First real grow

I have not been involved in the hobby in over 30 years but the recent legalization in MA has me interested in growing again. I have been reading and watching a lot of videos for months now and I am finally getting started. I am open to and welcome constructive criticism and helpful tips as long as they are presented in a polite manner and with good intentions.

I was a little nervous about purchasing seeds online but I am happy to say that the good folks at Single Seed Center got me my seeds very discreetly in about 10 business day with a couple of freebies.

I purchased 5 pairs of seeds. Acapulco Gold, Pineapple Chunk, G13 Haze, Vanilla Kush and Critical Cure. They gave me one each of Kripple Roulette and OG Kush auto flowering.

This grow will be one of each of my purchased seeds along with the Kripple Roulette. I will update this thread as I can get a little extra time with pictures and as much useful information as I can and I am sure that I will have some questions along the way.

Welcome!!
My first ws Attitude, second was single seed, many years ago.
My first also had the AG from Barney. It was great, maybe not THE AG, but who cares right.

if you see the panama Red by...?? um,,,ace maybe, he's got the real deal, what a bitch she is though, but maybe worth it
I didnt trust the internet reviews so I bought every cup winner from every country offered, what a ride its been. check out the sponsor seed sellers here on the forum. theyve got some real fire man, if I catch your vibe right, you'll see, from the states even! with a credit card.....do it now!!! lol
I keep mine in the original zippy/tubes/wraps, and put them into a fabric insulated lunch bag zip up. Inside is a few of those dessicant packs, I keep it on the bottom shelf, up against the back of the fridge. I have seeds from over a decade that still sprout. the older thy get though the more difficult it will be possibly.

Last night I put together my grow tent, installed a temporary 4000k LED light and started the germination process for the seeds in 5.5ph water. I also started soaking my rockwool in 5.5ph water also. I intend to ignore the seeds for approximately 48 hours in the enclosed dark tent. Hopefully they will all have cracked and started tap roots when I check them on Friday night so that I can get them in the rockwool cubes and started under the light. Here are the pictures that I took of my progress so far.

chemphlegm said:

Welcome!!
My first ws Attitude, second was single seed, many years ago.
My first also had the AG from Barney. It was great, maybe not THE AG, but who cares right.

if you see the panama Red by...?? um,,,ace maybe, he's got the real deal, what a bitch she is though, but maybe worth it
I didnt trust the internet reviews so I bought every cup winner from every country offered, what a ride its been. check out the sponsor seed sellers here on the forum. theyve got some real fire man, if I catch your vibe right, you'll see, from the states even! with a credit card.....do it now!!! lol
I keep mine in the original zippy/tubes/wraps, and put them into a fabric insulated lunch bag zip up. Inside is a few of those dessicant packs, I keep it on the bottom shelf, up against the back of the fridge. I have seeds from over a decade that still sprout. the older thy get though the more difficult it will be possibly.

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Thank you for the welcome. I really have no idea with all of the strains these days. I simply picked two that were Indica heavy and two that were Sativa heavy and then on that was mostly CBD to start. I figured that would give me a well rounded selection and at least a place to start. Like I said, 30 years away from the hobby and a lot of catching up and learning to do.

one issue of high times mag will catch you up man. google cup winners from every year....
I haphazardly toss my seeds into a small mason jar with a splash of water and leave it on the kitchen counter till I see it crack, carelessly push it into a rapid rooter, rather use rockwool but didnt burn with rootballs in hydro, now I grow dirt only. they all pop usually. my parents were hippy indoor commercial growers in the 70s, I used when I was really young a couple times openly, then only after found out that I had to work when I got older, that did it. helped me sort the feelings I had for making another mans dreams come true, but not mine, at the time made no sense, not so much now either.
its different now, you'll see. this weed is not grown the same, its dialed in now, not laying in a field to sun bake and such. Its harvest at peak harvest instead of a tip comes in. We got big 1000 watt hid lights now, instead of a thousand tubes of floro's and stolen street lamps. we got real pro mix soil mixes and more. its a whole new game for us now. you'll see. your first hit and you'll be like,,wtf!! all those years of schwag( even if you thought it was good then....) dont get me wrong, really well grown weed did show up here and then. sellers would call it banana bud, and Hawaiian and others, but now you'll know, it was grown well indoors is all.

peace

So I waited left the seeds in the wet napkins inside plastic bags undisturbed in the dark for 46 hours. It looks like all of the seeds have cracked and they vary from no tap root to about 1/4" of tap root so far. I am going to leave them for another day to see if I can not get at least a 1/4" or more tap root on all of them before planting. The rockwool has been soaking in 5.5ph water for two days now and the water in the b

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Hectic day being the Christmas Eve and all. I got my shopping finished and presents wrapped and want to wish you all Happy Holidays. After the family gathering I had a chance to check on my seeds and what a difference that extra day made. I will say that I also set the light timer to come on at 6am to give them a little extra warmth and it worked wonderfully. I now have them all planted in the rockwool. The water that the rockwool was soaking in is now 6.6ph so I am going to assume that is also the ph of the rockwool seeing how it soaked for just about 3 days. The humidity is a little on the low side so I just grabbed a semi clear plastic storage container from the kitchen cabinets( please don't tell the wife) to place ever the plants for the first few days until they are up and going. So today is day one of planting and we are off on a new adventure. Thanks again to Single Seed Center for the healthy seeds that all were able to be planted.

Well it has been another 24ish hours and I am more than impressed with the results so far. Only the Pineapple Chunk hasn't made it to the surface yet and the Critical Cure has sprouted up about a 1/2" above the rockwool already. All of the others are at or just above the surface at this point. I just sprayed a little of the leftover 6.6ph water that I soaked the rockwool in and placed the storage container back on the top.

Another day and now we have 4 of the plants between 1/2" and 1" tall. The Kripple Roulette tap root had a 180 degree bend in it when I planted it and I thought that I placed it in a good position but it looks like it is having a hard time making the slight turn to the surface. The Pineapple Chunk seed is not at the surface so I won't be surprised if it tries to catch up by tomorrow night. The Vanilla Kush and Acapulco Gold both had the cracked seed shells still on the plants and I managed to gently get the one off of the Acapulco Gold but the one on the Vanilla Kush is being stubborn and I did not want to damage the plant. I will give it another try tomorrow. Other than that I just gave each rockwool a couple of sprays with that 6.6ph water and placed the container back over the plants.

YES!!! I noticed that the Pineapple Chunk had poked its head up this morning and sometime today the Kripple Roulette managed to come through the surface. I also managed to get the seed shell off of the Vanilla Kush without harming it. It looks like all six are going to make it at this point as long as I don't go and do something stupid. I gave each plant a couple of sprays with the 6.6ph water and put the container back over the plants. The temp has been about 75° in the tent and in the low 80°s inside the container. It is winter so the humidity has been in around 33-36% in the tent but I am thinking that it is a little higher under the container.

Off to the races... tonight marks one full week since I started the germination process and all of the plants are now safely through the surface and shooting up fast. I am kind of amazed as to how fast these are moving along. and reading as much as I can to try an be prepared for the next steps. I am trying to decide if I want to transplant to 18oz solo cups and then maybe right to 3gal pots or if I should also get 1gal pots in between to try and control the growth of the root density. Just like everything else there are different opinions and probably no real wrong way as long as I do not limit the growth along the way. Tonight the tent was 75° and 30% and inside the container was 85° and hopefully a little higher humidity. Just two quick sprays with the 6.6ph water and put the container back on top. Maybe tomorrow I will start documenting daily height of each plant just so I have a little more to analyze later. I also think that I am going to put a bowl of water in the tent to boost humidity a little.

This morning I noticed that the humidity came up to the high 30's by leaving the bowl of water in the tent last night so I removed the clear container that I was covering the plants with and lowered the light to within a couple of inches of the plants so that they would stay warmer without the container. When I got home from work I noticed that they sensor temp was in the mid 90's so I raised the light 3 or 4 clicks on the ratchets. By this evening the temp sensor temp was down to the low 90's and the humidity was around 49% so I raised the ratchets another 4 clicks figuring that this will allow the sensor temp to be mid to high 80's tomorrow. then gave each plant a couple of sprays of the 6.6ph water just before the timer turned the light off at midnight.

So far I am very happy with my progress. Even though they are still tiny and fragile they look happy and healthy.

Otterly Foolish said:

Off to the races... tonight marks one full week since I started the germination process and all of the plants are now safely through the surface and shooting up fast. I am kind of amazed as to how fast these are moving along. and reading as much as I can to try an be prepared for the next steps. I am trying to decide if I want to transplant to 18oz solo cups and then maybe right to 3gal pots or if I should also get 1gal pots in between to try and control the growth of the root density. Just like everything else there are different opinions and probably no real wrong way as long as I do not limit the growth along the way. Tonight the tent was 75° and 30% and inside the container was 85° and hopefully a little higher humidity. Just two quick sprays with the 6.6ph water and put the container back on top. Maybe tomorrow I will start documenting daily height of each plant just so I have a little more to analyze later. I also think that I am going to put a bowl of water in the tent to boost humidity a little.

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Grow looks great. I would go with 1 gallons and then transplant again to larger when needed. I go from cubes to gallon to 5 gallon smart pots.

Levinthelyf said:

Grow looks great. I would go with 1 gallons and then transplant again to larger when needed. I go from cubes to gallon to 5 gallon smart pots.

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Thank you. Have you been doing that for long? I was told not to get into too big of a pot from a cube because the roots will not be able to retrieve nutrients from the soil in the parts of the pot that they do not reach. I would love to know about what your results have been.

Today was a bit eventful as far as the grow is concerned. This morning I checked in in the plants and the temp at the sensor was 87 just as I expected from lifting the lights a little more last night. SO I went to work feeling good. This evening I decided that it was time to have a little air moving about in the tent so I added an oscillating fan just below the table height to that no air was hitting the plants directly but they will flutter just a tad every so often. Now I may need to lower the lights a couple clicks because the temp sensor is reading closer to 79° now. I am having fun learning more about controlling the environment in the ten to keep the plants happy. I gave each plant a couple more sprays of the 6.6ph water and I think that I will be starting a very diluted Clonex feeding next week that was suggested by a local grower that I will ph around 6.0.

Oh crap, I think that I screwed up bu putting the fan in the tent yesterday. The plants looked fine when I checked on them earlier in the day but this evening a few of them are wilted over. I do not think that the breeze from the fan hurt the plants directly but I do think that all of that extra air movement evaporated the air from the rockwool prematurely seeing how I am only adding a couple of sprays to each cube each evening. I have turned the fan off and given each plant 3-4 sprays of the 6.6ph water and closed the tent back up and I will check them again in an hour or so to see if they are starting to recover or not. I am hoping that they are just a little thirsty and not going to die but we will have to wait and see. I am definitely interested in any feedback that you may have at this point.

After I updated last night I decided that I was probably under watering the plants the entire time and that the fan probably just exaggerated the dehydration. I do not think that the airy nature of the rockwool holds that water long with the moving air. I mixed up a very weak Clonex solution of 3ml in a quart and it was 5.8ph and used a syringe to give each plant 5ml. This morning the two that were just bent over are already starting to straighten up again but I think that the little Pineapple Chunk might be a goner. I used a marker to gently lift it off of the rockwool to avoid any nutrient burn and gave each plant another 2ml of the weak Clones solution this morning and I am going to hope for the best. I will probably update again this evening.

So last night I did not get around to taking pictures but I did give them each a good 10ml of the weak Clonex solution that I made. This morning I did the same again and got a little run out at the bottom of each pot. I was hoping that the Pineapple Chunk was going to pull through because it still had a little green in the leaves but I think it is definitely gone now. The other five have perked up quite a bit. I raised the lamp back up to about 10-12 inches above the plants because I think it was burning the leaves a bit. There are yellow and or dry spots on most of the first leaves at this point but it looks like some new sets are starting on all of them. I definitely think that I was under watering them for a few days because I heard that over watering was one of the most common mistakes. I did not realize that the tiny little plants would go through much water in the beginning. Oh well, lesson learned. The false leaves are starting to dry up on a couple of them so I think that I need to make a stronger Clonex solution soon.

I did not take pictures last night but I shot some this morning. I also lifted the rockwool to check how the rooting was coming along and I could see at least one good root to the bottom on all of them and a couple had maybe 6-8 roots out of the bottom of the cubes. I will probably be transplanting at least a few of these into Solo cups tomorrow.