First Time Grow. Cream Caramel Femanized in Soil.

Hey everyone. I've always wanted a few plants of my own, but it always seemed like so much work. The amount of information out there is overwhelming. I scoured this site and a few reddit pages to learn everything I can, so hopefully I can make some magic happen. A buddy offered me some Cream Caramel Feminized seeds from Sonoma Seeds and I took him up on it. I enjoy photographing and documenting them so I'll be posting frequent pictures.

I encourage people to post / comment in my journal. Any tips and suggestions are highly appreciated!

WhiskyPancake

WhiskyPancake said:

Hey everyone. I've always wanted a few plants of my own, but it always seemed like so much work. The amount of information out there is overwhelming. I scoured this site and a few reddit pages to learn everything I can, so hopefully I can make some magic happen. A buddy offered me some Cream Caramel Feminized seeds from Sonoma Seeds and I took him up on it. I enjoy photographing and documenting them so I'll be posting frequent pictures.

Any feedback or suggestions are greatly appreciated!

WhiskyPancake

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Best thing I can say being a first timer is have patience and don’t pull down early. What type of setup you got?

Germination

First I put all 5 seeds in spring water for around 15 hours:



Next I put them in a damp paper towel. The taproots started poking out 10 hours later (4/5 popped):



Now I know I should've waited for them to grow about 1/2 inch long but I couldn't wait. I planted them in Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil (including the 5th presumably dead seed). I sat them by the window sill and started playing the waiting game:

Piper84 said:

Best thing I can say being a first timer is have patience and don’t pull down early. What type of setup you got?

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Don't pull down early as in don't harvest early?

I'm growing on the windowsill supplementing with CFLs for now and then when the time is right repotting and putting them on the balcony.

WhiskyPancake said:

Germination

First I put all 5 seeds in spring water for around 15 hours:

View attachment 4548391

Next I put them in a damp paper towel. The taproots started poking out 10 hours later (4/5 popped):

View attachment 4548392

Now I know I should've waited for them to grow about 1/2 inch long but I couldn't wait. I planted them in Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil (including the 5th presumably dead seed). I sat them by the window sill and started playing the waiting game:

View attachment 4548397

Click to expand...

Hey buddy just wanted to let you know you really should reconsider the ocean forest soil that’s more of a “hot” mixture it will be too much for those babies. You need to get light warrior soil for seeds and clones it’s got the right stuff you need. Ocean forest is something you would use after you have developed plants.

WhiskyPancake said:

Don't pull down early as in don't harvest early?

I'm growing on the windowsill supplementing with CFLs for now and then when the time is right repotting and putting them on the balcony.

Click to expand...

yeah make sure to scope them after about 6 weeks of flower you don’t want your trichs to be immature (clear heads) or too mature (full amber)

Day 1

Started to worry I had planted them too deep, but three days later (April 25) they showed their faces:



Day 2

Find myself frequently checking on them. End up staring at them for 10 minutes. Starting to question my sanity:




Day 3

Looked to me like they stretched a tonne so I got a little worried. The weather is also not looking too good as far as sunshine goes for the next week:



To fix this I built an adjustable CFL assembly. Put in 3 x 6500k 13W CFL:



Day 4

My next problem to fix was that I was averaging 30% RH. So I went and picked up a humidifier. It's already doing wonders. RH in that corner jumped from 30% to 75% within an hour. I'll need to keep my eye on that so I can get it dialled in. And while I was there I also picked up some 23W CFLS because I was worried that 13W wasn't going to cut it. So I popped those in (the plants on the outside are basil):



I have the GoPro set up because I'm doing some time lapse videos and they are turning out really cool. Crazy to see the plant move when you jam 4 or 5 hours into 10 seconds. I'll try to post a weekly time-lapse video for you guys.

Thanks for reading, hope you stay tuned!

Piper84 said:

Hey buddy just wanted to let you know you really should reconsider the ocean forest soil that’s more of a “hot” mixture it will be too much for those babies. You need to get light warrior soil for seeds and clones it’s got the right stuff you need. Ocean forest is something you would use after you have developed plants.

Click to expand...

Ok. Thanks Piper!

I'll keep that in mind for the next grow. By hot mixture do you mean that it is too rich in nutrients for a seedling?

WhiskyPancake said:

Ok. Thanks Piper!

I'll keep that in mind for the next grow. By hot mixture do you mean that it is too rich in nutrients for a seedling?

Click to expand...

Yeah too rich

Day 5

I expected these to be a little bigger / begin the second node by now. I believe the two factors limiting growth are a) the amount of light and b) I think I initially overwatered because the medium is still moist. Moist.

On the plus side, this humidifier is doing at great job at controlling the humidity at ~50%

Day 6

Another day of underwhelming growth. Second node has begun.

Soil is still fairly moist an inch down which worries me. To avoid this in the future, I'll be adding perlite to my mix (and ease up on the water too I guess).

Day 7

Nothing good to report today. Growth is slow. RH shot up to 99% overnight. Figure it's because I left my humidifier on last night and didn't take into account rain was in the forecast for today. Last night soil was feeling like it was almost time to water, but it seems like it "re-moistened" overnight. Either that or the cat adjusted the dial on the humidifier last night in an effort to regain the attention that I've allocated to the plants. Worried that the roots are going to rot. My curbside soil and nute order from the nursery will be ready for pickup today. Hope I'm not wasting my money on plants that are going to die next week!



One plant has some weird looking shit on the new leaves coming in. Looks like mould IMO



And another has developed some minor spotting

Day 8

The soil ended up drying out by the end of the day yesterday so I gave three of them around 60ml of 6.5pH spring water (just around the base of the plant) and one around 40ml because it still felt a little heavy. The weird little brown spot on the new leaves has disappeared.



Three of them still have this lighter coloured spotting though:

WhiskyPancake said:

Day 6

Another day of underwhelming growth. Second node has begun.

Soil is still fairly moist an inch down which worries me. To avoid this in the future, I'll be adding perlite to my mix (and ease up on the water too I guess).

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Very good, try not to overwater ,

max420thc said:

Very good, try not to overwater ,

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Thanks. The proper balance of watering is one of my biggest concerns. I let these dry out a good amount until I watered them again and didn't water it right through.

Day 9

Vertical growth is slow but the leaves are plumping up a little more. Looking forward to this day of sunshine. Must be great to have a proper indoor rig... no cloudy days under a grow light!

As promised here is a time-lapse of my progress:

Day 10

3rd Node coming in nice and close. I'd like to think those extra CFLs are to thank for that. Plants are looking kind of... scraggly? Also still have those light spots. Cloudy and foggy weather coming the next few days

Day 11

Second set of leaves coming in nicely. First ones still looking wrinkly. More if anything. I got hope that they'll bounce back though. Another cloudy day ahead... woo!

I would make sure the plants are wiggling from air flow. If they aren't wiggling around, they will get very stretchy and wispy and you may run into problems

overall they look very healthy keep it up!