Wedding Cake Auto

Not much to see here since they're so young, but they're still alive! The one that had the seed shell stuck to it shed it off pretty quickly without any intervention. It was a cold week as it got down to 35F a couple days, but the grow tent temperature never reached lower than about 60F. The lighting schedule is evening to late afternoon the next day, so the grow light is on when it is coldest outside and off when it is hottest outside.

Still not much to see, but with all my experiences no bad news is good news! These grew from about 2.5 inches last week to 3.5 inches this week. The cold snap from last week went away so the weather was much better this past week.

Temperatures this past week were crazy. Ranged from 40 degrees to 80 degrees. Thank goodness the grow tent somewhat regulates the temperature inside, otherwise these plants would be confused as hell. Grew about 1 inch vertically this past week.

Great week! More than doubled in height from 4.5 inches to 10 inches. Nice and bushy too. Definitely a warmer week than last with outside temperatures getting up to 85 degrees, and nights only as cool as about 60 degrees. I hung up some gnat catchers (yellow sticky pads) to catch and kill the gnats that somehow found their way into the tent and went for the tomato plants, and it seems to be working. The tomato plants started looking really unhappy so I pulled them out of the grow tent and just put them outside.

These just started barely flowering! They grew in height from about 10 inches to an average of 14 inches, although one is about an inch or two taller than the other now. Lower fan leaves are starting to turn yellow, which is exactly what happened this week of my other grow, so similarly I'll probably start giving these light nutes soon. I bumped the grow light up to MAX intensity. Unfortunately it has been heating up the grow tent a little, but only to a maximum temperature of about 82F and only when the light is on. The humidity hasn't gotten higher than about 60% this week, although I bought a dehumidifier and put it right outside the tent since the summer months typically bring a lot of rain and I'll need it more for then than now, but nice to have now if I can get it to bring the humidity down from about 60 (or higher) to about 50 when necessary. *** 4/15/23 EDIT *** It seems lower leaves, particularly on my other plants that are about 2 weeks ahead of these, are yellowing at a somewhat alarming rate, SO I've ordered a pH testing pen, pH Up, and pH Down to find out what pH my watering solution has been in case it has been too high or too low and I need to adjust it. ETA is about a week, although hopefully Amazon sends it sooner. If there IS a pH problem, it's a good thing that these are weeds after all, and autoflowers tend to be more forgiving! Also I tried putting the dehumidifier INSIDE the tent, and noticed today that the basil plant that's closest to it looks incredibly "drained". So I'm wondering whether the dehumidifier was actually sucking the humidity out of my plants instead of the air, and I put it back OUTSIDE the grow tent to be safe, and gave the plants a little extra water.

Happy 420, everyone! Crazy outside temperature fluctuations this week of 40F to 90F, although in the grow tent my fan and ventilation system were able to keep the inside temperature in a range of about 65F to 85F. Nice vertical growth this week from 15 inches to about 20.5 inches. Decided to start checking pH and found that the tap water that I've been watering these with has had a pH of about 7.4, and with nutes has been about 8.4. Thank goodness these are "weeds" and the alkaline water up to this point hasn't killed them. So for the past couple days I started adding pH down drops to the water mixture till the pH gets down to about 6.2-6.4 and feeding the plants then. These are fabric pots just sitting on the bottom of the grow tent so I don't know how I could collect runoff water, but I figured if anything these are too alkaline so feeding them SLIGHTLY more acidic water will help balance it out. Other than the yellowing leaves near the bottom, these seem to be coming along nicely!

Was a hotter week than last with highs still about 90 but lows only down to about 60. With the fan and exhaust system, the temperature in the grow tent only got up to about 82. It was also much more humid than last week with humidity outside getting up to 99% but humidity in the grow tent only got up to about 70%. In summary, so far so good. Surprisingly it still grew in height from an average of 20.5 inches tall last week to 24.5 inches tall this week. I moved the grow light up a couple inches so its average distance to the tops of the buds is only about 14 inches, whereas before it was closer. Can't pull the light up might higher since it's basically up against the exhaust fan assembly now. Good thing these are autoflowers and shouldn't get much taller I suppose.

This week got hot as hell. Up to 90 degrees even inside the grow tent several days. Didn't help that I was out of town for a couple days and didn't have the chance to give these a little extra water. they seem to be holding on strong though! Moved the grow light up as far as it would go, bumping up into the exhaust system, since some of the other older plants in the grow tent looked to be showing signs of light/heat stress. Some of the leaves near the bottom are top have been turning yellow so I'm continuing to pluck or snip those off as needed. Took photos of each plant's top cola this time. Still all white pistols so nowhere near harvest time.

It was another hot week with high's around 90F so I suppose summer is in full swing. Nights got warmer than last week with lows only about 65F. The exhaust fan in my grow tent is set to come on at 79F so it has been running almost constantly. Good news is no rain, so humidity hasn't been too bad. Have had my heart broken by bud rot TOO MANY times! I bumped the Fox Farm Big Bloom nutes up from 1 tsp/gal to 2 tsp/gal, which is still way lower than the recommended concentration, since it hasn't shown any signs of nute burn. Continuing to remove yellow leaves when pull off the plant easily with 2 fingers, since at that point they aren't really serving a purpose and so that light can get to the buds underneath better. One of the plants finally has a couple amber pistols, although that's probably the only noticeable change from last week.

Plants are coming along fine. One of them is showing some purpling leaves near the top. Other one finally has a couple amber colored pistols but not many yet. Continuing to remove fan leaves as they get yellow and wilty, mostly near the bottom, and I can usually pluck them off easily with 2 fingers.

Realized that I'm probably still a couple weeks away from harvest so I stopped the flush for one of these and started giving both nutes again. The first one is getting a nice purpling to it, no doubt from its cherry pie genetics. Was a slightly cooler week with highs around 85 instead of 90.

Mostly white pistols so these aren't ready for harvest yet, although one seems about a week further along than the other. I'm considering reducing their light schedule from 18/6 to 12/12 to hurry them along. It was a HOT week with highs around 90F and lows only around 70F. And when the LED light is on it the tent, that heats it up the tent about 10-15 degrees.

Reduced the lighting schedule from 18/6 to 12/12 to hopefully help these finish flowering faster. At this point I care less about yield and more about finishing these so I can start another set of seeds. Still a lot of white pistols and not a lot of amber trichomes (if any). The more mature plant's buds are looking nice and frosty though! Was out of town this past week for 3 days where these got no water but they seemed to survive fine. For fun I threw in a photo of a tomato that I recently harvested. Started two tomato plants at the same time as these in the grow tent. I recently learned that fans should ideally be positioned on the floor of the tent and facing up to blow the underside of the canopies, so I bought a second 6" fan and placed them both at the bottom corners of one side of the tent blowing upward.

Weeks are getting hotter, with only a 75F low this week. One of these, the shorter one with the purpling near the top, may be ready to harvest next week. About 80-95% of the pistols have darkened (except for just the top bud), the buds are looking nice and frosty, and under the magnifier there are some (5% or so) amber colored trichomes. Will flush it for the next week in case it's ready to harvest then. The other taller one still has a bunch of white pistols and seems to be continuing to fatten so probably has a couple more weeks to go.

Perfect grow. Considering that it shared the grow tent with 8 other plants, I'm happy with a 70.6g wet weight yield. When harvesting it, there was a high percentage of calyx's compared to fan leaves and sugar leaves which made it easy to chop down. Also, the colas were all nice and frosty, top to bottom. Were just enough amber colored trichomes for me to feel comfortable harvesting it. This is actually my highest yielding auto plant yet. No issues with insects nor bud rot with it being inside the grow tent. This probably seems like a no-brainer, but I've learned this grow cycle that the taller the plant, the longer it's typically going to take to be ready for harvest, but also the higher the yield. Look forward to trying it in about 5 weeks after drying and curing! *** 6/29/23 UPDATE *** Dry weight: 17.1g

Week got even hotter with highs around 95, but temperature in the tent didn't get higher than 85. Rained a lot also and humidity outside was basically 99% all week, but the humidity inside the tent didn't get above 80%. Still a lot of white pistols so I think this still has about 2 weeks left before harvest time. Also, not a lot of amber colored trichomes yet. The other Wedding Cake Auto plant, however, I harvested today! Check the journal entry. That made room for me to basically line this up directly centered under the grow light. Checked the browning near the top to make sure it wasn't bud rot, and it appears to just be old, dead fan leaves. Fingers crossed! Worth mentioning that perhaps because this plant is about an inch taller than the other one is why it is taking longer to "ripen".

Another hot week with the highs around 95F. This week unfortunately the temperature in the grow tent got up to about 91F even with the LED light off during peak heat and despite the exhaust and two fans. Some amber trichomes have showed up and the plant seems to have stopped physically growing. I COULD harvest a week from today but I'll give this a little longer for more of the trichomes to darken. Lately I've been harvesting when only about 5% are amber, so perhaps for this plant I'll wait till between 10% and 30% turn amber as an experiment and/or to get a more "stoney" high. This week I learned that organic grows take longer to mature than non-organic and grows with coco as a medium, which makes me less discouraged that these are taking a while. Only concern is that if these take TOO long I won't be able to start a second grow this year without worrying about it going past December for harvest time and getting too cold out. Then again, last year the weather in December was actually beautiful and not cold at all.

Outside temperature got up to 100F this week. Most of the pistols have darkened and are curling in. The trichomes near the bottom of the plant are finally starting to darken so I'm flushing it and will probably harvest next week.

This is really a HARVEST post since I harvested the second plant 4 weeks after the first. From the trichomes (photos attached) this looked ready to harvest today, which was plan since checking them out last week. SURPRISE: The plant had 30+ seeds! Attached photos of a couple of the seeds I pulled out of one of the buds. Not the greatest sign of great genetics, but I suppose I have some free feminixed autoflowering seeds to give to friends if they want to try growing. And if I ever run out of seeds (not likely) I can use these as a last resort if they're still good by then. Will expect these to have 10-20% less potency than if they were seedless. Wet weight is 48.3g, which is MUCH less than the first plant I harvested. While trimming I kept some stem attached to most of the buds to test later for "snapability" so I expect the dry weight to be around 12g or a little less. *** 7/14/23 update *** Went to try some Gorilla Glue from another grow that was done at the same time and in the same tent as this one and found fucking seeds! Don't know how I missed that during harvest. So I don't know which plant in the tent hermed and infected the rest: Wedding Cake, Gorilla Glue, or Girl Scout Cookies, but whatever the case I'm going to end up with a bunch of feminized hybrid seeds which will either have shit genetics or will be an accidental masterpiece. *** 7/22/23 update *** Dry weight: 15.8g.