Introducing myself and my first grow!

[ashflower]

Hi everyone!

Apologies if there is anything wrong with my post, this is my first one on this community, and I do want to try my best to follow the rules. Pics are at the end of the post.

I am a beginner grower and I want to share my journey with you. I hope the community can offer me some good advice where I need it.

I am keeping a grow journal in a notebook, so I have a day to day record of what I have done so far.

My strains are photoperiod feminized, grown from seed using the paper towel method, first started in jiffy pots plus a bit of soil, in paper cups, then moved to 5 gallon fabric pots at week two of growth. They are currently 2.5 weeks old.

• AK47 (2 plants)
• Chiquita Banana (1 plant)
• Blackberry Moonrocks (2 plants)

I chose to grow these three strains together because they seem to require similar growing conditions and grow to similar heights indoors, at least according to the seed-sellers website.

Initially I grew a second Chiquita Banana plant but it was not growing past the tiniest seedling in the first couple of weeks in the jiffy pot, and it was turning yellow, so I got rid of it. It's OK though, because I planned it so that at least one of the plants would not survive. I probably only have space enough in my tent for 5 plants anyway.

My grow medium is Biobizz Light Mix (top 2/3 of the pots) and Biobizz All Mix (bottom 1/3 of the pots). I have a pH/light/humidity meter that seems to indicate my soil is not in the ideal range for cannabis (it reads between 7 and 8), so I have been adding the tiniest amount of white vinegar to my plant water (at a ratio of 500ml vinegar to 10L water), and have not yet tested again since watering with this mixture twice since the plants were transferred into 5 gallon pots. Before this I only gave plain filtered water. I am likely underwatering my plants at this stage because I do not yet have plant saucers for my pots, to catch runoff, but those are on the way soon. I know that if I can test the runoff water using litmus paper (which I have), I can find out more accurately if my soil pH is actually a problem. I have no desire to buy a pH pen because I don't know if I can justify the expense, and I have heard they are difficult to calibrate properly.

I have purchased (but not yet used) the following Advanced Nutrients brand nutrients.

pH Perfect Sensi Grow (1 and 2)
pH Perfect Sensi Bloom (1 and 2)
'B-52' B Vitamins for Cannabis
'Bud Candy' Bloom Booster

I chose Advanced Nutrients because they claim their nutrients will naturally modulate pH, so I don't need to worry about it as much. Does anyone have any info or experience to support or contradict this? I am hoping to get a bit of advice on how to go about offering nutrients to my plants and when. I have read on GWE that you generally want to use nutrients at half strength. How do I know when my soil has run out of nutrients and I need to start feeding them? I would love to hear from anyone who can compare this brand with others.

My setup is:

• in my garage
• in a Mars Hydro grow tent (100cm x 100cm x 180cm) with a TSW-2000 (300 watt) LED grow light, with a 4 inch inline duct fan & carbon filter, and hygrometer/thermometer connected to an exterior display/control panel
• I am using a mechanical timer switch to keep my light schedule at 18:6
• the plants live on top of a 85x85cm square card table right now that fits pretty well within the tent
• I have two clip fans running continuously within the space to blow across the canopy of the plants
• there is 2500 watt oil radiator with thermostat underneath the table to keep the space warm enough. It is pretty cold in my garage and this is the only effective way to keep it warm enough. I am a little concerned for later on in the grow that this heater will be too big for the space and I will want to replace it with a smaller one.
• There is a humidifier in the tent as well, I only recently added it (within the last week or so), so the humidity was not ideal in there for the first 2 weeks of growth (probably between 40-50% most of the time). I tried to keep the humidity up using a bucket of water with an aquarium heater (not very effective) and then wet shammy cloths around the cups (more effective). With the humidifier it can shoot up to 80% RH in no time. Unfortunately my humidifier is not connected to anything that automatically shuts it off if the humidity gets high enough.
• If it gets too warm or too wet, the exterior display/control panel is hooked up to the duct fan and it comes on automatically. HOWEVER, I am not sure what settings I should be using at this stage of growth. Right now I have high humidity set at 70%, and high temperature set at 30ºC. How high can the humidity get for these strains during the early vegetative stage? Later vegetative stage? Flowering? I know the rule of thumb is you want it to be wetter and warmer in the beginning, but gradually decrease this as the plant goes into flowering. But some specific numbers would be helpful.
• It has been challenging to keep the humidity and temperature in ideal ranges since I am growing in my garage, which has an ambient temperature of about 15ºC. I would have done this in my house but I simply do not have the space right now. Maybe for later grows I will figure it out.

Other information:

I plan to use Nebula's 'manifolding' technique to get the best out of my grow, but I am nervous with the idea of topping and defoliating since I am brand new to cannabis growing.

I read her whole tutorial on it, and have a shopping cart with the twist ties, soft wire, and yoyo contraptions, but I will no doubt be asking advice here on the forum (with pictures of my plants) to ask the community when I should start training my plants. I know almost nothing about grow lights, but I believe from what I read on GWE, my 300W LED lights will work for the manifolding method. Let me know if that is unrealistic.

Thanks for reading all that! And I wish everyone all the best with their own grows!

-Ashflower

[No3odiesShad0w]

You sure this is your first grow??? Lolol looks like someone did their homework!

How well did those jiffy pots work for you? The only thing I've ever seen jiffy seed starter be used for is growing mushrooms 🤣🤣

Not sure if I missed it, What kind of medium are you using? Peat? Coco? Something else?

Advanced nutrients does auto adjust the pH. As long as the initial water pH isn't something really crazy or you have really hard water, then you should be fine. Most liquid nutrients auto adjust the water, but they don't advertise it because it's done consequentially. Most nutrient s are usually pretty acidic and they lower the pH of your tap water which is usually around 7. You still don't want to trust a company 100%, and still pee age the water just to make sure. But if you check for like a week and it's constantly the same thing time and time again you don't have to test every time. My friend in Spain uses Biobizz nutrients and she says it brings her water into an acceptable pH range.
That's about all I can say about liquid nutrients. I know you have to water into runoff to flush the salts it converts to but I'm sure someone more knowledgeable about liquid nutrients will help you with that.

If you're growing in your garage and smell really isn't an issue, I would skip the carbon filter. It's just going to make your fan run twice as hard and from what I see they're pretty expensive and don't really have a long life. I personally. The fans get super loud. It definitely one of those things if you don't need it definitely don't use it companies love to sell you all the things that you might need that you probably won't ever need 🤣🤣.

As far as temperatures and humidity go, try to do the best you can. For seedlings higher temperature and higher humidity is definitely ideal. 65%+ and about 26-28°C temps. For veg you wanna start lowering the humidity to about 60-65%. Temps...I keep between 21-28°C. I def try not to let it go over 28C but plenty ppl go up to 30C or higher without problems (although they are probably supplementing some CO2)
For flower you want to keep the temps in a similar range 21-30C but as the flowers get bigger you want to start dropping the humidity. Starting at 60% in early flower then to as low as 45% (If you're chasing VPD).

For LST I pretty much just use twist ties that I get from the grocery store and sticks of bamboo or used chopsticks or whatever I could find as long as it's not metal. I like the twist ties because they don't force your plant into a position if the plant wants to move around and bend and wiggle like they do, the twist tie will allow for it and will bend. I've seen other devices that force a plant into a position and then hold it there, can cause damage to the stems. Just got to be gentle but firm. Also don't LST when the lights first come on because the branches will be stiff from the colder time.. let them warm up a little bit they'll become more flexible and they won't snap on you. 😅 I've had that happen to me too many times lololol

Hopefully I covered some items for ya. It looks like you have a good foundation and you'll probably have satisfactory results. Just remember to have fun with it!

Happy growing! 🌱🪴🍄🌼

[Bluey]

Welcome Ash and have fun.

I tried Jiffy once...never again.

[Allenpro]

Same here, I have had no luck with those but I know others that wont use anything else. I guess if it works for you dont mess with it

[SoOrbudgal]

Welcome aboard you have a very well thought out grow and good equiptment. Good for you for gathering what you need. Big grow for a first timer but you can do it by the looks of the plants, very healthy. Yes lots of us have use those fiber cups and found out after the roots have a hard time pentraiting kinda looks like you spliced them abit prior to burying them in the final pot?
300 watt light is that the draw from the wall? There's lots of techie growers here i am not one of them LOL. I determined my grow light by the tent size and reliable reviews from other growers. I've not used advanced nutes i use other i don't start feeding till after i think my worm castings i mix in my soil doesn't seem to give them enough by looking at the leaf. You'll learn. Good luck and keep us posted, don't feel overloaded with too much info just keep it simple you can do it.

[Bluey]

A modern LED of 300watt is perfect for that size tent but I'm not sure when you'd need to flip four plants to keep them happy in that size tent, especially with a mix of strains both indica and sativa dominant. That may be tough. Fingers crossed.

[ashflower]

Hey Bluey, thanks for the tip. I was planning on letting them grow to half my desired height (probably half a meter) and flipping them to 12:12 so they still have lots of space to grow upwards. Isn't that what you would normally do? According to my research these strains grow to approximately the same heights, are roughly equally sativa-indica hybrids, have similar flowering times and prefer similar growing conditions (temperate/Mediterranean/arid). But yeah, fingers crossed it all works out!

[Allenpro]

Hello and welcome, I am fairly new the site my self but I have been growing for quite a while. Growweedeasy.com has always been my go to for info.
Looks like you have it dialed in and your doing great, hard to believe its your first grow you mush have done some great research.
I used AN nutrients in my first grow at their recommended dosage and burnt the hell out of the plants. I think their PH perfect PH nutrients and supplements are PH perfect for hydro, 5.5 -6.5 and PH for soil is 6.0-7.0 and my limited experience with soil is PH under 6.5 is too low. What I did notice was the PH perfect is only if you use the base nutrients and unless you use the full array of AN supplements the PH is not so perfect. Either way, always check your PH. For soil, I dont usually feed anything until I flip to flower unless I see them wanting something.
I have used AN nutrients since then but never above 1/2 strength in Hydro, but the buds from my first grow would have been shake compared to what you have started,

[ezmaarc]

Good intro, great post! Welcome and watching. You’ve got some great growers in this forum. They’ve helped me for sure. Great setup. Cheers!

[ashflower]

You sure this is your first grow??? Lolol looks like someone did their homework!

Yes, it's my first grow! , I just spent a long time collecting everything and learning what I would need before I started because I wanted to do it as good as possible from day one. It is so easy to pick up bad habits and I didn't want to have to unlearn anything.

Jiffy pots worked well, I treated them the same as Nebula recommends using Rapid Rooters. I just rehydrated them, squeezed out the extra water and cut them down the side to fit my little seed with its taproot.

I am using soil, layering Biobizz Light mix on top of All Mix in my pots.

I do think smell could still be an issue, because where I placed my tent in the garage, it's too far away from the one tiny window, so the air doesn't actually have a chance to 'escape'. It's just blowing the weedy air into my garage so I can REALLY smell my plants when I open the door.

What is VPD?

Thanks for the LST tips! I will remember that.

[No3odiesShad0w]

Always good to do some homework because you can't get back lost time. Having a good foundation is always a recipe for success!
For now you don't have to worry about VPD. It's the Vapor Pressure Deficit. It measures the difference of moisture in the air. How much is actually in the air vs. what the air can potentially hold at a certain temp. It also determines how thirsty the plant will be and how much transpiration happens.

For instance, a seedling will be most comfortable with a VPD of 0.8 -1.0kPa In Veg, around 0.9 - 1.2kPa. In boom, 1.1 - 1.4kPa.

The beautiful thing is that if you follow the recommended temps and humidity for growing cannabis, you'll be within that good VPD range. If you're curious about VPD and how your temps and humidity relate to it, there a nice interactive website that Bluey brought to my attention. VPDchart.com
You can plug in your numbers and see where you are, or plug in numbers you're curious about to see where you'll land.

Though, I would just focus on having temps from 70-80F (21-26.5C) and humidity between 50% and 60%. You shouldn't have any problems. Hope that answers your question.
Happy growing!

[ashflower]

Welcome aboard you have a very well thought out grow and good equiptment. Good for you for gathering what you need. Big grow for a first timer but you can do it by the looks of the plants, very healthy. Yes lots of us have use those fiber cups and found out after the roots have a hard time pentraiting kinda looks like you spliced them abit prior to burying them in the final pot?
300 watt light is that the draw from the wall? There's lots of techie growers here i am not one of them LOL. I determined my grow light by the tent size and reliable reviews from other growers. I've not used advanced nutes i use other i don't start feeding till after i think my worm castings i mix in my soil doesn't seem to give them enough by looking at the leaf. You'll learn. Good luck and keep us posted, don't feel overloaded with too much info just keep it simple you can do it.

Thanks for the welcome and encouragement! Yes I rehydrated the jiffy pots, squeezed out extra water, then cut them down one side, laid the little seed with its taproot facing down, and closed it back up, sitting each jiffy pot into a paper cup with some basic soil/perlite, but it didn't stay tightly closed, leaving room for roots to expand.

[ashflower]

Hello and welcome, I am fairly new the site my self but I have been growing for quite a while. Growweedeasy.com has always been my go to for info.
Looks like you have it dialed in and your doing great, hard to believe its your first grow you mush have done some great research.
I used AN nutrients in my first grow at their recommended dosage and burnt the hell out of the plants. I think their PH perfect PH nutrients and supplements are PH perfect for hydro, 5.5 -6.5 and PH for soil is 6.0-7.0 and my limited experience with soil is PH under 6.5 is too low. What I did notice was the PH perfect is only if you use the base nutrients and unless you use the full array of AN supplements the PH is not so perfect. Either way, always check your PH. For soil, I dont usually feed anything until I flip to flower unless I see them wanting something.
I have used AN nutrients since then but never above 1/2 strength in Hydro, but the buds from my first grow would have been shake compared to what you have started,

Thanks, that is very helpful! I really did my research before starting out. GWE has SOOO much great information, it's impossible to know everything before you start, but I am learning as I go. It's just LST and nutrients I am a little worried about, because I don't want to burn my plants or damage them during topping.

[golfnrl]

Welcome aboard. I like your post. Thorough and easy to follow.

[OldManGrower]

Welcome aboard, we're glad to have new blood. I agree, you have a nice set up and have planned your grow very well, especially for an apprentice. I know nothing about your specific nutes but I use 1/2-2/3 of the manufacturers recommendation amount every watering. I also use cal-mag from seed to harvest every watering. I do not use special blooming nutes but instead use unsulfured molasses. Seems to work perfectly and far less expensive. I don't care what the manufacturers and seed purveyors say; making sure your watering solution is in the proper PH range is paramount to successful indoor growing.

[Bluey]

I'm just getting the hang of adjusting pH up and down so the plant can uptake that calmag I'm giving it. Every 2nd mix I add calmag and up the pH from 5.9/6.1 to 6.25 so it actually takes it up. 5.9 is in the range but not to uptake it and adding more just gave me N toxicity from the mag & cal nitrates.

The little nuances needed for a quality grow are subtle but the relationship with pH and nute uptake is becoming apparent to me. Learning the hard way.

[No3odiesShad0w]

I still want to try synthetic nutrients. I tried the one time with my dad's cutting. For a whole month, I watered her with GH nutrients and for a whole month, she did nothing. She didn't drink water, she didn't grow, she just got more and more sickly looking. There was too many variables to figure out what went wrong but as soon as I put some worm poop, compost and organic nutrients, she exploded back to life.
I definitely will give it another chance in the near future. It's good to be well rounded

[ashflower]

UPDATE: I topped them today and started giving the Advanced Nutrients Sensi Grow and B-52 at 1 ml per L filtered tap water. Planning on giving very weak nutrient water 2 out of every 3 waterings.

Pay no attention to the yellow cardboard sticky circles I made to trap fungus gnats. They don't work so i have since taken them out. I noticed the gnats a couple of days ago so I ordered some diotomaceous earth and some Culinex BTI (Bacillus thuringiensis Israelensis) tablets to try and kill them before they do any damage. I haven't noticed any damage yet but I am not sleeping on it. Of course the best way to avoid fungus gnats is to stop overwatering, but I don't think I did that since they were in their paper cups a few weeks ago. It's weird to me that I got the gnats. I have never even fully drenched the soil in the air pots. I have never watered enough to create runoff water, even though I have the plant pot saucers now. Could the soil be slow to dry out because I am keeping my humidity pretty high (50-65% most of the time)? Any thoughts?

I was REALLY nervous chopping up my plants so much, but I followed Nebula's mainlining/manifolding method as closely as I could.

What do you guys do with the all the leaves that come off at this step? I just put some in a salad, which was pretty good.

[No3odiesShad0w]

Good move with the BTI. I toss a few bits on the topsoil every 2 weeks and I haven't had gnat problems in 2 grows!

[Allenpro]

Are you mainlining them?