First Ever Grow (RQS Solomatic)

TheFaeCat So far so good, I think! Vegetation seems to be coming along, and she's not looking leggy or problematic, as far as I can tell! I've been keeping the humidifier running on low, trying to hold humidity around 70%, though the tent hit upwards of 80 a few times. No worse for wear though, I don't think. Have been doing small amounts of watering, just to keep the soil from drying out. Will start reducing the small waterings to prepare for the first full watering with the addition of nutrients at the two week mark.

TheFaeCat Really, really happy with how things are coming along! She looks really healthy and happy, to my novice eyeballs at least (though my partner is an avid gardener, and also gives the thumbs-up). I pulled the light up a bit over the course of the week, and also brought the dimmer down to about 60%, to try to encourage the plant to stem out a little, as the leaves had been laying on the soil last week. Maybe this was normal, or maybe my interventions helped... either way, she's growing up nicely now I think. Brought the light intensity back up to 100% over the course of the week, but leaving the lamp/plant distance at 18in for now. Started nutrients with watering this week (given on 5/21 12:00, photos from 5/22 16:30), and I'm starting out with 1.5 tsp/gal of Fox Farm's Grow Big vegetative nutrition, the concentration being in between the seedling amount and the general feeding amount, to try to ease things on. Keeping the humidifier running on low, and for now I plan to maintain that for the whole grow unless I find out otherwise. Time to start looking into low-stress training and reading up, as I suspect this tent grow will probably benefit from some training in a couple weeks.

TheFaeCat I think she's looking pretty happy this week! Started watching the history of the temp and humidity. I think the temperature has a good looking differential, as far as I can tell. Seems the humidity is less stable than I'd thought, but it still seems to average around 50%, which I think is still OK. Looks like as of today, she's grown to 6.5 inches (giggity), which I think is pretty respectable (....more giggity). I moved the light up to 24" from the plants, as one of her roommates had a little touch of yellowing... which is probably "I want nitrogen" and not "omg i'm getting a sunburn", but figured I'd be safe and attempt to address both. I'll watch things at the new height and adjust if/as needed. She got her second round of nutrients today, upping the nutrient content to 3 tsp/gal. I also added some spacing/drainage on the grow floor, to avoid any wet feet and make sure the roots are properly air pruning on the bottom of the grow bag (I say this like I know what I'm doing, but I'm mostly parroting my partner's guidance). This necessitated a bit of rearranging, moving the humidifier to the far right of the tent and repositioning the intake fan's ducting a bit. As far as I can tell, she's about ready (if not beyond ready) to commence training. The central stalk is thick enough that I think I will need to start it in stages. Next grow 'round I will probably start the light a little lower in intensity to induce a little legginess early on, which I suspect will make for easier training? I think some defoliation might be in order too, but that's going to take some reading up, because I don't really want to thin the wrong leaves, and I don't really know which those might be. All in all, I think the grow is on track and it's certainly being a good learning process!

TheFaeCat Moved a couple photos from week 3, once I realized they should go into week 4. Started LST on Day 23 (30MAY) and did a little defoliation. Hopefully it's not too late to induce a little competition. Tried to be pretty conservative while still exposing many more bud sites. Here's hoping I didn't screw things all up! I'll keep an eye on her and see how she responds! (Day 24, 31MAY, morning) Checked in on her the morning after training and my fears of having screwed things up evaporated literally overnight. She's responding really well, to my novice eye! I'm beyond relieved/excited! Will check soil moisture today and water without nutrients as needed. Day 28: What a difference a week makes! She responded really well to training at the start of the week, and has really filled out. And, as far as I can tell, she has now started to flower! I made some small training tweaks to level out her canopy as much as i could, and did some light defoliation to clear up the bud sites for her impending bud growth. Soil moisture was still really high down a few inches, so I added some dry Fox Farm Happy Frog Fruit & Flowering and gave only a light watering (about .25 gal) to get it down into the soil a little. I raised the light about 3 inches. Now to see how she does over the next week!

TheFaeCat Into week 5 (day 32 as of this update) and thoroughly flowering now! Only some minor adjustments to LST, as she's actually growing pretty evenly across multiple branches. (Had a bit of an LST turned HST mishap on one of her roommates, but it looks like she's gonna pull through) Have been doing some very light defoliation every couple days, just clearing up the canopy a little to try to get the various bud sites as exposed as possible. And talk about bud sites! She's got way more flowering going on than I imagined she would. Perhaps this is normal, as I've no frame of reference or past history to compare to, but if all keeps on as it has been, I think she'll have a pretty respectable yield! Day35 (11JUN23): Did some very mild adjustment to her LST, to open up the canopy, along with some light defoliation. She seems to be humming along nicely! She should still be eating well off of the dry, slow-release nutrients --plus Ocean Forest is super nutrient rich stuff-- so just water today! She's almost to the 1ft mark, across most of her canopy! 😯

TheFaeCat Pretty smooth sailing this week! Not much to report on aside from continued bud development. The first two photos show some more LST to open the canopy further to expose the bud sites, which to my novice eye are all looking quite nice!

TheFaeCat Now quite sure of how she’s looking now is normal or not. She’s got some yellowing in the leaves, which I would guess is maybe nutrient shock of some form? At a guess, maybe a pocket of dry fertilizer from a few weeks ago finally soaked into the soil with watering on Monday (day43), and was too concentrated? Will pose a grow question and try to glean knowledge from the community! I think the buds are looking good, but one is starting to brown up, which I didn’t expect quite so early, but perhaps that’s also within the realm of normal 🤷‍♂️🏻 Day 48: she dropped a few of the hardest hit leaves, but otherwise doesn't seem much worse for wear and the buds seem to be filling in pretty well. Per feedback to my grow question, I gave her a half dose of veg stage fertilizer with watering, and will keep an eye out for greening back up a bit. More pistils are browning up, so I don't know how many more weeks she will need, but will just have to watch and learn!

TheFaeCat Well, she still has some yellowing, but seems pretty happy even so! The buds have gone crazy, and it looks to me like she's not too far out from being ready to harvest, which is crazy fast! So I guess the leaves could well just be a life stage thing too. Going to be keeping a close eye on her pistils, as a whole lot more of them have darkened up now. Much excite!

TheFaeCat This was my first grow, and what a learning experience! I was traveling the last week and a half, so she was being monitored and watered by my partner, so it was a little sad to miss her final stages in person, but I made it back just in time to harvest. I took my best attempt at trimming, and now her bounty is in a mesh drying bag for a few days before going into hard to cure. I will update with dry weight once she’s ready!