Zkittlez Auto Fast Buds first grow

Starting off with twice daily feedings. Using 20 gal reservoir with air stone. Drain pans automatically drain to waste into a rain barrel for my outdoor plants. Also cleaned up the water lines just a bit to look nicer.

Looking good so far. One of the plants had the cotyledons slightly damaged on one side and was slowed in growth. I was out of town during this week and had a plant sitter mixing nutes and sending pictures. She did a great job taking care of these beauties.

Got really bushy this week. Upped the feeding to 3 times a day to 10-20% run-off. Was a little worried about perlite getting green but did a bit more research and found that it's pretty normal with these growing methods.

During LST I broke the main stem on the back right plant. Clean break so let’s call it topping 😬 Got a little concerned that they were getting too bushy, but although it made LST hard figured more plant is better than less.

Added a screen this week since I rand out of space to keep tying down to the pots. Had a few signs of deficiencies and underwatering. 4 times a day feeding. Excited to see the canopy starting to connect.

Started having some runaway humidity issues this week. So I picked up a decent room humidifier from the local hardware store. It did the job but produced way to much heat. Now I have it running outside my tent leaving the tent open 24/7. Definitely starting to smell up the house but that probably my fault for putting my grow room in the same room as the furnace. Time for a bigger tent?

3 of the 4 plants didn't do much stretching at all. I'm excited to compare the harvest between all of them too see which yields more. The one plant that did stretch seems like it will take a little bit longer than the others to be ready, but I am not sure. Had I known they wouldn't have stretched much I would have considered some light defoliation to increase light pen but this will be a nice experiment. As of 11/23 the plants have stopped doing any vertical growing and I can tell the buds are starting to fatten up a bit and getting frosty. I am leaving the tent open now 24/7 to help control the humidity, trade-off is I can smell the plants from my office two stories up. The sent is very fresh and fruity so it's not so bad. We will see how my family feels when they visit for Thanksgiving 😆

Buds are starting to get really fat on 3 of the 4 plants. No amber on the trichomes yet so it will be a few more weeks till harvest at a minimum. The one that did the most stretching is just starting to thicken up on the buds. Been having issues with my drainage system causing a bit flooding in my tent. I see a few signs of deficiencies on one of the plants but I can't properly have access to it to see what is going on. The 4x4 tent has proven to be just too small for these thicc ladies. After this grow I'll be getting a much bigger tent. Any recommendations?

This week was a bit bumpy, I found that I am dealing with a two main issues. First being that the plants are much too dense and close together. Makes it near impossible for me to remove the dead leaves that are falling on the Coco which eventually attract fungus. So far I have cleared the top of the medium the best I can without being able to see it. Second issue is that my timer for the irrigation is not functioning properly. I left for a weekend and my plant sitter did not realize the plants weren't being fertigated. Came back to my whole grow smelling of hay. After manually getting the feeding back on track they have fully recovered. Issues aside it's starting to look like chop day is 1 or 2 weeks away. Just in time for Christmas

Getting to the final stretch here with just a few weeks left. The blooms are getting really fat. A few signs of the fade happening in spots. Plants are drinking a lot less water so that’s another big clue they are almost done to me. Haven’t seen too much amber on the Colas so I’m going to let it run at least another week. I’m very excited for this harvests. The smell is getting very pungent. With the time it will take to dry I’m thinking I won’t quite be able to smoke this for Christmas but now aiming for New Year. Update 12/16 Added one more picture of these babies from above. Probably going to get one more week before harvest depending on how I feel Sunday

Today is the last day before chop day. I didn't end up doing any flushing as I couldn't find much evidence that it makes any real difference. Starting to get some fade/LED bleaching here and there. Really excited to see how much bud is hanging out under all those fan leaves. The one plant that got an accidental topping is still behind the others in getting ripe but not so much that I am wanting to keep it growing. Seeing just a few amber trichomes here and there and I am not a fan of couch-lock so now is perfect time to harvest. I will end up hanging the whole plant to dry. Thanks everyone who gave me help and tips for my first grow! I will likely post the dry weight and harvest pictures in a few weeks once they are dry. Maybe add a few pictures of rosin I plan on making. Happy Jul!

Ended up with 377.5 grams dry (188.75g each plant). Out of the 4 plants I lost 2 to bud rot bummer but I still had a monster harvest and learned a lot about along the way. Really enjoyed my first grow. Working on a new setup new with upgrades. Thanks for reading!