The year is getting ahead of me. The tent and lights have been in their boxes for a couple months since delivery. I made the executive grower decision to gitter' done over the weekend and get this grow off the ground. There is SO much I learned in the my first grow, mistakes made, lessons learned, and still came out with some incredible bud! A few friends have tried it and gave enthusiastic thumbs up.

By Saturday night, the 6th, the tent was up, the lights hung, timers set, and the like to get this underway. By today, the 7th, I was ready to make the proverbial plunge and get the seeds from Amsterdam in water to begin germination. There are now several Caramelicious and Jack Herer seeds beginning their soak. They're floating right now, and I thing I remember that happening in the first grow. If things go well, I should have enough seeds left over for an outdoor (read: semi-uncontrolled) grow as well.

I have to mention about the tent and lights. It's a 5x5 foot Gorilla tent with the extra foot height extension, and some killer lights, Grower's Choice ROI-E720. Both came from the LED Grow Lights Depot during a killer Black Friday sale. The tent is amazing--super heavyweight, completely light tight, and I have to say, the extra foot in height is amazing as the lights and ventilation (taken from the first grow) are in that extra foot, leaving me sufficient room to stand. The GC lights are amazing. The first grow had the Blurple (Blue/Purple, Magenta) colored lights. The light is bright white--almost blinding when put up to full intensity. Inside of the tent I don't believe there will be a single square inch that doesn't have great light.

Now to over-stress about the seeds until I have seedlings! Onward...

The Caramelicious and Herer seeds were all floating in the their respective glasses and I worried a bit after a day that some were still floating and others sank. I don't remember, but I think that as the seeds crack they will sink.

I checked them this morning, and lo and behold, all of them have tiny little white protrusions; roots are coming out of all of them! I'm thinking that perhaps as the little fragile roots grow, they will drop to the bottom. I had very good luck with the seeds in water in Grow One, so I'm far less worried now.

I have the Happy Frog potting soil ready for the proverbial red Solo cups when the roots and tiny pre-leaves appear. Happy Frog has enough nutrients for the first several weeks of growth before I have to consider adding fertilizer to the water. I'm anxious to get the seeds going on into the tent. Honestly, though there is nothing in the tent right now, and obviously the lights are off, I'm having fun just looking at the camera views online and on my phone. I'm kind of amazed at how much infrared light is being emitted by the camera, illuminating the inside of the now empty tent.

I was sent five "Purple Power" seeds (I think that's the name) but they're not feminized. I have a day or so to decide if I should just throw them all in a glass and see what sexes exist. More to come... Onward..!

[ADDENDUM] - I put all the Purple Power seeds in water and will hope for females of the five.

It was about time (maybe too late?) for the germinated seeds to get into their first soil jacket. There are four Caramelicious and three Jack Herer in their red cups. The seeds are numbered. The C-1 is the seed with the huge root, and C-2 the next longest. The rest of the seeds are all about the same sizes.

When transplanting the germinated seeds into the soil, I added a small amount of the GREAT WHITE MYCORRHIZAE powder to give the roots a boost. Once in the soil, I soaked them with distilled water, numbered and labeled the cups, and set them up in the tent with the lights on to their lowest setting. According to the meter, just about 200. I tested the light and at it's highest setting, it was well over 1000, more than enough light. I did not turn on the ventilation with the thinking that they may need a little more warmth, and not pull in the cooler air from the outside of the tent.

When the seedlings come up, I may add a little molasses to the water to feed the mycorrhizae. Now to wait to see if they survived the transplantation. Deep breaths and fingers crossed!

By the way, none of the Purple Power seeds have germinated yet in the water. They have all sunk to the bottom, and if they don't germinate, no huge deal, they were freebies with the original seed order. More fingers crossed!

[Later entry] - Checking on the temperature and humidity, it's a toasty 70 degrees and 48% humidity. I think this is okay...

The Purple Power seeds are a bust. Nothing, nada, not even a hint of life. Ugh. Oh well, they were freebies, so in this case, I got what I paid for!

The other half of Executive Grower had germinated five seeds from a friend, so I put them in their appropriate red Dixie cup, same mycorrhizae powder, but this time I added a smidge of molasses to the water to feed the microorganisms in the powder. Hopefully that wasn't a mistake this early on. We'll see. They were added to the grow area and labeled with "?E". The question mark is because these are not feminized seeds, so hoping at least a couple are female, With the addition of these, the cups are now filling the table. It will be a bit crowded when they're moved to a one gallon pot! I'm now at the *legal* limit of immature plants.

I also turned on the fan to its lowest setting to get air moving. The weather is cooler (and windy) outside and the tent was at 67 degrees and 38% humidity. I think the temp will go up as well as the humidity with the addition of new plants. If necessary, I'll bump up the temp and moisture.

It's nice to have the camera in the tent being able to check in on the grow. Right now, not much as I'm waiting for the sprouted seeds to break the surface. Fingers crossed again..!

Checking on the kiddos before work, and ALL TWELVE of the seeds have broken through the soil. SUPER EXCITED. In the photo to the left, you can barely see one of the tiny green seedlings coming up through the middle of the cup on the right lower corner.

I did learn something else about the temps inside the tent. Though it was 80 degrees last night, when I opened the tent this morning, it was at 63 degrees. Took a moment to remember that the lights are set to an 18 hour on and 6 hour off cycle (off from midnight to 0600 hrs), cooling off the tent. Now that the light is back on again, I'm sure it will warm up.

This begs the question, should the light be on all the time to keep the temp, or should the temperature change during the night mimic actual nature as the nights cool off. I may reduce the dark time until the kiddos are bigger. We'll see how that pans out. Still very excited about the successful germination! With the lights on, these little ones should grow fast!

Something else that occurred to me about the use of molasses tinged water is that it did *not* kill the five "?" seedlings, and I will use that on the other plants as well which will feed the beneficial fungi and bacteria that I placed in the soil near and around the roots.

I was so nervous about what was going to happen today. Did I wreck the grow by waiting too long to transplant? Maybe since it has only been about ten days since the plants went from red Solo cups to the one gallon pots, it may be saying that if I keep that sequence of pot pots, maybe I should transplant earlier, or perhaps, skip the gallon stage and go from cup to pot. The only thing in the back of my mind with going bigger like that is whether or not the excess moisture be bad for the plant. In the end everything worked out, most likely a source of over-thinking.

Off to the Hydroponics store to get Happy Frog soil. For the twelve plants I purchased five 2 cubic foot bags, only to find later it was a little much. Each bag of soil fills three 7 gallon fabric pots. I also found great “coasters” for the final pots--thick black plastic (vs. Lowe’s thin clear plastic) and the thick blacks were about 40% cheaper than Lowes, and for a better product!

All set back home and I started the task of transplanting twelve plants into their final pot pots. I did find that when I took the plants from the one gallon pots, they looked like they were at the beginning of being root bound. The paper towel I had put at the bottom of the pot was disintegrating, and roots were growing through and around the paper. I took one fabric bag, added the green string identifier to the handle (one knot is Caramelicious, two for Jack Herer, and three for the “not sure if they’re female or not” plants). Then several inches of soil, some Great White Shark on the soil; took the plant from the one gallon container, brushed off the pea gravel and white paper, sprinkled with Great White, into the pot, filled the sides with soil, lightly compacted, then into the waiting saucer in the tent.

As to what to water/feed for this first transplant, I wanted to go easy on the nutes since Happy Frog already has fertilizer. I was more concerned about the lack of absorbed nutes from the original gallon container soil, so I went half-sies on the water nutes. You can see the ratios on the Plant Nutrition page for 3/20. Each plant received about one gallon of nute’ed water, pH balanced to 6.5-6.7. It took about five hours to do the entire tent, set up, plants in pots, adjusting camera, etc. I also turned on the fan exhaust to bring new air in and compensate for the increased humidity with the much larger pots, and the water evaporating from the pot fabric.

One thing, and you’ll see it in the upper right of the last photo. It’s one of the ? plants that appears to be male. I didn’t want to go to the expense of filling a pot only to have it removed from the grow in the next few weeks.

There are eleven contenders for the nine spaces in the tent. That's a lot of plants, but I want to be able to control as many of the grow aspects as possible. The rest will go into the yard.

I’d say it’s looking good!