Just figured I'd log my first *real* grow here.. I did try a grow about 3yrs ago with an old crappy 600w HPS, some Master Kush seeds from Nirvana. Got two females that were really stretchy and got me about an eigth of dried bud.. Not very impressive. Looking back, I did almost everything wrong. Wrong location, no nutrients, wrong soil, etc.

Well, FF a couple years, and a lot of reading.. I went and got a 400w HPS from HTGsupply. That bastard is wayyyyy brighter than my old 600!

Anyways.. On to some pics.. I must apologize, my Nikon DSLR is at my parent's house so I had to use a Canon point and shoot,,

I started by planting one of the old Master Kush seeds I was stowing away.. Just one.. I also grabbed two clones from a grow friend.. One is a Northern Lights/Blueberry, and the other is a Frisian Dew. All the clones have been going now for about three - four weeks. The Master Kush seed I never wrote down the date it popped so I'm going to guess about 5 weeks on the MK.

To my delightful surprise, two days ago the MK started busting pre-flowers - it's a girl!!! And a beautiful looking one at that!!



I think they've all grown enough now. I've done a lot of LST'ing and a FIM on both the MK and the Frisian.. They look wonderful. I'm going to start the 12/12 tonight!!! Can't wait!!!

Some pics:

The Master Kush




The Frisian Dew



The Northern Lights - not doing as good as the others, but still doing OK.


Also I planted two Butterscotch Hawaiian x G13 skunks.. They're both 12 days old (12 days since popped out of soil). I'm going to move them to a veg box today so they can keep vegging while the others are budding.

Here's the two Butterscotches.



They've been under 400w HPS since popping.. But I keep them on the floor off to the side so they don't get too much light.. That one is looking great and is right at the surface of the soil. Interested to see how it turns out!!!

I also tried my hand at clones.. I took two clippings off the Frisian Dew yesterday. Today they look as green and healthy as if I just snipped them off. I have high hopes! My first clone attempts ever! Now I will have two clones of a clone. hahaaa


Also for Nutes I'm using the GH Flora three part series for hydroponics. That's all. I noticed a HUGE jump in plant life when I started that. Got all three in 32oz bottles off ebay for like $39 shipped.

And the grow closet - completely light proof using weather stripping and sticky sheets of felt from Wally World. Worked beautifully. Also threw on a locking door handle in case of any nosy guests. Off shot are a fan blowing from an intake hole in the wall which gets fed cold basement air, and a hole up in the ceiling with an exhaust fan blowing into the attic. No carbon filters or any of that crap. I'm in a single family house and with venting to the attic I don't think smell will be much of an issue. Not to mention it's only a few plants at a time..




that's about it!!! Switching to 12/12 and will keep this thread updated with pics and progress.. Thanks to all for all the great help I've gotten while reading these forums!!!!

I also wanted to ask - Anyone with the HTGsupply 400w HPS light? Does the ballast get very hot? The black part you can't even touch your hand to for more than a second or two.. Is this normal? I have fans in there, and the temps are low.. The exhaust is about a foot above the ballast anyway.. I just want to make sure that it's *supposed* to get that hot. Thanks And what's up, no love for my grow?!

Looking Nice Potberto..I have the 400 watt from HTG and the ballast does indeed get too hot too touch, Its not a defect, just how the cheaper ballasts work..Looking forward to this log..

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Coool - figured, thanks!

And the two Frisian clippings I took on the 4th are still bright green and standing high two days later... HOPING that it was a success for my first try!

Wish I could vent to my attic...way to much work from the basement tho.. I can actually touch my ballast and it is as warm as laptop after being on for a bit, I would never call it hot tho. I went with a digital switchable kind so not sure if that helped. Hope your clones take root!

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Potberto, I dunno if I had the same ballast: a 400 watt Digital Greenhouse from HTG. It was a metallic lavender color, though. Not "switchable" but works with HPS or MH.

It did get hot enough to be uncomfortable to hang onto. If the heat's a problem, the ballast goes outside the flower room. And if it's "finned" you can mount the ballast so the fins run vertically. (Creates little convection currents as the warm air rises along the fins.)

I wanted to ask ya, what is the ring-looking thing around the stem of the NL? Are you doing a drip-feed or something?

And, an observation ; when your Master Kush starts gettng rootbound, you can remove most of your drainage material (stones, whatever) from the bottom of the pot. Leave just enough to keep your new soil from dribbling out the drain hole; I just put one small stone blocking each hole to leave as much room for new soil as possible. Add enough new soil to raise the plant up so the top of the rootball is within an inch (or less, depending how you water) of the top of the pot. You should be able to get quite a bit of fresh soil under, and around, the rootball with it raised up a bit. New roots should populate that area quickly, so you won't have stagnant water/nutes sitting there.

This way, the plant gets the benefit of an upward transplant, but in the same footprint. Buys an extra week or two before a "real" transplant to a larger pot is necessary. I like to keep that area of moist air trapped in the top space of the pot to a minimum, so I keep my soil level pretty close to the top of the pot.

Your plants look nice, though. I think you're out to smash your old yield record.

That yellow thing? If that's waht you're talking about it's a standing sticky gnat trap.. I've had a few in the closet and trying to keep them out. It's been working but still a few stragglers. If they're not gone a week or two into flowering I'll go with some sort of soil treatment.

Not 100% sure on what you mean - Are you talking about the FD clippings I took? Or the MK plant in the first few pics? If you're talking the MK I wasn't planning on doing a transplant any more - that was going to be his final pot. Do you think they're too small? They're each 2.5gl I believe.. Should I repot them?
Thanks!

Day two of flowering.. Everything looking A-OK.

The two FD clippings I took are still bright green and standing up nicely. It's been over three days for them - can I assume they're OK and are currently rooting? Or can there still be probs?

Started the two Butterscotches on a light mix of nutrients this morning too..

Truckin along!

Bump - Just wondering if I should repot these? The NL and FD is in a 2.5gl, and I think the MK is a 2gl.. Just turned 12/12 yesterday..
thanks

Fuck it, repotted it. It's in a 3.5gl or so pot.. Not 100% sure on size, but definitely bigger than the 2.5 and by a good bit. I want to find one more bigger pot and do up the Frisian - I'll keep the NL in the 2.5 since it's smallish anyway.

I did it quick and lowest stress possible. Cut the other pot off of it and slid it right in the new one. Less than 3 min total.

Did it look rootbound?...if so...you did the right thing at the right time, the right way....

Never fiddlefuck around when transplanting....

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No, this:

lights.jpg

It almost looks like the rim of a peat pot.

I'd take a look at the roots, and if it's rootbound, pot up. If not, I'd at least add more soil and set it up higher in the pot it's in.

In fact, that's what I'd do with all of them. Don't worry about stressing the plants when you transplant them. Done right, they love it. Done wrong, it's still possibly better that leaving it severely rootbound. Your soil chemistry will quickly become unmanageable.

Woops, still typing and DP has chimed in. What he said, too. ^^^

high...Hermie...

Yes, the bottom of the MK bush was definitely thick with white roots! I guess it was the right thing to do. There's a good 5" or so of new soil underneath and a couple around the edges..

Will do the same to the Frisian ASAP.

Thanks again for help.

That Master Kush is starting to smell like a dirty whore!!!

Oh, and Hermie - that was what it was in when my buddy was cloning them. He was doing hydro. It's filled with the brown balls.. The roots were coming out of it so crazy I just left it in there. The Frisian is in the same thing. The Master is straight soil from seed.

Woke up this morning and beautiful Mrs. Kush is nice and green and standing tall at attention. It appears the re-pot had no ill-effects on this old lady!!

Going to try to find a bigger pot today for the Frisian.

Also, my Frisian clippings that I took four days ago are still bright green and standing tall in their party cups (with a clear lid). Is it safe to assume at this point that all is going well with the rooting? They're being rooted in 50/50 mix of perlite and vermiculite. Should I rinse that out and take a look to see if it has roots? Or should I just let it go and not worry about it just yet? I'm just not sure when it is OK to put them in a normal pot and go about their normal lives...

Thanks!!!

Drill extra drain holes in any and all pots. Party cups, too......when you see roots coming out the drain holes its time to transplant..(during vegging cycle)

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Got it.. Nothing that I can see yet. The two clippings are still bright green though!

I did repot the Frisian Dew this morning too.. Just a little bit bigger pot - that was all I had. For my next grow I want a few 3.5gl SQUARE pots. Can't find square ones anywhere!!!

The two Butterscotches are looking magnificent. I have high hopes for them

Potberto, I just gave away the last of my square pots. Some expert had written, "I prefer the square pots because they fit together with no wasted space" so I tried them.

But what's important is not how the pots nestle together, but how the tops of the plants fit together to form a continuous canopy. The corners on them dang square pots are a real PIA when you're trying to spin plants around in close quarters. The amount of "extra" soil contained in those corners was not worth the flexibility lost in not being able to turn the plants easily.

At least that's how it worked out for me.

Hey, Dutch--thanks.

I gotta spread some rep before I can hit you back.

Hmm, never thought about it that way.. Makes sense..

Now can you tell me - how do I fast forward 6 weeks?

Yep.

Switch to coco.

Are you talking the coconut soil? I read a little about that, I might have to look into it further for next time...

Going on day 5 of 12/12 cycle. All are looking great. The MK is really starting to bush a bit.. The NL have some looooong pistils shooting out. Lookin good! No new pics, maybe tomorrow morning I'll grab a few.

Wow lots of Colas How many times did you top/fim?

I'm hopin so

The FD just grew crazy like that. It must have 30-40 potential bud sites. I did FIM one branch just to try, now there's three in it's spot..

The Master Kush I really only LST'd. All the shoots coming up are from that. I did FIM one node, but it only split in to two.

They're definitely healthy!

If you have to transplant any of them upwards, just do it into coco. I did a log...

Coco vs FFOF mid-veg conversion:

I continued the experiment and flowered those plants--one stayed in soil, the other in coco. The coco yield was about double, even though they were switched over rather late.

And it's not soil. It's just shredded up coconut husks, kinda like rope fibers(?)... hard to describe. But virtually inert. You are basically growing in hydro--you use hydro nutes...