Hello all,

I've been reading round the forums lots to try and make sure that I get off to a good start but thought I'd post so anyone could let me know if I'm doing anything wrong.

I soaked 5 seeds for 24hrs yesterday and potted them into B&Q seedling compost in seed pots last night. They sat inside overnight and this morning I have put them into one of the 4 tier plastic greenhouse tents in the garden. As the nights are still fairly cold at the moment my plan is to put the seeds out during the day to catch the rays and bring in at night to avoid cold and the risk of frost.

Any advice greatly appreciated, I will update when the seeds have hopefully germinated

I would have thought it was a bit early, autos need as much light as they can get and daytime temps are not really high enough either but being autos they probably will grow just dont expect much. The main problem is that the first 3-4 weeks are crucial to how well they perform so if they dont get going they never catch up. I wouldnt put then outdoors untill they show above ground either.

Hi Mate,

Put some bricks or a slab on the bottom of the mini greenhouse, they blow over...guess how I found out!

Good luck

JOM

Thanks very much for the responses and advice, much appreciated I have to admit I'm practically watching the soil waiting for action, I'm a bit overexcited to be honest



OK, didn't realise it would be too early if I could protect them from the frost , I'm on the South Coast and greenhouse faces south so I'm hoping that will help with light . I'm not too worried as I've held half the seeds back so can start them a bit later. If I can get a little something and hopefully a few seeds off this first lot I will be pleased. I now have them indoors on a window ledge till they poke their heads up. The plan after that is to put them outside during the day to get as much light as possible so long as it not too cold, will keep a careful eye on the forecasts!




That must have been a nightmare, hope your plants were OK and stayed concealed! Thanks for the pointer, I'd seen this issue mentioned on some of the other threads, it's securely weighted down already.

concrete advice 2 of my plastic greenhouses went over last year in the wind, i was gutted, only lettuce inside, but still Tie them to the fence/wall if you can as well.

Checked the pots this morning and two sprouts have appeared Hopefully the others might appear by the end of the day. Time for the babies to move outside during the day to soak up some rays. Hopefully the unseasonable warmth and sunshine we're getting will get them off to a good start despite the fact it's quite early in the year! Does anyone else have experience of starting autos this early in the year for a greenhouse grow?

Didn't think a couple of sprouts could be so exciting!

It's ok to stick them out now imo, though im no expert. If you plant out now, you can crack some more auto seeds when the current ones are nearing the end of flowering, giving you another grow during the best summer months.

Now have 4 of 5 sprouted Thanks for he advice Legalize, still going to keep bringing them in overnight to be safe until they are well established. I'm going to wait another couple of weeks to crack the remaining five seeds, it will be interesting to see how much difference it makes. Will hopefully get some seeds off this first grow too that I can then sow for a second auto harvest

Thinking about getting some Passion #1 too and getting them going soon, seems a lot of people rate them for outdoor grows. My have to invest in a couple more plastic greenhouse tents, I've seen some of them have semi-opaque plastic too

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/cata...ber/7201998.htm
and
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/part...EGREENHOUSE.htm

5 out of 5 now and have ordered some supplies ready for potting up.

Thanks very much Thug, may well get one of those, they are a very good price and just what I had in mind.

something i learnt years agao.. im a bit unclear on the exact details.... but those green plastic greenhouses might not be suitable for growing canna in... something to do with canna not responding to green light.... thats the reason ive never purchased one of those..

Hopefully some of the more experienced growers will fill in the gaps in my theory....

i know for sure that you can use a green light to see in your growroom while in nightime cycle.. it doesnt effect plants one bit..

peace..

I always thought the green lines in the polythene were simply nylon woven in to add strength I wouldnt of thought it would have that much of a bearing compared to clear polythene.

I hope you're right Mr Wigglesworth as I have a five tier on on order now ready for the girls to go in.

Now have three nice bushy girls just starting to bud properly, one male with a plasic bag over his head and one male in the bin! Am holding onto one male for pollen for seeds and hoping the bag will stop any excess seeding, any thoughts? I found the plants probably were started a bit early as short days were stunting their growth. Quickly got a couple of 125w growlights and extended their day significantly. They are now living under the growlights unless it's a sunny day and then they go outside, they've have put on great healthy growth as a result, although the smell will soon mean they will have to live outside on a permanent basis.

I also have four more auto seedlings growing up nicely that went in at the start of this mont and 10 Early Girl seeds germing in the greenhouse that went in on the 17th. It's all very exciting, especially seeing some proper buds starting to develop

Edited for spelling

I would have thought that if the plastic bag is doing its job of keeping all the pollen in then it is also killing the plant so if it is staying alive then it may well be leaking pollen on your girls. If the male is producing pollen allready then you may be able to harvest some and keep it till you need it.

Cheers for the advice. I have to admit I'm a bit worried about the male. The bag has some small holes for ventilation at the top so it won't die, not worried about it getting unhealthy though, which it is a little. I'm hoping that although some air can flow thorugh the holes it should severely limit the amount of pollen dispersed as Cannabis disperses pollen on the wind. The pollen sacs don't seem to have opened at all yet so I don't think I can collect any yet, although this is certainly what I'd like to do.

Thought I ought to get some photos up so here we go:

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Progess so far on one of the girls.

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Early bud development. Please excuse the burn marks, I have perhaps been a little enthusiatic about getting these plants close to the CFLs. I'm starting to take a bit more care now but it doesn't seem to have done much harm to the plants.

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Main growth shoot and top two side shoots showing some bud development.

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There are four side shoots on the second node, is this unusual? I'm certainly not complaining though

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One of the second lot of seeds that I put in, they're all at about this stage at the moment.

Last one now.

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The usual suspects Once again burn marks are down to me being overzealous with trying to get them very very close to CFLs.

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Why my greenhouse is geting far too humid for the girls! It's been very good for the canna seedlings though. Anyhow second (and third ) plastic greenhouse arrived today that I can use for my babies. After waiting for ages for 2nd to be delivered I came to conclusion that I must not have actually ordered it successfully and could not find a receipt in my emails anywhere so ordered another 2days ago, that was a good waste of £20 I truly am a bit of an eejit, oh well will have to sell it on or find someone to give it to.

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My CFL cupboard, young plants go under blue growlight on the left and the girls under red on the right. May have to urn this into a proper growdrobe somewhere in the house with carbon filter and extraction once the summer is over.

Happened to me last year with my LR's..was devastated wghen I got home the next day

They are fantastic ! ! I ended up with 5 left last year and boy did I get rewarded I had them going from about this time last year and finally chopped the last one down in early nov Mould was getting ready to kick in full force

I have just ordered 10 more femmed Passion's and cant wait to get going again ! Think I might stagger this year and see if makes any diff, will try to plant up 5 soon and wait a month and do the other 5 . I was thinking of experimenting a bit with diff pots , trimming , soil and nutrients. Let’s see how it turns out !

Go for the passion you will love it

Thanks dabeef, I did order some Passion #1s from a website that said they had them in stock, turned out they didn't and after waiting a couple of weeks of watching the sunshine outside I told them to send out Early Girl instead. I'm starting to regret this slightly as so many people say the Passion #1 is great, suppose there's always next year though I do now also have a femmed Tundra on the go (An auto Lowryder2 and Passion #1 cross) to hopefully give me some flavour of what the plant is like.

Time for another photo update.

The original girls are really starting to stretch and flower now and have gone into their final pots. I was really pleased with the rootballs at potting up, dense white roots had sprung up all over the sides, I guess the root grow and maxicrop are doing their job.

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These are thetwo girls from the second lot of the dwarf auto mix that went in at the start of the month, I will pot these up in the next couple of days.

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Lastly the Early Girls. Only eight of ten seeds came up Still so long as I get three of four females that should be plenty for the amount of space I have. I will give the last couple a few more days but I don't think there's much hope for them. May switch over to paper towel method of germination instead of just putting them into the soil in future.

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I grow straight into the soil as I do all my seeds - this year I found keeping the seed in the fridge helped with germination rate as opposed to last year where I sowed loads and only got 2 or 3 come up.

your plants look well advanced compared to mine - must be the lights (or lack of in my case) - hopefully mine will catch up - but they will never be as compact as yours are.

Good luck with your early girls too - will be watching to see how early they finish.

SL

hi net2-3 looking nice.
i shall be ordering the lowlife dwarf mix this year also can you tell me what to expect in terms of height? i was on the understanding that they grow slightly bigger then lowryder does and takes acouple of weeks longer! also did they start autoflowering straight away or did it take a couple of days first? i have a little breeding project going on this year. my plann is to make a successful lowryder cross wit ruderlias indica and a few crosses from lowlife for my outdoor grows. goodluck mate

Thanks for the responses. The Joint Drs dawrf auto mix that I bought has LR1 and 2 in it and there doesn't seem to be great variation i heights. From what I've heard I hope none of my females are LR1, as by most acconts it's I've never seen a Lowlife mixed pack but from what I've read a Lowlife mix is probably a better bet.

The plant that is furthest through stretch is probably about 15 inches tall and I think stretch is just starting to slow. I reckon I will be looking at finishing heights of about 18", could end up being two foot absolute maximum by the looks of them, it's hard to say at this stage. I think the one that is growing tallest is probably a Desel Ryder from seeing them in other people's diaries.

The flowers were visible once the plants were on their third node and side shoots were just beginning to appear; I'd say they showed sex between 21 and 25 days.

What's in the lowlife mix you're considering? Reading around I think the extra time for some of the LR crosses is well worth it in terms of yield and potency, hence why I decided to put in the White Dwarf, Tundra, AK47 and Hindu Kush autos, very pleased to say all four of these have now poked their heads above groud too

hi mate,
shit just realised its a mixed pack from joint doctor this is what i thjought you meant


Auto mixed pack 15 seeds

Automatic Mixed Pack Seeds per pack : 15 Type : Auto flowering mix of IBL & F1 Height : 10 –23 inches Harvest : 8 - 10 weeks from seed Yield : 14 – 30g per plant Odour : Mixed Ideal light regime : 20/4 from seed to harvest Ideal pot size : 5 – 7litres Environment : Indoors/Outdoors Effect : Mixed Potency : Mixed 15 seeds with completely random parents selected from our normal range, the possibilities are endless.

its bascialy all the lowlife strains in one room to pollenate so i understand so its totally random crosses ie lemonskunk auto x blueberry auto etc
anyway if your intereted in them and cant find them il point you in the right direction if you PM me. this is what im buying this year.

Hi SL,

Don't think it would have made much difference keeping the seeds in the fridge as they all went into soil very soon after receiving them. In retrospect because my other seeds have been OK and have come from another shop I think it could be a problem with the way the were stored at the shop I bought them from rather than my approach to germination, they were pretty with handling my order and their customer service, which is could be an indication that they don't look after their beans properly.

I think the CFLs have made a very big difference to the plants, I'm also down south and we've had lots of lovely warm sunny weather during April for them to sit out in. Hope your plants are cming along nicely though I'm quite excited about the Early Girls too as they're gonna give me some experience of groing some proper plants.

Well I know it's not been long but I thought I'd put up a few more pics before the bank holiday weekend hope I'm not boring you all but I've loved looking at other people's pics so thought I ought to return the favour.

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This can't develop too quickly for me, it's been soooooo long since I had a spliff

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All the girls together waiting for the sun to appear!

nice net, i hope you get a bumper harvest from them lil monsters. i dont care what anyone says they are brilliant for the timescale. i like looking at your lowryders mate so keep popping up more pictures. how long have they left now?

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Freshly repotted

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The Early Girls, coming along nicely by the looks of things. Only eight came up though and one is a bit of a runt on the other tray. They are going under the CFLs as well, effectively giving them eighteen hour days. Once they get going nicely I will probably just leave them outside to do their thing, does anyone think there is a risk that this could prematurely instigate flowering?

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The Early Girl runt (back right), Auto Hindu Kush, Auto AK47, Tundra and White Dwarf. Check out the damaged leaves on theAK47 and Tundra (front and front left), I found them this way on the window ledge this morning. I don't think I've mishandled them so I can only assume a cat fancied a wee nibble of marijuana Who can blame them hey. I'm sure they'll recover OK and I'll just have to keep them in the cupboard as the room door is always shut to that room because of smells! I think they're big enough now to put up with the fan and lights OK.


Hope you all enjoy the bank holiday

Cheers weed, I'm certainly hoping I get something decent off these girls, watching the buds develop is very exciting. They are 6 1/2 weeks from seed now, I was hoping it would be 9 weeks in all but I think the may take a bit longer than this I think the tallest one is the furthest on as I reckon it's just about finished stretch and will hopefully start packing on buds now. I know it's bad but I may have to pick a few samples off before it's finished

People may well be right that Autos aren't very strong and other palnts can be kept as small (I can't comment) but for me they are a massive asset as an outdoor grower. I ran out of options for buying weed and everything I'd been getting my hands had been shit anyway. Didn't really have the means to set up indoors and also didn't want to wait till September at the earliest for weed. Autos really saved the day for me and so far they look like nice plants to me too.

hell yer i hear ya. all thats down here is homie or sprayed. we get the ocassional high grade but thats it. i know about 10+ people to score from but its usauly crap.

Hi again net2-3,

Just had another read through your diary and I must say I feel a bit sick with envy.

I'm growing in a very similar way to you and started some LR*2 a week or 2 after you and your's look the dogs compared to mine.

I think your growlights have made more of a difference than you realise, where did you get them from?

I make up the extra hours of light with a sort of light hood with a couple of 23W CFL's and a 70W HPS the other thing is, when did you start using the Root grow and maxicrop ? and what compost are you using.

Green with envy JOM

M8 - they look sweeeeet -

JOM is right - Them auto's definitely loving them lights man -

Well Jealous

SL

10+ people, that's better than zero at least mate. I had one good guy for years who wouldn't even buy wet or grit weed and was a really nice chap. He was really careful who he dealt to, however he eventually got his door kicked in by a couple of guys with knives who took his money and stash, utter c**ts . He didn't have much in the flat at the time but it shook him up so he packed it in. The guy after that nearly always had soaking wet buds and was a bit dodgy; when he stopped having any weed he just started offering me ketamine and coke and then dissapeared!



It's nice to hear you think the plants are doing well, you may be surprised by what yours do in the next week or two, mine have grown loads in that time. I didn't realise when I started that an early outdoor grow of the autos wouldn't produce much at all but after a slow start I really appreciate the lights are doing wonders. I think it has helped that I have always tried to keep it so the plants are just about tocuhing the lights, sometimes got a bit too close but I'm sure it's been worth it. I'll PM you a link to where I got the growlights, I just bought the bulbs and holders and wired them in myself, was just over £40 for both I think. Two reds might be better for the autos but the blue could be very useful alongside an HPS after the summer is over.

The rootgrow has been used at each pot up; potted up three times, probably once too many, I reckon seedling pots, to mediums sized to big pots before any stretching would have been best. I sprayed the rootball with maxicrop solution and then sprinkled on rootgrow. I have also been watering in and spraying on the maxicrop every now and then, although no spraying since buds have been going. Composts have been a variety, mainly B&Q (seedling and with John Innes 1 & 2, now in MP with JI), I did try some B&Q peat free as I don't like using peat but it was horrible, like playground park chippings . I have also tried some J Arthur Bowers on the new plants but I don't really like it either, I think the B&Qs are good. I will probably splash out on some nice organic wormcast and coir compost for next year and some neem fertiliser (oh my god it's May and I'm planning next summer already, I'm oficially obsessed ).

I've given them very little food so far, a little BioBizz Grow and Bloom but I think they may need a bit more now as the seedling and first true leaves have yellowed, depends on how they respond to the potting up. I plan to follow OT1's advice and give them 3ml Grow and 1ml Bloom once most of the pistils have browned.

Hope I haven't bored you with all the details .



Many thanks SL

Thanks for the PM mate,

Not bored with all the details at all, I think that's what this forum is all about, sharing info and helping folk if you can.

I quite agree with the comments on compost, I'm having big problems with the West + stuff, a few too many twigs and stones in it for me. I potted up 4 plants into it about a month ago and pulled a couple out last week as they were looking crap, the root ball had not spread around, only the tap root had moved and that wasn't very far, the leaves looked well over ferted and un healthy, they went back into cheap and cheerful (300L for 12 quid) and look better even after a few days.

I'm quite willing to accept it may be the way I'm using the West stuff as other peeps seem to get on well with it, I do a lot of veg gardening over the year so I'm used to compost, probably get through about 500 Litres a year growing seeds and potting on at home B4 they go out in our allotment.

Anyway I've potted a couple of LR*2 up today and some Cheese cuttings, lets hope we get a few rays over the weekend.

Cheers,

JOM

Weekend sunshine has been working wonders, plants are really starting to develop bud now. I thought I may have given them their last pot up too late, turns out I was wrong, the roots started showing at the drainage holes of those big pots two days after potting up , even better still I can now see the resin glands starting to show all over the flowers . The younger girls are also coming on nice with pistils popping up and branching developing nicely.

The Early Girls are now overdue a pot up, hopefully get round to this today and they will now be living outside permanently as my CFL cupboard is getting a bit crowded and they have all summer to grow.

JOM, never tried the West + but the B&Q is cheap and very good in my opinion, I'd only really consider switching for some good quality peat free, really don't like to be using peat but at least B&Q are trying to phase it out. I hope your LR2 and cheese have settled into their new homes nicely.

One last thing I didn't mention about my plant care routine is that I run a wet/dry cycle for watering and let them get fairly dry (but obviously not so much the compost shrinks).

nice net, so its really that easy to grow.... just zip it up when its cold ?

just thought to myself...get that tent, a few autos, and some auto LRs for a quick smoke.

is growth slower outdoors, dont they stretch ?

Fredman: You certainly can grow the LRs quickly and easily in one of those tents but I also have some CFLs that my plants go under to bump it up to 18 hours of good light and I think this has made a bg difference. Having said that with June and July just round the corner you probably could get some very good results off some LR if you start them soon in one of those plastic greenhouses judging by other peoples grow diaries. Have a good look around this site and read lots of the pinned topics and you should be well equipped to produce some nice bud for yourself. You really gotta go for it, it's been very rewarding and I haven't even smoked any yet Much better then giving money to criminals. Keep us updated on this forum, would be great to hear how you get on.

OK so time for sme more photos, rather a lot this time but I hope you enjoy.

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Beautiful buds

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The tallest plant, looks like it should develop one good main cola My guess is it's a LR cross.


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This plant hasn't really stretched at all, it has just stayed short and stupidly bushy, I reckon this is probably a LR1 or 2, possibly a LR1 as it doesn't have loads of bud on it .


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My favourite plant, has stretched a bit but has always been very bushy too. Lots of good bud sites on this one, they're just harder to spot than on the first one because of the bushiness of the plant. I reckon it could be LR2 or another LR cross.

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Main bud on my fave plant.


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The two girls started at the beginning of April. Have responded nicely to the repotting and are coming along nicely.


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The Early Girls, repotted at the Bank Holiday and coming along nicely outside.

OK, don't know if anyone will be up for it but it's my first time so I really don't know how much dry weight to expect off these plants so I thought we could have a sweepstake. Let's have your guesses as to how much dry weight I will get off the three big plants. The closest guess will win .....



















er...










The satisfaction of being a smart arse

Looking good net, keep it up!!

Many thanks Station, fancy a punt at the finishing weight

Seeing as I'm giving a bit of an account of my plat care routine there is one thing I think I've forgotten t mention, I am mixing in Rock Dust with the compost to feed the Myco funghi in the Root Grow.

hi net never grown them before so cant say properly but im guessing maybe 1.5oz from the 3 maybe alittle bit more. anyway they look amazing mate. i hope my lowlife crosses looks as healthy as your joint doctors do.

Cheers Weed. Real shot in the dark for me but I will be a happy man if I get 50g, so that's what I'm gonna guess.

Bet you pinch a few buds off b4 it's ready.

JOM