Northern Lights, Tan. Dream, Blueberry!

First week of real Veg. Plants at end of week stand about 1.5 Inches tall. They only needed watering once (day 7), and got our well water (pH ~7) the runoff measured at 6.5. -Spent the first half of the week figuring out how close to get the LED lights. Ended up starting at about 18" and lowering down to ~14" a little bit a day also had my 225w dimmed down and across the week brought it up to full power. My temp/hyg readings are at 'leaf height' to be accurate to the plants. The didn't show any signs of burning or not liking the heat of the LEDs though. Will continue to drop the lights a bit to get closer to 12 inches, though the plants don't show signs of stretching. -Upgraded tent ventilation to a AC Infinity CLOUDLINE T6 and removed the ol' boxfan. It now vents out a window and with it's temp/humid. controller is pretty balanced all day long. I also have a therm/hygrometer that WiFi's to my phone so I can keep an eye on things. -By the end of the week I'm starting to see the beginning of the third set of leaves.

Starting week 2: -Watered w/nutrients yesterday on the cusp between week 1 & week 2. GH Trio plus a little CALiMAGic and RapidStart. I'm using well water that leans towards hard, but has a water softening system in place to fix that. Adding back in some of the 'hard'! The water is ~7pH but the additives dropped that and I adjusted up to 6.3pH. Alas, I should have bumped it back to 7 because my Black Gold starter mix is lower pH so my run-off was still just under 6. Will readjust next time I nute these. -Spent the last week futzing with humidifier settings & auto-fan settings to find the right place. They were push-pulling too much and the temp/humidity was zig-zagging up and down by about 3 degrees & 5% a few times an hour. Now we've settled into stability. Right now at 55% humidity and 77 degrees during the day, dropping to 70 when the lights go out. I did lower the light a few inches and notch the fan's speed down a bit as well. Day 11 shows that all four (2x NL, 1x Tang.Dream, 1x BB) haven't really gained much height, but are developing longer leaves, and now there's the start of a new node on the top of each. Any worries from yesterday's feeding and soil pH being a little low seems to not be showing itself in the foliage as of yet. Day 12: There's the barest little bit of nutrient burn to one of the Northern Lights Autos from the feed/water on day 10. Spotted it yesterday, but wanted to see if it would grow, and 24 hours later it didn't. The plants are taking more water now. The first week after germination they only needed water every 4 days and now it looks like every other day. The plants haven't really grown any taller but have widened out a bit and the leaves are starting to fill in. I watered today with our ~7pH well/tap water and that helped bring the runoff back up to 6.35pH after it being a bit shy of 6 at day 10's feeding. Day 13: Environmental conditions dialed in. Temp is riding right around 76f and humidity is in the 50-55 percent range. I leveled down the fan and the humidifier and they're now playing nice. Plants look good. What looked like the beginning of nutrient burn a few days ago has not progressed in the least. A couple shots of the space. The Vivosun tent is 5' long by just under 3' wide and 6 and a half feet tall. It acts like a 3x3 with room on either side (nice for the humidifier & fans). I'll drop the cheappo lights on the side this week and angle them in a bit, they're 32w each. There's three more cheappos up top that are 19w each I may move those too. Once the plants get transplanted into 5g bags next week the bin used to raise the plants will go away. I have 14" saucers for the bags and then will have the bags raised up out of the saucers by an inch. Day 14: The actual 2 week mark from when seeds hit the soil. Plants continue to grow wide without growing taller. I'll assume that's good, and a sign that my lights are enough and not inducing any stretching. I did adjust the side lighting, now on rope-ratchets so they can be lowered. There's now 289w close in with another 60 up above. Watered again (now doing every two days, so there must be roots happening), with the same formulation as I did on Wednesday, though I did add some pH Up. Brought the water to 7.30 but my runoff is still sitting at 5.89 though that doesn't seem to be causing trouble. Day 15: Last night I prepped soil (Black Gold) with extra vermiculite & pearlite and got the 5 gallon cloth bags. Yesterday the plants all looked droopy even though they'd been dry before watering. I asked a question about it, and the comment was that it was time to move them. I did, then watered around the newly installed plants to help encourage the roots to spread. They weren't potbound but it was definitely time to move them. Overnight they've grown more than they have in any single stretch and the droop is gone. All lookin' better now. I've been easing the humidity back a bit too. As seedlings it was +60% now we're down around 45-50%. Thoughts or comments?

Week 3! (updated my 'days' since I lost a few along the way). Day 1 was 'seed in the moist soil.' Veg Week 1 was 3 days later. Each additional week starts on a Wednesday. Day 18: Wednesday is week change day. Technically only 2.5 weeks of actual time since germination week was 3 days. These lil' ladies are staying squat. I may lift the light a bit to see if I can get them to add a few inches. I'd love to top at least one of them, and they're going to be a pain to LST since they're ground-huggers. Last night I watered and upped the nutrients a little according to schedule. Since they'd only been in the big bags for a day, I didn't water all the soil down, but stayed within a few inches. Still using the 'rapid start' to promote roots & added molasses to the mix as well since the soil does feature compost. Smell IS becoming more prominent. I don't have a filter up yet, but that'll happen next paycheck...We're venting outside and eventually the neighbors will be asking if we have a pet skunk. Day 18 Evening: Had a handful of stuff delivered by Amazon, so 14" saucers, 10.5" baking racks, wire to LST, etc. That will mostly complete the grow tent, besides the carbon filter, which I won't need or order until next week. Last night's nutrients have kicked in, and the plants all look happy. I know they warn 'first timers' against topping...I don't follow advice well. 😛 So, I topped 3 and FIM'ed the 4th. At 3ish weeks, and just past the 3rd node, I figured it's sort of now or never since they're all autos. Even the Tangerine Dream has perked right up! Day 19: No water today, no other fussing. Did add some small fans for air movement, but they seem to have been fine with the transplant earlier this week, the upped nutrients on Tuesday & the topping/FIM on Wednesday. A little residual droop happening but it's definitely not overwatering at this point. The Most likely haven't fully grown out of the soil they were originally cupped in. You can see if you look at the one side shot there's action happening along the leaf nodes now too. Day 20: Disappointed to find the single Blueberry Auto got some kind of leaf burn. From my question, it appears to be nutrient related. I'll drop back a bit next week on that. I did water this morning, as the soil was dry. They do seem to get a little water-sad day of watering but then that gets better in the next couple days. I did water further out on the pots than before because I'd like the roots to grow/spread a bit and I don't think they'll do that with dry soil. Used straight tap/well water with a pH of 7...the soil measures at 6.2pH and the very little bit of runoff hit right at 6.5pH. Day 21: In an effort to get the best lighting DL'ed Photone and paid for the LED setting. Showed that my lighting was too low/intense. I backed it up to 19" and ended up with a more reasonable PPFD of ~650 and a Lux in the 39K-42K range. Definitely watered a bit too much back on Day 20 though...will wait a few more days, like 22 or 23. Day 22: Took all plants out to get better pictures waiting a few more days to water as they're mildly droopy & the leaves have taken a minor yellow cast. The Tangerine Dream that got FIM'ed seems to be the winner right now, but the others are holding in. Day 23: This morning's check in shows that overwatering droops are gone and now 2 out of 4 don't have yellowing. The Blueberry & Tangerweenie Dream are coming along and the two Northern Lights are still a hint yellowed. Soil near the stem is still damp below the surface so it will be tomorrow or Wednesday before a watering. Temps this week here are mid 80's to 90, but since the tent is basement level it's been maintaining 81-83f. It only really heats up if I push our dehumidifiers (not in tent, but in the lower level of our house). Day 24: No new pics, growth continues but slowly. Foliage is no longer droopy but the yellowing is still subsiding...Will be a few days before watering again. No new leaf-burn or other such things. Deep diving on information about PPFD & DLI for all phases of growth, Definitely have been bombing them out with light both in length and intensity. Now I have a better handle on balancing PPFD with amount of time and getting a reasonable DLI for the plants. As such, while I haven't watered or touched the lil' ladies in a few days, I have fussed with the lights and timing. They're now up at 24" and I'm down to about 580-620 PPFD at plant-top, still maybe a bit more than autos want. I've pulled my schedule back to 17.5/6.5 and may trim that a little more too.

Wednesday means Week 4! Just for fun, I added three screenshots; one is the Humidity/Temperature for the grow so far, the other is just the last week and the third is a single day. It does go up and down globally based on our outdoor temperatures (we don't have AC, but it it slightly buffered by being indoors, basement level and with dehumidifiers keeping ambient humidity down around 50-55%). You can see when the lights go out the temperature drops by about 5f degrees and that pushes the RH up (lower temp same humidity = higher RH). Also, the fan is sensor controlled so if it is above 78f or 60% humidity the fan goes on to help control the situation. I have lows programmed too, but they won't be needed until winter or maybe not at all. Day 25: As we move to week 4, I've been spending time learning and adjusting and remediating the grow on these 4 plants; 2x Northern Lights Auto, 1x Tangerine Dream Auto, 1x Blueberry. After too heavy a water on Day 20 (5 days ago!). They're still a bit damp at the roots close in, and I'm guessing that some root compaction along with my seed starter mix maybe being too heavy is to blame. -The plants are all recovered from any water droop now. -They're continuing to lose their yellow and grow more vibrant green, their new growth is a nice vibrant color. -With the moving of my lights up to get a bit less PPFD and get my DLI to the mid 30's has been beneficial. They're starting to gain some height. -They'll only get water this week. Once we're back to a regular water schedule I'll alternate. Day 26: I did water a little bit. Not much but about 10 or 12 fluid oz. per plant. I'm coming back from overwatered, but it's been nearly a weeks so the soil was really dry, but I'd been holding out so the root core at the ball had more of a chance. It's off to the races for the Tangerine dream...it doesn't have any branching yet, but is either pre-flower or right on in. This whole grow has been a learning experience shake down for the next grow, so It's more about 'well THAT is...interesting..." than me expecting great yields. It's been a pretty serious learning experience with me doing a deep research dive with each new thing or stage. Day 27: Having resigned this to the category of 'learning experience'...I'm fairly OK with these guys remaining small, though overnight they've gained. The largest is about 6" and the smallest is about 4.5" at this time. They've now stretched enough that light can get 'in the middle' pretty well and those nodes are starting to expand a bit outward. The new watering technique is working well, though the front right Northern Lights I suspect will have all the lower growth remain yellowed. The rest are looking better. The TD is in pre-flower but the others are holding their own...I hope they DO experience some growth that makes the flowering process fun to watch at the very least. Things remain hot/humid here the grow tent is sitting in the mid-to-low 80's in the day with a humidity that's sitting in the higher side of the 50% range. Day 28: A front ran through and it's cooler and dry again (73, 50%RH outside). Grow tent is sitting at ~80 until the cool air can circulate the house a bit. Got in and gave a bit of an inspection, cleaned the saucers, etc. As the Tangerweenie is in pre-flower and the other lil' ladies look to be headed in that direction, I adjusted the lighting to be reading around ~52DLI at the tops of the plants and closer to ~42DLI in the lower portions. Took a few moments to spread out the tips to let light in below on the plants which will be as close as I get to LST this round. Watered the plants with our usual tap (softened well water), which was reading 7.05pH from the source. I dropped that to 6.56pH and gave 'em all about 2-2.5 cups. The last feed was 2 days ago, so that seems reasonable. Next round I'll move to FoxFarms Ocean Forest and amend the soil more aggressively. Right now I'm using the Black Gold Organic which got 3c of pearlite & 2c of vermiculite per pot...its what I had on hand. Day 29: Sunday, making it a full 5 weeks since seeds hit soil. Yesterday's watering had no ill effect on the plants. No drooping, and the soil feels like it'll be good for another watering tomorrow. Yesterday I bent the branches out on the left and right of the two plants (Blueberry & 1 of the NL) that have multiple tops and have branched sufficiently. Of course they grew back vertical, so today I took a quick 5 minutes and wired them in place to open them up a bit. Very low stress and I'd expect no real ill reaction to it. Temperatures/humidity have reduced really nicely...it's 67f outside (10am) and 60%RH. Last night it hit the mid 50's outside. In the tent it dropped to 75f at night and is now riding at 76-79f and 49RH. Day 30: Nothing exciting to report. I did water again, this time with very light nutrients basically half of a half of the recommended amounts for week 4. Upped the water by about 1/3 of what I'd been doing. So, somewhere around 3.5 cups of water per plant. Did some rearranging in the tent and added a few more hang bars along the way. Day 31: Last day of Week 4. Upgrade to the tent: Terrabloom 6x16" carbon filter installed. Plants all have a bit of droop from yesterday's watering though I'm convinced that the soil is just holding too much water. I mistakenly used both Perlite and Vermiculite and the Vermiculite was the wrong move since it holds water. Next time I'd double or triple the perlite and leave it at that. That ol' learning curve in action.

Week 5 Day 32: Good Morning! They've recovered from the water-drooping they were doing yesterday from Day 30's water/feed. Feeling better about them all around. I did tighten down the LST on the Blueberry & the good Northern Lights. I'm happy that they've got really good sites to work with even though small in stature. Each plant has a good handful of 'tops' that are getting full light and I'm hoping that the LST will open up a few more. The Tangerweenie Dream is the only one that shows pre-flower pistils, but I'm guessing by the end of the week they all probably will. I'm happy for however long they wish to delay. The tallest (TD) is ~17" from the lights while the others are closer to 20". Besides the single NL that will remain yellow, the rest look pretty good. Bright to darkening green and not much sign of leaf trauma beyond what was there for previous weeks. Day 33: Ah the dawning of a new day! New shot up of how they looked this morning...two looks pretty happy (the NL & Blueberry on the right, Then the other two are just doing whatever they're doing. :) Luckily this is a shakedown journey since it's a first grow. Happy that I've learned a lot and will continue to learn. Happy that at least a couple of the plants look on track. They'll get watered tonight. My method these days is to finger-test the soil and once it feels dry enough...wait a day before watering. That seems to be working! New long spout 1l watering can arriving today so I can have more precision in watering and less water on the leaves. Tonight it'll be well water w/ Cal/Mag added. {edit} Evening: Watered tonight with added Cal/Mag and balanced to 6.5pH. At some point in time Ms. Blueberry DID move towards flower and the healthier of the two Northern Lights did too. Good chance to try out the new digital magnifier and see how it does! There seems to be the hint at some "candy" (as the kids say) hidin' in the ladyparts. Day 34: After last night's solid watering with nothing but Cal/Mag everyone appears to be pretty.frickin.happy. Over night Ms. Blu'brie and Ms. Northern lights have both expanded outward and upwards noticeably. No one had a single droopy with the watering. The one NL remains late to the party, stunted and stewing in her own simmering inner rage. Whatev. Day 35: Pretty much ignored things...lots of other stuff at home to focus on. Hot day with the tent getting to about 87f and averaging closer to 86f. I'd pushed to drop humidity down to the mid 40% range and that introduced a lot of heat to the equation, along with exterior ambient temperature being in 80-85 range and super humid (75-90% outside). Day 36: Ignored all day again. ; ) Tent temperatures definitely modulated a bit...with lights on during the day still around 86f but with lights out down to about 78f the average is 83.6f. Watered in the evening (I know bad practices but it was a busy day) with unsoftened well water & a very light addition of cal/mag. Each pot took about 1 liter with a little run-off. Ms. Blu'brie and the prettier Northern Lights continue to stretch. I have added a few of my cheap low wattage cheap LED units around the sides of the plants. I know side-light isn't terribly effective but it's definitely helping reach the stuff down low. ***here's a cool thing...the tent is smelling pretty loud at this point. And I have the T6 venting to a small ground level basement window. With the new carbon filter installed and the fan cranking at its fastest, it's effective enough that when we had a backyard party the buffet tables were about 3" away from the vent location...and not a single person smelled anything. Nice! The one person who knows I have a tent checked it out, commented on how strong smelling the plants are, and commented that she was amazed that not a single person knew they were a few feet away from a grow. Day 37: All plants continue to stretch and flowering is becoming more obvious. Nothing new or exciting here, Temps topped out in tent at 85 but were generally modulated between 78 at night and 84 during the day. Day 38: All 4 plants have stretched and even the 'unhealthy' Northern Lights is undoubtedly at the start of flowering. It never did come back from the yellowing of its lower greenery but is bright green and OK at the top. All plants are around 10" tall at this point. I have some of my super cheap low-wattage tube lights propped along the sides of the plants to give just a bit extra light around the edges. Maintaining a DLI of low 50's at the top and in the 40's down below. PPFD is ranging from mid 800-1K. Not quite ready for watering yet (This mix must be a little dense, because it's generally an every 3 days thing for me, so hopefully tomorrow. '

Good Morning and welcome to Week 6! Day 39: Fed last night with quarter strengths Trio...they seem to all be happy with that. pH was adjusted to 6.5 and the solution PPM was reasonably in the 600's. This morning showed no ill-effects minus the Tangerween Dream being a little bit droopy from the water. All plants are in flower now and the NL added some height, topping out the others at a mere 10.5" I know they're all small, but they seem to have decent bud sights and overall are pretty happy. Day 40: Watered 3 out of 4 with unsoftened well water. Things are moving along. It's still hot and humid here, but the room is staying around 60% RH and Temps ranging from 82 in the day to 79 at night. Day 41: Watered Tangerweenie...and I hadn't really figured out why it's sort of weird looking until today. All leaves have 3 lobes instead of 5. It also apparently naturally looks like it's droopy. At this point it's not overwatered and no matter if it goes dry or gets water on schedule has the same compact look. Otherwise appears to be healthy. Water had small amount (1/4 tsp per gallon) of C/M added and pH'ed to 6.5. PPM is remaining about 390 or so once all adjusting has been done. Everyone else is pulling their weight, even the sickly NL has returned to normal and is bright green, budding and starting to stretch. Day 42: The better of the NL is in full stretch mode, adding an inch or more per day. The Blu'brie isn't far behind and Tangerween has pretty much stayed right where she is. The lesser NL hasn't gotten to stretch, but is looking decent again, though small. Now we seem to be doing an every other day watering schedule finally. RIght now doing somewhere around .85 liter a day, but only getting minimal run-off. I'll step up to a liter per plant moving forward and keep in that direction until 10-20% run off. Rotating plants daily to give light to all sides, and adjusted the wifi therm/humid. sensor to now hang...which should continue to give accurate measurements since perched on the pot-tops is no longer all that relevant to what's happening at the canopy level. Unsoftened well water with .25 tsp of Cal/Mag, pH'ed to 6.52 running at roughly 370ppm once adjusted. Doing a feed-water-water schedule, which amounts to one feed a week really. Things have cooled into the mid-70's outside but still humidity at 70%. In the tent we're running 82/83f and 55-60%. Raised the light a few inches to keep the tops of the plants in the mid 50's DLI and in the 800-1000PPFD range. Day 43: Wow...The NL is stretching aggressively. From 12 up to 15 inches in a day. Also the plants are soaking up more water. Yesterday I gave 'em all water/Cal/Mag to the rate of .75l each. Today the soil is again dry with only one of the plant having any moisture about 1.5-2" down. After posting my question about the Blu'brie having some mild yellowing in the leaves mid-plant and being confirmed by a few that they're in need of more nutrient support, I took a published Auto GH Trio schedule and translated it into ml per gallon rather than ml per liter for use, and moved over to that schedule. with 1l per plant today. Also going to bump up to an every-other watering feeding schedule. Day 44: Northern Lights has put on another few inches overnight...now looks more like 16.5" Adjusted the lights a bit, rotate the plants so they could continue to get even light all around. Got home from the office, took off my coat & tie and sidled down to the tent. All 4 pots were dry enough to water. Decided to give them the 'week 7' feed regime, higher on the Bloom and lower on the Micro; the PPM was still only in the 500 range so I upped the Bloom & Grow by a few drops more each. Still residing in the ~530ppm range. Also was more aggressive in the amount of feed, each plant getting 1.75l or so. Did get a litter (very little) run off, and my PPM on runoff (soil; Black Gold Organic) is higher than I'd like (around 1500ppm) which is probably accounted for by both the organic nature of the soil as well as the fact that I haven't really been watering or feeding to runoff. My plan is to take the next watering (probably Day 46 or 47) and really give them all a solid flush with plain pH'ed water. Like drop a few gallons through the mix of each of them. Day 45: Things have cooled and dried outside...so lower 70s' during the day and was in the mid 60's last night. That means the grow room is remaining in the mid 50% range for humidity during the day and around 79f. And at night it's dropping a degree or two and the humidity is peaking just over 60%. Looking to soon stop using my janky older seed-and-start LEDs that I had on hand for germinating vegetables and plants. Right now if you look I have my HLG 225 in center and I'm flying a 32W fixture to either side, then using a couple 19W fixtures up close and sideways to create a "faraday cage" of light around the plants. I like the HLG and feel like they're a decent company and are safe (rather than some of the import knock offs I see). Thinking a pair of HLG 100W rspec on either side of the 225 would be great. When the plants are small, just use the HLG and dim it and as we get to late veg and flowering fire up the 100's to fill the sides. My tent is a funky shaped 60" wide by 32" deep by 80" tall. or 5' x 2.67' by 6.66' So I really have about a foot or so on either side that could get more light.

Heeellllloooo Week 7! All plants seem to be mostly happy. I've started with a more flower-forward feeding plan and have bumped up nutrient amounts. Within two days things have started to green up again. The height range is from 12" on the small side (NL2) up to 17.5" for the tallest (NL1). Day 46: weather has tempered. It was 65f outside last night and it's been mid-70s during the day. The tent in running in the 77-78f range under lights. Ordered an intake fan (AC Infinity Cloudline S-6), which will attach to the T-6's controller and they're work in tandem together. I found that for the past 2 nights even with the exhaust fan running the cool night air was reversing air flow and pushing stank into our house. This should fix the issue by me closing all other venting at the bottom of the tent. -Watered/mild flush with water at 6.35pH, one gallon per plant. First time I've watered to run off, about half a liter per plant... Did a little setup adjustment. Noticed that my exhaust fan had been in the power distro that was on the timer for the lights, ooops...that got moved over to it's own circuit. Day 47: Temperatures outside (and inside) have dropped. Yesterday didn't breach the mid 70's and last night we got down to 48f outside. Inside the tent we had a daytime high of 79.6f and a low of 71. Humidity has been commensurate, with a high at night of 57% RH and a low of 50.8%. No feed or water today (and possibly tomorrow depending on how long the soil takes to dry from yesterday's water to runoff), but I did adjust the lights up an inch or so. The top of the 17.5" NL was sitting at ~1000ppfd and somewhere around 71DLI, that was adjusted to the 800's and more reasonable 50's for DLI all plant tops remain in the upper 40's to 50's for DLI. Also, since some plants are only about 12" and one is at 18", I raised the shorties to match the height of the tallest so they're at similar canopy distances from the lights. That hopefully will balance exposure and keep flower growth similar on all 4 plants. Day 48: Holding pattern day. My heavy watering to runoff on day 46 means my soil is still damp, and looking like it possibly will be dry enough to feed either tomorrow or Day 50. Though I'd like to get nutrients in the soil since Blu'Brie is still looking yellow in the mid-section. Though the last round seems to have perked up the lesser of the NLs so that she's definitely a darker richer green and not at all washed out anymore. The tall NL hasn't changed height in about 36 hours, locked in at about 17.5. I'm thinking that the weaker NL is going to start stretching momentarily. Day 49: Check out the iPhone pics...can SEE some action now. Sparkle madness is visible to the naked eye now, also the bud-sites are starting to expand vertically and starting to look like something a little more than just frilly puffs. No bad effects from Day 46's gallon flush. Great day to do some 'housekeeping'...started by re-calibrating my pH meter. WAY easier to do now that I've used the meter for a month and have a feel for it. Feel like my readings are confidently more precise. Also, our non softened well water now reads at 6.7pH which is an excellent starting point and I'm not lowering it too much anymore. Still working on some mid-plant yellowing that remains on Blu'Brie and NL1. Not awful enough for me to worry but still. Feeding at a rate of 1.5x the week 7 chart amount, but that feels OK because at chart it was looking deficient...and my PPM is still only in the 450 range. Weather and tent conditions have been smooth sailing this week...65f/60% outside and in tent it's 75f/51% during the day and ending up at 70f/61% at night. Day 50: Rest day. Won't need to water for a day or so...rotated all plants 180 degrees to expose lower bud sites to even light. Temp & relative humidity are remaining constant. Waiting for my intake fan to show up in the next couple days. Will be a AC Infinity Cloudline S6...controlled by the same digital controller as the T6 exhaust fan. Day 51: Did decide to water @ 5pm (lights stay on another 6 hours). Watered each plant 1g of pH 6.5 water, which did amount to 10-20% runoff. Working harder now to make sure that between every feed I water to runoff to flush some of the residual nutrient build up out of the soil. Yellowing that was present in the Blueberry & to a minor extent, NL1 seems to be fading. Plants all look fine NL1 is up to 19", NL2 looks healthy and is starting to stretch. Buds continue to look more like buds. Spent sometime neatening up the growing area and tent. Probably have an interloper in this week (dish washer died this weekend) and that means basement access to breaker box, about 4" away from tent. All grow-related stuff is neaten and packed and tidy, though there's a good amount of vegetable/flower & garden herb related stuff around, should there be any questions (I do germinate/grow everything from basil and tomatoes to a variety of hot peppers and I do also work with roses). Any visit that happens will have the plants removed to another room and all power to the tent will be off. Mrs. Least Expected Grower is aware and able to move plants if I'm not home. Anyway. removed all the old household extensions, replaced with 3-outlet drops that are 16ga wired all hung then secured to corner poles and very tidy. Grow space is neat and organized and swept. Spent the rest of the days making my bees angry doing hive inspections...fall harvest is a few weeks away. Hey fall THC infused honey...all home-grown! Day 52: Holding pattern, things were well watered yesterday, not much goin' on today.

Welcome to Week 8...3rd week of flowering! Day 53: Feeling pretty positive about how things are going! About 4 days back I did give a heavy-handed feeding to all the plants to shake the mild mid-plant yellowing that a couple had. That's left some nutrient burn spots here and there, but not awful and not that I'll worry about it. I also did a watering/flush a few days back (pH 6.5 well water) and the soil is still pretty damp, though I think it was the right and important thing to do. Today is the first day that it seems like the bud-bodies are starting to chunk up. The tallest is still just under 20 inches but the plants don't seem to mind and they're putting on biomass in the right places. Once the soil dries in another day or two, I'll re-feed them with a more reasonable amount of nutrients weighted to bloom side of things. Spun plants 180 degrees to get even light coverage. They may be short in stature, but I'm happy with what they're doing. Since this is my first round, I'll be pretty happy no matter what the end result is, and they're already exceeding what I was worried for in the mid-vegetative phase, where I wasn't sure anything would produce. Day55: Why good morning, gentle readers & friends. A day of work-from-home, means doing some grow-upkeep on the company dime! I've added an intake fan, more on that later. The flush watering I did early in the week has finally dried enough to feed today. Back to a fairly mild GH Trio flowering stage blend, heavier on the Bloom & lighter on the Micro. Each plant got a full 1 gallon of feed/water, which for most was at the point of runoff. The Bigger Northern LIghts (NL#1) not surprisingly didn't run off even @ a gallon, but was close. Took the time to bring 'em out of their control environment to get some better pictures for y'all! Not perfect, and as mentioned before some minor burn here and there, but overall I'm pleased, given the diminutive size of the plants overall. I do have to say that I'm quite pleased at the 'spread' which gives most of them a good 4 or so colas for bud development. Added a AC Infinity Cloudline S6 for an intake fan last night. A few bumps in the road for setup (not final setup yet, just testing). When plugging the intake into the same controller as the exhaust fan I was hoping that between the two they'd remain in fairly close neutral pressure in the tent. Alas, with the carbon filter and extra ducting up above, the S6 was just pumping too much air and I was getting way too much positive pressure in the tent. In the end, I decided rather than set the controller for Auto (pick highs and lows for temp/RH and the fan ramps up or down accordingly), It worked best to use the small controller that came with the S6 and set it at about a quarter speed, then set the exhaust fan to 7 or 8 for speed above. That did the trick and the tent maintains a slight negative pressure. The offshoot of all this is that now the tent really does reflect the 'room environment' much closer. It still runs warmer by a few degrees but is more stable and the RH has dropped down to match room RH (46-49%). So overall that's a win. Considering getting a second digital (T6) style controller for the S6 then ganging the sensors together...set the intake fan a few notches below the exhaust fan speed and set them for the same triggers. That may be a slicker implementation. Days 56/57: No real action here. Played around with tent ventilation, tried a few different sets of fan settings ended up running the exhaust at 8 out of 10 and the intake at 4 out of 10 which gave just a little bit of negative pressure. I suppose should I need to bring it down a bit, I can drop it to something like 6/3 or 5/2 and have that work too. Also keeping an eye on DLI/PPFD to make sure things are riding where I want them. The tallest bud tips should be seeing under 55DLI and the tips of the lower plants should be in that 42-47 range. Because Science! Day 58: Dry enough to give 'em a watering; still on an every-other water/feed schedule. For the soil I have that means a feed-skip-skip-water schedule. Today I dragged 'em outside to see them in real daylight. Plants look pretty good. There's some positive greening and there's no additional presentation of burn or imbalance. Yesterday I saw the first handful of orange pistils, so we're moving along at a reasonable speed. Water to runoff looks like a gallon per plant right now. Watering slowly (rotating through with .75 liter per plant until all 4 gallons are gone) but that seems to work well with the bags. Again feeling pretty happy and positive with how things are going. Interesting that all the plants look entirely different from each other. Seems like they're doing well and what they should...not because of me, but in spite of me. Pictures taken out in the sun, all closeups of buds on the different plants...you can see that the trichgnome has been up to his tricks!

Week 9 (4th week of flower): Day 60: Well good morning sweetpea! Welcome to a new week. In all honesty, no real action to start the week. Monday (day 58's) watering is still holding in the soil until at least tomorrow, and probably until morning of Day 62. Plants will get moved temporarily out of the room tomorrow for a bit while we have an appliance guy here working on the dishwasher...so plants will need to be out of the tent (next to the boiler & breaker-panel for a bit. Not to worry too much, since it's a legal state and this is a grey area grow right now. Day 61: Woke up early and removed all plants from grow tent and secreted them up in our guest room in the lap of luxury. Had a call in to the dishwasher repairman and while the call was 9am, he arrived at 4.30pm promptly! The grow tent wasn't moved but was minimized so that if anyone needed to access the breaker board it was noticeable but not occupied. Took the time to clean the floor pan and do some reorganization, so it's now neater and cleaner. I guess I could have fed tonight, but decided that tomorrow was a better option. Still working on NL#1 who has the best growth and bud formation but still has lemon-lime leaves. Did a soil slurry pH test and it sat right at 6.7, so I'm pretty happy with that. Will lean in a little bit to the Cal/Mag and the Nitrogen side of the feed for that one tomorrow. Day 62: Feed day. Followed the GH 'light' chart for trio but at half strength, then backed off the PPM to hit 550ish. That's about 220 for the water and the rest for nutrients. I may hit a little harder (round 500 for nutrients plus water in the future. I also posted the grow question below (lemon lime yellow of my NL#1) and did some back and forth here as well as on the RIU forum...decided that there was a good chance I'm experiencing lockout along with some other setup issues. I decided after the morning feed...about 4 hours later to do a thorough flush of NL#1 since it was still wet from the feed water of the morning and there's no point of feeding if it's not going to take up anything. I did check the EC/PPM of the morning's run-off but it was partially evaporated and definitely that added to being inaccurately high (3000ppm/1.5EC)...though I know that wasn't the real number, probably in the mid 2000's. Flushed 5 gallons of water through NL#1 and ended up at a runoff of 330ish PPM (not bad given the water is 220), and on the back-end gave the same half strength nutrients that I'd fed in the morning. Day 63: Rest day. Day 64: to address some of the issues in the tent that NL#1 was bearing some of the brunt of, I raised the lighting to have the bud-top sites at ~43 DLI or so. Adjusted all plants as well. I think that should help with what in NL#1 looks like light stress up top with some canoeing. The other thing I did is adjust the fans...In case it's also some wind-stress as well. The two smaller Honeywell fans in my setup even at their slowest setting put out a pretty good 'beam' of airstream and I've been concerned that it's too much, especially 24/7. Put to work some smart-plugs in the tent. Each fan now does 1-hour-on/ 1-hour-off and they're slightly staggered so there's some time where both are on for about 10 minutes and some time where both are off for 10 minutes. I also put a third plug in, automated a 6" oscillating clip fan that's less powerful and sits above the canopy top that blows gently across in a 3-hour on/off cycle. Put in some sticky traps for fungus gnats, which haven't been awful but are a minor annoyance. Removed dead/yellow fan leaves at the bottom from NL#1. Day 65 Rest day; by my morning peep in the tent shows plants seem happier. Day 66: Watering day. All plants seem happier with the last feeding and the tent changes made. Pictures added. This morning I watered 3 of the plants (not the NL#1 which got flooded back on D62 and has more moisture in the soil still. All plants were dry down to 2-3" deep. Watered with the usual well water adjusted to ~650pH and reading around 330ppm/.66EC. Each plant was watered to a flush at a rate of 2 gallons per plant with about 50% runoff. PPM checked on first sign of runoff at about 1300ppm/2.6EC and after water/flush down to ~400ppm/.80EC. So fairly close to tabla-rasa for our next feed at the end of the week. NL1 will be watered tonight or tomorrow am. It shows signs of greening and looks better to my eye.

Hello Week 10! (week 5 of flower) Day 67: Rest day. All the plants got watered yesterday to the tune of 2g. per plant with about 1/2 gallon of runoff. It probably will be Saturday (Day 70) before I feed. They're looking better right now than they have for a bit and I feel like I've got a better handle on the dynamic of watering/feeding/timing. Looking forward to HLG's "Croptober" sale in a week or so...I've got my eye on a couple things...could be a few more 225's or maybe do a DIY QuantumBoard project. Buds are all getting there, expanding and such. Pistils are about 15% orange which suggests some weeks to go. Day 70: Feeding day. Moved over to Flora Micro Hardwater...Totally legit. Dropped my PPM from 650-700 range down to 500-550 range. Also the pH adjustment is a little different. I'd been having to pH down from 7.3ish to 6.5 and now with the Flora Micro Hardwater it was more of a move from 6.3 up to 6.5. May give me some confidence to push the nutrients a little harder in the future. Fed each plant 1.25Gal with a bit of good runoff. Eyeballed all the plants out in the sun and gave them a quick once over. Snipped the last of the dead/dying leaves off of Northern Lights #1 and did similar here and there with the others, though only a leaf or two. On the light front, I've got 500 and changed stashed for the HLG "Croptober" sale. Most likely grabbing two more of the 225's. which will give the tent a total of 675w potential. Temps/RH have been continuing to turn fall like outside and therefore the tent has been pretty under control. Hitting low to mid 70's during the day but as low as 46f at night outside, which means the tent is ~75 or 76f daytime and dropping to 71 at night. Keeping the humidity outside the tent in the 45-50 range so once the soil dries out it's about the same. With water/feed it's about 5% higher.

Hey Week 11! That's the 6th week of flower... Day 74: It's been a few days since I've checked in...not too much action Plants continue to mature with no new issues coming up. Today was just a watering day with 6.5pH adjusted water. Each plant got 1.25 gallons and had .25g runoff. Watering/feeding is happening on a 4-day alternating interval, which while not ideal, seems to be working for all involved. I'll be away next weekend but that will be fine given it will be 4 days and the plants won't even be thirsty by the time I get back. Buds continue to bulk up and the plants haven't grown an inch in weeks. I'll be waiting for all the pistils to turn brown and recede back to the calyxes, which is late for the folks around here but conventional wisdom for 'old growers' Eyeballing the next grow and getting sorted for that though I think these plants won't be ready for harvest for something like 3-4 weeks.

Week 12, 7th week of flower! I apologize for the lack of updates...it's been a busy week with trips out of town and such. Lots has happened this week. The plants seem happy! The NL's are still exhibiting color on their sugar leaves and buds. Purple blacks are there and seem to be expanding a bit. The buds are advancing. The calyxes are way more noticeable and swelling. Some are getting stripy and the trichomes are advancing; larger and more developed. I'll include both closeup and micro shots of the plants so you can see. While there's plenty of milky trichomes and a few amber/brown ones, I'm going to sit on harvesting until the pistils almost all turn orange and recede back. A whole new wave of pistils just presented in the past couple days...Waiting to harvest is some 'old timer's shit', rather than the newer philosophy to chop early. Let's see how these play out. Day 81 (first day of week 12)...In preparation for leaving for a long weekend on day 82, I watered but not quite to runoff...just the verge. Why? I like the soil just a little bit drier before I water and knowing that I was going to be away for 4 days made doing it day 81 a requirement. Did it in the evening and given my dense soil mix, I knew I'd make it to at least day 85 (my return day) or day 86). Day 86: Feed day! Decided to go a little heavier on the GH Trio...I was doing it at 50% of the light feed schedule and ending up in the 500ish range for PPM. I bumped that up to 75% and still ended up at 610ppm, which i think is reasonable. A couple of the plants have remained a bit pale and this should hopefully do the trick! Fed all plants about 1.2g each, which provides plenty of run off. Daytime average RH has been remaining in the 50-55% range and temps have been ranging in the 72-76f zone during the day and dropping to about 69f at night. Those will bump up a little now... Updates and new stuff: With HLG running their 'Croptober' sale right now, I decided to take full advantage. I'd sold a couple bits of electronics gear and freed up about 500$ in cash, which isn't bad for some stuff that was just sitting on the shelf gather dust. I'd back and forthed about building out some QB96's to go to either side of my 225 and decided rather than having a ~100w wing light to either side of the center HLG 225, I'd rather just have three of them. Depending on time and temps I can dim them, use all 1 or just one or two of them and get good coverage, etc. So as of today (Day 86) There are three matching HLG225's happening in the 33'x60"x80" tent. That gives me a total of 675w and/or 50.5w per square foot. Also, enjoying the move to the GH hardwater Micro. If you have a native PPM over 200, check it out. It's definitely made feeding time way easier to manage.

Hello Week 12! (week 7 of Flower). Day 88: Not much to report for this day. Plants were fed back a few days and just waiting for the soil to dry to do their intisticial watering. No new problems to report, though I keep adjusting setups to get everything dialed in more and more. Now that there's 3x HLG 225's the light is more even and I feel like the plants are benefitting. Day 90: All the plants left the tent briefly for an outdoor watering. Watered to runoff, with each plant getting about 1.25gal. Though it wasn't the best watering session as I broke the watering can I had been using previously and the newer one just isn't as good...it has too much flow. Ordered in a new one, since they're like 10 bucks. Day 91: Decided to do a bit of mess-around with the ventilation setup. I had gotten a AC Infinity 6" vent damper, so I wanted to play with some options. I knew I'd eventually put one on the exhaust to the basement window for when we get sub-zero soon. But for now I wanted to try it on the intake, but with removing the intake fan (S6). Why? Because the with both fans (in a small 33"x60"x80" tent) There was no way to keep the pressure balanced with the single smart controller for the two fans and I was feeling like the temperature variation/swing was more than a really wanted. Removed the S6 and put the damper on the input, but there wasn't enough draw to make it work effectively. Moved it to the end of the exhaust at the window. Decided to just leave a run of 6" ducting for input and set up the T6's controller to try again to use it's automatic functions. The only real worry is that if it turns the fan off, the tent will start leaking smell pretty quickly. We'll see how it works.

Whai helloooow week 14, ye of 8 weeks of flower! The past week has been pretty chill, but with some adjustments as environmental conditions shift to fall/winter inside. It's dryer (dehumidifiers in the same area as the tent are now off and things are holding steady at 50% RH on that floor. Temps have varied but days are averaging between 77-79 with lights on, nights have bottomed out at 68. Those will continue down a bit. My fan setup has become easier when I put cloth to filter the intake fan's duct and slowed that flow so that I can use the same controller as the T6 exhaust fan. A new AC Infinity Controller 67 just showed up, so that will take care of the situation of when temps drop and the fan wants to shut off altogether. Fed on Day 93. It will be Day 97 before we can feed again Day 94: Some quick photos. The Blu'brie Auto is yellowing on one of the colas, but it's at the top and a bit golden vs. the wan yellowing lower down that suggests a nitrogen problem As it's top and the end of this grow it may just be the plant 'running the clock out'...but I'm going to give it some molasses to see if its a iron/selenium deficiency...that's the other option. I AM running the clock down on these...we're almost at day 100 and while there's still some white pistils, the calyx are swelling and the other orange pistils are starting to shrink back. Day 97: While I'm sure that the Blueberry Auto is showing signs of just 'timing out' (no surprise at almost 100 days), I decided to see if I could coax it and the others along for another week or two. The Tangerine Dream is showing yet another round of white pistils and while the two Northern Lights look respectably ready for harvest, there's still some new pistils here and there. Anyway, the yellowing some of the upper leaves and sugar leaves for the Blueberry suggested an iron/selenium deficiency. Not having a good 'cure' to apply for this...I realized that unsulphured molasses actually is high in both. So All plants got their watering with a tablespoon of molasses added. Again, if it did nothing, no worries...these plants are really at the end of their cycle. All plants all shared 6gal of well water w/ 1 tablespoon per gal. blackstrap. The last gallon of water (shared among all plants) also had Mosquito Bits soaking in the water for about an hour (strained/removed) for fungus gnat control. Day 99: Just in to take some pics for the diary and check in. The molasses seems to have done well. The Blueberry shows no advancing of upper leaf yellowing. The pistils on the plant are about 95% brown now and it's pretty ready to come down. Though they're all exiting together so either this weekend or next week sometime. The Mosquito Bits also have done well and within a few days have really cut down on the fungus gnat population in the tent. Overall pretty pleased. First off the AC Infinity Controller 67 is totally worth having if you're using their fans. Now that it's dialed in, my temps are consistent, regular and where I want them and humidity is also nicely controllable. The app is great and provides excellent control as well as good data.

Week 15! Day 101: Pretty much sure this IS the last week. Watering the soil one last time (no flush, but no feed for just about a week), but that's mostly just to get to the harvest-time process. Day 102: As planned each plant watered with about a gallon, pH'ed to 6.5, but nothing else...lights out came at noon, circulation fans shut down, and the intake/exhaust fans reset to exclude temps and only monitor humidity. Day 104: Afternoon, after 48 hours of dark plants are chopped and strung up by stems. any of the bigger leaves are removed. Fans set to ride 63% RH for drying. Trimming was solid, I think, being the first time; I cut in such a way that I could handle by stem and not wear many trichomes off of the buds. Day 105: checked the tent...riding solidly at 63% humidity, hopefully will be a nice 10ish day or such drying period. Not getting any crunch yet. the two controlled fans are keeping the airflow good and solid. Starting to plan my next round of growing. Have another 16 of these seeds so I'll do more of the same for now. Probably do all of one kind...

I took these longer than one might normally. I'd have gone even further but the Blueberry Auto was getting long in the tooth and I needed to pull all plants at once. Of the 3 strains (Blueberry, Northern Lights & Tangerine Dream), the Northern Lights were the easiest of the bunch and produced the most. I didn't do a wet weight but will do a dry one, once dried. I'll update info further along.

Interested to do another run of these. I have 4 more seeds. This one was a mutant, but I also mistreated it early on, so it will be good to see what they can do when given proper care and treatment. This could have run longer but the Blueberry auto in the tent wanted to come down, so they all did. Will report back on dried weight, etc.

This is the one that finished first...it was also the one more prone to issues of feed/water/environment than the others. I'll report back once dried, but it did fairly well no matter what abuse I heaped upon it.