First Grow - Jumping into the Deep End

I may have had the light too close to start, I had it about 26 inches away @ 80%, was seeing LUX=17k. Backed it up and went back down to 50%, lux now reading around 9k. Demeter is showing brown spots on the leaves, not sure if this is due to the light being too close, or possibly phosphate deficiency. Kini is out growing everyone else. Alice & Lorraine are 6 days behind the other two, but are trying to catch up. All plants now have nice white roots down into the bucket. Just changed all the buckets last night with a minimum nutrient solution. TDS=260, pH=5.8. Moved light further away and turned down to 9k LUX.

Plants have grown well this week with only minimal interference. The temperature and humidity are holding at a good place (around 70-72 degrees and 65% humidity). Pretty sure that Demeter was just light burn. We moved the lights back a bit, and new growth is coming in good. Kini has taken the lead and is really taking off. Demeter is recovering, and Alice & Lorraine are 6 days behind but catching up quickly. They are starting to eat/drink more, and it will be time for the first res change this week for everyone. We noticed a few bugs in the basement this week, and may have gone overboard on the diatomaceous earth (the white powder all over everything). Also added another 4-port air pump this weekend, and another 4x2 stone in each bucket.

It has been a good week. All plants are growing well as I am increasing their nutrients as needed. Kini and Demeter are up to their full nutrients (30% of AN recommendation for now), and Lorraine and Alice should be getting there this week. I added another pump and another stone in all the buckets this week, to make sure everyone is getting plenty of air. I started with the light a bit too high/close and burned one of the plants, so now I am being cautious. I am slowly turning the light back up; right now it sits at 60%, showing 19k LUX. I plan on turning it up again today, as long as there is no sign of any light burn on any of the plants. My water temperatures are staying under 68F, which is good. My air temperatures are only getting up to 72-73f, which is a bit low. I am hoping that when I turn the lights all the way up it will get a little warmer. Kini is growing faster than the other plants, so I fimmed her to slow her down a bit. Also started LST. I am not sure if I am going to FIM all of the plants, or try just LST for a couple. I was only planning on using LST, but I really like the way Kini looks after her FIM. My only concern right now is that the plants do not seem to be growing much taller. They are growing very squat and bushy. As far as I can tell, this is not a bad problem to have. Hopefully, they will put on some height this week.

I think everything is going well, but this is my first grow what do I know? The plants have very little internodal spacing. I mean like very little. They are squat little bushes with nodes stacked right on top of each other. Right now, most of the plants are still under 6 inches. However, they seem healthy, are growing daily, have healthy stems, and are eating and drinking. I have fimmed them all now, and are attempting to LST them. I also removed a few fan leaves to open up the middle a bit. I have raised daytime temps from around 73 to 76, with lows down to 68. I have lowered the humidity as well. I was trying to keep 60% humidity in the tent. However, I put a hygrometer under the leaves of one plant and saw 10-15% more humidity in the plant than the tent (from the buckets?). I lowered the humidity in the tent, and the plants started drinking/eating more right away. Also added a fan to move the air around in the tent more. Right now, the plan is to keep LST for another week, then switch to flower. Any suggestions or comments are welcome. Thanks for reading.

I can't believe how quickly these plants are growing. Early last week, I LST & defoliated all the plants to try to expose the middle a bit more. Two days later, you could no longer tell. Switched to 12/12 light schedule on Friday (10/22). It has only been a couple of days, but you can already see them starting to stretch. Everyone is growing great, will be getting bucket changes with first week flower nutes today. Did a little work on the tent as well. I found a 48"x16" closet shelf at lowes, and mounted it on the back of the tent. This allowed me to get everything off the floor and mount it. The plants are still small, but with LOTS of bud sites. I am excited to see where this goes...

This was the first full week on a 12/12 light schedule and the plants are healthy and growing well. Bucket changes yesterday for the Kushs; Kini got bumped up to 70% (1150ppm) and Lorraine is up to 65% (1050ppm). They are drinking 2-3 liters a day and gobbling up the nutes. They are starting to stretch and get bigger, but they are SO BUSHY! I keep trying to open up the middle of the plants but LST is not enough. Every time I try to shape the plants, I end up taking 5-10 leaves. Mostly the leaves covering up bud sites, or leaves growing toward the middle of the plant. However, the next day you cannot even tell. I was planning to wait to do a heavy defoliation at day# 21 of flower. However, they are so bushy I feel I need to clean them up now. It has been 10 days since flipping to 12/12 light schedule, 12 days since the last major defoliation, and they recovered phenomenally. However, I have also read that you should not defoliate between weeks 1-3 of flower, because you do not want to stunt the growth during the stretch. So, please take a look at these plants and let me know how you would proceed. a. Just LST with no defoliation at all until day# 21. b. Keep LSTing, and only take any leaves needed to expose bud sites. Wait for day# 21 to heavy defoliate. c. Defoliate now. Get rid of the large fan leaves at the bottom for airflow, and any leaves growing toward the middle. May need to defoliate again at day# 21. Anyone willing to weigh in? Will defoliating now stunt the growth? Will selecting defoliation cause too much stress to the plant? All opinions and suggestions are welcome. Thanks for reading.

I defoliated the plants at the beginning of the week to increase airflow to the middle of the plant and to open up the middle a bit. I am also continuing the LST to try to keep the canopy as even as possible. All plants have rebounded quickly, and are still growing well. Starting to see some flowers start to form, hoping they all come out this week. Happy Friday everyone! Another week in the books. The girls are on day 21 of 12/12 and are looking great. The two Kushs are at 75&80% of the AN nutrients (1300-1400 PPM) and will probably go up next time. The white widows are getting a bucket change soon and will be up to 70&75%. I have finished what I hope is my last defoliation. If my goal was to harvest fan leaves it was a complete success! I had leaves on top of leaves on top of leaves, and was just asking for PM. I am also keeping a hygrometer inside one of the plants to compare against the tent environment. I have noticed that as the plant builds up foliage, the humidity inside the plant can be as much as 10% higher than the tent. They had their own little micro-climates going on. My main goal at this point was to make sure I have airflow through the plants. While I was cleaning up, I tried to remove mostly fan leaves. It was tough, as there were budsites coming up underneath budsites. I kept as many as possible while still allowing airflow to the plant. Any experienced growers out there, please let me know what you think. Did I take off too much? Should I have taken off more? Also, as you can see, Lorraine has really taken off. She is about an inch taller than the rest of the plants. I am not sure I can LST her down at this point, so I may have to run with it. Should I install a net above them and train them through it? My plan right now is to set up the net this weekend and run with what I have, but I am open to any and all suggestions. Have a great weekend everyone!

Starting on the fourth week of 12/12, and everything looks good. Lorraine is growing bigger than everyone else. I installed the net to attempt to stretch her out and lower her a bit. Everyone is eating and drinking well. The Kushs are up to 85% of the recommended AN dosage. Flowers everywhere, with buds starting!

Starting on the fourth week of flower and the ladies are looking fantastic. Big buds everywhere. Lorraine is growing a bit taller than the rest, but I am managing. I love how the flash makes the flowers sparkle! The paving stones were not enough. Lorraine has outgrown everyone else and is making it hard to keep an even canopy. So, I made some lifts. I made a 5" lift for Alice and a 4" for Kini. Demeter is good on 2x paving stones (3"). For now, the canopy is even and looking great. Now I just hope Lorraine is done growing. Journal Update - Day 35 of flower Buds are stacking and growing! The canopy is fairly even, and I am getting an average of 700 ppfd, with a peak of 1100. Temps are getting up to 76-77 during the day, and down to 65 at night. Lorraine (back-right) is drinking, eating, and growing more than the others right now. She is up to 100% or the AN nute schedule, with a small tweak. AN calls for 4/4/4 micro/grow/bloom through the entire grow. I moved to 4/2/4 for now, cutting down on the nitrogen since I am in the fourth week of flower. Lorraine has responded well, and I may follow suit with the others. Right now, she is drinking about 2.5 liters/day. Alice is showing a couple of brown spots on her leaves. She is due for a nute change today, and I will add a bit of cal-mag to see if it solves her problem. Kini and Demeter are chugging along nicely. All of the plants are growing well, if a little bushy. I can see now how I should have spread them out and cleaned them up better, but that will need to wait for the next girls. For this first grow, I am just watching amazed as the flowers grow. Can I already be over half way through flower???

Flowers are growing, stacking, and frosting! Lorraine, the largest, is on 100% AN nutrient schedule. The rest are from 80-90%. Alice is showing some brown spots on her leaves, so I added some cal-mag to her last bucket change and backed off the nitrogen. Everyone else is doing fantastic. Still doing weekly bucket changes, now using a little pump to empty & refill the buckets.

Another week some and gone and the ladies are still growing well. Both of the White Widows were showing some calcium deficiencies, so added CalMag for both. Dropping the Nitrogen (Grow) further this week, and swapped out the Big Bud for the Overdrive. Lorraine is the star so far; she is up to 100% of the AN nutrient schedule and drinking 2.5+ liters per day. Everyone is packing on the bud, only a couple of weeks left?

The white widows really started browning this week, and I think I know why. I was trying to cut down on the GROW (nitrogen), but I was cutting down on the Magnesium as well. I learned that I do not know enough yet to make my own custom feeding schedules. So, I have moved back to 4-4-4 as per mfg recommendation. Buds are growing and fattening all week, should have only 1 or two weeks left!

The white widows were showing a bit of Mg deficiency, added 1g/Gal Epsom salt and gave them a fresh bucket. Other than that, all of the plants are still going strong. Looks to be a week or two until harvest, buds are still getting thicker and denser! Starting to see some orange pistils now... Some new pictures from last light. Happy Holidays Everyone!

Day 67 of flower. The Kushes are 7-8 week flowering and are looking more done than the White Widows, at 8-9 weeks. Kini looks most done with the most orange pistils and coudy/amber trichomes. Everyone else is showing more ripening, but still going. I was really hoping to harvest this week (since I am off work) but it looks like they may still need a bit of time. We will see...

Flushed all of the buckets with flawless finish for four hours on Sunday. Then flushed with pH water. The plan was to leave in pHed water for 3 days, then 36 hours of dark, then chop. Well winter storm Frida messed up that plan when our power was knocked out on Monday morning. We drained the buckets and plucked all of the fan leaves to keep the humidity from spiking. On Wednesday we harvested. We still have no power but now we have finger hash :) Will follow up with a harvest report.

Alice (White Widow) - Alice was the last to sprout on 9/23/21. When I flipped to flower I cleaned her up the most, lollipopping several branches. Therefore, she had less larf and popcorn buds than Demeter, but still ended up yielding a bit more. And she was a LOT easier to harvest/clean. I will definitely be cleaning up a bit more of the lower stuff going forward. I tested Alice first, and broke up the bud before testing. That means I lost tricomes. I changed the process after testing Alice, but she still tested at 17.5%. Demeter (White Widow) - Demeter sprouted the day after Kini on 9/16/21. She had her shell stuck to one cotyledon and had to have it manually removed. She got burnt early when I sprayed her under a light that was too close. She did recover although ended up being the smallest of the four. She also was a bit too full and did not quite get stretched out enough. She did have a few buds that stretched well, and is very sticky and stinky. She had some really nice buds to go with all of the larf. I tested her at 31%. Didn't believe it, calibrated the machine and re-tested at 26.3%. Not sure why she tested so high, but I will retest when I get more supplies. Both of these girls grew great in DWC. I LOVE the smell and taste of the buds and it is a fantastic daytime smoke..

Kini (Hindu Kush) - Kini was the first to sprout on 9/15/21. She was fimmed first on 9/12 to try to slow her down, and when a branch was accidentally snapped off during LST she ended up giving us three clones. For the first several weeks she was the biggest of the bunch. I think she may have gotten too full, however, and never really stretched after going to flower. She had a LOT of growth and a lot of popcorn and larfy buds. One of her nicest buds tested at 22.5% TCH. Lorraine (Hindu Kush) - Lorraine sprouted on 9/22/21. She grew about the same as the other until the flip to flower. I think a did a better job of LST, defoliation, and spacing out the buds on her. She stretched the most and her buds were fat and dense. In the last couple of days she even put on a little bit of purple. Unfortunately, I was too busy trying to keep warm at that point to get many pictures :( She tested at 21.5% TCH.