Spring ‘22 GirlScoutCookies Auto by GoG

We’ll the sprouted up and established themselves in the peat pots. They have been moved to the bigger pots most will run in the usual 3.5 gal fabric pots I’ve been using. One will run in a 7 gal fabric pot. To see what difference if any it will make with the over all outcome. The soil was stored outside so it’s a bit chilly but the heat may is on and hopefully it won’t take too long for the soil to warm up. Each have been given a quart of 1/4 strength feed along with a health pinch of dynomyco. The light is 22” above canopy and set to around 75% power to start. 🤞

A quiet start, getting over the little shock from transferring from the peat to the larger lots. Had a timer go on me and had to replace it so they had a little extra dark time the other day. These haven’t established themselves as well as my last run that were started in the larger pots to begin with. I think that I’ll forgo the peat pods in the future, seemed like extra work for no apparent payoff.

These ladies are starting to take off! Gave a couple to a friend to try his luck with, so I’m down to 4 now. The light was raised slightly to offset the canopy growth and the intensity was increased a little as well. A couple of feedings this week the first was about half strength and the latest about three quarters. I also top dressed some more dynomyco. The humidity has been a little lower than I’d like this early but it hasn’t seemed to cause much stress. Thought I saw a bug so I’ve deployed the yellow sticky traps and I caught it, just one tho so I hope i was early enough. Otherwise no real problems yet🤞

We’ll I was gone for a week so this is more like a week 4.5 update. I will give a properly timed update for the end of week 5. Sadly my data logger stopped working while I was gone so my logged temps are estimates. The time away however gave me an opportunity to try out a new automated watering system, and it seems to have worked! They have doubled in size since the end of week 3 and don’t show any signs of deficiencies. I have just completed some light defoliation near the base and moderate LST using stem benders to open up and even out the canopies. The light has been adjusted to 21” at near but not full power. (I plan to measure the par and adjust for optimum power shortly). I also top dressed them all with Dynomyco. I’ also noticed a couple bugs on my sticky traps, not enough to really worry about but I included some nematodes in the top dressing anyways. Thanks for checking out my grow! Feel free to offer suggestions or ask questions.

Week5! They’ve responded well to the lst clips applied earlier in the week, and are nearly 5 inches taller. This was def the first full week of flowering. And I will be switching to the “flowering” formula with the next feed. The lights have been raised to compensate for the stretch. And the dehumidifier is now set to bring the RH into check. My new Engbird data logger is hung and working giving me an much more accurate sense of the temps and RH throughout the day. The leaf tucking from the previous week was very temporary, I may have to apply more lst clips this weekend. 🤷‍♂️ As far as whether or not the larger size pot size is the right direction, even tho that plant is a couple days younger it’s much smaller, too much effort building roots I assume? So far it looks like I will be sticking with the 3.5 gal pots in the future.

That’s the end of week 6, the second week of flowering! These ladies were feed a couple times this week, and mostly left alone to grow on there own. At the end of the week I redid the LST, using tie downs and stem benders to further open and even out the canopy. Having the bigger test pot taking up more space has left it feeling a little cramped tho and perhaps I should have gone with 3 instead of 4. 🤷‍♂️ I also defoliated a little mostly near the bottom of the plants, and plucked a few suckers from the lower branches. Afterwards I top dressed with the “Dynomyco” and fed them again. I adjusted the light for the additional growth. Feels like these plants have been an easy go so far🤞 No complaints for garden of green, thx for the beans.

Week 7… so not the best week😞 I’ve found evidence of spider mites. Again. I use sticky pads and nematodes with the fans works for most pest, but these mites keep coming back. I don’t want to use chemicals either so this time I tired a diy water/alcohol mix with some Cayenne pepper powder mixed in wiped on the leaves. In addition to some defoliation. I also attempted the vacuum set to low on the worst plant, but you can’t believe everything you read on the internet😬. I also adjusted some of the LST ties and clips as well and flushed the roots of two with a few gallons of neutral water to see if it makes any difference midway, but again because of something I read lol. Hopefully I haven’t stressed them too much. We shall see

Week 8 is over and I still have what looks like a spider mite problem. I’m still kicking myself for not spraying them in week 3. The alcohol and water mix I tried last week made little to no difference and they’re too far along to spray with chemicals now. So I’ve been looking for natural solutions and have picked up and put to use some predatory mites. I put a slow release pack on each plant as well as dispersing an entire pack over the canopy. I was also looking for some lady bugs but had no luck finding some for purchase this time of year, I still hope that I may find some yet. I did a mini flush of the three in flower at the beginning of the week as I have read that a flush halfway will improve the uptake of nutrients, worth a shot I’d say. I have also started to add hydroplex to my feeding in hopes of heavier buds.

That was week nine! They are recovering from my spider mite diy foolishness I also added the predatory mites and I’m not sure what but something worked. For now it seems at least. I did have to do some defoliation however of some damaged/excess leaves and sucker shoots, as well as readjust the LST work. I know that it’s a little late it the game to stress them out with that as I figure I’m bout 3/4 weeks away from the finish at most, but it had to be done. I decided to start with the hydroplex last week and have continued to do so, it has made ph balancing harder. I’ve decided to up my nutrient situation for my next run, I’m going to stick with the botanicare products I’m currently using as well as adding the “silica blast” as well as the “sweet”. Has anyone used these products with noticeable success? Do you have any other recommendations?

Week 10 - 6.5 weeks of flower and they’re almost done! This was meant to be an easy week, but sadly the spider mites are back again. I thought I had knocked them back enough to last til the end… nope it was just a pause and now they’re back and worse than ever (I think, not positive tho as I have released predatory mites as well and am not 100% sure which is which, lol)! Really wishing I had remembered to spray them in week three before they started to flower😬. Too late now tho, I know people will spray; soaps, oils, toxins. But that would defeat the whole point of growing clean smoking weed🙄. I will defoliate all the worst leaves tomorrow and wipe off some of the other leaves with the hope of knocking back the population enough that they can finish flowering without being overrun. I am also about to go on vacation soon and had originally hoped that these would be done before I had to leave, prob not tho. They will have to finish while I’m away, i am setting the auto watering system up again and I can only hope for the best. My not auto auto will be taken out as well I think, give the others the space they need to help slow the pests. I think I may try to see if anyone I know wants it or perhaps put it outside and see what happens. I talked to my beginner buddy that I gave the two plants to in week 3, it would seem like one of them is also not an auto so that would make 2 out of 6 I would have have issue with. Not a great look for “GoG” I had emailed them asking for more info a couple weeks ago with no response. But buddy’s happy about it however. He stressed and miss-fed them so the auto struggled soon as he took over, he has however been able to maintain the non-auto one🙄.

Spider mites ugh… More space 🤨…. Over stressed? Week 11 isn’t quite over yet but I’m about to leave on holiday for the rest of the month so it’s an early update. After inspection the spider mites are worse than I thought! So A friend recommended that seeing how close to the end I am that perhaps I should just defoliate to open up the canopy and reduce the over all population I’m fighting against. I took that advice and really thinned it out(too’ much?). I also removed the one that wouldn’t flower, I will be leaving outside while I’m gone and these finish. I also tried to wipe some of the leaves down, hopefully it’s enough to get me to the end without having over stressed them. I’ve decided that I’ll feed for one more week before I flush and that should give me about a 7 to 10 day flush in week 9/10 of flowering.

This was the first time I’ve used garden of green seeds! And many thanks to them for sponsoring this contest. I started with 4 but 1 of them did not auto flower😬 so I’ve harvested three and left the other one outdoors and will see what happens. This is why I’ve rated garden of green 8 and not 9 stars. Other wise these plants grew well and smelled awesome while flowering. Can’t wait to sample the smoke. Updates to come!