Grow Log 2007

[Fear the Reefer]

Hey all first off a want to say that this is my first ever grow outdoors so im looking forward to it lol :D Anyway just set the seeds to germinate about an hour ago so hopefully i should get a few sprouts in the next few days. Il post posts pics every so often when there is significant change and il probably post with some questions as i am still a rookie grower:thumbsup:

p.s im going to be growing in a natural environment with commercial potting soil spread about the immediate vacinity to the plants, do i need to add fertilizer or will the natural soil mix in the potting soil in time?????? (the natural soil must be good as there is lots of grass and foilage growing on it).

[MegaOctane12]

I reckon if you de-weed the immediate area and properly dig the ground it should help alot. I don't know what soil your area has, in the south its mainly clay type soil very sticky dense shit and hard for roots to get through, other areas I dunno. What I wouldn't do is mix in really hot shit like manure or similar fertilizer because it takes some weeks for the soil to cool down, it will burn seeds even normal grass seeds. Get a couple of bags of good potting compost, I can get like 3 40 litre bags for ten quid in Homebase but it dosen't cover much if you dispense it over a big area. Apart from that cannabis is really just like any other plant, don't neglect it and it will pay you back by not dying.

[MegaOctane12]

About fertilizer, I would try and go organic, for one it means that if you overdose or don't feed enough it will be easier to correct and if you want to use the area again you can do so more easily without possible complication from left over salts in the soil. Try BioBizz three part nutrient system, its organic, you get a shit load of it, alot of UK growers use it to good effect. If you do decide to do it just get the Grow/Bloom/TopMax and add it to a watering can or however you go about watering your plants.

[Fear the Reefer]

thanks very much for advice on ferts btw will i get biobizz on homebase?

[MegaOctane12]

Homebase won't stock specialised nutrients like that, you'd have to go growell.co.uk or do a search of hydrophonics stores either online or on location. Growell is the most commercial hydrophonics branch that I have seen personally, they are the only people with actual walk in shops and not just a depo, they're also the cheapest I've seen. They got one store in London and a few in the bronx (urban areas out of london), if your worried about ordering shit like that online, don't, its a legal business and a legal product ;)

[Fear the Reefer]

ok then a little update. All ten of my seeds germinated in the first 2 days which i have to admit surprised me. I planted all ten in little 3inch pots for the first week so i can monitor them and move them easily if i have to. I bought some tomato fetilliser stuff which id been told is good for growing erb. How long do i wait before mixing in the tomato fert with the water? the compost says it has enough nutrients for about 4 weeks but im not sure if that applies to all plants. Well thats about it for just now, il post an update in a few days time when i should hopefully have some nice shoots and maby a few leaves:thumbsup:

[GreenSkunk]

hey dude, must have good seeds, the tomato fert is going to be high in k (i dont even know what it stands for) but the k in npk

and for the moment you want the n to be higher, the tomato stuff is something like 4.4.8 you want it to be 8.4.4 i think, if your in homebase i think baby-bio works good, but i aint sure about it either.

Also with cannabis plants i dont give it anything for at least 4 weeks, as it is very likely that you will burn em, when you do start giving ferts go easy as well, if it says half a cap-full per litre add half a cap-full per 4 litres at first then inrease it to th reccomended dosage.

Also the spot in your picture seems very dark, i do hope that you have a better spot ready or that your spot gets more light at other times of the day.
((try to stick to the no less then 6 hours of daylight rule- and alwasy keep in mind tht more light= mroe bud ;) ))

I am also very new to growing, and will stay tuned to your log :D wish you luck!!

[dylan]

Hey Fear the Reefer, good luck on the grow!

My 2 cents on the ferts are not to use any for the first 2-3 weeks. The get some water soluable 20-20-20 ferts (Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potasium). Start using them 1/2 strengh for the first month, then build up to full strengh. btw, you can get this from most walmart or simmilar store, which is noce and easy.

Later in August, switch to a bloom fert. I would also buy a soil tester to check the fert and ph level. They are about $30 for and electronic one. Keep the ferts good and the ph around 6.

[Fear the Reefer]

hey again guys, thanks for your advice on ferts im gonna leave it for at least a few more weeks b4 mixing in ferts. Anyway just posting a little update its now Day 6 of the grow from the start of germination and when i checked today a found 7 plants had small sprouts about on average 1/2inch tall. After careful consideration i split up my plants into three different locations, taking some advice from yourself green skunk, i moved 5 pots to a new location with excellent light, another 2 to another spots with probably even better light and left the 3 yet to sprout in the original location. Im still not sure if im going to trnsplant straight into the natural soil with a mix of compost or just put big pots in the ground. Anyway thats about it for now heres a few pics of the 2 in the best location:

p.s sorry if these pics seem abit crude but ive just been using my mobile phone camera:D

[sharingscaring]

Untill about the fifth node, or 2-3 weeks, which ever is first with the nutes. The go 1/4, then 1/2, then whole. You can folliar feed with1/4 supplements like liquid karma. Remenber if you go with pots 1gal gor every foot of plant. And if you go with pots look into mixing with coco.(gound coconut husks) its easy on the ph. Good Luck

[Fear the Reefer]

OK guys day 8 and all seems to be progressing really well all of my pots bar 1 have shoots most of which are about 2 1/2 to 3 inches tall which is pretty much what i expected for 4 days. upon days inspection i noticed two of my shoots are suffering from what i can only assume to be bugs. Has anyone seen this type of thing before and have any suggestions on what to do? i normally would just get some insect reppellent but im wary of spraying some on at this delicate stage.

Some photos from day 8:

[TokinSurfer]

that second last pic looks exactly like mine

[Fear the Reefer]

So day 11 of the grow, checked the plants a little while ago 8 growing ok, most being about 3-4 inches tall with four small leaves as seen in photos. The bugs attacks seem to have worn off as the plant that was badly attacked has healed well, i dont know why the bugs stopped i can only guess that the decrease in temp and past two days rain have something to do with it. However i scattered egg shells around all the plants just to make sure.

One question, im a bit concerned with the rate of growth in the plants, they have been in the soil for about 8 days now, i think their a little small but i may be trippin' what does anyone else think this or am i just paranoid????? Below are examples of the average size.

[smokealot123]

ur just paranoid :p

[TokinSurfer]

small, mine are that size and mine hav been going for two weeks

[AussieGWRER]

how much light are they getting?

[TokinSurfer]

fuck all ahah i cant really put them in plain sight or my mum will tell me to get rid of them,, she might lt me keep them acually

im taking a couple to the bike jumps anyway so they will get bulk light there

[Fear the Reefer]

hi all who are following this log. Day 18 of the grow from germination. Weve been having a real bad week in terms of weather, pretty much dull overcast with plenty of rainfall for about five days straight, not the best conditions but at least they wont die of dehydration. I stopped watering them due to this rainfall and the soil seems to be keeping a constant moisture. Yesterday i transplanted into much bigger pots about 8inches. There are only three plants remianing as two had mysteriously snapped which i can only assume was due to the real heavy rain last night. I also moved three to the middle of an open clearing that is maasively overgrown with nettles and thron bushes which should keep me safe from intruders. Here are some pics from the transplant session.

p.s i know some of the pants may look a bit shabby but my camera is not the best and some of the plants have some compost on them from when i transplanted.

[...gas...]

there not small ! they need 2 grow good root s b 4 they can have a growth spurt ?

[Fear the Reefer]

f**********************************k after i posted my last update i thought id go down for a checkup to see how they handled the transplant overnight. Unfortunetly the 3 babys you see in the pics above have been destroyed, i put them near a river and i think mabye the heavy rain could have cuased the river to burst its banks and wash the plants away. The gro site is all flattened out and smelly loads of mud seems to have been churned up so thats why i assume it may have been the river, oh also plant pots were still there so its kinda strange why they were not washed away :mad:
I always knew growing outdoors in the northern climate would be tough for a first time but after my 100% germination i was kinda hoping for better luck than this. So only three plants remain, also when i check them they were actually bent over lying on the soil, not broken though, so i had to put a small twig and fine thread to help them stand up. I just hope to god that my last three survive this run of bad weather, and at least one is a female.

[...gas...]

:thumbsup:that s a bitch ! i had 2 of my crops out side riped , its hard 2 get motervated again:thumbsup:

[Fear the Reefer]

day 23 of my grow 2007. Today is at last the first sunny day in well over 10 days of poor weather. I went to check on the three remaining plants and moved them slightly for better sunlight, hopefully if we can get a few good full days of sun we can get moving on this grow seems like weve been going nowhere fast up till now. I popped in a stick into each plant pot and losely tied each plant to it to help with straight growth as they were growing squint. Obviously i have added more siol when i transplanted which sould give me another couple of weeks worth of food in the soil b4 i have to add my tomato juice.

[NightProwler]

hey man it sounds like deer got to those three that mestirousley dissapeared. i'd sugest either fencing, or deer reppelant. or both

[ZeldaG.]

shit man sorry to hear about your loss :(

maybe take the others further away from the river :p (i asume you have alreay, but if not then...)

[Fear the Reefer]

hey man it sounds like deer got to those three that mestirousley dissapeared. i'd sugest either fencing, or deer reppelant. or both

its possible as i did spot deer for the very first time while walking my dogs about 10 minutes from my grow site. The only thing is that all the compost was gone and it wasnt spread around cause i looked,do deer eat compost as well??? but hey at least the remaining three have a chance,

p.s they are in a diff location away from the river

[...gas...]

i have heard if u sprinkle human wee around your grow site it will get rid of a lot of wild animals .... well it works over here any way , worth a shot , wont cost u .....:thumbsup:

[Fear the Reefer]

Day 28. As im sure all you of out there in the uk will agree the weather for this june has been a bit dissapointing. Ha, understatement of the year, infact i think this is the worst june for a long time, lukily im not the the mass flooding ares of england but the weather is still well below expected. I think in the last week i would estimate about 45-60 hours of sunshine over this 7-day period. Having been near enough the case since i started almost a month ago i really think the plants are struggling to develop as well as they could be. The location is good well secluded, surrounded, but not covered by bush and scrub, with sunlight at pretty much any time of the day having direct path to my plants. Im just wondering when the weather is going to start changing for the good, anyone know where i can get a long-term forecast or better yet does anyone know of the forthcoming weather patterns??????? My one silver lining from this is that if my plants can survive this struggle in the early stage of their lives mabye they will become more resilliant later on as autumn arrives.

p.s

You will notice on one of the plants it is missing a large leaf on the left side, this was accidently broken off earlier in life, i can see tiny new leaves but will it ever return completely or will it be like a deformity???

also i would appreciate if anyother uk growers can tell me how they are fairing through this time of poor weather. cheerz

Updated pics

[Fear the Reefer]

well its been over a moth since my last update. The weather thankfully is beginning to turn and ive seen good improvement from my remaining babies, i think there both females from looking closely at the nodes i can see two little root-like upshots and no-balls, bt il get a better camera and post u guys close ups just to be sure. The only problem at the moment is a serious bug problem, ive got eggshells in the soil and ive begun spraying with flying isect reppellant so hopefully tht will clear them out, so il leave some pics the now and hopefully update more often. I estimate my harvest will be about 9 weeks away so fingers crossed.

[Fear the Reefer]

So again about a month since my last update, i would have loved to keep u guys more updated but its been a busy summer so no matter. Anyway i think you would notice more of a difference with more time between updates. When i checked on my plants for the first time in a week or so a few days ago i was horrified to see one of them had fallen over and was all shrivelled up, i was so close to just throwing her away out of frustration but i decided to just stand her up fill up the soil again and see if miracles could happen lol they can!!!!!!! When i checked today i was amzed to see her actually not drooped to f**k and shrivelled, obviously shes not completely recovered but im so happy she might actually pull through. As for the other one, she is growing strong and is about 4'8'' tall now with some nice flowers developing. Which leads me to my main points for this update: where i live i will most likely have to harvest at the latest 6 weeks from now. Based on the pictures i have posted can anyone judge wether (everything going well ) the buds will have fully developed in tht time??? im not sure as those flowers dont seem to have changed much for a week or 2 so im getting quite worried that i might get to harvest time and have no buds to harvest lol

reefer

[LazyBum]

since you're a uk grower there's one bit of definite advice i can give you, especially on warm evenings when its been raining, watch out for slugs and snails. They will finish a 1 foot plant in a couple nights if given the opportunity. I found out the hard way :( So get a nice amount of slug repellant from homebase you can get 1kg for about £3 and throw that shit everywhere around your plants. Theyre veg friendly and shower proof so they wont mess with ur grow or disappear in the rain.

As for the weather, our summer has been coming later every year. My guess is that the sunshine will probably last until mid october.

[growinkind]

plants look very stretched.. i would move them 2 more sun... but excellent lookin

[Fear the Reefer]

well i have been worrying about this moment for some time now as i always knew my plants were behind schedule and when i woke up this morning, what was there to greet me? the first proper ground frost of the season, i estimate that i have AT LEAST 2 weeks to go till i can possibly harvest. Its just so annoying ive yet to check on them since il prob do it tomorrow but does anyone know if plants can survive frosts and is there anyone who is having a similar grow in the UK?????

[Turtlez]

im not in the uk but im in northern maine so its maybe similar weather. last year my plant survived like 6 frosts. didnt hurt it at all, just made it a bit purple. be sure to take pics next time you check on them!