Total noob needs advice

[Pyro1711]

My bean sprouted, she is in a jiffy pellet surrounded by seed starter soil in a cow pot... This is an auto flower plant, she is about an inch tall has it's first serrated leaves an it looks like it's growing it's second set of serrated ones. I don't have any fancy lights, I just bought some $12 40w led light off Amazon for right now. I have been putting it outside in the sunlight during the day and under the 40w led at night so light exposure is at 24 hours. It honestly spends more time under the led light... I'm scared to over water, been misting the leaves 2x a day. I will figure how to post a picture, as I'm sure most of you will laugh at my setup... The leaves are dark green, but I noticed tonight they seem to be drooping now. This is my first grow, I'm going to buy a tent and real lights for my next attempt. I would appreciate suggestions on what I might be doing wrong that is causing the drooping, and also what to start doing next. Thanks in advance

[UrbZ]

1st things I think of when you hear droopiness is over/underwater. Since you say you've been afraid to over water I am assuming its underwatering droop.

When you look at the leaves do just the leaves droop (overwatering).

Or is the whole leaf stem itself and leaf droopy (under watering).

Pictures will sure help once you can get them posted.

[Mr.furley]

Pyro1711, before we can answer the majority of your questions we are going to need a little more info please.
how many days has your auto been above soil?
how many plants?
what strain are you growing?
how often do you water? And how much?
what kind/brand of light? How close is your light/s to your plant?
what brand of soil? And what is your temperatures around your plant? Inside and outside highs and lows?

You can't buy sunlight on amazon and it is the best light for your plant as long as you temperature is right for this time of year.

Pictures really help and as much information as possible is prudent for a proper diagnosis. as far as the laughing go's most of us enjoy helping people with there grow as much as growing. It is truly amazing what this plant can do under not so perfect conditions and at the hands of a "Total noob".
The first thing I will recommend is to stop misting your plant/s.
Mr.F

[Potted]

Welcome to the show pyro I got started in a similar fashion a few years ago,agonizing over everything,and overthinking it and in the end the plant came out alright!
All u can do if u enjoy growing is continue to educate yourself on the GWE site as well as other sources. When problems arise (and thay will) stop by and post here.
Many of us have experienced similar problems and are more than willing to help out. Good luck ✌️

[Canuck147]

Yeah, what Mr.Furley said, stop misting your plant so much. But if you must, at least give it a few hours of darkness. Then mist it within the first hour the light comes on, as the stomatas are open more and are more receptive to being misted.

[Pyro1711]

I took it out from under the light last night, placed it on a heating pad and put a dome over it, I woke up this morning and the leaves had perked up!! I'm on a tablet, so I'll need to take a pic with my phone, e mail it to myself and download the pic to my tablet.... I'm not going to mist it as much as was recommended by Mr.furley it's a blackberry auto. The light...it's some China made $12 led that is 40w it has red/blue as I can not find a cfl bulb locally.. as for watering, I try and drop about a tablespoon of water on the jiffy pellet to keep it moist about every other day. I have a total redneck setup...I made a aluminum foil tube that goes around the plant and bulb, the bulb is about 4 to 5 inches away from the leaves. Bulb does not put much heat off at all. I take it out of the tube for half the day.

[Pyro1711]

[D.A.A.S.69]

Morning pyro1711, it might help if you had a blue colored led light, blue is most useful when vegging, red for flower, your gonna do fine, just ask a question when you need to.
GoodLuck.

[D.A.A.S.69]

Morning Pyro1711, Yes, it is an awesome hobby an we want you to be successful on your grow, if it's possible for you to get a couple of cfls in the 5000k or 65ook range an put them about an inch or two away your plant will love you for it, I promise! !!

[Pyro1711]

Morning D.A.A.S.69 the bulb I have is one that is red/blue, so do I need one with just blue led diodes? Thanks for the encouragement as I'm quite excited, this is the first sprout I've gotten from 3 prior failed attempted sprouts. ILGM still has not answered my email concerning that.

[bluecanoe]

The first seeds I bought were from ILGM, they promised step by step help, blah, blah and I never got anything out of them. I got Northern Lights auto/fem and one plant gave me 1/4 oz and the other just grew to about 3 feet and never flowered at all. But just because mine flopped, don't get discouraged. My second grow came from Seed Supreme and I got over 7.5 oz, but not from the seed I really wanted, the mystery freebie seeds were great, so you learn as you go and get better each time.
I hope you have great luck with your grow, it's so exciting to watch the plant almost double in size every day when it finally takes off. I've switched seed suppliers a few times am happy enough now with Seedsman. The people on this site won't lead you astray. They want you to have as big and healthy a grow as possible.
My setup is cheap and piecemeal. I took a plastic stackable shelving unit, cut the two middle shelves out, leaving the sides for support. I bought 2 reflective emergency blankets from Walmart for $2 each, used clothes pins to attach them to the shelf. I started with a very small/cheap led and think that was my problem with the small yield. As I could afford it, I bought a larger 300w led light for about $35 off ebay. Added a fan we bought at a thrift store, I got a small clamp on light for a cfl bulb for the seedlings, I add things as I can afford it - just got another 300w led, and now I am to the point, on my third grow, that the most expensive things I have to buy is the Kind soil and seeds. I've advanced from 2 gal pots to 3 gal pots to 5 gal fiber pots.
You've taken the first steps and are well on your way, just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Take the advice you're given here and you'll succeed!

[Chefbjy]

Blue light will make your plant grow shorter. Red light taller. Great color spectrum guide on gwe. Just depends how you want to train the plant to grow and how much space you need. For indoor grows I recommend keeping them short but sometimes too short of plants are harder to work with if you have to do any lst or supercropping. You can always bury it up to a desired height when you transplant.

[GreenhouseEffect]

Hey Pyro,
I agree with the advice to quit misting, I used to do that all the time to new seedling of everything, my tomatoes, peppers, all that stuff as included, and I found that I gave myself really bad disease problems.
It did a lot to spread disease spores from plant to plant, and provided a perfect environment for them to thrive. The one exception is when you clone, because the cutting does not have roots yet, it needs to drink through it's leaves, but once there are roots, they will start taking up all kinds of good nutrients as they look for water .

Good luck, and have fun with your new grow! So much that plants just do on there own, it is mostly a matter of us learning what they need ,and supplying them with it, and nature does the miracle working for us!

[Mr.furley]

Pyro1711, your seedling looks healthy under the LED we can't see the color but it has a nice short stock, leaf is horizontal, and she's not stretching she'll be okay for a minute. Going to want to transplant her soon into our final home and get some more light on her Here's a link to buy CFLs at a good price.

https://www.1000bulbs.com/category/cfl-bulbs/

little advice on a CFLs they do grow cannabis but sometimes if you're looking at having a better setup it's best to spend the money now instead of by the cfl's and then buy another light.
Welcome to The Forum
Mr.F

[Locrian99]

Very true by the time you buy the bulbs the clamp lights splitters/extenders if you use them you are pretty close to the cost of a Viparspectra or galaxyhydro 300w led

[Pyro1711]

Thanks for all the great advice, especially on the lights... The "stretching" kinda concerns me because since the photo she has added about 1\2inch of height. She is definitely a dark green in color. I'll get a photo of her in sunlight tomorrow and post it. I'm trying to do this as cheaply as possible at the moment. I'll explain... I have a serious neck injury and am fused between c6 c7 with severe nerve damage. I also have a crushed L2 disk. 3 months ago wife and I went to Vegas, she convinced me to go to a dispensary. For the first time in 12 years I was actually pain free and we walked all around the strip. 4 weeks ago I was working on my car, got brake cleaner in my eye and it melted my cornia! I just had surgery on my eye and have been out of work for 4 weeks. Money is extremely tight at the moment. I didn't realize at the time when I renewed my insurance, I didn't sign up for long term or short term disability. Wife has been out of work for 2 months because her employer sold out and they closed this location. Gotta make this little girl grow!! When I get back to work...then I can start buying lights and a tent because we really want to start making our own vape liquid.

[Pyro1711]

[Pyro1711]

Is it normal for the stem to start to turn brown? I'm getting her permanent home ready, is there a difference between vermiculite and perlite?

[Potted]

Vermiculite is much more hazardous to humans in its dry state !!!!! It’s a form of asbestos

[BlueBudz]

She looks good to me! Let her soak up as much of that beautiful sunlight as you can!
they are different but similar. A few paragraphs down in the link explains it all.

http://www.growweedeasy.com/what-soil-is-good-for-growing-cannabis

hope this helps, good luck

[Pyro1711]

Transplanted to her permanent home, it's an organic soil with worm casings and I added perlite to the mix. Wasn't able to get the fox farms soil because my Amazon membership expired, so I'm hoping this soil will be ok. It's lightweight and didn't turn into mud when I added water. Was a little surprised that the roots had not quite penetrated through the jiffy pellet yet. I carefully removed the mesh from around the jiffy pellet and dropped it into a hole in the new soil mix. Hopefully she will like the new home and start growing faster.

[BlueBudz]

Looks good. Don’t over water, that’s a big pot!