3) Barney's / Wedding Cake Auto / Micro

Fairly straightforward time in the grow. At this point, she was still in the iPower 2x2x3 veg tent while my previous grow was being harvested/drying. I like double productivity. Don't you? 😀 I was thrilled at this point that things were going much better than the previous attempt, as I explained in my commentary about the germination period. Only issue: Mild leaf drooping the evening of Day 7. So I skipped that fertigation. The lamp was kept on 24 hours because it would simply just get too cold for the seedling in the tent at night. Temps would drop to 65F with high humidity. Lamp kept her warm 24/7. Otherwise, my notes denote peace and calm. The following week would not be that way. LOL. So, let's discuss goals for this grow. Goal #1 : This is the one. This grow was going to be the one where I would try to see if the most important theory I've developed as a result of my few experiences about properly growing in a mini-tent would be proven right or wrong, sort of. In other words, an important theory came about during my last grow - that I could have a strong amount of control over maximizing the yield and quality of my buds by controlling the size of the plant by having the right timing when switching from the veg lamp to the flowering lamp. My veg lamp is a blue spectrum LED. My flowering lamp is a red spectrum LED (that's why the Rspec in the name.) Blue spectrum LEDs are believed to create tight internodes in veg stage cannabis plants, as per my research (Google). Red spectrum lamps kinda do the opposite. In my first grow ever, I installed the Rspec lamp on Day 30. Go look at that diary. She grew into a big beautiful monster, but the buds ended up having some issues due to heat/light stress because the plant was only 10 inches away from a lamp that was tied to the very top of the tent. It could go no higher. In my second grow, I installed the Rspec on Day 41. The buds were fantastic - almost perfect. The plant was kinda small. but it stayed at 15 inches under the lamp with room in the tent for the lamp to go. Get where I'm going here? So for my mini-tent setup, there's a sweet spot, right? Grow too small/low you hurt yield (obvious). Grow too large/high you hurt bud quality (heat stress and light burn). Since blue lamps keep plants small, and red lamps make them explode in growth, picking the right day to switch lamps is a big part of all this, I think. So basically, Goal #1 was to install the Rspec in the Goldilocks zone, on Day 35, to see what would happen in the hopes of getting the perfectly sized grow that would maximize yield/bud quality. Large enough to yield, while at the same time, small/low enough to not get burned by the lamp. Cuz if proven tru-ish (I know, you can get variations around the mean due to pheno considerations), I could be comfortable in the future knowing that I could grow relatively high-yielding/high-quality plants on a more or less consistent basis. Only three grows in, I'd know where "optimal" was. I thought that would be a colossal win. Goal #2: Be aware that winter growing and summer growing can be two totally different things. Climatically, this grow would be the opposite of the first for several reasons. Firstly, I have no control over the heat in the building, whereas in the summer, I control the AC. Secondly. and most obviously, different temperature and RH levels in my apartment would mean needing different remedies than what I was accustomed. There would be no AC this time. Would I use a humidifier? How? You get my point. So I needed to stay humble about my environmental control techniques. They may not mean anything now. Goal #3: Turbo LST mode. I would challenge myself to LST this plant into a pizza if I could. I would give myself NO ROOM for watering but challenge myself to water the plant somehow anyway. The scrog would be installed no higher than 10 inches above the tent floor and stay at that height as long as humanly possible. (Bear in mind that the pot and stand are about 9 inches tall, so..) Goal #4: And this one is in every grow. Stay humble. Remember this is nature - not a machine. Be ready for curveballs. Be ready to learn something new. Be ready to learn you were wrong. And keep notes. And don't be afraid to do experiments. It's about learning. Not results. Thanks for reading. Hope this was helpful somehow. Have a great grow day!! Check out my YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLdjlvS0mK9Pu3pkumUu-w

Pretty much right around the time I took that picture you see of Day 9, I started noticing something strange about this girl. Usually you get 1st node - single finger, 2nd node- 3 finger, right? Well, this girl seemed to be missing 4 fingers on her second node. Was in denial for a couple stressful days. Then when they got kinda big around Day 11, I called on my GrowDiaries community (Questions) for help and got the emotional support I needed. Apparently, this was just nature throwing a curveball that others had seen and hit out of the park before. That calmed my nerves.. Big thanks to @Organoman and @Papa_T. She was moved into her final grow tent in the loft on Day 12 and light schedule was changed to 18/6 because the loft tent is in a warmer location, so 24 hour lighting wasn't necessary. Mild downward claw around Day 14. I think this was caused by leaving the humidifier in the tent on when the lights were out, which for some reason, makes humidity skyrocket. So I attached the humidifier to the timer so that it would also turn off when appropriate. Which means getting up early to turn on the humidifier when the lights come on, but my cat likes that because it means he also gets fed at his favorite time of day. And when my plants and cats are happy, I'm happy. 😂 Light schedule was changed to 20/4 on Day 14. LOW STRESS TRAINING BEGINS: My grows would be impossible without Low Stress Training. In fact, I do so much LST, can you really call it low-stress anymore? I have no choice but to use low-stress training to its maximum potential. Here's the math: 36 inch tall tent. Say you give 3 inches for the lamp and the cross bar holding it. Now you got 33 left. Say you want minimum 12 inches distance lamp-to-plant, now you got 21 inches. The pot and stand are 9 inches, now you got 12 inches MAX height that your plant can be. And since you don't have much room to yield vertically, in order to justify doing any of this, you have to maximize the horizontal space around the plant. You have no choice but to take every leaf and branch and say to it, "Excuse me, nope, you're going that way, dear." So step 1 of the abuse is starting this whole process when they are really young. Why so early? The trick to efficient growing, in my opinion, is giving your lamp a target to shoot at that is as big as possible as quickly as possible. Because this way, you get something called compounding growth. So LST is the remedy for both my yield and spatial concerns. The sooner you get going with it, the more likely you will have a really successful grow. I tried LST on Day 11 with an LST clip, but removed it a day later. The clip just was too big, and quite honestly, I don't think I'm going to use them for 1st LST anymore like I've been doing. The plant has to be just the right size for them to work, and the old fashioned way to do it works great as long she gives you enough leaf-stem to hold on to, know what I mean? So I reapplied LST the old-fashioned way on Day 13. She was bent down such that the single-leaf 1st node leaf was up in the air now, but her pair was under the plant. I removed that one. I like this configuration because it makes it easier for the branches you eventually get to go in a sort of N, S, E, W orientation (or if a clock, 12, 3, 6, 9 .. you get the point). Since the tent is a square prism, to maximize horizontal space opportunities, your longest branches should go into the corners of the square in a NSEW configuration to create the squar-ish shape you want/need the plant to have. Bend the seedling some other way, and wrangling the branches into a square shape becomes more difficult. Thanks for reading. Hope this was helpful somehow. Have a great grow day. Check out my YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLdjlvS0mK9Pu3pkumUu-w

Look at those weird, huge round second node leaves!! 😂 They look like flags. At that point in the grow, she might as well have been a little spinach plant cuz that's what she looked like. LST and Defoliation start early and never really stop happening in my grows. Two days before harvest you'll find me picking off a leaf from a branch still being held down by a net and a hook tied to a velcro strap. Again, I don't have much choice. The mission is clear - as much plant as possible in a 12 inch by 24 inch by 24 inch space with 12 inches being the height of the plant. Turn the Birj Kalifa into the Pentagon. Go. Do it. Today. Now. Until the stretch is over. Until about Day 56, really. So I'm basically abusing this plant from Day 11, say, to Day 56. That's the minimum. Defoliation happens for the first time, really, this week. Yeah, there is that one leaf I remove in week 2 that's under the plant. But the REAL defoliation with actual purpose started on Day 15. I picked off one giant leaf that was blocking light from the buds underneath. Remember that whole thing about NSEW branches in my comments from Week 2? Those buds underneath that leaf ARE the NSEW branches. So the earlier that light hits those spots with direct light.... You get my point. When this happens, this is the moment the plant finally completes its opportunity to become a flowering monster. It's a great tradeoff - one leaf for the opportunity to really bloom as a plant. Can't beat it. As a result of that defoliation, LST kicks into higher gear this week. Picking candidates for wrangling out to the sides of the pot. And as I described in my Goals section of Week 1, Turbo LST mode this time. I would be a little too aggressive in my ways in the following week with this mentality, but as for this week, I was mostly satisfied with how things were going. Plant leaves were weird in various ways, but I got advice from someone on Rollitup who said not to worry too much early plant leaf issues, and that the plant would get over them. I now believe this to be good advice. Nonetheless, I lowered humidity in the tent towards the end of the week because I was still running too humid for this stage in the grow. Thanks for reading. Hope this was helpful. Have a great grow day! Check out my YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLdjlvS0mK9Pu3pkumUu-w

Lowered the lamp to its lowest recommended height above the plant per HLG, the manufacturer, of 12 inches on Day 22. This is different from my last grow, when I left the vegetative lamp at 15 inches above the plant until the flowering lamp switch for some reason. I was pretty afraid of light burn with that grow, so that's prolly why that happened. Don't remember. Light schedule back to 24 hours on Day 23 as well. Seems a good time to start pretending it's summertime, or something, so leave the light on all day. (I don't know if it's necessary to do this, but I do like just leaving the humidifier on 24/7 so that I don't need to get up early anymore to turn on the machine.) I'm not sure what's true at all about light schedules yet. I think it's going to take a while for me to do experiments on that issue. Someday, I'd like to do a test of going 12/12 with an autoflower in flowering, for example. See what happens. Then it happened, AGAIN! I broke the main branch doing LST on it on Day 23. I had come up with a technique in my second grow where I would hold down the main branch with TWO LST hooks on successive nodes to provide greater branch support when pulling it down. But I just forgot to use it. I was getting cocky, I think. I had broken that same branch in my first grow, so repeating the same mistake is frustrating. But the same as my first, in this grow, the main branch didn't completely break through. So I unhooked LST on that branch and let it heal. It eventually completely would. I'm not sure when It happened, because that branch is in the farthest part of the tent and the plant was already pretty big when it finally happened. But it happened. Nonetheless, I think this mishap slowed the growth of that branch, but in my strategy that's a good thing. But there's no denying that I was stressed about that whole branch dying on me when this mistake occurred. Everything's OK now, but that wasn't fun. The trellis net for Screen of Green was installed on Day 25. Many think of them as distinct techniques, but Screen of Green, I think, is actually more like a powerful subset of LST. When there are too many branches to grab and control, it's great to just be able to push down a whole part of the plant under the net, and that's it. Everyone is going where you need them to - just not up! 😄 It sets a visual limit to how high you're gonna let the plant go. In order to maintain proper discipline, I measure how high the net is above the floor on all four sides, and I make sure that it isn't above a certain limit. As mentioned in the Goals section of the Week1 comments, this limit would be only 10 inches, strictly held as long as possible this time. You can see in the pictures above that leaves of this plant are hovering awfully close to the coco coir. Turbo, LST. Mode. Not. Kidding. 😂 This is so much fun. By Day 27, there were signs the main branch was resuming growth. Cannabis plants are magical in their abilities. Pure magic. I guess that counts as High Stress Training too, right? She wasn't topped, anyway. I still have never topped a plant. Thanks for reading. Hope this was helpful somehow. Have a great grow day. Check out my YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLdjlvS0mK9Pu3pkumUu-w

The carbon filter was installed on Day 29 because she was stinking up the place a bit already. My carbon filter is outside the tent. I've had contractors and plumbers in here not notice a thing. So it works great outside the tent. One word of caution though. I had a small bit of smell-leak at first with this arrangement, but I put my nose to it, and figured out that the smell was leaking from the carbon filter at the point where the casing at the end of the cylinder meets the grid looking part. Seems smelly air would sneak out through that tight space without going through the carbon first. So I fixed this by putting foil tape around the casing where it met the grid part in order to create a seal and make sure all the air passes through the carbon. That solved it. No more smell anymore, whatsoever. Raised the net to 11 inches on Day 30 above the ground because watering had become impossible. Now the goal was to leave the net at this level as long as possible. First signs that the stretch had begun were visible at this point. This week was one of the most important weeks in short cannabis growing career. Or at least I thought it would be. This was the week when I would start to test the theory that the "perfect day" for installing the red spectrum branch-extending HLG 100 Rspec lamp was Day 35. Because installing it on Day 30 in my first grow led to a plant too big, and installing it on Day 41 with my second grow led to a plant too small. So I thought Day 35 would be in the perfect zone, if blue/red spectrum mattered at all. But I started to notice something interesting about this grow as compared to the last. When you look at pictures of Day 32 of this grow, before the flowering lamp was installed, this grow is already larger than the last one was at Day 35. Pheno variations? Certainly possible. I started noticing towards the beginning of this week that the leaves were a slight different shape than last time. More long and thin than last time - more sativa-looking. So maybe this plant was just born to grow more than the last one. Also, at this point of the prior grow, I had the lamp at 15 inches instead of 12 inches this time. So maybe that also made a difference. However, my first grow certainly also had sativa characteristics. And by Day 33 of that grow, it was far larger already that this one was at Day 35. So it was still possible that flowering lamp installation was a key component of getting this "right." The flowering lamp was installed on Day 35, as promised, at a height of 17 inches above the plant. Now just time to see how things would ultimately work out. Thanks for reading, Hope this was helpful. Have a great grow day, Check out my YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLdjlvS0mK9Pu3pkumUu-w

Straightforward week. Mild lollipop defo here and there to help with fertigations. No more. Some reapplying of LST around the plant and continued tucking under the net. The light schedule was changed back to 18/6 on Day 42, the last day of the week, and pistils were seen for the first time on this day. Pink smoke. It's a girl! 😸 Thanks for reading. Hope this was helpful somehow, Have a great grow day! Check out my YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLdjlvS0mK9Pu3pkumUu-w

Stretchy stretchy time, folks, This was when the fun happened. She was growing fast now under her red-spectrum lamp. Raised the trellis to 12.5 inches above the ground on Day 44. Left the lamp at the same level even though she was growing fast, The lamp would be as low as 13 inches above the plant, but I noticed some light-greening and raised the lamp to 15 inches on Day 48. Then I started doing some real purposeful defoliation again on Day 49. What some call "leaf stripping," I think. Basically, I look down on the plant from above and look for leaves with stems and remove them. The goal is to try to leave the foliage at the bottom of the plant on there, while stripping leaves above in order to get light further down the vertical branches. I do this to prevent larf buds at harvest. The earlier lower buds get direct-ish light, the more mature they will eventually be. It is the theory I'm running on, anyway. This would be round one of leaf stripping, anyway. There would be other campaigns down the line. Thanks for reading. Hope this was helpful, somehow. Have a great grow day! Check out my YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLdjlvS0mK9Pu3pkumUu-w

So this is the week when the stretch is really starting to slow. I was real happy with the results I was getting. Firstly, I was really happy how parallel-to-the-ground the four NSEW branches were as they got to the edge of the pot. That meant Turbo Max LST had been successfully applied. That goal was satisfied. And the overall size of the plant was large but manageable. On Day 52 I raised the lamp pretty much all the way to the top of the tent. Only about 3/4 of an inch left before there was no really no more room for the lamp. At this position, the lamp was 16 inches from the plant - good enough to prevent light burn and give her a little more room to grow her buds. At about this time though, I started getting concerned with heat levels in the tent. I was getting readings as high as 86F sometimes So I introduced a humidifier and was able to get the temps down to more normal levels, like 80F, while keeping more or less normal humidity levels for this stage of the grow. She reached her max daily drinking levels at this time, taking about 2.4 L of feed water per day with about 45% runoff levels, give or take 5%. Hope this was helpful. Thanks for reading. Have a great grow day. Check out my YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLdjlvS0mK9Pu3pkumUu-w

I was feeling pretty victorious at this point. She was the perfectly-sized plant, in my opinion. Goal #1 seems to have been satisfied. Or at least I have no reason not to go forward thinking that the day you pick to change from the veg lamp to the flowering lamp is an important choice to make. My next grow will likely be Lemon Pie by Fast Buds. To be on the safe side, I'm thinking now (today is Day 75) that I will install the Rspec on Day 38. I'd rather have a small plant with great buds than a large plant with burnt buds. Well, heck, there's still a chance that burnt buds can happen to THIS grow here. So it's early to make any decisions about the next grow. I resumed another round of top-down leaf stripping on Day 57. Again, just trying to get light to the lower parts of the plant. Since VPD-chart-determined climate levels are the same in my schedule for Week 9 as they are in Week 8, I continued with the use of the humidifier to keep climate levels in the tent copacetic. One interesting thing. Algae had been growing inside my humidifier this week. But I was able to remove/clean it by swishing bleach and water inside the tank for a few minutes, as instructed by a YouTube video I saw, Now she's good as new. Light schedule was changed to 16/8 on Day 63. Have a great grow day! Thanks for reading. Check out my YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLdjlvS0mK9Pu3pkumUu-w

Had started the week worried about temps in my tent. This plant is bigger at this stage than the last one. The higher you go in the tent, the hotter it's gonna be in there. The last grow was shorter by a couple inches than this one.So, the canopy of the last grow stayed comfortably in a range of 77F - 84F. This plant, being taller in the tent, was running hotter, like 78- 86F..I don't really like my grows going above 83F. So in the beginning of the week I continued using the humidifier in the tent in order to cool it down. But running RH levels of 65%+ is also not what you really want, according to current grow community norms anyway.VPD charts say humidity should be much lower than that at this stage of flowering. So I tried something. What if blowing a fan at the tent from OUTSIDE the tent made a difference to things somehow? I tried this experiment and it worked! 😀 I put a fan on the edge of a bookshelf that I have up in the loft in my apartment where the tent is. That fan points to the corner where the two walls and the ceiling meet. The tent sits in this corner with one inch of space separating it from the ceiling. By pointing the fan this way, it rapidly circulates air around and above the tent - the latter being the most important part. The heat from the lamp is only three inches away from the ceiling of my apartment, and since the tent is only an inch under the ceiling, heat accumulates above the tent with little air circulation to dissipate it. I think that's why this worked. Now the tent never gets above 82F at canopy levels. And it's a big win for me. It means that I can rest easy that the tent will stay right at canopy levels as long as I maintain apartment levels comfortably cool. Less to worry about. Et cetera.... She's only getting 16 hours of light in order to help keep temps down. That light schedule worked great in the final weeks of my prior grow. Continuing defoliation. She has these big leaves with no stems. She seems to know what my defo rule is (leaves with stems gotta go) LOL! But really trying to get light down to lower buds as much as possible. Been doing some lollipop defo for hopeless buds and leaves at the very bottom of the plant. Now that the buds are really maturing above, it's easier to do this triage. I'm glad I waited this long to do some real Lolli popping. Let the plant show you her potential before you start removing bud sites. I think. My last grow, some lower buds that weren't getting much light matured nicely anyway. Hope that was fun, interesting, or helpful for you. Thanks for reading. Have a great grow day! Check out my YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLdjlvS0mK9Pu3pkumUu-w

This strain has strong biceps. I have to keep re-applying the LST to the 4 corner branches once every few several days because she just rips the velcro off the pot trying to get to the lamp. I saw this happen the first time I grew her. I'm not complaining. In fact, I'm impressed. 😋 But I tied her down again this morning. Spreading her out so that lights reaches further down. As I learned with my last grow, keeping runoff levels high at 50% or so per day keeps medium salt levels in line with input. Up to now, that has been the case with this grow as well. I'm feeding her 1.35 EC plus minus 0.05. She showed me a little burn a few weeks ago when I got to 1.5 EC, so I think I'm around the right levels for this girl. It's fun watching her buds grow every day. She's starting to develop that telltale frostiness this strain is known for. I'm vaping my first grow of this strain now. and I'm really liking it, so watching THESE buds grow is really exciting. Minimal canoeing, so I don't think she's heat stressed - like my first grow. This is usually my #1 fear in this setup. Heat accumulates easily in this tent setup. Have a great grow day! Check out my YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLdjlvS0mK9Pu3pkumUu-w

It got to the Pistils and Crystals stage of the grow. I was encouraged early in the week. Nice chunky buds growing and plenty of white pistils sticking out around. My guess was she still needed prolly 3 weeks. She was growing with minimal burn. The buds were chunking up nicely. Was seeing significant bud growth towards the bottom of the plant as well. (Though not as abundant at the top of the canopy, obviously. That's ok. I found last time, with this strain, that during flush those lower buds will catch up sort of.) Hadn't checked trichs, yet. For what? I knew she was capable of more, so no point squinting into a tiny machine yet. LOL. Was very happy at this stage of the grow with how stable temperatures were inside my tent. That external fan idea I implemented in Week 10 really paying off. The first two grows of my life, I was a little disappointed in temps at this stage. Humidity can bounce around a bit but that doesn't matter to me as much. I'm sure it rains on cannabis plants in flower, somewhere in the world. It never gets that bad for a plant in a tent, right? The exhaust fan handles humidity well. But 16 hours of excessive heat? That's oppression. No good. Early in the week, there was easy flying with little turbulence. Very Grateful. Would keep lighting at 16/8, as she was not showing much stress at all. A little flowering nute burn? That means you're trying!.. LOL!! 😁 Towards the end of the week, started noticing that my runoff EC was about 0.3 higher than my input. Could explain the slight nute burn? So I started flushing with low EC/ higher volume feeds. Temperatures outside also reached 75 degrees and it made the temperatures in my tent seriously climb. I let it happen because it was a temperature spike. Late winter returned the next day, restoring normal temps in my tent. But it got me thinking.. Maybe I should consider making smaller plants in the spring and summer, larger plants in the fall and winter? Again, larger plants run hotter because they run higher. So for any given apartment room temperature, the larger the plant, the hotter it will run. Seems I can counteract higher expected room temps by just keeping the plant smaller by installing the flowering lamp later or not at all? Had just successfully started my next grow (FB/Lemon Pie Auto) so it was something to consider over the following 30 days. She continued getting frostier and chunkier every day. Had a hard time pinpointing her likely harvest date, but there were still plenty of straight out white pistils to go around. Earliest she gets harvested, I was thinking, was Day 98. But latest Day 105? Hope that was fun, interesting and/or helpful for you. Thanks for reading. Have a great grow day! 😌🙏 Check out my YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLdjlvS0mK9Pu3pkumUu-w

Starting the week, seeing white pistils still, sticking straight out in some places, but less and less every day. Looking at the buds at this time was making me smile. Cuz I could actually see the beautiful buds now. Different colors emerging - lots of light and dark greens with a little purple mixed in. Frostiness increasing daily as well. Wasn't sure if some of the growth on the very top of some of these buds was normal or foxtailing, though. And if it was foxtailing, couldn't tell you why. Not like the leaves were showing severe heat or light burn. If it was foxtailing, it would have been the only sign of stress up to then. Would be something to monitor. Was thinking that this would very likely be the last week I would feed the girl before a week of flush and then harvest. Still hadn't checked trichs, but on this strain, you could almost see them with the naked eye. And quite frankly, I wanted yield from this grow. I was willing to be patient to get it. Was still not getting the vibe that she was close to being finished, but I also got the vibe that waiting 3 weeks might be too long. On Day 87, she started drinking less feed, as measured by the runoff I was collecting. This, and the ways the buds were looking now led me to conclude that day that Day 98 would very likely be harvest day. My prior grow, this drinking-less signal was given to me a handful of days before I started flush, and I was happy with those results, so things were lining up well for this grow as well, maybe? Though there were still white pistils sticking out around the plant on Day 87, the vast majority of pistils around the plant were red now and curly but sticking out. I figured that given 11 or so days, this would turn into tight curly orange pistils mostly around some big assed buds, with some curly non-tight red and some very very few white/curly? That would be good timing in my mind. But then came that picture you see above for Day 91. Didn't look like a finished bud to me. If she was in the harvest window, it was very early in the harvest window. You can see that the buds were still rather thin with substance, white hairs around, red hairs pointing out. I changed my mind about starting the flush at the end of this week. I concluded feeding should continue one more week. Then the flush for 6 days. And then harvest. Day 104 was the new target date. Hope that was fun, interesting or helpful for you. Thanks for reading. Have a great grow day! Check out my YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLdjlvS0mK9Pu3pkumUu-w

When the week began, I was feeling good about my decision to delay the flush one more week.. Thanks to all the pictures and videos on GrowDiaries, YouTube and many other places around the metaverse (😂), I'd acquired an almost subconscious feel now for what a completed bud should look like, and mine just still weren't there. And that was a good thing cuz some of these buds were getting super chunky up top. Nonetheless, I was seeing some curling in of the red hairs on the tops of a small number of the colas - like 2 or 3 - at this point. The lower buds were filling out well too - firm and thick to the touch, but that's where I got my biggest indicator that the plant wasn't finished. Many white straight out pistils there, though the majority were red and curly and obviously also sticking out. Springtime was beginning to bloom now. It was confirming something for me. Again, a larger plant needs to go higher in the tent, but the higher in the tent you go, the hotter it wll be there. Now that outside temps were rising, apartment/tent temps were rising. So it made the canopy hotter at the worst time - the end of flower. To counteract this, I would reduce the light schedule to 14/10.Thinking I'd rather have smaller buds than ruined buds. Also, had to bring out the dehumidifier to keep RH inside the tent down. But grateful she wasn't showing major signs of stress. As for the foxtailing I was talking about the prior week, still wasn't really sure that was what I was looking at. But if it was, it wasn't bad.If it was happening, only, like, 3 colas were being affected at all with it. Not a plant-wide problem. And if it was, what could I do about it? So why should I really care? I wasn't worried about re-vegging at this point. The smell when opening the tent was pretty strong now. Seemed there was a lot of weed in there now. She was frosty, but not as frosty as the last grow. I think this was a different phenotype of the same strain, because the two plants were different in several ways - bud color and shape, leaf shape and size, trichome density. She smelled the same though. Exactly the same great familiar smell. On Day 94, I finally got around to whipping out the loupe and taking a look at her jewelry. Shiny and standing up everywhere. Very little amber. Some mix of cloudy and clear. Same conclusion. If she was in the harvest window, it was still early in the harvest window. By Day 97, I was starting to feel more encouraged that I was on the right timeline. More visible sugar-donut-like frost on the buds now. The orange hairs around the plant were starting to curl in now, revealing more bud underneath. There were very few white hairs around the plant. A handful white foxtaily offshoots on the sides of the biggest buds, but again, not paying attention to those too hard. 97% of the plant was on the right schedule. So I decided I would start the flush soon. My first two grows, I was excited about harvesting. With this my third grow, I was more dreading trimming, so I was kinda dreading harvest a bit. 😂 If It wasn't for the fact that i needed to clear out this tent for my next grow which was already underway amd growing fast (FB/Lemon Pie Auto), I'd prolly waited two more weeks, just because I didn't wanna trim it. 😂 Day 105 target harvest date was still in effect. Hope that was fun, interesting, or helpful for you. Thanks for reading. Have a great grow day! Check out my YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLdjlvS0mK9Pu3pkumUu-w

THE FINAL WEEK (prollly): My my, the smell that would come out of this tent as this week began. Wow. It entered your nostrils hard, in a too-aggressive fashion. Smelled like there was a good deal of the good stuff in there. Took my first lights-out videos and pictures on the final night of the prior week. You can see them in Week 14 of this diary. I like when I finally do this because that's when I can really get a sense for what she really looks like as compared to most weed porn you see online in general. 😄 I was, again, encouraged by what I saw.Some buds were overflowing with growth, but most were pretty much just good solid nugs - and we still had one more week to go. The final feed would occur on the morning of Day 99 - 6.1 ph at an EC of 1000. From then on, she would get a half gallon of pure non-ph-adjusted water with 2.5ml of FloraKleen twice a day. Once runoff ECs were under 300, no more FloraKleen and just the water. Red hairs definitely curling in now. She could have been cut down on Day 99, but as the advice goes - when you think you can cut her down, wait one more week. So that's what I planned to do. Was aiming to cut her down on Day 105 - the last day of Week 15. Additionally, since my next grow was fast approaching, and she needed to be under the flowering lamp by some date, I really couldn't go past this date, anyway. I had a little bit of regret about this by the end of Day 102. I whipped out the old loupe again and saw varied results around the plant, but most of the heads were firmly cloudy. Some 5% were amber. Many were clear, Got the impression that going to day 112 could be done and would make this plant an utter monster. But we'll never know. Oh well. This plant set my record for largest bud. There was definitely some substance to many of these buds - even to some of those under the canopy. Many there were more than an inch in diameter. Some up top were close to three inch diameter buds. These were probably the best buds I'd grown yet, and it had me thinking that I may have ended my first grow a bit too soon, because those buds did not look like this. That plant was under duress, though, so I ended her misery early, I guess.. 😂 Also started doing a little pre-trim for harvest on Day 102. I removed single leaves that were more than two inches long, as a rule, around the plant. It really allowed me to see her naked. She was looking like a good yielder. Couldn't wait to weigh (not to trim). 😁 Day 105 arrived, and I gave her a look over. Super chunky buds everywhere, up and down the plant. Even down low in the dark parts of the plant. As for the trichome reading way of doing things, I was still not confident in it as a gauge, yet. It made sense as a strategy to me, don't get me wrong. The main problem was knowing where on the bud to look, and I was still not sure if sugar leaves should count and stuff like that. But anyway, it looked like the vast majority of trichomes were cloudy now. I saw amber trichs, but I wasn't sure those weren't on sugar leaves. (But I keep frosty sugar leaves, why not? So should I count them? (sigh) Never mind. I'll focus on the pistils... ) Only places where white pistils were visible were in the very very underlying parts of the plant where I was more surprised there was any bud growth at all, and even more surprised about how good the growth was. The red hairs were mostly curled in now. So I was happy with the results from that perspective. Again, I thought she could have gone one more week, but I had pressure from my next grow, so harvesting on Day 105 would be the best idea. Next time, we'll do slightly better? Hope that was fun, interesting, or helpful for you. Thanks for reading. Have a great grow day! Check out my YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLdjlvS0mK9Pu3pkumUu-w

I envy you guys who get to cut down your plants with scissors. I have to get my heart rate up, sawing back and forth for over a minute or so. 😛😄 But as far as I'm concerned, this space is better used as a dry diary... So... On Day 1 of the dry, she was pretty wet. There was only a 9 point difference between the temperature (69) and the RH in the tent (60). This was a good start. With my first two grows, you'd see this difference widen over time, indicating that the VPD from the dead plant was decreasing as it got drier. I like using this as a strong indicator of how dry the plant is. On the 2nd day of the dry, I got concerned with the level of humidity in the tent. Was getting readings like 71F 66%RH. That's too wet for the 2nd day. My prior grow, she was a smaller plant, so drying her with the AC Infinity exhaust fan set to level 1 was fine. 10% of 200 CFM is 20 CFM. It's a 12 CF tent, so 20CFM can be fine for a small plant. Light power efficiency isn't the only advantage of mini-tent growing. There's also exhaust fan power efficiency, too. My AC Infinity never runs above level 4, really. Anyway, I decided to turn the fan up to level 2 from 1 and started getting readings like 71F 58% RH, which is about where I like it to be for the 2nd day. A lesson learned - that larger plants might require a level 2 fan setting. I hoped to achieve a difference between the numbers of 20+ by end of Day 5. We were on the right pace. On Day 4 of the dry, was getting readings like 70F / 56%, RH inside the tent with the fan at setting 1 - a difference of 14.. So I was getting the indication that although still wet, the plant wasn't generating as much humidity as she was earlier in the dry, when a setting 1 was getting a difference in the single digits. So the plant was definitely dryer. Was aiming to do the trim the morning of Day 6. I'd always rather have a cure be too wet than too dry. She seemed on the right pace from my earlier experiences. On the morning of Day 5, I went to check the girl for the first time. She was doing well. Those long annoying sativa leaves she was sporting were all shriveled down. Tugged on one and it fell off easily. So she was nearing the end, certainly. There was a strong grassy smell to the girl, which had me sneezing a bit afterwards. LOL. But that was to be expected, having spent five days untouched to the world outside the tent except for its air. The most important thing I did was squeeze the smaller buds and they were just a bit too squishy in my opinion. They felt like they needed a little more time. That's the good thing about having gained prior experience with something you're doing. You get to just rely on your subconscious a little bit. And finally, the climate margins inside the tent had widened to readings like 71F / 55% RH, a difference of 16, at fan setting 1. Also a sign we were near the end but not there yet. So I was planning to start the trim on Day 6 for a number of reasons, some which didn't have anything to do with any kind of plant. My schedule best permitted a Day 6 trim. Hey. I'm being honest. There comes a point that you just can't let a plant run your life. So I left Day 5 thinking the trim would start the next morning. When next morning came, I saw exactly what I was hoping to see. At fan setting 1, the difference between the temp and the RH in the tent had widened to 25. If my prior grow was a good example, this meant she was ready. So I started the trim. Have a great grow day!