First Tent Grow Fastberry Auto Fem In Soil

growguyphd;3234691 said:

1/04/2017

I assembled my LA Garden 4x4x7 tent today. It was super easy to assemble. The shell was somewhat cumbersome as I was doing it alone, but not unmanageable. Total time to build tent and hang a four foot eight lamp Hydroplanet T5 was about an hour and a half. I was shocked how much space the single tent takes up, especially since I have one more to put up and planed on using a total of three….I won’t be using three.
This is the first time I have grown indoors. I am excited to be able to start growing in January instead of waiting till April to start and not ending until October.

1/7/2017
I have added 6 seedlings to my garden. They are under 200 watts of light. As fate would have it the temperatures have plummeted to low twenties during the day and teens to single digits at night. So, keeping the temp up called for the addition of a larger heater in the tent. The location of the tent is a large barn that is mostly uncontrolled climate.
For the time being I am hand watering. My plan is to use an automated drip irrigation system. I want to use gravity feed so I don’t have to worry about power interruptions or the added complexity. All of this could change of course, as I am learning as I go.

1/9/2017
Today I received three FastberryAuto beans, and promptly got them into some rock wool and under the light. I had given up on this order showing up. I emailed the company with no reply and had moved on. Well to my surprise it was here today. It took eighteen days, after I got the order shipped email, to arrive.

1/11/2017
I took the rock wool cubes out from under a two foot two lamp and moved them to the tent and under a four foot eight lamp. The temp of the tent is seventy -four or so. I still have four seedlings in the same tent they are about four inches tall. They are in there because I needed something to do. I am still hand watering.

1/14/2017 Day 1
Two of the three fastberry have germed and are the cutest one inch tall plants.

My first attempt at automating my watering has failed. The setup is good, but only five gallons of water in thirty-gallon reservoir does not provide enough presser even though the reservoir is three feet off the ground. I should add that I am running it thru a battery-operated control valve, that requires twenty psi to operate.

I started using the Humboldt Nutrients Three Part system. At a rate of one point five ml per gallon of each Grow, Micro, and Bloom.

The seedlings I started just to stay busy were starting to become a pale yellow. They still looked healthy, just wanting some nitrogen I would suspect.

Humidity is starting to become an issue even at this early stage. Although I do not need a fan to control heat, I believe using a fan to control humidity would help. If not I will invest in a dehumidifier.


1/16/2017
It appears, I have controlled the humidity issue for the time being by opening two of the floor level vents on the tent.


1/21/2017 Day 7
One week since the two fast berry popped up and the third one appears to be a dud. The two that are growing are looking nice. Still feeding at a rate of one point five ml per gallon of Humboldt nutrients three-part system. Still do not have the aid of thermostat controlled heating. We are having unusually warm weather and that has made maintaining a constant temp has been troublesome.

1/28/2017 Day 14
The plants are growing well and have put on three sets of leaves. There are two leaves with a yellow place on them. I am still hand watering with ph 6.8 water with 1.5 ml of the Humboldt nutrients three part system. The bag seed plants I started just for fun are doing well and I am puzzled by how bushy and crazy they are developing. I topped them rather early in development and they have responded well. The plant at left is one of the four plants from bag seed.
The Fast berry autos are new to me so I don’t know what they should look like so I am going to say they are fine except for the yellow spots.

1/29/2017 Day 15
The yellow spots are worse! Being as this is my first indoor grow I am worried about everything. It looks like spidermite bites but that does not make any sense. This is a new tent, new pots, new soil, grown from seed. If not mites I am going with Phousphourus defiency. These pics are of the plant pictured above and on the right. The other auto in the tent does not show any of these signs. You can see in the pics I have started to LST the plants. My plan is to treat for mites and I will increase the amount of nutrients this week anyway as per schedule so if it is a nute problem that should help.

02/04/2017 Day 21
Plants look well. They both are growing vigorously. The plant I call “Betty” is improving regarding the yellow and brown spotting problem. I am continuing to hand activate the drippers to water plants with a HN three part at a rate of 2ml of micro and grow and 1ml of bloom. The plants are very bushy. I must end this post by writing that I found the top of Betty had broken off. I guess my training was to aggressive. I will use this unhappy event to determine if topping an auto flower is of any benefit.

02/08/2017
Wilma and Betty are doing great! I am new at autos but I would say they are starting to transition into flower. They seem to also be entering a growth spurt. Wilma has almost covered the top of 7 gal. pot.

The top pic is Wilma the other is Betty.
Today I upped the amount of nutrients I add to water. 7.5 ml of grow and 5ml of bloom and micro. I acted on advice of a local shop owner who recommended adding Terpinator. I mixed in 10ml of it. I also added in 5ml of Ginormous. All these rates are per gallon. We will see how it goes but so far I am pleased with the results compared to the amount of time I have to give my garden. Truth be told, more than 2/3 of the time I spend tending things is not due to necessity but because I enjoy the time spent with the process.
I should also mention I am using low stress training (LST). Not alot to do with them other than holding the top down and guiding its grow path not much else at this point to tend to. So even LST isnt consuming much time.

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