Tangerine Dream/Cream Caramel

Mostly been a week of watering 1/2 times a day and manically checking on them. The seedling stage is definitely the most stressful. I finally got to lowes to get the rest of the supplies I needed to rig up my inline fan, the AC Infinity 4" . I noticed that it doesn't help with keeping the temperature down and I'm not sure if that's because the fan needs to be turned up or because my room temperature isn't too much colder than the inside of the tent. I'm also having trouble keeping my humidity at a constant %. It's been between 40%-50%. Not sure if that's too big of a range. Temperatures have been between 73 and 82 F. I did get worried that my lights were too close/too intense towards the beginning of the veg week. Both of the seedlings have some reddish purple coloring on them. I'm not too terribly worried about it since they're still standing at this point. Have been fiddling with my light, decided on keeping intensity at around 40% during evening and early morning and around 75% in the middle of the day. Once they're bigger I'll leave it at a constant intensity and hopefully let it be 100% once they can handle it. Cream Caramel was the first to come out and when it did it was early morning and the lights were not on a set schedule yet so it came up a little yellow and got the brunt of my light indecisiveness. Because of this it's a little taller. It's closer to the little fan so the wind can strengthen up the stem hopefully. Tangerine Dream is at a height that I'm happy with and is growing more outwards rather than upwards. I am a little worried about Cream Caramel since it looks like it got more of a sun burn and looks somewhat yellower and like it has a sort of dappled look. I could be just paranoid but I will be keeping an eye on it. I fed my first dose of nutrients today (8/24) as well. Before I've just been giving water daily. No clue how much, probably around a liter or less per plant per day. I bought a gallon of distilled water, measured the ppm (1) and then added 2ml cal mag, 15-20ml big bloom, and 2.5 ml grow big. Final ppm ended up being around 400. I split the gallon between the two plants and soaked them. I'm not used to watering in coco so I definitely feel like I overwatered. In coco, do you water with nutrients every watering every day? It feels excessive but that's what I've read. I'll gradually increase the nutes as the plants grow.

Entering week 3, I'll update with the rest of the pictures once the week has passed. Still dialing in the watering amount to get the right amount of run off. On the 26th they both got a half gal of water with just 2ml calmag... I might be a little paranoid but Tangerine Dream looks like it might be getting the beginning of a calmag deficiency, looking at the yellowish "stripes" on the leaves. I've done a watering every day of the first seedling week of just a little water and then I've done 3 waterings with nutes so far, the one today with 2ml calmag around 7 ml grow big and around 8 ml big bloom (misread the dosage on grow big haha). I think I'm gonna try brewing up my fertigation water every day and feeding each a quarter gallon instead of what I've done recently which is a whole gallon (half a gal each) every other day. Is it better to water smaller amounts every day rather than larger amounts every other day? My gut feeling is to water every other day but I know that coco is supposed to be hydro without the hydro and the medium should be constantly watered. It is still a learning experience so I guess I'll be figuring out what works best! Finally, I'm amazed at what a proper set up and good genetics do for my grow. My first bag seed just sat on my window sill and these two autos have grown more in a week than my first seed grew in a month lol. I know I'm not supposed to pick favorites, but Tangerine Dream is growing beautifully and looking like something out of a magazine. I put together a couple comparison photos to show just a week of growth. Updates incoming as I go. EDIT: Long time no see haha, been a busy couple of weeks for me. Started LST this week on CC since it's been taking off a little more than TD. I underfilled the pots for both but since Cream stretched for a day before I moved the light in the first couple days, I was able to fill in the soil. Tangerine Dream has stayed very short and is too wide for the pot now. (As of typing this, 9/13, I've folded the sides down on both so no leaves are getting crushed or sitting on soil.) I left for a couple days starting Saturday morning, so I gave a larger feed to both of 3ml CalMag, 15ml Big Bloom, 5ml Grow Big, with ppm close to 1100 and the ph 6.8.

Ripped a stem on Cream Caramel a little bit LST this week but taped it up and supported the stem and it's pretty much fine at this point. The leaf wilted a little bit before recovering nicely. Flushed with CalMag on 9/7. On 9/10 I gave half a gal water with 3.5 ml Cal Mag with 15ml of Big Bloom. Both plants have started preflowering at this point which is pretty cool to see. Cream Caramel showed pistils on the 7th and Tangerine Dream showed hers on Friday. No major malfunctions. Installed my carbon filter which is working like a charm. I ended up putting both of them on cardboard boxes so I could move the light up since I felt like the light was burning my other plant, which is taller and in flower. She's from a bagseed and from my first grow attempt and is kind of a red-headed step child. I've had more problems with her than I can count but I feel like its too late to give up now haha. I've also started using mosquito bits in my water, mostly for my girl in flower since she seems to have gnats the worst. I like the progress I've seen with them so far.

Growing like weeds. Been leaf-tucking a little every day and I've folded down the sides of the pots and re-tied down everything. I'm tempted to start some defoliation but I'm a little hesitant. The preflowers are pretty evident on CC which is cool to see even at just the 3rd/4th week. Took them off their cardboard boxes since they're pretty tall at this point and dropped the light back down. I've been giving roughly the same amount of water to start but noticed that the pots are drying out faster and I'm getting a lot less run off so I end up adding a lot more water. They're probably both getting about a half gallon each every other day. (I mix up a full gallon and water them both with it.) EDIT: Still doing a little LST every day, just tying down a couple branches here and there. Cream is a LOT more receptive to the LST than Tangerine. I think that it's mostly because TD has so many large leaves that take up space the branches could be going instead. Cream Caramel is starting to have a really pleasant sweet candy smell. Very subtle but makes me excited to see what will come.

I'll admit, I'm not sure when pre-flower starts being actual flower but it's week ~5 so I'll just call it flower haha. Cream Caramel's candy smell developing still and it's very nice. Stems are also turning reddish which I'm not sure is strain dependent or just my lighting/growing situation. CC seems a lot further into development than TD which I guess makes sense because of the indica/sativa ratios between them. Done some light defoliation on them both, just pulling off leaves that block bud sites and leaves that cram up against other leaves. Just to try to avoid mold or stale air etc. I've also started doing a different nute ratio for each of them. TD: ~96oz water per feed (every two days since I've been busy lately) - 5ml CalMag (seems to always be calmag deficient) - 3ml grow big - 4 ml big bloom CC: ~96oz - 4 ml CalMag - 2 ml grow big - 2ml Tiger bloom both between 5.8-6.8 ph (but who really knows since I think my pen is busted lol) and between 800-1000 ppm Watered a gallon between them on 9/22, with mosquito bits and 10 ml calmag. Kind of as a flush and also just to help with fungus gnats. Taking off a leaf here and there.

25th-1st. Running into my first bit of trouble here. Fed on Tuesday (9/28) CC: 96 oz water, ph 5.8, ppm 560 - 4ml CalMag -2ml Grow Big -2ml Tiger Bloom TD: 96 oz water, ph 6.00, ppm 600 - 6ml CalMag -2ml Grow Big -1ml Tiger Bloom -3ml Big Bloom The next day when I woke up and checked on them, both plants had brown striping on some of the newer/top leaves. Tangerine Dream has been having calcium problems for a little while but I wasn't worried since it seemed like it wasn't getting worse but yesterday both plants started having brown rust spots. TD having them the worst and CC only having them on a few leaves. So on Wednesday. (9/29) I flushed them both with around 3 liters each of water straight from the tap and then gave them 64 oz water (pH 6.5) with 6.5 ml Tiger Bloom and 5ml CalMag (so both got 32 oz of this mixture.) It hasn't gotten better and the brown striping has become more pronounced on TD. Not sure if it's something I have to wait to see an improvement on or if it's just not getting better at the moment. My idea was that it was a pH/salt build up/calcium/phosphorous issue, hence the flush added Tiger Bloom. Was this the right move? Is there anything I should have done/ should do to help my plants along? Thanks for the feedback etc.

Cream Caramel sailing along, Tangerine Dream fighting with me every step of the way. Both have had some pH and cal issues but Tangerine Dream is extra extra sensitive to them and isn't bouncing back nicely. Cream Caramel is smelling up the whole tent but Tangerine Dream really doesn't have a smell which is pretty disappointing. (that or I'm nose blind to it!) Doing light defoliation on each plant. Just a few leaves here and there every other day or so. They both have different nutrient ratios. Thought I had TD's cal issues under control for about a day and a half, then when I flushed on the 7th I noticed the pH on both plants was around the ~8 range which was shocking. After some thorough flushing I thought I had it fixed but the next day (yesterday as of the time reading this) TD started tanking pretty bad and the leaves were curling in and turning black (pics on next weeks post). Very worried about her and it's bad since she definitely has a while to go until harvest. Oh well. I guess I'll have to see what happens.

Bit of a bummer for Tangerine Dream. Starting to have some real trouble with her. I hope she can pull through to harvest, even if it's a diminished harvest. Started having some trouble after reading a relaly high pH (~8) and trying to fix it by flushing then feeding a low pH (~4.5) until the run off read around 6.5. The next day (10/8) started having some bad browning and black spots on the middle and top leaves that progressed rapidly throughout the day. Didn't help that my pH pen decided to act wonky right as I went to try to fix it. My guess is that the pH is off and she's not able to get her P and Cal, so the leaves are going. I tried flushing and re-feeding to the best of my abilities yesterday. Need to get a new better pH pen but don't have the funds right now to drop 80 or so dollars on one of the really good ones. I hope she can hold on until harvest/I get a new pen. Wish me luck fellas.

Not much to say for this week. I have flushed and re-worked my nutrients and it seemed like Tangerine Dream is not doing any worse. Not a lot of major defoliation, maybe a couple leaves off a week. Cream Caramel is chunking up nicely, as of the time writing this (10/20) she still has many white pistils still but has about 80% cloudy, 2% amber, the rest clearish or half cloudy. I would like to do a partial harvest Sunday (10/24) but we'll see how much more amber there is then. Tangerine Dream seems like it's gonna be a lot longer, perhaps 80-90 days (today being 64 days). (edit: I just realized all my weeks were listing my nutrients as ml/l rather than ml/gal. its been fixed now! i have NOT been giving my plants 30ml of each nute per gal lol)

Chugging along. Not a lot of change, just riding out the final week of flower for Cream Caramel. I wanted to harvest this past Sunday but held off due to a lot of pistils still being white and the lower bud sites being pretty underdeveloped. I'll probably do a partial harvest and see if I can't get the lower buds to fatten up a bit. Tangerine Dream looks like it could feasibly go until the end of November at the least so I'm just gonna let her do her thing. Not planning a flush or anything like that but I have been giving less nutes to CC since I don't want to waste nutrients that ultimately won't get used by the plants. Might wake up super early to harvest Cream Caramel before the dark period end because I have personally noticed a difference in smell after being in the light so long. Something about the terps burning off, not sure how it works but I don't think it really matters lol. I think no matter what the pistils look like on CC by Sunday I'll do a partial harvest just because of the amount of trichs going amber. Not a huge fan of the super couch-locky strains (though I have some buddies who do!) Cheers folks.

Took down all the most developed nugs from Cream Caramel, did a 24 hr dark period beforehand and just plain water the week of. Took me all day long to trim and it wasn't even the whole plant haha. A few pics of the larger nugs, not all of them shown. Sorry for no wet weight lol I dont have a scale. (waiting for one in the mail currently) will update with an official "harvest" week once I get the dry weight of the whole plant. TD is still looking very immature but ALL cloudy and many amber trichs. I had to chop the topmost budsite on her because of mold sadly. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, I'm gonna have to break my grow down so I'll be harvesting everything I have left sometime this weekend. I'm very very happy with my harvest of CC already, I quick dried a bud smaller than a dime with my computer fan to try, no cure or anything, and wow. Completely knocked out immediately. There really is not better feeling than smoking something you put so much time and work into :) makes me feel not as bad for having to take down the smaller buds before they can get a little more developed. I also got a LOT of trim from her, so I'll be making some edibles in the future. The trim was dried for about a day and I put it in a jar just because I don't have anything else to do with it and the smell of it has almost immediately changed, and is getting a very very strong caramel smell that wasn't there before. Will update with final harvest soon hopefully.

Didn't think to take wet weight unfortunately, but the dry weight ended up being 44 grams. That's what I put for the wet weight since I didn't see an option for the dry. As I'm posting this almost a year later I don't remember the details too clearly but Tangerine Dream ended up being super airy. Could be due to it needing a few more weeks or just the pheno or even just the strain. It was kind of a pain to trim because of how light and airy it was.

There was so much of this plant. I had to do staggered harvest to let the little buds fatten up a tad more since the tops were getting a little more amber than I was wanting. Super super sticky and a real pain to trim because the scissors were getting gummed up every other minute. Got lots and lots of finger/scissor hash from this trim. Once again I didn't get wet weight so I listed the dry weight.