joe-grow's first grow

Hi StoneyMike, I'd say be careful with those extra HPS lamps. I've been having trouble with my 600w lamp burning my plants. In fact, I fried three good bud sites two nights ago by getting too close to my lamp. The existing 400w HPS is probably too small for eight plants, from what I've read around here. I thought I was ambitious going for four plants, so now I feel a bit more grounded.

I'm not sure that you should give up hope on those buds appearing. I didn't see any until a few days after I passed three weeks. Now, they are growing all over the place. One thing I've learned about this trial run, is that just when you're about to give up hope, wait a couple days more. One of my seedlings that didn't look like it would ever crack it's seed - is now the tallest one in the bunch, and has the thickest stem.

Some of the photos that you posted look like they were taken in a kitchen. Do you have a place to store these, or is this where they reside? If so, it could be a combination of lack of light during your light period and light leakage during your dark period. Can you describe where the plants normally reside? It's nice to compare notes with another fellow newbie. Check out CCIE's thread, he started around the same time as us.

Invision - thanks for dropping by, and the advice. I guess I was just a little too anxious to see some buds. I'm really starting to see some now. Next photos posted should show some of these nice buds. As I was just saying to Mike, though, I've fried a few bud sites :( I think if I want to continue growing three or four plants in this space, I will need to learn LST.

Hiya Mike. I'd guess light leakage too, but Joe's took forever for no apparent reason beyond the desire to be contrary. As for my harvest, I'm guessing mid-January for the skunk and early February for the Thais. That's 'early' for both strains, but I'm chasing an experience more akin to Carl Sagan's than Cheech and Chong's.
:abduct:

Thanks for the responses guys. Joe, those pictures were taken in the kitchen because I was changing the water that night. They reside the rest of the time in a gardening shed with black plastic covering the light from the outside and reflective material on the inside. However, I now have a bigger problem. I noticed yesterday morning when I went to check the plants, at approximately 7:20, that the light was turned off (they run from 7:30pm to 7:30am). I thought at the time that possibly I was off a few minutes on my timing. However I went out there this morning at 6:30 to double check and the light had shut off sometime in the night. Timer was set correctly and all other units plugged into the power bar were running. I did some troubleshooting on it and it did come on, but I cannot afford to have this type of problem. It seems to me I must have a problem with the ballast (as I said all other units working fine and the bulb is new) the 400W is not staying on for the duration of the cycle-perfect imiming on this huh. I did the only thing I figured logical and bought a new light, but have to wait a few days for delivery. Now tonight the light has come on as sceduled, so I am at a loss. But I am not about to ruin all time, effort, and expense over a few more pounds. I should get the 2 105's tomorrow and the new 400W by Friday. Have to see if this work out-jeeez I hope. I will keep you guys informed with regular posts and pictures.

CCIE, first thanks for the comments, I am in a bit of a hurry tonight and would like to have checked out your thread, but will check it out and comment next post.

Any thoughts of whether I am dead in the water here would be greatly appreciated.

That sucks stoneymike. I think if you can use some kind of light to keep the light cycle constant till your new lights arrive, you could still be ok

also, you can take this time to lightproof your shed.


-p

Damn light keeps shutting off and then comes back on. New lights can't come soon enough.

Hey CCIE .... yeah, if I go by Invision's time guide, it'll be about the same time for me, maybe a little earlier. I figure early to mid January I should be cutting down what I haven't fried under the lamp. :o I can't complain too much, there's still a lot of nice bud sites popping up. Now, if I can just hold out until curing can complete. :rastasmoke: I just read about faithless snipping a bud early for a sample. Too bad about those bollocks.

So, today I snapped a few photos. Starting off as usual with an overall shot of my three girls. I decided to mix things up a bit, so they are in reverse order. The next one is the shortest of the bunch. It's also the one with the least amount of burns. I'm starting to see a connection here.

The next photo shows a nicely forming bud site on the next plant. The last one shows the crispy remains of several once-nice bud sites. They 'were' the biggest bud sites of all the plants. Anyone know if I should trim any of this away. I'm not sure if I should leave it as an example to the remaining plants - sort of a this is your plant .... this is your plant up against a 600w HPS bulb ..... any survivors, ummm, I mean questions?

I skipped a day feeding. I know, bad gardener. Surprisingly, they took up less nutrients - ppm level hardly changed during the extra time. This time I went with straight water. They are consuming around 3/4 to 1 gallon of water a day.

Gotta remember to get high AFTER posting ..... here are the photos .....

Nice plants Joe. :joint1:

Thanks PTS for dropping by, and the compliment.

Just a quick update of the progress, with some photos. Still having some lamp distance problems. I have several bud sites showing up now. I'm just going to hope for the best - that enough lower sites will develop. The shortest plant seems to be doing very well. A little underdeveloped, but nothing burnt so far.

I'm feeding about every other gallon with nutrients mixed in. Water consumption is running between 1/2 gallon and 1 gallon. A lot more leaves are starting to die off. I'm presuming that is the plant just consuming the stored nutrients from these dying bits.

Howdy - are the flowers connecting yet? Resist the urge to sample this early if you mean to smoke it. The amount I minced, extracted and baked yesterday was about equal to all the greenery visible in the third picture above, and it was only able to provide a single strong high for two people. OK, really strong, but still.