HELP! This is my first grow. White Widow

[ghost83]

So this is my first grow. I have done a ton of research before I started this, however there are a lot of questions about little things that I am not able to find. Any help would be appreciated. Im growing in a closet. I know I need to take down the foil and paint it flat white so please no comments on that. I have pictures of everything that I am using. The day that I started from seed was September 25. That is when I dropped my seeds into the seed starter and they are currently still in there.

First I will start off with the seeds. I used 5 feminized White Widow seeds directly from Nirvana. I bought a seed starter kit from my local grocery store. I donâ??t want to invest a bunch of money just in case this doesnâ??t work out. I plan on upgrading everything as I go and when I get better at growing. The seeds popped out of the soil 3 days after I placed them in there. They are currently 11 days old.

More to come just wanted to make sure the pictures upload. Im new at this and unsure on how to do that.

Any comments or helpful hints from experienced growers would be great, especially anyone who has grown this way or with white widows.

I cant seem to upload pictures right now. I will upload as soon as I can figure it out. They are only allowing me the option to select from a URL and I don't know how to do that. I have the pictures on my computer. Anyone know how to do this?

-Ghost

[ghost83]

http://imageshack.us/a/img689/3900/seedsq.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/689/seedsq.jpg/) http://imageshack.us/a/img209/8712/germinating.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/209/germinating.jpg/) http://imageshack.us/a/img835/8769/mysprouts.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/835/mysprouts.jpg/)

[low_rdr]

If your seed starter kit came with a dome, don't use it for seedlings :)

At least your WW's popped, I had to re order mine!

So far so good, how about some pics of your setup? I'll happily answer any questions I can!

Are you planning on using nutes or just straight soil & water ?

[ghost83]

I am currently using five 23 watt CFL bulbs (equivalent of 100W normal light) for the veg stage. Each CFL is 1600 lumens and 5000K. I couldnt find any that were 6500K either at Home Depot or Lowes. As my girls get bigger I am gonna add more lights. Im also going to put little lamps on the sides and maybe even pointing up so I can get the bottoms of the plants. I made the light fixture myself from ideas I found online. I plan to put 12 CFLs in my fixture. I hope thats going to be enough but I plan on just playing it by ear.

http://imageshack.us/a/img231/3748/growcloset.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/231/growcloset.jpg/) http://imageshack.us/a/img515/5262/lightsm.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/515/lightsm.jpg/) http://imageshack.us/a/img338/3413/cfl1.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/338/cfl1.jpg/)

[ghost83]

So I am growing in a closet with flat white paint on the walls and Im gonna use white paper on the inside to isolate the vent holes so there is little leakage of light, I read somewhere that plain white paper is almost as reflective as flat white paint. I put plastic on the floor to catch any excess drain from my pots. I just transplanted 2 of the 5 plants. I will explain more in a little bit. I still need to get nutrient which im gonna use the lucas formula with the FloraNova Bloom and Micro. I also still need to get a temp/humidity gauge. On the third day after I planted the seeds the plant started to come out of the soil and at that point I started the veg cycle with 18 hours of light on and 6 hours of light off. I am using a cheap timer so I dont need to worry about turning the lights on and off. I check on my girls at least 2 to 3 times a day to make sure that the light distance is still between 3 to 5 inches from the top of the plant, that the soil is still moist, and that the plants dont seem to be under any stress. Since I planted the seeds in my seed starter I havent needed to water them...until today. The soil looked really dry so I gave them a drink of distilled water after I checked the pH levels in the water. I am only using distilled water for my plants until they are 4 weeks old then Im gonna use the lucas formula. Im afraid to burn out the roots and they seem to be doing great right now. The last 2 days I have seen the most growth in the plants. They grew the second node and the leaves are getting bigger.

http://imageshack.us/thumbnmail.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/222/3inchspace.jpg/) http://imageshack.us/a/img689/8150/fanjmp.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/689/fanjmp.jpg/) http://imageshack.us/a/img849/6646/day10.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/849/day10.jpg/) http://imageshack.us/a/img32/2389/mysetup3daysold.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/32/mysetup3daysold.jpg/) http://imageshack.us/a/img818/605/timerf.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/818/timerf.jpg/) http://imageshack.us/a/img832/5029/mygirlsday11fromseed.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/832/mygirlsday11fromseed.jpg/)

[ghost83]

So when I came home today I notice that the roots were growing on the outside of my seed started containers thru the drainage holes. Today is day 12 from seed. I was a little worried about this so I decided to transplant 2 of the 5. I was nervous about transplanting them so early and I didn’t want to kill any of them due to transplanting too early or from not having enough room for the roots to grow. I used a root enhancer that I got as a free sample from my local hydro shop. Its called Jellyfish. Im not sure if its ok to use with cannabis plants but I decided to give it a try anyways. I soaked the roots in the solution like the instructions said for 5 seconds then I transplanted them into bigger pots. I dilluted some of the solution with water and used it to water one of the plants. I was worried that it may damage the plants to do so in that manner and that’s why I chose to try just one of the two. I plan on using 1 of the 5 plants as the mother and take clones from it but Im unsure of when I can do that and Im not sure how to do the process.

http://imageshack.us/a/img208/848/day12j.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/208/day12j.jpg/) http://imageshack.us/a/img35/416/rootsr.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/35/rootsr.jpg/) http://imageshack.us/a/img138/6043/potsr.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/138/potsr.jpg/) http://imageshack.us/a/img821/5696/transplant.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/821/transplant.jpg/)

-Ghost

[ghost83]

I used a recipe for soil that I found online. It was 50% peat moss, 30% compost, 10% pearlite, and 10% vermiculite with ¼ cup of limestone per 5 gallon of peat moss. Naturally I deviated from this formula due to lack of funds and because the hydro shop I went to didn’t have compost or the right size vermiculite I needed all they had was fine/course. What I ended up using was 80% peat moss, 20% pearlite and ¼ cup of limestone per 5 gallon of peat moss. After I mixed the soil, I watered it and it took a ton of water just to get it to soak into the soil, not to mention I had to massage it in there for about 3-5 minutes each pot. Not sure if this is normal but I let the soil sit for 3 days before I transplanted 2 of my girls. I hope the mixture I chose will work. I almost got worm castings in place of the compost but decided against it at the last minute because I was afaid of dangerous microbes existing in it and Im not using any nutrients until week 4. That’s still 2 weeks from now.

[ghost83]

My goal is to have the plants flower for approximately 10 to 12 weeks. It says that the White Widow that I got should flower for 8-10 weeks but I read that sometimes it could take longer. Unfortunatly I am moving durring harvesting and Im really short on time. I want quality over quanity since this is just for personal use. My goal is to get about 7 ounces between the 5 plants but Im not sure how realistic that is using cfl lights and soil. I planted the seeds into the seed starter on september 25...is it a realistic goal to have them in the flower cycle by november 16? That gives 7 weeks combine seedling/veg. Im also not going to start flowering unless the plants are 12 inches. They are currently at 3 1/2 inches now. I do plan on getting a magnifying glass so I can check the tricomes before I harvest.

All help and comments are appreciated. Thank you.

-Ghost

[ghost83]

So its been 4 weeks since I germinated my seeds. I was given some bag seeds of "foam mist" (great smoke btw never heard of it) so I figured I would germinate them too thinking I wouldnt get any results. Turns out all but one of the 22 seeds popped out. I would only be willing to plant 10 more, hopefully most of them are female. I encountered a problem with my white widows, the leaves were getting brown spots on them then they turned yellow and started drooping. Thought I was going to lose them and they were stunted (stopped growing) for a week and a half. I didnt have any money to get any nuitrients so I had to wait it out. When I got paid I made the "lucas formula" with flora bloom and micro. I also got some cal/mag and some dynogro plant food 7-9-5 because my search results led me to believe my plants were sick due to difficencies of calcium and magnesium.
The feeding schedule that I have now is every 2 or 3 days. The first feeding I gave them some cal/mag, then the second I gave them the lucas formula, then today I mixed the dynagro with the cal/mag half and half. I plan to use the half and half for the next week then im gonna just use the "lucas formula". I decided to top a few plants and see how that goes. Im experimenting with a few different things to see what works best for me.

I have been rotating them everyday so they can all get an equal amount of light. I believe my nuitrient plan is working great cause they day after I started it I saw some major growth in one of the white widows. I now call that one my queen widow. I plan to take a few clones from her when she is ready.

Im only going to flower 2 or 3 of the white widows and keep the rest in veg stage with the foam mist plants. Im gonna separate the ones I flower and the ones I veg. I worry about the foam mist pollinating the whole crop. I have never grown before so I dont know when to expect the sex to show. Thats why I bought fem seeds so I wouldnt have to worry about that. Unfortunatly the foam mist is random bag seeds so I have no idea how many female I have

here are my poor sick girls at weeks 2-4
287446287447287448287449

[ghost83]

Here is my Queen Widow
287450
I call her the queen cause she has grown so much faster then the rest. Its 4 inches in hight and the leaf span. The others are all only 2.5 inches.

This is my whole grow op
287451

I know its a ghetto set up but I decided to go a little cheaper because its my first grow and Im going to upgrade as I go along and get better. Im using a soil mix of 50% peat moss, 30% worm castings, 20% pearlite and 1/8 cup of garden lime, Im using cfl lights and I am painting the walls flat white. I still need to paint the walls just havent had the time and I am also worried about the smell of the wet paint. I was going to do it when the plants are in there 6 hours without light. It should only take me 30 minutes to paint and that gives it 5 1/2 hours to dry after that.
As the plants grow I have been adding more lights. That way its not so much money up front. Every check I get from work Im adding a few upgrades to my grow area. If everythign goes good I plan to start 2-3 of my white widows in the flowering stage and separate the rest and keep them in veg stage. I am moving in 3 months and I would like to have some smoke for the move but at the same time I want to take my time with the others to make sure I get the best out of my plants. The grow is just for my girl and I. we currently only smoke a quarter every 2 weeks. I figured I could get 2-3 ounces combined our of 2 plants and that will be enough to get us by until the other plants are done.

[andy8_5_85]

Very cool. I stubled upon this other thread here looking up harvesting. http://boards.cannabis.com/diy-how-methods/198619-grow-closet-help.html it also has a white widow grow and basically covers everything. You may have already seen it who knows. Good luck ill be following your grow. Good luck

[ghost83]

287525287526

So I updated my grow area. I transplanted 3 of my White Widows into bigger pots. I also transplanted all 10 of the foam mist plants and separated them from the widows all but 2. I have set up a secondary grow area where I will let them just veg until Im ready to move into a new house. Like I said before Im gonna flower 3 of the white widows so I have some smoke for the move. Will make everything so much more enjoyable.

Here is my secondary set up.
287527

I am hoping that there will only be about 4 or 5 females out of the Foam Mist. I dont have a whole lot of room and when I flowere my 3 widows I am gonna need to move my other 2. There is only enough room for 8 plants where I am growing them.

Im a little worried because my biggest plant has some parts of the leaves missing like there is something eating them. Here are a few pictures if anyone knows what is wrong please help me out.
287528287529

[ghost83]

So I put all of my plants into flowering the beginning of November. They are all looking so good. I was afraid that the roots were not getting enough room so I decided to transplant them all into 5 gallon pots. Unfortunately I only have enough room for six 5 gallon pots two 3 gallon pots and two 1 gallon pots. I have a total of 10 plants. 5 white widows and 5 foam mist (bag seed). All of the foam mist turned out to be females somehow. I didnt want to kill any of them but I dont have enough room or light. Sad to say that out of 10 foam mist plants I only kept 5 of them and 2 of them are in 1 gallon pots. Not sure how much yield Im gonna get out of them.

[ghost83]

Here they are from weeks 1-4 of the flowering cycle.

288264288265288266288267

[ghost83]

After transplanting into bigger pots. The girls are def loving all the new space. I mixed in Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil to my custom mix. I have only been watering them for the last week. They dont need any nuits right now because the soil should have enough in it. Im afrain to burn the plants with too much nuitrients. In a few days I will start giving them the lucas formula again. I was folar feeding with carbonated water with a little nuitrients in it for 3 weeks. Then when I started seeing buds come in I stopped doing that. First of all I dont want any chemicals on my buds and second I dont want to cause the plants to get mould on them.

288268288269288270

I also threw in a pic of all the girls right after I trimmed the fan leaves. I want the light to be able to penetrate as much of the buds as possible. Im all about bigger yields too so Ive done all that I can about maximizing the grow area...lights...and cut the popcorn looking bud stems off. I want all of the focus to be on the multiple stems that have shot off and make each bud as big as possible.

[ghost83]

288271288272288273

Here are some close shots on the buds. I figured I have about 7 or 8 weeks left of flowering before I want to harvest. I need to invest in a mag glass so I can keep a close eye on the tricombs. I want about 1/3 to 1/2 amber and the rest to be cloudy. I enjoy having a great head high along with a little couch lock. Some of the pictures kind of look like something I thought I would only ever end up seeing in the magazines. I never thought something I could grow would look this tastey. I had very low expectations from the beginning and these little fuckers have surprized me the entire way. Had some issues here and there but I have learned a ton from my first grow.

[ghost83]

My future goals for my next grow Im gonna get 8 plants going from seeds by Dutch Passion. Im ordering them thru herbies head shop. I hope they turn out ok I know they are a little pricey but I want to make sure that I dont get scammed. I figured they were a big enough company and widely known so I was good with them. I would rather spend 150 dollars on seeds and be guarenteed to get them then spend 70 or 80 and never hear from the company again. I will be buying a 1000 watt hps/mh light and a 3 foot my 3 foot grow tent. I will have enough room for nine 5 gallon pots in there...however im only putting 8 in there. Im gonna use the emtpy spot to put my carbon filter and inline fan. I will also get 2 or 3 clip fans. I cant wait for my next grow...it should be so much better. I plan on yielding 1.5 to 2 ounces per plant next time. I figured with 5 gallon pots I should be able to make that happen. I just need to use as much light as possible.
Im gonna grow 4 blueberry...1 Mazar...1 orange bud...and 2 Freddys Best.

[painretreat]

:thumbsup:Amazing, you kept this up! Just peeking in, for the first time.

What a neat grow log! Thank you for keeping this up. This is a pleasurable read, and I love pictures, of course.

Not to mention, Blueberry! Blueberry X Mazar is Skywalker OG, (I'll look forward to the next show, also), I've been using Skywalker lately. I love Blueberry, it is low in THC and high on pain control. You won't be disappointed with it.

What is Freddys Best? :rasta: pr

[Farmer Rich]

My future goals for my next grow Im gonna get 8 plants going from seeds by Dutch Passion. Im ordering them thru herbies head shop. I hope they turn out ok I know they are a little pricey but I want to make sure that I dont get scammed. I figured they were a big enough company and widely known so I was good with them. I would rather spend 150 dollars on seeds and be guarenteed to get them then spend 70 or 80 and never hear from the company again. I will be buying a 1000 watt hps/mh light and a 3 foot my 3 foot grow tent. I will have enough room for nine 5 gallon pots in there...however im only putting 8 in there. Im gonna use the emtpy spot to put my carbon filter and inline fan. I will also get 2 or 3 clip fans. I cant wait for my next grow...it should be so much better. I plan on yielding 1.5 to 2 ounces per plant next time. I figured with 5 gallon pots I should be able to make that happen. I just need to use as much light as possible.
Im gonna grow 4 blueberry...1 Mazar...1 orange bud...and 2 Freddys Best.

You may want to rethink the number of plants you're planning to put in your tent on your next grow. 8 plants in 5 gallon containers is way too much. 4 would have room to grow and breath.. Also, packing a 1K light into that tent will make it an oven. If you go this way, make sure you're able to ventilate and cool the tent. For lights, I think a switchable 600W may be better. This way you can dial it down if you're having heat problems or possibly during veg..

Good luck!

Farmer Rich

[ghost83]

Thanks for the heads up Farmer Rich...but the tent that Im getting is heat rated up to 1000 watts. I do have an inline fan and Im buying a cooltube light. The tent is big enough for the 5 gallon pots that I have now. Each pot takes up just a little less then 12 inches. So I sould be able to fit 9 in that tent. Its 6 feet plus im growing in the middle of winter. I can always open the window if I have hard time venting the heat which i doubt. Currently Im using a closet with Six 5 gallon pots...two 3 gallon pots and two 1 gallon pots. The space in there is only 2 feet by 5 feet. I can trim as needed if there is over growth

[ghost83]

Thanks pr
The blueberry that Im getting says its 19.5 percent THC which is pretty high in my book. I would love to try the skywalker at some point. I smoked some killer blueberry once and I am serching for that high again.
Freddys Best is by dutch seeds...its one of their genetic researchers who was the really great at his job and spent years perfecting a strain and he left the seeds for them when he retired. Was his lifes work apparently. Sounded good.

[ghost83]

Sorry my last post was a little incorrect on the dates. Today actually starts the first day of week 4 in my girls flowering cycle. Here are a few more pictures

288403288404288405

[bitemybud]

Nice job. Using cfl lamps are a good way to get accustomed to growing. Low heat and all. Keeps you from having to deal with issues from heat. I prefer HID lamps all the way, but have done some nice vegging with clfs. If i missed something. Sorry. I am legally blind, and cannot read all info without passing out from a headache. :D

Looks like you will get a nice little yield from those plants. Thanks for sharing.

[low_rdr]

Ghost -

Beautiful, Mouth-Watering, I just want to lick your leaves! (no homo)

In all seriousness, I'm medicated right now, and I would love to rub my cheek all over your plants.

[ghost83]

Thanks low_rdr...they are starting to smell really good right now. I never thought I would even get this far.

Bitemybud...I do plan on using HPS and MH lights on my next grow. I just didnt want to put too much money into this if I couldnt succeed.

[bitemybud]

You will succeed.

[ghost83]

Not sure if anyone was following my grow or not...but here is a quick update. I know its been awhile.

I got a little desperate for some smoke so I started to harvest plants early. I was tired of buying it at crazy prices when I had a nice stash in my closet. The final weigh in was a little less then 4oz with all the plants.

Turned out my bag seed foam mist was all fem seeds. I started to take them first since I was unsure of their genetics and thought that it was an inferior plant compaired to the white widow from nirvana. I got a little more then 2oz from all 5 of the white widow plant.

I realize that the yeild was so small as far as weight goes for three reasons.
1. I harvested too early. Even the last plants that I took were at 8 weeks when I know I should have waited until 10 weeks.
2. I used CFL bulbs. I had a lot of smoke but the weight and density was not there. By the size amount it looked like I had an ounce or two more then I actually did. The buds just werent dense enough.
3. As a rookie mistake I let them dry a few days longer then I should have. The buds dried out a little too much.

[ghost83]

Final reflection on my product...

The smoke was great and the tricombs gave me the buzz I was looking for. More head buzz less couch lock. The only problem is that the high didnt last as long as I would have liked and I am not sure why? If anyone can enlighten me on this one I would love that...

All in all I lost out on my investment. I spent almost a grand even tho it was a cheap grow. I wasnt able to yeild enough to cover the cost of the grow. I am currently paying 200 an oz for dro (good shit) in my area. I would say that I grew about 650 dollars worth at that price. I am not selling it I just wanted to use it for myself.

The learning curve was great and I do plan to do it again soon. I have AK48 seeds from nirvana but I am waiting to move before I start this one. I still have all the equipment and I rinsed the soil out. I plan on using it again. I have done lots of research on the matter of that and found out that I can indeed use the same soil as long as it was cleaned out and rinsed.

I also learned that even tho I had nice size and good looking buds I bought a great grow light from amazon. I like the low energy and low heat of the cfl and I will use it for the veg but im going to use a hps for the flowering cycle this time.

If I had any followers...thanks for the support and I am sorry that I took so long for the update.

If there was one thing that I learned the most was more light=bigger and better plant/buds.

[Mal420xl]

you answered a few of your own questions just so ya know. the reason your buzz was short lived could be from a few things but i think early harvest, overdrying them and probably didnt get a good cure maybe? that usually will do it alone.

[ghost83]

I think a lot of it was due to not enough light...i talked to my local grow shop and they think that with the lack of light i didn't produce enough oil on the plant. Live and learn i guess. I learned a ton from this grow and Im trying lots of other things to find k.y o.wn custom style and what works best for me. So far my new grow is going so much better. Thanks for your input tho i will keep all that in mind.er