Re: Magnus8's - Coco Coir - Big Bud & Pineapple Express - First Grow Ever! - Grow Jou
Good morning, All!
Welcome back to my journal. Got some really growing girls, here. Actually, they've been growing fairly slowly with all the changes that have been happening. Here's the rundown of what's been going on.
First of all, my wife-bot, Ginette (who is such a handy grrrrrrl with tools), built me a flood and drain system for my demented little girls (dlgs). All was going well, the system was built and installed in the closet... Had to drill holes in the bottom of our closet to accommodate the hoses and all. Considering this is a rented trailer, we decided that when we leave here we'll just put in a piece of carpet in the closet on the floor to ensure we get our damage deposit back!
Then we decided to test the system... Well! Forgot to test it with liquids BEFORE installing it. And of course it leaked like a sonofabitch. Well, not that bad, really. But it leaked nevertheless.
So out of the closet came the system and into the bathtub it went.
2 days later, we checked it again after using epoxy on it (all we had). Leak was gone, but the girls had been staying in the tent overnight and during the days while we were working on the flood and drain system. So we decided to just install it in the tent instead of the closet after all.
In other words, it became time to move the girls to the big tent when I had planned to do so in about 2 weeks instead of now.
So we raised the light up to the ceiling of the tent and then installed the table I had planned on using in there to save my back incredible pain from having to bend over all the time (I'll be installing a scrog before long, so this was not a problem of height to worry about).
Then we figured out that the table was too high for the maximum height of the light. So we detached the light and re-attached it using other cables than it had come with, in order to shorten the distance from the light to the top of the tent (to raise the light higher). THEN we installed the flood and drain system on the table, put the plants in there and set them to bed for the night.
That was last night.
This morning I tested the system and discovered that the floor of the trailer is crooked, and all the solution flows to the back of the tray the plants are sitting in!!!
So now we've got to either raise the one side of the table so that the water/food flows back the other way, or simply turn the tray around so that the solutions flow the same way, but it will be toward the drainage hose.
What a freakin' proceedure. I'm pooped just writing about it.
Given all that, the girls have been decidedly stressed, though not as stressed as I am. As such, they haven't drank their usual amount of food/water that they usually do. And they haven't been growing as much as they usually do, either. Mind you, they're still growing. They're still living. They're still thriving. And as you'll see from my damaged little girl, they're still going strong. It's just that if it wasn't for the stress, I think they would have grown much more during this time period. Oh well. The first grow is about working out your processes and your kinks. Once these are all worked out, we'll have a great solution for feeding/watering my dlgs.
Another thing. We've hit upon the idea of including medium sized rocks in the tray to cut down on the solution needed to keep the system "afloat." As the rocks displace the solutions, they will raise the height of the solution to higher on the sides of the plants, thereby reducing the amount of solution needed at any one time in the system.
So with that all said, here's the pics for the day!
This is my damaged little girl, after topping the other night she's doing quite well. I got a little anxious with her topping, and I topped too much! I fucked up, but the wrong way. Not fimming here... I cut the leaf that was already growing there off. Or almost off. There was the tiniest amount of leaf left, and I had no idea if it would continue to grow or whether I had ruined that particular site on the plant. But as you can see, especially from the second pic, she seems to be growing her leaf back okay. She's a BB.
And this is my other BB. She's doing okay, too. I'm pretty pleased with the way her topping worked out, as you can see. She's taking to it rather well.
And this is the smaller of my two PE. Well, it's hard to say which is the smaller and which is the larger anymore, since they're both doing well.
And this is the larger of my PE. She's always been a favourite of mine, in a way that the damaged little girl has been a favourite, too. Without further adieu, here she is:
So. I saw some pics of 25 day old plants, and it really discouraged me. They were so alive, so big, so strong. And mine just are no where near that size or strength or anything. I felt really terrible after seeing those pics. I know I have to recognize that my plants had a bad start. First off, there was the temperature issue with the room being 68 degrees Fahrenheit in there, rather than between 75 - 85. I fixed that, but only after realizing the problem after they were almost 3 weeks old. Then there was the issue of the light burn, where only my damaged little girl (that's where she gets her name from, btw) was actually burned, but they all were damaged even if it didn't show in the leaves. This reduced their size significantly, too. And then there's the stress of having to work out all my growing pains, to use the term correctly. I know that these are the reasons my girls are so behind everybody else's plants, but still, I cannot help but feel badly for how it's all going (growing).
So I've decided that I'm going to veg for as long as it takes to get them up to speed. And if that means that I have to veg for 10 fucking weeks, then that means I have to veg for 10 fucking weeks! I'm sure that if they're given the time, then they'll catch up to what they should be going into flower. I want to have big, strong and healthy plants as they go into flower, not some mediocre weaklings that cannot hold up their own buds. Besides, I want the yield. I'm not growing too many plants here, and I'll need the yield to carry me over to the next harvest. I've got my back to look after. I've got my anxiety to look after. I've got my own peace of mind to look after.
On another, completely different, note... Work on the book goes along swimmingly. I've just handed in my first round of revisions on the second chapter in the novel, and am awaiting the third chapter from my editor. The way it works is that I handed in my completed manuscript to my editor at the beginning of the year, and then she works on the edit, chapter by chapter, handing back to me one chapter at a time what she's worked on/edited. Then I go over all the edits she has suggested and either approve or mark for discussion those edits she has suggested. It's quite a great process, and we work in Google Docs using the Track Changes feature. It allows two or more people to share a document and work together on editing it.
The release date for my novel is set for 14 Nov 17, just days before Black Friday and in time to hit the Christmas rush of buying.
I really hope it does well. It's really a wonderful thriller, set in modern day NYC, and concerns the exploits of a 5 year old boy, Max, who is abducted while playing in a park and returns to his brother's life, Gary, 17 years later. Max, Gary and Gary's new girlfriend, Jean, must navigate the dangerous emotional territory of learning how to love each other, while trying desperately to escape the clutches of the maniacal Quinn, who seeks to re-abduct the young man for his own nefarious purposes.
Anyway, that's the plot of my book, Finding Max. It is the first book in a trilogy of books concerning the same characters. As I said, I really hope it does well. I sure could use the money. But that's another story, isn't it?
would be interesting to study botany after taking such a keen interest in growing cannabis
