New indoor grow with 6 strains...

Hello all! This is my first grow journal. Thanks for reading.

Strains:

Blue Mystic
Blue Hash
Arjan's Strawberry Haze
Lemon Skunk
Critical +
Diesel (original)

I am about a month into this grow, in a brand new garden. I am set up in an attic, so the space is shaped like a tent. About 6th tall, 12ft deep, and 10th wide. I started by lining the whole room with some black plastic sheeting, from Home Depot, then sealed of the back end with plastic, and made a doorway at the other end. I then lined the side walls with mylar. The room was then divided in half, making the front of the room veg, and the back half the flower room.

I started the grow with seeds, germinated in water. Then began the veg with daylight CFLs. And, just today, put up a 4ft 6 bay T5 light from Hydrofarm. For veg, I am going to use 2 600w HPS lights.

Once the mothers are mature enough, I will be growing from clippings. The plan is to grow short plants, in higher volume. And, I plan to get the plants growing on a cycle, so that I have a crop maturing every month to month and a half.

Depending on how the different strains grow in my space, I may end up dropping a few of them. I really like the variety I have right now though. A nice blend of indicas, sativas, and hybrids.

I recently had my first go at some training of the plants. I tried topping, dimming, and some low stress training using ties to manipulate the plants growth. I successfully topped 3 of the plants, the blue hash, critical +, and one of the blue mystic. They look great! I tried to fimm the critical +, but cut too low and ended up with only two new tops. However, I did successfully fimm the lemon skunk, and now have 4 solid tops growing. Lastly, I used one of the blue mystic to try LST. I tied the top down to the bottom of the stalk, using some fly fishing line (something I had laying around). The secondary growth has now become dominant and I have a few new tops, not sure exactly how many yet.

So, right now I have ten plants. The 6 strains, and 4 extra blue mystic plants. These will be my mothers, except for the extra blue mystic; those are going to go into flower soon, so I can have a little smoke to toke sooner than later.

That is all for now! Thanks for reading, and check back for updates soon. In the meantime, I would love to know which of my strains is your favorite! Let me know!

So, back for another post today. I had to take my t5 bay back to the shop, one of the six bulbs did not work, actually the ballast did not work. But, the new new one is up and shining bright.

I had some really bad yellowing and curling show up in almost all the plants, almost overnight. I thought I had burned them with nutrients. But, after a pH test found that my mix was at 5, maybe even a little closer to 4. I had not tested it yet into the grow. I added 1 tablespoon of baking soda to one gallon of h2o and flushed all the plants. I tested the pH again a few hours later, it was pushing up away from the 4 to 5 range, into the solid 5 range. I know it will take some time. I will be testing the pH a lot over the weekend, until I get a nice stable 6.5 to 7.

In would love some input on managing pH. I am working with an all organic garden, using a no soil mix consisting of sphagnum, peralite, guano, worm castings, azomite, micoreza. The mothers, which I am working on vegging to get clippings at this point, are in 3.5 gallon buckets. I also have some in 2 gal grow bags. I used the baking soda as kind of an emergency fix... What is the best solution for managing pH in the long term in a soilless mix?

hey man im thinking of settin up a attic flowering room
the only thing im worried about is ventilation
i have a lot of space in summer it gets a bit hot
and in winter i bet it gets really really cold.
any ideas plz

The heat can be tricky... It got to 110 the other day, in the sealed of space that has AC, and I had to move all my plants downstairs for a night, lights and all. That was a giant pain in the ass, but had go be done. That was the only day I have not been able to keep the room at an agreeable temp. If you can, I suggest sealing off a space, only as big as you need, then setting up some good AC and venting. That way, you only have to cool/heat the small space. Insqulating that space does not hurt. All that is a bit of work, and cost, up front. But, now I have my own little "lab", sealed off from the world, for my ladies to thrive in.

Happy farming!

Hey all! Back for another entry.

All the plants are looking great! I was dealing with a pH imbalance in my mix, but have righted that around with some pH up. Thanks to my friends at the local grow shop for all the help! If you have not made friends with the lovely people at your local grow shop, I highly suggest it. They are full of tips and helpful suggestions. They have provided very helpful advice for all the issues I have run into as well. Thanks guys!

Because of the pH imbalance, the mix was down to about 4 WAY TOO LOW, I was seeing some yellowing in the fan leaves, looked a lot like a nitrogen deficiency, and some dry patches on the fan leaves as well. I had fed the plants, with a serving of the Bio Thrive food, from General Organics, the day prior to discovering the pH issue. To avoid any issues from the nutrients, as they can hurt a plant which is locked up from the pH being off, I flushed each plant with a gallon of steam distilled water. I also used that flush to help balance the pH, by adding pH up to it.

I was also having some issue with my water running through the mix too fast and draining off the plants before they could absorb enough of it. Again, the fine people at my local grow shop had the answer; Coco Wet... A wetting agent, which when mixed with your water, helps to decrease surface tension on the water to slow down the run off. Great stuff! Highly recommend this if you need to slow your water down, and keep more of it in the mix.

I have done some training of the plants, so far it is going very well.

I topped the Blue Hash, Critical Plus, and Blue Mystic (#3) about two weeks ago. I have two nice new tops on all three of those, with about 2 inches of new growth. The topping also helped to jump start the undergrowth.

At the same time, I fimmed the Lemon Skunk. She is looking wonderful, with 4 new tops shooting up. The undergrowth on this one has also burst into growth, after the fimming.

I tried to fim Blue Mystic (#1) just two days ago, she had become very bushy on top. I am hoping that the cut will help her spread out a bit. As she was very bushy, I am not sure if the fim will work. But, in my limited experience, if a fim goes wrong, aka you cut too low, it will basically be like you topped that plant resulting in two tops, rather than the expected four from fimming. So, not a loss in the long run.

Lastly, I experimented with some low stress training on Blue Mystic (#2). I took some line, and tied her top down to the base of her stalk. I kelt her this way for about a week. This position caused an explosion of undergrowth to occur. I am hoping to create more of a bush using this method. As I am in a short space, I am trying to control the height of my plants.

That is all for today! Overall, things are looking great! Soon, the ladies will be ready for their first clipping! Then the first crop will go into flower about 2 weeks later. Keep checking back for more, and as always, I love any input you all may have for me.

Happy farming!