Quote Originally Posted by CaptainOrganicsCO
Keep up the good work. Oh yeah I was also gonna say, I'm paranoid that the grow store will be the source of a pest infestation for me. Hitchhikers. All day everyday guys frantically run in the grow store, "help I have spider mites!" Spider mites fall off there shirt onto the counter. Then I set my arm there while I pay... Then I come home and introduce them to my garden. Paranoid? Never had any bug issues in 5 runs, knock on wood.
That is an interesting thought - very similar to the transfer of bad bacteria in hospitals (anyone familiar with MRSA?). I try to wash everything before introducing it to the garden, but I will definitely do a better job of disinfecting before foreign objects are near my ladies.

I planted my seeds in Rapid Rooters plugs. I used Root Excelurator and Thrive Alive Red during germination. The plan was to use them at about 1/4 of the recommended dose, based on recommendations from people on any forum or website or book that I browsed. However, I ended up mixing it too strong, and not being patient when I should have ONLY used RO water during germination. I had germinated 5 seeds and all 5 sprouted. However, I noticed only a couple days after they sprouted that at least one of them had completely burned early leaves and that one failed to thrive. The other 4 had very minor burn, so I decided to to plant the Rapid Rooters in soil to disperse some of the nutrient/water-soaked Rapid Rooter plugs into the soil and let the seeds breathe a bit.
So, I planted them in Happy Frog soil. I had planned FFOF, but the nice guy at my hydro store said that the Happy Frog is much gentler on young roots because it's lighter on nutrients. So they sat, happily in the Happy Frog under my LED and 2 6400K CFL's. I watered with a nutrient mix that I made based on the Humboldt Nutrient feeding schedule, because I have several of their products, along with a couple others (listed below). I did the nutrient feeding in the morning, and RO distilled water in the evening - 2 feedings per day. After 1-2 days in the soil, the plants began to thrive. After another day, I started seeing signs of powdery mildew, or another ailment on the smallest plant that was not thriving as the others were. I did the milk/water foliar spray.
This week, I discovered they needed to be transferred, so I transferred to the Ocean Forest. I threw out the smallest plant, that seemed to be very stunted or harmed by the ailment I believe was powdery mildew. It would not have fit in my cabinet anyways. I don't know why I never tried putting the EMPTY, larger pots in the cabinet while the cabinet was empty to test! I have slowly increased the strength of the nutrients in the mix I made. They include:

Humboldt Master A
Humboldt Master B
Humboldt Hum Bolt (got a couple bottles as free sample because I chat up the hydro store)
Humboldt Sea Cal
Great White Mycorrhizae
Thrive Alive Red
Root Excelurator

I am now up to about 50-75% of the recommended strength per gallon of these nutrients. There is still one of my three plants that appears to have been affected by the powdery mildew (or mystery ailment). It is the plant that I mentioned in the last post that included pics with the brown spots. I am ONLY going to feed this plant RO water for the rest of the grow - it is planted in the Ocean Forest, which contains organic nutrients and will suffice. I hope she survives so I can actually gauge the difference between the two nutrient-fed plants, and the soil-fed plant. The other 2 plants appear very healthy, and they will continue to receive added nutrients.

I feel that I'm learning a lot from this. I am learning about soil hydration and how often to water (at least for these specific plants). I am learning what to use for equipment in my cabinet (I need to pick up some individual water-catches under each plant so I can drain excess-water easier). I have learned that proper air-filtration, starting from the OUTSIDE of my cabinet, can prevent bugs. My day, there were 7-8 gnats in my humidity water dish. To this day, I am not getting any at all. I believe the clay pellets also had a lot to do with this, keeping mama gnats out of the soil where they would lay their killer eggs.

More to come soon! My big booty hoes are growing exponentially (it seems)! I find myself smoking and then just staring and reflecting at them, wishing they would grow larger and faster almost everyday. This is an exciting time for me haha.