Sweet Cheese

Day 3: The lights came on a few minutes ago, but no signs of growth yet. Day 4: Both Sweet Cheese starts poking their heads out. Day 5: Both plants have their first set of true leaves this morning. Day 6: I discovered a sprouted seed that must have been dropped in a Sweet Cheese pot. There are now 2 visible in the same container. Unfortunately, the only thing this could be is another one of my dad's custom-bred strains. This wasn't intended to be part of this diary -- he wanted a pot in my tent for his seed. Throughout this diary I will be only making mention of Sweet Cheese, unless where necessary. I am not interested in documenting my first grow with this custom strain. Today is their first feeding. Gave them a watering, just enough to moisten the top layer of the substrate; applied with a standard spray bottle's mist nozzle setting. End of day analysis: both Sweet Cheeses are growing fast, and maybe a little on the lanky side, despite only using about 5% of my light's capacity, and being about 6 inches away. They have not yet started to grow their second set of true leaves, but continue to push their way upward.

End of week analysis: I ran into a couple problems this week. Problem 1: The light was too low or too far away, and the seedlings stretched immensely. They were both laying down in the substrate due to very weak stems on the morning of day 9, so I buried their stems and lowered the light. The plants are strengthening, but overall still weak and I am fighting with them still. I therefor decided to leave the unexpected custom strain seedling of my dad's in the same pot with one of the Sweet Cheese, as to not disturb it in this fragile state. I'll let the roots learn how to share with each other while I manage the above-ground situation. I do not want to kill the Sweet Cheese. Problem 2: The fabric pots were not draining properly. The sides and bottom were soaking wet after 4 days with a light watering. I needed to raise them above the runoff pan, with more air circulation with a fan to reach the bottom of the pots. These two issues resulted in varying heights and wildly different growth rates for the two plants.

Day 19: Side shoots are starting to form on both plants. Day 20: Sweet Cheese #1 is standing on her own now and seems 100% healed. She looks beautiful and healthy. Sweet Cheese #2 still requires some assistance and careful watering, but she otherwise looks healthy with a rich shade of green all over. End of week analysis: I spent most of the week continuing to fight with the 2 problems described last week, while the plants tried to heal the creases from when they fell over early on. Sweet Cheese #1 did so far. #2 will need a bit more time.

Day 26: Sweet Cheese #1 and #2 probably doubled in size from a week ago. They look very healthy to my eyes, even if Sweet Cheese #2 is smaller due to the accidental sharing of a pot. Day 27: Sweet Cheese #1 and #2 were topped today.

Day 30: I modified the pot size for all prior weeks from 5 gallons to 4 gallons, as they were not full, and that is a good approximation. I also "rolled down" the fabric pots to just above the soil line today, as some lower greenery wasn't getting enough light. Day 31: I did some very light defoliating today -- like a small leaf or two on the bottom that looked unhealthy, or was just never going to get enough light to make it worth spending the energy on keeping it alive. Day 32: I noticed a problem that wasn't there before when I was defoliating. Sweet Cheese #2 (the plant that is accidentally sharing a pot with the other strain), is almost entirely in the shadow now, and its leaves are very droopy, without much growth on it in the past two days. I gave the towering plant next to it a nice haircut, as well as some lower leaves of Sweet Cheese #2, and made sure the it is fully exposed in the center of the tent. Day 33: After I woke up, I took a quick peek around and the neighboring trim seemed to have made the previously shady Sweet Cheese #2 much happier. I uploaded a photo to compare with yesterday's Day 32 image, which was only a few hours ago, really. After rubbing my eyes, it became clear to me that I should have stopped messing around a long time ago and took care of the source of almost all of my problems so far: 1 PLANT PER POT! I didn't kill the unexpected sprouts early, because the first watering was overdone, and the plants were too fragile for their first 3 weeks, some unable to even stand on their own until a week or so ago. That just changed right now, starting with the Sweet Cheese #2 I tried to save yesterday. Looking at its growth, it was just way too far behind, and it will not develop a good structure. It's root system is clearly underdeveloped, and it has had a hard time standing on its own. Timber! It turns out, I made the right choice here. Its root ball was absolutely tiny. Better off starting over than trying to save this poor little plant. End of week analysis: Sweet Cheese #2 was destroyed because it was fighting with another plant in the same pot. Sweet Cheese #1 is looking healthy. Every leave is a consistent nice dark shade of green, except the top growth is a fresher lighter green as expected. All in all, no signs of pests, disease, or water/nutrient deficiency/abundance. Lesson learned. New growers: always maintain a strict 1 plant per pot rule! You will save yourself so many headaches. While this was an accident, I didn't know when to remove them. The answer is, as soon as you see something that doesn't belong! 1 plant!

Day 35: So after killing one plant last week, and evaluating the status of the one Sweet Cheese I have left, I have decided that the best course of action would be to force it into flower now, as it is showing signs of sexual maturity, and did not take too well to being topped (no new growth in over a week, and the two new tops are about the same size as when the cut was made). Also, the rough seedling phase made its stability and root system not the greatest. I don't want to risk it any longer, as just flowering and putting on all the weight is going to be a risk in itself. @GrowingGrannie and @1882Bean provided me with a ton of advice that led me to come to this conclusion on my own. Thank you both! Day 36: First day after a 12-hour sleep. The light currently sits 18 inches above the Sweet Cheese. Day 37: Sweet Cheese got her first bloom feeding with 2 tsp FF GB, 1 tsp FF TB. I also added 4tsp Epsom salt too, to try to strengthen up their cell walls a bit and help macro nute uptake. The undergrowth seems to be starting to fill out today, after a couple weeks of stunted growth. I was told "Fast Version" strains sometimes don't take too kindly to being topped, which could explain things. But, this is just anecdotal evidence to me right now. I haven't seen any studies or had other experiences myself to compare it with. Sweet Cheese's two new tops have also started to grow after a long period of stunted growth. Day 38: I uploaded a few photos today. I have been staring at this plant every hour or two for nearly 6 weeks now, so maybe you can notice a change in growth from the shot 2 days ago :) Day 39: Sweet Cheese is looking healthy and seems to be loving it centered directly under the light. She's definitely growing again now. After inspecting her substrate, I would normally be feeding her today. I think the extra humidity I have been providing her has helped her to feed faster, and she could use some more food now. But, I am going to wait until tomorrow. I am worried about her root system, and I want to give them a chance to dry out, and creep around looking for more moisture. Additionally, the last few waterings I have only watered around the perimeter for the same reasons. Day 40: Sweet Cheese was fed today with 1/2 tsp FF GB, 2 tsp FF TB. No visible pistils yet, but looking extremely close. Defoliated some large fan leaves off of Sweet Cheese today to allow more light to reach the canopy. Day 41: Some of Sweet Cheese's large neighbors have finally moved out of the tent. I set it on top of a box so that the capopy now sits at a more acceptable distance from the light. It was off by a few inches than what I wanted before, due to the tent sharing with another grow. As of today, there is only a single other small plant in my tent. Sweet Cheese should feel less crowded now, and has more than an inch or two to grow as was beforehand.

Day 42: Removed 2 small leaves under the canopy. It's mostly going to be a waiting game for a while now. I'll report what I can, when I can, but so far there are no noticeable pistils forming yet after 1 week in bloom. She takes 7-8 weeks, and this is my first indoor grow, so I have no idea when or if the stretch will come or much of anything to expect. :) Day 43: She was fed today with 1 tsp Advanced Nutrients Ancient Earth, 1.5 tsp Fox Farm Grow Big, and 2.5 tsp Fox Farm Tiger Bloom per gallon of tap water. It is becoming more and more clear just how much time was wasted on this first grow, due to losing probably 2 weeks of veg for all the periods of stunted growth from my beginner mistakes. I see that this plant is almost half way through the stretch phase, and hasn't stretched really at all. What is interesting though, is practically every one of the plant's nodes are located at the top of the canopy, and that canopy is almost completely flat, without me doing any training on the plant in its life. Pretty cool looking to be honest, how it was able to maintain a nice flat canopy all by itself. That said, the buds are going to be very small I think, but that's okay. I learned enough with this grow already to make it more than worth it. I moved her off of the box today and on the tent floor as her neighbor just had some LST done to make the canopies even. I lowered the light to compensate. At the end of the day today right before the light went off, I noticed preflowers forming on all of the nodes along the main stem, which were not there yesterday. A couple of these can be seen in two images I uploaded for Day 43. I should start seeing pistils very soon, and more flowers start to appear. Exciting :) Day 44: It was suggested to me that I should remove a lot of the lower leaves to give the energy to the colas. I was a bit hesitant, because I already did some light pruning the 2 previous weeks, and I didn't want to stress her out to hermie or not produce. I ultimately decided that it was a worthwhile risk, as she is quite small anyway, and this first grow is more of an exercise than anything, and a lot has gone wrong already. Basically, this round is all for the learning and I'm not even expecting a harvest, though it would be nice to get there. Let's talk about PPFD and PAR light for a moment. This entire grow, I have had pretty bad stunted growth due to watering, nutrient, and pretty much every other beginner mistake imaginable. This is a new light I have never worked with before (first time indoor growing), and since day 1 I have been doubting the manufacturer's specifications for PPFD values at the different heights and positions along the canopy plane that it covers. This is because after getting the other problems in line, I was still experiencing a lot of stunted growth, and the Photone Android application was telling me that my micromols of PAR light were about 200 times less than those specified. I shrugged this off for a while until today when someone recommended I try Tent Buddy. I did, and the PAR intensity pretty much exactly corresponds to my light's specifications of 1210 umol/m^2 at 1ft. I had my light at 1ft this week so far, because I was thinking my light was not intense enough. I was giving the plant way too much DLI. The light seems to get the perfect amount of DLI when raised to 18 inches, so I did that today. A raise of 6 inches is a little drastic, so hopefully doesn't freak her out too much, but I know she'll be happier and be able to utilize the light more efficiently and without risk of sunburn. That said, I just cannot recommend Photone (yet; it's in beta access, so expect improvements). It is not even remotely accurate on at least some modern mobile phone hardware. You really won't know how far off it is without comparing it with a device that has been calibrated with laboratory equipment or is otherwise trusted by you. In my case, it was so far off I may as well just added a few zeros and guessed. It was not good for even an approximation in my opinion. Day 45: She is 16 inches tall today. Looks like maybe she is starting the stretch. Was inching slowly near 13-14" for a while. Because she dealt with a weak root system most of her life, and she has now been starting to feed faster, I filled the pot with another gallon of coco/perlite today. It was a 5 gallon pot with only 4 gallons full before, due to all available coco in use at the time. This means her height was reverted from 16" back to 14". Day 46: She seems to be filling out a bit now after the fairly heavy defoliation the other day. She was fed today with 1 tsp Advanced Nutrients Ancient Earth, 2 tsp Fox Farm Grow Big, and 2 tsp Fox Farm Tiger Bloom per gallon of tap water. At the end of the day I'm happy to notice some noticeable growth over the last 24 hours. It has been a while since I noticed anything as significant, due to the defoliating. Day 47: She's growing again. Things are starting to fill out nicely. I expect to see flowers start to form in about a week. Overall, she's a healthy girl, with no signs of pests, disease, discoloration, wilting, or anything. I haven't even had to trim off any dead leaves. Sweet Seeds Sweet Cheese F1 Fast Version seems like a very resilient strain that is easy to care for. Day 48: She's looking healthy as usual today. She might even be starting to show a glimpse of her flowers.

Day 49: Flowers started forming yesterday but is starting to be much more noticeable today. Today I did a light defoliating, tying down of 2 main cola stems slightly to even the canopy, and fed her 2 tsp/gal FF GB, 2 tsp/gal FF TB, 1 tsp/gal AE AEO. The light went off right after watering, so I'll get some pictures uploaded with the next update. Day 51: No maintenance today, but uploaded some photos from today. Day 53: Some more defoliation today. Day 54: I did a bunch of crazy amateurish LST on her with pipe cleaners today. The reason why is because the only light I have that is powerful enough for a worthwhile harvest is a 100W LED, which advertises itself as having a flowering footprint of 2x2ft, but it is closer to 1x1ft after going insane taking hundreds of PAR readings. I need to force branches to grow vertically instead of curved. This is to accomplish two things: 1) The small footprint is insane and so painful to get good PPFD readings. Having the canopy more narrow and crowded should help here. 2) The canopy likes to become uneven over time, and tying down branches isn't much of an option due to the small footprint. In the process I was able to even out the canopy considerably better, although after some days of training, more work has to be done in this area still. She is going to get one final major defoliation in a few days after I see her response to the LST to see which leaves should be removed. Like I said, things are much more crowded now, but colas and sugar leaves should have room together. One final note for today: She, or her roommate plant, are not responding well to nutrient uptake this week. They received about half of their normal watering this week. This could be due to a variety of things, as I do not yet (soon) have the equipment to measure temperature, humidity, pH, or EC/ppm. The most likely cause is the seemingly higher humidity at night. Right when the light comes on and the tent is opened, its like a sauna hitting my face. I attempted to alleviate the problem by removing any sources of moisture, like a little bit of runoff in their tray, as well as left the tent door open with another fan blowing from the outside in. Additionally, I will be letting the substrate dry out completely before the next feeding. This should be tomorrow or the next day.

Day 56: Fed her 2 tsp/gal FF BB, 2 tsp/gal FF GB, 3 tsp/gal FF TB. Her two bottom-most branches were short and never going to grow out of the shadows no matter the LST I do this late in the game, so they were chopped off. Their colas were barely visible and nothing like the others, so no loss, only more energy for other bud sites, especially since she has proven to recover from pruning very quickly, even in flower. Side note: I have always considered defoliation to be a less serious form of pruning; that is, defoliation is usually only removing leaves, and not branches. That is my usual interpretation of the word, with pruning meaning to take off whole branches. However, GD seems to think otherwise, and throws everything into the defoliation category, so rather than add a new custom method, I'll go with their definition I guess, and just note here that branches were pruned, not leaves. Day 57: Ok, I seem to have my nutrient levels under control now. It took her all week to drink the one feeding she received last week, and I watered her for the first time last night, letting a bit runoff, with a slightly modified nutrient recipe, and she is completely dry alreeady...in less than 24 hours. I only fed her half the amount of water I have been, but whatever the reason, she liked it. Time to start feeding her and see what she does! Could this be a late stretch? Even when she wasn't drinking her pistils were multiplying and growing larger. Anyway, we'll see how she likes an equal dose tomorrow morning (I like to give the roots a chance to dry out and search around looking for moisture). Day 58: Fed her 2 tsp/gal FF BB, 2 tsp/gal FF GB, 3 tsp/gal FF TB. Day 59: Her buds are growing increasingly larger, and sugar is starting to form. According to my calculations, she will be ready to harvest somewhere within the 84-97 day mark. We have a while to go yet, but things are looking pretty impressive already for a light with a sharp falloff curve only able to give the canopy proper lighting in a 1x1ft area. Day 60: She finally became too tall for the light. I'm seeing slight tip burn on the top-most cola's leaves. No problem...she's actually raised above the runoff tray, so I'll just remove those 6 inches for now. Day 63: The tip burn is increasing, and was not due to being too close to the light. It was an abundance of nitrogen toxicity. I flushed the nutrients from the medium with pH'd 6.1 tap water.

Day 64: She really liked the flush and her leaves are really reaching for that light today like never before. Day 66: Running out of nutes (oops). Switching up brand and recipe mid flower today. Wish me luck lol. Today is the first day I am starting to see some coloration in the flowers. If you squint at the close-up pictures for today you can see some orange coming through. Day 67: Some light defoliation of lower large fan leaves was done today. Some more oranges are starting to come through now. Uploaded images for today (trying some night shots for the first time). Random comment that should have been said a week or two ago: I recently learned of the importance of frequent fertigation when using coco coir as a growing medium. I switched to this technique a week or two ago, and I am seeing tremendous improvements. Willing to share what I learned to any beginners, just send me a Chat message and follow my diary! :) Day 68: Unfortunately, I somehow slept 16 hours myself today, straight through her lights on period. This means she did not get her fertifgations today, and I didn't get to check on her at all. It'll have to wait for tomorrow's end of week update. Day 69: Looking a bit denser today. Starting to smell slightly. She's happy today, gaining 4 inches with her leaves almost vertical.

Day 70/Day 71: Wow, 70 days huh? I was expecting about 85-90 for her, but looking at her, I think she might be closer to 90-100. Still though, way over the hump now! This will be my first indoor harvest ever, and I'm pretty excited, even if she is going to have an absolutely tiny yield, she is frosty and beautiful looking already, only starting to fatten up just yesterday. Edit later the same day: Actually, I had to go back and check my logs, because I started her on a Friday. That means Thursday (yesterday) would have been the last day of her 10th week, or day 70, making TODAY day 71. Rather than going back and editing everything to be like my other diaries, today will be for Day 70 and 71. She is looking healthy as usual today. Her leaves are always looking happy, much more so than the other two plants keeping her company. Lastly, thank you everyone for the likes! I reached 1000 today. I guess my diaries aren't as horrible as I thought? I'm not very good at writing... Edit, again later the same day. I might have killed her, or at least a major part of her. Help, @LegacyMarketFarm @1882Bean @Sour_D @Roberts @Ju_Bps @Hydro_Hiebs if you can please. While moving the plant I accidentally knocked one of its 2 top main stems (was topped once), splitting it down an inch or so...not sure if I killed the branch, the whole plant, or if my hack job will help her repair herself. Should I harvest this 1 branch now, let it try to repair, or what? Thanks...so disappointing :( And yes, there was a snap. Picture 1: see it split down the middle...extends to bottom of repair job...pretty far. Picture 2, the entire branch/cola. Removed a few large fan leaves today that were blocking buds from bulking up. Day 72: Lots of growth in the last couple of days -- last night I had to do another light defoliation to give the top sugar leaves and buds the light they need. I also see considerable size and color differences in the buds over the last 2 days and especially the last 24 hours. I uploaded a few images to try to capture the light and color of the environment as best as I could, though it is still a work in progress tweaking with the settings. It's looking like she's a hairy one...those pistils...wow. Day 73: I really love this plant. I have never had such ease growing a plant before, indoor or outdoor, cannabis or not. She's continuing to bulk up those buds, with tinges of orange really shining through now. I expect her to be ready in no less than 12 days from now, but that's a minimum. I'd guess closer to 20. I pinched a sugar leaf to give it a smell for the first time today, and wow, definitely quite pleasant, but nothing like what I was expecting. It has a very sweet fruit smell; some citrus of some sort. It doesn't have any hint of cheese to it at all, yet anyway. I can definitely tell that after ripening and curing she is going to smell amazing. I am a big fan of cheeses but that's not really why I'm growing her. It was recommended to me for a beginner indoor strain, and I really cannot disagree with that at all. Day 74: She's looking excellent like always. Fertigated her and onto the next diary update... Day 77: Shortly before bed I very bravely and carefully removed her bandage from the mishap on Day 71. Everything was healed much better than I thought it would be, considering the branch was for the most part "hanging by a thread". Cannabis is such a resilient species, and this cultivar especially just will not die given my many absolute beginner mistakes. She does have a nasty looking black scar going down her stem, but the entire branches foliage is looking great a week later, with no signs of interveinal chlorosis or other early signals. She actually looks as happy as ever, and never even flinched at the whole situation. I must say, that she was able to repair that practically severed limb, and not complain about my hack job of a repair, I am quite impressed. The pipe cleaner repair job was done because it was really the only thing I could reach with one hand while the other held the plant together so it didn't fall apart.

Day 78: Welcome to the start of week 12, wow! Late last week she actually started giving off a very faint smell. I can't exactly place it yet, because it's not very strong. It definitely has some sweetness in it, and maybe some citrus and musty cheese notes. It's kind of hard to describe, but she seems like one of those strains that doesn't really smell at all until the last few weeks of flower. Her bandage was removed last night, and the damage is now posted. It was really bad, but now it just looks a little scarred. Amazing. I defoliated 3 fan leaves that were in the way. Day 83: I defoliated 1 large non-top fan leave that was blocking lower bud sites. Today is a special day. The tent she is growing in got a couple upgrades. 1) She is now much happier under a brand new Mars Hydro FC-3000 fixture. 2) The tent now has a 21 inch (lol) house fan mounted for air circulation. I uploaded an image of the new setup.

Day 85: Well, today starts day 1 of 7 for the breeder's expected harvest date, however, that is under optimal conditions, maybe even with CO2, and boy, let me tell you -- I made enough mistakes that make me not even close to optimal, or even decent. The good thing is, she is still flowering, and seemingly healthy without botrytis or any noticeable concerns. Infact, I am not even seeing the slightest bit of senescence yet. Upon inspecting her trichomes under magnification, nearly all of them are still clear, even in the top-most colas. This tells me she has a bit to go yet. Not exactly a fast-flower phenotype here, due to my environment tweaking for this first indoor grow of mine (consistency is a horticulturist's best friend). I'm sorry I haven't been updating this diary as much lately. The reason why is because I have been very busy building another grow setup. I will upload plenty of new pictures in the next update. Thanks for stopping by! Later that day... I just uploaded a bunch of pictures. For the first time, I removed her from the tent and inspected her under ambient light. Wow. I guess I have been pretty busy lately, because she fattened up and got a lot more sugary in the last few days, thanks to the new Mars Hydro FC-3000. I had a look under magnification, and I see very few milky trichomes, but they are starting to appear. It won't be long now. I must say, for a first grow that I screwed up so badly countless times, I am thoroughly impressed with what I see 😍 Day 87: I spent a long time today REALLY looking at the trichomes good. My loupe is not the greatest and it was hard to see if they were cloudy or not before. Well during this inspection, I broke the branch that was healing from last week's accident...clean off this time. I am forced to early harvest that branch, but...the good news is after looking at the trichomes good, I actually did see that what I thought was clear is cloudy, and there are about 2-4% amber even! She will be fully ready in a day or two. The branch that I removed surprised me when I flipped it over. The underside is bright blood red. You couldn't see this as it was growing at all. It looks like every individual calyx is red on the bottom, and green on the top. And these pictures don't show how bright red it is...it's like blood red in real life, and completely hidden from the side profile or top view. Very pretty, and unlike other Sweet Cheese F1 samples I've seen. The calyxes are swollen and the frost is there. And the smell is of fresh berries mixed with a hint of lemon. Very pleased with the result of my first indoor grow.

The was my very first indoor grow, and after growing many strains outdoor, I can honestly say I don't think I could have chose a better strain to start learning with. Sweet Cheese F1 Fast Version is a strain that will put up with anything. She was on her death bed more than once due to beginner mistakes, and she bounced back like it was nothing once the problem was corrected...each and every time. I will definitely be growing this again some time. She has now been completely chopped and is hanging to dry. EDIT: This harvest was extremely small due to flipping her too early due to what I thought was root rot, but was overly high humidity. This message is 6 months later, with several other harvests completed, and each one having bud rot. This plant was grown when humidity was at its highest, so I am positive the discoloration is due to this, and I am positive this harvest also had the mold now that I know where to look for it (it is very hard to see clear or white mold in small isolated patches in the middle of larger buds). Additionally, I had other strains not expected to be bright red also have this happen. High humidity is the problem, and this diary is now marked as a failure along with all the rest, until I get that sorted out. Please check out the harvest report for my Green Crack diary for a full description of what we're dealing with, and please be safe and check your prized harvests.