Dont look back in anger

[White Tee]

So im well into my first grow now, i flipped my babies 3 days ago and have my fingers crossed that i might be in luck for christmas(?)

Its been a bit of a rollercoaster ride so far, with some schoolboy errors and little bits of successes along the way, but hopefully i havnt done anything too severe (yet!) that will massively reduce my harvest

Im going to run through what has happened so far and what i have done, and am hoping you will be able to give me some feedback so i can improve things either now, or next time round

You might be reading parts of this with your hands over your eyes, thinking "NO, dont do that!", so if you have a weak heart you may wish to look away now



I am running a 250w hps with soil in a cupboard thats roughly a meter square by 2 meters high(ish)

I was given three clones (thanks dude if your reading this (*off-site friend*)) of an unknown variety in 3 different sized pots ranging from small (2.5 inch dia?) to large (4 inch dia)



After dropping my girls in their new home and being slightly unsure of what exactly to do with them, i proceeded to start flooding them with water on a daily basis, i wasnt about to give my babies nute burn!

So, obviously, 3 days in and they all started to droop and some of the leaves started to look a bit pale. Jumping straight into the infirmary section i quickly spotted the answer. ahh. So i set about letting them dry out, using the "lift" method to gauge them that i had read about. Unfortunately i didnt think to always check all of the pots, and so, yes you've guessed it, the little one dried out to much. Not too severely, but enough to remind me that i have 3 plants, not 1 cupboard

However, the smallest of the 3 was still looking quiet pale so thought it was probably time for a feed

Now you have to bare in mind that i am on quite a severely limited budget, so when i was handed 3 free nute bottles with my clones (thanks again dude!), then there was no way i would be using anything other than them, even if they are hydro nutes

So i mixed up a feed of roughly 1/3rd strength nutes and gave them a feed. It was great, the plants looked like they were drinking green paint as the colour flowed back into them



I regret now not keeping a log, as then i could give you some kind of time-frame as to when and what happened, but thats maybe something i will consider next time


I then started to notice some of the middle leaves on the plant were starting to look ropey, not lots, but just odd random leaves, so i jumped back into the infirmary section and decided that i had fungus gnats

So, i bought some perlite and put a top layer over the soil, borrowed my mates "pest-off" and gave them a dousing with that and shoved a sticky-strip in

Nothing

If anything it looked marginally worse, and there was nothing in the sticky-strip either. Maybe not fungus gnats then

Back to the infirmary. This time i settled on magnesium def

Got myself some epsoms salts and mixed a foliar spray and started to give them a daily mist, and the really suprising thing is that they started to look better

I then repotted them into my large square pots, decided to use John Innes no2 with some perlite mixed in after having a nose round on here, gave them a good watering, as you do when repotting something in the garden, only to then read on here that its best not to water too much straight afrer repotting



At times it seems like a race between me and my plants, with them changing their needs slightly more quickly than i can read up on what they want


Once they had dried out a bit i gave them another feed, and overnight it looked like someone had snook in and poisoned my plants, im guessing that the fresh soil along with the nutes was way too much for them, so i stuck all 3 in the shower and flooded the hell out of them

They all seemed to respond really well to this, but still in the back of my mind i keep thinking "stop dicking around with the plants, and leave them alone"



So here i am now, i flipped 3 days ago, but once again they are not looking too clever

The largest plant is dark green, and is showing some signs of slight nute burn with a couple of dead leaves lower down the plant, where as the other 2 look very pale and malnourished, which is strange as they have all been fed the same and in theory are all cuttings from the same mother. Think im gonna just water larger plant next time and give the other 2 another feed of the veg


Anyway i'll try to dig my camera soon and will put up a couple of piccys so u can all have a look

All advice welcome, and i dont mind if you want to take the piss a little bit if its in good humour

Hopefully other new growers can learn from some of my mistakes

 

[captaincanabis]

its sounds like quite a rodeo. what you have to remember is that the lower leaves wont show you good signs of deffciencs. its the new growth thats going to be the tall tell sign. what you should do in my opinion is like this. you water them (straight water) then let them dry for awhile. awhile i mean let them get almost dried out. then add the nutes the next time you water. dont do this the same te every plant only to the ones that need it. you should label them and alternate water and feed cycles. the ultimate easy thing to do would be to get some small plastic totes (3gallon) and a cheap ass airstone and pump and never fuck with soil again its a fucking waste of time dont start off in it its not easier. just switch now and never look back.

 

[paladin420]

yeah sounds like a rodeo all righty...What I got from your story is that if you stick to what you have done so far you will make a great grower....U watch your gurls...U read...U learn..thats a great start...and yep the captain is correct water is easier...pal

 

[White Tee]

So here are those pics i promised on day 5 of flower, i have named them 1,2 and 3 going from left to right

1,2,3

1,

2,

3,

 

[tube dude]

The pale ones look like they have a mag def. The darker one is too much nitrogen.

 

[White Tee]

Have a couple of questions that perhaps some of you on here could help me with-

Firstly, how severe is the N toxicity in plant no.1? Is this something that the plant will be able to live with or do you think that it is something i should take action on ie, giving her another flush?

Will the plant absorb enough of the N out of the soil to bring this down to an acceptable level with just watering?

Also, as the plants are now in flower, i am planning to switch to the bloom nutes next time i feed. If i understand it right the bloom nutes will have a lower N content than the grow nutes i have been using (yes/no?), so does this mean it would be ok to give plant no.1 a feed when using the bloom nutes as i would not be increasing the N content in the soil by much or would it be wise to just water for the time being?

Secondly, i have read a lot of good things about blackstrap molasses, do you think it a good idea to try adding some of this to the soil at this stage or not?

Thanks in advance

 

[tube dude]

Lay off the feeding for now. Just use plain water with 1 tsp of epsoms salt per gal. You wont need any bloom nutes until after the strech. Durring the strech your plants need more nitrogen so I would't flush if it were me. If you are not using dolomite lime in your soil your ph may be off. If the epsoms salt doesn't help, check your ph.

 

[White Tee]

.....day 15.

Im on day 15 now and the girls still look a bit poorly

Still, they're starting to develop some buds and all the new growth is lookin ok

Plant 1 looks like its got over the nute burn, but 2 and 3 still look fairly anemic.

Its the pale leaves with the little brown spots that are giving me most concern though, have checked for pests and stilll cant see any, could this still be a Mg problem?

Was thinking of feeding them bloom nutes when they're next ready for water, sound right?

Again, all help is greatly appreciated

Some shots of the sick leaves....

....and some of the buds

 

[White Tee]

So ive decided to pull them today!!!

I know its a bit early as im only on day 46, but i borrowed my friends magnifier the other day and the trichs were mostly cloudy with a few tobacco coloured ones in there as well.

Left them in the dark for the last 36 hours and they did seem to frost up a tiny bit more

So here goes, not bad for my 1st grow eh?

Im chuffed as f*** anyway

 

[Fattie]

Looks good but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Taking it early is the number one problem with new growers, and probably after smoking you will be mad you didnt wait.

 

[headseed]

I agree with fattie.

There is no way those are done at 46 days.

 

[mad librettist]

its sounds like quite a rodeo. what you have to remember is that the lower leaves wont show you good signs of deffciencs. its the new growth thats going to be the tall tell sign. what you should do in my opinion is like this. you water them (straight water) then let them dry for awhile. awhile i mean let them get almost dried out. then add the nutes the next time you water. dont do this the same te every plant only to the ones that need it. you should label them and alternate water and feed cycles. the ultimate easy thing to do would be to get some small plastic totes (3gallon) and a cheap ass airstone and pump and never fuck with soil again its a fucking waste of time dont start off in it its not easier. just switch now and never look back.

it isn't correct to say only new growth shows deficiencies. In fact, it's important to note whether old or new growth is being affected. New growth will show deficiencies of nutrients that are not mobile within the plant, whereas old growth will show deficiencies of nutrients the plant is able to move around.

I agree, you chopped way early. the whole looking at the trichomes thing actually has no science behind it. To figure out when to chop, you need to harvest a few plants in stages, and note the changes. Then you will just have a sense of when things look ripe and done.