My first grow! - NL Auto from RQS

First week as a seedling done. Slowly but surely growing and getting bigger leafs. Started adding some molasses with watering now after a week has passed, other than that no changes.

Finishing week 2 and going into week 3 everything is coming along nicely so I started doing some LST. Decided I wanted to go bigger sooner rather than later, so I changed up my tent this week to a 4x2 (120x60cm) and bought another lamp. I am going to finish up my first plant before making full use of the upgraded size, although I will make use of the extra lamp, might aswell.

Finishing week 3, all the same this week. Keeping up with the low stress training, switching it up every few days. Looking pretty mangled up after being tied down but she perks up surprisingly fast towards the lights. Half the recommended nutrients every other watering for now. Still just watering when the soil is dry and she seems to be doing fine.

Week 4 and we're in preflower. Every day I check on the tent it seems to have grown significantly over the night so it's stretching pretty good at the moment. I've felt like it's pretty short and bushy compared to other autos at the same stage of life but I've been going somewhat hard on the LST trying to keep the canopy even and will continue with that until it stops stretching. Also doing some leaftucking daily, making sure flowersites get good light. Same schedule, watering about every other day (when soil is dry), adding nutrients to every other watering.

Another week has gone by and my plant seems to thrive, atleast for now haha. Since it was very bushy I read up on defoliation and decided that now would be a good time to do it if I was going to do it. Realizing that less is more, with it being an auto, I still went somewhat hard on the lower section. I also removed fanleaves that was blocking light to budsites in the upper canopy. Never at any point did it seem like I went too hard because the day after defoliation it was looking very healthy, with it's leaves pointing upwards in the morning so I think I did good. Redoing some LST as needed, now only doing it when a branch is blocking budsites, just trying to keep the canopy somewhat even and spread out without overdoing it. I've also decided that for my next grow I will be trying to fill the tent with photoperiods, so I went ahead and planted 2 more beans in the beginning of last week, witch has since sprouted. Wanted to use up what I had so I can plant the next batch at the same time. Another Northern Light and a freebie from RQS, a Royal Crematic. I've also realized that I'll get higher quality buds with some better ligths so I've ordered a Spiderfarmer SF2000 that's coming this week, so I'll have 320w total to work with in the tent going forward. Man, it's great watching them grow. Truly a satisfying hobby, I seriously cannot wait to be able to smoke my own homegrown bud =)

Week 6 done, going into week 7, and my girl is starting to build up some frost along with a distinct scent, it's starting to smell lovely in the tent! :) Going easy on the LST and pretty much letting her ride from this point. This being my first grow I'm gonna take it easy with this first one and see how she turns out. As you can see the other 2 ladies (also autos, another Northern Lights and a Royal Creamatic, both from RQS) seems to be doing fine aswell. I will let these two go for about 3 weeks then I will go hard on the LST with them and try doing things a bit different to see how they turn out. The RC is lagging behind a bit but she took a few more days extra to sprout so hopefully she will catch up. Got some major upgrades for the tent. My Spiderfarmer SF2000 arrived this week and I'm doing my best to balance out the PFFD with them being in different stages. I know I'm most likely making things more complicated with 2 of them in veg and one a few weeks into flower but I kinda got carried away, you know how it goes I'm sure. Starting out with a small tent for one flower, I realized I might aswell go bigger sooner rather than later, upgraded both my tent and my lights, so I figured I'll pop the auto-seeds I had right away and try to make it work as I'd like to fill the tent with photos for my next grow. I think it's pretty decent setup at the moment. I'm staying between 300-400 PPFD for the smaller ladies and around 900-1100 for the flowering NL. Got the SF2000 at 80% and 1 of the 60w LED's turned on for the big girl, gonna plug in the other 60w light as needed when the other ladies goes into flower. Defoliated once again the other day. Taking things slow, 2nd time doing it now and hopefully I didn't over do it. I'm not too worried thought, she seems to be doing fine for now. Keeping up with watering about every 2-3 days, when the soil is dried up, adding nutrients + some preventative CalMag at a low dose every other watering.

Week 7 is in the books and not much seems to be happening but I can tell the buds are starting to fatten up slowly but surely. The waiting game has started 🙂 Keeping up with my regular watering schedule (when dry) and adding nutrients every other watering. She is starting to drink more though, instead of every 2-3 days of watering I am now watering steady every other day. Added a scrognet this week, because quite a few flowers were being covered by leafs and/or other flowers so I'm just trying to make sure they all get good lighting.

End of week 8 and so far so good. Buds are slowly but surely turning fatter, trichomes are still mostly clear yet though so bit of a ways to go still. Starting to look forward to harvest now. Leaves are turning towards a brighter green so I started upping the nutrients to see how it turns out. Starting to smell real good when I open the tent now :) Bonus pic of the other two autos currently growing at full blast. They have both been defoliated lightly twice already but they are growing even faster than my first one did at this stage.

The waiting game has started for real. I have started to check trichomes now and see quite alot of cloudy and some amber but also some clear ones still so I'll keep checking daily. Hoping to harvest within a week or so?

Harvested last week and they have been dried and started to cure now. Results were about 65 grams of dry bud (~2.3 oz) witch I'm absolutely satisfied with as my first run. Will for sure hold me over until my other two auto's that's in preflower are finished. Managed to dry a bit too quick, couldn't get my RH up to satisfying levels due to the tent being in use with the two other flowers so I had to make due with a closet. My small rh meters showed around 35% in the jars after trimming, so I stuck an orangepeel in for a few hours and I'm surprised how well they recovered. Might have lost some flavour but they still smell good and smoke great. Trimjob needs some work but to my defense they were way to dry when I jarred em', lesson learned! Learned alot, gonna keep experimenting with lst and hst for my next run witch will be photos.