1st Photos GrowDots/Blumats GMO

Transplanted on day 18 (July 22) and was probably a day or two late but they recovered well. Solo cups were 75% BioBizz Lite (top) and 25% Coco Loco. 3g fabric pots were 100% Coco Loco amended with Grow Dots (medium dose) and Dte Langbeinite, Crab Meal, Worm Castings, and the bottom 1/3 with DtE Rose and Flower. Spray bottle watering until the start of week 3, then 1 good watering in week 3 to runoff with Recharge and Fishshit, then water only after transplant.

Just 1-2x watering with Recharge and Fishshit. I setup the blumats around this time.

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Actually it was closer to Week 6 when the Blumats got hooked up. Watered every 3-4 days in Weeks 4-5. I'm a big fan of the Blumats Soil Moisture Meter btw- super useful tool for new growers like me. Yeah, you can learn picking them up, or you can learn faster by having a measurable number to compare your feelings to- of course if you're not new to growing I doubt you'd find the value. With all the trial and error necessary to figure out watering , it's still an important tool 3 months after I picked it up- even when I'm hand-watering.

Started Calmag in week 5 but a little less than usual based on claims about new formulations of GrowDots not needing extra CalMag. That was true for two girls- who were normal-healthy. But the monster that outgrew them both just started showing Calcium deficiencies so I went back to 5ml a gallon, and watered in a little extra with Fish Shit and Recharge. It may just be too huge to feed with a medium dose of GrowDots. Flipped to flower this week- end of Wk 7 for 2 and Wk 6 for the girl up front. Since week 5 I've FIM'd the tops to keep things even but she's at least 2ft so I added a scrog and started bending today.

Flipped late in Wk 7 (for 2) Wk 6 (for 1). Defol'd the big girl b/c she's already 2ft tall. I'll wait to defol the other 2 (b/c I love them less - and they're shorter). If I confused anyone- Grow Dots (2tsp per gallon of medium - Coco Loco here) were amended in before the grow, along with Langbeinite, Crab Meal, Fish Bone Meal, Worm Castings and DtE Rose Mix in just the bottom 1/3. I keep CalMag flowing in a Blumats rez (5ml per gallon) when I first hook the Blumats up in Week 4 of Veg. In the first 2 weeks I only use a spray bottle 2x a day in Wk 1, 1x a day in Wk 2 then I'll water to runoff in Wk 3 at some point. In Weeks 3-4 I'm watering 2x a week (or so) with Fish Sh!t and Recharge to almost-runoff, and once they're hooked up to the Blumats I water in FS and Recharge once a week (about a liter or 2 per pot) in Veg. 6.5 ph for everything, or a little under. The big girl is making me nervous, but for all the best reasons- she's getting huge and using the scrog (1st time) has helped create about 20 more bud sites. I might start Flower Fuel next week in the rez if I can research it a little more first. I don't want to fix what's working. Credit where it's due: "Welcome to the Grow Tent" on YouTube was HUGELY helpful figuring out how to shape and manage Big Girl (it's official now), and how to use a SCROG effectively. I heart MrCanuck's slick vids and learn a lot from MrGrowIt, the DGC, etc but if you're not familiar with WTTGT check him out. Nice guy, informative as hell (if he ever has a pen and paper out drawing examples of stuff- WATCH), and some great shorter vids that were more informative than a lot of other stuff I've seen (and I'm probably clinically addicted to watching grow vids at this point). Not paid, don't know him, no homo, etc. Happy growing homies!

My first photos- and Big Baby is already the tallest I've grown. Most tops too. The most awesome stretch I've ever seen. Just finished growing 2 autos - 7 oz total off both, but the way these tops are stacking, this girl's about to explode. I upped the CalMag just for her but after watching WTTGT on youtube it's been easier to understand why to add/up it and when (up to Week 3 in flower, then switch to a Mag Sulfate) so I have finally stopped complaining and accepted CalMag in my life. Runs great through Blumats (it's an additive not a feeding, so it's always in my rez and it's been soluble enough for the last 2 runs). My Blumats rez needs refilling a lot more now that we're fully into flower, but so far Grow Dots have been amazing and the slow release PK looks like it's holding up so far. I'll add Bud Candy next week, and pull back on the CalMag a little (back to 5ml). I kept seedlings in Solo cups for 2wks (18 days?) then put them in their final pots with amended Coco Loco (with Dots, Langbeinite, Crab Meal, and Worm Castings- with the bottom third getting an extra serving of Down to Earth Rose Mix}. I'm not planning on top dressing but this plant is HUGE, so I might need to water in some KoolBloom but only if she shows signs of needing it.

Amazing stretch - hopefully done by now, with the light only 14" away. Started MagSulfate this week (Sweet Berry). Drinking a ton daily, stacking like crazy and super healthy! Some frost already too!

Should be, I think we're on cruise control? But tbh I was a little nervous about the dark purple stems, and fading bigger fan leaves at the end of Wk 4. Stems could be a suntan - less intense on the backsides and none beneath the scrog, or the big girl just needed more MagSulfate, which I upped. The faint yellowing on older leaves probably means the big gal needed a little PK boost in Wk 3-6 of flower because she's huge, but I didn't give her anything extra until Wk 4 (Big Bud - 3ml per liter) so the fading was just a little early but pretty confined. Some purple showing on some leaves- hoping it's the beginning of crazy colors and not just mag-deficient. Still plenty of time to go but only a couple more "water-in" feedings of Big Bud (moving to Koolbloom next run) then nothing after Wk 6 (just what's left in the pot- and Winterfrost). The next 2-3 weeks should be really fun. Thanks for stopping by and Happy Growing folks from Richmond, VA! 👊👻

My inexperience finally caught up to me in Wks 4-5. I should've used a PK booster on the big girl for Wks 3-6 of flower but didn't recognize the signs, upped CalMag which did nothing, and stressed too much about the purple stems and MagSulfate instead. It didn't ruin anything but I could sense a slow-down in Wk 5 for a couple days. Because I'm in Blumats (and ran out of Big Bud last week, which I'm done with) I watered in (just the big girl) 1ml of Koolbloom into 20oz of water twice in 3 days, and I'll give her 1 more of those before I stop feeding her. Plants should typically need nothing with this GrowDots/Blumats system from seed to harvest, but really big girls need to feed, so lesson learned! Thanks again to WTTGT on youtube for all the vids- he's simplified so much of this stuff for me in the last 2 months. The leaves that were already showing spots, and discoloration probably got a little worse in a week but not terrible and some of it looks inevitable, but it did spread some to other leaves. Clearly a PK deficiency with all the spots and yellowing. I think the Big Bud helped a little, and I hope the Koolbloom helps a little more. In spite of that, the big girl is fattening up and nodes are connecting. I'm hoping to see more white pistils (?) turn orange- there's a tiny bit happening on Day 1 of Week 6 of flower. Again, NEXT TIME, future-me, bigger anything EATS MORE so I'll start with 5ml per g in my reservoir in Wk 3 next time- up to 10ml depending on how big the girl is and how pale she is in Wks 1-2 of flower. Thanks for checking out the grow! The other 2 are well-fed, turning purple and fattening too- I'm just hoping that giant girl is the gmo pheno! So many marijuanas! 2wks unless the big girl was stunted last week a little- dunno. Wk 6-7-8 should be fun! Grow well homies! 👊😤

Inexperience strikes again. So the problems with the big girl have been, yes, PK-related because the smaller sisters are not struggling with PK at all and the big girl has been eating a lot more, and was paler since week 3, but more importantly after checking out growweedeasy.com almost every other symptom was Cal-mag related and what's making it worse is simply that my light is too damn close. That's always been a struggle because these Chem Cookies wanted to bust right out of the tent during stretch. Without a scrog they'd be another foot taller and when they stopped stretching I was relieved but 11 inches is too close by about 3 inches. I dialed the light down to 75%. That might mean they'll take longer to finish but even after a couple of days there's fewer leaves outright dying. Future-me: (in Coco Loco) Cal-mag the whole way (Wk 3 of Veg) with about 7-10ml per gallon until Week 7, PK Boost for bigger plants in Wk 3 to 6 of flower, MagSulfate (Sweet) Weeks 3-7. And the lights can't be so close. Those are the corrections I need to make, but the scrog, FIM'ing to control the canopy, and 7wk veg created an absolute monster with 25+ frosty tops so I gotta stop dwelling on the corrections. Weather turned for the better the last week, and Va is down into mostly fall weather. In the shed I've used a Midea Cube Dehumidifier to pump more heat and pull more moisture and it's been awesome. 75f - 50rh most of the time. Just ready for more hairs to turn orange, more swelling and tightening up but they may need 65-70 days to finish. Starting Winterfrost tomorrow- first day of Week 8 so hopefully I'm running out of time to F them up any more than I already have. Happy growing homies! 😤👊

Still plenty of white pistils but looking closer than I expected in Wk 8. Waited to start Winter Frost until this week- they just needed "2 more wks!" But it was the right call. Surprisingly they're already looking more mature in the 3rd day of wk 8, more orange pistils and tons of frost so maybe we'll finish in Wk 9? I'm willing to wait- also willing to start checking trichomes. Learned a lot with this run, light was turned down to 75% at the end of Wk 7 - it was just too intense 11" away (plants are happier, there's less cupping, leaf death, etc) and I need to run CalMag through the whole run in Coco Loco not just until I start adding MagSulfate in Wk3 of flower (those 2 mistakes - the light distance and stopping CalMag when I shouldn't, combined to trash some fan leaves, esp closer to the light and prob slowed growth a little). But the buds are just covered in snow and super dense so I'm antsy! I've only ever grown autos, so these last weeks are freaking torture. Thanks for visiting! 👻

Just ph'd water all week, with Week 10 starting in 2 days I'm checking trichomes everyday but with Blumats still hooked up, the plan is to let this last 2-3 gallons run out and pull the carrots, then hopefully when I check the trichomes I see a good amount of amber (20%+). If I do, I'll wait 3 days for everything to dry out then chop at the end of Week 10 of flower. The plant with all the fall colors is a week behind but Winterfrost helped trigger all that and she's finishing fast so I'll cut the whole tent down in the next 5-6 days unless I'm just not seeing enough amber. Worst case- I'll water by hand one more time and push the chop another 3-5 days. It's been a loooong journey after only growing autos for a year but jebus look at all those marijuanas! I brought a tester nug the size of a small strawberry into the house and my wife flipped out about the stank! Thanks for checking in and happy growing homies! 😤👊

Pics are from the last day of Week 10 (of flower). I wanted to chop 3-4 days ago but found some good info about the strain right before I did- one source said it should take 70 days and another said 74-77. Def would've fed for a week or 2 more and run Winterfrost later if I'd known that sooner. No nutes at all for 2 weeks, and while the 2 smaller girls are fine with it, I should've hit the monster with more PK. The 2 smaller girls on the left look closer to done and both (esp the 1 up front) look a lot like the GMO pheno but honestly, the longer Big Bertha is in flower the more she fox-tails (and looks like "that" gmo strain) - regardless Big B has been covered in frost for weeks and even the lower little nugs are dense af. Not much amber yet so I'm thinking another 4 days so maybe Oct 31 or Nov 1. How crazy if they popped on July 4th and I chop on Halloween! Happy harvest homies! 😤👊

Only 6 and 7 days to dry in 65F 60% rh and all three were right at 63-65% rh in the jars right away so - no need for packs. Really amazing haul, and this quality would cost me about $4-6000 at the dispo. Happy harvesting homies!