Black Apple Hitchcock & Velvet Moon

Sorry for the late start crew, i was searching for diaries with the same strains and couldn’t find much of the BAH so thought i best start from where i am. We just started week 5 of vegetation and have already done a huge defoliation and stripping of some lower side branches. Added the net to help space and support and now that we have these two girls nice and wide, we are looking for a big more vertical before the end of week and then flipping into flower! I’m also using an autopot fabric xl system for the feeding with a 36L res tank. We’re in summer here so i expect i’ll be fighting heat soon enough so let’s see if i can keep her looking as fresh into flowering!!

Was going to flip already but i wanted to fill the space better. I found some reliable information telling me the perfect distance for the light during flower at 100% intensity for the Marshydro SP3000 is 50cm from the canopy. I then did some measurements on the back wall of the tent and marked them for the visual indicators for flipping to 12/12. It’s not perfect but it should help. Both plants max out around 150cm at their tallest. Otherwise, i also did some more LST and tied branches down to open up the centre of the plants. I then topped the 6 highest branches on each plant 2 days ago. Recovery has been quick and i expect in the next 2-3 days she will be ready for 12/12. Hoping to get somewhere between 4/5 Oz per plant. Go ahead and comment your guess now and i’ll post the final dry weight for each at the end of the grow. Black apple is 60/40 Sativa Velvet Moon is 80/20 Indica

First week of 12/12 complete as of this post. Took about 3-4 days for the plants to adjust and figure out what was going on, after that the stretch has started. We have got 100mm of growth so far and the side branching under the main canopy. I go away tomorrow morning for 6 nights so essentially i return at the end of week 2. That has me a bit nervous. Brother will be popping in to check Ph in the res and ill probably request a photo by Saturday and another next Monday. The only info i can find on the stretch for these two is that it is moderate around 130cm final plant height. I will 100% be doing a bug defoliation and tie-down the day i return. I expect the stretch to run into week 3 so this should give them plenty of time before we get into switching to bud making. All in all it’s been ideal for the plant and will be a massive surprise to me on the 28th when i will post the next update. Merry Christmas to all, hope you all stay safe and take time to appreciate your friends and family.

Back from my interstate holiday and feeling fresh. Had to wait 8 hours after returning home to reveal the state of this grow and boy was i not disappointed! Opening the tent revealed 2x bushy, out of control plants which had shot up nearly 1/2m while i was away. Res tank only climbed to 6.2 and was adjusted on return. I have just completed a massive strip/defoliation of both plants as it is the end of week 2F and the start of week 3F. I will now post at the end of each week as opposed to the start as i have done previously. Pistil formation has started all over the place, and i can already tell i’m going to need extra branch support for this one as some are using the tent walls to stay up already. Hoping to maintain the 50cm distance from my light for 100% power during flower. That would mean my plants can only grow another 15cm. Pray for me haha! Hope you all had a good break!

It’s end of week 3 here and these girls are getting prepped for a good fruiting session. It is a bit hot being summer so i have a mushroom bag for CO2 installed. Hoping that helps with heat and weights! The girls both kept growing during the week and i think are around their final height of 1.1m and bushy as hell! All in all we are going well with good bud development sites and lots of trichomes appearing, even in stems and fan leaves! Looking forward to these popcorns growing into something bigger over the next few weeks.

End of Week 4 (for those following along at home) and there are trichomes everywhere! Both of these plants are putting out sugar like there is no tomorrow. Velvet Moon is smelling a lot like tropical punch drink (Holy Punch x Dosi Dos) and it’s delicious. The Black Apple has a much weaker smell which isn’t really defined for the nose yet. I stripped a few more side branches this week as things were tangling up as there was too much going on. Both look very happy and have plenty of air flowing through them now. BAH is slightly taller than VM. Both stretched approximately double their height and not much more. That may have been due to me topping the plants 3 days before flip to try and keep heights limited. It worked well as i am at the exact distance to the light i wanted to be for 100% power (50cm). BAH has has some stems go a pink/res colour but no other plant changes. It’s hot here due to summer so been running the girls at night and they sleep during the day. Looking forward to documenting the bud development over the next few weeks as these stack weight and start maturing. I think this will be a 10 week flower minimum.

End of week 5 Buds are nicely formed now and starting to stack weight. Smell is weak overall but when you smell the buds themselves the scent is clear. Been a bit of heat this week and Ph climbed in the res tank so gave the girls an overnight flush as i started noticing the Black Apple having some small spots around the leaf edges. Will flush quickly for one day then resume nutrients feeding. Other than that things are going nicely. Tent is off during the day to avoid the summer heat and then click in at 9pm for the start of their day. Expecting we should be heading toward a Valentines day harvest- what a good excuse not to go out! Today is the start of week 6 or day 35 of flowering. Keep well gromies! Friday Edit: ok so half way through this week leaning towards week 7. Gotta admit, thought they would be a bit larger nug-wise right now, but they are still growing. The burnt tips are a result of me being an idiot and going from 55% power to 100% in the first week of flowering so maybe there was some slowing stress there. The smell is definitely developing more as the week goes on. The scent from the Velvet Moon makes me feel like i’m on holidays somewhere tropical and i can’t get enough. BAH smells like it’s a sour warhead lolly that is going to kick my arse haha. All in all going well still, just hoping i can finish strong with these beautiful ladies and show them off to you all! Have a good weekend fam!

Black apple is really putting on weight now, with every day the buds are growing bigger and more pistils are shooting out indicating even more growth to come. The smell is a combination of sour and gas/diesel and is literally covered in trichomes. I’m guessing this will be 9-10 weeks flowering total. Velvet moon smells like tropical peaches and i love it! The flowers are wet with trichomes and are looking very tasty! Looking forward to sampling this one. I have reduced the nutrients a smidge as i think the Black Apple wasn’t like it too much. I dropped about 0.2 EC from the solution and hoping the plant is happy here. As there isnt a whole lot of foliage compared to other strains, i will dry the entire plant as one to maximise drying time as i am in the Southern hemisphere and in Summer currently. Looking forward to the next couple of weeks of fattening and maturing!

Today is the start of week 8F. The buds have fattened nicely and the Black Apple is still shooting out new pistils as if she wants to get bigger! We will keep feeding with nutrients this week and then move to flush at the end of W8 for W9 before harvest. Smells are wonderful and fresh and the nugs are dense! Leaves are starting to fade and some slight variation in colour coming out but not much. Probably too hot here. I would say 3-4Oz per plant but we never know until we know. The resin is abundant and covers fan leaves as well as sugar leaves and buds, looking forward to making some concentrates.

Welcome back Ladies and Gents, Today marks the end of week 8 and start of week 9, the final week. The flush has been going for a few days already and is doing well. We have some cool colours on the Velvet Moon leaves ranging from dark purples to reds and yellows. We have got the runoff down to 0.8 EC so hoping to get closer to 0.2/0.4 by the end of the week. Black apple has put on some really nice weight and is so thick and chunky! Some of her branches are on the lean because of her buds so i have assisted them with some support. Both plants are covered in resin, but maybe more so for the Velvet Moon. At harvest i will be hanging the whole plant to dry and expect it to be ready in 2 weeks. These buds look and smell amazing and I can’t wait to see what they taste like!!

The harvest was plentiful. I pulled the plants with 90% trichomes cloudy, just before amber set in. As this is more of a Sativa strain i wanted a day-time smoke to enjoy. So far plants have been drying for 7 days, once we hit 10-14 then i will have a trim and post more photos/updates.

Same as the Black Apple - will return for additional photos and smoke report.