Biggest Growing Mistakes...

[Mr. Clandestine]

Thought I'd try to get a thread started where people could talk about some of the silly mistakes they may have made in the past. Maybe if enough people respond, this can become a thread that curious growers can visit to see exactly how NOT to do something.

I'll start:

A few years back, I made a soil mix that turned out to be one of the nasties messes of my then short growing career...

I was pretty new to organic gardening at the time, and had just harvested my first semi-successful organic grow using nothing but all natural products. I saw how forgiving organic fertilizers could be, especially to someone who wasn't really all that confident with nutrients, nutrient regimens, etc. So when the time came for my second organic grow, I wanted to replicate my earlier success, only this time I really wanted to boost my yield. And here's where everything went horribly wrong.

I've never been big on using heavily prefertilized potting soils that you see available all over the place. Miracle Grow, Schultz, Jungle Growth, etc., they all seem to give lots of people problems with everything ranging from pH to accidental overfertilization. So, early on, I started making my own soil mixes. My first organic grow was no different, only I added much of the fertilizers (bone/blood meals, guanos, worm castings, etc.) directly to the soil as amendments, instead of supplementing with them later on. Like I said, my first organic grow went smoothly, so I thought I'd bump it up a notch for the next one.

My preferred mix, ferts excluded, included: mushroom compost, black garden peat, perlite, lime, and humus... when I can find it. My botched second attempt was no different, only I ran out of the compost and humus that I needed to fill my larger pots. I had some, just not enough to fill all the pots. So, instead of taking my lazy ass to the gardening store to pick up some more, I decided to fill in the gaps with this big bag of garden peat I had lying around. Like I said, I was lazy, and really wanted to go ahead and transplant right away. (The plants were about a month old at the time, and I was going to let them veg out for another month in larger pots.) For the amendments (fertilizers), I threw in an ass load of bone meal, blood meal, seabird guano, high-nitrogen bat guano, and worm castings. I didn't even bother measuring out how much of this stuff I was using, I just dumped a lot of it into the container I use to mix soil. There was no method to my madness, and I assumed that with organics I could do no wrong. After mixing everything up thoroughly, I thought I was well on my way to a badass second organic harvest. I was very wrong.

I took the new concoction and filled up ten 3gal pots with it, then transplanted my perfectly healthy seedlings into each pot. I was even feeling cocky about my newfound organic abilities, and decided to add about a half inch of worm castings as a top dressing. For the first week, things seemed to be going just fine. The plants looked healthy, and didn't appear to be stunted by the earlier transplant. Then, starting around week two, I began to notice that my foliage was starting to turn a deep, dark green color and that the leaves were starting to droop. I kept watering as normal, though, thinking little of it at the time. Then the leaf tips started to burn on EVERY plant, and began curling up towards the sky. I finally concluded that something was amiss, and figured I had probably overfertilized with all the stuff I added to the soil. (Like I said, I just dumped the shit in there... no measuring was involved.)

So, arriving at the conclusion that a flush was eminent, I took each pot into my bathroom and got to it. What I saw almost made me puke. Have you ever seen those movies where someone's in the shower and they're bleeding profusely for whatever reason? The runoff of my soil looked IDENTICAL to blood being washed down the drain. It was a thick dark red color, and didn't even seem to dissolve in the water surrounding it leading it to the drain. To make matters worse, it had one of the funkiest smells I've had the misfortune of breathing. If I had to compare it to anything, I'd say it smelled like a very wet and dirty large dog mixed with cow manure and sweaty ass. The smell permeated into the bathroom walls, then throughout the entire house, which left me on the verge of losing my lunch. I probably flushed each pot with 15 gallons of water, and it simply would not wash clean. The runoff was a little bit lighter in terms of color, but now I had another problem. I forgot that I added an unproportional amount of peat moss to the soil, and now it had absorbed as much water as it possibly could, AND a good deal of my perlite had been washed away during the flush. Water was now just making a big puddle in the top of the pot, and wouldn't drain.

I knew I screwed up, but hoped that the flush may have done some good. At least enough for me to make it to the next transplant. Again, dead wrong. The soil would not dry out. Nearly two weeks after the flush, the pots were still saturated with water... and only the top few inches of soil were actually dry. The plants looked pitiful, and now to compound the problem, they were thirsty. Every time I'd water just enough to saturate the top few inches of soil, I'd produce more of that nasty bloody runoff mess... and the whole house would stink again.

As the weeks passed, the plants deteriorated more and more until I finally just gave up on them. To make matters worse, I was so preoccupied with trying to save them, that I never got another crop started and my first organic stash was well-depleted before I had the chance to grow some more. So I was left without any smoke for about 3 months, and a foul smell that took forever and a day to get rid of.

The moral of this story? More ISN'T always better, and no matter how much you think you know, you still have room to learn, and possibly make disastrous mistakes in the process. Now I measure EVERYTHING! :jointsmile:

(And sorry for this lengthy account, I have the tendency to go into lots of detail when I recount my former disasters. Anyone else got a horror story they'd like to share? Hydro, soil, whatever... I'd love to hear it.)

Mr. Clandestine Reviewed by Mr. Clandestine on 03-12-2008. Biggest Growing Mistakes... Thought I'd try to get a thread started where people could talk about some of the silly mistakes they may have made in the past. Maybe if enough people respond, this can become a thread that curious growers can visit to see exactly how NOT to do something. :D I'll start: A few years back, I made a soil mix that turned out to be one of the nasties messes of my then short growing career... I was pretty new to organic gardening at the time, and had just harvested my first semi-successful Rating: 5

[Weedhound]

Well I have shared my soil growing adventures before but I will detail the joy of them here.

2 (i think) summers ago....first grow ever. A friend gave me a TON of bagseed she had been saving for quite a while.

So.....build a nice stealth outdoor setup. (It really was nice....I still have it.) Buy a ton of 3 gallon pots. Fill 50 pots with soil from around my home (WRONG!!) Place 3 seeds in each pot (WRONG!!) and wait for 2 weeks. Nothing. I planted them too deep (about 2 inches down) and they all sprouted and then died because they couldn't find the surface. (WRONG!!)

So plant 150 more seeds....three to a pot (WRONG!!). None of them sprout. Turns out I left the seeds exposed to air (WRONG!!) and since they were already old I ruined them.

SO....PLANT 60 MORE SEEDS (from a new batch of bagseed) this time in rapid rooters so I can make sure they sprout. They DO! Plant them in all my pots. Every single one grows three inches high and then stops. Every single one. Wait a month. None grow higher. Turns out that the VERY crappy soil I used from my garden was way too claylike and wouldn't drain so the plants could not grow through it.(WRONG!!) They were all three inches high because that's how far the rapid rooter would let them grow. Once they hit the clay outside the rr the roots couldn't penetrate. So they all stopped growing at three inches.

So REtransplant (we are now in August mind you) into good potting soil and they finally start to grow somewhat because it's pretty damn late in the summer by this time.
THEN....guess what. A two week "heat storm" with temps topping out at 113F. At the end of the summer I ended up with about 6 females that lived and less than 2 oz total from my grow.

My most recent soil adventures? One seedling I transplanted 3 times because I could not get the pot to drain right....god knows why since tons of holes and perlite. When I got that straightened out not one half hour later I dropped the entire pot into a big bowl of dog drinking water. That was the end of that sad tryst.

Been trying lately too......First seedling popped fine and then I burned it to death with with bug spray. Next two seedlings (one at a time) I germ under too hot a light (400mh....they were too close) and they were both born without any true leaves (burned off I pontificate.) The fourth seedling I popped successfully under a cfl and when she turned 10 days old the cat ate her.

I don't even know what the moral of the story is......don't touch dirt??? :wtf:

[Mr. Clandestine]

I don't even know what the moral of the story is......don't touch dirt??? :wtf:

Great story! And I think that's a benchmark for almost anyone that wants to go from smoking the good herb to growing the good herb. Trying to grow something indoors or out, and with just the materials you have lying around. Usually failing miserably!

I hear this method a good bit: Handful of clay (or whatever you're front yard primarily consists of), maybe a little potting soil if you've read anything on the subject, a slightly lit windowsill, and then BAM!... instant gardener status. Several inches of growth later, everything dies, and you're stuck wondering where things could have possibly gone wrong.

Moral # 2 - cannabis roots don't grow well in clay. Check!

Thanks for sharing! :jointsmile:

[Weedhound]

Mr C....If I could grow a for even a couple weeks in dirt I'd consider it a HUGE success.

PS And when it went wrong I KNEW what the problem was......it was the PLANT'S FAULT!! :S2:

[Mr. Clandestine]

PS And when it went wrong I KNEW what the problem was......it was the PLANT'S FAULT!! :S2:

LMAO! Of course, it always is.

[Twentyinches]

it smelled like a very wet and dirty large dog mixed with cow manure and sweaty ass.

LOL! and I thought my 13 mo old rott smelled bad after leaving her outside all day. No cow manure in my yard but wet, sweaty ass... sure!

I've prolly messed so many things up and not even known it that I can't even think of anything at the moment...although the 3 bowls i just had may have somethign to do with that lol. Some of the causes of my probs have went undiagnosed so who knows :jointsmile:

[Mr. Clandestine]

LOL! and I thought my 13 mo old rott smelled bad after leaving her outside all day.

Man, I'll tell you what... your rottweiler probably had shit that smelled like roses and lavender compared to the funk that I had to deal with. I'm not even sure where the wet dog smell came from, but it was definitely there. For several months, my wife and I were hating life. Thanks for reviving this post before it slipped into oblivion, too... I'd still love have folks list their goof ups. If nothing else, it makes for some fun reading!:jointsmile:

How old is your dog? We're looking to getting a rottweiler puppy that our youngun can help us raise. I hate the bad rap rotties and pitbulls have gotten over the years. I've owned both, raised from puppies (and NOT on raw meat), and they turned out to be the sweetest animals. Only time they might get aggressive is if they think someone is harming their owners. Very loyal dogs.

[Twentyinches]

Man, I'll tell you what... your rottweiler probably had shit that smelled like roses and lavender compared to the funk that I had to deal with. I'm not even sure where the wet dog smell came from, but it was definitely there. For several months, my wife and I were hating life. Thanks for reviving this post before it slipped into oblivion, too... I'd still love have folks list their goof ups. If nothing else, it makes for some fun reading!:jointsmile:

How old is your dog? We're looking to getting a rottweiler puppy that our youngun can help us raise. I hate the bad rap rotties and pitbulls have gotten over the years. I've owned both, raised from uppies (and NOT on raw meat), and they turned out to be the sweetest animals. Only time they might get aggressive is if they think someone is harming their owners. Very loyal dogs.

Heck yes np, this post should be 5 pages long by now with mess-ups. But I have never heard of the issue you had, you prolly killed something living in those pots which is where the red came from, and then since it's dead it smelled lol :stoned: jk jk

But I know what you mean with living with a nasty smell, they re-surfaced our street with asphalt one summer and man... everything in our house stunk for months like that crap.

"Malice" is about 13 mo old, and shes the sweetest, non-agressive dog I have ever had. They get horrible rep all the time! and it's all about how you raise them. We named her Malice because shes opposite that it's kind of funny when ppl hear her namend react. what? malice? eww.... What pisses me off the most is when I'm out walking her and ppl come up to pet her-no big deal. But when they ALWAYS say "make sure you keep her tied up and on leash, we don't want her attacking our dogs and kids" it throws me over the edge ya know? it's like get educated. The only thing she does to kids is deposit large quantities of saliva all over their hands from licking.
here's a pic of her waiting for me to give her a peanut, which will later be found in the yard lol :smokin:

[Weedhound]

With rotties.....I call it .....hard-headed.....

Met a super one once by the name of Chris.....police dog (notice they don't use them much as police dogs anymore.....stubborn.....) his partner used to put silly hats on this HUGE rottie and kids would mess with that dog something awful.....never a blink.

But I must say......I would NOT want to meet that dog while it was working!!

[Weedhound]

Twenty is right.....no matter what the dog......it IS all about how you raise them.