I think it's pretty normal for new growers to feel like their plants are growing slow. Something I have noticed with experienced growers is their ability to start plants off with strong growth. Which then makes many of us new growers feel like our plants are growing really slow. From what I've gathered, part of it is more familiarity with the strains they are growing and the medium that they are growing in. Both of which usually chosen to best accommodate the growing environment they are working with. Furthermore, from this familiarity they have mastered the art of watering indoors. Watering really is an art and I think it's safe to say that overwatering is the most common mistake novice gardeners make. It takes some time gaining a sense of your growing environment. A lot of us aren't in a position to get things like temperature and humidity perfect. Requiring that you pay closer attention and water delicately because the time it takes for the soil too dry out might be faster or slower than an environment with perfect conditions.
You will almost always be better under-watering than you will overwatering, because you can't take water away once you've added it. Personally, I think the best way to tell when to water is by simply observing the plant closely. It's harder with a small plant but the leaves will tell you when the plant needs to be watered. Once it's bigger, give it a week with no water so you can observe the signs. With seedlings, you want to make sure you're watering right along the stem and not the entirety of the medium. Since they will have much smaller root systems as oppose to a plant that has filled in the container with roots. Same goes for plants in containers much too large for them. You'll see people plant small plants in huge containers and let the plant grow into it. That's all well and fine, just need to make sure you're watering only around the plant and not the whole container.
So, with all that said, your first couple runs will probably get off to a slow start for various reasons, overwatering, plants too far away from light, pots too big or too small, etc. Usually though around the 3rd or 4th week the plant is established enough that it will start growing how you'd expect it to. It should be around the 4th or 5th node. At which point you want to almost certainly top it and start thinking about LST, especially if you're inside and working with height restrictions. What this slow start does is throw our timeline way off from that of an experienced grower and so we panic. Our plants are 45 days old and short, we think maybe it's our light, maybe it's our nutrients, maybe it's our soil. We know that we still have 60 days of flower to go through at some point. Is this grow going to take 4 months from seed to dry & cure?!?! Holy shit, maybe it's going to take 5 or 6 months!
The mistake a lot make at this stage is to go changing all sorts of things which in turn adds complexity they don't fully understand. When what they should be doing is keeping it simple and accepting that their first couple grows aren't going to be great and will probably get off to slow starts. So during the
slow start phase of the learning curve, you'll be around 1.5-2 months of veg and then two months of flower.
It's important to know that the plants will usually double or more in size when you flip them into flower, that is without any LST. So if you let them get too big in veg, then you'll have huge plants in flower which isn't ideal for small indoor environments. So if you don't do any LST or topping, you want your plants to be short before flower thus vegging for a short period. If you do top and LST then you will have more control over the height of the canopy and can veg longer. Ideally, you want to work towards a month veg, month and a half max, and a two month flower. But to get their you need to have a strong start so that your plants are big enough a month in, which just comes from experience and overcoming the
slow start phase.
It's worth remembering that in order for survival, the plant doesn't need all that much. Let's say you just did nothing but use
FFOF and add no nutrients. You had adequate lighting and watered appropriately. The plant isn't going to die, nor will it do bad. That isn't to say it will
thrive but it'll do fine. People watering liquid nutrients on non-inert soil grows are not going for survival but trying to get the plant to produce more than it typically would. But as novice growers, our goal should not be surplus but simply growing a healthy plant. So I think it's important to understand that depending on your medium, adding liquid nutrients isn't a requirement for success and when added without understanding can do more harm than help.
FFOF should have no problem getting plants through veg. The only thing I'd advise adding the first couple runs would be perlite and worm castings. Flowering is when the plant really starts to become demanding of nutrients. Your
FFOF isn't out of nutrients, but surely it's lost some oomph after the month or two of veg. Also during flower, the plant starts requiring more things that it needed less of in veg, things which
FFOF and many soils aren't equipped to provide completely, if at all. It is at this point that you should start experimenting with nutrients. I'd start small with something like FF Big Bloom and then add Tiger Bloom once you feel you've got the hang of it. I wouldn't even add nutrients during veg your first couple runs because you run the risk of messing the plant up and then having a horrible flowering stage. Instead in the beginning only worry about adding nutrients during flower. After those first couple runs you will have a better idea if Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom work for you or if you want to ditch those and try a different brand. Then start exploring changing up your soil by adding a couple things besides perlite and worm castings and also adding a nutrient regiment for veg if you need it. But always remember, that big yields don't only come from strong nutrient regiments, but also all the other factors like light, temperature, humidity, CO2, etc.
6. How will I know which parts of the plants will grow buds? Colas or whatever they're called? How do I identify colas?
So you know how in the beginning, the main growth of the plant happens in the center, pushing out fan leaves and getting taller. As it gets taller, you will have secondary growths come out of the area where the fan leaves connect to the stem. These secondary growths will soon resemble mini plants, doing the same thing the main growth is doing, pushing out fan leaves and getting taller. This area that is pushing out new fan leaves and getting taller is where the bud will form when the plant enters flower. The plant knowing that it has entered the flowering stage will stop pushing out fan leaves there and instead push out a bud. This area is called a bud site because it is where the plant produces a bud.
Topping is about increasing the amount of bud sites your plant has and LST is about keeping those bud sites to be around the same height in order to have an even canopy.
If you don't top your plant, it will have a dominant main growth taller than the rest, which will turn into a dominate main bud or cola during flower. You will still have secondary growths that turn into secondary bud sites and thus buds but they will be much smaller than this main dominate bud in the center of the plant. The main growth is called the apical meristem and it's dominance is called apical dominance. By topping we are breaking that dominance. We are telling the plant that we don't want it to grow a main dominate bud and many smaller buds, but instead we want multiple
main buds of around equal size. The plant after having it's apical meristem cut will respond by putting energy into those secondary growths, and they will start growing taller and more vigorously. This is where LST comes in, the goal being to keep all those secondary growths at around the same height so that you have an even canopy. The even canopy allows all these growths to get around the same amount of light and thus grow to be the same size.