Hey all, noob gardener excited to finally be able to get started on my first grow. I wanted to document my experience and share with the community. Please feel free to offer any tips or tricks or if I'm doing something wrong please let me know.
Strains
Seeds by Nirvana Seeds sold by Seedsman.
White Widow Auto x1
Girl Scout Cookies Auto x2
Equipment
Tent - Vivosun 4x4x6.5
Light - LED Bestva DC 2000W
Medium/Nutrients
Soil - FoxFarm Ocean Forest
Nutes - FoxFarm trio, cal/mag, Great White micros, molasses
Germination
Paper towel method - soaked in shot glasses for 24 hours prior to placing in paper towels. Each had half inch taproot within 48 hours of being in the paper towels. Each then planted into the medium in 3 gal fabric pots with a sprinkle of Great White. Each sprouted within 72 hours.
* I made the mistake of adding too much water to the soil when planting, it was moist enough from being a new bag and I didn't need any more. This made it take a very long time for the soil to dry causing the seedlings to be droopy for a few days. Once the soil dried they perked back up.
Seedlings 3-4 days old
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Week 12 - Final week
Harvested the White Widow. GSCs still drying but are very close. Dry closet still at 55% RH and 67-73F.
My bag seed plant is ready for transplant to a 5 gal from the current 2 gal. My plan is after the transplant to take a few clone cuttings and make clones while my next crop of Autos are seedlings. Once the autos are flowering the clones should be done and moved to a friend's house. I'll then switch to a 12/12 and flower the mother with the Autos. Hopefully a 12/12 won't affect the autos yield too much, part of the experiment.
Week 11 -
Super boring week lol. GSCs are still drying, probably need a few more days. Closet has been maintaining at 58% RH and 69°f so drying is a nice slow rate.
White Widow still needs another week. Upper section is about 75% cloudy trichomes and the lower sections are 50%.
Also been getting my bag seed plant shaped by practicing FIMing along with LST and lollipoping. It has taken a nice shape with 10 tops and is about ready for a final transplant before flowering, however I still don't know the sex. Since all my other plants are harvested there's no risk to flower it now but I'd hate to waste soil on a transplant for a male.
Curious if you have the final yield numbers yet? Once again nice! So awesome!
Congrats on a successful harvest!
White Widow final week
Week 10 -
And then there was one. Harvested the Girl Scout Cookies today. All the hard work of the past 2.5 months is about to pay off, but now the next few weeks will be critical or it will all be wasted.
White Widow should be ready next weekend, then time to start the next crop.
Plants are looking amazing man. I've enjoyed following your first grow. I just reached the 4 week mark give or take and your posts have helped me guage where I'm at. Nice job!!
Week 9
Definitely getting close to the end. Lowered RH to 35% which is just what my house is. Did a full flush on all plants and then a full dose of Bloom nutes for final push. They'll all get plain water rest of the way.
Also my bag seed that sprouted back on Xmas really starting to take off. I had a failed attempt at FIMing it and didn't get enough lol, I'll try again soon.
White Widow
Week 8-
Buds starting to fatten up. Lowered RH to 40%.
Week 7 -
Getting closer to the end. Supposed to be 10 weeks for GSC and maybe 12 for WW. The girls are all in full flower now and looking good. Finally starting to get get caught up on nutes.
RH 45%, 79/70°f, light at about 700-800 PAR.
Day 50
Week 6 -
Got my ph back in a good place with all at 6.5-6.7. Fed GSCs nitrogen and they've gotten some green back but seem a little hungry for more as still some yellowing.
Lowered RH to 45 for flowering.
White Widow Day 36
Week 5 -
Still dealing with some deficiencies that I believe are due to ph being too low. I was able to get the ph a little better today when watering to now 6.35. My cheap ph meter from vivosun died as well today lol, got a nice one now. Hopefully now that I have my ph better it will end the calcium lockout and allow for better phosphorus uptake.
Also did a dose of Grow today, girls are looking pretty lime green indicating needing nitrogen. Runoff PPM a little higher than I'd like at 1200 but hopefully in soil it will be fine. These Autoflowers are tough to gauge because they are vegging and flowering all at once.
Raise light every other day or so maintaining between 28-30 inches over canopy. RH avg 53, Day temp max 80, night low 72.
GSC 1 doing very well with training and maintaining a nice evening canopy. GSC 2 also training well, nice quite as open but still a nice bush. White Widow I ended up needing to tie down to keep more even with others. She is not real happy in general but still forming a nice main cola. Hopefully she'll start doing better with ph corrections.
Day 37
I think I know how ph got out of range. I was adding my Great White after doing my ph, not realizing that GW drops the ph. So I thought I was putting in 6.5 and was actually putting in 6.
Deficiency update -
After a runoff test I'm thinking a ph issue could be the problem. Ph was around 6.1-6.2, which I see is right on the boarder for phosphorus and may be slightly too low for calcium. My plan next watering is to use ph7.0 to bring it back to 6.5ish, this will be in a couple days. PPM was good at around 900, soil week 5.
Week 4 - deficiency
I noticed the very slow progression of a deficiency a day or two after a plain water day. They are due for a feeding in a couple days so holding until then.
I have a theory this may be a potassium deficiency. Starts as light colored spots on leaf tips/edges but can also form in middle of leaf like shown below. The affected leaf also has a purple/red stem (all other healthy stems are green). Eventually the affected leaf yellow (last Pic). What do you all think? They are going to get a feeding in a day or two that should correct. All they have had so far is one 1/4 dose of Grow over a week ago, and then a couple doses of cal/mag, molasses, great white. I also noticed that the Ocean Forest soil has very little potassium to start.
Week 4 -
Lots of new growth, LST taking very well on the GSCs and they are really bushing out. The Widow has really been fighting the training so I took it off. I decided for my first grow I wanted one to grow naturally for comparison. I may end up training if it gets too much taller than the others.
A deficiency has emerged as well, more on that below in next comment.
Also just for fun (and practice) I planted a bag seed, it ended up sprouting on Christmas day. Hopefully ends up female.
Day 30
GSC 1 Day 29 with multiple good bud sites.
GSC 2 Day 28 remove one fan leaf to open the middle up more.
White Widow Day 30
Your plants look great. Just started some autos of our own. I really nervous about LST, I've done some on feminized before, but not autos. Please help. Do you bend the mainstream over continuously, how far, when do you start? Can you top? Is it suggested? Lighting? I put in an auto with some feminized before and didn't realize it. Grew it like a fem. And was wondering why that one was changing. So i flipped the lights 12-12. But I didn't know shit then, and probably still don't. But I try, and ask questions. Getting THE BOOK for x-mas. I like your guys and gals input. Thank you...
Week 3 LST
White Widow Day 21
This girl is a little smaller and slower growing so her first tie didn't take well, so a re-tie a couple days later looks better.
Day 23 LST after/before re-tie