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Some light mania has me itching for projects. I have tiny pots, a bunch of free seeds and no space. Could I grow them by the window under a desk lamp? I might be able to tuck them into the tent if they actually grow for me. I want to try out some LST for cute bonsai-style trees. I’m not confident that I will have much success but this is purely a learning experiment. Let’s see how much I can abuse these autos 😅
- Sept 22 AM: Popped 3 Cookie Dog autoflower seeds into a glass of bottled spring water for a pre-soak of 14 hours.
- Sept 22 PM: Put the seeds into folded paper towel, ceramic plate, more bottled spring water, uncovered in warm room.
- Sept 23 AM: One seed has started to pop after only 10 hours!
- Sept 23 PM: The seeds have all cracked but haven’t grown tap roots yet. I planted the 3 seeds into various small pots to finish germinating in seeding mix instead so I would stop checking on them in the paper 🙃
- Sept 24: nothing happening above ground. They are in the tent with lights 24/0 so I covered them with larger pots to give some darkness. Placed pots on a heating mat.
- Sept 25 AM: the 2 seeds in the smallest pots have emerged! The were touching the plastic wrap when I checked on them so I hope they are ok.
- Sept 27 PM: 1st seedling doing good, 2nd seedling still has her seed leaves closed so I’m misting her, and 3rd.. I accidentally flipped her pot over. She’s gone.
First Impressions:
Seeds germinated in soil after 36 hours, 72 hours from when I first left them to pre-soak and let the seeds crack in paper towel 24 hours.. that was 24-48 hours faster than the other test groups that used paper towel method until tap root formed and waiting for the germinated seed to emerge.. I might skip waiting for a tap root in paper towel going forward but I do like knowing the seed is viable before putting in soil so I know if it doesn’t grow it was something I did wrong.
End of week thoughts..
Well.. I fucked around with these seeds too much, exposed the roots to light, let them almost dry out, dropped them, had the temps too low, the heating mat too hot, kicked out over.. 😅😅 I didn’t really give them a chance and yet still somehow I got 2 contenders in pint sized pots 🤷♀️the experiment continues..
Start of week:
I thought to myself “wouldn’t it be cute to take them outside and get some photos in the sunshine?”. And I immediately dropped one of the pots and tipped her soil out 🤦♀️🏻 gently scooped her up and took them both back to the tent to keep them safe from me 😅 I wanted to see how she would respond to being transplanted into a 1L pot. Instead I get to see how she responds to being “transplanted” back into her original tiny pot.
So for the rest of this experiment there will be no more transplanting, or adventures into the garden.
Lights switched to 20/4. Oscillating fan added. Humidity and heat stable. The transplanted one is definitely a bit stunted, 3 days later and the unharmed one is almost double in size.
Did I kill her? Centre is darkening after overwatering and drop in temps 74.1 to 68.5. Centre growth looked pale last night but today it’s darkening. Is there anything I can do?
Could be the pheno itself, could be the drop in temperature. Mainly newbie paranoidness. Don't worry close the door and breathe 😊
Please consider me as answer so I'm eligible to entire this months contest of grower of the month
Thanks!
Day 15: The repotted plant is growing again but half the size of her sister. I’m fiddling around with the lights and fans. I think the lights are too intense as the majority of the seedlings have little to no internode spaces. Everyone looks better after switching to 20/4. Might even reduce lights to 18/6 but it gets cold without light. I read that inexperienced growers should give the plant more darkness for recovery time. I’m trying my best to leave these girls alone..
Day 18-20: started tying one of them down, the other one is starting to catch up and I’m leaving her to grow straight. Never trained this early but they are so tiny and have such a short season do better start now if it’s going to happen at all. Roots are poking out of both little 500ml pots so now that the girls are fully rooted in hoping to see them put some top growth out and show me what they can do in such a small space.
Increased feed to 100% because #2 (the stunted one) is showing stripes. She’s recovered and starting to grow again. Continued my LST attempt of twisting the stem of #1 around the stake last week so untied the string and spread her out with pipe cleaners today. I may have bent her a bit too much, she has some definite callouses on her stem. Supercropped the tiny bitch 😂 my poor patient doggo was bored waiting for his dinner and kept sliding his paws into frame.
Let’s see how the ladies respond to my incompetence this week. They have a lovely weedy scent coming from them.
#2 still short but growing and has pretty much recovered from her nutrient deficiency.
Continued tying down #1 everyday.
Accidentally topped her when tying her down this morning 🤷♀️no worries we keep going
***
Day 26
I continued tying her down, she has 10 bud sites exposed. Put her sister in a brief ponytail to encourage some branching. Raised them both closer to the light. These cuties are doing surprisingly well
Continuing with the tying down and ponytailing treatments. I managed to accidentally top the same plant 🙃 they are so tiny that tying is extra tricky and I don’t think I should personally attempt it on tiny plants like this in the future. That’s twice this auto has been topped in her 500ml pot 😬 oh well 🤷♀️
They are both getting root bound and careful watering is going to be required so I don’t kill them. Should see some pistils soon!
I’m really happy with my LST efforts on this little girl. Even more impressed with how they are coping considering they normally reach 5-8ft
Well what can I say.. they are alive but unhappy. Roots trying to escape top of pot. Old leaves withering and crispy. Watering every 24-36 hours. They wilted to the point of dropping several leaves when I missed a watering.. they’re definitely flowering and covered in the finest pistils, scent is weak but noticeable. Stems are thick! They are ‘stretching’, now at 7in. I’ve always wanted to grow a tiny pot plant but honestly I think I got it out of my system now 😂 This is a lot of work for twigs that had the potential to be trees. Temps are dropping at night and I’m struggling to regulate but they don’t seem bothered by that as long as I remember to keep them hydrated.
They look good, don’t they? But they are thirsty!!
I finally pruned off the old, ragged leaves.
Watering is everything at this point. They are bone dry each morning and need to be watered very, very, very slowly as all the water wants to run straight through the pot. I give them a little at a time to wet the top, then I bottom water by letting them soak up small amounts of water from their trays at a time, when they aren’t sucking the water out of the tray anymore I wait 2 minutes before draining the tray, give a final top water and allow them to drain fully. I will have to monitor watering this week and add a second one before we have another wilting event.
The pots are so light, even when saturated, they fall and tip over so easily. I picked up some heavy ceramic planters to hold the pots securely and prevent the constant damage of falling over 😬
Untrained girl is 12 inches tall. LST girl is 9 inches.
I finally got around to putting together our mom/clone/veg tent so I moved the tiny pots to their new home to finish flowering. Because they were pretty close to the light I had dimmed it to prevent light burn but realized they had more space on the lower shelf so they are getting full power at 10 inch hang.
Oops I let them wilt again.. this time it was less than 18 hours.. will be watering every 12 hours now I guess.. thankfully they looked perky again an hour after the were watered with enriched rain water collected from last night’s downpour.
We continue with this cute and silly experiment. Happy growing
As predicted last week, watering was critical and I did not keep up. They had 2 hard wilting events and while they recovered quickly both times, the leaves and pistils starting browning with obvious and sudden nutrient burn symptoms within a day of the second wilt. I flushed with 2litres of water each, twice on Saturday. Defoliated all the extra crispy leaves yesterday doing my best not to strip them more than absolutely necessary. Watering now 3 times per day by hand but using only rainwater with humic and fulvic acids, vitamins and sugars while they recover. Will withhold regular feeding until they show a sign of deficiencies and they will start with a half dose. I guess the constant drying soil concentrated the nutrients causing the burn? When feeding returns I plan to rehydrate the ladies with plain water prior to feeding.. this is so much work for the size! I can’t imagine wanting to do this again unless I had an automatic watering system but even then.. this is a lot!!
On a more positive note.. they look extra gorgeous in their ceramic planters and I haven’t knocked them over once since getting them the sturdier base!
Here’s hoping I can keep these runts alive 😁
Happy Growing 🌱
They recovered from the wilting/nute burn and are now getting fed once a day at lights on and then they get plain water 12 hours later. They are still bone dry come morning but no longer wilting. I dialled back the light intensity too and that has helped them. The plant that had no training is bulking up but the plant that got the LST has buds with very few pistils, not sure if I will get anything from that plant. All we are doing now is watering, watching and waiting.
They smell so LOUD and YUMMY 😍 I give them feed-water-water-water-feed and they are doing just fine! Looking under the microscope they are getting cloudy but still mostly clear. Waiting..
Happy growing
This strain was super easy to grow and produced far better than I expected given the ridiculously tiny pot and poor care they had to survive through. I’m glad a tried a tiny pot challenge but it was much more work for less product and I’m definitely going to grow full size from now on
RosQuare
