My first plant. Ever..

I transplanted her to her forever home on the 7th day after she spouted. I put together a 5-gallon pot of Fox Farms Ocean Forest and perlite mix. (Roughly 70/30.) I ended up shorting her about an inch and half, but I figured almost 5 gallons would be more than plenty for her. The transplant itself went smooth as butter. It was quite easy to move her plug from the chamber to the pot. I dug her a hole in the center (I regret starting dead center now!!!) and I filled the hole with a layer of Mycorrhizal Inoculant by DYNOMYCO. The rookie mistakes continued into this week. After transplanting her, the morning after I gave her a wonderful 1-gallon shower of water. I PH'd it at 6.5, but that was quite the shock for her as I am sure experienced growers will easily be able to tell with her first few weeks of growth. But she survived her move!

I didn't actually take any photos of week 2! It was a busy week health-wise for me so I did my best just letting her recover from her flood. I am adding all of my nutrients and I hope it doesn't make it seem like I did all of them this week. I stayed nutrient-free until about day 25, but I haven't kept good track of my exact doses. I have aimed for around 1/4th the recommended dose from Fox Farms feeding schedule, and I have dialed it up to about 50% as of week 6.

She has recovered nicely from the flood! I have finally introduced a 1/4th dose of Fox Farms feed, based on the week 3 schedule. I watered her with 48 Ounces of supplemented water and topped her off with another 32 ounces going into week 4. I dropped the lights down to around 18-24 inches and ramped up their intensity. I finally downloaded the PhotoOne app and Dialed in my DLI. I haven't kept track of my lights every day, since I adjust them based on the top cola receiving around 45-50 DLI per 20-hour session. I attempted some LST and it kind of worked? I made another rookie mistake here and ended up snapping the main cola's stem about 3/4ths to the top. I caught it right away and applied some duct tape to hold her together. I was terrified I had finally finished her off, but she shook it off like a champ! (maybe this was a half-assed topping attempt?)

I may be wrong with the exact specifics here, but I believe this is her final week of veg and she is transitioning to pre-flower. I started dialing back the humidity in preparation, and have ramped up my water/nutes a bit. She is still only taking about 50 ounces per feed (One water, one nute a week) I scared myself off of any more LST, but I added in the Bamboo shoots and applied some tucking to try and keep things under control. On the 10th of Nov, I tried my hand at defoliating for the first time. I think it was an ok first attempt, but I am absolutely terrified of snipping the wrong places! Started getting photo-happy here. We can call this the end of veg and intro to flower! (I think..)

She has been popping this week! Her pistils started coming in hot. She started showing around Nov 8th, and by the 13th she was full in bloom. She has spread out reasonably well, but I will have to take another stab at defoliation before the buds fully fill in. I trimmed a few of the bud sites off from the bottom since they were never going to have a chance in hopes this would divert some attention to the upper buds. November 17th will mark her 42nd day, so we are officially into week 7! She has gotten extremely thirsty, we went from around 100 ounces a week to about 250. I am giving her Nutes on Monday and Friday with basic water on Wednesday and a splash Sunday morning if she looks like she really needs a boost. I dialed back the humidity to 45% over the last 14 days, and we are holding steady at 74 degrees Fahrenheit, 45% RH, and about 1.5 VPD. I would like to get the VPD down to 1.2-3 if possible, but it's been tough. I am happy just sticking within temp/RH and a ballpark for VPD. Her smell ramped up quite a bit this week. The carbon filter is struggling a whee bit. If this keeps up I may need to deploy a stronger solution to reduce the smell. I don't have to be stealthy, but I don't always prefer a dank smell overwhelming the house!

She was pretty steady all week. Temperature and humidity are holding reasonably steady. We are finally dipping into winter here in Minnesota so the outdoor weather is finally tapering off and the air is drying out fast. This is actually perfect timing because I don't even need to bring a dehumidifier into the mix to keep the humidity sub 45%. Her Main cola has solidified itself as the bread winner, but a few side cola's are hanging around for 2nd in command. Every feed cycle she bulks up a bit more, so hoping for a smooth ride into the finale, but I am sure we have some curveballs coming. Started taking higher-resolution photos, so I can't upload quite as many!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American growmies! First time going out of town with a plant in the house, so we will see how my anxiety levels do! I have a friend stopping by to check up on her, but I am nervous nonetheless! She has been putting on some weight and I am starting to see those lovely trichomes forming along the bud's sugar leaves. Hopefully, things keep going strong. In a few of these photos, you will notice some rusty orange spots forming on both the older fan leaves and newer ones. I fear I have a nutrient deficiency or a PH issue causing her to slow down on her calcium or magnesium intake. If the issue gets worse with the increase in cal mag and a bit higher PH to get it closer to 6.5 I may need to ask for some advice! But otherwise, she still seems happy, so I will try to remain calm and keep a gentle hand at the helm.

Starting to really notice a deficiency in a lot of the fan leaves. It really looks like a Cal/Mag issue based on my PH being a bit too high. (Thought it was low, but after testing run off I was sitting around 7.0, so I am giving her some plain water PH'd down to 5.8 to try and bring her soil down a bit.) I imagine at this point with her in full bloom I won't be able to fully tackle the issue. But I will give her everything I can and get her PH straightened out so she can hopefully ride into harvest day without too many issues. Uploading pics from days 50-51 and will upload a few more before the end of the week.

Her deficiency is spreading rapidly and I fear she is not going to make it to the end. I let her dry out and gave her a large dose of nutrients this time around to see if that helped her at all. I think the issue is threefold. First I didn't water correctly throughout her lifespan, second I defoliated too much and too often, and three I didn't have my nutrients balanced so she is struggling because of that. But her bud sites are getting fatter and covered with trichomes, so I might be able to get something out of her. I am guessing a week or two before I harvest and take what I get! (Let me know if that isn't the case!)

This was a big week! I ended up following some advice I got from the question I asked last week. I defoliated the dead/dying leaves, increased my humidity to balance out my VPD, and flushed her with 10 gallons of water and 10ml per gallon with FF Bush Doctor. I am at a crossroads now Do I feed her tomorrow morning with plain water, or do I feed her a light dose of nutes? Some growmies said I could flush and continue, others said it's probably time as it is to flush and finish. Do I start feeding plain PH'd water at this point and let her ride until the end, or should I give her a bit of food, and see if I can't take her further? Which leads to my second dilemma. I am going out of town between the 22nd of December and the 27th. I can have a buddy keep an eye on her if I haven't chopped her, but I do not want to leave the plant past the chop point if she is ready just before I take off for 5 days. (Don't want to leave the chop and dry to my buddy) So, growmies, I seek your wisdom. If I am going to chop, it has to be by the 20th of December, so at max 8 days from now. Do I proceed with that plan and only feed her water, or do I let her ride until the 27th when I return and chop her then? (And have my buddy keep an eye on her while we are gone, hoping she will hang on through that period) When I look at trichomes right now she is showing a fair amount of cloudy, with a few clear, and a couple amber. (No verified amber on anything but sugar leaves at this point) So my gut says I could push for 15+ days. But if someone with more experience can weigh in I would greatly appreciate it! Her most recent photos have captions "Bulking up, and Looking thicc!" So that may give you a fair assessment of how well she is plumping up The close-up trichome shots are only a couple of days old and not much has changed on that front (A bit more frostiness, but not much in the way of amber production) She looks close, but I feel like Reddit would be telling me "Two more weeks!" in a half meme fashion So I appreciate any help! I am so excited and appreciate everyone's contributions and kind words so far! PS I have a photo with my current selection of Auto's and I need to know who grows next! I intend to either run 2 or 3 depending upon if I choose to run 5 gal pots again or drop down to 3. So vote for your favorites and I will tally it up and give it a go at the start of 2024!

This will count for the entire duration between my last update and today. (The Christmas holiday was filled with traveling and fun, but too hectic to provide my usual update.) She seems to be filling out and hasn't shown any signs of stopping yet. Her fade is coming in and the lockout/deficiency issue slowed her down, but she seems to be coming in for a very respectable landing. I set out with my wildest dreams of being a 3 Oz plant, and I have no frame of reference outside of pictures from other grows, but I am hopeful that I may have just hit that mark! If not I had a great time learning and experiencing the life of my very first plant! Now for the hard part. The dry and cure! I think she is pretty much done. I am going to upload some initial shots I just took as the baseline and provide some more detailed glamour shots with better lighting and lense. She is 83 days old as of now, and that is right at the end of the window according to RQS site. I feel like at this point a few days beyond won't hurt anything, but I am thinking it's chop time any day now. Hope everyone had a great holiday!!! P.S. Voting is still open for my next grow and I would love your feedback! I am going to pick 2 or 3 seeds from my current supply. (Supply in pictures) So join in and help me decide what a good duo/trio would be!

What a way to wrap it all up. Rang in the new year with my first-ever harvest! Got the dry/cure room dialed in to about 62-64 degrees with 62% humidity. Hoping to hold that steady for a week or so, and then transfer the harvest into some grove bags for the final cure! I will get a dry weight posted as soon as I can. The 500 Grams wet weight is not correct. (I didn't have a scale handy to weigh the wet buds, so the final weight will be a surprise!) I am going to estimate roughly 3 ounces, but I may be off. I can't imagine it will be much less just based on my experience with dried ounces, but I have never seen a wet plant dried/cured so this will be fun! Her main cola was about the size and thickness of a 17-ounce ice sparkling water bottle. She had a few other side colas that got close to the same size, so she produced well. Even the little popcorn buds near the bottom were extremely sticky and should serve well in some cannabutter or syrup. My next two plants are in their root riot cubes and hopefully will be germinated within the next 48 hours! Once they sprout I will get photos and a dairies for them! Thank you to everyone who voted. The two seeds to win were: Sherbet and Royal Creamatic. So keep an eye out for their progress! (Hopefully, banzai little seeds!) Final weight: 92 grams of dried bud. 15 grams of trim and popcorn buds for edibles. So 107 grams of usable product. I am thrilled! Now I need to pull this again with two plants and then I will be in business!