First Grow! Ethos, Purple City, Mephisto

Day 15, AM: For the first time in a while, the soil wasn't bone dry by morning, so I held off on watering. The existing leaves don't look any better than yesterday, but there's new growth that does look healthy, so maybe we're on the right track. Day 15, PM: A few things: 1. All the plants were watered heavily, they wanted it bad. The humidifier is helping, and I really think under-watering was a big part of my initial issue. 2. I used the Photonic light meter app on my phone to test the light, and the PPFD is about 322 (18" away, 80%), which seems about right for seedling / early veg. So I think that's dialed... for now. 3. There is now a tiny 500 watt spacer heater in the tent. I don't yet have a controller to automate its on/off cycles, so until that arrives next week I'll just have to manually turn it on and off. The plants still seem to be struggling, but we’ll figure this out. I’ll increase the heat and humidity tonight and hope that helps. Day 16: BACK IN BUSINESS! I woke up to three healthy little seedlings. All of their fan leaves looked fresh, bright green, unwilted, and energized (at least compared to the last week). I've tweaked so many variables that it's hard to know which was the issue, but I suspect it was some combination of humidity, heat, AND under-watering. Next grow, I might experiment with keeping the humidity dome on until strong vegetative growth begins. Day 17: Soil was completely dry this morning, but plants looked healthy and vigorous anyway. No drooping or wilting! I gave ’em a big gulp of water, they seem happy. It’s exciting to see progress again, it seems like heat really was the missing link. No doubt this early screw-up will diminish the final product, but as long as I get any meager harvest I’ll be thrilled. Day 18: More healthy growth! The soil dried out again by late afternoon, so I soaked them. A few hours later, the plants seemed grateful. I need to consider re-potting to forever homes soon, they’re finally outgrowing their containers. Day 19: Growing! No news is good news? Day 20: Beginning to notice a subtle scent when I open up the tent. 🌿 Fan leaves are now wider than the containers, so I think it’s time to re-pot these teenagers into their forever homes. Day 21: The UIS outlet controller arrived yesterday, and I connected it to the space heater to better modulate heat and humidity. It seemed to work great at first, but... at midnight (when the lights are scheduled to turn off), the temp dropped to 65° and humidity shot up to 80%, and stayed there all night until I checked at 5:30am. Fan leaves were all heavy and sagging, but had mostly recovered when I checked again at 8:30am. So it seems like adding the UIS outlet has somehow screwed up my automation, will need to investigate. Day 21, PM: Repotted into 7 gallon fabric pots, then watered each with 20 oz. of water in a ring around the plant. The roots weren’t as robust as I’d hoped (especially on the Mephisto—the root ball essentially fell apart). But I planted the stems deep, which will hopefully spur a bit more root development, we’ll see.