My first grow! Indica & Sativa under CFL

I guess this is not much of a grow journal since i am about done, but i have pictures and a story to tell! This is the story & lessons of a newbie taking advantage of a couple hot babes.

Nikki was a rescue... I have thought about growing before, but am very slow to do things. That all changed when one day a friend brought over an ailing plant (it was my seed originally) and a pair of lights. He was going Hyrdo and had Nikki in a shared rez with another much larger plant (Paris) that had different needs. He was afraid the extra nutes would kill Nikki, so trust upon me the responsibility of fathering Nikki through life.
Btw, Paris ended up dying later...

4/28: Nikki arrives! She's a sexy Indica from Holland. Northern Lights.

5/1: Nikki is lonely; lets germinate a seed. Welcome to the world Samantha. Samantha is from a mixed bag. Very much Sativa I would come to find out.

5/8-5/28: I'm traveling and unable to attend to the girls. Luckily I have a helpful (real) girl of my own. During this time Nikki & Paris grew a little; Nikki had to be extracted from some rock-wool that she was planted in. Lesson#1; take the rock wool off before planting or your roots will not make it out!

6/11: Meet Nikki! Notice the "soil" she's in? It's more like wood chips!


6/11This is Samantha

6/11This is Nikki & her hot sister Samantha


6/15: Nikki & Samantha
6/15: Nikki is starting to purk up a bit. I think that i got a PH meter around this time



So far I've fumbled my way through this....
Both plants are in under-sized pots. They are probably around 1/2 gallon. Nikki is in a smaller one yet. I have 2 400W CFLs (one of each spectrum) hanging in a corner in the basement. They are surrounded by some reflective material and i have a little fan in the corner.
My feeding schedule is basically "whenever i feel like it", but I usually let them dry out in between. I don't need to water that much since my soil is such a solid mass, it doesn't let the water drain well...
My fertilizer is some Miracle grow my girlfriend had laying around.
I water with tap water and lower my PH with vinegar from under the sink. I never thought to PH my nuted-water... usually i water with the tap water then dump a bit of water+miracle grow on top. I don't measure anything, eventually this in combination with inpatients bites me...


7/10: Growth started to picked a lot in the month since I was back from travels and started nurturing them a bit more. I started reading more about growing and decided to top Samantha. I should have been reading more about proper care (reefer to above) but eh they are still alive.
Below is Samantha with her double-top and Nikki hanging in the background. Starting to really tell the Indica vs Sativa strains. (And the basil strain)


So by early August it's been about 70 days from seedling. The girls are hanging in there, but not looking "Great". By this time I know that I have a problem with my pots & soil, and realize my "dump a bunch of miracle grow on them" feeding is not going to cut it. I actually burnt them both pretty bad right!

8/1: Enough is enough! I read up some and decide it's safe to re-pot my plants.
Stupidly I go to the store and buy a new pots, but walk out with only one gallon pots. Still not sure what I was thinking! When I get back to re-pot i realize the error in my way, so i decided to cut off the bottom of one pot and stick it in the other. 1.3 gallons eh?

A few days later I re-potted Samantha too, but it was still 1 gallon also
I'm very slow to learn sometimes...



8/11: FLOWERING DAY 1
This is Nikki on day 1 of flowering. She sprang about 5 inches within two days of being in the new pot. I burnt the shit out of her & Samantha with the miracle grow and trimmed some mostly dead leafs off and a few extra to thin her out. She was incredibly dense. I tried to spread her out with some twist-ties. You'll also notice my sweet double-pot system


8/25: Nikki & Paris Spring to life! They are digging their new pots (with decent soil). Both girls are looking MUCH better after switching to flowering. I had them in stasis veg state for too long.
Got some new flowering nutes too.

8/25: Nikki getting some buds crawlin up.


8/28: Nikki's top bud


8/31 Nikki's top bud is starting to get some tricombs


8/31: Nikki & Samantha; Samantha has started to get completely out of control. Just keeps chasing the light!


8/31: Samantha's top bud. She's loose....


9/3: Nikki's head nug, poppin up!

9/3: Samantha is having a hard time getting enough light.


9/5: The shower scene!
I just got my new nutes this day, and dumped way too much on the girls. Lesson: read instructions BEFORE feeding. So decided to flush them. Figured they could use a good run-through anyway. They need to wash all of their vegging cares away.

Sammy girl is a monster.



9/5Nikki is starting to get extremely crystalline.Quite a difference in just a couple days. Sexy!



OK; that is the end of part 1. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of Nikki & Samantha get smoked.

9/9: About 30 days into flowering and Nikki's little buds are looking tasty.


9/21: Nikki continues to plump out. She's getting covered in crystals. Mmmmmm mmm


Samantha has seen better days... She's just gotten out of control and is having a hard time keeping herself up. Buds are looking <meh>; really loose and almost no tricombs. Hmmm.


Around this time the GNATS started to attack. I left the back door open one day and I think they ventured in and made a home in the girls' soil.
I've finally managed to kill them off. I used a spray bottle with a few drops of liquid dish soap to kill adults, and put potatoes in the soil>tossed said potatoes out after the larva got in them, and let the soil dry a little more.


9/30 Nikki looks like she is going to cure what ails me.

Samantha is still a giant. I've been letting Nikki hog all of the light by lowering them too low for the top of Samantha. My ways towards favoritism need to be changed.

I need more lights! Samantha especially is having a hard time with only two lights hanging above her. She's a big powerful woman and needs some light.
It's a good a friend just happened to not require his cfls any longer.



10/11: 60 days flowering! Woohooo!!! Around the first of the month some new lights were setup. I had to mount them to the side wall. There is one other blue spectrum hanging above Sam.
Sammy starting to take a little more shape! The extra lights gotta be really helping. I had to hold her up with strings.


This 60 day mark is also the end of Nikki's time int eh sun... alas, she's had a great life, but the Indica strain in her told me that she's damn "good enough to harvest".

I accidentally knocked my light timer to ~20 on 4 off for a weekend three days before harvest. Oops. I'm not sure what that will do the to the plants, but i read that light kills thc. My house sure started to stink.
I had already decided to put her into a cool dark space for 72 hours so did that. Hopefully the dark/light offset

As my first plant I think she turned out pretty well. Hopefully smokes well too!





10/13: After 3 days in darkness.. Time for the Chop. Bye Bye Nikki!



But what will become of Samantha? Find out more later...

talk about frosty! that looks delicious