Pineapple Express (first grow)

The first week was a success. The seedling had lots of movement and growth.

The second week of vegetation was tough. First, I repotted the seedling into a larger pot. This move caused the plant to stress and stunted its growth. I was also manually turning on and off the lights and messed up the light cycle. I was also not properly measuring the Ph levels and they were high throughout the first two weeks.

This week's challenge was the lights. I did not properly measure the distance between seedlings and light. As a result, the plants themselves showed signs of dropping. Unfortunately, this also caused them to absorb water much quicker. This probably causes a lot of stress to the seedling and root system. Perhaps this caused them to not grow too much during the second week. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I think that another big mistake I made was over-watering. I noticed that the Cotyledon (seed leaves) were yellowing at the ends. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I watered the seedling yesterday, and I think I will water again tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on how it’s doing. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Plants may be non-verbal, but they can teach us so much!

Ending week four from seed this small 😂. I am really not sure what is going on with this seedling. Lights are 30 inches above the plant. PH levels have been between 5.9-6.3. Humidity has been fluctuating quite a bit, so that may be one of the causes of why the plant is not growing at a faster pace. Also, every time I use the Reefertilizer starter soil conditioner, the seedlings don’t grow that well. Anyways, I am not giving up on it, and we will see if it gets better within the next few days 😣

Starting week five from seed and this little seedling is starting to show signs of growth! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I made lots of mistakes at the beginning of this grow, but I think that we are finally making some progress 🤗 The stem is looking a little bit thin, could it be over watering?

What a journey it has been from seed! I made a lot of mistakes in the first few weeks of this growing journey. I feel like I had a mini-crash after finishing the first year of grad school, and although I am growing cannabis as part of my research project, I haven't been the greatest at paying attention to it. This is not an excuse. It has actually been a learning opportunity. I realized that my body needs proper schedules to function and grow, just like a plant. The problems with the plant have really been my own problems. Let's just say that a plant may be the reflection of the grower. First, the light cycles were wrong and inconsistent. I thought that I could manually control the light schedule for the plants and be alright. However, I was wrong. My sleep schedule has been very inconsistent for the past few months. Mainly because we are living through a pandemic, and secondly because I am a graduate student 😂. How naive was it of me to think that a plant could follow my own rhythms? I guess it highlights my 'plant blindness.' Second, the light intensity was low and PH levels high. In the last five days, I have learned that plants are living organisms (I knew this, but my plant blindness is quick to dismiss it, I need to stop fighting these "plant voices" (signals)) that require a proper environment to grow, similar to humans. Of course, a plant is not human, but it is alive and living. It needs water, a regular schedule (light (active) /darkness (rest), oxygen, nutrients, and an overall good environment to grow. Concern about the size of my plant at five weeks, I decided to conduct a few experiments at home. Here are my notes: Friday, July 23, 2021, I took the plant out of the tent at 6:00 AM and placed it in front of my backyard window that faces the Eastside, perfect for sunrise. On that day, I had a few errands to run, and when I arrived home, it was 2:30 PM. The sun was now hitting the West side of my house, and I had to move the plant in front of my bedroom window. At around 7:00 PM, I went to look at the plant and noticed that its leaves were looking plumpy. So, I decided to take a timelapse to see what I would be able to record. During "magic hour" (sunset), I recorded and witnessed the plant moving with the rhythms of the sun. Plant, like humans, function at their best when they are synchronized with their circadian rhythm. The pandemic has definitely disoriented us to the point that it has disrupted all of our schedules. To this day, I feel tired from everything we have all been through; how could I possibly think that a plant would thrive with such a messed-up schedule? The time lapse made me realize that the plant needs some structure to thrive, and so do I. So, as much as I like to think that I can be disciplined and follow a plant's schedule, I cannot. So, I went to the store and bought the Globe Suite smart plug to automate and schedule the light cycle to 12hrs of light and 6 hours of darkness. Saturday, July 24, 2021, the plant woke up to the set schedule of the lights. I checked on the plant first thing in the morning, around 9:30 AM. The leaves look much greener and thicker than they did the day before. Sunday, July 25, 2021. I was away overnight and did not arrive home until 2 PM. The plant looks twice the size it was on Friday! Today, I will water the plant. I got a PH test kit and realized that the way that I measured the PH level, the first few weeks was wrong 🤦‍♀️🏽. I measured the PH correctly, to 5.9, and added some Reefertilizer grow nutrients to the water. I watered from the top, distributing the water evenly around the stem. My partner pointed to me that the lights seemed dim for the stage of the plant's life. So I had my lights set at 100 watts running at 20 % 😅. I realized that I had not increased the light intensity since the first few weeks of vegetation 🤦‍♀️🏽. So I increased the intensity to 100 watts running at 60%. Monday, July 26, 2021. First check-in 7:00 AM: The plant looks like it loves all of the new changes that I have made! It is finally growing 🤗 The sun is out, but it is not as intense as it should be because tiny particles of smoke are present in our air due to the wildfires, and they create a filter that makes the human eye see the sun blood red. It is quite apocalyptic. Regardless, I decided to take the plant out from the tent and record a time-lapse. It is fascinating how much movement plants have despite showing no noticeable signs of movement (to the human eye). Tuesday, July 27, 2021. It has been five days since I have made big changes to the plant's schedule and environment. The plant is finally showing good signs of growth, and its leaves colours have changed to a deep green. I am not watering the plant today, but I am spritzing it with water. I decided to take another time-lapse of the plant, but this time inside the tent. As I was setting up the tripod for my camera, I accidentally increased the humidifier 🤦‍♀️🏽. Luckily, I noticed within a reasonable timeframe and reduced the humidity and made the environment better. I increased the light intensity to 100 watts at 100%. The plant will stay in the tent all day today because it is raining ☔️.

The Pineapple Express has been doing well in its adjusted environment, and this week it grew 1 inch in height and lots of new leaves. I also purchased a humidity and temperature meter, which have come in handy during a week of weather fluctuation. This week I watered the plant on Monday and Thursday and spritzed in between. August 6: The plant is looking big and healthy. Lots of new leaves at the top and at the bottom. I added extra light to the tent using the Philips LED Plant Grow Light Bulb (40 watts) at ground level and there are baby leaves peaking out of the stem. The smell of the pineapple express is subtle, however, up close it is pungent and noticeable. So far, it only smells like "cannabis," I don't know how else to explain it. I also noticed that some of the leaf stems are turning red! It is pretty and amazing how plants start changing colours 😊. I also forgot to turn off the Philips light overnight, so now the plant has experience 24 hr of light 😅. Hopefully, this does not damage or stress the plant too much.

Week eight was a warm week. The lack of ventilation affected the plants, so I added an extra fan in the growing room. I had to navigate the heatwave and humidity, despite having an AC the grow room got very warm throughout the day. Nonetheless, the plant had lots of new growth.

Week 9 was a tough week for the plants, but they pulled through! First, we are experiencing a heatwave where I live which has caused me some headaches for figuring out how to make the environment plant-friendly. Growing indoors is much tougher than I thought it would be 😅. So the room where the plants are has reached the max temperature of 38 degrees celsius. I decided to take the plants out of the tent and into my bedroom facing the west side window for ultimate sun exposure. Unfortunately, I cannot have the plants in my bedroom overnight since my husband has allergies. So, I placed them back in the tent at night. Throughout the week, I took some timelapse videos of the plants in front of the sun, and it is truly fascinating how plants understand the power of the sun, soil, water, and air. I think that plants would rather be grown by sunlight than LED lights, they get to move to the rhythm and speeds of solar and ecosystem, and it's amazing to witness in timelapse! Anyways, by the end of week 8, the plant looked hungry and big enough to be repotted. So, I gave it some Gaia Gree all-purpose nutrients and repotted her in a larger container with some fresh soil. The first few days of repotting, the plant seemed to have experience stressed. Its leaves were floppy, and there was not much growth. By the end of week 9 the plant looked much happier, fuller, and greener!