First Grow (in 20 years) General Q's

[PapaOscarTango]

I'm a soil man, using Miracle Grow Organic, and I've got my seedlings in small pots. They're all about 2" tall. Seeds from who-knows-what breed that came from a friend's bag o' weed.

When should I move them into my 5-gallon pots?

I'm growing under a 4' florescent tube lamp (2 tubes) plus 2 2' vertical tubes (which I'll turn on when they girls are bigger) inside a small 3 x 5 "tent" of white shower curtains, and a small fan to blow CO2 about. How long does it normally take for them to get big enough to induce flowering? Do folks normally harvest the whole plant, or do you just pick the buds and reveg, or do you do both, depending on the time of year and if there's time for another harvest (for out-door, shed or greenhouse grows)?

Thanks for your help. I've been lurking for a while, and I can tell this is a cool and helpful group with a lower troll-to-human ratio than most forums I've been a part of.

 

[PapaOscarTango]

Sorry for the duplicate post. The thing timed out on me. Please delete this one!

 

[Cappy]

I have some experience with that soil. How small a pot are we talking about? How are they doing five days later? Sorry for the delays in getting a response, sometimes threads slip through the cracks.

 

[Phychotron]

your growing under some weak lights, i don't know if a 5 gallon pot is needed. transplant the seedling when the current container its in is well rooted and slides out easily in one piece, 2" tall is not a very healthy size for transplanting, especially into a 5 gallon container.

when you put the plant into flower it grows buds all over, and you chop the plant and start a new one. its possible to save the plant by leaving a few buds on and reverting it to veg via 18hrs light, but generally not advised. If you want to keep the plant, take a clone now before you flower it, and save that.

with your lights, I would turn all them on, then grow the seedling out till it's a good sized plant, and take a bunch of clones off of it, then throw those clones (in beer cup sized pots) under the light. Its called Sea Of Green (SOG) where you grow a bud from the ground up essentially, rather than letting a plant branch out and grow bud on the tips. Then if you want, take the original plant and keep that somewhere where it can recover, and then you can take clones again and again and again. It's called a mother plant. you'll maximize your light with this, and be able to get the light right above the colas and even distribution.

Another option would be to grow the one plant, and do some lst (Low Stress Training) to bend the plant over to achieve similar results. faster than cloning and the route if you don't want to keep the plant.

ditch the soil, they call it miracle grow because it's a miracle that anything can grow in it. Time for it to be ready for flower depends on a lot of factors, like having shitty soil will slow you down, stunt your plants pretty bad if the roots are fighting to get through. If you only have those lights then it will take longer for the plant to grow. Don't grow it too tall, it will stretch in the first few weeks of flower. You can pinch the stems back to keep it from stretching too much. an oscillating fan will help as well.

this link should help ... https://www.icmag.com/modules/Tutorials/