Greenhouse Grow Spring 2023

It's been cold so far - heater still on overnight in the greenhouse to make sure it doesn't freeze. Average temps are 10C, been cloudy and rainy so pretty low light levels. Seedlings seem to be doing well, just smaller than they would be indoors.

Much better week with some good sun & growth. Added a bigger fan to the greenhouse to start strengthening stems and to prevent all the moisture from condensing on the roof and dropping down constantly. Forgotten Strawberries & Smile x Sam are having a rough start. SS had a deformed true leaf but is trucking along now. FS got annihilated by a caterpillar and is now topped at the second node which is not ideal. Gonna let it ride to see what happens though, maybe it'll recover. Watering everything with very hard water pH'd to 6.5 with citric acid.

Day 24 - finally figured out what is murdering the forgotten strawberries. Leaf Hoppers. Got some neem on the way so hopefully it will be a thing of the past very shortly. Managed to kill two of them and didn't see any others, but there are a lot of places to hide in the big greenhouse. In general everything is pretty stunted from the lack of light so far. Too many rainy, overcast days. I'm interested to see what the impact is overall though. I'm worried for the forgotten strawberries & to a lesser extent the animal mints & AK which have also both been impacted. Even with the severe miner damage (to the point where it was topped at the second node, yikes) the forgotten strawberries seems to be a bigger plant than animal mints. Genetics are definitely king when it comes to autos, this will likely be the last crap king seeds plant I grow.

Much better weather this week, sunny 6/7 days and the plants really responded. Leaf hoppers are still a bit of an issue, I have neem but I haven't figured out the mix yet so I haven't sprayed. Plants most affected are still Forgotten Strawberries (got topped by the leaf hoppers, bouncing back pretty well now though), Animal Mints (trash genetics didn't expect much anyway) and AK47 (powering through even with heavy damage). Everything else has put on significant size in the last week. No signs of preflower yet which is unusual for a lot of these strains, but I'm guessing everything is a week or two behind due to the cold & poor light the first couple weeks. It'll be interesting to see how long these autos end up going. Obviously the Mango 1:1 is not a concern as a photo. It was topped at the 5th node today and had its side nodes removed as well. Planning to mainline this one since it has 6 months of growth ahead and I want it as efficient as possible. This is my favourite strain and I have no space for a mother, so I may attempt to create some S1 seeds when there are more stems to work with. Just a cheap bottle of STS from amazon will hopefully do the job. 12/12 should be no problem as my 2x2 tent is sitting empty after the Grappa/24 Carat run which is now 100% completed and in jars.

Another week with poor weather. Socked in with cloud nearly the entire time, Mango 1:1 got the worst of it and stretched like crazy which will hurt my plan to mainline. Pretty good progress, even the Forgotten Strawberries is trying to make a comeback, though it somehow managed to partially lose a branch over the weekend so it is still quite stressed. I'll have to keep a close eye on it in case of herm. Animal mints is showing its garbage genetics, crap king seeds is out here selling genetics so unstable that I'm only getting nodes on one side of the plant instead of two. I expect next to no yield of very low quality buds on this one. Watering is very inconsistent due to the weather, some days they drink a gallon, other days they drink nothing. Growth is only noticeable on sunny days. Still no signs of flower on any of the plants, this week I will amend 'late' as we're over 30 days, but it is actually a little early due to how slowly these plants have been growing this early in the season. Anyone wondering why there are 9 plants in the full shot instead of 8 - the extra one is my second photoperiod plant of the grow, GMO Cookies. Unfortunately GD only allows 8 strains per grow, so this one is a bonus.

We're in preflower and stretching like a hot damn! All autos showing pistils now and were amended with 1.5 tbsp 4-4-4 and 1.5 tbsp 2-8-4 to feed the stretch and prep for flower. They'll get one more amendment before the end. Forgotten Strawberries is bouncing back pretty well and got a bunch of LST to make the best of a bad situation. Animal mints is growing weird, shooting out single-sided nodes and generally being a pain in the ass. I LST'd it sideways and topped it to attempt to control the bushy behaviour. Will not be growing this strain again, the remaining seed I have will get tossed. Never make the mistake of buying from crap king seeds or any other white label provider. Luckily I didn't pay for this one. Mango 1:1 is a struggle. It has been poor going the entire time and is stretching like its life depends on it. To combat I supercropped the main stem and top nodes, then threw in some LST clips for good measure. The main purpose of this plant was to survive long enough that I could take clones, but with how poorly it has been growing I might just call it a lost cause and let it finish out naturally. With the bucket + plane height and the fact that it won't be done until November though... it'll probably have to end up outside the greenhouse at some point. Such a shame to have nearly 16" of vertical before I had any branching. I'm honestly considering lopping it at the first node where it's finally sending out new growth. Might do it in a month, then make clones from the top. We'll see. Had some minor pest problems with leaf hoppers & caterpillars. I've turned up the fan speed in the greenhouse and sprayed with neem+BT on day 44. Will keep a close eye on things.

Day 52 - Bad week weather-wise. Lots of thick cloud cover and a ton of rain which has compounded with early flower stretch to really put some height on the plants. Everything seems to be going strong in to flower except the trash genetics Animal Mints which is just bushing out with only a few preflower pistils. Mango 1:1 doesn't seem to want to live either. It keeps snapping branches every time I try to LST, so now I have a few impromptu clones going inside. Never had problems with this strain in the past but this pheno has been awful to deal with. Fan leaves the size of dinner plates mean it's crowding itself out too. Will do what I can to keep it alive and short as possible, but it may be time to move on to another 1:1 strain next year. Hard to give up on the unreal mango Terps on this though. Of the autos, Fugue x Toof is leading the charge with the biggest buds. The others aren't far behind in size or structure though, and it looks like just about everything will be putting out fantastic flowers. I amended all the autos with 5 tbsp of 2-8-4 this week to help them bulk up.

Day 59 - Finally back to sunny days and all the autos are praying to the sun which is incredible. This week saw the last neem application (don't want to spray in flower) so I'll be doing a bud wash this run to make sure everything is fit for consumption. The last week started out with insanely heavy rain so humidity levels were at or near 100% for several days in a row. As a result I cranked the fan speed, which caused some wind burn on some of the plants closer to the fan. Seems to be all lower fan leaves so no big loss. Mango 1:1 - Had a good week. Lost half my mainline due to snapping branches while doing LST, so those are sitting in a cloner and I'll use them to reverse some seeds. This one will likely grow outside the greenhouse next year so it can go berserk, because it sure hates being trained. Orange Diesel - This strain might be invincible? Praying the hardest, a million good bud sites, smells like that gritty orange soap. Beautiful plant Animal Mints - Still behind everything else, but plugging along and has filled in nicely. Will definitely run 100+ days but it's nice to see it healthy again after a rough start Forgotten Strawberries - doing pretty well all things considered. Very few bud sites though, so yield will suffer. Four quality tops should at least give me a jar of nice stuff though, I hope. Everything else - low drama, plugging along. Bit of bug and wind damage here and there, but overall flower is progressing nicely and the stretch seems to be complete. Still watering pH'd around 6.2 every 2-3 days as needed.

Day 66 - Tried to get some better shots to show bud formation this week. It was hot, mid to high 30s every day. The plants have endured but there has been a lot of tacoing and a few crispy tips. Big defoliation on the lower branches this week to get rid of crunchy/dying leaves as well as remove a lot of aphids. Released 250 ladybugs into the greenhouse on day 64 and many have been staying, eating and breeding inside the greenhouse. Also amended for the last time with 2-8-4, should see the plants through their final 3-6 weeks. Mango 1:1 finally woke up and started putting on some size. After the weird stretch early this grow it has started acting normally and I've supercropped every top to try and keep the height down. AK47 seems to be plugging along okay, but has had the worst of the bugs as its furthest back in the greenhouse and is the end point for airflow so bugs get stuck back there. Neem is off the table with the flower development so hopefully the ladybugs do enough to get it across the finish line. Definitely will be bud washing this run. Animal Mints & Forgotten Strawberries are both kinda fucky after the unplanned topping and training, but seem to be plugging along. FS especially has some really nice bud sites. Animal Mints is ~2 weeks behind everything else. Sour Crinkle has a bit of an odd top bud formation, but the rest of it seems to be happy & healthy. Lots of frost on this one, most in the tent at this point and seems like it may finish first. Orange Diesel has been praying so hard I'm wondering if it even knows how hot it is. Mango Smile x Samsquanch OG seems to love the environment and has a trillion bud sites. It's a little farther behind than everything except Animal Mints. Fugue State x Toof Decay continues to stack mass and looks like it will be the best performer yield-wise.

Day 75 Cold, wet week. Tons of rain meant high humidity so the fan was on max airflow all week. Fade has started. Uploading late because life gets busy, but wanted the photo evidence that this week happened.

Day 81 Another backdated week, but now I'm all caught up. This week was very wet again, which meant less watering to keep humidity down during the day. Good bud growth this week though, and the fade started on almost everything. Lots of super cropping on the Mango 1:1 for height control as it's already using half the height in the greenhouse.

Day 87 This week will be chop for a few things I think - most notably the Fugue State x Toof Decay (Loose Fillings) that has a F A T main cola, is fading hard and has fully cloudy trichs already. Animal Mints definitely needs some more time, as does the Mango Smile x Samsquanch OG. The rest of the strains are probably in that 5-10 day range before harvest (obviously not the Mango 1:1 which won't be ready until October. Really wish I had done that in a separate diary) The greenhouse smells *incredible*. Orange Diesel smells like that orange-scented gritty hand soap which is amazing, but the star of the show is Fugue State x Toof Decay which smells like a dead ringer for blueberry pancakes. It overpowers everything else, I have to take the other plants out to smell them individually, otherwise it's all pancakes all day. Hopefully the next post I make is later this week when I start chopping, but we'll have at least one more full post with the more sativa-leaning strains needing another two weeks or so. Sidenote - my second run was just started today so that diary will be coming as soon as everything has broken soil.