Unfortunately after seeking advice. I decided to pull the soil up to see what was going on and I found 5 seeds that had not grown at all.

My first grow has officially failed! However I don't see this as a complete loss. I have my grow setup well underway. And though it was short I learned a lot from this experience. I intend to start this grow again. Just need to pick up some new seeds and see if I cant do this properly.. if it's ok. I will continue to post the progress here. I will be starting germination on Friday. 

Today was the start of round 2.

I had 2 black gelato seeds left from before and I bought 4 more pink lemonade seeds. I bought a heat mat with a controller and a new dome with a built in light.  Also bought jiffy pellets.

Hoping things turn out better this time around!

I'm keeping the water to temp before I added the seeds. I'm soaking for 3 hours and then they are moving to paper towel. Which is also currently sitting on the heat pad getting to temp. 

Fingers crossed!

Originally I was going to soak my seeds for 3 hours but I didn't scuff them so I left them for 5 hours. 11:30 last night i moved them into paper towel that was in a pyrex container and sitting on the heat pad at the same temperature as the water with the seeds soaking in it. I checked on them today. No taproot yet but put my jiffy pellets on soak so they are ready to go for when they are ready. (Hopefully tomorrow)

Checked the seeds again this morning and they were almost all ready 2 go.

4 of the taproots were long so I transferred them into the prepped jiffy pellets 1 was very short and the last one had just barely broken the surface. So I left those 2 in the pyrex container and I'll check on them later.

Today I got home from work to a beautiful surprise!! My very first sprout has broken soil!! 

Round 2 is off to a much better start!

I'm really starting to enjoy checking on my plants when I get home from work and seeing the progress! 

Today I was able to remove the helmet from my first sprout (the Black Gelato) and also I have 3 more sprouts starting to come up. These ones are pink lemonade. So this is 4 of 6 of my seeds that have sprouted!!! Very exciting! I am still waiting patiently for the other two to pop up. However. Full disclosure.. 

The one pink lemonade seed didn't germinate.  It looked like it was trying to break open but simply wasnt. I left it for a while with no change so I decided to throw it in the jiffy give it some light and see what happens. I will not be surprised if it lives but wont be disappointed if it doesn't because I am already aware it had a poor germination. 

However my other black gelato i think i straight up killed. When I was moving it from the paper towel to the jiffy pellets the root had gotten a little longer then I ment for it too and it had started making it's way into the fiber of the paper towel. I tried to be extremely gentle with it while removing it but inevitably the very tip snapped off. It was a very small amount of root that I lost but the snap I heard was very disheartening.  I reached out to the chat group here on this site so see if I killed it. The general consensus was that it's most likely dead  but I was advised to plant it anyway to see what happens. So I did and now i wait patiently to see what happens and if the weed gods will smile on me 🙂   with this one I must say I am expecting it to be dead  I will be very surprised if I come home to a second black gelato sprout. But how exciting would that be? Cant wait to see what tomorrow brings!!!  

Another great day! my BG baby is doing great. As of a few hours ago the leaves were still stuck together with a yellow substance I can only describe as pus looking. It had dried so I was trying to keep it moist to help it fall off. It was not really working so I finally very carefully helped separate the leaves. I didn't take it off just helped them separate. Within only a few hours the leaves are finally separating and it's already looking much better!  

As for the 3 PL they have grown a bunch too but as a result to keeping the BG moist I fear I may have over watered them as their leaves are curling down. So for now I'm not going to water them anymore and let them do their thing. 

Still no life from the last PL but I'll still leave it and see what happens 

And last but not least by any means! The last BG (the one I broke the tip of the root off) seems to have begun to break soil! Very excited to see what tomorrow brings!!!

Today has been an exciting day for me. I hope everyone else is having as much fun as I am! 

Well it's a super later post today but a few things to report. First of all the 4 plants are doing fantastic.  They seemed to be growing straight up a little to quickly so I moved them closer to the light and the 2 that I dont think will make it I just moved to the bottom of the dome.  Also I dropped the temp from the 30°C I had it at for germination to 26°C. Humidity is still a little high. 

Today I also order my seedling bags. And I bought my fabric pots for stage 2 and 3 

I want to top my plant so I bought clippers. And I have an hps lamp but reading a lot of stuff over the last few weeks has convinced me i want to do my veg cycle under a MH bulb so i bought one of those. And finally I was having a hard time deciding between soil and coco but after talking to the guy at my local store it seems coco was the final choice. 

I dont think I have anything else to report for now. But looking forward to seeing what tomorrow brings. 

Hope all your grows are going great! 

Well... I thought I was making a happy post today but things went disastrously at the last minute. 

Yesterday I went around town and bought all the parts to build the auto draining system from the articles on this site. I ordered the pump and got it all put together last night so it was ready to go. I also went and picked out my nute line and purchased it so I'm prepared. 

Only thing left to get was drip trays. Today I searched all over my town but EVERYONE was sold out . I ended up going to a neighbouring city to a different grow shop and finally found them.  The pump came in and my fabric seedling bags came in. I ordered the wrong seedling bags so I ended up having to use solo cups anyway. I started building the draining drip trays. But I need to let the glue and silicone dry so it's on hold for tonight. Will finish it tomorrow

Now that was all great. I'm feeling very good about all that  but now on to the disaster..

This morning I had noticed that my roots had made their way out of the bottom of the jiffy pellets and I was excited to get them transplanted  I had planned on taking lots of pictures before and after and of the process but things did not go as planned. My wife and I were bringing the stuff to the kitchen so we could get them transplanted. And she tripped... she was carrying the plants. They all fell over in the tray. And 1... hit the floor.. I was blown away. We both rushed to get them stood back up and the pictures were forgotten about. Suddenly it was go time and we just got it done.. the transplant itself went well. And then we gave them a really good drink of water from my fish tank.  Figured they deserved a treat and could probably use whatever the fish tank water has in it to help with the shock of everything that happened. They are now happily transplanted and back in the dome.  Fingers crossed we didn't kill them but guess we will see..

For now I guess the last thing to report is I changed the lights to a 18-0 cycle tonight.  Really hoping things go ok. 

I should also add that the two seeds that didn't sprout. Are officially dead. Dug them up today. So only 4 remain. I hope...

On the positive side I got 4 new seeds tonight for some auto flowers. Going to be germinating them next Sunday. 

I was starting to feel like growth was paused for the last day or so in the jiffy pellets. But after a night in a solo cup full of coco they seem to have resumed growth quite nicely. 

I seem to be having a bit of a hard time keeping humidity high. But it's not super low either so guess we will see what happens. 

And I got my draining system complete. Gravity was not my friend and it wasnt working quite as easily as explained in the tutorial. But I made it work by raising the drip trays by purchasing 4 more mini buckets and placing them under the drip trays. I lose a little grow space but I have a tall tent and dont plan on growing trees. So I'm hoping it works out. And if not it's a great learning experience.

I've been advised to leave my babys in their dome until they touch the top as it's easier to maintain humidity in there so that's what I'm doing. But I'm very excited to get them moved into their new home. 

Also I checked out a new grow shop yesterday and they gave me some auto flower seeds. So I'll be germinating those on sunday. I wonder if I can grow them in the same tent as my photos that are a month ahead. With them being autos they should flower no matter the light cycle ..

Very exciting learning all this new information! Cant wait to see what tomorrow brings

Plants are doing fantastic today! The 2nd node is coming in nicely and I'm very happy with how they look. Well all but the Black Gelato. He doesn't seem to be growing and my concern is growing.  I havent had time to reach out for advice but I'll be doing that right after I make this post. 

Also got the drainage system tested today and it's working pretty well..  just a little bit slow flowing for my liking. It does work well enough though. I think I'll tuff it out for now and maybe address it before my next grow. Either way, Cant wait to move the girls to their new home!! 

I hope all your grows are going great!

Wasnt much to report yesterday, really there still isn't. They are looking great! It's so much fun watching them grow. Once they have their 3rd node I'm going to start introducing nutes. I've been watering with fish tank water as my jug of water went empty and I havent had time to get it filled or get a new one. I'll likely do it over the weekend. But they really seem to be enjoying the fish tank water for now anyway. 

Its tiny. But your starting to see the shape of the 3 point leaves on the second node  and you cant see it in the picture but the third node is starting to come in on one of the PL. Tiny little leaves starting to poke up. 

The BG though it still seems a bit behind. It's also seeming to be doing very well.. it's very enjoyable to watch these little plants grow!! 

Plants are doing amazing! Leaves on second node are getting so big and 3rd node is really starting to show.  Ordered 2 new ac infinity 6" fans today to set up as an intake and exaust fan. And got myself a nute needle and nute meter. Very excited to try them all out. 

After consulting with the chatroom it's clear that I need to start giving the girls some nutrients tomorrow. So that's what I shall do! Hope it goes well!

Well things became unexpectedly busy in my life and I was not able to make time to update my journal on here (my physical one remains updated daily and I was not forgetting about my babies) but I guess that just means now I can show actual growth and have things to report.

Let's start with my fancy new fans. They showed up the next day and within seconds were magically installed in my tent. ( I was extremely excited) I just threw them in with some zip ties and paracord for now but I might change those out for something more professional looking eventually.  Or maybe I wont. Hard to say right now. I have two 6" ac infinity fans. 1 is t6 so it came with the fancy controller and the other is s6 and is also wired into the fancy controller. I have one set up as an intake and the other as an exaust. I wasnt sure what to expect but they seem to make the perfect amount of negative pressure. It pulls the sides in but not so much that I think the thing is going to break like it was doing with just a 6" exaust.  And the automation makes my life alot easier.

I still need to get circulation fans and a carbon filter. But my grow space is really starting to shape up.

The 4 seeds I received from my localish grow shop I decided not to germinate. They wanted us to grow them in solo cups and never pot up. Which I just could not get on board with. I want to see what these beauties are capable of so for now I will put these aside and start a little seed collection. Perhaps these will come out again for the spring auto flower challenge? Guess we will see.. 

I mixed nutes for the first time following the nute shedual on the box as close as I could (and ofcourse fucking it up and putting in a little but too much of a couple of the nutes but it hasn't seemed to have any negative effects so I cant complain. It was a root booster and something else I over did it with that wasnt part of the 3 part nutrient system so I think if anything it was benificial but in my next batch im going to try and do it properly) I learned on this journey the store I get water from actually has terrible water and I need to rethink my water buying habits. So I decided to move forward with what I had and see what happened. I'll be getting new water tomorrow. Finally found a source for good water  

The starting ec was about 400 which was horrific at best but I made due. I proceeded to mix in my nutes stiring and waiting between each one.. I wasnt sure if I was doing it right but it seemed to be going well. After I finished I ph checked the water. It was a little high and the Ec was hugely high. To get it in the lower end of the acceptable range (which also balanced the PH luckily) I had to dump in a bunch of straight water  i ended up adding half the amount i started with. I wanted 1 gallon and in the end I had 1.5 but as far as I could tell I had all my numbers right and everything looked good. So I took a deep breath and proceeded to water them. To my surprise they seemed to take it extremely well. I saw continued growth maybe even slightly accelerated growth  it was amazing! 

This proceeded for a couple days. I however at one point noticed mold on my soil. It was furry white looking stuff. I panicked a little but stayed calm and asked chat what they though  I was told it was most likely a natural fungas and nothing to worry about. I googled it and also got a similar response so I was happy. I removed it. Topped up the coco and watered again. All was well. 

I knew it was likely this was caused my High RH and lack of airflow both caused by being in my dome. I thought about moving them to my tent so I could introduce airflow but I had no way to keep to humidity up. And they were not quite at the size I wanted them to be before getting moved. So I decided to leave them but I opened the air vents. This caused a fairly big humidity drop but with water the plants it was keep fairly high so I wasnt to concerned. Plus it starts conditioning them for my dryish tent. 

This all went fantastically. Last night I started to be a little worried about the lower but still highish RH (because Google is evil) so i closed the vents. I also noticed yesterday that a couple leaves has tiny white tips. Nothing crazy. A search told me to just watch it as it could be the start of something. So that's what I've been doing but it seems to be getting better.

Today when I got home from work I noticed that the mold had returned and though its nothing to worry about I'm not very happy with it so I wanted to find a way to increase airflow again.. upon inspection I could see that the plants were touching the roof if the enclosure, so this was perfect! It was time for them to move into their new home. The drainage was all set and the light and exaust/intake so I went over and turned it on and let it run for a bit to get to temp.

I was going to leave the black gelato behind as its growth is quite behind but It ended up having to go as i only have 1 light timer at the moment  either way they all look way happier in their new home. Lots of space to grow  proper drainage and their fancy new light combined with more then adequate air flow.

I do not have circulation fans yet but the intake fan seems to be doing the job for the moment. I will address this soon. 

Everything is great! The girls are healthy! And I'm very excited for them to continue to grow into their new space. Hoping to be ready to transplant sometime over the next week. 

 The little black gelato. She was the first to pop and then i dont have a clue what happened  she started looking real bad for a while and was falling quite behind. But she has began growing again and seems to be doing well. Though her second node is supposed to have 2, 3 pointed leaves  but it only has 1  the other has a funny shaped single leaf.  The next node appears to be coming in fine though.  Will be quite interesting to see what happens to this one.

And the white tips. I

was reading my nute box and I realized I'm supposed to use straight water every 3rd feed and I havent been. So i watered today and I'll go back to nutes tomorrow and try to keep to their guidelines. 

Happy growing everyone!