My first newbie grow

[JohnnyWisdom]

Here's a shot from today showing a 2 day difference ... notice how bushy they're getting ... I can't wait until this Sunday to flip the switch!

[JohnnyWisdom]

So I have a small white fly infestation ... after reading the best ways to attack the problem I purchased a small bottle of Neem oil on eBay ... $10 w/ shipping. I took a new spray bottle (about 750ml) and filled it with PH'ed water (in this case about 5.9) and added 1 teaspoon of Neem oil. I had to first run the CLOSED bottle of Neem oil under hot running water as it was sorta thick (sorta like you might do with Magic Shell ice cream topping ... the kind that gets hard and is super yummy but way too fattening ... err, anyway). I also added a couple of drops Palm Olive dish soap per the labeled instructions.

I sprayed it lights off last night and I was a little nervous at first but then I woke up this morning to find the babies were perky. I sprayed them again lightly misting all the tops and under sides of the leaves. I'll spray them down again in a couple of days. Since this Sunday is the day I switch to flowering I have a 2-3 week window to get rid of these bugs. After that I'll stop spraying w/ Neem oil so that I have an opportunity for the oil to break down and allow the buds to get tasty!

Pic attached of the type of Neem oil I bought ...

[JohnnyWisdom]

Hi everyone ... Today is an exciting day! If you haven't figured it out from the pictures (specifically the color change) today is the first day of flowering! I've gone ahead and switched out the 600w MH bulb for the 600w HPS bulb. I've also topped off the 40gal reservoir with 4 gallons of PH'ed water & 1/2 strength veg nutes/LK. The 1/2 strength nutes is because water evaporates while the nutes don't .. and this way I'm not causing there to be a build up nutes (obviously I read this somewhere else and it makes sense). I'm going to continue running the veggie nutes until next weekend to help keep down the stretching. Then next week it'll be full strength bloom, liquid karma, and sweet. I'm also treating the ladies with Neem oil every 3rd day to treat a white fly infestation issue I've been having ... it appears it's working because I'm not seeing them buzzing around when I gently shake the ladies.

In one of the pictures I put a 1 gallon milk jug for size perspective. Also, I included an identical shot angle showing the differences in bulb colors. :rasta:

[JohnnyWisdom]

So today marks the beginning of the 2nd week of flowering. I'm not including any pictures of the bunch simply because I didn't take any ... however, I might post some later this week. The biggest girl is really starting to stretch her legs, I hope she stops growing in height as she's getting pretty close to the lights.

The biggest news is that I found a male!! He was starting to show his balls so I yanked him out of the garden. Anyway, he was one of the bag seeds so at least I'm still left with 3 white widows and 2 bag seeds. Below are the pics of the bastard ... check out his healthy root mass.

Also, I cleaned out the reservoir and I started using the Pro Bloom flowering nutes (35ml/gallon) and Liquid Karma (12ml/gallon). I also have a quart of Sweet but I opted on not using it yet.

[JohnnyWisdom]

Today starts the 3rd week of flowering. For the most part everything looks good. I changed the reservoir today (28 gallons) and here's the feeding schedule:

1000 ml Pro Bloom (35ml/gal)
560 ml Big Bud (20ml/gal)
420 ml Sweet (15ml/gal)
112 ml B-52 (4ml/gal)
15 ml PH Down (28 gal)

I have two pumps in the res, I unplugged the feeder while the other mixes the nutes till the morning. I'll take the PH/PPM reading in the am to make sure it's kudos before feeding the babies.

Attached are some pix ... check out the buds :thumbsup:

[JohnnyWisdom]

FYI I had to scrap my HydroHut vegging tent, turned out to be poisonous. I lost all my clones but I've since started some new grow from seeds (in a 4x2 SunHut). Three are White Widows (on the right) and four are random "free" seeds from when I ordered the WW's (on the left). I'm not going to make a grow log at this point since it's more experimental (I'll be practicing cloning) ... however, here are a few pix of the setup.

[c0mrade]

What do you mean the tent was poisonous? Also how uch approx did you spend on the setup?

[JohnnyWisdom]

What do you mean the tent was poisonous? Also how uch approx did you spend on the setup?

If you google "plants dying in hydrohut" you'll see a lot of threads describing plants yellowing/browning before they can veg long and then dying. Apparently multiple reports (me included) of the hydrohut tents releasing poisonous gases! This being said I switched to a 4x2 Sunhut for my vegging room and I have 5x5 Darkroom for my flowers.

As far as the $ total, lets say much more than I thought I would spend ... latest count I was reaching mid 4 digits! Includes everything; seeds, tents, lights, nutes, PH/PPM meter, etc. ... but hopefully buying quality products will ensure years of growing pleasure

[JohnnyWisdom]

Sorry folks, been a while since my last post but it's because my Internet took a shit. Anyway, I'm back up & rockin' it again with some blazing speeds! (16mb down, 2mb up)

Attached are some pics from the beginning of the 4th week of flowering (taken 11-09-2008; lights had just turned off so you'll noticed the difference in picture colors)

Also, included an update of the new growth within the Sunhut ... so far so good. Btw, I've read tons about different tents. Basically stay away from the tents with the white inside lining ... apparently those are the poisonous ones. The new Sunhuts that use the same metalic colored inside lining as the Darkrooms are supposed to be safe. :twocents:

[TheSwordsman]

looks awesome, love the set up. how difficult was your hydro to set up? and how much did it cost you? just wondering cause I'm starting to plan out my first grow and I want to go into it prepared. I would rather go hydro (it seems that it produces better results, i.e. better yield) but soil seems easier and cheaper... a little strapped for cash.

Keep up the good work! :thumbsup: