New member here from Scandinavia, sharing the love with 4 strains from FastBuds

[Hopalong]

Hellou hellou all!

And greetings from the land of Santa…

Summer is long gone and along with it the outdoor season. This time I decided to continue with the beloved hobby through the seasons and got myself the Spider Farmer 3x3 grow kit with the G3000 light, and a 4" inline fan. Also got some 3 and 5 gallon fabric pots, a humidifier and a bunch of other stuff…

And hell, since it was black friday I also ordered the SF5000, just to be on the sure side if my tent should fill up.

So, I hastily set up everything and germinated 4 seeds from Fast Buds, Tropicana Cookies, Banana Purple Punch, Lemon Cherry Cookies and Apricot. All autos, since I’m so eager to harvest something as soon as possible. I also need to hone my skills in caring for the seedlings for the summer’s outdoor run. I always start the seedlings indoors before transplanting them outdoors in May, and I want them as big as possible!

Germination was a success, 4/4. Splendid. Soaked them beans 12-15h in warm, ph6,5 rainwater and put them in between paper towels.

In the mean time I prepared the soil as follows:

• 65% BioBizz Light Mix amended with my own compost, Biobizz worm castings and ten Top Tabs(2,5/plant). I crushed the tabs into powder and mixed it in.
• 35% coco coir and perlite.
• made a fist size hole in the middle and filled it with 50/50 mix of Light Mix and coco coir, for the seedling stage.

I decided to use 3G fabric pots, I think they will be more than big enough for 4 plants in a 3x3 tent?

Planted the seeds straight in the final pots, put plastic bottle halves for domes until I receive the humidifier.

Everything went great, received the humidifier just in time, day 4 I think. It’s the Spider Farmer 6 liter one, and it’s great! I can keep it outside the tent and set the humidity which I did, to 70% for starters. The pic below is taken on day 5.

Fast forward to today which is day 11. No problems so far. I have lowered the temp from initial 27c to 25c, and humidity to 65%. Light is running 18/6 and I have slowly increased the ppfd to 330ish.

I have watered sparingly, gave 200ml every couple of days or so with an occasional spray to moisten the top soil. Today I gave the girls 0,6l for the first time since I think the are big enough to start with more normal watering. I gave them Biobizz Root Juice for the first week, and now only Bio Heaven. First time I’m trying that, but I only heard good things about it so I try it with confidece.

The girls are growing nicely, these pictures were taken today, on day 11.

[Hopalong]

About the Top Tabs I mentioned, they are a a product of a dear friend of mine who produces them in Thailand.

The tabs consist of Urea, algae, seaweed and batshit. Maybe there was one more ingredient, I’ll update this if I remember it… Anyway, straight up organic product, 3 tabs should be sufficient for one plant from seed to harvest. The tabs are originally meant to be biried about 4 inches deep around the plant, but for some reason I decided to crush them and mix into the soil. We will see what happens.

[Hopalong]

Ok, since I got to writing, I want to say that this is my first real indoor grow with all this modern gear. I had some projects when I was a kid, but that’s some 25 years ago.

I know I only registered now tho this forum, but I have been reading ALOT of journals and guides from this site, and tried to pick up as much knowledge as possible for my starting project.

That said, I wang to already thank you guys for an amazing community, and hope you would give me some pointers for this grow. All this indoor stuff is still new for me and I’d like to avoid any amateur mistakes on the way!

[Mrstraighty]

Welcome. Boy, you are off to the races. Happy growing!

[Growdoc]

Welcome to the forum Hoppy! Lots of knowledge on here!

[Truetopath]

Welcome! And happy growing!

[Hopalong]

Thanks folks!

[Hopalong]

I’m still contemplating on the strategy here… I’ve got 4 plants in 3x3 so I might not have the space to spread the plants very wide? Still I want to maximize the yield. Any suggestions?

My original plan was to bend the plants once and then just let them go. I also have some trellis nets coming from aliexpress, do you think I should use those?

The SF5000 light should hamdle most of the scenarios in the space.

[DanB]

Welcome to the forum, your off to a great start. With them being autos I wouldn’t put a lot of stress on them but I would definitely top or fim them and net them for max yield. Happy growing

[Hopalong]

Ok, i’ve never topped a plant. I also read someone testing topping and LSTing side by side for a few runs and said LST brought home the yields every time over the topped ones. What do you think about that?

In a way I want to try topping just to learn, do you think it will prolong the time until harvest much?

[DanB]

Topping or fiming are a form of high stress training. Topping stunts it’s vertical growth for a little while allowing lower branches to grow vertical and then producing 2 more tops. Fim basically the same as topping but your not taking all the top off and possibly 3 top nodes could grow from it. LST is part of the netting process anyway. Net stopping vertical growth while your spread nodes threw net… Either way works. Just depends on how much stress you want to put on the plants.

And as for time to harvest they are auto flower seeds, I would bet no matter what you do to them when they are ready to flower they will. You don’t have to flip lights for them to flower.

[Storm]

@Hopalong

avoid any amateur mistakes on the way

Welcome aboard. Cultivate patience. Mistakes happen quick. Repairs happen slow. Rush attempts at solutions hurt more than help. HAVE FUN!! Turning the growing into a fun endeavor works better than just to get flower.

[Highgrow]

Welc9me to the forum

Id ur used to outdoor grows, growing inside should be a breez!!

[Reed71]

@Hopalong welcome to the family my friend nice setup if you have any questions just ask away my friend happy growing

[Hopalong]

@Highgrow You think so? If so, great! Everything seems to be going good so far(fingers crossed)!

This setup will be a big help growing next summer’s seedlings too. If I have learner correctly, weeks 1-3 are crucial if I want to get the plants to grow big. Now I have the gear to keep all the parameters dialled in for a healthy start for them babies!

@DanB Thank you! I’m mostly familiar with the techniques, just that I haven’t opted to top my plants.

In my experience stressing autoflowers has prolonged their cycle. The LST’d plants have taken a longer time to start flowering than their free growing sisters. Does anyone have similar notions or is it just me…?

I’m already regretting not getting a bigger tent. I was supposed to set things up in my basement and the height limit there is 6’ sharp. After getting my tent I realized I don’t have space to assemble it there and had to empty my fly tying shack and set things up there instead. It’s insulated and would have space for a double sized tent…oh well… Maybe I will get one more 3x3 since i have the G3000 light left over soon.

Growing is truly addicting I must say. I don’t know how I managed to push through the long winters between the short outdoor seasons without any indoor project. How everything has advanced since my earier endeavours back in the 90’s!

[DanB]

Honestly I’m bouncing between a few different projects myself and about to start a new one in a few weeks tops. That being said I forgot you are doing autos. Yeah avoid HST with them. LST and net will do just fine I’m sure. I have not ventured much into autos only had 1 finish and ran out of auto seeds. I have like 2 Photoperiod seeds left and 3 currently growing lol. I also made the mistake in getting a small tent. Didn’t wanna spend a boatload if I was not able to grow lol. Now I have 2x2x5ft tent and 2 closets lol.

[Hopalong]

@DanB I feel ya… I know topping can be done with autos, just don’t know if I want to take on yet another learning process to this first run. I think I will just bend them and maybe use the net to separate the branches(if I get any and don’t stunt my plants).

Just went to check the tent, everything is fine. I measured the weight of my pots before last watering and it was 3,2kg. Just now they were 3,6kg so I will wait until it goes down to 3,2kg before watering them again. Or should I wait until they start to droop? At least then I would get the true dry weight…

Also noticed my Lemon Cherry Cookies praying for a bit, the others not. Should I do something?

[DanB]

Also noticed my Lemon Cherry Cookies praying for a bit, the others not. Should I do something…

I’m sorry I don’t understand what you mean by praying… Like it was bent over or something like that? If so I would prop her back up with support otherwise I’m lost on what you asking I’m sorry.

[Highgrow]

Definitely!

@Hopalong

In my experience stressing autoflowers has prolonged their cycle. The LST’d plants have taken a longer time to start flowering than their free growing sisters. Does anyone have similar notions or is it just me

My experience is the opposite. All my autos have flowered around 4-5 weeks. I top and LST them.

@Hopalong

praying for a bit

Not a bad thing. They are getting all the light they cant take in. I love seeing my plants pray

[Hopalong]

@DanB I mean praying for the light. Looks like the leaves are pointed upwards torward the light. The others don’t do the same.