HELP! This is my first grow. White Widow

[ghost83]

So this is my first grow. I have done a ton of research before I started this, however there are a lot of questions about little things that I am not able to find. Any help would be appreciated. Im growing in a closet. I know I need to take down the foil and paint it flat white so please no comments on that. I have pictures of everything that I am using. The day that I started from seed was September 25. That is when I dropped my seeds into the seed starter and they are currently still in there.

First I will start off with the seeds. I used 5 feminized White Widow seeds directly from Nirvana. I bought a seed starter kit from my local grocery store. I donâ??t want to invest a bunch of money just in case this doesnâ??t work out. I plan on upgrading everything as I go and when I get better at growing. The seeds popped out of the soil 3 days after I placed them in there. They are currently 11 days old.

More to come just wanted to make sure the pictures upload. Im new at this and unsure on how to do that.

Any comments or helpful hints from experienced growers would be great, especially anyone who has grown this way or with white widows.

I cant seem to upload pictures right now. I will upload as soon as I can figure it out. They are only allowing me the option to select from a URL and I don't know how to do that. I have the pictures on my computer. Anyone know how to do this?

-Ghost

ghost83 Reviewed by ghost83 on 10-06-2012. HELP! This is my first grow. White Widow So this is my first grow. I have done a ton of research before I started this, however there are a lot of questions about little things that I am not able to find. Any help would be appreciated. Im growing in a closet. I know I need to take down the foil and paint it flat white so please no comments on that. I have pictures of everything that I am using. The day that I started from seed was September 25. That is when I dropped my seeds into the seed starter and they are currently still in Rating: 5

[ghost83]

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[low_rdr]

If your seed starter kit came with a dome, don't use it for seedlings

At least your WW's popped, I had to re order mine!

So far so good, how about some pics of your setup? I'll happily answer any questions I can!

Are you planning on using nutes or just straight soil & water ?

[ghost83]

I am currently using five 23 watt CFL bulbs (equivalent of 100W normal light) for the veg stage. Each CFL is 1600 lumens and 5000K. I couldnt find any that were 6500K either at Home Depot or Lowes. As my girls get bigger I am gonna add more lights. Im also going to put little lamps on the sides and maybe even pointing up so I can get the bottoms of the plants. I made the light fixture myself from ideas I found online. I plan to put 12 CFLs in my fixture. I hope thats going to be enough but I plan on just playing it by ear.

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[ghost83]

So I am growing in a closet with flat white paint on the walls and Im gonna use white paper on the inside to isolate the vent holes so there is little leakage of light, I read somewhere that plain white paper is almost as reflective as flat white paint. I put plastic on the floor to catch any excess drain from my pots. I just transplanted 2 of the 5 plants. I will explain more in a little bit. I still need to get nutrient which im gonna use the lucas formula with the FloraNova Bloom and Micro. I also still need to get a temp/humidity gauge. On the third day after I planted the seeds the plant started to come out of the soil and at that point I started the veg cycle with 18 hours of light on and 6 hours of light off. I am using a cheap timer so I dont need to worry about turning the lights on and off. I check on my girls at least 2 to 3 times a day to make sure that the light distance is still between 3 to 5 inches from the top of the plant, that the soil is still moist, and that the plants dont seem to be under any stress. Since I planted the seeds in my seed starter I havent needed to water them...until today. The soil looked really dry so I gave them a drink of distilled water after I checked the pH levels in the water. I am only using distilled water for my plants until they are 4 weeks old then Im gonna use the lucas formula. Im afraid to burn out the roots and they seem to be doing great right now. The last 2 days I have seen the most growth in the plants. They grew the second node and the leaves are getting bigger.

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[ghost83]

So when I came home today I notice that the roots were growing on the outside of my seed started containers thru the drainage holes. Today is day 12 from seed. I was a little worried about this so I decided to transplant 2 of the 5. I was nervous about transplanting them so early and I didn’t want to kill any of them due to transplanting too early or from not having enough room for the roots to grow. I used a root enhancer that I got as a free sample from my local hydro shop. Its called Jellyfish. Im not sure if its ok to use with cannabis plants but I decided to give it a try anyways. I soaked the roots in the solution like the instructions said for 5 seconds then I transplanted them into bigger pots. I dilluted some of the solution with water and used it to water one of the plants. I was worried that it may damage the plants to do so in that manner and that’s why I chose to try just one of the two. I plan on using 1 of the 5 plants as the mother and take clones from it but Im unsure of when I can do that and Im not sure how to do the process.

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-Ghost

[ghost83]

I used a recipe for soil that I found online. It was 50% peat moss, 30% compost, 10% pearlite, and 10% vermiculite with ¼ cup of limestone per 5 gallon of peat moss. Naturally I deviated from this formula due to lack of funds and because the hydro shop I went to didn’t have compost or the right size vermiculite I needed all they had was fine/course. What I ended up using was 80% peat moss, 20% pearlite and ¼ cup of limestone per 5 gallon of peat moss. After I mixed the soil, I watered it and it took a ton of water just to get it to soak into the soil, not to mention I had to massage it in there for about 3-5 minutes each pot. Not sure if this is normal but I let the soil sit for 3 days before I transplanted 2 of my girls. I hope the mixture I chose will work. I almost got worm castings in place of the compost but decided against it at the last minute because I was afaid of dangerous microbes existing in it and Im not using any nutrients until week 4. That’s still 2 weeks from now.

[ghost83]

My goal is to have the plants flower for approximately 10 to 12 weeks. It says that the White Widow that I got should flower for 8-10 weeks but I read that sometimes it could take longer. Unfortunatly I am moving durring harvesting and Im really short on time. I want quality over quanity since this is just for personal use. My goal is to get about 7 ounces between the 5 plants but Im not sure how realistic that is using cfl lights and soil. I planted the seeds into the seed starter on september 25...is it a realistic goal to have them in the flower cycle by november 16? That gives 7 weeks combine seedling/veg. Im also not going to start flowering unless the plants are 12 inches. They are currently at 3 1/2 inches now. I do plan on getting a magnifying glass so I can check the tricomes before I harvest.

All help and comments are appreciated. Thank you.

-Ghost

[ghost83]

So its been 4 weeks since I germinated my seeds. I was given some bag seeds of "foam mist" (great smoke btw never heard of it) so I figured I would germinate them too thinking I wouldnt get any results. Turns out all but one of the 22 seeds popped out. I would only be willing to plant 10 more, hopefully most of them are female. I encountered a problem with my white widows, the leaves were getting brown spots on them then they turned yellow and started drooping. Thought I was going to lose them and they were stunted (stopped growing) for a week and a half. I didnt have any money to get any nuitrients so I had to wait it out. When I got paid I made the "lucas formula" with flora bloom and micro. I also got some cal/mag and some dynogro plant food 7-9-5 because my search results led me to believe my plants were sick due to difficencies of calcium and magnesium.
The feeding schedule that I have now is every 2 or 3 days. The first feeding I gave them some cal/mag, then the second I gave them the lucas formula, then today I mixed the dynagro with the cal/mag half and half. I plan to use the half and half for the next week then im gonna just use the "lucas formula". I decided to top a few plants and see how that goes. Im experimenting with a few different things to see what works best for me.

I have been rotating them everyday so they can all get an equal amount of light. I believe my nuitrient plan is working great cause they day after I started it I saw some major growth in one of the white widows. I now call that one my queen widow. I plan to take a few clones from her when she is ready.

Im only going to flower 2 or 3 of the white widows and keep the rest in veg stage with the foam mist plants. Im gonna separate the ones I flower and the ones I veg. I worry about the foam mist pollinating the whole crop. I have never grown before so I dont know when to expect the sex to show. Thats why I bought fem seeds so I wouldnt have to worry about that. Unfortunatly the foam mist is random bag seeds so I have no idea how many female I have

here are my poor sick girls at weeks 2-4
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[ghost83]

Here is my Queen Widow
Attachment 287450
I call her the queen cause she has grown so much faster then the rest. Its 4 inches in hight and the leaf span. The others are all only 2.5 inches.

This is my whole grow op
Attachment 287451

I know its a ghetto set up but I decided to go a little cheaper because its my first grow and Im going to upgrade as I go along and get better. Im using a soil mix of 50% peat moss, 30% worm castings, 20% pearlite and 1/8 cup of garden lime, Im using cfl lights and I am painting the walls flat white. I still need to paint the walls just havent had the time and I am also worried about the smell of the wet paint. I was going to do it when the plants are in there 6 hours without light. It should only take me 30 minutes to paint and that gives it 5 1/2 hours to dry after that.
As the plants grow I have been adding more lights. That way its not so much money up front. Every check I get from work Im adding a few upgrades to my grow area. If everythign goes good I plan to start 2-3 of my white widows in the flowering stage and separate the rest and keep them in veg stage. I am moving in 3 months and I would like to have some smoke for the move but at the same time I want to take my time with the others to make sure I get the best out of my plants. The grow is just for my girl and I. we currently only smoke a quarter every 2 weeks. I figured I could get 2-3 ounces combined our of 2 plants and that will be enough to get us by until the other plants are done.