Newbie Mistakes

MichiganMedGrower said:

It is the alkalinity of your water and nutes and their affect on your medium that needs to be understood.

The biggest mistake I made other than over watering when new was adjusting the ph of my water down from 8.0 even though it is only at 150 ppm on average. That is quite soft for well water and does not cause any rise or fall of medium ph. The lime or oyster shell in the medium buffers that.

And I use natural based nutes which the ammonium as it becomes available helps lower the rising ph from the plants feeding.

Nitrate based fertilizer will raise your ph. Urea and such will lower it. And all only over time.

It is all a relationship to understand and strive to balance.

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MasterMiller said:

I like what your putting down breh breh

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algebraist said:

Newbie Mistake #4: Growing too few plants. And:
Newbie Mistake #5: Growing too few varieties.

I'm not saying turn your whole house into a pot farm. But for a given fixed space -- like my 2x4 tent -- more plants is better. And when you're just starting, so is more types of plants.

I have two plants in my tent, now in 7 gallon cloth containers. My idea was that I'd grow 3 or 4 foot plants (dumb idea -- I'll say it again: vertical growth is a waste), and they'd each fill out roughly 2ft x 2ft of area. Which is fine, and I expect I can do it. But 3 plants, or 4 plants, or 6 plants could fill out the same space much faster, and I'd be harvesting the same amount much sooner. The only savings is a few seeds, which are not cheap, but neither is my time (which, reincarnationists notwithstanding, I assume I don't get back -- ever). And once I get in the groove I'll be cloning, making the seed cost a non-issue.

As clearly as I can say it: More plants yield a quicker harvest. And the sooner you harvest, the sooner you can start your next grow, which in the end means more weed. Period.

As far as varieties, I purposely grew only one, reasoning that different varieties would grow at different rates, need different amounts of flowering time, etc. And I figured the slower growing ones would be farther from the lights, so grow even slower, get even farther behind, and it would just get worse and worse. Idiot: You raise the smaller plants up on a pile of books or something, so that they're all at the same height. And if they're not ready to harvest at precisely the same time, then you harvest them as they come ready, not such a big deal. (You don't rush any of them, though -- that's a newbie mistake I plan to avoid. I want my weed mellow.) Meanwhile you get more experience by seeing how the different strains react to whatever you're doing, you're less likely to wipe out your whole crop with one bonehead maneuver (some of the strains will probably tough it out), and most importantly (and obviously), you end up with a variety. Which is important so you can figure out what strain or strains you like best, and focus on them in the future.

I'm almost ready to add "Spending all my damn time on the forum instead of paying attention to my plants" as my next Newbie Mistake; in the interest of dodging that one, I'll give it up for now. I'm sure I'll be making more mistakes soon, and will return to fess up when I do.

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MichiganMedGrower said:

Thank you.

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Chef420 said:

Lol. I'll have to disagree with you on this one. Maybe that's a mistake in and of itself.
A 2x4 can do two plants comfortably or three kind of squished. That was in 3g pots.
The only way you can fit more in there is to go with smaller pots. Smaller pots mean smaller plants, smaller plants mean less weight in harvest. But you have more plants. It's called a SOG (sea of green) and theoretically you'll get the same g/w using a SOG or with less plants. It's not the number of plants, it's the amount your light can harvest.
I like variety...no love variety. My next round will have 3 strains and I try to mix it up even though I'm growing medically for myself.
But it can be a pain in the butt if you don't know what you're doing because each plant, even each pheno within a stain, can have different feeding habits. In a 4 plant grow that's not a problem, but not ideal for a newb.
April will be my 1st anniversary so I'm not that far ahead of you. It's all about screwing up and pushing forward.
Like you said though, we all learn our own styles.

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MasterMiller said:

Newbie mistake: I spent 300 bucks on two shitty lights that broke a month later. Instead of saving money and buying something decent I ended up spending double at the end of my first grow.

Save your money, wait and buy something that's quality

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