First ever grow, grow journal.

I can see this grow going disastrously wrong, due to a couple of main factors;

1. My inexperience (although i am confident i know a heck of alot now thanks to this website and other research).

2. My timeline, im on holiday for three weeks commencing 28th June. So i have to harvest before then, so i know my yield etc if i get that far will b poor.

3. Equipment, im a bit skint so not everything is perfect.

Anyway on to the journal.

Equipment is your standard reflective surface (Not Al foil).

Lighting, currently i use 240W fluorescent aswell as another 30 W cool white fluro. But these are for my Salvia plants primarily, but will have to do currently to get my seedlings going. In the post is a 400w HPS.

Began germination on 14th March, with nothing untill two days ago. Finaly one of my two seeds cracked and planted it straight away. The following day the other cracked at a much faster pace than the first.

Transported both into Rockwool cubes once they showed root of about 1cm in length.

Now they are both under 240w Fluro with PH water.

One hasnt shown at all yet through the rock wool where as the other is poking out, but is completely white, which is worrying me.. Anyway this is day three in total. Photos below.

Oh and this is Not the grow area i will be using. This is my Salvia Divinorum grow area and am only using at the moment due to available light.

I have taken two photos of the one sprout. and a general shot of my grow area im currently using.

great set up. enjoy your grow. good luck, my friend.

cheers i have my fingers crossed that i manage to get something out of this. Bit worried about the white seedling, hoping by tomorrow it'll show some better signs, could be me being paranoid.

Update: day four now in total. will add a photo to this post later when i take one.

Im a bit worried about speed of growth. The sprout that i have shown in previous photos is longer now and beginning to turn green at the tips and brown ish on the stem so that seems good. How ever the other seed still hasnt emerged, which is surprising as it was the first one to crack.

Update: Day 5.

Sorry i didnt get back with photos yesterday ended up spending the day setting up my new grow area. Bought a cheap indoor green house. So i've been adapting it with lights, when my HPS arrives it will fit perfectly. Just need to install some computer fans etc now to keep climate under control.

Anyway the second seedling has shown its self now although still arced. I cant help but feel these are growing rather slowly in comparison to other grows i've seen on here but that may be me being paranoid. Anyway photos below.

Oh and by the way theres a slit down a leaf on the larger of the two, this must have been when the seed split or something? Anyway heres the photos:









And there you have it. I've had the light about an inch or so away from the tops of them now, with 21/3 light schedule. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.

A quick question. I have a slight problem which is that i am going on holiday for three weeks on June the 28th. Do you think it would be possible to harvest by then? The photos above are exactly what stage they are at now. The strain is "Arjan Strawberry haze" and states 10 weeks flowering, 11 for extra taste. I will be using a 400w hps.

I'm getting a bit worried that im pushed for time. For it to be a eleven weeks flowering i'd have to put them into a 12/12 cycle on the 17th of April. Thats 23 days away.. Im fucked arent i. Im not fussed about a huge yield.

Day 6: The second seedling has perked up quite alot now compared to yesterday. She seems to be facing upwards more. How ever theres big colour contrast between the two. The second seedling seems alot darker and one of her leaves is smaller than the other.... As if it was a different strain. Any ideas why this is?

The first seedling seems to be doing great despite the hole in one of her leaves.








Above is the comparison between the two. As you can see there is a major difference between the two. Whats going on? any idea as to why one of the leaves is under developed? Help would be gladly appreciated.

Where did you get the seeds? If there just bag seeds ive found alot of those seeds are abused and miss handled and it creates deformations in the leaves. Get a few more sets of nods on the plant with the weird leaf and see if the deformations continue. if they you can keep growing it as long as it wants to grow. but anytime i had a seed sprout like that it never got bigger then 6-10in so I pulled all of them before any bloom. hope i helped

Are you giving them any nutes right now? or is it just fresh water still?

i got them from greenhouse seeds, Theyre "Arjan Strawberry haze feminized"

Not Nutes at the moment just water. Apart from possibly a bit of spray from my other plants possibly reaching them but i doubt it and even then itd be hardly anything. Thanks for the reply. i hope they manage to sort themselves out!

Jackbobjoe98 said:

Where did you get the seeds? If there just bag seeds ive found alot of those seeds are abused and miss handled and it creates deformations in the leaves. Get a few more sets of nods on the plant with the weird leaf and see if the deformations continue. if they you can keep growing it as long as it wants to grow. but anytime i had a seed sprout like that it never got bigger then 6-10in so I pulled all of them before any bloom. hope i helped

Click to expand...

Good information Jackbobjoe! I too have a plant like this that won't see a day of flowering. Here is a picture of the plant that is bag seed and have horrible genetics. As you can see at the bottom it started to be a good plant. As time went by the leaves curled, they were shriveled and many many other deformations in the leaves. Check out my grow journal for beginning pictures of what that plant looked like.

Sorry i havent updated the last couple of days been busy. So its day 9:

They seem to be doing really well. A root emerged out of one of them yesterday morning. Must have happened over night. This was on the healthier of the two. Then later that day the second seedling followed with emerging roots. So i transplanted them into larger rockwool cubes. Although they didnt fit perfectly so i filled the gaps with perlite. Hope that was ok?

Anyway photos below. The last set o photos showed a big contrast between the two plants. Where one seemed to be struggling alot more than the other. Notice the difference now.

Below: This is a side shot of which used to be the strongest looking one.


Side shot of what used to be the runt, as you can see she has caught up in height aswel as her leaves.


Fan leaves really beginning to develop:


As you can see the leaves have improved alot from the last update.


So far im pretty happy, seems to be going well
Love checking up on them each morning, its surprising the difference just over night.

Oh and by the way the light schedule is 22:2 And im still keeping the light ridiculously close, its a fluro so heat isnt an issue. But is there any point when i should stop keeping it close?

Cheers for checkin out my journal

Around 3 weeks old, you can probably start moving the CFLs at the max I'd say is 4-5" away. Until then I'd stick with the 1-3". They look so innocent when they are young. Keep up the good work!

Alright Awesome cheers! Trying to keep these babies as short as possible

If height is an issue for you, I'd suggest reading up on tying down your plants. This works great if you have limited space to work with. Just tie down the tops of your plants and as the days/weeks pass you can slightly tighten the string. At a certain point your plant will be almost horizontal and it'll focus most of the growth on the sides and not the tops. Hope this was helpful!

alright cheers mate i'll look into it. i didnt realize tying down would help the development on the sides as well. Though it was literally a way of bending your plant into any shape to fit your room lol.

my friend grew his shit that way and got some buds that were in the wierdest shape I've ever seen. He had some in the shapes of J's and S's , it was pretty intense. Just all depends on how it's tied down.

Day 11:

Seem to be doing well. The plant that was struggling at first is doing really well. Is taller than the other an its leaf development has over taken the other plant. I added a little bit of Rooting gel to some water and watered this plant alone with this solution for an experiment in another thread. And these could be the results. After that watering its really perked up and gone for it.

To make it easier for me to describe which plant is which in photos. I'll call the plant that was originally healthy and doing better "A" and the plant that seemed to be struggling "B"

Anyway heres some photos:

"A" is on the left here. As you can see "B" has over taken just in height.


This is "B"


"A"


Another shot of "B"


Am i wrong in counting eleven segments on the leaves? Isnt that way too many?

Day 12:

Things seem to be going well. I was surprised today when i lift up the rock wool cubes to find large roots emerging from the bottom! Two strong roots on one, and four on the other. Was caught by surprise so i only have one pot ready... So i have planted one of them in their final pot today. I was going to transfer the other one into a slightly smaller pot for now but thought it wouldnt be worth it if i am to re pot it in a day or so.

So currently one is in a large pot where as the other is still in the rock wool cube on top of the pot to get closer to the light. The one in the plant pot is "B"

My grow area is getting too crowded now need a re think asap, you can see from the picture below lol:


There are a couple of shelves above it, so might segregate the Salvia plants etc to one shelf and these babies on their own. Will mean i can keep the salvia on 18/6 when i put these to 12/12.

Below is how the light is being left for them at the mo:






In the pot, i have lots of gravel at the bottom of the pot for good drainage, i am using miracle grow compost with perlite. Still only using water to water them as im guessing the soil now has enough nutrients.

Any tips would be great, not sure if im doing this right... lol

Everything looks great, I've never personally tried growing in the medium you're using but it sounds good! You're gonna be suprised at the growth in the next 10 days! I'll be checking in on your babies! Take care bro!