Cerdito's Soil Autocheese Closet Grow

Cerdito

New Member
Hello people,

First I would like to say thankyou all, I may not have posted, or asked any questions, but I have been lurking here for quite a while, and you have answered all my questions! Didn't even need to ask them, because it seems if there is a question about growing the happy weed, it has already been asked here:thumb:

So, I have taken all that information, and I finally have some babies growing in my closet. Weed babies, not real ones.

I only had 100 Euros to set up, so I spent my whole budget on the light and extraction and some good seeds. I am starting with the two freebies I got from Nirvana, who were amazingly good and I would recommend them to anyone (They gave me a second autofem just because I asked nicely - top guys.) After these autofems have got a grow under my belt I will be moving on to a Sensi Skunk#1 and a White Label Northern Lights.

I was going to go with CFLs, but after lots of research figured to get a worthy set up would pretty much cost almost as much as getting a cheap HPS and I would be able to do less at a time, making it more expensive over a long period. I guess a light is a pretty important part of growing, so it seemed to make sense to spend most of the budget there, and on making sure it was sufficiently ventilated. I know soil is important too, but lots of what I read online seemed to suggest Tomato soil will be fine. Because I spent all my money on a light and nice seeds, everything else is scrounged, begged, borrowed or found.

So here are my vital stats.

Bucket Size - 10 litres - old paint buckets.
Medium - Now, some plain old garden soil for sprouting, next week, some tomato soil with added compost and perlite.
Lights - 250w HPS
Nutrients - Generic tomato feed.
Strain(s) - 2 x Dinafem Critical Cheese Auto.

2 days ago I planted the seeds directly in the garden dirt, and today they are happily striving towards the ceiling. They are fascinating. I have spent almost the entire day watching them from a tiny little white 'u' shape into proper little plants! Though as you can see in the pics, one is still wearing his seed like a little penis, is this normal? The Hps seems to dry the soil out very quickly, so I have been resisting the temptation not to turn it into a swamp in there.

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I have a fairly unusual situation, in that I don't have central heating, I live in a very cold country, in a single roomed house with my boyfriend. We only have a wood stove for heating, so if we sleep, the room gets cold. That was another reason for going HPS, I am hoping in the night the light will keep the babies warm enough. We are doing 18/6, and making the 6 hours off from 5 to 11 in the evening, so the room will be warm in this time and not let them freeze.
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Thatš the room, taken from our bed, with the old wardrobe as our grow room. Is it right in my thinking that because we live in one room, sleep here, and have a wood burning stove, we will give out lots of yummy Co2 for the plants?

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With the door open. I am keeping them low for the first few days so as not to burn them, then I will turn the case on its side to give them more height - then they will be 18 inches from the light - I just hope they can cope with the tempereature there.

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Thatš how it looks in there now, with a little house fan there for when they get a bit bigger. Thatš cress growing at the back, and some pots of basil, mint oregano and chamomile:love:

The suitcase is only temporary until they get into their big pots.

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There is the light, with part of the reflector moved up to vent directly to the fan, which outlets onto the roof of the closet, but will soon go through into our attic. The heat rises massively with the light on, I am glad we bought the fan.

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Thatš where it exhausts, and the ballast there on top of the cupboard - far too hot in there otherwise.

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Thatš our intake, it is moveable, so when it gets too hot in the cupboard, we can have it sucking cold air from the door, where it is in the pic, or move it back to the stove if it gets too cold in the cupboard.

I am misting occasionally with weak chamomile tea, and when they get a bit bigger I will mix that with urine for watering, and maybe sprinkle a mix of egg shells and ash sometimes. Other than that, we hope that our lovely compost soil will have enough nutrients and I don't love them to death before then. :circle-of-love:

Well, that is day one described, if I remember anything else I will add more.

So what do you think? Am I on the right track? Is there any advice you could give me, or things you notice that I am doing wrong? We really want this first grow to work, because we would love some medecine and it is almost impossible to buy here. If we only get 5g off of each of these plants we will still be in profit over buying it on the street!

Thanks guys

Lena
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Thanks King John, much appreciated!

Well, here is day two.

It is incredible! So amazing to watch how quickly they are stretching for the light and the world.

The seed shell of number 2, or Zānē as we call her, has fallen off now, and she is slightly bigger than Līja, but they are both doing well.

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I have my big pots ready, when would people suggest transplanting them? I figure I should do it soon to minimise their stress, but not too soon else they won't have roots enough? I am a little scared, I am attached to our babies!

As for soil, I have one bag that is NPK 11/8/20, and the other one is 12/14/24. I plan to mix those with the compost from my garden pile in roughly a third of each one to my pot, plus a few handfuls of perlite each. This is fine?

Thanks,

Lena
 
Ooh, just wanted to add something.

This is my first ever grow, so I am hapy to accept advice or comments from anyone and about anything, but in particular,

Has anyone grown Dinafem's Critical Cheese Autoflower? I did a google search, but found no smoke reports, no grow reports...nothing. :(

It would be nice to know what Zānē and Līja are going to grow up like!

x
 
Thanks very much Ricorico for noticing me :)

Sorry, English isn't my first language and google translate doesn't seem to be any help - what is zinc pot?

Thanks again, really nice:D


And....anyone...any advice on whether to transplant now, or wait? I'll put pictures up when I get out of bed. Now it is Sunday, and my littel girls are growing in my cupboard quietly, and I am quietly and happily recovering in my bed :)

xx
 
Thanks for that King John, I have been 'umming' and 'aahing' about that all week. It seems the plants are rather good at growing by themselves...I think any problems they face will be me wanting to play and interfere too much rather than their own!

My plan for transplanting them to my big pots was simply to cut the little pots off, and then place the entire 'lump' of soil straight into a little dip in the soil of the big pot. I thought this would be the littlest amount of stress for my little ladies. Is this a good idea, or would anyone recommend different?

It is day four now, and as you can see in pictures, Zānē has her second set of leaves growing, and Līja has just a tiny little bump showing where they want to come, but she has much more developed first set.

I've been keeping temps in between 60 at night, and 85 during the day. I know this is a bit bigger swing than is recommended, but because of the up and down nature of heating a cold house with a wood stove, this is as good as I am managing. I guess these plants do not have a constant temperature growing in the wild, so maybe it will make them nice and strong I hope.

The soil PH is 6.6, and I have been watering a little each day, just to stop the soil from drying out totally - the light seems to steal all the moisture from the soil.

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Zānē

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Līja

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This is how they sit now, it is the closest I can get to the lamp - this is good enough to stop them stretching too much?


We had our first really hard frost of the year this morning - water inside the house was frozen in cups, so now temperature control is getting more difficult!




When I planted our seeds, I did so according to some traditions that are not in Jorge Cervantes, or any grow bible for that matter, but I thought maybe some of you would find the concept interesting....here is the quote from a wonderful book called ''Anastasia.''


“Every seed you plant contains within itself an enormous amount of information about the Universe. Nothing made by human hands can compare with this information either in size or accuracy. Through the help of these data the seed knows the exact time, down to the millisecond, when it is to come alive, grow — what juices it is to take from the Earth, how to make use of the rays of the celestial bodies — the Sun, Moon and stars, what it is to grow into, what fruit to bring forth.

“These fruits are designed to sustain Man's life. More powerfully and effectively than any manufactured drugs of the present or future, these fruits are capable of counteracting and withstanding any disease of the human body.

“But to this end the seed must know about the human condition. So that during the maturation process it can satiate its fruit with the right correlation of substances to heal a specific individual of his disease, if indeed he has it or is prone to it.

“In order for the seed of a cucumber, tomato or any other plant grown in one’s plot to have such information, the following steps are necessary:

“Before planting, put into your mouth one or more little seeds, hold them in your mouth, under the tongue, for at least nine minutes.
“Then place the seed between the palms of your hands and hold it there for about thirty seconds. During this time it is important that you be standing barefoot on the spot of earth where you will later be planting it.

“Open your hands, and carefully raise the seed which you are holding to your mouth. Then blow on it lightly, warming it with your breath, and the wee little seed will know everything that is within you.

“Then you need to hold it with your hands open another thirty seconds, presenting the seed to the celestial bodies. And the seed will determine the moment of its awakening. The planets will all help it! And will give the sprouts the light they need to produce fruit especially for you.

“After that you may plant the seed in the ground. In no case should you water it right off, so as not to wash away the saliva which is now covering it, along with other information about you that the seed will take in. It can be watered three days after planting.

“The planting must be done on days appropriate to each vegetable (people already know this, from the lunar calendar). In the absence of watering, a premature planting is not as harmful as an overdue planting.



According to Anastasia, the seed is thus able to take in information about the person who plants it, and then during the cultivation of its fruit it will pick up from the Universe and the Earth the optimum blend of energies needed for a given Man - in this way I hope to make lovely plants who will take care of us like we take care of them!


xx

PS - if anyone sees this thread, please could you take a minute or two to point out errors, or say what is right and wrong, because this is our first grow of this kind of plant, and it would be nice to have some little guidance from experts:) A little bit of nice hand holding.

Thanks
 
Well, it is transplant day, it is miserable and wet outside, so the pictures will be a bit dark, but I am now summoning the courage to get my girls a new home.

Here are the last two pics in their starter home...they are doing well and seem 100% healthy this morning, so if they look any worse after this I know it is nothing but my fault!

Wish me luck!!!

xxx
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Zānē
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Līja
 
Well....they are in the soil. All I can do now is cross my fingers and hope that I did it well.

Here was my method, what do you think?

I took two of the biggest pots I could find in our shed - I think they must be at least 20 litres each, to give Zānē and Līja lots and lots of lovely space to grow. Then I took a hammer and a pointy thing, and knocked lots of holes in the bottoms for drainage.

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These are the soils I used.
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sorry, no English text on this one - it says ''contains necessary organic materials and a complete set of minerals.'' ''Contains specially prepared substrate, specially prepared compost mulch and lime.''

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they are obviously not specific for my plants, but I think they are good no? I mixed them fifty fifty and then added about the same amount of compost as each, so it is one third of each kind of soil. My compost is good and rich and old, and fully vegetable waste. I also added some drainage stones liberraly through the mix. I kept it very loose, and misted each layer with a spray (I was trying to think like light rain, not a hosepipe or a downpour. :)) When they were full I made sure a little water dropped from the holes, and left them to stand in my light for an hour or so to let them sit and dry a bit.


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There we are full

Then I scooped a little hole in the middle. I made sure that around the hole was the same soil that they had been potted in, so they don't have too much shock going into it. It gets heavier on compost as they go deeper - I guessed they should get stronger and more able to cope as they get older and bigger.

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And then cut my little pots open down each side and removed one side and the bottom. We have many of these pots so I thought it would be less risk for hurting the girls and breaking up their roots - it was amazing how many roots they have in just a week! They were to the bottom of the pot and curling around the sides a bit.

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Then I just put them in the hole, patted them a bit, gave them a misting and put them back in their house!

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Job done, now I just have to wait and hope they are happy.

Is it normal for them to be a bit stressed and stop growing, or have bad effects now, or should they just carry on nice and normal?

xxx
 
Oh dear, I have plenty of work to do but I seem to be stuck in a grow journal reading spiral. It seems to happen every time I post something here - that ''ooh, Iļl just have a peep at that one''....then two hours later.....


King John, I was just reading your LA Confidential - very cool. I like how professional and tidy everything you have looks. If I can't do it with a hammer it doesn't get done :s
 
Haha, I understand now! I thought Zinc was a kind of metal so I was confused. But thanks for the pointers anyway - all is appreciated!

The new bigger pot is metal, but it is enamelled, so I think it should be fine - it has had lots of plants in before, just none of these varieties!

Thankxxx
 
Well, I now know loads more than I did about lots of things I didn't need to know - ebb and flow, resevoirs, SCROG tips, advanced nutrient regimes - when I have a pair of freebie autoflowers growing in my wardrobe and no money. :)

I may have learned about lots of beautiful posh techniques for getting 10oz plus from a plant etc (thanks Capn) but I have been concerned with a smaller issue.

Does anyone else put bits of card over their pots like this to stop them drying out so quickly? It is just card so it shouldnt cause mould, and I figure it will help reflect more light too?

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Thankx xxx
 
Haha, my family have a long history of growing cucumbers and potatoes but that's about as far as it gets! I can't wait till summer is here and I can take the show outside and use our generations of garden knowledge :) We have lovely space, and I think from May to August we will be able to grow our NL and Skunk lovely. But before then baby needs weed ASAP! So I should concentrate on the ladies in my closet.

So....No, it was just that I've read enough to terrify myself about the dangers of overwatering, so I was trying to keep the soil damp. I think the closet is very very dry, the soil seems parched of water in minutes! But thanks for the input.

Much appreciated

x
 
Oh dear, sorry, no updates today, spent the whole day pretty much struggling with my cabinet instead.

As you can see, I had the pots up at a nice distance, but for some reason, despite a fan blowing on the lamp, and 12.5cm extractor fan sucking my air out, I cannot keep the temperature below 80 degrees. Itš been up to 94 today, which is 10 degrees hotter than the room.

Because we have a wooden stove in here, the temp fluctuates a lot. From 60-90 is normal. So, if the cab gets hot and it starts sucking in 90 degree air, it causes a problem. The air also rises to that direction, so the cab is in the hottest place in the room. We are cold in one corner, and the cabinet is cooking.

Soooo, I've tried everything I can think of with it, every combination of fan, tubing, height, and the only thing I can do is leave them at the very bottom of the cabinet, nearly 35 inches from the light. I am not happy with this, so I am looking for alternatives.

We cannot move the cupboard as it is attached to the wall, and we have no other cabinets.

What we do have, is what used to be the other half of our house in summer - we don't use it in winter, because it is too expensive in wood to heat both rooms. It can get down to about 35 degs in there at nightI guess, not much above freezing in the middle of winter. What I was thinking is I could build a small, well insulated cab in there and keep the lights on 24/0 to keep the box warm - now I've seen that the light has a lot of potential to build up heat I wondered if that would keep the plants at an acceptable temperature. With a little cab and the lights close, with the cold exhaust air I may stand a chance?

I'm dumbfounded with the cab I have in this room, just completely failing to keep it at an acceptable temperature. I think my plants are a little slow because of over heat - but they don't show any damage :)

I will try and update properly soon.

xx

Any ideas or motivational speeches? I'm down at this.
 
after a transplant you will notice in several days your plants will begin growing again. I would not keep an auto flower cannabis plant under 24 hours of light, the roots and plant will grow much slower. 35 inches from your light is too far from the light. you may need a set of rope ratchets to raise and lower your light.

Rope Ratchet Light Hangers � Individual-1/4 in.


here are some charts that show Lumens versus distance from the light bulb, they do not take heat into account


Metal_Halide_chart.jpg



HPS_chart.jpg



High_Intensity_Light_Coverage.jpg



grow-room-light-distances.jpg



HPSGraphPAR.jpg
 
Thanks for the Sub Mr Nugs!


And Mr King John

'' I would not keep an auto flower cannabis plant under 24 hours of light, the roots and plant will grow much slower. 35 inches from your light is too far from the light. you may need a set of rope ratchets to raise and lower your light.'

Yes- this is my problem - I have a room that is too hot and the lights have to be too far away to keep the plants cool

or

I have a room that is too cold but I could keep the lights on to keep the plants warm.

In an ideal world I would have one 75 degree room with my lights as close to the plants as possible for 18/6! But as this is a very countryside grow the conditions is not ideal :)

May just have to try keeping our room colder and wearing more clothes. lol The babies must come first!

Thanks, will update with some pics today when I have worked out an answer to our problems.

xx
 
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