Around five days after planting the sprouted seeds I now have one that has come above ground. No signs of the others yet but I hope in a few days I will see them too. Using 100% of my native dirt for starting seeds was not the best approach in hindsight. Next time I will use 100% potting soil and or get some seed starting soil that is even finer that the potting soil. Though I do still plan on using my native dirt, when it comes to the pots I will grow them in will be half and half.
The picture above is of it around four days old, we can see its cannabis like leaves forming.
Above is around one or two days old, at this point it was hard to tell if it was a cannabis plant. The day I saw the seed come up I gave it a good watering, the clay takes awhile for it all to soak in so it looks like a mess until its more dry. And once it dries it forms a thick surface layer, this is why I think the clay was not the best approach for seeds.
While I waited for my sprouting to grow I built the grow tent. It is a 48" by 48" AC infinity tent. This is my first grow tent, previously I grew in closets.
I followed the manual and also watched a Youtube video on it being constructed. Helped a lot to see it on paper and a video.
With the frame partially assembled I needed help attaching them. Luckily I had some great help from @lovely.logic and they helped me secure it while I held it up.
It took me around 30 minutes to figure out how to put the tent over the frame but I figured it out eventually. Glad to have it, ordered a hygrometer as well to put inside. I still need to run ducting, I bought a 6" inline fan to use and plan on running the exhaust outside through the concrete wall.
Here it is, all ready to go. Just need my 1000w MH setup, in the mean time I will grow them using tube lights.
I dug up a spot in my back yard where I plan on building a crow feeder, I will post on that later. But for now the dirt from the hole will be used for my pots. The hole is where I will lay a post in the ground using concrete or something like that.
Once I put half the native clay in each of the pots I had to get my potting soil to amend it. Going with half clay and half potting soil I hope the plants are happy. A wasp was hanging around on my bag, waited until it left.
I spent around 30 minutes just pulling rocks out of the native clay.. lots of them.. hah I need to build a sifter to get them out more effectively.
A little early, I moved the sprouting to dirt as I am worried the clay will not allow it to grow well for the next week or so.
I got my transplanting station all setup.. Using a sprayer, tray for water, my AC infinity 7 gallon cloth pot and a plastic fork I was ready to move this seed.
Working the sides with the fork I loosened the dirt.
It came out in a big clump, next I cleared off some of the excess while being careful not to hurt the little sprouting.
Moving it under the lights I started the seeds on, I moved the pulleys up to make the lights right above the sprouting.
These lights are some I brought from Georgia, I used them in the past to start veggie seeds and such. Great to now use them on my cannabis sproutling in a whole new state. Will move them into the grow tent once I got my more powerful lights.
The trusty plastic fork saved the day. It came through and got that seed out without issue. Hopefully I did not shock it. So we shall see over the next few days how it does. And I also will keep an eye on the other seeds I started and hope they come up. Though it is very possible they will not make it, partially from the clay and also due to their age. Some of those seeds may be a decade old, hard to say and may not be good any more. So I plan on starting more soon if I do not see any more sproutlings pop up. This time I will soak them in water as suggested and use finer dirt to start the seeds, no clay until they get a little older.
So now I wait for the sproutling to grow strong, form some more leaves and nodes. And hopefully in a week or less my powerful 1000w light should be here and then we should really start to see progress. I hope more start soon, as if I start a new batch of seeds I may need a second grow tent. As eventually some will be vegging while others are ready to flower and that will be hard to manage without two tents.