My Personal Trainwreck, et al

This is my first grow and am going to attempt to chronicle what I've done so far. On April 1, I bought a purple kush from the local pot shop. Her name is TC. On 4/10, I went back and got a rooted trainwreck about 4 inches tall.

We'd built a cabinet in late March from the DIY on here. I started vegging them both using CFLs 45W ea. yellow and blue that I got from a Stealth hydro unit (and haven't used yet). We insulated and Reflectixed a cabinet we bought from Wal-Mart. It's about 70"H x 26"W x 19"D and stands in the spare bedroom.

TC was grown from an outside plant and she never has done well (though I still have lots of hope). So this journey is about trainwreck or TW. I lost her baby pictures, but do have some from her last day in veg. She went into veg (dual lights) 18/6 on 4/13. She went into flower (one yellow 45W (=200), 2 yellow 42W (=150) CFLs) on 5/23.

Here she is at six weeks old, in her veg. cabinet. She was 15" tall.

So TW was in the flowering cabinet and I'd been calling her him accidentally for a long time and then I noticed what looked like boy parts. Come to find out the pistols were growing out of the pods and I was overly paranoid and overly nosy.

I only have about 5 feet of verticle space so I thought I'd do some tie-downs so I could get light in the bottom area. She'd already been topped, so I tied the two outer branches as sideways as I could get them and still fit them in the cabinet. I took some pix against the door for contrast. She was LST'd (mini, I admit) on 5/28 which was 5 days into flower. Only the side stems would bend without breaking. Her height was 18" (48 days).

I added the third light (now totaling 45W (=200W) and two 42W (=150) CFL) shining in that closet. When I added the one on the pole lamp, it was to force the left hand arm to climb up. Well, after about 3 days I realized he was sticking to a little tape and was never going to grow up. I fixed all the tape, yet found this morning that he was stuck again to duct tape. Damn ... and the band played on.

I'm coming into real time meaning today is post day. TW is 58 days old from the cutting. These pix were taken this a.m. during bath time. The photos don't do justice to the startling buds against the green. Each time I go in there, the buds are growing. TW is now 27" tall. Twelve buds are growing from her left arm that was LST'd and I didn't count the other side. She's on the Super Bloom every 10 days and the Schultz 10-15-10 almost daily when she's thirsty. I can see her growing every 4 hours when I go in. I keep her closet door open with additional light and fans. She's out of control and I'm afraid I may have to convert a bathroom before all's said and done.

I've never grown a plant before nor did I know about cabinets, lighting, ventilation, etc. until I found this site. Thank you to everyone that showed me this way.

I tried to get better pix of the top buds; one is already 3 inches high. I hope these stems are going to hold up under the weight of all the product I'm expecting.

Here's a pic of the left arm bud. This is the one that kept getting stuck in the tape. After 3 fixings of the stuff, I finally taped over it today and have now seen the last morning of opening the cab and seeing it stuck. Ahhh. The second pic shows the lights that I'm trying (still) to pull it up with to fit in the closet for bedtime .

Because I got so many buds growing good off tying down the right and left arms of the trainwreck, I pulled down a middle arm to shine light on the 5 tiny buds coming out of it.

As I did that I realized that that left arm was not going to grow up, stuck or not, because of the tie-down. I loosened the string and lo and behold she has been trained to grow straight out and up! I so love this girl

I couldn't resist adding this. She's been in flower 18 days. Grow, Grow, Grow.

I measured the trainwreck this morning during bath time and she's grown one inch since the 11th though it looks like just bud growth only. I don't want them stems to keep climbing. Her arms are dangling fools and I'm figuring on a way to tie 'em up to give the stems strength to carry the huge expected colas .

I added another 42W CFL so now have three 42W and one 45W in there. I ordered more lights so I can swap them in the veg cabinet and let my purple kush start flowering. Good grief, she's been in there for 2 and 1/2 months!!! She just wouldn't grow for the longest time. Pix coming after her bath.

So I have two back dangling arms that are holding themselves up by the back of the cab. So I once again used the string and binder clips, this time to tie her up so she can get some strength on her upper arms. I wish I could strengthen my upper arms by just tying up a string

The back two arms of this thing were just dangling when I put her in the bath. So I used the string and binder clips again, this time to make her arms strong enough to hold her buds. I put a clip in the vent hole and two on each side of the pot and then just lay her branches on the string. When I water, I'll just unclip the two clips on the pot until she comes back in the cab. (I've got to add more insulation and reflectix where the top shelf used to go to keep the light out. It looks like a mess now.)

I've had this PK since 4/1. She was a clone and has been the slowest growing plant. There's a pic of her with TW when she was leaving veg last month (first pic in diary). She was 5" tall. Well, today she is 10". I ordered more flower lights and as soon as they get here this week, she'll go on 12/12.

I found three seeds in a bag of goo I got from a friend. She popped in two days of grow medium and went into a pot and outside on 5/18. She spent her first 3 days out there in wind and rain and then a week of high 90's (way higher in that patio with the glare). She just went through another few days of a thunderstorm, but is still growing. She's 10" tall. I'm not sure of the two smelly plants to her left, but there's lots of lilac in pots to her right. If I bend a branch of any of those plants surrounding her, it stinks to high heaven. Hopefully, all will be confused during harvest.

Today trainwreck had a bath and I added two teaspoons of Super Bloom. When I did that ten days ago, I could sit in there and watch her grow ~ well almost. I took her off her strings (only two days up) and she flopped her way into the bath. While she was draining, I tied two more strings for the front so the two front sides could stand up and hold their weight.

Her feeding schedule has been Schultz 10-15-10 every watering (every two days) since she was transplanted. In flower she's getting the additional Super Bloom every 10 days. She's had that once so far and every time I went in that room, she had more buds that same day!

I sat on the floor yesterday morning and counted 102 buds on the right side and blew off counting the left (where I think there's even more). I'd like to see all four arms (there's actually two smaller arms also) have all buds grow together to make two foot tall colas.

who ever said cfls and lst cant grow good plants... havent seen ur journal.. good job.. im waiting till i move out of mommys house to start my cfl.. just finished gr.12.. so taking a year off and working full time.. getting enough for first and last rent/ grow shit.. then im out.. cant wait

Thanks, Ind, but I'm not asking for comments or questions in this journal until after the harvest. Thanks again.

It's been awhile, but I couldn't see that much new to post. Although I did get the dreaded dirt fungi gnats in all plants and have been busy soaping them out. I use dishwashing soap in spray bottle and also really doused them with a soap bath. After the soap bath they looked the best color green yet. They loved it and the bugs came back. The pix of dishes around the plants are filled with soapy water and they need dumping of dead bugs all day. Also have the Hot Shot pest strips which I just saw a gnat using as a ladder.

The trainwreck will not be coming out of her cage for the duration of her flowering. She's being watered in her ties as her budlie arms are too hard to manage when moving her. She's got some amber coming out and I'm figuring she'll go another month. She went into flower on 5/28.

She's got some new lights which are equaling about 12K on just the one plant. Her doors are open when I'm home and additional light and fan are on. She has 6000K in there with the door shut. Stays cool with the CFL's and no hot bulbs to worry about.

I fed TW with SuperBloom (12-55-6) the other day and after she dried I gave her two teaspoons of molasses in two quarts of water. As soon as I opened it, I remembered being made to swallow that for a sore throat as a kid. I think these buds have gotten bigger and the very small branches on the bottom now have 5 little buds each. I can't believe those little toothpick arms down there can even hold themselves up. Intake and exhaust PC fans and the white one in the pix blow all through sleep. The outside fan and additional lights are on 10 of the 12 hours of their daylight.

I never in a million years thought I could grow something like this.

Here's the latest of the wreckster. I wish I could post her stench. I'm starting to notice some smell when I come through the door which is downstairs and way away from where TW resides.

Her branches are way heavy and every morning I open her doors, I pray they didn't drop off her strings. There are some "elbows" of clumps in there that I just can't capture with the camera, but I tried.

She's still getting her Schultz 10-15-10 every other day and her Super Bloom 12-55-6 weekly. I also added molasses last week and IMO she turned browner over-night. I worried I pushed her into finishing and I want her to go to the third week of July, minimum.

There's four arms with large colas and 3 or 4 smaller arms growing baby colas. And once again ... I love that lady!