First grow in 28 years. Advise welcome.

It's been a bunch of years sense the last time I grew any weed. If I remember correctly, it was the year the space shuttle first went into space.

Things have changed a lot in the years, including knowledge about growing pot. I've been doing a lot of reading and getting up to speed.

I have two, ten day old seedlings going. Was getting a little worried about them. I have to do everything on a super tight budget. So here is what is happening.

At first I just got some good old New Mexico dirt from the back yard. I germinated the seeds using the paper towel method. After putting the germinated seeds in the soil, I set them on the window sill and waited.

They came up ok, but I was worried. The only window I have access to only gets about 2 hours of direct sunlight a day. Buying a bunch of fancy grow lights is out. Not enough money for that. So for a partial fix, I put a big sheet of white paper behind them to reflect more light back on them. This worked some what, as they quit leaning over towards the window. Still I wasn't happy.

Next I thought I would put them under artificial lights. Oops! No money for that. I did have two of them light bulbs that do not have white the coating on them. Just glass and a bare filament. Even though they are only 60 watts they are brighter than hell. So, I got out the aluminum foil and started making my two babies a room of their own. I put them under that light and they stayed there for 18 hours. Then they got some darkness. I did notice that the two starter leaves were acting different. Before, the stalk and leaves formed the shape of the letter "T". Now they had formed the letter "Y". Really don't know if that is important, but there it is.

Still, the worry about the light would not go away. I know incandescent bulbs mostly shine in the yellow to red spectrum. I needed more blue. I have read blue is needed for good lush growth, and especially for when they start budding. What to do, I asked my self. I found that CFL shine a lot more blue. Some shining more blue than others. For me at this point I thought any upping of the blue photons would be a good thing.

So I got a GE CFL and screwed it in next to the incandescent. Also, while I was out, I picked up a bag of Miracle-Gro Potting Mix with Miracle-Gro Continuous Release plant food already in it. Says it feeds plants up to 6 months.

Now my babies are out of the New Mexico dirt, and in the Potting mix. They have 1 incandescent bulb (the kind that has no white coating on the glass), and 1 CFL. They are 6 inches away from the lights. Also their space has foil on the sides to reflect light back on them.

Everything I wrote above is up for crits. Any advise is welcome. :hippy:

Here are some pics. 10 days old. :rastasmoke:

Are you going to put them outside when they get a little bigger?

Got any old shop lights around? T-12 fluorescent tubes (6500k) work well for the first 3 weeks....better than CFL's ...IMO.

Good light is critical...no way around that...can you move outside with them, later?

I would like to put them out side. It is a problem though. There is to much open spaces around here. It would be to hard to hide them.

A buddy says he is getting some fancy lights in about 2 weeks. He said he would hook me up with the grow lights he is using now. I will add them to what I got already.

i hope u do well... im a newbie at it. having a few problems but not enough answers. but fingers crossed i hope and pray there doing ok. they look a bit better today. i constantly go up there talking to them, making sure temp humid.. is all ok i look at them i have a radio in there. sometimes i play calming music for them "inkon ikon" lol i even read to them. if you could read my posts perhaps you could answer a few questions about mine. but i am using lights and nutrients and fans in and out ones. good luck...

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Originally Posted by pepurr

I would like to put them out side. It is a problem though. There is to much open spaces around here. It would be to hard to hide them.

A buddy says he is getting some fancy lights in about 2 weeks. He said he would hook me up with the grow lights he is using now. I will add them to what I got already.

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What I did for a backyard grow was I made a box with trellis on two sides and 1" chicken wire on the 3rd side and top. The 4th side was open to sit against the house and to pull the box off to get in there. It looked like a cover for meters or pool pumps or something, and when it started budding I had the chicken wire to set up a nice frame for the box o' buds.

Putting pots in tree canopies works well too, I'm messing around with that right now.

the tree idea is pimp! lol ....dude the cfls will work great as long as you got alot like ten or more!!

I like that tree idea too. May have to wait for a while to try it. We are in the windy season here now. I would hate to chance it.

Last time I grew some herb it was from some Kona Gold seeds. They were an indoor grow, under proper light. When the plants were 6 or 7 inches tall I cut the light back to 8 hours a day from 18. Also I got some flower pot spikes that were supposed to help plants flower. I put 3 for each pot.

Well to make a long story short, by the time the plants (4 of them) were 3 feet tall, they were dark purple to about 1/4 down from the top. Had nice sticky buds too.

I remember the harvest wasn't that great in quantity, but the quality was top notch.

All this happened on my last grow 28 years ago. I would like to reproduce that one day. Hopefully I will find some good indica seeds in bud one day. Seems the only seeds I have found of late was in Mexico stuff. :rastasmoke:

Let me tell ya, the tree idea is a good one for covert growing. I did that a few years back and it worked great! I just aimed a garden hose at the tree to water it, and used a Miracle grow water hose attachment to nute it.
Good luck on your grow pepurr!!:thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by redtails

What I did for a backyard grow was I made a box with trellis on two sides and 1" chicken wire on the 3rd side and top. The 4th side was open to sit against the house and to pull the box off to get in there. It looked like a cover for meters or pool pumps or something, and when it started budding I had the chicken wire to set up a nice frame for the box o' buds.

Putting pots in tree canopies works well too, I'm messing around with that right now.

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awesome idea with the tree! I'm an indoor grower but love that as an option! :jointsmile:

Tree growing is great. Was lucky enough to see tree growing done at a serious level in Kentucky. Everything camo colored with battery powered pumps and lines running up for watering from ground level. Cool stuff!

I want to try growing trees in the trees as well....

yea tree idea is great i cant believe i havent thot of it i got so many trees in my back yard lol..

...will have to help a friend set one up when I go back west for a visit!
don't forget about the benefits of doing passive, wick-style hydro, as well!

Has all the benefits of soil, with some of the cheapest way to get huge nutes to the plant. I have five plants right now in various levels of one or more wicks, and they're catching the bigger plants in 3-5ga of the best dirt I could find.

All are getting Dutch Nutrient Formula Gro(a&b), in appropriate quantities, but the wick-style passive hydro ones in the 1ga pots are just flying, and don't seem to mind the nutes at full-hydro strength. Best part is, over or underwatering is basically impossible, and you /know/ when they've been /drinking/..!

I'm an indoor person, but I am thinking about ways to maximize my space while not crowding it, and I just /have/ to try something I've been thinking about for a bit now :)

Gonna fuck with some peoples' heads.
Mine included ;)

{Also love the firkin' FREAK BROTHERS quote!
"Gee, I sure am /hungry/ all of a sudden for some strange reason..."}

(c)C :chainsaw:

peppur, nice to see that you have to decided to start growing again. Im sure a lot has changed in 28 years !

I got a couple tips for you with the cfls, you going to need a lot more of them ! also incandesenct bulbs dont do anything for a plant, so i would scrap it. Also the tin foil will create hot spots on your plants and isnt as reflective as white surfaces. So paint em white or use mylar !

Hope all will go well and will be cheking back in soon:jointsmile:

Tks for the advise. Yeah, things have changed a lot. Mainly the lights. Back in the day we didn't have all the fancy lighting systems we got now.

Go check my grow log. :thumbsup:

http://boards.cannabis.com/grow-log/...epurr-pot.html