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Okay so while on vacation we picked up a bit of wedding cake from a shop and my wife reminded me that it was her favorite strain. Some quick clicking on True North Seed Bank and a seed was waiting for me when I got home (as well as the free seeds, for which I chose White Widow).
Because its a bit late in the season to plant photoperiods in the greenhouse AND because we are in an all out war with spider mites, I decided to grow indoors. We have a wooden box and some lights that we use each year for our vege garden seedlings, and I have a 4" extractor fan and carbon filter that i will install later.
They will veg under the SF1000, and then after I flip them I might throw on the 2 Mars Hydro MX300s as some side/angle lighting as the SF is likely a bit small once they get rocking.
A couple hours of cleaning, sanitizing and relining the growbox with a new sheet of poly prior to hanging the lights. I have also innoculated the space with some organic insecticide, as this summer the moths, caterpillars, spider mites and other critters are just insane!
The box is a bit short, but I plan on modifying it later to make it a bit taller - last time i grew photos in this box I ran out of space. I did consider scrogging, but have been putting off making this taller for a while, so I will just do that instead.
It will also give me a good chance to give the box a good clean prior to flipping to flower, which cant be a bad thing!
Anyways, enough rambling, on with the setup...
Again, I will be going full organic on this grow. I have a pretty good soil mixture that I created in bulk a couple months ago, which i have amended with a few more goodies, including bone meal, bone meal, epsom salts, dolomite lime, egg shells, compost, worm castings, blood meal. I have put in a couple photos of the worm farm. If you are growing organically and dont have a worm farm, I highly recommend getting one. Super easy and (after a small setup cost) free fertilizer! Plus a great way to use up your kitchen scraps.
I have been dosing the soil with some fish fertilizer (yep, i love that shit) to help build my colonies.
Soaked my seeds in water for about 12 hours and then direct plant into small pots to get started. I have a heat mat which i put the pots on which seems to help them pop. They have grown well over the course of the week, and I will transplant them to their final pots in a week or so.
My plan is to then mainline these 2 girls.
Any week where I transplant and the plants respond well is a great week!
Full disclosure, when i say "I transplant" I actually mean that my wife transplants. She is an avid gardener and has quite the transplanting skills (plus a softer touch) and as you can see, the results speak for themselves.
We put a couple scoops of MYKES Flower (Mycorrhizae + Seaweed) in the hole during transplant, and have started Ancient Earth Organic (Humics/Fulvics) which I will continue along with a shot of fish fertilizer every week into the grow.
Looking forward to some more growth and then some mainlining.
Some great growth this week, the girls have really settled into their final pots.
A little fish fertilizer this week as well as Humics/Fulvics.
I will likely start topping/mainlining this weekend, just waiting for the 3rd node growth shoots to establish a titch more.
This week we started mainlining the girls. It is my first grow mainlining, I see that some people cut off the 3rd node fan leaves when topping, and others leave them on. I opted to leave them on as the growth tips were still pretty immature. I am still tossing around whether to do 8 colas or 16. I guess it will depend on how she looks after the 3rd top. I still have it on my list of jobs to modify the grow box and add another 18" of height and it is certainly wide enough for 2 large plants. But still plenty of time to decide.
Growth seems to be responding well, I am going to have to start tying things down in a day or two once the stems get a bit longer.
I did get some yellowing between veins. It looked a bit like a magnesium deficiency, and I guess they were pretty stressed after being cut in half! I gave a foliar spray a couple of times this week with a little epsom salts, but likely the problem is due to pH. I also gave them a boost this week with a sprinkle of blood meal.
Testing the run off ph showed around 7, so i have decreased my feeding pH to 5.5 ish until the runoff gets closer to 6.5. Certainly the plant improved (or at least didn't yellow any more) after the adjustments were made. I also raised the light a few inches, as it was sitting at 18", which is the lower end of the manufacturers suggested height.
I have also ordered some Dr Zymes spray, which I will start using once it arrives. It is not available in Canada so I had to use a shipping agency from US.
Oh no! Disaster!
When doing my second top on the wedding cake I accidently broke off the whole branch. I tried some grafting tape, but unfortunately it is toast.
So I guess it will be a bit longer veg cycle, with some extra LST or another top (I had originally planned on 8 colas in my mainline, and may go to 16 on the White Widow).
Otherwise everything is looking good. I did give the girls a dose of Dr Zymes, which I will continue weekly prior to flower.
Well, this may be the longest veg cycle ever. After breaking a branch off the wedding cake, and a small one off the widow, they have taken a while to bounce back. New growth is super healthy looking though and I am satisfied with all topping now and will focus on some light LST until I switch to flower. It was maybe a bit cold in there for them as well, as growth was pretty slow. I have added a seedling heat mat underneath the trays which has kept the temperature stable around 23C - regrowth seems to have responded well.
A big event this last week was the extension of the grow box. I added 26" of vertical growing space which gives me a total possible maximum plant height now of about 5'. I think that 4 - 4.5' would be better though and I think I will veg for another week or 2 to maximize plant height now that I have room. I know that I will have a longer veg cycle than what I could have, but I dont really mind (I still have loads of bud, so not in a rush - healthy abundance is the goal.
I also added the carbon filter and extractor fan, and mounted the circulation fan. I think I will need to install a 2nd circulation fan before flower.
Well, the girls love not being topped the last couple weeks. they really have bounced back. It was getting pretty chilly in the garage, and i think the addition of the heat mat has made all the difference.
That, along with some unplanned pruning earlier have slowed her down a few weeks. But, the great news is that I have ganga coming out my fucken ears at the moment, so a few more weeks really doesnt matter, plus with the auto a few weeks into flower in the greenhouse it is all good!!
Couple of modified tomato cages went in this week, they adapted really well, and now that they have a couple nodes i have started a little LST on the Wedding Cake, and some proactive canopy management on the white widow. With the extra 2' of height I added to the grow box last week, they have loads and loads and loads of room, so I may as well make sure they are well set up before flower to use up that space and get some extra yeild. I dont think I will have an indoor crop until next winter as the grow box will be dedicated to the vege garden in spring and then I will just grow outdoors. (although who knows, maybe an early auto or two could sneak in with the peppers and tomatos). So i dunno, maybe another week, maybe 2, we will wait and see how it goes.
Loads of growth this week - especially on the White Widow which is looking awesome! The wedding cake is a bit smaller, but doing fine.
I flipped them to flower today. Looking forward to the stretch. I will likely do some supercropping to level out my canopy, as well as raising the wedding cake up if needed. I will also put on my other 2 lights next week as well.
Switched to flower at the start of this week, and the girls are stoked! Seen the stretch starting the last couple of days, but surely next week it will really take off. Depending on canopy, i will LST where needed during stretch -using the tom cages to spread everything out a bit, and Supercrop any that need it. The wedding cake might need some blocking below the pot to bring it a bit higher, but I will see how it goes.
I have started up 1 of my 2 supplemental lights, and will get the 2nd one going in a couple of days (I have run out of power bars.).
Been putting a little supplemental heat (low level) in the garage (outside the box) over a couple of the chillier nights recently (-10C outside and garage not insulated).
They are both looking pretty damn good. The tomato cages also seem to be working well. On the White Widow I have been LST the stretching branches around the cages, and the growth of lower branches is certainly coming up through the center. I have also done some defoliation, mostly removing the tiny bud sites at the bottom of the plant and some leaves that were blocking light to below. But mostly I tried to just tuck those nice big fan leaves off to the side.
I am sure I will need to do a little more next week, but she is still stretching and I would rather see how she looks once done.
The wedding cake is a little slower but catching up nicely. I added a couple of 2x4 under her tray to help even out the canopy with the widow.
Also this week I installed and turned on both additional lights that I got for flowering. I have set the 2 Mars hydro 300w LEDs on either side of the CoB SF1000, they are both tilted in a bit as well to help direct onto the girls. I am rotating every 2 days to help keep everything equitable!
The stretch is all done and the girls have loads of little flowers starting to bloom. The canopy is mostly even, a few of the larger shoots are a couple inches taller, but they are also to the outside of the tomato cage and not blocking the stuff below.
A bit more light defoliation this week, and added a second fan to increase the airflow.
Chill week in the grow box. Girls are shooting out pistils and buds are starting to form. I am pretty happy with my canopy, a couple shoots a bit longer but only a few inches.
Buds are starting to puff up and getting a quite the sweet smell. I have a 4" exhaust fan which blows out onto a firewood pile in my garage. This actually seems to reduce quite a bit of smell so far. I am looking forward to seeing if it continues to work into late flower when they get their stank on. The other benefit is the constant airflow onto this woodpile is likely helping it season/dry a bit. I wood-burgled late in the year, and this is my backup pile that will get used for February fireplaces when winter seems never-ending. I digress....
No more defoliation this week, she is bushier than most leave their plants, but imo foliage is flowering horsepower and with sufficient airflow I like to leave on as much as possible. I am pretty happy with how she is looking, I certainly mistrained a few of the colas about 6" higher than the rest, but i am not going to lose any sleep over it. A couple of the top leaves did get a bit burnt, but i raised the light up a few inches and they seem to be fine.
The girls are getting thirstier. I am feeding about 2x what I was a few weeks ago. About 6L between them every second day.
Timing wise I am predicting that harvest right before xmas, with early tasting as holiday cheer. The Gorilla Cookies only has days left, so she will be cured and ready as the christmas special!
We have reached the half way mark in flowering and the girls are blooming well.
They are certainly getting thirstier, and I have moved from the 2 watering/feeding per week to a 4 waterings a week with feeding every other water. Nice sweet smell on the flowers, they are growing dense which is great and i don't have major concerns.
Yellowing on tips hasn't got any worse after lifting the lights. I am still rotating the plants every watering (about 120 degrees each rotation) as I am using a combination of lights and want to avoid parts of the plants missing out on the good stuff.
The biggest change this week is the stank that is now permeating around the house. I guess that is one of the good things about a pandemic, we don't really have any company over anytime to worry about it.
Lots of pistils browned this week, and another set of white pistils popped out. Buds are getting nice and dense, and hopefully put on a bunch more weight before ripening.
Lots of pistils turning brown this week, increasing frostiness and thickening of buds. White widow is a couple weeks away, and maybe another week still after that for the wedding cake.
Girls are ripening well. The white widow's pistils have all browned, trichomes are still nearly all clear - Im thinking 7-10 days more. The wedding cake is a little further behind, maybe another week or so. I was hoping to have them both done by christmas, we will see how that goes.
Was quite happy with this girl. Nice and easy to grow, recovers well from HST, trains well. A little slower than expected but quite happy. I certainly left on way too much foliage, especially on the lower branches - but otherwise pretty happy. Nice dense buds, lots of frosting and a strong sweet aroma.
Bummer that I lost the one cola/branch during mainlining as I have effectively lost 25% of yeild. Main colas on each side were suitable delicious looking. These girls should be dry for a taste on xmas, but will be well into January by the time she is cured enough for a full taste test.
Super fun week, daily (sometimes twice daily because I am still working from home and they smell delicious) trichomes checks. I got a 60/120X microscope from Amazon at the end of the last grow and am loving it. Lots of leaf yellowing throughout the week, and I even noticed a little foxtailing.
I harvested the white widow on day 6 this week. Harvest went really well. Looking at wedding cake I was nearly ready this evening she has about 75% cloudy trichomes and a few starting to turn amber. I will harvest her tomorrow afternoon and the lights will be off until then.
Thanks for everyone who has checked in with my grow, next post will be Wedding Cake Harvest.
Enjoyed growing wedding cake again, although a bit bummed that I didn't use gentler fingers during mainlining. That being said, extra time was given to recover - which she did well.
She is a short, buds are dense, thick and formed long colas. Throughout the grow cycle I have found her to be a few days slower (as expected) to her white widow roommate but then she seemed to ripen quite quickly.
I have not sneaked a taste yet, but am looking forward to trying her out really soon. Last time I grew her I noticed a large change in effects after curing, so will need to 'conduct periodic testing'.😉
Great resin production, I now have loads of pretty great trim which I am going to have to process into coconut and get some gummies/chocolates made in the next couple of days as they make great xmas gifts!
Pagus
