my first grow - northern lights

I ordered Northern Light seeds last week from Dr. Chronic and got them within 5 days in a very stealth package along with 10 freebie seeds.

Let them sit overnight in a cup of water until they sank and then put them in rapid rooters in a 5 oz dixie cup. They're sitting in a baking dish with a cover on top in my closet with the lights off as we speak. I tucked them in and kissed them goodnight and told them I'll be back in the morning to say hello. :D

Here is a closeup of where they are in their cups and one of the closet.

For those of you who have endured my never ending saga of where to do my set up and how............I finally had an epiphany last night while doing laundry. I have two closets that I've shown previously directly next to my washer and dryer. They are the KEY area that I can grow in because if I hear the cellar door open (it makes a loud hrrrrrrrrrrrrmph when you open it) I can quickly shut the closet doors and make like I'm doing laundry. :thumbsup:

One closet I am using soley for storage of my equipment such as lights, soil, nutrients, cleaner, etc. The other is my grow closet.

Today I had to remove two pieces of shelving so that the plants will not be so cramped and will have room to grow. I think it's a total of three feet from the bottom shelf to the top shelf where the lights are hanging but I'll measure it tomorrow to be sure.

Then I had to make a hole in the side wall so that I could put an extension cord in it since there is no electrical outlet in the closet. That was a bitch on wheels since I have no drill. Basically the wood is just panelling so I hammered nail holes in a circle and then took a small saw and just kept turning it and turning it until it wood pieces kept coming out. It wasn't big enough for the plug so I had to cut the wire of the cord, strip it, then put it through the hole, then connect the wires of both ends and wrap it in electrical tape.

Next I made two hooks in the bottom of the top shelf so I can hang the lights but I think I should put a few more hooks since the light on the left just isn't doing what I want it to.

I took two reflector lights, removed the reflectors and screwed in a y-adaptor so I can put two lights in to each fixture. The lights are 23 watt soft white cfl's but of course I can't remember if those are the right ones for vegging or if I should use the daylight ones for vegging. Anybody?:wtf: I have both so it's no biggie and I'm not even keeping the light on at this point since I don't even have a sprout yet but I wanna be ready. :D

I hung a temp/humidity monitor up and it's about 78 degrees now and the humidity is around 75. Not sure if that's ok but i'll look it up if no one chimes in. That's without any lights on at all.

I don't have any air input/output yet since I'm still recovering from getting that puny lil hole in the wall. lol. that will have to wait for another two weeks or so.

Oh I forgot............I took out the old doorknob and put in one with a lock ;) THAT took me almost two freakin' hours!!!:rolleyes: The hard part was removing the old knob which had a funky set up that forbade you from getting to the screws. I sounded like a truckdriver while taking that sucker out!!!!!

That's it for now. I"m pooped!!! This is hard work!!!

Looks like it should work good.Get some mylar and cover the walls and maybe put in a couple stealth vents in the back for ventilation.

I quit. I got really freaked out today reading some busted reports on various sites. Now I have over $150 worth of stuff and no use for it. :(

Oh dude that's a shame. Sorry to hear about your shutting things down. Peace of mind comes first I suppose.

well if you wanna unload anything to me it'll go to a good home, maybe try an out door grow someday.

I am still growing...couldn't bring myself to destroy everything. lol. I posted this on another site but one cannot get too much help so here goes:

So these seedlings are approx 2 weeks old from the first time they popped outside of the soil and about 3 weeks old from the time I soaked the seeds in water. Seems like they're both growing wicked slow for me. Any ideas as to why?

Happy Helen, though slow growing, looks pretty healthy imho, but Sick Sally has this weird color to her leaves all of a sudden and it seems to have happened as soon as I added a warm light bulb into the grow closet.

The soil is an organic seedling soil with equal parts soil, worm castings and perlite. First week I watered them with distilled water 1 oz each day with the third day getting 1 oz of superthrive at 1tsp to 1 gallon distilled water. Second week they have been getting 2oz each day of distilled water and 2 oz of superthrive mixture at 1tsp to 1 gallon distilled water.

Sick Sally's ph is steady at 7 and Happy Helen is at a wee nudge below 7.

Temps in the room stay steady at 80 degrees and 60% humidity. I have a small fan blowing at them at all times to strengthen the stem. The lights are 6 26 watt daylight cfl's with the 1 added 23 watt warm light bulb.

Like I said the leaves started turning when I added the warm light but maybe that is a coincidence? The lights are about 2 inches I guess from the top of the leaves.

Any thoughts?

Overfert. The light's heat jsut accelerated the problem.
Punch some extra holes in those cups so you can very gently flush them.

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Originally Posted by stinkyattic

Overfert. The light's heat jsut accelerated the problem.
Punch some extra holes in those cups so you can very gently flush them.

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thanks, though of course you know what I just did to them. :(


For those that don't know I just put them in fox farm ocean with perlite, though sick sally's leaves were already starting to get crusty when I pulled her out.

We'll see if either is alive tomorrow. Oh well lesson learned for the newbie. :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by deadhead65

I am still growing...couldn't bring myself to destroy everything. lol. I posted this on another site but one cannot get too much help so here goes:

So these seedlings are approx 2 weeks old from the first time they popped outside of the soil and about 3 weeks old from the time I soaked the seeds in water. Seems like they're both growing wicked slow for me. Any ideas as to why?

Happy Helen, though slow growing, looks pretty healthy imho, but Sick Sally has this weird color to her leaves all of a sudden and it seems to have happened as soon as I added a warm light bulb into the grow closet.

The soil is an organic seedling soil with equal parts soil, worm castings and perlite. First week I watered them with distilled water 1 oz each day with the third day getting 1 oz of superthrive at 1tsp to 1 gallon distilled water. Second week they have been getting 2oz each day of distilled water and 2 oz of superthrive mixture at 1tsp to 1 gallon distilled water.

Sick Sally's ph is steady at 7 and Happy Helen is at a wee nudge below 7.

Temps in the room stay steady at 80 degrees and 60% humidity. I have a small fan blowing at them at all times to strengthen the stem. The lights are 6 26 watt daylight cfl's with the 1 added 23 watt warm light bulb.

Like I said the leaves started turning when I added the warm light but maybe that is a coincidence? The lights are about 2 inches I guess from the top of the leaves.

Any thoughts?

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You dont want to give them any nutes the first couple weeks that means no superthrive. The fox farm soil is okay I start out all my seedlings using it i just dont use any ferts the first few weeks. Try and get your humidity down to 45% 60 is way to high and try and get your temps down to about 77 that will help them out a lot. Other than that keep up the good work.:rasta::rastasmoke::pimp:

Do you guys think I can use this light (or two of them anyways) without having to take it apart and all that? I mean just hang it from the top of my grow space and use it as a grow light for flowering stage?

Lithonia Lighting 50 Watt Bronze High Pressure Sodium Floodlight - TFS 50S 120 LPI M6 at The Home Depot

Wow....you go Deadhead!! Great start....even with the teeny seedling detail which we won't mention.....you're trying to be thorough which is terrific....it will REALLY help you later. :thumbsup:

Cool grow thread you've started, deadhead! I'm sure with the advice you can get here you will have a successful first harvest. PLEASE be careful with the electrical wiring! Also, you will have to plan on some better ventilation later on.

Good Luck

Shovelhandle

Nice it should be great!

Well Sick Sally is not only still alive much to my suprise but already has new growth on top!!!! I didn't take a pic 'cause the kids have been up my butt but I will later on in the week. Happy Helen is doing ok too. phew!

I'm obsessing over lighting for flowering stage now. Decisions decisions. I was originally just going to do cfl's but you know...the more I read the more it seems like I'll double the yield if I do an hps and since this is taking so much time and effort why not go for it.

Here are the two I'm looking at:

400w HPS COOL TUBE GROW LIGHT 400 watt Sodium Cooltube - (eBay item 180127387721 end time Oct-02-07 13:47:09 PDT)

and:

High Tech Garden Supply


I am not comfortable in my venting abilities so I'm leaning towards the 150 watter. Plus my space is pretty small so I don't really need *that* much light. I"m gonna sleep on it for a week and see how I feel.

Just watered sick sally and happy helen for the first time since I repotted and flushed them.

Sick sally flopped over when I watered her so I nudged her back up and put some more soil around her stem to hold the poor girl steady. One of the newer leaves has brown spots on the very edge, though even newer leaves are popping up on top so not sure if she's gonna bite the big one or hang in there.

Happy helen is doing very very well. Lovin life and sprouting new growth on top. I'll post more pics later on in the week. . . possibly along with sick sally's obituary at which point I sure as heck hope happy helen is not happy harry since then i'll be sol in a major way. :wtf:

Ok so we're making progress!

Sick Sally is still sick though. She seems very weak to me. Since I transplanted her to the Fox Farm although she has shown a LOT more growth, she has four damaged leaves insted of just two. No more have been damaged though so hopefully she is well on her way to recovery.

I have been waiting for them to be bone dry and then I water them. Today I flushed them both.

Happy Helen has not shown any more damaged leaves so I think she's ok. I really think this is because she didn't have as much of the old soil as Sick Sally did when I transplanted her.

Although Happy Helen is ok, she isn't looking as green as she's been. I have heard though that Fox Farm ocean soil is supposed to give them enough nutes for a month so do you all think I should feed her or just let her be?

This weekend I'm going to go buy a 150 watt hps light. Is that ok to add to the room for vegging too or do I just only use it for flowering? I've heard mixed reviews on that but I don't totally understand why.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the pics! (oh btw when should I move them to bigger pots? and when to start lst'ing them? is it when the fourth shoot comes up?)

Where can I get a good magnifying glass too?

Hello deadhead. I'm not so familiar with the ferts you are using such as superthrive but I assume they are all organic. Foxfarm is a great soil to use, I use a similar soil called happy frog for my plants and they love it. Earthworm castings, bat guano, mushroom compost, perlite are all great additives to your soil. 150 watt HPS will suffice if you are only flowering I'd say 4 or fewer plants. I use a 400W HPS in each of my flowering rooms for around 12 plants in each. HPS is only used for flowering because of the light spectrum it emphasizes (redish-orange) while fluorescents or Metal Halide are best for vegging with the blue spectrum.

For organic gardening you really want to enrich the soil as much as possible so any "fertilizing" in just supplementary. Peace of Mind has several great soil additives that you also use as top-dressing twice in flowering. The two I use are "fruit & flower" and bat guano.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.

My mentor says that you can grow with HPS, but your node spacing will be big. But i'm not sure that it would be any worse then using CFL's.

Also about switching to those red CFL's, I had problems using them for back up lighting in my seedling cab. For some reason, my plants just never seemed to like them. maybe its coincidence but i don't think so, although i can offer no other explanation.

Go to the hardware store, like Home depot. Pickup a Daylight CFL, it should be in a blue colored package. This cfl will be rated at 6500k. This is a very blue part of the spectrum, it will generate almost no heat and your plants will love it, most of the cfls you buy are in the 2700k range which is very red, plants do not like this spectrum when they are vegging. spectrum goes 1000k-----6500k higher the k the bluer the light. I wouldnt waste your cash on a HPS, i bought a 150w one from the hardware store and never used it, it generated to much heat and used alot of juice, i got the same results with 6500k cfl's. HPS lights are very red in spectrum so they are not the best for vegging, they do work, but your plants will grow fast and stretchy, they will not be very busy. Red spectrum light is however good when you are flowering your plants, so that would be when you should use a HPS if your going to use one. Or you can just buy afew 2700k CFL bulbs and put them in when its flowering time and save yourself 60bucks.

DO NOT ADD any nutes to your plant, till it is 3 times bigger, and even then only add a drop or two of liquid nutes. Trust me i have almost killed my plants afew times with 4-5 measly drops of nutes. As for soil, it tried miracle grow, soil and in the end i went with a mix stinky attic uses, Went to rona picked up a bag of Moo poo, menure mixed it with humus and perelite about 50/40/10 percent ratio's and my plants have almost doubled in growth, and they are more resistant to over fert. To get a good magnification lense go to London drugs and look in there camera section. You can get a nice handy 10x mag lense for looking at photo's. Hope this helps

Thanks!!!! You guys are a big help!

Well I had quite the scare yesterday but I think we're on the road to recovery. I posted in the problem section that my leaves were all turning yellow, but after listening to some advice I decided to flush and give them their first feeding which was 1/2 tbsp Earth Juice Grow.

This morning they were both happy and growing new growth on top.........until I tied them down. muhahahahahahahaha. We'll see if they survive their bondage now.

Sick Sally is still looking pretty awful with all the stretching going on. I have no clue why she's stretched and Happy Helen is nice and bushy since the lights are the same height for each. Oh well. I hope I tied them down right. :wtf:

So far so good on the kiddos not noticing anything in the closet. They've gone downstairs twice so far and even stood right in front of it and I thought for sure they'd hear the fan going but nada. My new worry is when the oil company comes in to give my oil burner a tune up. Hopefully I'll be in flower mode by then though so the lights will be off.

eta: any idea on when I should repot? I was thinking next weekend.

Ok so it's totally killin' me that most people start flowering by now and my plant is just too tiny for that. :mad:

Anyways..........after looking up my leaves in a guide and listening to advice I decided last week to mix some epsom salt with some water and spray the leaves due to the streaking of yellow lines on the leaves. Well I also ended pouring some in the pot too. Kind of over zealous I guess. :D

The next day I went to find that MORE leaves yellowed and some actually fell off. :wtf:

Now, today, most of those leaves are gone though it looks like some of the newer leaves are yellowing as well BUT I'm not scared because new growth has appeared where the old leaves were I think due to the lst'ing I did last week. I just wish I could pinpoint the problem of the yellowing.

Wednesday night I repotted them into their bigger pots and I fed them the same earth juice grow. I'm not sure how much of the grow mixture I was supposed to put in there so I put in about a quart of the water/grow formula at 1/2 tbsp grow to 1 gallon water. Today they are still wet so I haven't watered them since. Actually with these bigger pots it feels like I won't be watering them for a while is that right? I feel like I should water them just 'cause you know?

Anyways here are pics of the top, the yellowing leaves and the lst job on happy helen. I let them go free Wed and Thurs night before I tied them back down again this morning.

Wow looking at the last pictures I guess my plants have really grown. Here's the update:

1) repotted them to a bigger container. hopefully this will be the last transplant. (whoops....did that last week! lol:D)

2) have fed them twice since repotting and flushed them this morning before taking these pics.

3) realized that my timer never worked!!! I went downstairs to do laundry one night after midnight, which is when they're supposed to be in the dark for 6 hours, to find the light still on!:wtf: Note to everyone: test to see if your timer actually works!!!!

They're now on a new and improved timer and I seriously think that's why the growth has taken off like lightning. I am now a big fan of the 18/6 once the seedling is old enough.

4) have come to the conclusion that sick sally came from a retarded seed. I mean the seed shell never did fall off and survival of the fittest should have been in my head when I carefully plucked it off since it's just such a disappointment. I have treated both plants exactly the same and look at the difference. Hopefully it's a boy and I can give it the ole lorena bobbit soon.

5) have been trying to see if they're girls or boys but can't really tell yet. the preflowers are starting to show and I see no balls, but it might be too soon.

6) started the second round of lst'ing and seeing TONS of new lil sprouts popping out.:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Wish I could clone happy helen to find out and to keep her as a mom since she's so awesome but I'd need another closet for that and I don't think I can do it. :( That sucks 'cause I"m almost out of my stash and I'd like to have a steady supply coming in since my Lupus is getting worse and I'm just miserable. My only connection lives in New Jersey which is kind of a hike for me.

But enough about me.....here's the new pics.

So are you using CFL's still or??

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Originally Posted by BUDZOOR

So are you using CFL's still or??

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Yes still the four daylight bulbs and the one darker bulb (i forget what that's called).

Unfortunately I suddenly had to incur a monthly expense of $300 which was totally unexpected so the grow-my-own-weed project budget got nixed. :( I'll have to just work with what I have for now. I could probably just add some more daylight bulbs but I figure hopefully in about two more weeks I'll start the flowering stage and I'd rather spend the money on some more clamp holders, splitters and more of the soft white bulbs.

I'm getting a little impatient. I would like to know if these are truly girls or not so that I don't waste anymore time. I have tried looking through a magnifying glass and all I see is what I see with my naked eye so I'm not quite sure how the magnifying glass is supposed to help. I tried taking pics close up but my camera sucks so I just have to trust the pictures that you all have posted in the helpful threads on how to tell the sex. What I do see is at each point the plant branches off (at that little interesction thingie) there are two short curly growths and underneath/inbetween them it looks like a blister...like something is going to come out of the blister. Hopefully it's not balls!!!! I would really be pissed but then it's my own fault for only growing two plants I guess. Live and learn.

Anyways, as usually Happy Helen is growin' like a weed lol and Sick Sally is growing but slooooowly. Not much else to report. Haven't fed them at all this week and not any problems with Happy Helen so that's good. I'll do some more lst work later on today. I just had time to go downstairs and snap these pictures for now.

Although I'm impatient about the sex, my patience about not flowering yet is astounding me. I thought I'd be all gung ho about it but I would rather see the plants lst'd all around the pot first so that I'll get maximum output. I've worked too hard not to get the most I can get out of both plants.

So I couldn't take it anymore and now they are in flower mode. Basically happy helen is growing too tall and I don't think I could handle it if I let her go longer since my space is cramped. I'm actually going to have to rethink my lighting height as it is since each time I strap her down the next time I go in she's almost touching the bulbs.

And.......................................they're both girls!!!!!!! :jointsmile: How odd is THAT....someone's first time growing, first two seeds are girls??? whoot whoot. Saw the pubies myself without having to use a magnifying glass this morning after only putting them into flower on Tues night. Sick Sally's are more obvious than Happy Helen's at the moment but trust me, they're there!!!

Haven't put ANY nutes in since the last time I wrote about it and I'm gonna keep it that way until happy helen shows she needs it. (not sure how i'll know but we'll see what happens) I'm resigned to the thought that sick sally was just a weirdo seed, though she'll obviously produce some weed she's not the most productive plant in the world.

showed sex after 3 days??? are you sure? it would potentially just be new leaf sprouts..new sprouts where the flowers grow sometimes look like pistils when they are just forming...showing sex after 3 days is kind of ridiculously fast.my DWC plant has been under flowering since sunday, and is just now starting to show flower growth, but no detectable sex.

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Originally Posted by PdoubleOTY

showed sex after 3 days??? are you sure? it would potentially just be new leaf sprouts..new sprouts where the flowers grow sometimes look like pistils when they are just forming...showing sex after 3 days is kind of ridiculously fast.my DWC plant has been under flowering since sunday, and is just now starting to show flower growth, but no detectable sex.

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Well I've seen new growth before and this is different. It's the little hairs growing right where the two things stick out.

Doesn't it matter how long they've been vegging at 18/6 as well? I've had them in veg totalling 7 weeks so I think maybe it is different since most just veg for 4 weeks.

Ok well I was dead wrong, Happy Helen is a hank. I don't know what to do with him for now he's shoved in a dark closet that no one uses. I'm obviously afraid of throwing him away so I guess this weekend I'll chop him up and flush him. Not sure how to dispose of the soil though. Maybe throw it in my backyard?

Anyhoo here's the pic of Sally at 2 1/2 weeks. Pretty pathetic and lemme tell ya Happy Hank there looks healthier even after being shoved in a closet for almost a week.

But whatever..........what do you guys think I'll get...1/8?

The top bud is really growing but I have a question.................. the tippedy top of the white hairs on the very top bud are dark but the rest is white. It's just the very very tip that is dark. Is that something bad going on?Here's some pics of the plant as a whole and some of the buds but I couldn't get a shot of the dark tips on the top bud 'cause my camera sucks.

To close to the light maybe. Sounds like heat burn.
Looking good hang in there, give then some bloomig or flowering nutes that will help with the size of your yeild
Looks like you are at the stage where she will stop growing up and put all her energy into making flowers so the nutes will help now more than ever IMO

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Originally Posted by Jerry Garcia 2007

To close to the light maybe. Sounds like heat burn.
Looking good hang in there, give then some bloomig or flowering nutes that will help with the size of your yeild
Looks like you are at the stage where she will stop growing up and put all her energy into making flowers so the nutes will help now more than ever IMO

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Well the tips of the flower bud hair things aren't near the light so I think maybe it's just maturing since the other ones are starting to turn a bit, though only at the very tips.

I have given her two doses in total now of bloom nutes, one last week and one this week and I do see a difference. I even see new budding sites. This thing is so agonizingly sloooooow though!!! It's really a true test of patience!

:rastasmoke:

I know I just updated but here's a pic of the tips of the hairs and a pic of my new lil buddy. Unfortunately I wasn't organized this time so I have no clue who she is. I planted a freebie and a bag seed and one hasn't cracked and one sprouted so who knows. Definitely not Northern Lights again though. I love the frost on the bud leaves. :)

lookin real good hang in there

Deadhead, You have a good first crop going there. Any first crop that makes it to harvest is a good first crop. Especially with just CFL's. I did read that you were thinking about a 150 WATT HPS. But was thinking you did not get it. If you are still thinking of a HPS light. It will still help a lot in the late weeks of Flower. Your buds are just entering the stage where they will be putting on wieght and getting more DENSE. But they need that heavy hitting HPS light.

Oh,, I am new to this Forum, This place is great. I never new there was internet spots that people can pass around ideas and Info and growing. I found this place, because I was trying to find out why My plants were doing something I had not seen before, they looked healthish.. But they had candy caned Fan leafs, and Ram Horned Bud Leafs, Purple Stems leading to Fan Leafs, and Leathery feeling Leafs also, and Very dark green. I thought,, Hmm,, Over Nut uptake, Hmm (P) Deficience. Then I found this site, and one guy desribed, and showed pictures of exactly what my plants are like. (HUMBOLT COUNTIE'S OWN BUSH MASTER) This is what he added, and so did I, Both of us for the first time. I added this because the Hydro store owner said it would help keep the plant short and bush... PFFT. But within this site, I am pretty dang sure I found my trouble.. NICE!!!!!! FLUSH, Flush, Flush.. Ahhhhhhhhhhh

Anyway. Hang in there Deadhead. AKA Sir Flush-A-Lot... Flushing is never bad.