Gardengineer's Diary of Goodness!

[Gardengineer]

Welcome everyone. This is my first grow journal, which I am starting just before flower of my first ever grow. They are at 2 months from seed in vegging stage. Monday will kick off flowering when I install a bulb in my flowering room. Bare with me on this one guys.

My setup consists of 3 rooms, the Seed/Clone Room, Veg. Room, and Flower Room. Details about the setup below.

Seed/Clone Room - 2' deep, 4' wide, 2' tall. Dampered passive air intake from outside, passive intake into the Veg. Room. Lights are 3, 4' shop lights with 3 Daylight T8s, and 3 Warm White T8s, accompanied by 4, 26w (100w) Daylight CFLs. Room is lined with Panda.

Veg. Room - 2' deep, 4' wide, 4' tall. Dampered passive air intake from outside, exhausted into the Flower Room thru a MaxWing hood that has been tapped for cooling. Using a "dimmable" 6" 250CFM duct booster. Also a 6" fan and a 10" fan to circulate air and keep temps down. Entire room is lined with Panda and lighting is a 400w Philips Retro-White ceramic metal halide.

Flower Room - 4' deep, 5' wide, 6' tall. Dampered passive air intake from outside, exausted thru a 12" X 6" DIY carbon filter to outside, powered with a "dimmable" 6" 250CFM duct booster. A 10" fan on the floor blowing staight up at lights, and a 10" fan on the ceiling pointing towards lights and plants. Using vertical bulbs, a 400w Growbright HPS and a 400w Philips Retro-White ceramic metal halide. Room is lined with Panda.

All 3 lights are powered by 400w HPS DIY ballast kits, seed and veg are on 18/6 time, flower is 12/12. Nutes are MG Plant Food w/ blackstrap molasses. 1/2 strength nutes, 24-7-14, 1tbs molasses per gallon of water that has sat 24-48 hrs. Using mainly a mix of 50% FFOF, 25% FFLW, and 25% chunky perlite.



This complete setup is brand new, the T8s and CFLs just weren't doing it anymore. I've got 8 plants in the Veg. room right now that are all bagseed. 2 plants are about 3 months old, the other 6 are 2 months old, all with be flowered beginning of this coming week. I also just started 4 Northern Lights seeds and 4 Chronic seeds last night. Planning on 2 weeks in the Seed/Clone Room, 6 weeks in the Veg. Room, and finally 8 weeks in the Flower room, which should give me a harvest every 2 months if it all works out right.


Let me know what you guys think, or if I need to change/improve anything. Suggestions, comments, questions welcome.

 

[Gardengineer]

More pics...

 

[Gardengineer]

Last photos from 2-28-09.

 

[Che]

Sweet, you've got a killer setup! I'm in for this one, and since you've got some bagseed in there you'll qualify for BSGA membership once you hit that 75 post mark. Can't wait to see you rockin' that flower area FULL of buds! Nice Gardengineer

 

[Gardengineer]

Thanks Che! BSGA? Bag Seed Growers Association? Hope to make some nice smoke with the new setup and show it off. Still fine tuning also... When I get the bulb, the vert. CMH tomm. (first one was defective and wouldn't fire), I am going to fire the Flower Room up and see what temps and everything runs.

Still in the fine tuning stage, any help is appreciated.

 

[smokesalot420]

Lookin good man, you should like the vert CMH, I liked it so much I have 2 of em!

 

[Gardengineer]

Thanks Smokesalot, and I sure hope so. Did a lot of reading on CMH and vert. setups both before deciding to do it for flowering. We shall see.

 

[Gardengineer]

Recieved my vertical Philips CMH for the Flower Room today about noon, came home for lunch and fired it... everything is in working order for that room now, and all 8 ladies will be moved there tonight after the 18/6 cycle ends.

I am debating on giving them a whole day of total darkness to enduce flowering.

Can't wait, this will be the first time flowering.

 

[Gardengineer]

N.L. #4 has popped the surface already, less than 3 full days, expecting to see the rest of them pop by tomm. night.

Fired the Flower Room and the 8 plants spent their first day in it. Thought about full darkness for 2 days straight before lights, but just went straight into lights,.. little bit trigger happy I guess.

One shot is an up close of a nice little lady showing sex, nice long pistols from a pre-flower.

 

[Gardengineer]

Did a considerable amount of pruning to all 8 plants last night, before they went to far into flower mode. Got rid of excess lower leaves that weren't doing anything, not too many, but got rid of some branching that wasn't going to amount to anything, so hopefully in the long run it will pay off... it didn't seem to hurt the plants much, no wilting or anything drastic. Saved some of the fresh growth for a test smoke.

All 4 of the Northern Lights seeds have germinated and popped, all looking good. Only 1 Chronic has popped so far, so we'll see how that goes.

I'll have some pics posted later tonight. I need to get into doing some cloning soon also.

 

[Tonatiuh]

really clean set up gardengineer.
theres no need to do 2 days darkness before flippin them bro.18/6 to 12/12 is the way peeps been doin it since the beginning.think about it yo,ur tryin to replicate outside in ur grow right?...so when have you ever seen it go dark for 48 hrs outside? see the plants will do just fine with the strait to 12/12.
just tryin to help ya out yo.
i'll be watchin this one ,i like ur set up.
peace-T-

 

[El_Professor420]

Stellar setup and plants buddy, Can tell ya take very good care of ya ladies and enjoy it very much! Keep up the good work!

 

[Gardengineer]

Tonatiuh, thanks! Yeah thats what I pretty much thought too, that in nature there is no 2 days darkness. But just had read that it helps to jumpstart it a little faster... no big deal.

P420, thanks! Yes, I try to take good care of the ladies!



And, here are some pics... not very good this time around. 1 photo of the 4 N.L.s that are up, and the one Chronic... not sure whats up with the other 3 Chronic seeds, oh well, I've got more if needbe. Not a real good photo though.

Other 2 pics are just after lights off. You'll see a few of the plants are a little wilted in the back, no worries... they got watered. Having to up my volume per watering a little so they make it thru the last 1/2 day before their next watering w/o drooping a little. And, you can see some LST done from ground level, one was topped also.

 

[Gardengineer]

Yesterday morning, just at lights went on I checked the 3 non-germinated seeds in the soil... nothing. SO, I popped them out, and replaced with 3 other good looking seeds. If I am correct, I am expecting them to pop by tomm. night or Monday sometime. The other 5 seeds that are up look very good, N.L.s all look nice. The lone Chronic that is up has some silly shaped leaves, but healthy regardless.

I will try to gets some more pics tomm. sometime.

 

[Gardengineer]

Shot 1, seedlings getting a little bigger. Waiting for the 3 Chronics to pop after planting new seeds.

Shot 2-4 - Flowering room.

 

[CMoon]

looking great dude

 

[Gardengineer]

Thank you!

 

[Tonatiuh]

lookin good man.fillin up fast.

 

[Gardengineer]

Yes they are for sure... gaining some height.

Also, might have a problem... looking like I might have quite a few boys in there... not fricken cool at all. 2 are girls for sure showing nice hairs at every node point, especially the tops, but these 2 plants are about a month or so older and were showing pretty hefty pre-flowers before they went into the Flower Room. BUT, I will wait another week, and if the ones I think are males, off to the chopping block.

And... 1 of the replanted Chronic seeds popped yesterday... The Chronic seeds I have must not be a very good batch of mature seeds or something, or maybe just older... The N.L.s all popped immediatly, these guys aren't so well. So far, 6 seeds up... the N.L. and 1 Chronic are on their second set of leaves.

I'll post some pics tonight. ALSO... am I super limited on the amount of photos I can post? Or can I make a gallery of some sort? Any help is appreciated.

 

[Gardengineer]

Sorry I haven't posted in a while... Got photos of everything 3 days ago, just have been busy and never posted them. 6 of the plants in the Flower Room went bye-bye and chopped today because they were all males... and actually had grown about another 4-6 inches taller than in the pics below. 2 of the 3 replanted Chronic seeds didn't pop, so I replanted 2 N.L. seeds instead, and both of them popped the surface tonight.

2 remaining female plants are making some nice little nugs so far, great hairs. I will get some pics of them soon.

And I believe with the setup now, with most of my seeds at different ages over 2 weeks... I am going to do a 2 plant perpetual... The 2 oldest, and largest seedling plants will go into the Veg. Room on Tuesday, a week later the 2 next oldest plants, a week later the next 2, and then the final 2. Which, if I do it right, should give me 1 harvest basically at the end of each week, all the time. Might not be super effecient as far as electricity, BUT... this should allow me to... a little more easily and more quickly hone in my skills from start to finish.

Any thoughts on that?

Here are the pics from 3-11-09.

1 - Seedlings, all are up now.
2 - Flower Room before 6 got chopped.
3 - Shot of one of the males.