So, I've now acquired all my grow equipment and have it pretty much set up in the spare room ready to go. I still can't believe the audacity of what I'm doing! lol Pics of my setup will follow soon. For now, it's all getting quite exciting, but at the same time, I still have a few small hurdles to get over before I can truly say I'm well on the way to a bumper crop!
Germination
I started my seed germinating on Thursday evening. There seem to be many methods out there, one of the most common being the damp paper towel method. I went a step further with this idea. I got a small tuppaware (plastic food container) lid, filled it with a layer of the plagron soil about 1cm thick and in the middle placed seed just below surface. I used a sprayer to dampen the soil then wrapped the whole thing carefully with cling film to keep in the moisture. Then I placed it on top of my wireless router which is nice and warm. I read that somewhere btw
I probably made the mistake of checking it too often, poking and prodding, and after 2 days the seed showed no signs of popping into life. It did look slightly bigger and plumper though. I thought I'd fooked it, but then, dot on day 3 (last night), I checked it and lo and behold, it had cracked nicely! The white shoot was twice the length of the seed itself. I've now transferred it to the main pot about 1 cm below the surface. We'll see over the coming days whether this was the right decision or too premature.
So at the moment it's a case of keeping the top of the soil moist until the seedling starts to poke through. That's when I'll start using the HPS light in earnest and begin introducing nutes.
Grow tent and setup
With hindsight, I kind of wish I'd bought the next size tent up. I got the smallest tent in the Secret Jardin range, DS60 (60 x 60 x 150). After installation of the filter and light, I've only got just over half the vertical growing space remaining. It's not going to be long before the plant outgrows the space available and gets too close to the light, so I'm going to need to coax it to grow wider rather than taller. Whether this is possible with the specific strain I've chosen (being DP autofem ultimate) I don't know, but it would be a shame to waste all that growing energy!
Are there practical guidelines on how to do this?
I fired the HPS 250W light up for the first time last night. Once up to full brightness it was proper powerful. I was also pleasantly surprised how little heat it generated. With all the fans running it was pleasantly cool, if ever so slightly warm, after an hour. I imagine it's a cumulative effect and after several hours would probably be warmer. The airflow generated by the extraction and intake is impressive. I've got the exhaust ducting suspended from the ceiling pointing down to the top of the open bedroom window, and the intake ducting pointing at the bottom of same window. Seems to be effective.
For nutes and watering, I bought a 10 litre camping water container, complete with a tap. It was much easier to mix the nutes in the right proportions and also I now have plenty of pre-mixed nutrition on tap! Until the seedling pops through the soil, I'm using just water in a fine sprayer at the mo to keep the soil moist.
So there we are! Like I said, my only hurdle at the moment seems to be how I prune and train the plant. I will try to keep this updated with my progress as often as I can. In the meantime, I welcome advice and comments, good or bad
Germination
I started my seed germinating on Thursday evening. There seem to be many methods out there, one of the most common being the damp paper towel method. I went a step further with this idea. I got a small tuppaware (plastic food container) lid, filled it with a layer of the plagron soil about 1cm thick and in the middle placed seed just below surface. I used a sprayer to dampen the soil then wrapped the whole thing carefully with cling film to keep in the moisture. Then I placed it on top of my wireless router which is nice and warm. I read that somewhere btw
I probably made the mistake of checking it too often, poking and prodding, and after 2 days the seed showed no signs of popping into life. It did look slightly bigger and plumper though. I thought I'd fooked it, but then, dot on day 3 (last night), I checked it and lo and behold, it had cracked nicely!
The white shoot was twice the length of the seed itself. I've now transferred it to the main pot about 1 cm below the surface. We'll see over the coming days whether this was the right decision or too premature.So at the moment it's a case of keeping the top of the soil moist until the seedling starts to poke through. That's when I'll start using the HPS light in earnest and begin introducing nutes.
Grow tent and setup
With hindsight, I kind of wish I'd bought the next size tent up. I got the smallest tent in the Secret Jardin range, DS60 (60 x 60 x 150). After installation of the filter and light, I've only got just over half the vertical growing space remaining. It's not going to be long before the plant outgrows the space available and gets too close to the light, so I'm going to need to coax it to grow wider rather than taller. Whether this is possible with the specific strain I've chosen (being DP autofem ultimate) I don't know, but it would be a shame to waste all that growing energy!
Are there practical guidelines on how to do this?
I fired the HPS 250W light up for the first time last night. Once up to full brightness it was proper powerful. I was also pleasantly surprised how little heat it generated. With all the fans running it was pleasantly cool, if ever so slightly warm, after an hour. I imagine it's a cumulative effect and after several hours would probably be warmer. The airflow generated by the extraction and intake is impressive. I've got the exhaust ducting suspended from the ceiling pointing down to the top of the open bedroom window, and the intake ducting pointing at the bottom of same window. Seems to be effective.
For nutes and watering, I bought a 10 litre camping water container, complete with a tap. It was much easier to mix the nutes in the right proportions and also I now have plenty of pre-mixed nutrition on tap!
Until the seedling pops through the soil, I'm using just water in a fine sprayer at the mo to keep the soil moist.So there we are! Like I said, my only hurdle at the moment seems to be how I prune and train the plant. I will try to keep this updated with my progress as often as I can. In the meantime, I welcome advice and comments, good or bad
