first real grow + grow log

Hey all. Over the weekend I started my first real grow. The beans sprouted on Saturday (10/7/2006). I am growing a single lowryder plant right now. In a few weeks I will add another couple plants into the mix, but for right now, it's just the single plant.

Here's my set up:

It's in my closet. Well, part of it I guess. The space is about 3FTx1.5FT and maybe 3FT tall. I'm using CFLs. Right now I have one 42W and four 26W bulbs. Once I start the other two plants, I will be increasing it to atleast four 42W and six 26W.

The plants are in Fox Farm Ocean Forest organic soil. I will eventually be using Fox Farm Big Bloom for ferts, and possibly some more bat guano and some other organic micronutrients or something.

I didn't want to line my walls in mylar, so I simply cut out cardboard pieces and put mylar on those and have those up against the walls.

Before I started this grow, I did a little experimenting with growing some bagseed. They were just in some regular potting soil inside those red beer cups. Both of those are now on the verge of dying because I am concentrating all my lights on my new little guy. The two plants that are still alive are about 8-10 inches tall and are around 3 weeks old. Does anyone know if they would have any THC in them at all to make cannabutter or anything? Or should I just get rid of them?

I will be posting pictures quite often in this thread to document the growth, but I won't post any for a few more days until it starts growing more.

Let me know if any of you have any tips or anything along the way. Like I said, this is my first real grow. I've been reading this forum a lot for the past few weeks, and I think I've got a little grasp on what to be doing. But if at any time it looks like I'm messing up or you think I could do something better/different, let me know. This is also an all organic grow as well, so if you have any tips for that, I would appreciate it.

Thanks for reading this thread, and I hope you all continue to follow the growth of my little lowryder. (I'm growing lowryders because of the small space I have. Also, this is completely for my own use, and whatever it yields will be fine. I'm going to eventually have probably 4 plants going at once, but all staggered so that I harvest approximately every 2 weeks or so.)

Alright here's a little update. Not much really new to report. It just seems like my plant is progressing a little slower than those two bag seed plants were progressing. It's day 5 and I still only have the first set of "real" leaves and the second set is just starting to form. Does anyone know if lowryders just take a little while to really start kicking in and developing more foliage and nodes?

I don't really think I'm doing anything wrong. My lights are close, its well watered, the temp and humidity is fine.

Either I'm just really anxious or it seems like this little girl (hopefully, knock on wood) is taking her little time to start getting some girth to her.

Tomorrow I will have pics. But in the meantime, can anyone let me know anything about why the plant seems to be growing slow? Or is it even growing slow at all? I could just be overly anxious. Thanks for any help.

you started your first LR grow same time as me exactly , and yes LR germinate slow , i soaked my beans til a tap root shown, then planted them sunday, my still havent broke the earth.... my temp is 78F soils moist not soggy, good humidity , reg m.g soil no ferts only b vitamins in distilled water. b4 they break the ground i no they dont need light however i put a cool 20w cpf 3 in above the soil.... worlds best virtue patients.... keep in touch through both our threads i can really use someone in same spot as me, even tho i know quite a bit about growing , every grow i feel like a noob again. i just wish they would beak ground i know then that i can kick ass then... good luck with yours.. and you cpf lights should be 3 in from you plants and a fan on low constantly blowing on them will work wonders plus let you get the lights closer.... PEACE

Hey thanks for checking out my thread!

Yeah, the waiting part for them to break ground is a little rough. I just soaked mine in some water for about 12 hours then popped them in the soil. I put them in on a Thursday, and by Saturday afternoon they had popped out.

Also, my lights are about an inch and a half from the plant. And I do have a fan blowing on them as well.

Keep me updated with yours and I'll do the same with mine. Just check back every couple days. Once growth starts picking up, I'm going to try to have an update atleast every couple days or so. And pics, lots of pics.

Take care and happy growing!

sounds good man, waitin for those pics :thumbsup:

by the way, not all lights are the same so you don't have to, but i reccomend moving them to around 3 inches and keeping it around there for the whole growth. when my lowryder was a sprout my light was like 1.5 inches like yours and she got a little burnt (luckilly survived though.)

Hey thanks for the tip. So far there hasn't been any burning of leaves. But I will probably move the lights a little further away once I get a few more in there.

I'm taking pictures tonight and will post them right after I take them. There's really not much too them yet. About an inch and a half tall with a couple leaves and some new ones coming in. But pics will be posted anyways.

Can I ask you, what kind of nute cycle did you use? When did you start them on nutes? What I was thinking was that since there is really no vegitative stage, and it goes straight to flowering, once the sex is determined, that's when I should use some bloom ferts. I'm going to be using Fox Farm Big Bloom. Should I even worry about using any sort of ferts before this, or should I just start them once I determine the sex (obviously if it's a male, I won't be doing that, but if it's a girl, then yeah)

Sorry, I'm really long-winded when I type.

i soaked myn for same mount of time, thur, friday saw tap root , let them sit in a soaked towel in warm spot most of friday, then planted 1/4 inch insoil tap root down and soak the soil down nice, put plastic wrap over pot, 78f and still they havent poped up , soil is perfectly moist heat is right on where it should be, and the light isnt strong , its on 24hrs , i might turn it off tonyte... but the waits a killer.. prolly should have tooken off the skin of the seed like some of my bag seeds in the past.. peace

Alright, as promised here are some pictures. Sorry, the quality isn't too great. I got stoned and couldn't find my gf's good digital camera, so I just used my really old one. Next time the pics will be better.

But, there's not much to them. A couple leaves. New ones forming. And you can see my little grow area. It's nothing fancy at all.

I'll update with some pictures again when anything more happens. Let's hope she starts picking up the pace in the next few days!

Enjoy!

i envy you my slow ass LR beans, tho i did a lil experiment, im going to write bout it on my thread.. hope everythin goes welll, is that mylar or emergency blanket for reflection?

Basically have the same setup as you as of today
Just started

It's an emergency blanket, but those are made out of mylar. I have it surrounding the plant, but had to move a piece in order take the pics.

Hi all!

Alright, well, in the last few days, the little girl has taken off a bit more. She now has that second set of real leaves and is working on her second node with more sets of leaves looking to expand. I believe it is Day 9.

This is going to be a busy week for me as I have lots of things going on, but I will definitely try to update with pics in the next two days. Infact, it will probably be later this evening when I update with pics. But maybe not.

But I promise pics soon.

Anyways, I watered her last night as the soil was looking a bit dry. But I did see a little bit of a problem going on with the leaves that I thought I might ask about.

I don't have any pics of this (yet), but I noticed after I watered the top of the soil a few days ago with a spray bottle that I had gotten a little water on the leaves. My fan was on, so I figured it would dry up that water pretty soon and I shouldn't worry about it.

Well, the next day, the leaves had these little white spots on it. It seemed like the water dried on the leaves and left little spots on there. It doesn't appear to be doing any damage, but do any of you know what I'm talking about and know if anything bad is going to happen? And if so, can someone help me fix it? Thank you so much!

Keep the support and encouragement and help coming guys. I appreciate it all!

Alright, as promised, here are some pictures. Not a whole ton more growth, but more none the less. In a few of the pics, you can sort of see the white residue that was left after getting some water on the leaves. Can anyone give me an insight as to if this is a problem, and if so, how can I fix it? I would wipe the leaves off, but I'm afraid to do damage to the leaves. Thanks for any help.

Enjoy!

Get an oscilating fan on that thing and it will have a tree trunk in no time. Look at the wonders it worked on the girls I had under cfls. (in my sig) Also, don't worry about touching leaves, plants are tough. And I wouldn't worry about that white water spot on the leaves, some of my plants had that from where water splashed up on them and nothing happened. You should brush dirt off though, it blocks light and causes a yellow spot if it sits on the leaf. If you add a very little bit of liquid dish soap in your water it acts as a wetting agent and lets its saturate the dirt better and it won't bead up on leaves and leave water rings. It wets leaves evenly. Give it a shot, it won't hurt them. You could also dilute the soap in water and spray it on the leaves to mist them instead of wiping if you still don't wanna touch the leaf.

Hey man!

Thanks for the response and tips! I will look into the dish soap tactic. How much soap should be used per gallon of water, do you know?

Also, is there some dirt on my leaves? I'm not seeing it, and if you are, could you point it out so that I can fix that. Haha. Thanks.

Just a little squirt, no need to measure. You don't want like soap suds though. The dish soap just lowers the water's surface tension so it doesn't bead. It's pretty cool. :) Oh, no no dirt on your leaves. Just we've had some from splashing up during watering. Looking good man. I'd try some lowryder but I have shitty luck with seed companies lol. My bag-seed bitches are lookin pretty good though.

Also, be careful starting seeds in fox farms ocean forest. We are also using the Fox Farms system, and I found that ocean forrest can be a little too hot for seedlings. It didn't kill any, just burned the first few leaves. Your plant seems to be loving it. Here's something that might help with your fox farms stuff. Also, big bloom isn't really a fertilizer. Look at the npk ratings, only like .2% .04% or something. For flowering you'd need tiger bloom. And for veg you need grow big and big bloom (what we're using at the moment) and plants are loving it. So much darker green foilage this time around. Fox farms is the shit.

Alright, sounds good man.

Also, I have an oscillating fan going in my space. But I don't leave it constantly on. I have it set on a timer to be on for 2 hours, then off for 2 hours, and so on. Should I just put it on the whole time the lights are on? Or all day? Any suggestions?

Also, I will check out your thread as soon as I can. I've got to get to bed soon. I've got a big midterm tomorrow, then another Tuesday, and another Wednesday. School is getting hard now. Oh well.

looking good mate keep it up!

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Originally Posted by Anathema2121

Also, be careful starting seeds in fox farms ocean forest. We are also using the Fox Farms system, and I found that ocean forrest can be a little too hot for seedlings. It didn't kill any, just burned the first few leaves. Your plant seems to be loving it. Here's something that might help with your fox farms stuff. Also, big bloom isn't really a fertilizer. Look at the npk ratings, only like .2% .04% or something. For flowering you'd need tiger bloom. And for veg you need grow big and big bloom (what we're using at the moment) and plants are loving it. So much darker green foilage this time around. Fox farms is the shit.

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Hmmm...You pose an interesting situation. I am wanting to do this whole grow organically. Do you know any organic nutes that I could use? I'm pretty sure that Tiger Bloom is not organic. That is why I was just going with Big Bloom. I don't really know much about organic nutes, so I was just going to go with the Big Bloom because I heard it works great when paired with FF Ocean Forest. Thanks for the help.

Alright everyone, quick update. My baby is still developing leaves, and it seems to be coming along quite rapidly. I should have pictures in the next couple days. I'm still taking midterms, so I can't do too much of an update. Thursday though, I will be done with them and pictures will be taken and probably posted.

Anyways...

I'm still struggling to figure out which nutrients to use. At first I was considering FF Big Bloom, but I don't know if I still want to do that. I've been looking around and I think that I might want to use Botanicare Pure Blend Pro-Bloom.

Since lowryders essentially have no vegitative state (none in which I would be able to use any nutrients during), I am really only looking at using Bloom nutients, right? Or am I wrong in assuming that? I know there's other micronutrients and stuff that I could add, but for now, I'm trying to just get my bearings and not go too overboard and get over my head. In future grows, yeah, but not now.

So can anyone give me any insight on how the Botanicare Pure Blend Pro-Bloom would work with my FF Ocean Forest soil? Should I use these nutrients or should I go with FF Big Bloom? Or are there any better organic nutrients out there that I should use?

Thanks for your input.

The more I do this grow log, the more I'm feeling like I don't know as much as I thought I did going into this. I read up on things for quite a while, but now I'm getting unsure of myself. Can anyone reassure me that what I'm doing isn't completely off and that my grow is going ok? I guess I just feel like I have all these questions that are getting answered by one or two people (which I really appreciate those responses to the fullest; THANKS!) but I'd like to get as much input as I can.

Anyways, best of luck to all my fellow growers. Hope to hear from you all.

Sorry for the double post, but I tried to edit my last one, but the time length expired. So here's what I was going to say in the edit:


EDIT: I meant to specify that it is Pure Blend Pro SOIL Bloom.

Also, sorry if I am sounding rather pessimistic. As I have said, I'm really swamped with school, work, and now the added stress of growing. Don't get me wrong, I love this project I've taken on, but I'm just a little down today or something. I've got a rediculously hard midterm in Astronomy in 3 hours that I'm stressing out about. I've studied more than I can handle, but I still don't feel like I'm prepared enough.

OK ENOUGH NEGATIVE ENERGY! STAY POSI!

If you put any of the energy you show growing your one plant into your test you should do great!

Alright everyone. Time for a little update. I'm done with midterms so that stress is off my back. My little plant is 13 days old. It's coming along nicely. Just growing more and more every day. Hope to see the sex within the next week.

I've got a question though...

All my nodes are really close and tight together. Is that a good thing or bad? Wouldn't further apart nodes help to created bigger buds? They would have more room to grow? I don't know. I'm just guessing. I'm probably wrong though.

Also, I will try to get some pics up tonight or tomorrow. The plant is only 2 or 3 inches tall, but it's atleast 5 or 6 inches wide.

Hope everyone is doing good! I'll get those pics up ASAP.

Ok, as I told you earlier, I have pics now. I tried to get some shots that showed how close the nodes are. Can anyone tell me if it's ok that they are that close or should I try to stretch them or what? Will stretching them give me any more yield?

And then, overall, how do you think it's looking? I know I'm only 13 days in, but anyone think it's looking ok for it's age?

Hope you all enjoy the pics and give me some comments and feedback. Thanks.

Well, I don't know what to say. A little update. There is some new growth going on. But I can't tell if it's male balls or just calyxes. I'll wait a couple more days and see what develops. I'm really really praying that this plant doesn't turn out to be a dude. I just can't tell yet. They look like balls. But they also look like they might open up soon and just be new growth. And then to add more confusion, there are several little things that are growing that look similar to a pistil, but I think it's just a little too early to tell. Ugh. The suspense is going to kill me. I don't have the camera on me otherwise I'd post some pics to see what other thought. I guess I will just have to sit back and wait and keep my fingers crossed. Every 5 minutes I keep going back and looking to see if anything new has happened.

Look for an update soon with the sex. Please keep your fingers crossed that it isn't a dude. That would really bring me down.

I will let you all know as soon as I find out.

Hey, I have been following your grow so long, and these are some nice threads. I just wanted to ask a few q's. 1. What country do you live in? I live in America, and I am planning to grow soon, look forward to my grow log. 2.Where did you find those lowrider seeds, and if it was over the internet, what site was it from? Good luck with your grow, nice job!:thumbsup:

Well, that's all she wrote folks. It's a dude. I just pulled it out and tossed it. I've got a couple seeds germinating right now, and they will most likely go into the soil tomorrow morning. This time I'm doing two of them so I can increase my odds. I should have done that this time, but oh well. Look for a new log sometime soon. Thanks for all the advice I was given. Keep it coming on the next log.

i think you may have killed you plant too early. Post pics of the preflowers:confused:

Hey, lookin forward to a NEW update, thanks... Where did you get those seeds? Well, happy growing!

OK OK these two posters:

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Originally Posted by LightItUpp

lookin good :thumbsup:

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by bongmaster00

Hey, lookin forward to a NEW update, thanks... Where did you get those seeds? Well, happy growing!

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need to read this post, posted before the first two:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by peace plz

Well, that's all she wrote folks. It's a dude. I just pulled it out and tossed it. I've got a couple seeds germinating right now, and they will most likely go into the soil tomorrow morning. This time I'm doing two of them so I can increase my odds. I should have done that this time, but oh well. Look for a new log sometime soon. Thanks for all the advice I was given. Keep it coming on the next log.

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now read what i wrote

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bodom Children Of

i think you may have killed you plant too early. Post pics of the preflowers:confused:

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NOW we're back up to full speed:thumbsup: