First time grow/random off the wall idea

[OOBrien89]

First time posting, so please bare with me if I get anything wrong lol. But before anything, I feel like I have to kinda explain the situation first.

So It’s my Fiance, my Grandmother and I living in the house. We take care of my Grandmother 24/7, she has Alzheimers and when we first moved in I was able to hold a job while my fiance at the time stayed home. after about half a year, my grandmother declined durastically and it got to the point where my fiance just couldn’t do it herself anymore, Mind you I’m 27, shes 24, we were kinda just thrown into the situation by my Mom and Stepdad, whom we were living with at the time. So now with how bad my grandmother has gotten, we pretty much stay here 24/7, out to go shopping and thats about it. So moneys really tight, We get a check for a little bit of money every week for homecare by the state to help us out but, it’s michigan and it’s not that much lol. Now that we have that little bit of info, Understanding the next part should be a little bit easier.

About 6 weeks ago Me and my Fiance had a random idea one night after getting yet another seedy bag. Lets just try and grow for the hell of it with one of these seeds? It fails it fails. Well, “for the hell of it” turned into a good week or 2 of googling online different pages while we had already started germinating our seed, We used the wet paper towel method until it sprouted out a good inch, then planted it in this tiny pot I found layng around the house and used a desk lamp with a 150w incandescent bulb. (We had upgraded from this after about a week lol) So after more and more research, we decided on a CFL grow, seeing as CFL’s aren’t that much and, from what I’ve read, you can keep them 5 inches away and be able to grow short and wide plants with them. So I ended up with this.

-4 Clamp lights
-4 Y socket splitters
-8 5000k 23w CFL bulbs (All I could find in the store, Couldn’t find 6500k. Running these now on a 24-0 schedule, plant doesn’t seem to mind)
-8 2700k 23w CFL bulbs
-Timer for the 12-12 light schedule
-Heavy duty aluminum foil for the walls

This is it now.

I have yet to get a fan, For some reson I haven’t looked at Lowes or Home Depot but Wal-Mart must of stopped selling them for the winter season.

I also just recently located a hydroponics store nearby, so hopefully I’ll have some nutes for the plant here in a week. Looking at the Fox Farms Trio deal.

These are just from yesterday.

Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Matthew420]

Hey and welcome!

My couple thoughts, other than it looks cool is foil on the walls might not be as good as it seems. It can create hotspots and doesn’t reflect as well as one might think. Flat white paint is better than foil.

2nd, what are the temps? I see a little “canoeing” I think. Sign of heat.

Lastly, we love pics but that was a lot. Maybe select your best few.

All-in-all, right on man! Glad to see you guys growing. I think you’ll have fun with it

[pbs86]

you will have to keep a close eye on it in the next couple days when it starts to show its sex. hopefully its a female! good luck ill be watching.

[OOBrien89]

I wanted to paint it but the back wall is just that flimsy stuff you’d find on the back of those cheap entertainment centers, Kinda like cardboard, I didn’t think it would stick too well. I have thought of building up something better when it gets warmer out though.

Yeah, in a few of those pictures the plant had grew a little faster than I had thought the night before and got a little close to the lights, Currently without a fan in there, temps stay around 80-85 degrees. We keep our window open all throughout the winter due to my Grandmother needing it warmer than normal in the house.

I fixed the picture issue lol, I had a feeling the photodump was gonna be a slight issue, I’ve just been taking pictures at least every 3 days since we planted it.

[OOBrien89]

Thats been something we have started to worry about, doing all of this just for it to be a male. I’ve read up it’s sometimes possible to determine during its seedling stage?

[Matthew420]

Maybe some spray paint would work on the back? Just keep an eye on it.

Temps are too bad, slightly lower might be better but it’s not bad.

I think you guys are gonna do great!

[Countryboyjvd1971]

Hey there @OOBrien89
@Matthew420 gave you some good advice
And yeah most like you’ll need to order fan on line due to seasonal stock issues but get on Amazon sells some small clip fans for 7$ maybe
Happy growing
And that’s a super cool thing you guys do for grand ma

[OOBrien89]

I feel as if once we finally get a fan in there to circulate all that air, it should drop a good amount, it’s about 70 in our room right now and the cabnets sitting around 81, It’d be a lot better if we could leave both doors open all the time but its way too bright for that lol.

[Majiktoker]

High @OObrien89, welcome to ilgm here you’ll find lots of help staff members such as myself and others will be happy to help you as well as all of our members and we are extremely patient with what we do in helping others.

I noticed your light cycle was 12/12, that’s a flowering light cycle, im not sure if you have it there due to flowering, but if you want her to vegetate longer move her light cycle to any one of the 3 choices 14 on 10 off, 16 on 8 off or 18 on and 6 off. Noticed you didn’t have a fan when you get a chance to invest in one id do so I didnt see one in your room, your plants will do better and support more when when it comes to flower, its a positive stress on the plant and roots

Happy growing good luck

[OOBrien89]

We may have to resort to that if all else fails, Crazy they stop selling fans just for the season lol.

Thank you so much, We honestly don’t hear that enough.

[OOBrien89]

Oh no lol, Its on a 24-0 schedule now, Just the timer was sitting there near the clamp lights so I bought it for when we switch to a 12-12 schedule, sorry for the confusion.

[Majiktoker]

All well I was gonna apologize for the misinterpretation

[Matthew420]

@Majiktoker Sign of a true pro to notice that! Kudo’s!

[Majiktoker]

Just paying close attention catching all details before reading lol im very observant…or atleast 95% of the time I am

[Paranorman]

@OOBrien89

We may have to resort to that if all else fails, Crazy they stop selling fans just for the season lol.

I just bought one online from Amazon it was 15 bucks with prime but it was a surprisingly good product! …if you hit me back I’ll go check out the box and find out what brand, either way good luck with you grow!

[OOBrien89]

These were from just yesterday. My few concerns are some of the lower leaves now I know not all are gonna be able to get sunlight and I have seen a few pictures and videos of plants all trimmed up on the bottom, was wondering if I should do that with a few of the leaves on this plant. Also a buddy of mine who used to grow a couple years back suggested I force flower it for 6 days just to finally determine sex and then put it back on its 24-0 schedule, dunno how good of an idea that would be though lol, I had brought up LST and all of these other terms I had read and he didn’t know much about them, so not sure if thats good idea or not.

Also, how long does this restrictive posting last? lol, I’ve left the page open for 4 hours now counting down until 24 hours.

[OOBrien89]

Ok here we are at week 6 since planted. I was wondering, since the lower leaves aren’t getting much light, would I be able to trim them off without harming the plant? or just leave them?

[peachfuzz]

No more trimming… let them grow… they are looking healthy… leaves are solar panels that make the plant grow and your trying to make the plant grow… let her grow…

[Traumamedic]

NOOO… no more trimming for a little while. Those leaves are the heart and lungs of that plant!

Just FIM, or top her if she starts to get too tall.

[OOBrien89]

I haven’t trimmed yet, but I took a few pictures of said leaves in question. I had just watered her so the leaves got a little bit on them.

I’ve been checking on her quite often throughout the day noticing here and there some branches I wanna move, I’m trying to train it to go wide so I can possibly space the lights out a little more, but heres some more progress photos taken today.