Spacebucket : Hempy : Strawberry Nuggets

Here we are on my 4th grow already. I've learned so much since the beginning of the year, but feel like I'm still very much a noob. Popped a Strawberry Nuggets seed on the 1st of the month. I let her soak in water for 36 hours, until tap root shows, and then into a rockwool cube that has been pre-soaked in ph'd water. The roots shoot out the bottom of the rockwool fairly quick, usually within a couple days, so i like to place a handfull of coco below the cube, to give the roots something to grow into. Otherwise they expose themselves to the light and sit against plastic, both of which can't be good for young roots. After 36 hours in the rockwool, sitting in a warm spot, the plant has emerged. The first day she stands up out of the rockwool is when I start counting Day 1. I prepared another coco hempy for her, conditioned it with cal mag, and put her in by Day 2. The first week in the bucket is usually slow growth and establishing roots. So not much changes above ground, but below she's growing roots like crazy. I give her a cup of water every other day, and by end of week 1 she should be reaching the hempy reservoir. I was a little concerned that her cotyledons were curled under the whole time, and the first set of leaves looked wonky, but I've learned from my 1st grow that the first set can often look a little weird, and the second set looks just fine.

Week 2 looking good. She hit the reservoir and growth has doubled in size. On day 8 I added a second bulb to the top of my spacebucket. This doubles the lumens ( as well as adding more heat) so I have to be careful for the first couple days to not heat stress the little sprout. I keep a humidity dome on top of it, i take it off for photos, but with second light the dome comes off to allow airflow so it doesn't overheat.

Man this is a crazy strain. She is so short I don't think i'll top/fim her, just lay her over with LST. These leaves are SO fat and already 7 & 9 fingers. Gave her some Recharge this week to stimulate root growth and she looks great. I've never used it before and it could be coincidence, but you can see how much she grew this week. She already has a nice "weed" smell to her. I hope she stays in veg for a few weeks more.

Decided she's so short I wont need to top or FIM, so I'll just LST her and try to keep the canopy flat and open. As I was LSTing, I got too agressive and SNAPPED a branch! SHIT!! It did't break off, but is only holding on by like 40%. It's too low and hard to get to to tape, so I'll just prop it up and leave it alone. These leaves are huge. They are so thick and broad, very beautiful, but block a lot of light to the lowers, so I removed a couple big leaves. On day 29 she started to show sex, and has been pushing out sporadic pistils all week. It's like she's slowly starting to flower, but not in a rush.

This week she moved from my little veg bucket to the large flower bucket. Pistols showing at the bud sites but not coming in heavy yet. I'm ok with her slowly starting flower because it's giving her time to stretch a little and bulk up some. Doing some defoliating and leaf tucking to keep the light getting through the canopy. The branch that I broke last week has healed almost 100% and is growing healthy. This short plant is VERY branchy, with lots of secondary and terchiery branches popping up, making it difficult to keep them from getting too crowded. Grow little plant...grow!

Defoliating around 6-10 leaves a day. They are large thick leaves with 7 to 11 fingers! the most impressive leaves I've seen yet on an automatic strain. But they really block a lot of light and around DAY 36 I noticed some pre flowers. Hopefully she'll stretch soon, still very squat. Also leaf tucking and LST.

She stretched up a couple inches, and the flowers are starting to come in. I thought they were coming in slowly, but then almost overnight, they exploded all over the tops. Not defoliating this week, just so I don't stress her too much when she's trying to flower. Going on vacation for just 4 days at end of week. I'm setting up an auto drip system for when I'm gone. It's very simple. Just a container full of nutrient water with an 1/8" hose running to the base of the plant. One end of the hose is weighed down with a rock (inside the water res) and the other end I heated with a lighter and pinched closed with pliers. I then poked a tiny hole in the closed end and created a siphon. The water dripped very slowly, like 1 drip every 6-8 seconds and transfers almost the entire container the the plant over the course of 3 days. Along with the fact that I use Hempy buckets (1/2 gal reservoir) I'm not too worried about her drying out....fingers crossed.

I went away for 4 days at the start of the week. To prepare I watered the plant heavy, and rigged an auto watering drip system, to keep her wet for a few days. Upon my return She looked great. I was amazed that she grew even taller while in flower, and finally reached a good height, I thought she was going to stay short but WOW! The medium was a little dry so I think my auto drip system worked but dripped a little too fast. The canopy was SO thick, I gave her a good defoliation and opened up a lot of light into the canopy. I also readjusted my LST and she looks good to go.

She really started filling out this week. The buds are getting larger and I'm not sure if I should cut some of the weaker branches that won't produce much so it can concentrate more on the main buds. I'm glad she finally reached a decent size, I had my doub't with this plant early on, but she really came through.

Started PK 13/14 boost this week. Hoping these buds will swell up! Doing some light defoliation to keep the light getting down in the canopy. Everything is looking good and running smooth. Also running UVB CFL bulb for an 1.5 hours in the evenings.

Now It's a waiting game. Everything is looking good and the trichs are still clear and cloudy so I have another week or two to go. I'll finish out the week by lowering her nutes and then flush her next week.

This is her final week, I've been reducing her feed until she just gets water and some terpinator. The smell is amazing and she's so sticky, it's hard to work with. The pics here are actually from her last day...Day 85. She went a full 6 weeks in flower. I took her out of the spacebin and did a little photo shoot before I started cutting.

WoW!! 4.64 oz after every thing I went through with this plant in the beginning is fantastic! She started out Sooo small, I was worried she would be a runt. The branches and leaves were so tight I figured she would never stretch out, but she kept getting taller in flower and finally reached a good size. The bud structure was nice. I should have culled some of the smaller branches in order to get more light down lower and force energy to main branches. I think that might have formed denser buds? but I'm not sure. I'm happy with outcome but some of the lower buds are a bit larfy and the upper ones are of medium density.