Gorilla Girl #1

MackMcMacMack Her stem was long enough that the top had fallen over and she was gonna grow kind of sideways. So I put a tall cup over her to protect her and then filled her container the rest of the way with soil. Now she's got a nice, short stem to begin LST.

MackMcMacMack Seems like something is munching on my plant! IDK how critters got in there, but I'ma find 'em and "WEED THEM OUT." lol

MackMcMacMack I've been neglectful! Not of the plant, just this diary. Here are some catch-up pics for... I'll call it... week 3 of veg. The plant was getting a little stretchy, which made me worry this was another male. I lowered the light and turned it up to full blast, and the nodes started growing closer together.

MackMcMacMack Defoliated the lower portion of the plant to give her a "clean" undercarriage. Once I got her six main tops outside the bottom ring of the tomato cage, I can let her grow upward.

MackMcMacMack Flipped her on Sunday the 24th and on Saturday she had her first "girl hair." I'd worried this was a male because of how stretchy it was early on, but no more worries! She still has some signs of buggage, so I gave her another Neem oil treatment. I'll spray her down once a week for another 2-3 weeks and see how that goes. So far, I'm pleased with her. Her last feeding, she got 1tsp CalMag, 1 tsp Fox Farms Big Bloom, and 1/2 tsp mycorrhizae in a gallon of water. The 7-gallon tub has about 2-3 inches of perlite on the bottom with a drain tube, allowing the pot to have a small reservoir below the soil, but I've yet to get ANY runoff. I made the mistake of not pre-filling that reservoir before I put the dirt in, so that's my B. But now IDK if the drain tube is clogged or there's just not enough in the res to overflow out the tube. :/

MackMcMacMack She's doing great! It's only been 8 days since the first stigma appeared. She's popping them out left and right, and her tops are getting complex. I love this phase! Keeping the light about 18" above the tallest top, WHICH I BROKE this morning while trying to get a soil pH reading. 😫 Not just the top, mind you. The *entire branch* where it connects to the main trunk. But with some TLC and tape and supports for the branch, I think it'll be OK... <fingers crossed> Update: the branch I broke is just fine. No sign of stress there (yet?).

MackMcMacMack Looking at that bottom leaf... it could be iron deficiency sulfur deficiency nitrogen deficiency I'm betting on Nitrogen def. I probably started bloom nutes a little early and didn't add any N. I'll give her a little taste of N next time I feed. Update: gave her a taste of grow nutes with N but not too much. 1tsp/gal along with the bloom nutes @ 3 tbsp/gal. Water pH tests at ~6.5 but the soil pH is drifting up.

MackMcMacMack She's losing her bottom leaves more quickly than I expect. Most of her leaves look healthy though, so I'm trying not to worry. I did give her another taste of N in the Grow Big, but only a tsp for the gallon. I think she's slowing her height growth. Not quite as tall as the tomato cage, so that's good. Not a ton of room left to raise the lamp! Soil pH measured ~7 on 21 Aug, so for her next feeding, I'll drop the feed's pH a few notches. 22 Aug Update: She was thirsty already. Meter jammed all the way down read just shy of "moist," so I fed her a gallon of water pHed to 5.4. I hope that brings the soil pH down to the 6.5 range again. 26 Aug update: Fed her today -- she was a wee bit droopy. She got a gallon of BigBloom and CalMag @ pH 6.2. "What is integrity without tolerance?" ~Unknown

MackMcMacMack She's doing well. No complaints! She seems healthy and happy, though it can get a bit warm in the grow room. I put a room AC unit in there in the hopes it'll keep the daytime temp around 80ish.

MackMcMacMack Getting closer! Her smell is getting stronger. I think/hope she's done growing in height. “Learn as if you will live forever, live like you will die tomorrow.” — Mahatma Gandhi

MackMcMacMack She's starting to get some amber "hairs," so maybe she's heading toward the finish line. I suspect she has at least a couple more weeks to go. 16 Sept: Fed her just water today. Her fan leaves are almost all gone. I've never had a plant that shed all its leaves like this!

MackMcMacMack The lack of fan leaves means I can't "drought" her (easily), so I'm going to just keep watering as usual until she's done.

MackMcMacMack We're in the 9th week of flower, so she's probably going to be finishing up soon. I'll "scope" her in a couple days to see what the trichomes look like up close. Can't see them too well zoomed in with the cell phone. :P

MackMcMacMack My old USB microscope bit the dust, so I had to wait for the replacement to arrive. Got a couple trichome shots on Sunday, 2 Oct -- she's close! very close. I'll pencil harvest in for Saturday the 8th.

MackMcMacMack Still not ready, but close.

MackMcMacMack She's been in flower a full 11 weeks, and I was planning to harvest this weekend no matter what. But the trichomes look ripe, so chop chop!

MackMcMacMack Harvest went smoothly. I had a bunch of dry, withered fan leaves to trim off, but not nearly what I normally do. I rather appreciated the fans falling off early. lol