Hello everyone,
I live in a backward European country which refuses to listen to any scientific advice on marijuana except the un-proven bad stuff. They are very, very fond of alcohol though, famous for it in fact.
So my local herbalist just became a father and in preparation for his hiatus as a provider I am on my first grow.
Luckily my gf & I purchased our first house just last year & I have requisitioned a 4x3 cupboard that used to contain an water tank & immersion heater as a grow room.
I first smoked when I was definitely too young (way under 18) and since the only people you could get herbs from also sold other less friendly substances I ended up indulging in a nukber of different things. The end result was pretty bad by the time I was 18. I didn't touch any substances other than the much lauded alcohol, that provides my government with so much tax and our population with so much societal costs and grief (I have an alcoholic brother - it's terrible.)
Anyway not touching cannabis for 15 years drove home the fact that my paranoid schizophrenia was not helped at all by avoiding cannabis. I am much less stable without it, seriously self-destructive in fact!
So here I am first grow under way while still actually finishing my grow room.
My first little girl has suffered a little, she didn't get a very good start here's my initial mistakes for anyone interested.
My first seed is an Auto Anesthesia - 11 weeks to harvest according to the blurb. (I have a sugar mama auto waiting in the wings)
1) I read I should plant my seed 1.5cm deep - wrong I think, next time it will be 0.5cm (I apologise for the metric)
2) I used standard potting soil with only 20% perlite in a fabric pot
3) I started with a 38w multi-spectrum (red & blue) LED
4) Grow room had no real ventilation except passive holes into the loft of a 1970's house made of thermalite and asbestos with cavity wall insulation. - This place is very, very well insulated.
So this is what happened...
It took 4 days for mary to show her head and she seemed quite happy until the 2nd set of serrated leaves started to grow.
Then everything stalled. The first leaves started to lose their colour, she didn't seem to be growing at all. I punched holes in the fabric pot with a pencil, the next day I noticed the tap root exiting the hole I placed in the bottom
I quickly bought a cheap 300w full spectrum LED lamp on sale from amazon, put hooks in the ceiling & got some nylon rope & ratchets to hang it from.
I bought some nutrient poor general soil which a uk soil growing forum reccomended (£6.25 for 125 litres!!), a 25litre fabric pot & filled it with a 40% perlite mix. I planted the whole fabric pot in there.
For the next few days the 2nd set of leaves seemed happier, but I just 'felt' it wasn't happy in general. I pulled out the fabric pot & realised it was holdiing lots of moisture, very wet. I pulled off all the socking fabric and planted it in the really airy soil & perlite mix I had created. Since then it has been much , much happier.
Since then the issue has been heat. After getting the 300w light the room temps (at soil level) were up to 29C. So I bought an in-line extractor cut two 100cm (4") holes in the roof and started circling air through the loft (attic) space. I also got a 6" monkey fan to keep the air moving. The trouble is we live on the southern coast with an unobstructed south face. On a sunny day (and it has been sunny a lot) I measured the attic temps at 24.5 degrees.
So I have had a roofer fit a vent tile to which I could attach the extractor this helped reduce the temps to around 27.5C during the day 25 after sun down but it was still pulling replacement air from the warm attic.
I have now got a DIY roof vent on the way so that I can pull in external air instead, hopefully this will greatly improve my grow room temps.
So if anyone is still reading I have a couple of questions...
1) Which is worse too high temps or too little light?
Mary has been showing signs of heat stress (curling at the end of the leaves). While waiting for the extra roof vent, I can keep temps down by keeping the light a bit higher and only using veg mode and cycling the extractor (which I now have pushing cold air into the room just over the plant). I think the plant is about to go into pre-flower (planted 20th August, showed above ground 24th Aug apparently ready for harvest 29th October.)
2) Do you think I can adequately grow two plants under a 300w (actual wattage claimed = 135w) LED reflector light in a 3"x4" room if I get the temperatures under control? I have a Sugar Mama Auto (9 weeks to maturity) that I would like to harvest before Christmas.
3) my friend gave me a blue & a red cfl and wing reflector socket, but I don't know how many hours they have been used. Is it worthwhile adding them to the mix - how much heat would one add?
Here are a couple of pics...
I live in a backward European country which refuses to listen to any scientific advice on marijuana except the un-proven bad stuff. They are very, very fond of alcohol though, famous for it in fact.
So my local herbalist just became a father and in preparation for his hiatus as a provider I am on my first grow.
Luckily my gf & I purchased our first house just last year & I have requisitioned a 4x3 cupboard that used to contain an water tank & immersion heater as a grow room.
I first smoked when I was definitely too young (way under 18) and since the only people you could get herbs from also sold other less friendly substances I ended up indulging in a nukber of different things. The end result was pretty bad by the time I was 18. I didn't touch any substances other than the much lauded alcohol, that provides my government with so much tax and our population with so much societal costs and grief (I have an alcoholic brother - it's terrible.)
Anyway not touching cannabis for 15 years drove home the fact that my paranoid schizophrenia was not helped at all by avoiding cannabis. I am much less stable without it, seriously self-destructive in fact!
So here I am first grow under way while still actually finishing my grow room.
My first little girl has suffered a little, she didn't get a very good start here's my initial mistakes for anyone interested.
My first seed is an Auto Anesthesia - 11 weeks to harvest according to the blurb. (I have a sugar mama auto waiting in the wings)
1) I read I should plant my seed 1.5cm deep - wrong I think, next time it will be 0.5cm (I apologise for the metric)
2) I used standard potting soil with only 20% perlite in a fabric pot
3) I started with a 38w multi-spectrum (red & blue) LED
4) Grow room had no real ventilation except passive holes into the loft of a 1970's house made of thermalite and asbestos with cavity wall insulation. - This place is very, very well insulated.
So this is what happened...
It took 4 days for mary to show her head and she seemed quite happy until the 2nd set of serrated leaves started to grow.
Then everything stalled. The first leaves started to lose their colour, she didn't seem to be growing at all. I punched holes in the fabric pot with a pencil, the next day I noticed the tap root exiting the hole I placed in the bottom
I quickly bought a cheap 300w full spectrum LED lamp on sale from amazon, put hooks in the ceiling & got some nylon rope & ratchets to hang it from.
I bought some nutrient poor general soil which a uk soil growing forum reccomended (£6.25 for 125 litres!!), a 25litre fabric pot & filled it with a 40% perlite mix. I planted the whole fabric pot in there.
For the next few days the 2nd set of leaves seemed happier, but I just 'felt' it wasn't happy in general. I pulled out the fabric pot & realised it was holdiing lots of moisture, very wet. I pulled off all the socking fabric and planted it in the really airy soil & perlite mix I had created. Since then it has been much , much happier.
Since then the issue has been heat. After getting the 300w light the room temps (at soil level) were up to 29C. So I bought an in-line extractor cut two 100cm (4") holes in the roof and started circling air through the loft (attic) space. I also got a 6" monkey fan to keep the air moving. The trouble is we live on the southern coast with an unobstructed south face. On a sunny day (and it has been sunny a lot) I measured the attic temps at 24.5 degrees.
So I have had a roofer fit a vent tile to which I could attach the extractor this helped reduce the temps to around 27.5C during the day 25 after sun down but it was still pulling replacement air from the warm attic.
I have now got a DIY roof vent on the way so that I can pull in external air instead, hopefully this will greatly improve my grow room temps.
So if anyone is still reading I have a couple of questions...
1) Which is worse too high temps or too little light?
Mary has been showing signs of heat stress (curling at the end of the leaves). While waiting for the extra roof vent, I can keep temps down by keeping the light a bit higher and only using veg mode and cycling the extractor (which I now have pushing cold air into the room just over the plant). I think the plant is about to go into pre-flower (planted 20th August, showed above ground 24th Aug apparently ready for harvest 29th October.)
2) Do you think I can adequately grow two plants under a 300w (actual wattage claimed = 135w) LED reflector light in a 3"x4" room if I get the temperatures under control? I have a Sugar Mama Auto (9 weeks to maturity) that I would like to harvest before Christmas.
3) my friend gave me a blue & a red cfl and wing reflector socket, but I don't know how many hours they have been used. Is it worthwhile adding them to the mix - how much heat would one add?
Here are a couple of pics...
