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Third 1st Grow: The Slide Puzzle

I had an empty nest, so I started a new brood. Two empty nests, actually.

'Kay newbies. Learn from my expensive mistakes! Only gonna say it once...in this post...
LIGHTS MATTER! Do not skimp on your lights 'because it's on sale on Amazon' or because "it's all I can afford". A "600w" LED with veg and bloom switches for $70 will give you weed, but it won't give you a lot of weed, lol. Maybe about $70 worth. Save your money and get a proper light. I bought the bunk lights before I ever found the forum.

I have two of the aforementioned 600w lights in the 2x4x5 tent. They are amazeballs for seedlings; getting them going and for vegging. This is an auto run, so there is only one struggling seedling in the veg tent. I do not have high hopes for that one, a retail LSD-25 auto from Fastbuds. Bummer. Moving on to successful transitions from seed to plant...
In the middle of the previous first grow, I completely switched tents, lights -everything. I am not planning any upgrades mid-grow this time. This is what it is and it ain't gonna be n'more.
For now, lol.

I'm running a simple setup with a 4x4x6.5' Vipar tent, a Mars Hydro TSW 2000W that covers 4x4 for veg, 3x3 for flower. (discrepancy between diff literature, some says it covers 3.5x3.5') On a dimmer, so I'm messing with it. Right now it's at about 70% @ 17-20". 4' Vivosun fan and charcoal filter (will probably need replacing in Jan, or sooner). Also my hillbilly humidifier for those 2 weeks of the grow that it's needed. Little plants don't generate a lot of humidity, so the humids are dipping down a bit. Made an evaporator with a clean planter and tray, clean dish towel and water. That's it. I'm controlling the evaporation rate with the little fan. Kinda neat.
18/6 is the perfect light schedule to veg photos, so I have a Critical Kush photo in a 3 gallon pot hanging in the corner. It's 5 weeks old and just been transplanted.
The rest of the plants and seedlings are autos.
The difference between the space between the nodes with brighter lights is crazy. These are staying nice and short and putting their energy into making leaves. As soon as I saw that, I started moving seedlings over from the veg tent. When it has sufficiently vegged, the Critical photo is going back in the tent to flower on 12/12 under the lights I said not to use for flowering, lol. However, it may take that long for it to veg up the way I want, and I can run the next group on 12/12. Twelve hours of awesome light is better than 18 hours of mediocre light. I don't know what is going to happen. That CK is going to flower as an only-child. I took off all the leaves touching the dirt because that is where WPM lives. Slide.

The Slide Puzzle: Six different auto strains of different ages, all wanting different things. Except that LSD-25. It may be a mutie. No harm in letting it keep going.
I planted them all in my own recycled soil and have begun to give them all nutrients - even the babies are getting watered-down nutes. Did that because this organic stuff has some poo in it and it's a tad warm. Last grow, the autos told me they needed nitrogen. This grow, they are getting it from the beginning, at 50%. I use FoxFarm trio.

The biggest autos are now 16 days old. Blueberry X Cinderella Jack and Northern Lights x Lemon Skunk -both FBLs. The NL cross really got to praying, so I lowered it by a couple inches -seems to be way happier. I have to transplant them to 2-gallon soon-soon, like the next 8 hours. Next time I'll start them all in 2-gal from the get-go. I was out of 2 gal at the time. If I do it right, they'll never know they got new shoes. Slide
The next batch is 8 days old today - Amnesia Haze x CJack and another Lemon Skunk x Strawberry Cheesecake, also FBLs. The LSxSC smelled so amazing and had such a delicate touch I had to grow another one. This time I will endeavor not to break it.
The last one is a retail Violet Kush auto from Garden of Green. She is starting life in the proper size container.

I'm calling this the Slide Puzzle, because I am not going to get anything new this time. Nothing. Except sh*t to make risers and lowerers from, lol. Discovered upside-down containers make fine risers. But this grow is going to happen from start to finish with what is in these two tents. It will all work, but only if I keep sliding stuff in the right direction.

​​​​​​​Every grow is a first grow.
 

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Hey there i got a little slow grower in that wedding cake she's not reaching up like the other 2 seedling. Makes ya wonder will it take? I'm not gonna chuck it just wait it out. :) But all the rest look good and strong look how tight those nodes are, yes mam those lights you got are great. It's a weed wonderland you got there:funny:
 
FWIW ...

The lights name suggests 2000W, however they only draw 300W. It helps knowing how much the lights draw; much better indicator of what you are using. Seems like the marketing deparments like to come up with some pretty inflated equivalency numbers without telling us what the heck they mean.
 
Yep. Marketing for lights is crazy. I didn't go by wattage when I bought the MarsHydro last month. LEDs are a different ballgame. I just mentioned the light I am using because this will be a grow journal geared toward newbies, because I am one. Keeping it simple.
 
The 4x4 is looking a little like the Island of Misfit Pot Plants, lol. All autofem, except for plant with cage - a vegging critical Kush. She got FIM'd today.
(by pic)
#1 LSD-25 at 12 days - sad, sad thing. Feel like taking her out and leaving it in the forest someplace, lol.
#2 Pistils on BBxCJ
#3 Island of Misfit Cannabis Plants
#4 What a difference 2 weeks makes?
#5 NL x LS FBL in the back is pouting, probably because I put the lights up to 100% 2 days ago.
I raised them to 18"-22" and have moved the younger seedlings and the photo to the outside edges -the veg-zone - of this Mars Hydro light, which so far, I am loving.

All autos are getting nutrients at varying concentrations now, to run-off. Even seedlings, because sh*t happens fast with autos. I'd rather have too many roots than not enough, lol. Next feed I will skip to flowering (week 5 FF trio) for the oldest autos, and proceed from there. None of the plants is showing any adversity to receiving them, except for one that I left droplets on and well, it still doesn't look as wretched as that LSD seedling, lol.

#6 The accidental Irene Apricot clone, the sole inhabitant of the 2x4x5 with the blurples on veg, she has earned the name of Truffula.




A WORD ABOUT EYE PROTECTION AND LED LIGHTS:
Get LED protection for your eyes, period. Mars Hydro could have skipped the cheap hygrometer and cheap timer and included a pair of LED glasses. I didn't protect all the time and now I notice my eyes are very sensitive to any light. So been wearing my prescription sunglasses (better than nothing) until I can find some decent protection that fits over my regular glasses. Gnarly.

Have a groovy weekend! XO
 

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Welp. Life happened there for a minute and the grow took last place in the importance of things.
The lights were burning the shit out of everything. Again. New light, old learning curve. Combined with the humidity reaching lows I can only dream about in August...yikes.
Gotta mess it up bad at least once to do it right. I should have known. Lights have been my Achilles heel since I stuck my first seed in dirt.

Scrapping whole grow, with the exception of the photo, which seems blissfully unaware that her tent-mates were getting extra-crispy.
Not the end of the world. I'm behind 26 days.
Or ahead 26 days of making mistakes with the lights, lol.

On a brighter note, my kitty is on the mend after a harrowing few days.

I'll see ya again with a new grow as soon as it starts growing. My veg tent looks like a f*cking junkyard, LOL.
 
Felt like you do about a month ago, felt like kicking in the towel. I put my photos which are 2wks old today all of them under both 450vipar full spectrum. They are at a conservative 30" i'm gonna wait for the autos to get 2 full weeks under the CFL before putting them in there with the photos. I'm running 18/6 for 2months then gonna flip the photos.
 
Sorry to hear that about the plants but I'm very happy to hear the good news about your fur baby. I wish it a speedy recovery. Plants, they can always be regrown and I'm sure that you will. Which is great, because I do love following your grows. Good luck with the next one and enjoy your journey. Sometimes the best lessons are from mistakes.
 
Always bummed when something dies on my watch. But in an effort to prove to me that nature is resilient, I opened my celery yesterday and there was a live spider in it. A very cold live spider. Complete with housing. Not catching much inside a plastic bag inside the vegetable drawer, and still okay.
It got away in the house. That's what happens when you open the celery and then kind of throw it, lol. I expect some weird stuff when I open the fridge. That wasn't it.
 
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