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I soaked the seeds for 24 hours in water and then planted one each in four-inch pots with soilless mix. This little baby popped up after four days! Five seeds planted in total.
I repotted the seedling in a one-gallon container using soil from the vegetable garden, enriched with compost and lightened with two cups of perlite. Of the five seeds I purchased, two haven't germinated. This makes my germination rate only 60%, below the guarantee made by Grower's Choice. I've requested replacement seeds for the two that didn't germinate. The shipping charge for the replacement seeds is a bummer 😞, but I'd really like to have five plants, so I paid it.
All three plants really shot up this past week! I cut back the lead branch today in order to help the side branches grow and produce a bushier plant. The smell when I did that was amazing! I received the two replacement seeds from Grower's Choice and soaked them, potting them up in four-inch pots filled with seed starting mix (and with my fingers crossed that they will germinate).
This'll be the last week in the one-gallon container. I made a mistake using garden soil when I potted up from a four-inch to one-gallon container a couple of weeks ago; it's heavy and doesn't retain water the way I'd like it to. Went shopping at the neighborhood hydroponics shop and picked up cloth growbags, fertilizer, and a big bag of Ocean Forest potting soil. I started feeding this week, just a basic solution of kelp extract. Pulled off a few yellow leaves on the bottom of the plant, but no worries. Finally getting the temperatures during the day that this girl likes!
I repotted this week, putting the plants in ten-gallon grow bags using Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil. I'm continuing to feed once a week with a kelp solution. I've given up on the replacement seeds sent by Grower's Choice; they never germinated, which lowers my germination rate to 42%! I'm a little disappointed 😞.
My girl just started flowering and the smell has grown stronger. One of the other plants I started at the same time (but that germinated a week later) is a deeper shade of green and bushier. The third plant is much smaller (six inches); it germinated later, as well.
Eight weeks in, this little lady is continuing to tighten up and grow a little taller. I've removed many fan leaves (may try making tea with them) to give the bud more sunlight. I'm feeding now with both a kelp-based fertilizer (once a week) and a guano-based fertilizer (every other week). The plant is sticky and smells minty with herbal undertones. Since we have a private street running right behind the house (through a condo complex), I've put up a cardboard screen on the roof to cover the plants from neighbors' sight. The warmer days are really helping this gal grow!
I've spent the last two weeks flushing and trimming the fan leaves so that the bud gets all the light. The leaves are deep green and covered with sticky trichomes, which means good canna butter from the sugar leaves after trimming. There were three plants in this grow, all Critical Purple, and each one is very different.
@ChefDan420, I walk my dog on the street behind the house and could see the plants on the roof; that's why I put up the screen. Honestly, from the street I wouldn't be able to tell what they are (if I didn't already know 😜), so it's no real worry. The condos behind the house are one-story tall, so that's not a big concern. I'm growing Northern Lights in the same spot when these lovely ladies are harvested and drying...that'll be a bit tougher, since the Northern Lights are about a foot taller.
I have a critical purple auto just starting 10 weeks and some of the tricomes are turning amber. Did that happen to you around 10 weeks too, should I wait a bit before harvest if so?
misterb
