Hello,

I am a medical marijuana patient and am taking on my first growing endeavor of any kind. I liked the idea of an LED lighting solution and bumbled into California Lightworks' SolarStorm 400 growers' feedback program. It looked like a quality product and the program allowed me to try a lighting system with all the features I should ever need as an individual grower - at a budget I could take on.

I am picking up all my growing info from what I can piece together online. I hope my successes and setbacks will give other newbies a resource to help grow their own medical marijuana with less hills and valleys than I project I will have to traverse.

Thank you California Lightworks for this opportunity. Also thanks to community boards like LEDgrowLightForum.com for giving people a place to share & learn.

I promise to any readers that I will be honest with my reports and will try to give as complete a picture of my process as reasonably possible. Thanks.

- NewGrow50

Welcome to the forums!

If you have questions feel free to ask and I'm sure we can help you with issues that may come up...


SME

Thanks for the welcome.

GROW POST #001 - Plotting the Course

INDOOR vs OUTDOOR
I don't have the space for private and secure outdoor growing, so I am growing indoors.

LIGHTING
I was interested in LEDs because they seem like the simplest solution (if they work). I am trying the Solar Storm 400w as my all-in-one lighting solution. A big investment for me, but it seemed like the most important and costly factor.

SOIL vs HYDROPONICS
I decided to go soil. As a newbie, it seems less expensive and to have less of a learning curve. If I have problems, maybe I'll try hydroponic one day.

SEEDS vs CLONING
I chose going with seeds because I wanted to know what strains I am growing. I need to find which strains are most effective for my medical issues. If there were plants I might be able get a hold of for cloning, the selection would not have been very broad and I could not be sure they were the strain they were reported to be.

MY SEEDS
I looked online at different seed banks - I went with Nirvana because it seemed like people had had success with them and they were affordable. There were a number I would have gone with.

I went with a few feminized auto-flowering choices to make my first growing experience quicker and easier...
Short Rider: Hybrid, 6-8 wks
Bubbleicious: Predominantly Indica, 6-8 wks
Jock Horror: Predominantly Sativa, 7-9 wks

and a few other feminized seeds for their unique characteristics...
Blackjack: Hybrid, 9-11 wks
Full Moon: Predominantly Sativa, 12-14 wks

My plan is to start with the quicker auto-flowering and then have the others mature after the auto-flowering plants have been harvested.

If I find a strain that is very effective, I may try to maintain a mother and make clones - but for now, I am just checking out different strains and growing from seed.

NEXT POST: "Testing Seed Propagation"

LED lights certainly *do* work but they don't seem to keep up with large HID lights. LED is FAR better than fluorescents. Since this is your first grow, you will probably like the results. To get the best results that you can, you should keep the number of watts per square foot on the high side. CLW suggest 40w/sqft for the SolarStorm series but I believe that you'll want 50+w/sqft to get high end results. You should check out the other journals and decide for yourself how much are you'll want to try to cover with your light.

You may find that the sativia and sativa dominate plants get too big for LED to penetrate effectively, I'd suggest that you start flowering all plants (except the autos of course) while they're short.


I'm looking forward to seeing your journal progress...

Hello,

I'm not sure if you have purchased seeds yet but I would "highly" recommend Mandala Seeds. These folks have great strains at very affordable prices. They have a very good philosophy on gardening and an excellent web site with lot's of growing tips. Their strains
are specifically bred to withstand high heat and are very tolerant to stress's which new growers sometimes go through. Check out their website and you will see what I'm talking about. Good luck and be patient!

Welcome NewGrow50! I'll be watching your journal.

photosynthesis, thanks for the Mandala seeds tip. Looks like their Hashberry and Mandala #1 strains have numbers I could work with. Do you have any experience ordering directly from their site? EDIT - nm they don't sell directly anymore!

Thanks everyone for the replies.

GROW POST #002 - Propagating Seeds

PROPAGATOR PRO
I used a "Propagator Pro" to start off 4 free mystery seeds as a test. I used Jiffy peat moss pellets and distilled water.

Day #4 (mystery seeds)
Mystery Seeds 1 & 2 sprouted.


Day #4 (mystery seeds)
Mystery Seeds 3 & 4 sprouted.
Mystery Seeds 1 & 2 have grown too tall for the Propagator so I moved them into pots and placed them under the Solar Storm 400.


In the pots I used "Miracle Grow Organic Choice Garden Soil"

mixed with "Sponge Rock"

and about an inch of black rocks at the bottom of each pot.

So far so good. 4 seeds 4 seedlings.