General Inquiry (imagine that!)

First time grower, long time appreciator, here. So I've just ordered some seeds from peakseedsBC and realized that my christmas break over here at school (during which I go home) comes during the period in which I was planning to grow. But then again, I fear my patience will wear thin around the end of my first semester here, and I won't be able to wait until I get back to plant. So here's the situation:

- If I plant before the christmas break, I will be away from my plants for 17 days.
- If I don't I can start fresh in January and have some bud by the time summer comes around.
-I have nothing to do until Summer, so I wanted weed for some period before that.

Now, having just sent the order yesterday, I don't expect the seeds until at least midway through October. I will not plant them the day I get them, as if I did, there's no way I could avoid missing a crucial step in their lifecycle by going home over christmas. I bought a pack of mixed seeds, but I'm considering getting another pack of northern lights, due to their smaller size, and carrying through with this plan:

Planting the Northern lights seedlings around early december/late november, getting a feeling for how the plants react to the watering and the ph levels and possibly diagnose any nutrient defficiency trends that pop up in the 17+ days im there for their growth, set up an automated watering system based on my observations. leave for the break, come back at the most 17 days later, and hope that my plants have survived and I can shoot them into flowering.

It's quite obvious that the correct answer is "wait 'til January" and I know the method I've concocted is not the wisest, but if I can get away with having my crop in bags a month or so earlier, I'm willing to take the risk.

So I ask you, is it possible for this method to work?

PS: Northern Lights because my grow room is an old deep freeze, and I don't want the plants getting to high for the box (about 2.5- 3 feet high)

Being a first time grower, you have no damn business attempting to grow purchased seeds. You need to get your first 4 kills out of the way on bagseed.

My advice is to do that with full intentions of killing whatever you grow, be it male or female before you leave. You don't want to waste seeds, and you are going to kill your first ones just by being a noob. We all did it.

You also wont be able to tell much in 17 days as far as feeding goes. Oh and is the freezer sealed or can light get out?

The freezer has a gasket along the edge of the lid that seals it, light doesn't get out, but I've cut some holes along the gasket to allow some air circulation. The light gets out of these holes, but I've made some shields so the light is redirected to a spot where you cant see it. The freezer keeps the sound of the fan in too.

I'd rather not start out trying to kill my plants... That's kinda what I thought this section was for, so newbies wouldn't kill their plants?

I've decided to germ the seeds the day I get them, they should get about a month and a half-2 months in before I go to christmas break. I think I've found someone who may be staying in this town over the break and I may ask him to help me out by looking after my plants. Just give him a few training sessions before I leave, you know? He lives across town so I don't know if getting him to come over every day is a possibility, so I've formulated a new question:

How often should I get my assistant to come over and take care of the plants? Is a few times during the 17 days alright?

Nitz456 said:

I'd rather not start out trying to kill my plants... That's kinda what I thought this section was for, so newbies wouldn't kill their plants?

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I agree, Shouldn't us noobs be trying to NOT kill our seeds? It probably makes more sense to start with cheap seeds and/or free seeds tho.

Sandman45 said:

Being a first time grower, you have no damn business attempting to grow purchased seeds. You need to get your first 4 kills out of the way on bagseed.

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Little harsh that, his seeds, he paid for them. i havnt had a seed in a bag of weed in atlease 5 years! Its just not something youexpect from weed in our area, you just dont get poorly grown low quality ganja anymore so no bagseeds!

Nitz456 said:

I'd rather not start out trying to kill my plants... That's kinda what I thought this section was for, so newbies wouldn't kill their plants?

I've decided to germ the seeds the day I get them, they should get about a month and a half-2 months in before I go to christmas break. I think I've found someone who may be staying in this town over the break and I may ask him to help me out by looking after my plants. Just give him a few training sessions before I leave, you know? He lives across town so I don't know if getting him to come over every day is a possibility, so I've formulated a new question:

How often should I get my assistant to come over and take care of the plants? Is a few times during the 17 days alright?

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Just show him what he needs to do a few times before, keep him away from the nutes, pre dilute some so he cant do any damage with em. Make sure its someone you trust 100%, dont want damage to your plants and you dont want word getting round that your growing either.

cheap seeds and/or free seeds tho.

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$30 for 20 plus freebies isn't too shabby, I don't think?

Just show him what he needs to do a few times before, keep him away from the nutes, pre dilute some so he cant do any damage with em. Make sure its someone you trust 100%, dont want damage to your plants and you dont want word getting round that your growing either.

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How often should I get this pal o' mine to come over? Thanks for all the help so far, folks!

to be fair mate, when things are going well its easy, its just if he makes a balls of it and things start going wrong he will get probs, most likely he will have a problem with nutes of overwatering so dont give him extra nutes and show him exactally how much water to give.

its going to be hard for you to learn what to do in 17 days tho mate so you might find it hard to teach him, i would have him there as much as possible so he picks up everything you know, he might show you something new when you come home.

if i were you tho i would consider waiting till you got home after xmas because you could learn alot in those 17 days you will miss if you plant early but i know what its like when you just wana get on with it. its frustrating.

its going to be hard for you to learn what to do in 17 days tho mate so you might find it hard to teach him,

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The beauty of it is that I've changed my schedule, and I'll get about two months of growing in before I leave for xmas, he'll just be looking after them starting about half a month into the flowering period.

So you will be back in seventeen days. Am I missing something here?

If you were to start each seed in at least, say, a half gallon pot, then water once, then the seeds should have all the moisture in the soil that they would need for that amount of time.

What I would be HIGHLY concerned with, is mildew setting up home in that freezer in about 48 hours. That freezer needs a hella lot more air circulation in it. It's gonna end up at 100% in there.

That freezer would make for one heck of a place to do my cloning though, with a little more air circulation that is.

Hope I am of some help here, but probably not. Looks like I might just end up having you re-think your strategy a bit.

What you need is a couple of fans blowing air in or out of that box, then cover the fan inlets, or outlets, with light traps. Just search for "light traps" on hear and you will see what i mean. Also look up some "stealth grow cabinets".

Just trying to help. I specialize in stealth growing.

Sorry. I see now that they will be aproaching maturity before you leave so you would need an auto-watering system.

But the air circulation problem still remains.

So what are you doing about ventilation? Small holes it the rubber trim will not cut it at all.

Any suggestions? The holes are about 8 inches long, and I have a desk fan on the inside of the freezer sucking air through one of them, heres some pics of them with the shields removed:




Here's the deep freeze in stealth mode:


Suggestions, criticisms, anything is welcome., boyos!

bump to this damn thread

You will have some serious problems unless you get some good ventilation. If you can cut a hole in the back of the unit and get an inline fan. This should keep it nice and stealth.

doctorD said:

You will have some serious problems unless you get some good ventilation. If you can cut a hole in the back of the unit and get an inline fan. This should keep it nice and stealth.

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Could you recommend a way to do this for little money? Hammer and a poke maybe? I don't need an easy way, I just need a cheap way haha.

I would drill a hole big enough to to fit saw a jig saw blae or even better a sawz all. pick up a 4" computer fan at the minimum bolt that bad bot to the freezer and you will be in much better shape.

just one hole should be good to cut?

well if ya got the tools to do it without to much work i would cut in intake as well. If you make it 4" you can use flexable dryer duct and make a few turns in it so the light wont shine through so it stays stealth. Dont forget you will need to address the smell b4 long.

doctorD said:

I would drill a hole big enough to to fit saw a jig saw blae or even better a sawz all. pick up a 4" computer fan at the minimum bolt that bad bot to the freezer and you will be in much better shape.

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your definitely going to want more then just 1-2 4 inch com fans in there. You need to get decent air flow going through there, and it looks like a pretty big space to me (not to mention, REALLY stealth! lol love it) I dont particularly have a solution, just dont want you drilling away and putting just 2 lil ol fans in.

Was just gonna let you know too, I have only been tryin this for like 3 months now and I read EVERYTHING before I started lol. There will be problems that arise which you had no idea even existed. Its going to be near impossible to not be around your plants for that long at the beginning of ur career, if you do pull it off you are an amazing person haha.