First Grow: Raspberry Cough and Northern Lights 3 Weeks Veg and Some Questions

Hey guys, this is my first time trying to grow anything. I'm 3 weeks into veg on one each of Raspberry Cough and Northern Lights...8x 26w/6500K CFLs. One week ago today they looked like this: Post from last week

Pics from today are below. What a difference a week makes. I know they're no big deal to most of you here (I've seen some pics on RIU that at 3 weeks look like a freaking rain forest compared to mine), but as a total newb, I can't help but think it's pretty cool. Let me know if you have any thoughts about how they're looking for 3 weeks veg.

Question 1: Any thoughts on when to flower? My space only allows me just over 3 feet of working height and since the pots already have them about 10-12 inches off the ground it's really more like 2-2.5 feet of height I have to work with. Right now the RC is about 7-8 inches tall and the NL is just a bit shorter.

Question 2: Topping worries me as I'm afraid I'm going to screw something up or set them back a couple weeks. I figure I may just finish them without topping, but I'd appreciate any thoughts.

Thanks...couldn't have gotten even to this point without the info from all of you here!

Pics Description: First 3 are the RC and last 3 are the NL

wait to top until it gets a little bigger...experement with super croping too. Remember the seedling stage last about 2 weeks, then the third week is your "official" 1st week of veg. (round about like that). They look great for 3 weeks from seed though...looks right on point so far. Dont feed until you see those lower leaves start looking a little yellowish...before it gets to yellow though.

They look really good. Are you using pre-fertilized potting soil?

smokinrav said:

They look really good. Are you using pre-fertilized potting soil?

Click to expand...

Yep. Miracle Grow Moisture Control soil mixed with about 2 cups of regular perlite per gallon of soil.

Smoking Loon said:

wait to top until it gets a little bigger...experement with super croping too. Remember the seedling stage last about 2 weeks, then the third week is your "official" 1st week of veg. (round about like that). They look great for 3 weeks from seed though...looks right on point so far. Dont feed until you see those lower leaves start looking a little yellowish...before it gets to yellow though.

Click to expand...

Speaking of those lower leaves, they're getting big but can't get out of the pot since they're so low. Is that a problem? What should I do with/about them, if anything?

Your plants could double in size during the flowering stage, so if you only got 2-2 1/2 ft. to work with you may want to induce flowering once they are about a foot tall.

Those look like one gallon planters, so you may face a timing issue coming up. You'll need to flower before long, right about the time the plant has finished leeching the soil of ferts. You may need to add some veg ferts after switching to 12/12 to feed the plant during the stretch. Then gradually switch over to your flowering ferts.

Good luck!

or transplant to bigger pots

lol, yeah that too

Update at 4 weeks from Seed:
They're getting thirsty a lot quicker now. Think I'll switch to flower in about 1.5-2 weeks.

Again, first three are the RC and last 3 are the NL. NL has definitely stayed squatter.

So here are the plants at 38 days from first sprout. As usual, the first three pics are the RC and the last 3 pics are the NL. The RC is now about 13" tall and the NL is between 9"-10" tall. I was away for more than a week and improvised a watering system. They had still dried a bit upon my return and looked a touch sad and weepy before watering again, but they perked back up nicely. It's starting to smell a good bit, so I'm going to take all of your advice from other threads and get a fan/filter.

Tonight I switch to flower. I swapped all the lights for 2700k and I am giving them a "shock-dark" period (many people have recommended it here) of about 22 hours. 22 instead of 24 just because I got to them around 8:00 tonight but want the 12/12 period to run 6:00-6:00...light at night, dark during the day. So I'll switch the lights back on tomorrow night at 6:00 and it will be 12/12 from then on.

Well, I decided to call it quits on my first (and last) experiment with growing. Especially since I don't really smoke other than on the rare occasional whim if I happen to be around someone who has some, my experiment just started feeling like it's not worth it. For me it just started feeling too risky and not worth the home-grown goods in the end. I'm probably better off only having occasional, indirect access to the stuff anyway. Despite that, thanks to all for the input while my little experiment was fun. I'll probably poke around here a bit more from time to time to check on some your guys' and gals' progress just to see how it's coming along. On the up-side, I'm going to keep my basil and peppers going indoors and now have learned some great info on set-ups to keep them going strong...the basil has been way better than anything store bought!

Take care.

That's kinda sad man. You had some beautiful plants on your hands.