400oz to Freedom

Day 29 - December 29, 2023 In the first image, the back right plant there keeps stretching at least an inch per day. I have to keep raising my light just for her. In the second image, we take her out to get a closer look, and to read the name tag: it's Miss Bloody Skunk Auto, from Sweet Seeds. The node spacing on her is kind of ridiculous, haha. In the third image, we can see she has purple calyxes. In the fourth image, we can see her container is 5" tall. In the last image, we can see she is 19" above ground. Will she reach 4x her feet room? Day 34 - January 3, 2024 Well, welcome to the good part of the blooming process, where we really get to see those stigmas get engulfed by never-ending stacking sticking calyxes. To celebrate, I took a picture of each of the 20 autoflowers in this sea of green. I numbered them 1-20, with no names. These numbers do not line up with the numbers listed in the "G" week. It is a lot of work keeping up on these, and I am not going to list every single one. When harvest time comes close, we will get to see who they are. A few interesting things going on with these plants so far: - I neglected them for about 5 days this past week. I was so busy building another grow room, that I just never remembered. I was stressing over finishing a week long project. Out of the 20 plants in this SoG, 5 of them looked _extremely_ wilted when I found them. The other 15 though, looked perfect, and it is due to a technique I will share in a few. I watered them very good until drowning. The next day they were bone dry and I did my usual minimal watering as needed. The 5 wilted plants recovered fine, as all of the dead growth was what I was just about to lollipop away. And I did that, to all 20 plants. - Up to this point, I haven't really been talking much about how I am taking care of these plants, and why their leaves look so great, flowering under just 15W lights. So let me try to put this experiment into words better for you all. First, I never did a SoG before at all. I knew it would be hard. Second, I never ran to completion even a single plant in a solo cup, because I know how difficult it can be for even 4x that size (about 1L pots I use sometimes). I needed a plan, because the past told me that they dry out fast, and if over-watered, deficiencies come on sooner, like the typical late-veg rust spots of calcium or chlorosis from magnesium often accompanied with it. I thought about bottom feeding them the entire grow, but I turned that down for reasons that aren't important, mostly that it is boring, and it leads to other problems I didn't want to face. Instead, I wanted to try something a bit different and methodical. 1) At the end of week 2 they started to bloom and stretch. Up until this point, I was careful to water them with a mist, and not a steady stream. And multiple times per day. I wanted to keep them moist and not wet while in their fragile seedling stage. But, after week 2 when the stretch began, they needed to drink more. This is when I enacted a 3-part plan, with part 1 being, water until completely drenched and runoff. My custom soil blend is very aerated, so this is not as much of a problem as you may think. For the rest of week 3, they needed this drench once every 2 days. After 2 days, their soil was light as a feather and bone dry. I wanted this. Because of step 2. 2) I defoliate a lot usually. I also lollipop in early to mid flower, depending on plant. When I do, I work from the bottom, first removing very large fan leaves from the main stem, as I defoliate and prune other unwanted growth -- maybe 1 or 2 sets of large fan leaves every defoliation, with a couple days or a week between, depending on the plant. I did not do this, this time. I left those large fan leaves for much longer. Days turned into weeks for most, and today's defoliation resulted in a lot of the lower-most fan leaves being removed. Other, larger plants, did have a set or two removed before today, but again, they were removed more slowly than usual. The reason why, is because I think it is important to let the soil dry out between waterings when the plants are really stretching. It gets those roots moving and looking for moisture. Therefor, I wanted to apply more water less often, rather than less water more often. That meant that I needed to keep some larger fan leaves around for stored energy, in case the drought lasted a little longer, which it did, due to my forgetfulness of 5 days without water. 3) I apply my IPM as a foliar spray twice per week. It has some micronutrients that can be absorbed by the leaves, which helps when the soil is dry. Because of step #2 particularly, keeping those larger fan leaves for stored energy, the 15 plants that looked great after the 5-day drought, only had a very slight bit of chlorosis on _only_ these leaves. Everything else is still a lush healthy green, because the fan leaves were releasing those sugars. Those large fan leaves have served their purpose now that they have slight yellowing. They saved the plants. Sometimes you have to think if the leaves you are about to remove, even if they seem low and not receiving enough light, will be useful when the plant needs energy it cannot otherwise obtain, such as when growing in very tiny pots and the cultivator is not awake enough hours of the day to do a frequent watering, and too poor to provide an irrigation system. This is a "cheap" solo cup grow, so we used them cheapest solution for giving them nutrients: letting the plant give itself nutrients. I am very pleased with the result of this accidental drought I inflicted upon them. 75% of them showed practical no sign anything had happened. That tells me my soil blend is getting better, and that my plan to more easily maintain a healthy SoG has worked so far, for a first time SoG grower and a first-time tiny pot bloomer. If you don't know me by now, I like growing and experimenting more than the end result. This was a fun project so far, and I'm learning a lot. I am looking forward to next week, when the colas should really start bulkening up to show some form. Some of the plants already are quite stinky...a dank smell...and it is on all 3 of the purple plants above, although slightly different, and nothing pronounced enough to distinguish anything from them. Thank you for reading. As a side note, I am sad to say I will be leaving GrowDiaries after this harvest. I will rise again from the ashes some other time. I need to focus on me more. Depression doesn't go away, and I balance other hobbies on and off to manage with stress. I will still be growing on a smaller scale, but nothing public on my account.