Make sure to check out Robert’s grow bible. I started growing last year with no experience in gardening. I read it at least 4 times before i started and read through lots of grow journals here. Now I’ve moved on from bag seeds to ILGM seeds with more confidence. Keep in mind when growing different strains they will all react differently, some taller than others, some wider than others. Feel free to ask questions and the good people here will put you on the right path. And remember have fun, cause growing is a fun hobby.
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Yes, welcome and looks like you are off to a good start. If you haven’t yet, you should order a good digital ph meter and ph up and down so you can maintain the correct ph when watering. Pretty much the most important thing you can do.
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Welcome to the forums @rodri59 I love your selection of strains to grow! The Chocolope I have in the vape, Gold Leaf is growing in my tent right now and the rest are on my short list. I also have a Gorilla Glue and two BlueBerry Autos in the tent!
Just a couple comments on your support ticket.
The system type is for the non soil growers.
Ph once they sprout you should spray (foliar spray) them with water pH to your soil type. The FFOF needs 6.5 pH water, but the peat pellets need 5.8 ph water.
If you are going to be feeding your plants nutrients you should consider a TDS Meter that measures the Total Dissolved Solids in your water and nutrients, Testing the runoff pH and TDS when the plants get older will help you understand what the plants need to be happy!
I’m a grandfather (one of many here) and most of us are older, I think. I will be 58 on my next birthday and I am retired with several medical issues and find great relief with Cannabis!
I am in Massachusetts (sorry about the Super Bowl).
There are a few others here from your area.
If you have any questions or concerns just tag us up and we will come by and help out!
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Love it when people build their own spaces koodo’s
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Wow. Thanks guys! Your input and support means the world to me.
Thanks for the welcome @Screwauger, I am great at snooping!
@Spooky81 Yup the grow bible was the first thing I read and keep it handy for reference. TY!
@Myfriendis410 I do have a ph meter and just ordered the buffer solution (thought it came with the meter, guess not lol) I am learning that PH is pretty important!
Thanks for the clarification @bob31 If you don’t mind I have a few questions about Gold Leaf, do you have much experience with it?
A little back ground here:
I started this process over a week ago. Settled on germination in FFOF (after water and papertowel got a nice tap root) Seems that either I over watered everything or they didn’t like FFOF. I lost 4 of 6 seeds, including Gold Leaf. sad face. So asked around and a few people recommended peat pellets. I started another 6 seeds (one of each) in peat about 72 hours ago. Every one of them has sprouted except Gold Leaf. Any ideas? The first attempt I will take the blame, but this time…? I don’t know, everything else is doing well in the peat pellets 
I am sad I really wanted this one to do well particularly.
IF anyone has any ideas please feel free to jump in. I am foliar spraying everything now (well, by everything I mean the first two that survived my abuse, the other 5 are just tiny little sprouts still in peat which is still pretty moist.) Waiting on the buffer for my ph meter as its giving me some crazy readings. I am using distilled water to mist them.
TIA guys! Rodri
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@Donaldj Thanks, I gotta give credit to the hubs. He is pretty amazing
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@AnneBonny one of my favorites was a saying my dad used that I have no idea where it came from. He would tell me boy if your not living on the edge your taking up to much room .
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@rodri59 that is a nice set up . And welcome to the community your problems with quality bud is a thing of the past the playground here refused to let me fail and I leaned heavily on their advice so you are in the right place good luck and thanks for sharing your ideas with the group
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@SmoknGranny gotcha, I am not sure if we are able to share email addresses but I would love to. 
7/27/17 PART 1- Okay, fueled up with 
and tended to the baby girls who are all settled in for the day so let me see if I can get my senile, Alzheimer’s addled mind to make some sense of what has transpired over the last couple o’months or so days. Sorry again, this is a long read…
Some mistakes were made, some successes were seen all leading me to a very magical point in this process and that point is 7 very happy little babies in the nursery. But, I am getting ahead of myself so let’s stop the self-back patting and tell you how I got to my very small victory… (remember I told you to “buckle up Buttercup?” Now would be a good time to do that…)
SOOOOO (don’t you just love posts/emails/letters/journal entries that start with Sooooo’s) I don’t)
This spring Son and I (after our latest round of smoke/vape off the streets which left us both wondering what the hell kinda shite did we pay so much money for??!) we started to revisit a topic we had pushed aside for a couple of years: Should we make the effort and commitment and invest in growing our own. This was about the time that Fentanyl started to make an appearance and people were dying left and right from Fentanyl laced opiates. Now, we don’t partake in opiates (well there was that one time I came down with a miserable case of sciatica but I was under a script…hated the way it made me feel) but it got me worried. I have not heard of any cases where MJ has been laced with Fent. But it really got me thinking; you never know where your stash is coming from and who has done what to it, do you. We are finding poor quality for ever increasing prices and THAT is something that my very frugal hubby cannot get behind. Like I said, he does not really partake but he is my financial backer so I have to at least make him think I am listening to him. LOL. Seriously he is a good guy, but when I say he squeaks when he walks…understatement. SOOOOO (<-----here we go again) We started researching and researching and researching and researching and…did I say we researched? Formed a plan and began to tackle it.
We relocated (Job) 3 years ago to a big rambling house (3 levels UGH for cleaning) to accommodate myself, hubby, 6 dogs, 3 cats a son (who works for hubs) and a daughter who is a recovering alcoholic and was going through a rough period just entering society after a stint in rehab in Florida. They are both adults. Plenty of room for everyone and kids pay their due in rent. We knew we had the space for a grow room and talked about it, but were hesitant due to daughters issues with substance abuse so we nixed it and moved on.
Spring changed our minds and daughter is now doing well 2 years sober. She doesn’t know we changed our minds tho…
As you can see from the previous posts, our results for our grow room came out pretty good. I won’t bore you with any more on that subject – lets get to the heart of the hopes and dreams…
:Drum roll:
THE SEEDS/WEEDS/WEEDLINGS
We found ILGM and the site looked very professional as well as helpful with a decent variety of seeds and rave reviews so here we/I am.
We ordered 6 strains; 3 strains I thought could help me with some of my issues and #1 Son ordered 3 he felt matched his needs (basically to get an energetic, creative, social high) I am an anti-social hermit and I have no life so socializing was a low priority for me…well other than when my family laughs at me/video tapes me/audio records me as I loose my shite on weed. I have SEVERE short-term memory loss with MJ I mean seriously, I forget what I am talking about as I am talking about it; my favorite saying is “Wait. What?”. I also hear sink holes forming, mountains going for nightly strolls, snakes talking, owls plotting against me, Donald Trump and Robert Mueller (…I watch too much political news) hiding in the trees behind our home and my dogs conspiring to call the police to let them know I am doing drugs, among other things.But I love my dogs/fam and my family thinks its good entertainment, so I indulge them occasionally with my antics. OH and Sharknado just freakin blows my ever-lovin damn mind. I also love to play PS3 Paradise City and manage to do things with my cars that the hubby and son marvel at. Like dragging cement pillars miles down the road with my car while evading the fuzz.
So strains ordered are:
Chocolope, Northern Lights, Strawberry Kush, Purple Haze, Super Silver, and our beleagured AG Sessions (political reference again) of the group Gold Leaf.
…stay tuned for PART Deux
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On 7/17 we dropped our first attempt of 6 seeds (one of each) into distilled water. 24 hours later all had cracked and they were placed in paper towels. 36 hours later on 7/19 we felt like brand new parents as all had begun their tap roots.
We had decided on FFOF and cut it with about 30% more perlite and some peat. Four-inch pots were ready to receive their new bundles of joy. I buried the little buggars about ½ inch deep and loosely covered with soil. Plastic bags were placed over them….and we waited…and waited…and waited.
On 7/22 we began to worry as nothing had really popped through. I could see a little green just under the soil on 2 of them, but the others…nada.
On 7/23 we started really poking around and found 3 of the 6 might be viable but the others were “burned up” dead :s. We restarted all 6 seeds again thinking they might all die.
7/24 Two more (or so we thought) bit the dust and went to that great garden in the sky.
7/25 Northern Lights looked strong and healthy and her Cotes were unfurling. We had left Purple Haze in its pot. Son wanted to toss it, but I just felt like it still might be viable. As it turns out, it was and soon had a nice little weedling with that one as well.
So we decided to change up our game plan a bit.
After speaking with a few people on ILGM and reading more, we thought that A) FFOF is too “hot” for the little girls and/or B) I over watered them initially. So to be honest I am not sure which of those caused our epic failure but I am going to go with FFOF being too hot since I hate to take the blame for anything. I know there are others who start in FFOF and do fine. I don’t think I will ever do that again. The 2nd attempt we repeated the step of soaking in water for 24 hours. This time though, I left them in water until I could visibly see a tap root. So in reality they soaked for about 36 hours.
With 6 viable seeds cracked and tapping out, we prepared Peat pellets this time. You know, those little hard brown disks you can get at any garden center the ones that look like petrified cow patties that came from miniture cows. They also came with a tray and humidity dome. I soaked them in the water, and I dug the holes, this time up to the first knuckle of my little finger, “fluffed” up the rest of the peat and dropped in each seed lovingly and gently. I loosely covered them and placed them in our TV cabinet where the cable box is located to keep them warm and moist.
This brings me to today. I have 5 new weedlings! Gold Leaf does not seem to like anything we do to her. She has not appeared and after digging down to her she has yet to start anything resembling a sprout. I didn’t want to disturb her too much so I didn’t go any further in case the tap root is there and trying to anchor in. I will give her a few more days and see if she is just a slow grower or once again, the victim of infanticide…
So what we have today are 7 viable weedlings: 1-Strawberry Kush, 1-Super Silver, 1-Chocolope, 2-Purple Haze and 2-Northern Lights. Gold Leaf (upper left peat pot in below picture)…I dunno, but I am every hopeful.
Right now we have the 2 originals (Northern Lights and Purple Haze or affectionately known as Thelma and Louise) in the grow room with our MH lamp on 75% intensity to try to harden them a bit for full 100%. We have them about 18 inches from the light and am using foliar spraying at the moment. Each have one set of true leaves, the cotes are still green, but I can see tiny 2nd set of true leaves beginning. Not much stretching since we lowered the light.
I am misting them 3 or so times a day. Light is on an 18/6 schedule. Their days and nights are reversed by design. We are on an energy saver plan with our electric company so their 6-hour off period coincides with what the elect co. has determined to be peak time for electric usage (2pm – 7pm we reduce our electric consumption and after 7pm until 2pm the next day we take advantage of a lower kw price during this time the light is on for the babies) I had a baby (my youngest) who got her days and nights mixed up as an infant. When she finally flipped and begin sleeping more regular hours I threw a damn party. I thought I was going insane with probably about 4 total hours of sleep for about a week. I never thought I would encourage another baby to mix up her days and nights, but here I am!
Temps are good I think, Just checked and it is 81degrees and 60% humidity in there (we have one of those blue tooth temp/humidty devices so I don’t have to trapse downstairs everytime I want to check) This is pretty avg. Night time (well for them, in reality it is afternoon) temps and hum run about 72 degrees and 67% humidity avgs.
Well, that’s about it so far. I am using distilled water for everything. I have a PH meter but I think it needs to be calibrated. I ordered it thinking that control solution came with it, but no, so am waiting for my little package from Amazon. OH! And the most important thing! I ordered them a little AM/FM radio!!! They just look so lonely down there in that 3X3 ft room so I thought they would appreciate some music. We are currently debating what to play for them. Son wants them to listen to Jazz (he is a trumpet player) Hubby thinks NPR would be best so they know what sort of shite world they are being born into (he is a Kiwi and thinks the US is corrupt and too big for its britches…he is right) and I want culture so I am going for classical…well that and a bit of Matchbox 20 cuz Rob Thomas is hot.
If you read this far you have my total and complete admiration. Thank you. Talk soon!
Happy weeding!
Rodri
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Hi Rodri! I’m Alan. Welcome! Obviously you are bughouse crazy. You’ll fit right in hahaha! There’s a lot of us in different stages of growth (pun) in this hobby and I think you came to the right place.
You can check the calibration of your ph meter by testing it in distilled water. By definition you should get 7.0 ph in distilled. Although this early on, straight distilled water for a while won’t be a problem. Everything else sounds good. Have you decided on a nutrient plan yet? Not that you need it, but it’s time to think about it.
I believe that we are all here to learn and to share what we learn. So far I’ve seen an amazing, respectful group of people here. Stick your nose into the “Thoughts From the Morning Garden” when you have time.
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Hi Alan! Thanks for the welcome and the tip about the meter! I will go do that now.
As for Nutrients, we have purchased the trio from Fox Farm but as yet have not decided on when to start. Any tips would be absolutely appreciated beyond belief!
My nose is big, so if you are willing to make room for it, I will be visiting the “Thoughts From the Morning Garden” a little later today 
Looking forward to getting to know everyone, especially if they are “Bug house crazy!” lol
Rodri
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Well done @rodri59. Love your writing. You belong to my tribe of “The house of self-deprecation” where we manage to cut ourselves down while having a sense of humor about it What a journey. Glad I buckled up buttercup!! <3 Think I had better run to the store later to lay in a supply of Dependos, you are definitely making me LMAO, with some little leaks added just for torture
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@rodri59 Also in Bumfarge, Ga. Also a “late bloomer” if you will. Looking forward to following your grow. I did notice that your girls seem to be stretching a little. Make sure your light source isn’t too far away from them. I adjusted mine a couple times until I moved them out to the greenhouse. I can tag you in on my grow as well.
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OMG @FreakyDeekie Your “House of self-deprecation” sounds farking amazing! What are the dues to this club? Like I can you about this completely embarrassing moment I had - I label it “This one time in band camp…”
Dependos haha. I sent a grocery list to hubby earlier (tightwad insists on doing the grocery shopping. I think he enjoyed the fuss I put up when he first started doing it…relinquishing my control over grocery shopping type stuff…little does he know it was reverse psychology on my part. There are few things I hate more in life than shopping, grocery or anything else. Amazon was like a wet dream come true for me. This comes back to my pure and unadulterated hate of all things human being-ish, being a sociopath and all.) and I included “dependos” he texted me “Are you high again?” I blamed you for my new vocab.
Rodri.
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Bumfarge Ga! @GetbackJoJo You must be my next door neighbor, though I highly doubt it. The wife looks down on me and poo-poos my antics when I am out in the yard naked dancing and summoning the demons. The husband is just a fat lump of gun-toting, god-fearing shite (no offense to those God fearers amongst us this dude is in a class of his own).
I was just discussing the stretching aspect. We don’t have the new babies under the MH light yet, but that will come tonight. They seemed to break soil and grow up that high nearly over night lol. So yeah gotta control that. They remind me of my hubby when I talk about saving money … (sorry bad sexual excitement reference).
I mean no harm, I just have a very sarcastic view of life. Don’t hate me cuz you ain’t me lol.
Tag me pleeeze. I need someone to tag me.
Rodri
PS Love your getback Jo Jo. HUGE Beatle fan 
(not sure where the hamburger came from)
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That’s a good one @Oldstoner My version of that is… I live on the edge… the view is better.
@rodri59 Please add me to your grow journal, Thanks
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After more years than I can count on my 4 sets of hands, and 1 pair of feet I don’t do much peopling any more. Found out I didn’t like most of them, except for my patients before I retired. Lest you wonder, I was a nurse, and somehow grew those extra hands when things got tough and had to multitask beyond what my brain could handle, making beds, giving meds, charting, calling doctors, picking people up off of the floor, assessing,. etc. LOL, I have been told I am a bad influence so go ahead and tell hubs it’s all my fault, ROFL, I have shoulders the size of a linebacker and can take it!! Egads, even though I don’t people much I do like to grocery shop, hubby is a tightwad and we have ended up with canned vegs with stems, non-absorbent paper products, and I do like that white fluffy stuff in the bathroom! Half rotted vegetables and fruits aren’t my thing and I can’t afford an outbreak of drosophila melanogaster invading my tent! Off to people, against my will this afternoon but look forward to any updates you might give. Maybe one day I shall take a photo of my garden and share. Too late for a journal at this point and hubby would literally have a cow if he even thought I posted something online:cow2:
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@barry1 living on the edge only brings me a view of a big gaping maw of unknown. I don’t like it much, but I tolerate it and morph it into something you might see in Star Trek Out of Darkness when I am high. Thanks for visiting Barry!
Rodri