Beginner's Lessons

[Venom]

So I finished my first grow and my results were mixed. of 7 plants, I had three males. (Left me with 4 plants) Then  I have one go Hermie. (Left me with 3 plants) Then the one just died. So I was down to 2 plants. One was a beaut and was harvested. The other was put into my makeshift ICU, which it seems to love! So my post is simple. When we start, we read up, we buy stuff and we hope. But, we do things wrong, things that we could have avoided, but did not. Here is my advice (From my first grow) to new growers:

 

Water - water less than you think you should. I have 5 seedlings growing now (3 in soil, 2 in Coco) I water the coco plants once every 5 days with a small amount of water (like 100ml) and the soil plants, I water every 5-7 days. This will become more frequent when they get bigger and need more water. On my first grow I over-watered and it cost me! (And use Vermiculite or perlite to help with aeration)

 

Nutes - I enriched my soil on my newest grow with a whole bunch of organic additives bought from Horticultural stores. They were all added in moderation, not too much. The problem in my first grow was I tried to force feed the plants with nutes. I added nutes at every opportunity and again.....it cost me! Less is better. I thought if I pumped the plants with nutes, I would get a bigger yield, better buds....well not entirely. I nearly killed my plants with N toxicity. Whatever the nutrient bottle says, do not exceed it. Not until you are a master at growing. Keep it simple and give very small amounts of nutes. Use quality nutes. I made the initial mistake of buying African Violet nutes, Orchid nutes, Rose nutes....what a waste. Find a dedicated Horticultural store that specialises in Hyrdoponics, they will have the correct nutes.

 

Lights - I was on a budget so I used CFL. (Compact Fluorescent lighting) Each light was attached to a cable that I could raise as the plant grew. My first mistake was keeping the bulb too far from the plant. The plants stretched to get to the light and I had weak stems after that. Now, on my recent grow, my bulbs are about 1-2 inches from the plant. I have fat thick stems and big leaves. There is a little heat stress, but i can manage that by lifting the lights about 2-4mm when I see that. I have a nice big MH and HPS lighting system due any day now. Once the seedlings get a little bit bigger, I will move them over to the bigger light (Without hurting them....I'll be starting off on about 250w and working my way up toward 600w as they grow). Obviously I was concerned about the CFL's not being strong enough as I bought the bigger system. You can use CFL's, I did in my first grow. So what I learned about CFL's is that they MUST be close to the plant. As the plant grew, I introduced more CFL bulbs. BUT AGAIN!!!! I failed to put the lights close enough. AGGHHH! Anyway, we learn....

 

Soil - Don't use crap! Don't make the mistakes I made. My first time was potting soil at R30 a bag. I added perlite. All I got was a compact solid mass. This time, I bought German soil at R99 a bag, added Perlite, Vermiculite, even put in Leca. Added Worm castings, bone meal, etc. All in moderation. If you use soil, DON'T USE CRAPPY SOIL!!

 

Pots - I have moved away from round funnel shaped pots and am using square non-funnel shaped pots. In other words, as the pot moves down, it does not taper in. I saw this on YouTube and am trying this out. There was a concerns about the funneling down and the round shape affecting the roots.

 

Lights and Timing - I have invested so much into my growing now, how can I not protect myself against ESKOM??? When I was in flower, I ran my lights from 22h00 - 09h00. I have a backup electrical system just in case the power goes, but it was never needed. The times that the lights went on and off were never affected by Eskom.

 

Heat - What I learned was try to run lights at night if the weather is hot. even with CFL's I struggled to bring the temp down. I had fans everywhere and I just could not bring it down. i have a mobile aircon, but I never used that. Once I moved the plants over to lights on at night, things improved. Now during winter, my lights are on at night to keep them warm. So it seems that lights on at night works for me.

 

Plant supports - I never use dowls or anything like that in my first grow and because the plants stretched, I had to insert dowls later. This was not good because the plant roots had to be damaged to insert the dowls. Now, my seedling are growing up with the dowls in place.

 

Smell - I had a carbon filter installed from day 1

 

Air - I have a small fan that blows air into the tent from outside. OBVIOUSLY, I don't run this in winter. I allow the extractor fan to cause a small 'vacuum' effect in the tent and this pulls cool air from outside in at a very moderate rate.

 

In all, the very best advice I can give from my first grow is; When it come to water and nutes....less is more. Yep, use less than you think you need. If you are starting for the first time, less is more.

 

Any addition to my post is welcome!

[wallis55]

Great post Venom.

I'm a first timer too, currently in the flowering process of a White Widow.

 

I've also made some of these same mistakes, but yeah, that's how we learn. Everybody was a newbie at some stage.

 

Safe,

Wallis

[Guest spootch]

Niiiiiiiice one !!!

[Heisenberg]

Wise words Venom. I would also add that it's wise to start with seeds or clones you got from a friend rather then spending lotsa money on good seeds and then wasting them.

 

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

 

 

[syk0t1k]

Going through a lot of these issues now, problem is as a first timer it's hard to recognize the problem as symptoms can be almost identical for different causes. Trial and error will fix that! Thank's for the post venom!!