Unafraid MMJ Patient
Member
My very first grow was just the beginning of last year or so when we scored a nice 5x5 grow tent for cheap from one of the local vendors. They had been using it as a display model and now they were changing over to a new one, so they needed it to be gone to make room. They tossed in the el cheapo 400 wall HPS with just some reflective wings on it, a carbon filter and a small inline fan. Few hundred bucks later and I was in business.
At this time I knew alot of theories about growing and alot of things I'd learned from talking with growers or watching the process done myself, but I still hadn't taken the plunge so to err on the side of safety (and hard economic times) I passed over the nutrients and just used some good soil. Happy Frog; and I just gave them straight water, with the Ph adjusted to about 6.5 or a little higher.
I figured this would give me some delicious buds since mother nature makes it best, right?
From my local pharmacy I was able to get my hands on some God's Gift clones. I brought 2 home and we immediately put them into some 1 gallon pots with nothing but Happy Frog soil, watered and parked those bad girls on a shelf about 24 inches away from the light. I know a 400 watt HPS loses alot of light just a few feet away from the source so I wanted to make sure the plants were getting enough to grow healthy.
They progressed through veg stage fairly easily with no health concerned or any growth issues, with a nice deep green color and some purple-redness in the stems. This little fact almost made me hope for some purple in the buds later on but we didn't turn out to be so lucky. Grew to be a couple of feet tall and I moved them into some 3 gallon pots, though I know now that I should have given them a 3 gallon pot to begin with and then moved them into some 5 gallon pots to make sure they don't get root-bound.
Anything more than 4 gallon size pot and you should be able to grow a monster of a plant before it gets root-bound, so a 5 gallon is a good choice. Or a 7 gallon.
But just in the very first week into flower I started seeing some little specs of white around the nodes on the stem and on parts of my biggest leaves. What was a curious anomaly one day, was a powdery mildew problem the second day, and a hugely bad powdery mildew infestation the third day. It went from bad to worse very quickly, mostly likely because I didn't see how bad it was before it got almost unmanageable. I tried using a neem oil solution in the form of a foliar spray that was 1 part neem oil and 9 parts water as suggested by one of the grow store employees. but this only seemed to slow it down for a few days. About a week and a few days into the problem my beautiful plants were already starting to look rather sad about it, so I gave in and bought some PM Wash. I didn't want to use any form of chemicals but I had to choose between that or losing the crop all together, and at least PM Wash is safe to use even when the plants are in bud.
It took a few days before there was much change, but by the fourth day or so into treating with PM Wash the powdery mildew started to clear up. I sprayed the plants everyday at least twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. Some days I sprayed them at lunch too.
I think having a fungus problem for the first 2 solid weeks of flower seriously stunted my bud growth, but once the mildew was gone and I was down to spraying only once a day as just a preventative measure, then the plants really started growing some buds rather quickly.
With such a late start I let them flower for 9 weeks even though they're much more an indica than a sativa strain. The buds were dense and a dark dark green, covered in tiny pale orange hairs, and alot stickier on the hands then they looked. Chopped down my plants when they were just over 4 feet tall or so and hung them to dry in the bedroom closet.
The plants dried for a few days, I don't think more than five days or so since the buds weren't too big, and then went into some quart mason jars to cure for an additional week or so. We tossed the buds at least once a day and opened the jars to let the moisture out a little more often then that, until the buds were only sticky and not wet or damp.
The smoke was utterly delicious and definitely not what I was expecting to come out of my first grow. Had a great earthy- peppery taste that came out of dense nugs, with wonderfully smooth smoke and a heavy stony sort of high. Worked great for my migraines and knocked insomnia out of the park to boot. Though I will also say that this plant gave me munchies like you have never felt before and I still feel guilty about how many doughnuts I may or may not haven eaten. No taste from the PM Wash or the powdery mildew, so that was a definite plus.
All in all, it was a very informative grow and a fun experience. This was the first time I found out how much fun I actually had while growing because I wanted to start again immediately afterwards, which just leads us right to where we are now at grow number 3.
PS- I'll come back and edit with pictures soon as I find them.
At this time I knew alot of theories about growing and alot of things I'd learned from talking with growers or watching the process done myself, but I still hadn't taken the plunge so to err on the side of safety (and hard economic times) I passed over the nutrients and just used some good soil. Happy Frog; and I just gave them straight water, with the Ph adjusted to about 6.5 or a little higher.
I figured this would give me some delicious buds since mother nature makes it best, right?
From my local pharmacy I was able to get my hands on some God's Gift clones. I brought 2 home and we immediately put them into some 1 gallon pots with nothing but Happy Frog soil, watered and parked those bad girls on a shelf about 24 inches away from the light. I know a 400 watt HPS loses alot of light just a few feet away from the source so I wanted to make sure the plants were getting enough to grow healthy.
They progressed through veg stage fairly easily with no health concerned or any growth issues, with a nice deep green color and some purple-redness in the stems. This little fact almost made me hope for some purple in the buds later on but we didn't turn out to be so lucky. Grew to be a couple of feet tall and I moved them into some 3 gallon pots, though I know now that I should have given them a 3 gallon pot to begin with and then moved them into some 5 gallon pots to make sure they don't get root-bound.
Anything more than 4 gallon size pot and you should be able to grow a monster of a plant before it gets root-bound, so a 5 gallon is a good choice. Or a 7 gallon.
But just in the very first week into flower I started seeing some little specs of white around the nodes on the stem and on parts of my biggest leaves. What was a curious anomaly one day, was a powdery mildew problem the second day, and a hugely bad powdery mildew infestation the third day. It went from bad to worse very quickly, mostly likely because I didn't see how bad it was before it got almost unmanageable. I tried using a neem oil solution in the form of a foliar spray that was 1 part neem oil and 9 parts water as suggested by one of the grow store employees. but this only seemed to slow it down for a few days. About a week and a few days into the problem my beautiful plants were already starting to look rather sad about it, so I gave in and bought some PM Wash. I didn't want to use any form of chemicals but I had to choose between that or losing the crop all together, and at least PM Wash is safe to use even when the plants are in bud.
It took a few days before there was much change, but by the fourth day or so into treating with PM Wash the powdery mildew started to clear up. I sprayed the plants everyday at least twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. Some days I sprayed them at lunch too.
I think having a fungus problem for the first 2 solid weeks of flower seriously stunted my bud growth, but once the mildew was gone and I was down to spraying only once a day as just a preventative measure, then the plants really started growing some buds rather quickly.
With such a late start I let them flower for 9 weeks even though they're much more an indica than a sativa strain. The buds were dense and a dark dark green, covered in tiny pale orange hairs, and alot stickier on the hands then they looked. Chopped down my plants when they were just over 4 feet tall or so and hung them to dry in the bedroom closet.
The plants dried for a few days, I don't think more than five days or so since the buds weren't too big, and then went into some quart mason jars to cure for an additional week or so. We tossed the buds at least once a day and opened the jars to let the moisture out a little more often then that, until the buds were only sticky and not wet or damp.
The smoke was utterly delicious and definitely not what I was expecting to come out of my first grow. Had a great earthy- peppery taste that came out of dense nugs, with wonderfully smooth smoke and a heavy stony sort of high. Worked great for my migraines and knocked insomnia out of the park to boot. Though I will also say that this plant gave me munchies like you have never felt before and I still feel guilty about how many doughnuts I may or may not haven eaten. No taste from the PM Wash or the powdery mildew, so that was a definite plus.
All in all, it was a very informative grow and a fun experience. This was the first time I found out how much fun I actually had while growing because I wanted to start again immediately afterwards, which just leads us right to where we are now at grow number 3.
PS- I'll come back and edit with pictures soon as I find them.