First time grow Cemo & A Stranger

[newfarmer]

Hello all

Thanks in advance for your patience. I wanted to write all of this down so I could really learn what I am doing and how to improve. If you have constructive criticism it is welcome. Please keep any rude comments to yourself.

So here's the situation, someone a while back gave me a seed and I figured heck why not, I can always use another plant on my deck. So I germinated it and planted it and it was growing pretty good but I knew I started it late in the season to be an outside plant but I did anyway. The plant got to be about a ft and a bit high and then slowed right down to nothing right after we got a bunch of rain. This plant is in a medium sized pot in gardening soil. I looked closely at it and could tell that it was showing me it was a girl and that's about it. That was about 3 weeks ago. Fast forward to now and I have a brand new 5x5 secret Jardine tent a 1000w cool tube and a nice dimmable balast. I have this plant in there now but it dosn't sem to be getting much taller just really condensed leaves around the top. I asked some question in another thread and the consensus was that I needed to up pot and start nutes. I did this but when I took it out of it's smaller pot as gentle as I could be I would say about half the roots were left behind. I put it into soil (what it was origionaly planted in but I ran out of soil so I mixed in some coco to be able to fill my pot.

I now have 8 Cemo seeds started and doing well. I got my seeds from the Victoria Seed Bank. I started the as per the directions they provided me and all 7 sprouted in 24 hrs. I probably jumped the gun a bit by putting them all in jiffi pucks right then because I think I stunted one of them, The other 6 look great. I decided to grow in coco and geo pots for my first go around because it seemed like a great way to start and to be a little forgiving on a noobe. My goal is rather than growing a bunch of smaller plants grow 4 or 5 large ones, oh ya and to not screw the whole thing right up... Thats a goal too :) I have a few pictures of where I am at today. I wished I would have got a picture of the roots on my stranger plant but sadly I had my hands full.

 

[Don Peppy]

Looks like your off to a good start bro.. I just wouldn't bring an outdoor plant into your tent.. always the risk of bringing in a spider mite or other bugs.... and you don't want that to deal with.. Best to ya.. the lil ones look great..

 

[newfarmer]

Hey thanks for stopping by Don Peppy. I have been spraying my outside plant with Einstein oil since I brought it in. Do you think I can get away with it this once? I only ask because I don't have anywhere else for it.

 

[Don Peppy]

Hey thanks for stopping by Don Peppy. I have been spraying my outside plant with Einstein oil since I brought it in. Do you think I can get away with it this once? I only ask because I don't have anywhere else for it.

Just keep her away from the lights after spraying her.. You should be ok.. And also the plant you brought indoors might have been ready to flower, and bringing it indoors under 18-6 lighting or 24-24.. not sure of your lighting schedule.. That will send it back to veg stage.. Will you be flowering in the same tent.. If so, just veg her out til you flip the little ones.. Best Donny P

 

[newfarmer]

Thanks Don Peppy, I am running the tent 18/6 right now. My plan was to get them to flower together exactly as you said. What happens if you put a freshly sprayed plant close to the lights shortly after?
I have attached a few pics of everyone in the tent today. I was transplanting the last of my little ones and noticed that the one that I stunted looks great on the surface but has little to no roots. I am going to give her another week and if she dosn't shape up she's outa there.

 

[Don Peppy]

You can cause them to burn and get crispy.. same with misting them with water, or foliar feeding.. you always want to leave them away from the lights, or if outdoors, spray in early morn. or near sundown.. Good luck.. DP

 

[newfarmer]

Hi guys

Just a quick update. Not too much has changed I know it's only been a few days since my last post and this stage is obviously not as exciting as the end weeks but I guess you have to get there somehow :). Today I fixed my exhaust duct that was more or less just wedged into an open window. I took a board and cut a 6" hole in it and attached my duct to the board. Now I have a decent window slat that my window can close on and my duct won't pull away from when I'm not paying attention heating up the whole room. I also watered the babies for the 3rd time since putting them in the 1 gal pots. I am following Canna's feeding instructions with a 1/4 strength feeding of A & B and Rizotonic. I fed each seedling 3x Solo cups 3/4 full of the feed. Oh yeah I also am using willards water a catalyst but is only gives dosing for either a folier feed or for a resivoir. Both seem to be high doses for me as I am hand watering and the lowest it calls for 45ml for 3 ltr or water. Does this sound right?

Tonight I took some pictures of how everyone is doing in the new tent and noticed that some of the babies look wrinkely and a little funny. Can anyone clue me in?

 

[newfarmer]

Hi guys,
Thanks for stopping in to take a look. It's been a little while since my last post (15 Days) and I just wanted post where I am at right now. So my stranger has grown quite a bit and has really filled out. I have trimmed it heavily 3 times and every time it has come back even stronger and bigger.

My baby Chemo plants are doing pretty good. I had 1 in the beginning that I thought I was going to loose but didn't. It had a much slower start in life than the rest but it seems to be catching up and pulling its weight now. Out of 7 seeds I am hoping for 5 girls. I guess we will see.

As this is my first grow I am trying to learn as much as possible so that it goes very smoothly so that my efforts are rewarded. Which brings me to a question I have. I have tried to feed the babies 2 x now and both times they have not reacted well and I have felt the need to flush them out.
1) When will I know they can handle the feed? and;
2) When will I know that they need feed?
I know that I am growing in Coco and there are no nutritional values in it to start with so how long can these little guys not only live but grow on nothing??

I have also been thinking about doing this grow as a SCROG. My only concern is by the time I know the sex of every plant they would surely all be tangled together making if very difficult to remove any males. Do any of you have any advice for me? Am I being too ambitious wanting to try this out on my first grow? Let me know what you guys think.

 

[Dynamite]

they look HUNGRY NOW ! could just be your camera , but they appear very light colored compared to the large plant .. I would give them some 1/2 strength food with 1/4 strength cal-mag for their first couple feeds ,not sure what brand of food your using , but just go easy the first couple feeds

 

[Dynamite]

you may want to check your coco too ,pour some water thru it , or food , and check what the runoff PPM and PH is , I've seen alot of coco that needs flushed and "charged" before the plants go in it , and I read your using canna @ 1/4 strength , not sure why the girls are not happy with that ? maybe the canna nutes already have plenty of cal-mag , I don't know , something you may want to look into , everytime I use coir I always use cal-mag from botainacare personally

willards water a catalyst but is only gives dosing for either a folier feed or for a resivoir. Both seem to be high doses for me as I am hand watering and the lowest it calls for 45ml for 3 ltr or water. Does this sound right?

I'm not familiar with that product , but I would try not using it and see how the plants react ? just a though , good luck on your grow

 

[newfarmer]

Hi guys, thanks for stopping by and taking a peek. So after my last post I went back and took another look at how I was feeding the babies and it turns out that I was making a mistake. I had been trying to feed them about 3/4 strength as well as a wetting agent for there first meals. No wonder they were screaming at me!!! I have since fed them 2X 1/2 strength feedings and thing that 2 waterings from now I will bump them up to full test. There colour looks much much better and seem to be pretty happy. 2 days ago I FIM'ed them, I know I waited till the last minute but I'm hoping I didn't wait too long. They are growing good again after the minor haircut. Here they are:

I now seem to have another problem. My stranger porch plant has grow so big and so fast that it's a bit out of control and will shortly monopolize the light. I'm really stuck. It's a great plant and unbelivable strong I was just hoping that I could catch the little ones up to it but it's not looking that way at all. Any opinions out there? I would like to veg the babies for another 30 days but that would make "Stranger" a bloody tree. I am also trying to keep an eye out for pre-flowers but I havnt seen anything yet. Do you?

 

[newfarmer]

Hi Guys, Thanks for stopping in. Boy I was really hoping for a suggestion or an idea from someone on here as to how to deal with this bush I have growing in my tent. I didn't get any feedback so I made a command decission. I build a bit of a franken scrog in order to keep "Stranger" under control and not stealing the whole tent from the Chemo seeds I actually spent good money on. I found pre-flowers on 4 or the babies today and they are girls. The other 3 are still holding their cards. I am going to up pot the 4 ladies tomorrow into there 7 Gal permanent homes. I would have waited to put them under the net but I needed to get my porch plant sorted out ASAP. I have completely hacked it back 4 times now and every time it just comes back even more mutant and faster than the time before so I hope this will work because I have a feeling it's going to consume it's allotted section of net very quickly. I am hoping to get another 25 days of Veg out of the babies before I flip them but I guess time and real estate will tell.

I was laso commenting on a separate thread about PH and discovered that the PH of the water that I am feeding my plants is high.. 8.2 My stranger plant is so healthy I don't think I could ask anything else from it. But my baby Chemo plants are a bit yellow. Can high PH affect some strains more than others? Anyone have any opinions as to what you think I should do?

 

[Don Peppy]

I use lemon juice to bring down my well waters ph.. 8.2 is a bit high.. I try to keep my pours around 6.8 for soil.. Also all the goodies get absorbed by the plant better with a ph between 6.4 to 6.8.. I just use the bottled lemon juice.. about 15 to 20 drops per gal does fine for me.. Best.. DP

 

[Oregon Grown]

It may be a good idea to put the 3 that haven't shown their sex yet closest to your bigger plant so it can fill in the space if you have to cut out males.

 

[newfarmer]

Hmm that is a really good idea Oregon Grown. I wouldn't have thought of that. I am pretty lucky though. Everyone has shown their cards over the last two days so the count is in. 6 Girls and 1 boy!!! Slamin ratio. I have up potted everyone into their perm 7 Gal homes and found a nice spot unter the screen for them. It is a bit more crowded than I was expecting because I was honestly counting on loosing more than 1 to being a male. Right now the screen is about 18 inches above the potting soil and I'm starting to think that I may be a bit high. What do you think? I plan on vegging for about 25 more days before I flip them.

 

[newfarmer]

Hi guys, Thanks for stoping by and taking a look. It's been about a week since my last post and I'm seeing some pretty good growth under the net. I'm wondering how long I should fill these guys out before flipping them? I know they will fill out quite a bit in flower but as this is my first grow I don't really know how much. Should I flip them with 20% free space left? 30%?? What do you think. These a a short squat plant from what I have read.

I also came to the conclusion that now that all 7 of these are in 7 Gal pots feeding them is a PAIN IN THE ASS!! I was mixing my food in a 5 Gal bucket and now that everyone is in the biger pots I would have to do that 3 times / feeding. Very time consuming!! Also getting a watering can under the SCROG to water is a no go so I needed a solution. I did a bit of reading and came up with a 20 Gal bucket with a sump pump in it connected to a watering wand with an on/off switch. I can fill the bucket right from my kitchen sink with an adapter and a short length of hose. It took a bit of trial and error figuring out how much to feed them because I cant actually measure by volume with the wand. The first 2 I did I way over watered them and made a big mess. after that I dialled it in to 1min & 5 Sec of watering / plant and that just gets water to run out the bottom of the pot. I will still have to think of a way to capture waste water closer to the end when I want to flush them through. Here are some pics of where I'm at today.

 

[newfarmer]

Hi everyone, thanks for taking a look.
So after 53 days from germ I have decided to flip the girls to flower. I wasn't really sure about how much more room they are going to need between now and the end but I'm sure it will be significant so I made the switch.
Next go around I already know that I will lower my screen by at least a third or maybe move right to some sort of adjustable screen. I saw someone with a tent scrog and the screen was the same size at the frame of the tent and they used clamps to hold it in place. I loved the idea. I think I would like to stay growing in coco for a while instead of using something like bubble buckets. I just like the idea of coco right now. But I will defiantly raise the whole works up onto a table and maybe use and ebb and flow table to collect my waste water and so that I'm able to flush my plants through properly without turkey bastering out the water in my pot trays for an hour. Uggg I will also make sure to pinch my tops around the 2-3 node next time and not the 5-6th to try and get the most spread out of my veg time.

I have noticed one of my plants going very pale over the last 7 days. It didn't really seem to start from the bottom up it just kinda got lighter and lighter all around. My PH meter is unreliable and I need to go get a new one but everyone else in the room seems to be fine. I just feed them 2 days ago after letting them dry out a decent amount. They weren't as dry as I would have liked before the next feeding but it just gept getting more yellow so I though lack of food so I feed them a bit early. Still no change. They got a good dose of Cal Mag with that feed too. I have put in a couple pics but it's kinda hard to tell. Any thoughts??

 

[ttystikk]

Great grow for your first- things are looking good in there! I think your 'short' plants were simply topped too early for the trellis. They could have grown a bit taller, then you could clean up unneeded branches underneath and they would be on the money. Next time!

That plant in the middle is getting blasted by your light, so it's needing a different mix of nutes than the rest- and possibly more water, too.

Nice trash can watering system. Can you put it on a dolly to roll it around? Might come in handy.

Your thought to stick with coco for a few runs is wise. It's forgiving stuff, it's reusable so it's cheap and you get to run it several times to get your grow legs. You give up relatively little in terms of growing potential to most hydro, so it's a great compromise.

Good luck, I'm subbed for the fun part!

 

[newfarmer]

Hey thanks a lot for your input ttystikk. I appreciate your encouragement. Much appreciated. So at what point would you have topped these plants? After making it to the trellis? And that totally makes sense about my yellow plant being blasted by my light. It is the plant pretty much right under the bulb. When you say she may need a different mix what would you suggest trying? Something lighter or stronger?

 

[ttystikk]

Hey thanks a lot for your input ttystikk. I appreciate your encouragement. Much appreciated. So at what point would you have topped these plants? After making it to the trellis? And that totally makes sense about my yellow plant being blasted by my light. It is the plant pretty much right under the bulb. When you say she may need a different mix what would you suggest trying? Something lighter or stronger?

Add a bit of additional nitrogen to the one in the middle and see if it helps. Check and see how much faster it's doing out compared to the rest, and add more water to compensate- this does reduce EC, which is probably desirable. Make one change at a time and give the plant a few days to tell you what it thinks.

I would have topped your girls at a height just below the trellis, which would have helped them keep up with your 'stranger'.