The Orange Cream Dream Grow

Welcome to my very first Sweet Seeds grow! I have never grown or smoked cannabis from this company before and I am super excited about the entire process. These four seeds were given to me by the generous folks at Sweet Seeds and they are the Cream Mandarine XL Auto’s. From what I have seen on Grow Diaries, this strain takes anywhere from 9-12 weeks to fully mature so harvest should be within the next 3 months. Fortunately, this means smokable product just in time for Christmas! I am using the same set up as usual and here’s what I’ve got…. 3x3 Gorilla Grow tent (not the shorty, the full size version), x2 Electric Sky 180’s, 6" Hyper Fan, x2 Secret Jardin Monkey Fans to circulate the air above the plants and above the lights. This is a passive air intake system as I have no need for a separate intake fan. The Hyper Fan with adjustable speed controller has more than enough power to pull air into and through the tent. I am using using 5 gallon fabric pots filled with a mixture of Fox Farms Happy Frog, regular potting soil and perlite for xtra drainage. This is a simple, efficient set up- maybe not the cheapest option available these days but worth every penny and then some. As far as the water goes, also the same as usual- air bubbled tap water PH’d to 5.8-6.0 and served just below room temperature. For Week 1, the babies are so small and fragile that they are only receiving 1.4 litres every 4th day (0.35 of a litre per day per seedling). These plants are always moving with the breeze created by the small fan attached to one of the corner poles in the back of the tent. I am running my lights on an 18 hours on/6 hours off schedule- they come on at 6pm, run throughout the night and shut off at noon or 12pm. Doing the lighting this way allows me to keep the tent nice and warm through the evening and early morning hours when my house is the coolest (definitely too cold for healthy plants over the winter 🇨🇦. The temperature in the tent is 78-80 degrees with everything closed up and drops down to 76-78 when the doors are open. I think that’s about it for Week #1 and thank you so much to Sweet Seeds for the opportunity to try, enjoy and showcase your legendary genetics! 😻

Welcome to Week #2 growing Sweet Seeds Cream Mandarine XL Auto’s. It’s been an easy second week for these young plants with only a few changes worth mentioning. First off, the temperatures here in Canada are already dropping so the tent is down about 2-3 degrees during the day. This means anywhere from 75-78 degrees with lights on/doors closed. The night time temps are still pretty stable around 68-70 degrees- because night time for the plants is during the afternoon (12pm-6pm) when my home is warmest from the sun. Second change this week is the lighting. I’ve raised the x2 Electric Sky 180’s up to 48" or 4 feet above the top of my plants. This is almost as high as I can go without the extension on my Gorilla Grow Tent but unfortunately the roof of this room can’t fit the tent at it’s tallest height of 9’. I have been watching a-lot of video footage taken inside of large indoor commercial grows. It seems to me that their LED lights are usually 3-5 feet above the top of their plants when they are fully grown and almost fully flowered. And sometimes even further away when the plants are young! These big grow operations are simply providing a-lot of good quality light, filling the space without having to be too close to the actual canopy of the plants. From what I’ve seen it’s working for them so I’ve lifted mine up quite a bit for the remainder of this grow and we’ll see what happens. The third and final change worth mentioning is the increase in water. By the end of Week 2, I am having to increase the water to 2.1 litres every 4th day (0.53 of a litre per day, per plant). There is now enough water to soak all the way down and maybe even show a bit around the bottom edges of the fabric pot. The plants are growing rapidly now and they were definitely ready for more H2O. That’s it for now and thanks for reading!

Welcome to Week #3 of the Sweet Seeds Cream Mandarine XL Autoflowering grow! It has been another quiet week in the tent with only two minor changes worth mentioning. The first change is pretty obvious and that’s the explosive growth. The tallest plant has grown 13" while the shortest plant has only gained 7" taking it to 1 foot tall. They have become much bushier- developing lots of branches and the stocks/stems have thickened up beautifully to support the upcoming bud weight. The second change worth noting is that two of the four plants are already in pre-flower. This is a little sooner than I had hoped for with XL plants but it is what it is. Hopefully they experience an XL pre-flower stretch and live up to the hype for this much anticipated strain- we’ll see! Everything else has remained the same- temperatures, humidity and watering schedule/amount. I will be increasing the water early in Week 4 to 2.8 litres every 4th day (0.7 of a litre per day per plant starting in Week 4). That’s about it for now, thanks for checking out my grow and I’ll see you soon!

Welcome to the Week #4 update for the Sweet Seeds Cream Mandarine XL Auto-flowering grow. There are three changes worth mentioning in this week’s post and the first is G-R-O-W-T-H!!! I was a little concerned in Week three that the plants were smaller than I had originally hoped for considering that they were an XL strain. I commented that I was hoping for an XL pre-flower stretch and Oh Boy… I got my wish!!! The tallest plant has shot up from 18 to 42" and the shortest is trying to catch up, growing from 12 to 28" in just seven days! I was trying to create more distance between the top of the plants and the lights during this grow but due to this massive pre-flower stretch- but I’ve only got 17" of space between the two going into Week five. Second change worth noting is that I did some light defoliation by removing the largest fan leaves from the middle and top of the plants. I’ve never taken these leaves off so early in a grow before but they were blocking essential branches and bud sites on three of the four plants. The tallest has more room between the branches but the shorter one’s are bushier and needed some help getting the light into the middle of the plants. They seem to be tolerating the defoliation well and filling/growing back in nicely. The third change during Week #4 worth talking about is the increase in water. All four plants are up to 2.8 litres every 4th day or (0.7 of a litre per plant per day). I am for the first time ever running x4 1 gallon jugs on my aquarium pump in anticipation of raising the amount of water again over Week five. These ladies are thirsty, using every drop of water I give them and I am guessing that perhaps all four plants will be up to 1 litre per day during peak flowering. Three of the four plants are in pre-flower now and I anticipate full flower by the end of Week five. Thanks for stopping by and checking out this legendary strain bred by the generous folks at Sweet Seeds! 🇨🇦

Welcome to Week #5 of the Sweet Seeds Cream Mandarine Autoflowering grow. Three changes this update that are worth discussing and the first is the continued growth of all four plants. The tallest is just over four feet and the others aren’t far behind. I’ve raised the Electric Sky 180’s up as high as I can go for the remainder of this grow. Not what I had originally planned for as I was trying to put more distance between the top of the plants and the lights. But this strain has far exceeded my expectations for height and size. I will add however that these plants don’t have an excessive amount of foliage (leaves) for their overall size. Hopefully trimming will be a breeze! Second change this week is the addition of a small amount of Grow fertilizer. I never feed autoflowers the full amount of food recommended for photo sensitive strains because they usually can’t handle it. So, I start with a quarter of a full feeding and work my way up to no more than half of what most companies recommend on the bottle. For the initial fertilizing of this grow, I gave them 1 ml/gallon. This might not seem like much and it barely discolours the water but the response from the plants was almost immediate! I only feed every second watering so every 8th day like clockwork. I will be switching to a Bloom fertilizer in Week 6 as they are all in flower now. The final change this update is the amount of water being given. The two largest plants are actually taking a full gallon every forth day (1 litre per day per plant) and the smaller two are at 3.5 litres every forth day (0.87 of a litre per day per plant). The pots and soil are now fully soaked with a tiny bit of run off that the roots soak up almost immediately. It’s super crowded in the tent going into Week 6 but the smell is lovely and the buds are stackin! That’s it for now, until next time- stay safe and high and happy growing to all.

Welcome to the Week #6 update. There are two words that pretty much sum up the entire update… POWDERY MILDEW! I was so upset and disappointed to find the first spots but I know exactly where this came from. 😭 My outdoor summer grow was infected with a particularly aggressive strain of PM and although I did my very best not to- I most likely was the cause of cross contaminating my tent/indoor grow. I know that Powdery Mildew is a systemic disease meaning that it’s within or inside of the plant (if I had to compare it to something we all know and understand it would be a blood cancer like Leukaemia). By the time that you see the round, white, fuzzy spots on the leaves of your plant- it’s too late. Although you can’t stop the disease from progressing, you can do your best to stop the spores from further contaminating the other plants, the tent and the grow room that the tent itself is in. I have been wiping the spots off of the leaves with Isopropyl alcohol and a q-tips. I wasn’t sure how this would affect the leaves but it seems to be causing minimal to no damage while effectively removing the fuzzy, white spots. It has only affected the shortest of the four plants so I’m going to do my best to keep this grow going until harvest. I refuse to lose this grow to the same white devil that already took out half of my summer season harvest. This was a tough discovery but I am pushing through into week 7 with a positive attitude and looking forward to the next update on the Sweet Seeds Cream Mandarine XL Autoflowering grow. Thanks for checking in and cheers!

Welcome to the Week 7 update of the Sweet Seeds Cream Mandarine XL Autoflowering grow. So just a few things to mention this time around but nothing super exciting. I’ve been keeping up with the Powdery Mildew discovered in Week 6 and so far, so good. The plants have completely stopped stretching now with the tallest plant reaching an impressive final height of 54". I switched over from the Grow to a Bloom fertilizer in Week 6 but forgot to mention it during that update. I’m at 2.5 mls/gallon of the GHE FloraNova Bloom fertilizer which is a quarter dose of what the company recommends for regular photo sensitive strains. I generally don’t exceed more than half of what I would feed a photo sensitive strain when feeding Autoflowers and the plants seem satisfied with the small amount of fertilizer they are receiving right now. I am still fertilizing every second watering which would be every 8 days. As far as watering goes, all four plants are still quite thirsty! Anywhere from 3.5-4.2 litres per plant per watering so 0.87-1.05 litres per plant per day. I have also been slowly/selectively defoliating as well as removing lower branches that are not going to produce quality bud. That’s about it for now, stay tuned for further updates as we wind down to harvest time!

Welcome to the Week 8 update for the Sweet Seeds Cream Mandarine XL Autoflowering grow. As of Day 56- things are winding down nicely with these four plants. The powdery mildew is the only real concern over these final weeks leading up to a much anticipated/needed harvest. I don’t think the buds are going to be huge but their density/tightness and the heavy concentration of resin more than makes up for that. When squeezing a bud- your fingers come away almost wet and sticky. After rubbing your fingers and that resin together- the smell is very strong and an overwhelming citrus scent assaults the senses. I can’t wait to try this strain! I don’t think I’m going to have a massive harvest but again, I’m hoping that the density/tightness/overall weight of each bud makes up for that. No other major changes- still 2.5 mls/gallon of Bloom fert every 8th day or every other watering and still watering 3.5-4.2 litres per plant every 4th day like clockwork. Defoliating as needed and watching the buds grow. That’s it folks, until Week 9, cheers!

Welcome to the Week 9 update for the Sweet Seeds Cream Mandarine XL Auto’s. This was an eventful week of the grow as I finally gave up on the first two plants suffering with the majority of the powdery mildew. Instead of wiping a single spot off of a leaf it had progressed to wiping multiple spots off of the majority of leaves. It was becoming super time consuming just trying to keep up with not further contaminating the tent. So after fighting the good fight but realizing it was now a losing battle- I decided to harvest the two smallest plants. They were pulled from the tent right at the end of Week 9 and placed in my garage for 3-5 days before they were actually chopped and trimmed in Week 10. My garage is not heated and the temperatures have been around 0-5 degrees celsius so both plants had some time to “chill out" before harvest. Not only did they reek stronger than ever but also seemed to produce additional resin after being exposed to the cold for a few days. I chose not to weigh the wet trimmed bud as it hasn’t amounted to much but after drying for 7-10 days it’s working out to be approximately 1 mason jar of nuggets per plant. I will provide final weights and better pictures of the bud in my final harvest update. Nothing much has changed for the remaining two plants except for drinking a little less water and the humidity has slowly been decreasing as Canada moves into winter. Until next time- stay safe, happy and high! 🇨🇦

Welcome to the Week 10, Day 70 update for the Sweet Seeds Cream Mandarine XL Autoflowering grow. Not much to talk about this week as the last two plants remaining in the tent are on cruise control to harvest. I used fertilizer for the final time at the beginning of Week 10 and it’s flush time for these plants until the big chop! They are still being watered every 4th day and they are still drinking about 3.5 litres per plant per watering (0.875 of a litre per plant per day). These remaining two plants have virtually no Powdery Mildew so I am only defoliating as needed if the leaf is already dying. All of the pistols/hairs have turned orange and are receding back into the buds so I’m guessing that harvest will be in Week 11. I have included a brief video above with my photos showing pretty much everything used during this grow. I wanted to give people a quick look at how simple it really is to grow and harvest your own high quality cannabis. Hope you enjoy! I will post next time with my final harvest update- this might take a short while as I generally prefer to know the final dry bud weight as well as having some great photos of the dry, uncured product. Until then…

So first off, THANK YOU to the generous folks at Sweet Seeds for providing me with four Cream Mandarine XL Autoflowering seeds. I have really enjoyed being able to grow and showcase this strain for everyone on Grow Diaries and elsewhere in the world to see. This was an easy strain to grow from start to finish with only minor issues caused by an aggressive strain of Powdery Mildew accidentally brought in from an infected outdoor summer grow. All four plants were healthy and robust from day one with a massive pre-flower stretch accounting for a significant potion of their overall height and size. This strain would be ideal for topping or training and I will be doing both in future when I grow the Cream Mandarine XL again. The plants grew almost exactly as the breeder describes on their website and the final product (although still uncured) is excellent. The buds are dense, heavy and absolutely covered in trichomes. My only negative with this grow is the low final weight of all four plants. I know that I would have had a much heavier harvest had the Powdery Mildew not gotten into the tent. But the cross contamination was my fault as the genetics of this strain are pretty much perfect. This is a hardcore Sativa smokers dream- easy to grow, tastes like a smooth citrus explosion and it gets you really high for hours from just a few puffs. I have included a series of photos above showing the plants’ growth from Weeks 1-10 including the harvest for the last two plants. The final two plants were thoroughly flushed with PH’d, air bubbled water resulting in a final product that any grower would be proud of. Thank you to Sweet Seeds once again for the opportunity to grow and show your genetics to the Cannabis Community. I only give credit where credit is due and your Cream Mandarine XL Autoflowering strain has lived up to it’s legendary reputation in my opinion. Making Sweet Seeds a safe and reliable choice when choosing a seed breeder and spending your hard earned money. I gave this strain an 8 out of 10 only because I prefer an Indica high otherwise making the Sweet Seeds Cream Mandarine XL Auto’s a “must try” for all growers looking to get really wasted- in a good way! 🤪