Runtz Auto

Buds developing. It's funny how small these plants are. Even if I wouldn't have messed them up they'd still be rather small. In terms of size, these autos are great for home growers like me. The quality of the bud looks fantastic, despite my fuckups. To recap my lessons learned: Earthboxes/living soil are the worst if you're a microgrower in a 2x2 or 2x4 space. I'm sorry, but NO ONE can create a thriving microbiome of symbiotic organisms in a little ass plastic box unless you are ULTRA-attentive to it and you have your environmental control dialed in to absolute perfection. If you want to be a living soil guy, you have to be on top of things. I'm not interested in this hobby taking up that much of my life. The Earthbox is what it is. More trouble than it's worth in my opinion. Since this is a diary, I'm going to write about my plans for the future: I'm going back to fabric bags and amended Fox Farm potting soil. My ultimate goal is to have a plant that I can completely ignore for a while (a week or so, but more would be better) if I have to travel. To that end, I think the next thing I'm going to try is a blumat. I noticed online that there's a blumat kit for a 5-gallon fabric pot. It's like $12, so worth giving a try. I learned that autoflowers are definitely the way to go for a hands-off approach. You can plant it and not do a thing--no lst, defoliation, whatever--and it will turn out great, remaining small enough that you don't overcrowd a small space. I'm sure there are some autoflower strains that grow a lot bigger, but there are no photoperiods, in my experience, that grow as small. I've done 12/12 from seed in a small space and the plant ended up larger than these autoflowers. Now that I've done a whole bunch of grows in hydro, soil in pots, and an Earthbox, I can pretty comfortably say that the lowest maintenance/best result option is fabric pots with organic potting soil and organic amendments. The one thing I will try in the future that I haven't in the past is mycorrhizae in the potting soil. If the blumat works out, I think I will finally have a super low-maintenance option.