I would like to thank all of you that have responded to my plea for help. I've finally convinced my wife to give me the entire back room, and allow me to "cat proof" it. (Duhhh... "Close the damn door!") OK, so it cuts their access to 15% of the house and she's had to move their litter box to another room.... THEY'RE FRIGGIN' CATS! They'll find the new litter box location, just like they find everything else we don't want them messing with.

I've just flipped the lights from 18/6 to 12/12. The sprout will just have to deal with it. It'll either make it , or it won't. I've decided to force these plants to bud and harvest this miniscule crop. There are several reasons for this. Mainly because I've made every rookie mistake I could possibly make, and it's time to start over with a new crop and see if I can't correct the errors of my ways.

I started with the wrong soil mixture, I've over watered, I've under fed, I overlooked PH factors and I've let the cats have too much freedom. I believe now I've allowed the plants to start becoming root bound - at least THAT I CAN fix... About the only thing I got RIGHT was starting with 6 mil black poly and growing with lots of Mylar under MH lighting - But now I find that MH wasn't the best choice of light due to heat, and energy inefficiency. But what'cha wanna bet I do better on the next time around? The biggest thing I have learned with this first crop is just how little I actually knew and how much more I need to learn. And I still need to learn a LOT! I may be in my late 50's (yea yea yea, I remember "Lids" and "Cans" from back in the day) but I learned a long time ago that the day that passes without my learning something is a completely wasted day. And I am not opposed to learning from people younger than me. It's all about experience, not age. I wish a lot of people my age would apply that theory to other things, such as laws, politics, taxes... Oh well.

My intention is to now allow my pitiful little crop to flower. Harvest what's there and pretty much start over, with a 10 pot crop. I'm still not going to invest in high dollar seeds for the next crop as I realize I'm still in the learning stages and see no reason to drop $40-160 on something I'm still very likely to kill. Maybe by crop 4 or 5 I'll look toward those more seriously. Jeez... 10 high end seeds today cost more than a QP did back in the day - and it was half seeds that we threw away!

I found the torrent link that someone put up of "Every Book You Want To Read" which included several videos as well, and started reading and watching last night. While these plants flower, I'll be getting together some MG soil, Pearlite, construction sand, and the other "magic ingredients" to have my pots filled properly AND I think I'll try my hand cloning IF (please please) one of these plants are girls. What I'm seeing and reading doesn't make cloning seem too difficult - done properly. If I screw that up, I have plenty of bag seeds to fall back on. I'm also sure that crop two will be much better than this first crop.

At least through this first crop I've learned about things about nukes, ventilation requirements, feeding scheduling, PH, drainage, proper watering, light levels, etc, AND I've made gradual purchases of hardware like a soil PH meter (and a totally useless piece of trash in a "pen style" PH meter for water). That 'pen meter's already in the trash and the local pool supply store has a much better and simpler one for about $12. I also think I'm going to pick up some (read that - a bunch of) CFL's or T5s and put this 400w MH lamp on Craig's list to unload it.

NOW... (of course) I have another question if anyone has read this far through what seems to becoming a dissertation rather than a post. Will I actually be accomplishing anything by putting a red filter over this MH light to get the warmer light spectrum I'd prefer for flowering??? I figure a layer of red cellophane could make a cheap filter. (Or is that more like masturbation - feels good but doesn't accomplish anything)

I've also sent out a couple of "friend" requests, to which I "hope" to receive replies soon. I have questions I think would be better addressed privately, as simply asking them would provide more private information about myself than I'd prefer to publicly release - living in a state that is still too ass-backward to recognize the medicinal benefits of marijuana. We have plenty of mooonshiners operating here in Georgia, but 'that damn mary-wanner' is still considered the evil hippie weed that provides a a direct route to hell and cultivation is still a felony here in the heart of the bible belt. Imagine that. I guess they just can't get their brain wrapped around the fact that I WAS a 'hippie' and I don't guess I never changed my ways even through the years that I was refereed to as "executive management'" and addressed as 'Mr.' by line employees.

But in closing, once again, please accept my thanks for the guidance provided here as well as in the other thread I started. All of everyone's advice is appreciate more than you recognize. If you did receive a 'friend request" from me, I'd appreciate a reply - even if it's to tell me to fuck off.




[align=center]Anything written here is purely hypothetical as I cannot morally condone doing anything illegal and my presence here should not be construed as an interest in nor my endorsing anyone breaking any laws. Any terminology used here such as ??I?, ??me?, ??mine?, ??her?, ??hers?, or ??ours? are simply being used for the purposes of role playing in a purely hypothetical scenerio.
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[align=center] Legalize marijuana!
Some of us still not allowed access to it as medicine!
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