw, Sass, I don't know where you are, but you may find excellent deals via Craigslist.

 

[delic]

Wow, LL, that's a hell of a post! So much information offered up, well written... do you write professionally?

My thoughts exactly, keep'em coming LL.

-delic

 

[Sassafrass]

Wow, LL... I'm kind of speechless haha, you should straight up copy/paste that into one of your tutorials when you get around to em

I'm definitely going to use the Pine-sol trick once they start smelling, funny that I haven't seen that anywhere when it would have saved me the whole carbon filter headache XD

The living soil idea is great and I will probably make use of that on my next grow, but yes, this soil is sadly lacking but I'm broke!

The fertilizers... I can't find it now (of course, this site is kind of hard to dig through sometimes haha) but I bought it because I saw some sort of simplified nute breakdown that the vegging stage called for 20-20-20 just watered down extra.

Anyway... I'll admit it, I used the urine idea. I think that was one of the weirder things I've ever done but hey, check out the growth in 1 day since I did it (used it on Day 23) in the pictures below! I used LL's suggestion a little and just added a teensy splash of the 20-20-20 stuff to the diluted urine and the plants seem to be doing well. Quick question, should I be doing this every watering with the urine (not the 20-20-20 I assume) until the end of veg, or just like every so often?

1 is still behind 2 but it was like, droopy as all hell there for several days so... it's doing good

Got busy with work-related stuffs the last couple days so here's Days 23 and 24 together :3 I LST'd the plants and... yeah. I'm happy with them at the moment

Day 23

Day 24

 

[SeaMaiden]

Do I see buds trying to form on those gals? I can't remember, did you say these are seed starts, or clones?

Outside of a VPD they don't appear to care for, they look like they're gonna grow out of the slight issues experienced no problema.

IMO, soil plants should be watered primarily, and fed no more often than weekly. IF they show they need more (lots of lower leaves yellowing or other aspects of appearance/growth that seem 'off') then go ahead and feed more, whether more frequently or more strongly.

 

[Sassafrass]

Wow, damn, you are pretty confined in there. Keep in mind that your plants will at least double in size when you go to 12/12.

OMG, haha, I just realized I never responded to this. When I showed the box it was mostly to show I didn't have the space to keep the original, failing plant #1. I should have put when I posted that picture, "Bear in mind, the lights go up about a foot to a foot-and-a-half higher than their current positions before hitting the top of the box" XD

Do I see buds trying to form on those gals? I can't remember, did you say these are seed starts, or clones?

Outside of a VPD they don't appear to care for, they look like they're gonna grow out of the slight issues experienced no problema.

IMO, soil plants should be watered primarily, and fed no more often than weekly. IF they show they need more (lots of lower leaves yellowing or other aspects of appearance/growth that seem 'off') then go ahead and feed more, whether more frequently or more strongly.

Nah, those aren't buds forming yet, just lots of leaf sets starting in new places since I bent them over They were started from seed.

Thanks for the tips; I knew the whole weekly thing for ferts but wasn't sure how it applied to the diluted urine XD

And today's pics!

Day 25

I'm starting to notice a teeeensy bit of a smell starting, gonna grab some Pine-sol tomorrow in preparation for the stink xD

 

[SeaMaiden]

They're looking much, MUCH better, and happier, too, Sass.

 

[Sassafrass]

They're looking much, MUCH better, and happier, too, Sass.

Thank you!

Here's yesterday's pictures!

Day 26

I picked up some blackstrap molasses like LadyLargely suggested, I think they'll need some water this morning so after lights-on I'll give them some

Edit: Oh, I forgot, I also picked up a pH tester and I'm reading at 7.6, not good, right? I'll test my runoff water and update this afterwards.