SuburbanFowl 2019 Glog - First grow from seed

After waiting for a very long time some of my seeds have been germinated so here is my glog.
 
I am running a small grow tent with 4 T5 double bulbs at 55w each.
I removed one of the bulbs because the fixture runs hot. There is a small fan blowing on the plants 24/7 and the lighting is also 24/7 at this point.
 
These are planted in double cups in coco coir and perlite. The bottom 70% layer of medium is a mix of coco and perlite at a 70:30 ratio and the top 30% is just coco.
The bottom cups have a small layer of hydroton (clay pebbles) at the bottom to make sure the plants aren't sitting in any runoff.
 

 
They are being fed from the top until 20% of the nutrients drains out into the bottom cup and then the runoff is emptied out. They sit for 5-10 minutes after that and then any remaining runoff is emptied out and they're put back under the lights. Ideally watering from the top with at least 20% run off will prevent salt buildup inside of the medium.
 
Sadly not many varieties have germinated yet.
Jays Peach Ghost Scorpion from Juanitos Seeds.
The big one has a little bit of leaf curl and I'm not sure if this is normal or not. Flat leaves would be nice
After a week or so all but healthiest looking will be culled.
 

 
Caramel Bhutlah (F2 or F3, can't remember) from WHP.
 
I think this strain is unstable or maybe there are different phenotypes here. Some have dark cotyledons and some have light ones. I will cull these and probably keep one with dark cotyledons because they look cooler.
 

 
Chocolate Bhutlah SM from WHP
The cotyledons of this look dark. A few more are still germinating, hopefully they pop up because it would be nice to have multiple plants.
 

 
Lemon Drop from Juanito's. It sounds like an neat pepper to grow.
 

 
 
The plants will be fed nutrients with every watering. At first they will get watered every 2-3 days (maybe longer if the coco stays wet) but after a few weeks they will get water every day.
 
Luckily the tap water here is very clean. My truncheon can't even measure the electrical conductivity or the ppm because it's so clean but according to the local council website it is approximately 50 ppm (.5 conversion), 70 ppm (.7 conversion) or 0.1 EC which is probably the cleanest tap water one could ask for. Any reference of ppm from now with be using the .5 scale.
 
The nutrients being used at the moment are
MaxiGro 10 - 5 - 14
MaxiBloom 5 - 15 - 14
Flairform CMX 4 - 0 - 0
 
I mixed the MaxiBloom and MaxiGro because the MaxiGro imo doesn't have enough phosphorous but the Maxibloom is slightly lacking in nitrogen for foliage growth.
 
Normally with the MaxiBloom or MaxiGrow you would add 7 grams per gallon of water but I have added 3.5 grams of each which in theory makes up 7.5 - 10 - 14 NPK
 
Adding the Flairform CMX (2ml/gallon) at half strength brings that up to 9.5 - 10 - 14 NPK.  All together the mix  is 2.2 EC or 1100 ppm which is too strong for baby seedlings and perhaps even fully grown plants. I diluted the nutrient solution with tap water until it reached 0.6 EC or 300 ppm and then added 3 ml/10 litres of roots excelurator and pH'd to 6.0
 
That's all for now. hopefully my plants do not die and if they don't you can expect to see some updates and hopefully a bigger variety of plants when the others start germinating.

 

[SuburbanFowl]

A very generous reddit has sent me some Khang Starr Lemon Starrburst seeds (He wouldn't even accept payment for the postage to the other side of the world).
 
The Lemon Starrburst seeds are being soaked in a 3% solution of KNO3 for 24 or so hours then I will try to germinate them using the paper towel method on a heat mat.
 
 

 

[Mr.joe]

Little guys look good so far. You will have pods in no time

 

[Downriver]

...There can only be one...
 

 

 
Love your willpower. I'd have all of them potted up lol. Culling is hard.
 

 

[SuburbanFowl]

Little guys look good so far. You will have pods in no time

 
Fingers crossed, thanks .
 

 
Love your willpower. I'd have all of them potted up lol. Culling is hard.
 

 
Lol, well it originally was just a test to see if the paper tower method worked. Turns out it did work. Too well, almost, lol.

 

[SuburbanFowl]

Welp. The lemon drop was starting to get big. It was started it way too early. I'm germinating more lemon drop seeds. Decided to trim and fim it. It looks terrible now but hopefully it bushes out.
 

 
 
The chocolate bhutlah SM is looking good except for some crinkly leaves. The nutes have upped to 500 ppm and it seems to be loving it. Once roots start coming out of the bottom of the cup the nutes will be upped again to 700 ppm.
 
I'm hoping it forks soon so it can be topped.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[SuburbanFowl]

Hi guys. Have had a rough couple of months but that's just life.. hoping things will get better. They always do.

I have learned so much from growing from seeds it's not funny.
1. I started way too early. My grow tent is small so the plants just didn't have much room to grow.
2. I was overfeeding. In coco, especially, this is not ideal because it means the plants didn't have the opportunity to fully grow roots
3. I should have started them in shot sized cups, let them get fully root bound, wait maybe a week after that point and then transplant them. After transplanting them, a proper dry/wet cycle would have resulted in explosive root growth.
4. Bugs are bad. I've had to trim a lot of leaves off my older plants because of bugs. The growth seemed to slow down at first but it's coming back nicely. Even though they don't look perfect the lateral growth looks nearly perfect which is hopefully indicative of a healthy future for these plants.
5. Hardening off is one of the most important things. I put my big plants outside as soon as it was sunny and left them in full sun without hardening them off. They suffered massive sun burn. That's okay because of the reason I mentioned above,  the lateral growth looks nearly perfect which is hopefully indicative of a healthy future for these plants.

I started a whole bunch of new anuums, 3 chinenses (Paper Lantern Habaneros) and 3 baccatums (Lemon Drops)
Using the techniques I have learned from the first batch of plants I can make these plants look healthier and more importantly grow faster.

Despite what growers on cannabis forums may have you believe, less is actually more. I say that in terms of EC/PPM but also in terms of feeding frequency. Once a plant is fully rootbound it can be watered but none of my plants were actually fully rootbound. Now the big plants get fed every 4/5 days and will gradually get fed more frequently as they develop more roots. This helps stimulate root growth.

Here are the older plants. Some look awful but they will bounce back, I'm sure of it.

Here are the healthiest of the 3 lemon drops, they all got transplanted into full sized solo cups today.

The roots of the healthiest lemon drop.
As you can see the root growth has exploded and all 3 plants are at the point where they can be transplanted. Now with a proper dry/wet cycle the roots will fill up a full sized solo cup within 1-2 weeks. After that they can be fed every 2 days and maybe even daily and the growth will take off.

All 3 together.
 

Paper Lantern Habaneros.
These are not ready for transplant yet but they have been enjoying the sun. They won't be transplanted until they're root bound.
 

Thai peppers (c. frutescens).
These will be the last to be planted. There is a long time left in the growing season so they will still have plenty of time to grow fruit. They have been transplanted into individual shot cups and will now get hydroponic nutrients.

6 cayennes + 1 runt Serrano.

12 Serranos, 5 Jalapenos, 4 Tabascos, 2 Goat's Horns and 1 Bisbas.
These are in the process of being hardened off and the roots are growing very quickly. They'll soon be ready to transplant in 500ml cups in coco coir. Once they're rootbound in full sized cups they'll be put into the ground. I will have an annuum jungle.
Serranos have to be one of the best looking plants in the entire genus, imo.
 

Nasturtiums + 1 Sunflower
Nasturtiums seem to love the coco coir and only needed to be in the shot cups for less than a week before becoming nearly rootbound.
I transplanted them into potting mix today (in 500ml cups) and will be planting them in the ground at the end of the month.

The Sunflower is growing ridiculously fast so I have bought 3 more varieties and they're sprouting now.

Pyrethrum.
This herb is the origin of pyrethrin and synthetic pyrethrins and I thought it would be cool to have some in the garden. Only 1 germinated sadly so I bought more seeds but even having just 1 will be cool.
Who knows if it has anywhere near the insecticidal properties of extracted or synthetic pyrethrins but even if it doesn't it will be nice to pay homage to the origin of one of the most powerful insecticides.

I'm growing a few more things.

Poppies (got given free seeds so thought I'd germinate them. I refuse to grow papaver somniferum, not because of the way they look but because people will take the pods and even plants without hesitation.).
Multiple types of sunflowers (They're nice to look at, the multiple varieties add diversity and they are very easy to grow).
Swan Plants (they attract butterflies)
Dragon fruit (had some seeds and thought it would be cool to grow them. Still waiting for them to sprout).
Lettuce, broccoili and cauliflower.
Holy Basil (At a shop near my house I saw a plant that looked like a pepper plant so I asked and the owner said that it was called holy basil and that it had medicinal properties and is also used as part of Hindu rituals. I was intrigued so ordered some seeds)

Everything is grown from seed here.

I've learned so much this season and want to thank every member of this community. Any time I've run into an issue I have just posted a question and received helpful advice or just searched the website and found the answer to my question.
Even though I'm not happy with how some of the plants have turned out so far they'll bounce back.
Hopefully the second season growing from seed will be even better but even if it's not perfect the important thing is learning.

You can spend a lot of time reading about things online but what's even better is actually doing. Even if you don't get it right the first time you will learn valuable lessons from the "failures", especially if you ask for help when you need help. They're not even really failures because once you've been through them, you've learned from them. The word failure has negative connotations. If you're learning, you're not failing, you're progressing.

If you have made it this far, thanks so much for reading, I hope your life is going good and if it's not going good make sure to keep at it because it will get better.

I will post an update as soon as I can.







 

 

[PaulG]

You've made good progress in your inaugural growing
from seed season! Can't wait to see how those look
when they get into the full summer.

 

[SuburbanFowl]

Lemon drop on 28th december
 

 
Lemon drops 25th Jan (The plant from the above photo is the plant with the stake in it now)
 

 

 
Paper lantern habanero
 

 

 
Cayenne
 

 
7 Pot Brain Strain Red
 

 
Thai peppers
 

 

 

 
 
In ground peppers
 
I've only watered these once every week since I transplanted them on the 1st of January. Now they're getting water every 3 days so hopefully they explode with growth.
 

 
 
If you showed me these photos of my plants at the time I first made the thread I would have considered this season a failure but actually I have learned so much that it is exciting. My second season from seed is going to be amazing and I can't wait.
 
A lot of the plants didn't make it because of multiple mistakes (mainly overdosing on neem and also not learning how to utilise coco coir properly).
 
Next season I will grow less plants and put them in bigger containers. Only two will be coco coir plants and the rest will be in potting mix/perlite.
 
I probably won't update this thread until I harvest (which is 2-3 months away). Next season is going to my biggest and best yet .