Budget Auto Grow

The girls broke soil in just a couple days, much faster than I expected. The Strawberry Cheesecake is growing faster and more consistently than the LSD 25. The rear right LDS is healthy, but noticeably smaller than the SBC, though I did see it catching up over the past couple days. My front right LSD came out deformed, as one of the fan leaves, and one of the cotyledons came out crinkled and discolored. I think this plant will make it, but may likely be stunted and be my runt.

These girls are two days from two weeks old and their growth has really started to speed up. The Strawberry Cheesecakes in the red tub are still proving to be the fatties, but the healthy LSD-25 isn’t far behind. It seems the mutated LSD-25 is going to make it, but it’s growth will likely be stunted. I’m interested to see what she does. The past week has seen some height and wattage adjustments on the light fixture to find the sweet spot between, light strength, stretch, and heat. It’s still a bit cool here, so me temps are fluctuating a bit more than I’d like, but with spring in full swing, I expect night temps to flatten out a bit in the coming days. I didn’t picture my humidity solution in the first week, but I’ve been using some transparent plastic sheet that fits perfectly in these tubs. I’ve provided a picture this week. It’s kept the girls nice and humid until we can get out of this seedling stage and get their roots nicely developed. Finally, I did their first feeding with an amendment of Dr. Earth’s 2-2-2. I just top dressed the pots with this,and some mixed perlite and peat moss to fill out the settling soil. This is my first time using fully organic dry amendments, so I’m interested to see how different it is from Fox Farm or synthetic fertilizers.

The girls really blew up this week and I felt confident removing the humidity dome. I noticed by lifting my pots that most half of the moisture in their pots had been taken up, indicating that their root zones are likely spreading into the pots. I let the top layer of soil get nice and dry before watering, and I suspect they’ll really be taking up the water in the next few weeks. Decided to give them a a good feeding of Dr Earth Homegrown so to get a higher nitrogen level in the soil for when their inevitable growth spurts hits over the next few weeks, and it also has a healthy dos of phosphorus to get established before preflowers start growing. Also added some Foxfarm worm casting and bat guano concentrate (organic too 😊). The bigger plants were large enough for me to start some very early LST to get those stalks ready to lay over, and the runt is stringy enough that I can bend her easily as well. I wanted to get this process started early so to make these girls bushy before the flowering starts. Side branches at my nodes are really sprouting well and I think they have potential for good stretching if I let them get some light exposure. Cheers and happy growing y’all.

I had some big decisions to make this week. The biggest was to move forward with making my grow a perpetually cycle. I plan on putting a new plant in every 3-4 weeks for now. That’s I’ll give me time to harvest about once a month. I’d be pleased with at least a couple ounces off each plant. The runt LSD-25 was moved out of the tent due to slow growth and replaced with a germinating seed. It’s actually peeking up after being outside for a few days. It’ll finish it’s life cycle next to my vegetable garden, hidden of course. The SBC and bigger LSD-25 are getting bigger and starting to develop more nodes. I’ve kept the training going and decided to defoliant a bit. The leaves were beginning to have wet spot despite decent humidity, and mid sized fan leaves were blocking prime bud sites. All in all, the grow is going well. Moving forward, I’ll start planting in 3gal fabric pots and start incorporating my dry amendments into the soil. I’ll also likely be using a different soil mix in the future, mixing 3 parts vermiculite, compost, and coco. Anyways, cheers and happy growing!

The girls are really starting to get their preflower stretch on. The flowers are developing and they’re getting a little stinky. Cheesecake number 2 is developing a bit of a nitro deficiency so she’ll be fed a bit more than the others soon. They’re also sucking up water really fast, so I know they’re working hard to grow. I likely won’t be defoliating any more unless necessary.

The girls were showing some yellowing in their lower leaves, so I knew they needed food ASAP. Decided to break my organic rule and give them some salt based nutes. My ph looks fine so I’m not worried about lockout. They’re getting stanky and the flowers are filling out. The LSD is even starting to show some purple.

The synthetic nutrients really transformed the plants this week. I really wanted to go organic, but it seems I’ll have to do a hybrid feeding due to what I have available in my area at a reasonable price. The LSD 25 is getting nice and terpy, and seems to be maturing faster than the Strawberry Cheesecake. I’m guessing the girls will finish at 10 and 12 weeks, respectively. That lines up with the description by the breeders. As for the setup as a whole, I moved my lights to the rear of the tent so to focus the intense light there, and provide dinner light to the front and center. This allows me to have some seedlings and veg stages in the same tent with flowers, while keeping the light intensity proportional.

Accidentally overfed last week and now the plants are showing signs. The LSD-25 is surprising resistant, but does have rusty spots on the sugar leaves. The Strawberry Cheesecakes have had some whole branches yellow out, where other branches have gotten green and glossy. This week will see some higher ph watering to combat the soil acidification and nutrient lockout. The girls are sucking up water pretty fast, so I hope I’ll have plenty of chances to correct the water ph. Otherwise, they’re starting to smell very nice. Getting lots of sweet lemon smells from everyone right now, and the buds are frosting and fattening. The LSD-25 is maturing fastest. I think the other two will be a couple weeks behind.

The LSD 25 looks like it only has a week or so left to go. Still has white hairs, but trichomes are maturing fast. I’ve cut nutrients out on these girls and they’ll just be watered throughout to flush. The LSD will finish faster so I’m flushing it heavier in my sink. Strawberry cheesecake has taken more time, but they’re finally starting to fatten up a bit. One plant has many more tops, where the other is way frostier than anything else in the tent. Definitely two different phenos. One is higher quality where the other will produce more weight.

Overall, this was a fun strain to grow. It handled me better than I handled it, and it’s a beautiful plant. I’ll be ordering more of this to see if I can grow it better next go around.

I really struggled over the past couple weeks with fungus gnats and some small white aphids invading my soil. I’m pretty sure they came in with some hay I tried to use as water retention top dressing. I tried organic pesticides, diatomaceous earth, and sticky traps to no avail. I let the pots dry up til the plants nearly died, which is why they look like shit. In the end, a wolf spider actually moved into my tent and I believe her and her offspring have eaten most of the pests. It’s the circle of life baby. Either way, learned a lesson there. These plants still have a ton of clear trichomes and we’re working on week 12 now. Hoping they’ll mature over the next week or two because the leaves are starting to die off. If it comes to an early chop, I’ll have to either have some middy flower, or make some sort of concentrate from them.

Sorry for the late response. Been letting the bugs cure a bit. I wasn’t thrilled with the strawberry cheesecake until it cured, and boy, did the smell profile improve. Very cheese heavy.