First Autos

Two plants thrived in the Aerogarden. Third plant (henceforth known as "the runt") had issues with the tap root doing a loop and didn't grow as fast because of it. Transplanted the two larger plants to the veg shelf mid week. The runt took the rest of the week to grow some decent roots, but is now moved over to the veg shelf as well in order to get more stable pH, more light, etc. Put plants into 2" net pots for now since that's what fits easy on the bottom shelf. May need to cut net pots off when I transfer to the flower shelf in order to avoid causing early flowering due to root stress. Plan is to do a little LST once these grow another couple of nodes, maybe next week or the week after.

Good week for these, they continue to grow and fill out. I finally did a bunch of maintenance on the setup I had been procrastinating on including installing the pH doser. I decided to try lowering the pH from 6.0 to 5.8 and the plants seem to be responding well to it so far. Not sure what to do with the runt - looks like it's going to grow, but not keep up with the others. I might leave it on the veg shelf so it has plenty of light to itself.

Moved the plants to final pots this week! 3 gal fabric pots of Hydroton in a flood table. Transplanted with stems sideways to train. Plants responded well and tips bent 90 degrees and started growing upwards again within a couple of hours. I gave them 2 days to settle in, then fimmed each one. This doesn't seem to have caused too much stress which is good. More veg nutes and a little cal mag this week, hopefully these will start to gain some vertical in the next week or two.

Plants seem to be happy this week. Right plant grew a lot in height, left plant filled out and just keeps getting bushier. I moved the runt up to the top shelf since it decided to flourish and was catching up to the others in size. My plan is to not FIM this one so it can catch up to the others in height even if it doesn't yield as much. Bumped up the EC, and keeping the pH a little under 6 as they seem to like that. All plants are showing a few little pistils. I wish they could have vegged a little longer to grow bigger, but I think this will keep them a very manageable size. Might want to re-think my re-potting strategy next time as that has seemed to trigger flowering this time around. Going out of town for a couple days, then back for a day, then away for 8 days. Going to be a good test of the automation. Weak point will be the humidifier tank I think, so ordered some hardware to try to add an external reservoir to keep it full.

Plants grew a bunch while I was out of town. Right plant is solidly in flower now. Left plant is on its way, and the runt in the middle is showing some small pre-flowers as well. The humidifier lasted while I was out of town, and the plants drank a bunch but the reservoir lasted as well. Going out of town again for new years (a few days longer this time) so giving a fresh batch of nutes and a humidifier refill. Also moving the light up in anticipation of more stretching while I'm away. Might move the scrog net down a click so that all the plants reach it. That way I can get a little bit of organization before I leave, otherwise I fear they might be too tall to scrog effectively when I get back.

I've been out of town this week, but by the looks of it the plants did pretty well without me. All three plants grew in height a bunch and filled out to cover the scrog too. Flowers have tons of pistils and a nice smell. Leaves generally look pretty healthy but do have some rust spotting. Leaves are also very skinny - not sure if that's normal for this strain. Auto pH doser has been doing its thing and only used a couple ml of solution. It's been cool to check in on things remotely too. I filled the reservoir to the top and it had a very comfortable amount of water after a week. Humidifier was the weak point, but it lasted until the middle of day 5 and VPD didn't spike too badly when it shut off (max of ~1.3). Plan is to add an external reservoir for the humidifier eventually so it can last a full 10 days without incident.

The stretch is in full swing this week! The left plant in particular has grown a ton vertically, so much so that it hit the light twice before I caught it. Buds have tons of white pistils, and sugar leaves are starting to get some frost, particularly on the right plant. Growing conditions are looking pretty stable. EC has gone down though since I haven't been home and don't want to make my friend mix up a full batch of nutes. I'll be home this week so will have to give the plants a fresh batch of water and nutes. I'll also want to do some defoliation of lower dying leaves, and adjust side lights a bit since the plants have gotten so tall now. I've been out of town for 3 weeks now and the automation setup has been holding up well. Having someone go to my house and do all the hydro tasks has helped illuminate where automation is falling short and where it's doing well. Tasks for this week included * refill humidifier (x2) * refill pH down res (x1) * add water to reservoir (5 gallons)

Kinda wishing I had topped the middle plant right about now... It was short and runty so I let it be, hoping it would catch up to the others. Now it has gone straight past them and into the light. Stretch seems to be about done finally, and my light has hit the top of the tent so it better be. The right plant has stayed fairly small and matured faster than the other two - I suspect root stress caused this one to flower earlier. The buds on the early plant smell lovely - strong blackberry vibes. The buds are starting to fill out, and the sugar leaves are all covered in trichomes. The other two plants have grown very tall, but the flowers are in a much earlier stage. These still smell more like lemon grass than blackberry. I am hoping that the buds start to fill out on these in the upcoming weeks. I got back from vacation this week and promptly mixed up a fresh batch of nutes (the previous batch was down to 400PPM from adding water). New nute batch went a little hot (1000PPM) but I'm hoping that will help the buds fill out. The bottom shelf is also full of veggies, so planning for those to use up some of the nutes pretty quickly as well. Removed a bunch of dying leaves near the bottom of the plants, and a select few towards the top that were blocking shorter colas from maturing.

I was surprised to see that right plant is almost ready! I'm seeing ~10% amber trichomes on the sugar leaves. None on the buds yet but harvest for this plant is coming soon. Left plant really started to bulk up this week. Center plant grew another 3 inches taller and I had to tie the main cola to the side to avoid hitting the light. Overall the plants seem pretty happy. The one trouble I'm having is the lower leaves on this grow still have some scaley/rusty spots. I thought these were from the mealy bugs in the last grow, but apparently it's something else. Could be thrips by the look of it, or maybe just a nutrient issue. The tent is really starting to stink. If I rub a sugar leaf, it smells half way between grape cough syrup and blackberry pie. Hoping so bad this smell comes through to the cure, it's something else.

This week went fast. Plants seem to be doing pretty well all in all. Right plant is almost ready - I'm seeing a couple of amber trichs on the sugar leaves and the buds aren't far behind. Will likely harvest over the weekend if it keeps maturing like this. Center plant is very big. I tied the main cola to the side to avoid the light and it has started to fatten up. Left plant is somewhere between center and right plants - medium size and filling out quite a bit. I mixed up a fresh batch of nutes over the weekend. EC is higher than I'd like but I'll be adding water shortly to dilute as they're drinking a lot. I also did a bunch of defoliation on the lower parts of the plants. There was a lot of thrip damage and dead leaves. I sprayed an insecticide soap on the lower bits but want to avoid spraying anywhere near the flowers this close to harvest. At this point I think these plants are going to make it through to harvest, but this is something I want to catch earlier if it happens on the next run.

Harvested the smallest plant since I was seeing ~10% amber trichomes. Smell while trimming was lovely and I'm happy with the buds. Didn't weigh the wet harvest. I don't think it was anything crazy because the plant stayed so small, but for it's size I'm happy with the yield. I kept it simple so far - broke down into branches, trimmed off the large fan leaves and hung to dry. House is 65F and 55% humidity (can't use the tent because other plants still need it) so this will dry a little faster than usual. Plan is to check on it in 5 days and see how it's doing. Will probably end up trimming/jarring a little early to try to hit 62% humidity in the jar. Thinking I'll probably use the other two plants for hash rather than flower. They look nice and frosty and I'm curious to see how they wash.