Fastbuds trifecta!

Hey there growmies! We are back! It’s week 2 of our fast buds grow and we have more exciting news! We have some more friends that have joined the party and without further adew it is time to introduce you to the newest members of our team! I will start with another company who has been here in the garden with me since literally day one, same as fast buds- and that is Mars hydro! While they offer a range of products, I personally went with them to light multiple grow spaces of mine! I had originally found out about them from dr.coco and found that they are a perfect balance of being high quality while still being budget friendly and I have had nothing but success with those lights and I have a couple different models- so their quality is consistent among their various lines and offerings. And another friend that will be joining the party is future harvest nutrients! While they are new friends, their reputation proceeds them and I have seen beautiful results from people that run their nutrient line! They have sent us their Holland tri pack to test out and I will also be trying to acquire some of their additives down the road to make sure I am maximizing the potential of this line and really getting a chance to see what they can do! I feel extremely fortunate to have these wonderful groups of people in my corner on this journey- and although we are only at the start of week 2, despite my experience, it is certainly already to be proving to be an adventure- sit back relax and I will explain… Ok let’s set the scene- it’s fall, but geographically where I reside, one moment it’s gorgeous low 60’s high 50’s, all the leaf peepers traveling in droves to our area to enjoy some of those beautiful fall colors- and then you blink…. You blink and it’s freezing, all the leaves have fallen and all those beautiful colors have dulled to a gray… and this year did not disappoint…. (That’s actually a lie…. It’s always disappointing hahah.. disappointing, but expected) Anyways things got cold a bit hastier than I was prepared for so things had to be shuffled- the locations of my spaces would be a definite problem as far as heat is concerned so I was going to acquire another tent and set up a couple tents in my wife’s jewelry studio (yes my wife is awesome for not only letting me grow, but being gracious enough to let me take over or at least share her space for the duration of the winter due to the fact that there is a nice little propane heater in there) So far I have been trying to stick with 3x3 spaces- not only is it what I started with, but I have a few, so I can switch out my equipment interchangeably no matter if I am in a tent or the closet. So I was trying to get another 3x3 tent and my buddy who introduced me to the wonderful world of growing had text me that same day, not knowing that I was in need- told me he had just come across an unopened 3x3 that he had ordered a long time ago when he was ordering a few 5x5s and he had asked me if I would be interested in taking it off his hands… I felt like the stars had aligned and was quick to jump at that opportunity I had been talking to Mars at the time and was planning on trying to get a 3x3 as I had mentioned but due to recent events, I pivoted and decided to go with a 4” ventilation kit (which should be arriving tomorrow actually) and to light the space, I was planning on taking the light I had in the closet and throwing it in the new tent- well Murphy is a fan of mine…. 🤦‍♂️🏻 (as in Murphy’s law..) I had gone to set up this new tent to get everyone moved in and settled into their new home and quickly realized that I wasn’t dealing with a 3x3…… I was in fact putting together a 5x5.. I immediately called my buddy to let him know about the mix up but he said if I could use it, I was still welcome to have it. It didn’t even take me five minutes before I came up with plan B (more like 5 seconds) I was going to take down two 3x3s, and put all that equipment into the one 5x5 and basically have two of everything from lights to fans- what I plan on doing is just turning the power down a bit on their adjustment knobs and control everything that way so I am not overwhelming the little ones. I moved everything over and am absolutely loving the fact that (at least as of now) I can walk right in there and do what I need to do- the downside is I had one plant nicely scrogged and I had to undo all that and re set that up in the bigger tent- I’ll get that back to where I had it but decided to let it grow a bit to make it easier to weave.. ( that one hurt a little…😢) but everything was going well and was looking pretty happy in their new home UNTIL… the cold weather hit❄️….THAT is when things started to go wrong- that nice little heater I mentioned earlier decided to play not so nice and absolutely refused to turn on- I’m not familiar with this type of stuff and don’t feel comfortable having a technician coming to look at it with my whole set up right there so I had to start brain storming… what did I come up with? Well my mother in law has this beefy space heater- I will be picking that up from her tonight- I’m not sure what this will mean for my electricity bill and I may have to come up with another plan sooner than later if it’s a noticeable jump in cost, but for right now- my concern is keeping these girls alive! So now an update on our girls! They have all sprouted, I really like that germination method- growdiaries says it’s not super popular but it’s super effective.. I don’t understand why it’s not more popular but I’ll probably stick with this method until I have a seed that decides not to sprout.. All the seeds have sprouted and the gorilla cookies was first to pop up and the others weren’t far behind, by the next day everyone had sprouted and had been reaching for the sky- It was at that point I decided it’s time to get them out of those little pouches, and time to put them in their new homes that are the next size up. Usually when doing this, I like to sprinkle a mycorrhizal product on the roots but alas I am fresh out and we’re getting closer and closer to the holidays and I had to make some sacrifices and not resupply at this time. Now with those pouches that the peat pellets come in, keep teaching me lessons- I come up with a technique that I think works and then yet again I am proven wrong and it’s back to the drawing board- a technique I have developed is tearing the top and bottom of the pouch as to not obstruct the natural pathway of the seedling whether it be the taproot or the sprout itself… well like I said- I keep learning lessons… would anyone care to take a guess at who has two thumbs and ripped off almost every taproot from the seedlings as they made their best efforts to CAREFULLY remove the pouch? This guy!!!! Yes… this guy…. 🤦‍♂️🏻 I probably just answered my own question on why this isn’t a more popular germination method… anywho that is the situation and unfortunately it is quite likely that I have stunted them due to that little mishap… but I’m just going to have to roll with it, and roll with it I shall! I usually like to top my plants, even autos..but considering the taproot massacre and the super cold temps, I have undoubtedly stunted their growth (touché, don’t get over confident folks) I am going to need to change up my strategy and stay away from anything that might hinder their growth and may adversely affect their yield. We will see what happens… I get excited in the moment so anything can happen.. only time will tell! Much more fun is headed our way, so stay tuned and be sure to catch us at the same time in the same place next week and we will continue our journey through some of the wonderful offerings that can be found in the fastbuds strain library! Until next time, happy growing everybody! Grower love!! 💚🤙🌱

Hey there growmies from around the world! We are back with the week 3 update for our fast buds run- Before we get into it, it is my pleasure to introduce to you, a new friend who is joining our team for this run which gives us the awesome opportunity to try out a few of their offerings- and that is…. Drumroll please… future harvest nutrients!! Now they offer a whole awesome line of nutrients and their accoutrement and they’ve been generous enough to let us test their Holland Secret tripack which comes with everything that you need from seed to harvest and of course you can add to this line as well, I know that I have my eyes on some of their other products like Super B+ and Ton O Bud as well as a few others. The Holland secret tri pack comes with 3 bottles- micro, grow, and bloom- And they provide an eight week feed schedule that will show the different ratios one needs to mix those three bottles throughout the different stages of growth. They offer both liquid and granular nutrients but I am using bottled liquid nutrients And in all honesty I am kind of stoked because although I don’t have anything negative to say about the nutrients I was using- I would just say took a little extra time for me to weigh out the granular nutrients OK I have to come clean to everyone, I am starting to weigh out the pros and cons of my germination method- I have been holding onto this with a death grip due to the fact that I always have 100% germination rate- And as they say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”….. here’s the thing- say we’re speaking in terms of a faucet. What if it’s not “broke” ….what if it’s getting a bit of a leak? How long do you deal with it? Is it something easy to fix that you can do yourself? Or is it easier to just scrap it and get a brand new faucet? That, I am afraid, is what I’m dealing with here… oh my seeds pop in I have dealt with the whole tearing off of the taproots before and have altered my method a little bit by opening up the top and bottom of the pouch but alas, this run I had taproot go out the side of the pouch and despite my experience, once again have ripped off my taproots and stunted my poor little plants and once again I will have to take a step back and refine my methods- Right now I am wondering- is it time for me to FINALLY join what feels like everyone else use the paper towel method? Or do I hang tough and try and see if I can figure it out- maybe scrap the pouch all together? If it were photoperiods it wouldn’t carry the same weight it does with autos with their pre determined life span… I don’t know my friends- but it’s something I’ll have to figure out! The plants however seem like they are finally bouncing back after that accidental trauma and I think over this next week we will be seeing some more growth and development of new sets of leaves etc.. I don’t believe that we’ll be ready for transplant by next update but that’s okay we are going to adjust our game plan due to the early mishap- I come from the school of thought that says autos CAN be trained, however there is a clause- due to their predetermined life span- IF anything goes wrong and growth is stunted, it WILL affect your end yield… so where I would usually top as well as transplant into multiple pots without blinking… I will instead, be putting them in their final pots and will likely just let them grow however they decide to grow without too much input from me- I probably won’t be able to help myself and MAY decide to employ some LST- however I really have to weigh out the potential pros and cons of that action… I could just delay everything even more and shoot myself in the foot for a second time. We will see when we get there, it depends on their vigor and how they bounce back from that slight set back. In any case I am extremely excited! Things are moving, mistakes were made, lessons were learned and we are ready to push forward and see what these things can do! I am honored to have you with me and as always, it has been a pleasure and thank you for stopping by! More updates to come next week so stay tuned and may all your gardens be lush and may your harvest be bountiful, see you next time!! Grower love! 💚🤙🌱

Hey hey! What’s goin on growmies? I hope everyone is doing well and everyone’s gardens are doing fantastic as always! Today marks the beginning of week 4! That’s right, one whole month today! This week the girls look like they are feeling MUCH better! Everyone seems as though they have completely bounced back from what we’ll call our “taproot incident….” Dare I say ready for transplant! Due to that recent trauma though, I am really going to try not to push it too much this grow- I’m going to play it safe and feel like that will benefit me most- but that being said, GENERALLY speaking, I train, top and transplant autos and photos alike- I just think certain things need to be considered… this is me considering those things. This being said, I decided to transplant them into their final pots, usually I try and transplant at least one more time but I don’t have any mycorrhizal product anyways so I won’t beat myself up too bad for not transplanting the autos more, it definitely can be considered playing with fire and I think in this scenario specifically due to the fact that I already slow down their growth- I just have to know when to pause, regroup, and head in a slightly different direction. I ended up going with 5 gallon fabric pots, I have no issues with and have been using 3 gallons up until now for autos however I noticed how the roots were looking after I had harvested my last plants and I wondered if there would be any noticeable difference between the three and the five. I have heard with autos you really don’t need to go above a three so I’m not saying that I’m changing up my game completely I’m just experimenting… We decided to fill those 5 gallon fabric pots with a blend of Coco and perlite, I go with a rough 70 to 30 ratio on that mixture. I actually had to split the transplanting process into two separate days because I ran out of the coco mixture I had made- I bought a bag of Coco Loco from fox farms And mixed in my own perlite the first day but then today I finished transplanting everything and went with Fox Farms cultivation nation which saved me a step, for those of you who are in familiar with that product it is just there 70/30 cocoa perlite blend and I have used it numerous times, both of those with great success. When I put them back into my tent I rearranged things a little bit- I set that scrog up in a debatably weird spot of my tent, however I am glad that I did! I was looking for just a bit of room and it looks like I found it! In a perfect world they would all be raised on the same cement blocks that I have for the others, however Christmas is coming up and I really have to spend wisely so those will just have to wait! They really exploded growth wise this week so I am excited for next week to see how they are lookin- I think they are ready to roll so it’s off to the races for these little ladies! Growmies, once again thank you so much for following along, we have some amazing things in the works- I think we are about to really see what these girls can do and I couldn’t be happier that you are here to follow along and experience this with me! I hope all of you have an outstanding week with vigorous growth in all of your gardens! Growers love everybody!!! 💚🤙🌱

Hello fellow growers from around the world! I hope everyone had an outstanding week and made a ton of progress in the garden! It’s is the beginning of week 5- let’s get into a little recap of the action that took place over the last seven days. As you know, I accidentally had the taproot incident- “the great taproot massacre of 2021” sounds like an exaggeration, but trust me- if you were directly responsible for that kind of unintentional destruction…. It felt like a massacre.. Anyways I swore up and down no training or tinkering as I have already slowed down these autos a great deal and we are working against the clock… ****for anyone new, I would just like to point out- that had this been a photoperiod plant, I would’ve been a bit bummed that I did it, but all in all wouldn’t sweat it too much and would plan on vegging a bit longer and all would be good and fine- the thing with autos, they are going to veg for a predetermined amount of time and automatically (without flipping light schedule) begin to flower- now if you stunt them in the beginning, you are really hurting you end yield and that is unfortunately what I did**** So I certainly intended on leaving these plants alone as far as training is concerned- but there was one SLIGHT problem… I have a lot of fun training the plants and seeing how different methods either by themselves or in combination with others will affect the plant and also lack a bit of self control- sooooo…. Yes. Yes I did get in there a little bit, JUST a little though… What did I do you ask? Well- I was REALLY trying to be good… so honestly, I went in there and did as little as possible (for me, someone who REALLY likes to get in there..) all I did was lst 5 of the 6 fastbuds plants we have going- Why not all 6? Well, one of the strawberry pie plants has been growing very odd- it seems to be a bit slower, it MAY have topped itself- that is something I have never come across until possibly now… on more than one occasion I have thought of culling it but then I remember- the whole reason I keep these journals is to take note of what I am seeing and experiencing every step of the way through these grows- and learn. Learn new techniques, learn from past mistakes, learn from observing and learn from actually diving in and doing- learning by growing and how can I learn about how that plant will act if I cull plants at the first site of something I deem as “odd” Now down the road it might be a different matter where I have experienced it, I know for a fact the outcome of which I can expect and then from there make an educated decision but right now it would just be a guess and I wouldn’t know definitively what would happen next and how it would grow out. I’m not a betting man, but if I had to hypothesize, I would say this one will of course be a lower yielder but hopefully I will still get to play a bit since it appears to have topped itself- it’s been really interesting- so far the strawberry pie had the tallest and the smallest seedlings- both of the gorilla cookies plants have been neck and neck as far as height and growth with the taller strawberry pie plant and the forbidden runtz have been a happy medium this whole time- they were doing well from the get go and are still doing well- not the tallest but also not showing any signs of anything that I would be at all concerned about- they are keeping up very well and have been the most consistent out of what I have planted of those three strains. After bending these plants over, I had a couple fan leaves pointing up towards the sky covering a couple potential bud sites (future bud sites at least) so I removed those to help that light get to where it needs to go. Now I’m kind of playing the waiting game- I suspect that I will have some trouble leaving them alone now that I broke the ice and did my first tie down- I am hoping I still have a bit more time with them… I would like to train them out just a bit more before they start to flower. One issue that I will run into that considering everything, is really a non issue (for everyone else)….is my ocd- I would say I just get hung up on a few things here and there but one generally wouldn’t notice unless we played pool and I was racking the balls or something. This situation also included- I have been known to get a bit meticulous with the training and it’s difficult to do at the point (taproot massacre 2021 poor one out for the homies 😔) so I think something that might get to me is the shape that they end up- I won’t have enough time to give them that super even nice canopy so it will basically be doing it’s own thing with just a little bit of influence from me. Hindsight being 20/20- I could’ve just left them but you know…. Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve….. but I didn’t….so now we will go wherever the wind (or whatever) takes us! I am so stoked as these plants get bigger to really see them express themselves in different ways- and separate themselves from the heard that they currently reside. Growmies, once again thank you for being amazing, thank you for your support and I hope to see you back for more updates next week as we continue our fast buds journey! Until then, everyone have an excellent week- for those who celebrate any holidays with presents involved, I hope you are able to get all your shopping done and able sit back relax and just enjoy your favorite holiday weed from your booming gardens! Have a great week everyone and we will see you next time! Growers love! 💚🤙🌱

Hey hey my fellow growers, I hope everyone had an excellent week! It is great to be back here at the beginning of week six, let’s get into it! Last week I had misspoke- I said I was going to train 5 of the 6 plants I have going from fastbuds, this was false…. What I meant is all 6… Yes at the time I had only INTENDED on messing with 5 but the last one, the way it was structured with the self top, it was practically BEGGING me to get in there and play with it- and I ask you this- who would I be to deny that little strawberry pie the simple pleasure of a little training? So train I did… Nothing crazy, but actually for all six plants (despite my best efforts, best being debatable) to not go overboard- I have been going in a doing a little bit of training and taking a leaf off here and there if it’s blocking any potential bud sites. I am trying to be really careful and not do too much at once and upset any of them- but at the same time, after stunting them a bit with the taproot incident (which I will keep referring to until I learn from that mistake) I want to do what I can to maximize yield after tripping up a bit in the beginning. We will see how it goes, but for now, everything seems to be doing well and responding well to the bit of training I have been doing. Right now I am seeing a range of sizes among the bunch- the forbidden runtz are both shorter and squatier coming in at about 5.5 inches in height each and I notice everything is spaced a bit tighter on these so I have had some difficulty spreading them out but not to any problematic extent, just in comparison with the rest- Next we have the strawberry pie- the smaller one coming in at 5.5inches, is the one that I was speaking about that had topped itself. It seems to be doing well and handling the training just fine. However the other one, that one is much bigger and is about 8.5 inches tall. It wasn’t until I busted out the ruler that I saw that this was the second biggest plant of the fast buds. That leaves the largest which of course was the gorilla cookies! The smaller of the two is coming in at 8 inches and the larger one coming in at 9.5! They are both tied down and doing great, showing growth each day after being trained and having select leaves removed. We are getting closer and closer to flower I hope to have a bit more time with them but that is totally in their hands, so we will see what happens- the game plan now for me at this point is to keep doing what I’ve been doing- trying to balance on a delicate line. As far as other news… I am doing dishes the other day- I have my phone propped up with YouTube on and dude grows playing (my preferred way to do dishes) I hear the dude mention a giveaway they are doing that I had submitted an entry for recently so my ears had perked up…👀 I saw they had the contest page pulled up and on display and I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be cool if I got to see my picture right now, sure enough- I hear them start talking about my pictures! I in no way won (at this point, my fingers are crossed though haha) and I realize that this is debatably anticlimactic however, I listen to these guys everyday at work so I was stoked! I still am! There are lots of good giveaways going on right now, all the amazing contests going on on this site, Instagram wherever! You have to be in it to win it folks and often it doesn’t take much to enter- I wish you all luck if you participate in any holiday contests and I hope you all have a fantastic holiday week and I will catch you all here at the same time in the same place hopefully with some new goodies and we can continue this fastbuds journey! Growers love and happy holidays everybody!!! 💚🤙🌱

Today we start week 6, it flew by and I fear that my time playing with these plants has come to an end.. they are JUST starting to flower and i don’t want them to be focusing their energy on bouncing back from training. I would much rather that they spend their remaining days (and by that of course I mean weeks, month, whatever it ends up being) focusing on bud production, so from here on out I will be employing a much more hands off approach and will only be doing things like of course feeding the plants and instead of defoliating (if any fans are blocking bud sites), I will try my best to tuck instead of pluck - a bit corny but quite true. As far as growth everything is bigger of course than last week however there are two clear winners leading the pack as far as size- One of the strawberry pies (which interestingly enough, the other strawberry pie plant I have going is the smallest out of all of them) and the gorilla cookies! Both gorilla cookies plants Are on the larger side in direct comparison to the others next to them, but there is a clear winner between the two. So it will be exciting to see how they grow out. I’ve really enjoyed seeing the differences in structure- it’s given me a new appreciation for a particular internodal spacing, one that walks the line between being short and squat and long enough to train and have it quickly bounce back all while not being too long and stretchy. The forbidden runtz still remain in the middle of the spectrum, not the tallest, not the smallest but it IS currently the furthest along as far as entering the flowering stage. As you know it was just holiday season and with it came presents… presents from Santa? Nope not these ones but they are still magical in their own right- Im making moves and I am heading towards automation in some respects as well as dialing in some variables. I would like to start paying closer attention to and remaining at a constant and intentional figure (temp and humidity) so I’m stoked! I will wait and reveal these goodies as they come in, some won’t be here until later in January so I’ll be talking about a little at a time. I didn’t put all my eggs in one basket so to speak so I will be appreciating these deliveries from multiple angles as they roll in. Anyway, all very fun stuff to look forward to but alas that time is not now- so with that, I wish everyone good luck in their endeavors this week and hope everyone is (killing it in the best sense of the phrase) in the garden and I will see you next time! Growers love!💚🤙🌱

Hey there everybody! It has been another week and we are back with yet another exciting update. Last week I had mentioned that the time has finally come for me to stop messing with the fastbuds, and stop messing with them I did. They are pretty much on auto pilot mode and they look pretty happy. I am starting to see little baby buds forming all over I just have to make sure that I keep up on the leaf tucking ( I will try to remove those little to no leaves if at all possible- some may still have to go but I will try to tuck first) They all seem to be doing well and they are all budding and getting bigger, it is early yet, but exciting nonetheless. As you know we are just passing the holiday season and during, I made sure to get my orders in and I have had a few goodies arrive for my set up- I believe I only have a couple more in the mail so I will be able to share them all here (except those) Learning is a process as they say- for me, when I started, I just wanted to be able to grow a plant… now I am narrowing in my focus and what I am interested in, is trying to dial things in so I can really maximize all those good things that we are after - efficiency, yields, terpene and thc content etc…. Sooo that brings me to the first two goodies that I got, which are the ink bird Humidity and temperature controllers! I have been eyeing both of those for a while now and I am not only excited to use them during the grow (Especially in the cold swings of winter and the hot swings in summer) , but I’m almost even more excited to use them while I dry- I have to say that is the biggest anxiety inducing part of the process for me- everything can be going great but some thing out of your relative control can happen and then all can be lost or at least almost all… so this is me attempting to get a better hold on that, that also brings me to the next two things on the list one of which has not arrived- I also got a portable air conditioner, I don’t have any windows and my Spaces don’t have a permanent home and keep getting shuffled around so I need some thing that I can move around easily ( One thing I didn’t notice when I purchased it was that it needs to vent out a window but I will cross that bridge when I get there, when there’s a will there’s a way and look what we are talking about here…. The next item is a humidifier- not one of the most exciting things but we have a big dehumidifier and one thing I wanted to do when it came to the drying is connect the humidifier and dehumidifier to the ink bird and have them battle so that they can hit the temperature that I set- Next up we have some thing that I am super super excited about which is the fertigation manager from growtek USA! So right now I only have the basic kit which gives me everything I need to water four plants- some thing I really love about this is the fact that it comes with an app that helps you operate and monitor but the keyword there is operate…. This isn’t just another display with more read outs, this is a functional tool that can be adjusted to meet your needs on the fly as it’s connected via Wi-Fi I have mounted a lot of my displays and monitoring devices as well as the fertigation manager (with space for the advanced kit which I DEFINITELY plan on getting) and it’s cool it looks like a control board kind of thing- I am dying to post it on Instagram but I am waiting to get the advanced kit which is still likely months away so you were getting a sneak peek of what I am up to right now! Now I have started off testing the Holland tripack for a future harvest nutrients, I ran out of the grow formula so I also have their full line of nutrients coming to me and they should be arriving tomorrow I am stoked about that! The plants really seem to love what they had going on and I am excited to try the rest of their offerings!!! And on top of that i had won two contests since we last spoke so I have more goodies coming to me from those as well! For now I will keep those hey secret so we have something to look forward to in some of the future updates. As you can see my Buy now button may be worn but it’s still fully functional ha ha putting that thing through its paces one of the best and worst things to happen to me lol! Anyways I think that’s about it for now the ladies are doing beautifully and I will just be sitting back watching them stack. I must say it’s getting super exciting as we draw closer to the end I am extremely excited to try this variety from fast buds it’s such an awesome assortment and I hear such great things about all three strains I couldn’t tell You which one I wanted to try first so we will just have to wait and see I guess but until then, I hope you all have a wonderful week ahead full of progress in those bountiful gardens of yours! Have a great week and be easy everybody! Growers love!

Hey there fellow growers, another week has passed and we have more progress made- this week we got the girls set up with some of those accessories to help me dial in my grow that I had mentioned last entry. I won’t go through the entire list again however I had mounted a lot of those things neatly onto an old wooden box that I had from one of my old jobs. The box was originally part of a Teva Sandal pop-up display and then after they are done using these things for like a weekend they basically throw them in the dumpster. I figured at the very least I had some thing to put tools in but alas I needed somewhere to mount all this gear and those boxes were staring me in the face. I mounted both fan controllers, I mounted both Ink.bird controllers and I also mounted the first half of the growtek Fertigation management system (The other half will be here Later this week) I have to say I’m pretty stoked it looks really cool in my humble and nerdy opinion ha ha it feels like a little command center. It’s cool, it’s aesthetically pleasing’s, but most importantly it’s fully functional, it’s reading things that if I can dial-in, I can improve my grow which at the end of the day is always the goal, always move forward. Now that system only has enough pumps for four separate plants so I picked the four largest fastbuds that we had which includes: both gorilla cookies, one of the strawberry pies and one of the forbidden runtz. Right now I have the Pumps are calibrated but because I can’t automatically drain my runoff I am going to the pump calibration screen and running the pumps manually until the upgrade kit arrives. Once that arrives it comes with digital scales which each plant will sit upon and basically I will set the amount of runoff that I want it to have before it drains and then it will pump all the runoff into A waste bucket that I can empty out as it starts to fill up. That system came with drip rings and I have various sizes of Hydro halos but these seem to have much better coverage and another thing that has been a delight so far is the silicone tubing- I don’t know if any of you have ever used vinyl tubing but it seems to have a “memory” But the silicone tubing is super pliable and has been nothing but an absolute joy to work with honestly! Sometimes it’s the little things and I must say, a lot of these little details really stuck out. As for the plants themselves I am really starting to get excited! I am seeing little pom-poms all over. I open at 10 and it just smells amazing and I know last post I was like leaf tuck this, leaf tuck that and let me correct myself….. look, I try and be good and I try and be careful and not upset the plant unless it’s necessary but if I’m going to be completely honest which I am, I definitely plucked a fair amount of leaves but I am just plucking ones that are blocking the direct light on to a bud site.. every couple days these little leaves will get a little bit bigger and the stem will grow upwards as well, just enough to kind of Cover some of those pom-poms I had mentioned above. I have been plucking those and it has been leaving my fingers smelling super fruity and delicious and already, they are getting quite quite sticky if I accidentally touch any of those sugar leaves- Everything has been going at a good pace and I am definitely seeing a lot of growth and progress! That being said, we have a ways to go so much more to come. I think one of the things that we have coming up this week will be the installation I have the second half of the fertigation manager and I will have the 4 biggest fastbuds plants fully automated! I’m super stoked about that and also I am going to be building a raised self draining plant saucer design to use with my fertigation system, so stay tuned for that as well. Growmies, I hope you are all doing fantastic as are you’re gardens and we will see you at the same time in the same place! Growers love!! 💚🤙🌱

Hey there fellow growers, I hope you had an excellent week! We are back for the beginning of week 9 and time sure does fly- I feel like I blinked and before I knew it, here I am and I see little buds popping up everywhere. I am so excited for all the variety that lies just around the corner! I will be in there watering and brush up against the strawberry pie and will just smell these sweet aromas and then I’ll look ahead and notice what seems to be two different phenos of the gorilla cookies. The shorter one will be the first to finish and I think it’s about time for me to quit adding nutrients to that one. Its buds are the most developed and is also a sweet and fruity smelling plant and is getting nice and frosty!The taller gorilla cookies plant has of course greater internodal spacing and seems to be just a bit behind the other. The leaves also seem to be a bit thinner as well. The larger of the strawberry pie plant is getting quite pungent in a most excellent way as well! I was in there and removed a leaf that was blocking a bud site and it smelt so delicious I tasted it just out of curiosity if that’s any indication of what I’m gettin off of those as far as smell. It is probably between the two the two gorilla cookies plants in terms of when I expect it to finish. The forbidden runtz remains in its middle position in the line up and has remain consistent this whole time. Shorter internodal spacing and seems to grow more densely in comparison with the others which is something I made sure to note early as I am afraid to get bud rot or some other shattering issue that one can run into late in the game. The other strawberry pie and forbidden runtz plants I think were adversely affected by the shade they were getting from that canopy (as one would expect) and are smaller than their counter parts but still seem to be doing well considering. The countdown has begun especially for that one gorilla cookies plant, and the nutes will stop soon- now for that one, and I am interested to re assess the situation next week and we’ll see if any of the others are there. Anyway that’s about it over here- I hope you all have an excellent week and we will catch you next time as we continue to countdown to harvest! Grower love💚🤙🌱

Hey there everyone! I hope you all had an amazing week and have seen/ made lots of progress in your gardens. I must say at least for me, it has been a very BUSY beginning of the new year ( I apologize, I have noticeably had a difficult time keeping up with entries) that being said, no need for delay- let’s get into it! So last post I had mentioned that the gorilla cookies were furthest along, I PROBABLY should have switched to just water by now but am going back and forth on how much time I think I have left.. as some of you may know, I am an AVID listener of grow podcasts- I have the shows I listen to regularly and then a few others that occasionally make an appearance in the line up from time to time. Well one specifically I was listening to just yesterday and they said if you think your done and ready to take them down, give it another week- I have heard this many times before and while I don’t think that I’m done, I want to accurately judge when I am going to pull them because I want to switch to just water the last two weeks to try and lower the EC as to not experience any of the (debatable?) adverse effects of feeding all the way to the end. And I don’t want to start too early because they sure are looking beautiful and I would like them to stack as much as they are able to, and don’t want to cheat them out of that desired growth. Now I know I can bust out the jewelers loop and fully intend on doing that, but that’s just so I can decide when I want to actually take them down. I don’t think I would be able to accurately judge when I’m two weeks away- I admittedly never tried to gauge how long it takes for the trichomes to turn from clear, to milky, to maybe 10% (or a bit less) amber.. maybe this will be the start of that type of assessment, and then I can note and continue to observe and take more notes, so that I have this down after another handfuls of runs. Yesterday I had built the upper level of my scrog net- ( I know it’s redundant to say, sorry if I offended anyone- hopefully no trolls here) which is mostly irrelevant to my autos, EXCEPT of course for the fact that I have to do a full on army crawl to get under that canopy to get a closer look at the fastbuds- (I extended the canopy a bit more so it should be maybe a bit more difficult to get in there but I am pleased to say that I BELIEVE that I’m only a few weeks out, possibly only a couple with the gorilla cookies! Woohoo!! That being said, I think that about wraps it up for this week, we will just be keeping a close eye and making sure they’re getting everything they need however I think with the exception of some daily maintenance we will be taking a hands off approach and just observe for now. Anyway, I hope you all have an amazing week and we will catch you next time! I expect that we are only a few diaries away from taking down at least the gorilla cookies, so exciting things coming up!! Growers love everybody!!! 💚🤙🌱

Hey hey everyone! I hope you all had an amazing week! Things are winding down over here as we play more of the waiting game. I back tracked a bit this week, being honest with my growmies, I thought maybe it was about time to stop nutrients on the one gorilla cookies plant, however- I don’t think we are QUITE there… don’t get me wrong, that one looks excellent! It’s just that I don’t want to cheat myself by pulling them early- I already cheated myself in the beginning when I stunted everything by accidentally ripping off the taproots while I was removing the outer casing of the peat pellets… So for better or for worse I decided to let that one join the others when feeding them. I am just going to do my best to keep a close eye 👀 on it so I can pull that when it’s ready. That strawberry pie plant is a close second but you can tell the gorilla cookies is a BIT more developed. They will all be pretty close and probably all come down within a couple weeks span of time. The smells are AMAZING and while collectively greeting me with a bright and fruity nose, when I really get in there when feeding or doing some other maintenance in the garden, the each have their own unique and WONDERFUL scent! On top of that, they are getting super frosty and I do my absolute BEST not to brush up against them because these girls are STICKY and if I am going to lose trichs on something I’m wearing, I am going to do my BEST to make sure that doesn’t happen until it’s time to trim and at least I will be able to reward myself with some fresh scissor hash! They are doing excellent and as I said we will be keeping a close eye and switching to water when I can (hopefully Not TOO soon) as to not finish with to high of an ec- to tell you the truth, I don’t know if it’s bro science or not but I want to finish these as clean as possible so it smokes as clean as possible (and if it DOES turn out to be bro science, at least I’m trying to do the right thing and be proactive…is what I will tell myself as I stress about when to pull these things.😂) I’m kidding it has been and remains to be an absolute blast! It’s fun and is extremely rewarding to enjoy something fresh from the garden (that’s been dried and cured properly… cough cough👀) and that’s what it’s all about! I hope you all have an amazing week and I will meet y’all back here at the same time in the same place with another (and one of our last) update(s)! Grower love cannafam! 💚🤙🌱

Hey hey there everybody, So my deepest apologies on the late post, we are back after skipping last week. we were experiencing a bit of an emergency in the grow- I have a lot to fill you in on…last weekend we were getting ready for a little snow. Nothing crazy as far as we knew… well we didn’t get much snow, but we DID get a whole lot more than we bargained for. We woke up to an ice storm.. it took out the power which was a minor inconvenience at first, but then… then it didn’t come back on for two days- sure, I’ve been without power for longer… but not during a grow. I went to 8 stores looking for a propane heater with no luck- ugh at that point I just had to accept defeat and head back to the house so I could start a fire so at least the pipes didn’t freeze as well as try to throw some blankets over the tent. Well the stars seemed to magically align and as I turned on to my road, the electric company’s truck was pulling out and then I noticed…. We had power!! I lit a fire, turned on the electric heater and crossed my fingers tightly and waited…watching closely, looking for any signs of damage and as far as I can tell, we are doing good! I ran into some standing but that was in the very beginning when I tried to remove them from the pouch from the peat pellet. I checked the plants with I am jewelers loop and I actually decided to pull one of the plants which was of course the one that had been on the way, the gorilla cookies. I had been kind of thinking about and planning taking down the others over the next week but to be honest on another pass with that jewelers loop I was seeing some clears so it has me wondering if maybe I just caught it at a weird angle and I wasn’t really seeing what I thought I was seeing… we will find out either way no biggie and I am super excited, just something to note. I will remain watching this, I am dancing along as this line where they are autos and I have the amount of time I expect them to take, but then Going by what I say I think I can go a little longer but of course don’t want to go to long so it’s a balance but regardless I am on the lookout and I will be taking them down one by one I would assume before The end of the month ( basically another two weeks) Other than that I have been really trying to plan and figure out what I’m gonna do as far as finding a more permanent location as I will have to move everything after this run. I think I have a plan that should work out pretty nicely I don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle so to speak but hopefully I will be acquiring them sooner than later- Anyways I would like to apologize again for the delay, I hope you have all had an excellent start to 2022 and are absolutely killing it in your gardens! Until next time, grower love everyone!💚🤙🌱

Hey there growmies! I hope you all had a fantastic week, we are back with another update and I am both excited as well as sorry to say, I think this may be one of our last for this fastbuds run. I would also like to make a quick correction, there was an error in last weeks journal, this past week we have just been feeding these ladies some water- I was using that mix that I had noted for my photo period plant I have going but these, these I had actually just been slowly trying to flush the last week. So this weekend we had a celebration and were out of town so I had been manually (and remotely) to watering them this weekend. It’s still cold where I am and we had a couple snow squalls but no power outages this time which was excellent! I DiD decide to leave the heat on (electric heater) which during the day, puts us around 80-81 but at night keeps us right around 66- if I didn’t have that on, the temperature swings would be even higher and the temperature would get dangerously close or even below freezing (which I do NOT want to do again) Now admittedly when I got back, I was not in a frenzy per say, but I intended on taking pictures of them before taking em down and that didn’t happen… we had just gotten home from a trip and had a bunch of stuff to do before having company just a couple hours later- so while the girls still came first, it was a bit rushed and I totally forgot to take pictures before giving them the ol chop and hang. I am extremely excited to be in this stage of the game with them, the scents coming off those were AMAZING and I CANNOT wait to get into them (still have some more waiting to do but this is what I consider to be the home stretch, dry/cure) Now the plants were a bit dense and I cut them into maybe three or four sections each before I hung them, to avoid any p.m. or bud rot issues(which would be devastating at this point) Right now everything has been hanging since Sunday and let me tell you, when I check them to make sure our temp and humidity are okay (so far it’s been staying at 60 to 61F and right around 51% rh) the smell that hits you when you open the door is nothing short of pure joy… I am getting fruity notes, I am getting floral notes and as it’s all hanging together, I have no idea what scent is coming from which plant but I will be getting up close and personal with them soon enough when it’s trim time and will be better acquainted with each and will better be able to identify what I’m getting off of which plant. I just finished the one gorilla cookies plant and it certainly follows suit with everything I mentioned above, the nose on it is spectacular and I CANT wait to dive in and start to enjoy them. It yielded one full jar which I have not weighed yet- I originally intended on weighing the end yield as a data point to note but I think due to the fact that I (and I can’t stress enough that it was MY mistake) stunted them in the beginning, that final weight wouldn’t be indicative of what one could and should expect from these genetics. Which is why I am opting to not dive too much into all that. Now that they have all been taken down, I just have my one lonely (but giant) rock candy cake plant waiting to finish up and then I will be taking everything down and setting up somewhere else which is exciting because I have lots of little tweaks that I intend on doing so I am eager to make those minor changes and see what we can do next run! One thing I will NOT be doing it using those little peat pellets (or if I do, I have to figure out the pouch situation, but hopefully I stick to my guns and just go with another germination method) Anyways, I hope you are all well and that you’re gardens are booming with beautiful sticky buds and I will see you after we get these all trimmed up (once they’re done with the hang dry that is!) grower love everybody!!! 💚🤙🌱

* so I have to start with a disclaimer which is the fact that I stunted these taking them out of the pouches of the peat pellets and the harvest amount and stunting was 100% my fault and was in no way part of my consideration for the review ( as it was a reflection of a mistake I made and in no way a reflection of the genetics) * That being said, this one, out of all three was at the head of the pack in terms of size and vigor. Once it bounced back from that hiccup i made in the beginning, this one grew the bigger faster than the rest and was the biggest in the end