First grow journal

First timer here. Shoulda started this a month ago, but too busy taking care of my plants! Getting close to switching to 12/12.

Set-Up:
4x4 Secret Jardin tent
Lights: 4 T8 fluorescents for seedlings/clones
600watt Hortilux lamp, set at 400watts for veg
600watt digital ballast
6" Blockbuster hood
6" inline fan / 6" charcoal filter

Medium:
Sunshine Mix #2

Nutes:
Gen'l Hydro MicroGro/Bloom
GH FloraNectar

Water:
tap water, left out to de-chlorinate, and ph'd down to 6 using sulfuric acid

Growing:
Master bubba clones
OG Kush clones
'bag seed' seedlings (brickweed)

Here is what I started with:

Master bubba girls:


The OG girls after I potted them:


And the some of the germinated sativa seeds:

Pics from Jan 10th:

All but one seed germinated, and the master bubbas are looking good.

Pics from Jan 15th:



Seedlings all looking happy, and the clones are growing. Plain water for the seedlings, and going 1/2 strength on nutes for the MBK on 1/16. Using a feeding schedule for GH Flora series that I found here on RIU. FIM'd the MBKs.

Jan 20th:

The master bubbas are doing great, and the OG girls are looking better - they looked kinda bad when we got em.
The seedlings are on their 3rd set of leaves. Keeping the plants pretty close to the T8s - not exactly sure what to expect from the bag seed height-wise in flower, so am trying to keep these a bit 'stunted' in height early on.

Some of the seedling leaves are curling under, while others are not. Not sure why. (?)

Jan 24th:

Am LSTing the OGs, which they seem to love; they are growing well and getting a better green color to them. The master bubs have been FIM'd twice, but this hasn't resulted in multiple tops forming yet; though it has put more energy into growing their middle branches.

The seedlings are doing well, but about half of them have curling leaves. Looks like there are many phenotypes growing, since the bag seed is from several different bags. Some are from a 2011 bag, and the rest I called "Other". They are some type of sativa cross, I guess with whatever was in those particular fields at that time. We'll call them a 'mystery'. Any guesses are welcome!

Jan 27th:

Re-potted the seedlings into 1 gal w/Sunshine Mix#2 until they are sexed. Everyone looks good and growing. Master bubs are big enough to flip, but we want to flip everyone together so we'll wait for the seedlings til they're 12" high. The seedlings are starting their 4th set of leaves, but I'm keeping the T8 pretty low to keep the sativa seedlings from stretching now and growing out of the tent later.



Some of these seedlings (like B) look indica-dominant, where some (like H & M) look very sativa dominant. Should be interesting. I sure hope these really nice ones turn out to be females!!! (no offense, guys)

Feb 2nd:

Well, the tent is looking about 1/2 full now, so thinking about moving the Blockbuster hood in with the hps light - the T8 footprint isn't cutting it anymore.

Seedlings are up to 1/2 strength of nutes at 5ml/5ml/5ml, and the OGs and MBs are getting 6ml/6ml/5ml full strength. Watering until they "pee", and have tested the water out, which is at around 6.0 - same as what's going in.

Master bubbas at around 20" high now, so I topped them to slow them down again. The FIMing doesn't seem to be getting me two top colas, so maybe topping will.

Temps in the tent have been mid 70s throughout this grow - nice! Love having an indoor garden in winter!

Feb 4th:

Time to switch to the HPS light setup - out of space under the T8s!
These master bubs are getting BIG!




Set the ballast at 300watts to get the plants used to the new light/higher watts, and set it up air-cooled with the inline fan and charcoal filter. Left the white cover over the filter, thinking it's supposed to be on there? Or, does it come off?

Feb 6th:

And here's where the problems start!

So I see that one of the OG kush girls has some speckled leaves. Didn't see it before, but now that they're under the hps light, I see it much clearer:



Made a post under Plant Problems w/these pics, and get the answer of Spider Mites! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

So out we go to buy non-antibacterial dish soap and some Neem Oil Extract from Lowe's garden center ($9.97). I took out each plant and sprayed them down - topside, bottomside, and stems - with the Neem Oil solution I mixed. The ratio I found online said 2-4 teaspoons of Neem Oil per gal of water with 1/2 tsp of surfactant (dish soap). I waited until the leaves had dried before putting them back under the hps light so I wouldn't cause further damage. I did find those little buggers on the backs of some of the MBK leaves, and on the other OGK, but nothing yet on the seedlings. I sprayed them ALL though, and I cut off any damaged or infected lower leaves on the MBKs and OGKs. They needed more light down there anyways.

Here is a shot I took of the back of one of the leaves. You can see the dang mites by my thumb:



When I pulled up the photos of the OG girls when we got them as clones, I could now see (when enlarged) that OGK#2 came with spider mites! Check it out:


See those little dots? Spider mite damage, I do believe! And this guy sold these like this. Nice, huh? Live and learn.

Feb 7th:

Here is a shot of the worst affected OG girl after her Neem Oil 'bath'. I hope she feels better now. I will re-spray all of them every 3 days for a week into flowering. Now I am paranoid about spider mites, but I feel better thinking they came in with the clones and didn't come from my house!

Feb 9th (today!):

Feeling better about the mites, but now the seedlings are wilting-looking. I gave them their 1st 'full-strength' nutes the other night at 5ml Micro/5ml Gro/5ml Bloom, along with just a bit (1/2ml) of FloraNectar. The 1 gal pots under the hps light are going thru water more frequently now, but they weren't dried out or anything.

Wondering if this is nute burn, or if my light is too close. I raised the light and put it back to 300 watts for today when it turns back on. It's around 12" from the tops of the seedlings, and it doesn't feel hot at all to the back of my hand. But still, they are droopy! Some of the leaves which were droopy before have gotten a bit crispy, too. Crap! I am trying to do this right!

Saw my first pre-flowers today on the master bubbas and the og girls - definitely female. Now I know what to look for on the seedlings. Hey, it's the little things, right?

Feb 11th:

Switched to 12/12 light today, and took some clones from the best master bubba and the best og kush girls.

Feb 12th:

Clones are looking good. I think they may actually have grown. Everything about these plants is amazing.

The seedlings are starting to show their sexes. My most sativa-looking seedlings have all been girls, so should have some nice bud for the daytime.

Also, the most indica-looking plant looks like a girl, too! Sweet!

Bummer though that the most unique plant of the bunch looks like he's got some balls showing. I've been wondering about the genetics of that one, as he's been different from the start.

Thinking this one's a girl:


And this one's a boy:

Well, we kilt the 5 young mens yesterday, on Valentine's Day. They all had balls, so... So sad. And this morning, one of them was poking its face out of the garbage can. I think it was still trying to grow, without even any dirt. These things are unbelievable.

The clones are doing well, never wilted. They're growing. We cut a clone off of one of the seedlings last night, and she's looking good, too. And, we switched the ballast up to 600watts, transplanted the girls into 5 gal pots.

This shit takes time. Between nuting, transplanting, neeming, and just staring at the plants, plan to spend a couple of hours every day. Seriously, this is addictive.

The master bubbas are already up to 36" - they are humongous! The og girls are crawling all over the tent - I am staking them down and they just keep growing more shoots.

I have sprayed the Neem Oil mixtures 3 times now, once every 3 days. I'll keep doing it a few more times, since we just switched to flower on the 11th.

Feb 18th:

These plants are exploding with growth, especially the OGs. I unleashed them from their stakes yesterday, and they are taking over!



The master bubbas are at 31" high already. They are way taller than the rest, so everyone else is up on bucketes, just to try to keep the canopy level.



We still don't know 4 of the seedlings' sex yet. They are very shy. Here are two of them - check out the different phenotypes!


Here are a couple of the known females: (from the left: "Bonita", "Fabulosa" and "Guapa")



These seedlings are all from bag seed, so they are some type of sativa, likely Mexican brickweed. Some of them look more indica, based on the leaf shape, but I don't know enough yet to know how they will smoke. Hopefully, we shall see... Fabulosa has a very funky looking leaf shape. (the leaf damage was from when I topped her)


If anyone has any guesses on what type of strain these may be, feel free to throw it out there.

Wondering if I'm seeing some more mite damage on one of the ogs, so I got some Liquid Ladybug at the hydro store today.

Put the discarded male plants through the lawnmower today. They'd been in the garbage for 5 days now with no dirt, just roots, and mauled a bit. They were still growing!!!

A is a girl, and I was a boy. A is now "Appalonia", and I has been snipped.



Apple was the first seed to sprout and has been healthy all throughout the grow, so I am pleased to see she is a girl. I'm not too sad to see I go, because I have seedling G (aka Guapa) which looks very similar in leaf structure to him; wondering if leaf structure is going to help me identify these strains. Thinking leaf shape could show indica dominant vs sativa dominant???

I will be updating this grow journal soon. In week 7 of flowering now, so there's a lot to re-load after the data loss earlier this month. I need to re-create this journal.