Poor noob's first grow!

Hello Rollitup! This is HappyHarvest checking in! I have posted a couple of times previously with questions but I have decided to document my very first grow! While there are a number of marijuana friendly forums, Rollitup has by far been the most informative to me so I decided to give them the honor of my first grow!

Everything and pictures will be posted shortly. Just a heads up of what this is. First thing, I welcome all comments whenever they may come. being my first grow i welcome all advice from all corners.

So just a background... This is my very first grow and I was inspired by the stealth setup and am trying to follow suit, although will likely soon be moving to a tub to keep a somewhat quasi-SOG grow going.

The plants are two White ICE seeds and one Afghan Haze feminized seed

It is a soil grow. Scotts potting soil. I proved to be the least nutrient enriched and most neutral (didnt want to have to account for nutes I did not add myself). I played with the idea of hydro but being a poor kid I wanted to show what kind of grow would happen for someone who just bought the bare essentials for growing anything. soil is also much more "noob-friendly" and forgiving which is another reason I am using soil as a medium. as a kind of happy medium I mixed about 35-40% perlite. This gives ALOT of drainage and in the box dries in about 2 days. so I am kind of taking a hydroponic mentality in watering frequently to decrease root stretch.

my nutrients will cause quite a stir I have seen on many threads. I searched for a long time about nutes and came across a couple of threads talking about the use of urine for vegging. It seemed weird but trying to make a guide for the poor I gave it a shot and withing a couple of days its growth showed quite clear. so I am giving two plants (one ICE and the afghan) that and plain, distilled tap water and the other ICE is getting MG all purpose (something like 20-8-14). also showing good growth.

as can be seen in the pictures I have tried LST with the Afghan and one ICE and have topped them all about a month into the grow. and to the most recent pictures, two new growth buds are showing at the spot of the topping (not visible by pictures). the plan is to clone atleast one of the ICE plants (first plant to give a branch enough for clones without cutting the main stem) and sex it to determine sex of mother plant. hope to flower the plants shown in the pictures upcoming by FEB.

Like I said I welcome all comments as soon as they can come. I know the urine as nute thing may cause some arguments and debating. while I welcome advice based on experience, the actually debate belongs in other threads. Like I said I saw much debate but extremely little info ffrom people saying they had actually done it.

below is the picture of the box. it consists of a gutted old pc box lined with aluminum foil, a power strip, 3 23 watt (60 or 100 watt equiv i believe) 6500k bulbs with adapters, and a timer (not shown). it also as the two fans that were in the pc already. I placed the smaller one in the lower right and the larger exhaust in the upper left. for what little smell there was I simply placed a fabric softener sheet outside the exhaust fan and the room the box was in smelled like a fresh load of laundry haha. the fans are powered by a spliced old cell phone charger.

I hope everyone partakes in this grow journal with whatever advice they bring to the table and I hope many can learn that growing your own bud can be a huge learning process, but is not simply for those who can afford thousand dollar lighting and nutrient DWC systems.

enjoy and happy harvesting my friends!

Got the pictures (description below pics if I post correctly):

AFGHAN


Afghan Haze: starting to come up. about a week after moving seed to soil.

About a week and a half/2 weeks later. So far a couple of waterings and 1 feeding.

progress



The last 2 are the most recent pictures. taken yesterday. The top shows lower node growth after LST. The last two pictures were also taken after topping this plant.

I.C.E 1


seedling after popping up



about a week and a half later. couple waterings. noticed leaves were yellowing so I fed with Miracle grow



week later. Just prior to LST



Most recent pictures. A little wilty as it was fully dry and just prior to a feeding. Top picture shows lower node growth after LST

I.C.E (2)



First pic taken. Didnt take many of this as it was slow to grow but picked up quick.



Last 2 pictures are from the same time as the last 2 pictures of the other 2 plants. good lower node growth with no LST. considering LST but may make this a strictly HST plant as I am really trying to experiment with my plants to learn as much as possible.

Just tied down the 2nd ICE. Should see more improvement of the lower nodes quickly

cool hope everything goes well cant wait to see the end product . for i to am just a poor boy and cutting corners is not working well for me I have germinated a few seeds but they seem to die when i put them in soil. i think my potting soil is no good.but i am going to follow this grow and help where i can and learn from your experience. good luck bro

okay. sad day yesterday... built a new box consisting of a sterilite 30 gallon tote, flat white paint, and power strips. I plant to split it in half for flower vs veg. well I set it up and painted it and it was great. transplanted plants and put the lid on and everything. Two hours later I check on everything and one of the powerstrips had fallen and burned a good bit of ICE 2. and so I redneck rigged it with more glue and added duct tape. I removed the Burned portions (stem and enough leaves survived so that I think the plant will recover. Put the lid back on and later it fell again in Ice 1. It is hard to tell if it will survive. alot of the top stem is now brown grey and most everything was killed. however, lower on the more green, woody portion of the stalk, the branches formed from the light stress training are still in tact and I am checking and I think I see some growth. so I'd like to clone that branch as soon as possible if it keeps up so I can discard the mother. but if it fails to pick up I will scrap it and start another seed.

Another nutrient update!!

I had to end using my original nutrients :/... After the burning by the lights I wanted to use something I know would help the recovery process. Hopefully I can go back to my experiment in the future but for right now, having almost lost 2 (prolly 1 for sure) I dont want to experiment and have a terrible first grow experiment.

But to be honest the nutrients were very inexpensive for the buy. I had a hydro store near by and grabbed General Organics GO Box (picture below). For the buy you get two main grow and bloom, but also supplements like CalMag, root stimulants, bud booster, and much more for only about $30. And for a smaller grow like mine it is plenty of formula. So in all fairness it still can fall under the "Poor Noob" category ha.

Oh and pictures of the plants will be added tonight

Alright, here are my burn victims, first will be the ICE 1 and then ICE 2

These pictures are both after a couple days of light so there was some recovering and trimming of ugly burned leaves...

ICE 1



And below is the ICE 2 plant. really doesn't look as bad and has a nice bush to it. This on has recently been better tied for light stress training using twine.


And below is my afghan... looking very very nice with multiple places for colas/ clones:



As it may be hard to tell, there are 2 shoots to the right where the plant was topped, one a little to the left of the topping and more towards the middle, another opposite of that one (because branching happens in 2's. it is not visible and will likely be used for a clone), and then 3 more visible ones to the left towards the middle of the pot... very excited about this plant to say the least!

Really excited! Just took two cuttings from the Afghan using site admin "rollitup"'s simply water only method. Really look forward to seeing some roots on those soon and hopefully to use on of them for a new mother so I can flowerthe Afghan