One Diary To Rule Them All!!!

Welcome to the 2018/19 indoor grow season!!! I am starting this diary for all current seedlings and clones I have started. I'll also be doing separate diaries for some strains individually (but not all). So, currently I'm about a week in on average with these seedlings and clones. The Seedsman CBD Cream & Cheese and DinaMed CBD+ were started a few days earlier and started stretching using only the 18w T5 my humidity dome came with. So I set up one of my LED's over the humidity dome instead. So far that seems to be helping the newer seeds from stretching too high. I'm also seeing some burn on some girls, I guess the soil must be too hot. I started to try to flush through with straight ph'ed water, but then I started seeing signs of overwatering (rookie mistake, I know). Now I'm just trying to keep a little water on the bottom tray so it generates some humidity in the dome. There's also a heat mat under the tray I have the heat mat on a timer also, 30 min on/30 min off cycling all day. It seemed to get too hot on 24/7. I'll be transplanting and moving to my 2'x4' tent in about a week. They will live there during veg, then I'll be moving to a 4'x8' tent (not purchased yet) for flower. I'm also planning on adding some COB LED's in the flower tent. Then I'll dedicate my 2x4 tent to mothers, clones and seedlings. Its going to be a little different this season with both photo period and autoflowering strains going at the same time. But I'm looking forward to it! 👍 Stay tuned...

Week 2 and the girls are looking more yellow and funky than I like. I also think the Baox clones may have died. So far the plants looking the best are the Cherry, Blackberry (one of them) and the baby NYC Diesel. I'm pretty sure my soil is just way too hot. I tried flushing it through, but that just seemed to lead to general overwatering issues. I'm planning on transplanting to larger pots with more neutral soil this weekend and hope that will help straighten things out.

Transplanted the girls into larger containers with fresh soil. The soil is a blend of Peat Moss one Perlite. I then mixed some older soil with the new Peat/Perlite blend. After the transplant I watered with Recharge to help get some healthy microbes starting to develop in the soil. The Baox clones did not make it, I threw them away and started some fresh seeds. The new seeds started are Blackberry, DinaMed and Cherry. It should be interesting to compare how these new seeds develop compared to the seeds that have struggled so far. I'm hoping to see some nice improvements over the next few weeks. Stay tuned...

Things are starting to turn around. The girls are looking much better overall. Starting to see some nice color and growth. I've beed watering mostly with plain ph'ed water. But I've also started adding a little Cal-Mag (from Symbys) and Recharge once per week. The new Blackberry seed popped a couple of days ago, I'm still waiting for the new DianaMed and Cherry seeds to pop, hopefully they will pop in the next day or two.

Well, the photo period plants are looking great now, but the 2 older BlackBerry's still look like they are struggling. The newer BlackBerry seedling looks fine. We'll see what happens over the next few weeks. The Seedsman Cream & Cheese CBD and DinaFem Critical+ are looking the best overall IMO. I'll be topping and cutting clones in another week or two. I plan on getting the 2nd of 3 tents set up this weekend.👍

Quick update on the strains I have growing at the moment. Its a mixture of Photoperiod and Autoflowering strains. For the Photos I have Cream & Cheese CBD (Seedsman), Critical+, DinaMed+ (both DinaFem) and 3 Cherry’s (Elevator Supply Co). For Autos I have NYC Diesel (Barney’s Farm) and 3 BlackBerry’s (FastBuds) This week I’ve seen lots of nice growth overall, but especially with the photoperiod plants. The Critical +, Cream & Cheese CBD, DinaMed+ and Cherry all look great! The Barney’s Farm NYC Diesel Auto is also looking good! The Cherry is starting to look good too and one of the new seeds sprouted. One more Cherry seed left so this time I tried putting the seed in a jiffy pellet then putting the jiffy pellet into the soil. We’ll see if that helps get one more going. The first 2 Blackberry’s are stretching and developing bud sites. These 2 are a bit small, but the purple in number 1 is coming in nicely. I think the 3rd will be the champion of the bunch and outgrow her big sisters. My fault for trying to get a head start by a few weeks on the first 2 in less than ideal conditions. Live and learn. I’m going to keep all plants growing so everyone can see the good, the bad and the ugly. (I bet the ugly still gets me high as fuck!) 😜 New tents coming soon too. Another 2x4 and a 4x8. 👍 Video finally uploaded 😃

Sorry in the delay getting this week up, I'll be uploading week 8 next, then doing week 9 over the weekend. New tent is up! YAY!!! I have my 3 FastBuds BlackBerry Auto’s in the new 2x4 tent along with 2 Cherry seedlings and 3 freshly cut clones. The new tent is actually a used tent that was given to me. They did not have the support poles, so I had to build the frame out of wood. I’m happy with the way it turned out. So I have the girls divided into 2 tents now. In the smaller tent (shorter, both are 2x4) I have all 3 Blackberry’s, 2 Cherry CBD Hemp seedlings and some clones started from topping the plants in the larger tent. The Blackberry’s are doing better, but no huge changes. The first Blackberry is budding nicely, but she’s small and really only developing a main cola. I’m guessing 10-15g (dried) when harvested and that’s assuming she fattens up before harvest. The second Blackberry is bigger than the first and developing multiple bud sites, instead of one main cola. I’m going to wait until she develops more before making a guess at weight. The 3rd Blackberry is the youngest and still in veg mode. I’m betting she turns out to be the star of the group. She has a much nicer node structure. But we’ll see... The 2 Cherry CBD Hemp plants are young, but so far so good. The clones were taken from topping the plants in tent 2. In tent 2 I have Cream & Cheese CBD, Critical +, DinaMed CBD+, NYC Diesel Auto and Cherry CBD Hemp. I topped the Cream & Cheese CBD, Critical +, DinaMed CBD+ and Cherry CBD Hemp and am trying to get clones started from the tops. All of these plants are looking pretty good. They all seem to have pretty good color and node structure. This week I fed Recharge only. Needless to say, I’m a happy dude so far! 😃

I’m baaaaack!!! Sorry I’ve been away for a while. I’ve been busy getting everything together for the next phase… Welcome to the Dude Garden 2.0! I now have 3 grow areas. Two 2x4 tents (one for clone/veg, another for mothers) and a large 10x12’ish flowering area (its actually larger than that, but I’ll be conservative). The tents are running 300w LED’s and a T5 for the cloning/sprouting station. The flowering area has a 1000w HPS!!! I’m totally psyched to see how the HPS does with flowering for me. From all the research I’ve done It seems to still be undisputed that HPS is the best for flowering (but not so good on the electric bill). I moved all plants from the tents to the new flowering area under HPS. That includes 3 Blackberry’s (FastBuds), NYC Diesel Auto (Barney’s Farm), DinaMed+ and Critical+ (DinaFem), Cream & Cheese CBD (Seedsman) and 3 Cherry Hemp (Elevator Supply Co). With the autos You’ll see the first 2 Blackberry’s are getting close to harvest, but looking a bit funky due to the issues they had early on as seedlings. The 3rd is looking much better and will probably yield more than the first 2 combined. I do love the purple and the aroma is insane. The NYC Diesel Auto is looking very nice, the main cola is developing nicely and has great colors. With the photoperiod plants, most are already kind of big considering they haven’t flipped to flower yet. I’m expecting the stretch to kick in at any time for these girls. I hope they don’t break the roof. The Dinafem plants are looking best so far at this stage IMO, but the Cream & Cheese CBD is looking very nice too. And I’m not disappointed at all with the Cherry Hemp plants, one is several weeks older than the other two, but the smaller two have a great node structure. It should be very interesting to see how these 3 grow from here. I expect the older one to be the largest at harvest, but the 2 little girls look ready to explode. We’ll see what happens. I transplanted the photos from the 3 gallon grow bags to 7 gallon fabric pots. And also purchased some Pot Elevators that they are sitting on. The Plant Elevators are pretty cool, they have a mesh base to allow better drainage and air flow to the bottom of the pots. I have clones of all of the photos cut and planted in Jiffy pellets in a humidity dome. I took 3 clones of each. The strongest clones will become mothers, the others will be grown out. Note: The HPS gives much more of a yellow wash on the pics than I was expecting. I tried to color correct the pics the best I could and tried to get to the real colors, It should be pretty close.

Happy New Year!!! Over the past week I did some HST bending on my photos and cut down 2 of the 3 Blackberry’s. The branches are starting to recover and straighten out after the HST now. I still have some issues with pale leaves and a few spots here and there. I’m going to try adding some Dolomite Lime with the next watering and think that should help with the paleness. I’m also going to up the amount of CalMag and Mammoth P to see if that helps with the spotting. I’m not sure if I should see the spotted leaves recover or if the spots will remain. I suspect the spots will remain on the existing leaves regardless of what I do at this point, but hopefully no new spotting will develop. The lights went off before I was done taking pics, so some pics will look a little different. The pics with the lights on I had to color correct, they still look a little more on the yellow side than in reality, but much closer to reality than the pre-color corrected versions. Once the lights went off I turned the flash on for my camera, those pics did not need any color correction. You can see the differences in the pics of all plants, the first 2 are color corrected with the lights on, the last 2 are taken with a flash and no color correction. Also all close up pics of the Critical+ are with the lights off and flash on. I read several books on cannabis over the past few days, some good, some not so much. One that I liked was “Marijuana Cultivation Reconsidered: The Science and Techniques For Huge Indoor Yields” by Read Spear. This book is available on Amzon’s Kindle Unlimited service, which costs $9.99/month, but they offer a free 30 day trial (which is what I’m using at the moment). Reed’s book is broken down into 3 sections, the first and third go fairly deep into the science behind growing, he does a pretty good job at breaking it down in easy to understand terms, but I had to read several sections 2 or 3 times to really get it (or just move on with as much understanding as I could digest). The second section is the nuts and bolts of growing. Most was a review but there were several topics he touched on I hadn’t thought of in a while. And again its well written. He also offers the section only in a separate book called “Small Spaces, Big Yields”. If you are not interested in going deeper into the science behind growing, “Small Spaces, Big Yields” is what I would recommend (if interested in reading books on cannabis). I took some notes while reading and I’m going to add some of these notes in my dairy updates over the next few weeks. This week I’m going to include a note on electrical, this should be a fairly basic concept, but it is super important IMO… “Electrical Items In a sealed grow room or in a tent, you will have water pooling on the floor from time to time. There is no avoiding this. Mop it up when you see it, and never put your electrical gear directly on the floor. Never. Not even for a moment. In fact, let me stress this point in bold capital letters. ALL ELECTRICAL GEAR MUST BE MOUNTED SECURELY ON A WALL OR TENT POLE.” -Read Spear I’ll add more did bits like this in my diaries over the upcoming weeks. If anyone has any good book recommendations please let me know in the comments. I’m looking for books that might not be as popular as the ones by Jorge Cervantes or Ed Rosenthal (I’ve read those). I did just order “True Living Organics” by The Rev which I’m looking forward to reading. But I’m looking for more. I really want to step it up and learn as much as possible. Your comments, feedback and recommendations are very much appreciated! Until next time, Happy Growing! Stay Positive! And have an amazing 2019!!!

Hello everybody! Here we are a week later and I’m starting to see some nice improvements and developments. This week I fed all plants pretty heavily with Recharge and Dolomite Lime (and a little Cal Mag). The plants seemed to like it, the color is really coming back to a nice shade of green instead of the pale yellow’ish green. I’m also seeing nice bud sites developing on all of the photos. My autos are doing great too. The FastBuds Blackberry is a beautiful shade of purple and the Barneys Farm NYC Diesel is nice and chunky with tons of crystals. I’m going back to my normal nutrient routine this week and think it should be fairly smooth sailing from here. One negative is I seem to have inherited some bugs from my wife. She asked me to put one of her outdoor plants in the room so it would survive the winter, well it looks like that plant was infested with bugs. The little f’ers had a feast on some of the leaves. My wife gave me the OK to toss the plant, so with the plant removed it should be fairly easy to irradiate any remaining bugs with some sticky paper. I’d like to say thank you to all who answered my question regarding recommend reading on cannabis. I’m selecting the answer for the Grow Bible by Greg Green because I was actually unaware of that one. I’m familiar with the Cervantes and Rosenthal versions but not Greg Greens. I’ll be ordering that book after I receive and finish “True Living Organics” by The Rev (should be here tomorrow). This week I have a new question for my GD friends…. CO2? I have not been using CO2 but EVERY book I read recommends using it, I’m not prepared to go out and buy a CO2 tank, regulator, etc… at this time. Has anyone ever used one of those CO2 bags? Or do you have any DIY CO2 solutions you can recommend? I’m looking forward to your answers on CO2. I’ll leave you this week with another interesting excerpt from “Marijuana Cultivation Reconsidered: The Science and Techniques For Huge Indoor Yields” by Read Spear: “I prefer to use high-pressure sodium lamps. With the exception of LED's, HPS lamps are the most efficient source of light you can buy, both in terms of light output and light spectrum. Having read nearly every book on the subject of growing pot, I feel that their authors tend to overemphasize the importance of light spectrum. You do not need to alternate between metal halides (for growth) and sodiums (for flowering). That is an oversimplification of the plant's light requirements. You may do this if you like--it certainly won't hurt--but I firmly believe that the gains are just not great enough to justify the cost of the extra MH lamp.” -Read Spear

January 16, 2019 Everything is moving along nicely now. Bud sites on the photos are building day by day, and the autos are just about done. This week I fed some Recharge and some Espoma Organic Bloom (available at most big box stores). I’ve had it kicking around since last season and figured I should use it up before it goes bad. I’m looking into more organic nutrient options for the future. I’m not sure I’m ready to start making my own organic compost teas yet. But BioBizz seems like they will take care of what I’m looking to accomplish without needing to make my own teas (fingers crossed). I removed the house plant that brought in the bugs and everything is back to normal now, no new bug damage. I finally received and read “True Living Organics” by The Rev. Its a good book, but growing the “TLO” way is vastly different from other growing methods I’ve read. I’m going to have to read this one again before making any comments. Thanks to all of the answers on CO2. Seems like its more valuable with larger setups than I’m running.

January 24, 2019 The girls are doing WELL. My autos (Blackberry and NYC Diesel) are mid-flush now and will be chopped down this weekend. The Blackberry is a beautiful purple and the NYC Diesel is dense and chunky - both smell amazing!!! My photos are chugging right along also. The DinaFem Critical+ is definitely in the lead as far as bud development at this stage, with Seedsman Cream & Cheese CBD in a close second, followed by DinaMed CBD+ and the Cherry Hemp plants. This week I fed/watered 3 times (basically once every other day). The first time I fed with Recharge, Mammoth P and Big Bloom. The second time, I fed with Mr B’s Green Trees Bloom and Cal Mag. The third time was water only. ***January 26, 2019 update*** Cut down the FastBuds Blackberry and Barneys Farm NYC Diesel today and added a pic of the hanging branches. The NYC Diesel buds are much more dense than the Blackberry. The Blackberry buds are pretty loose and airy. I'm curious to see what they look like after drying for a week. Stay tuned..

Update February 4, 2019 (Video and Pics actually taken Feb 1). So I have harvested the 3rd FastBuds BlackBerry as well as the Barney’s Farm NYC Diesel Auto. The Blackberry was very loose and airy with not much density to the buds. Made it difficult to trim without just putting 90% in the trim pile. I had a taste of one of the buds from Blackberry #2 and she was much fruitier/sweeter than this one is. I can still taste some sweetness in #3, but she also tastes bit more harsh than I remember from #2. I yielded 16 gr from the 3rd plant and never weighed the first two, they just went straight to my edibles pile, but I’ll guess they may have yielded another 16 gr combined, which would total 32 gr for 3 plants. The Barney’s Farm NYC Diesel turned out pretty nice. Got some pretty nice and solid buds from her. She definitely tastes and hits like Diesel. I’m very happy with this girl. She only yielded 18 gr dried, but I didn’t really do any training with her at all. And she survived through all of my soil and ph issues like a champ! Back to the living…. So, I’m figuring I’m about mid-way into flower now with the 6 girls I have flowering. Overall, I’m very happy with how things are going. The buds are coming in strong on all plants, they are stinky and sticky and I’m not complaining about anything really. But, I still see more yellow than I like. Last week I fed Recharge, Mammoth P, MegaCrop, and CalMag+. I don’t feed all of those at once, Recharge & Mammoth P one time, MegaCrop & CalMag+ the next, then the 3rd is usually straight water. I also seem to be able to go at least a day between waterings/feedings. Anyway, yellowing leaves during flower seems to be most common with a Nitrogen deficiency as far as I can tell. I’m tempted to feed in a round or two of veg nutes to see how that goes. One more thing… I transplanted my clones and seedlings into larger nursery pots today. They were transplanted into pots with soil that has been composting/recharging for almost a month now based on some of the tips from the books I have been reading. I’m excited to see how they react to their new environment.

So I have harvested the 3rd FastBuds BlackBerry as well as the Barney’s Farm NYC Diesel Auto. The Blackberry was very loose and airy with not much density to the buds. Made it difficult to trim without just putting 90% in the trim pile. I had a taste of one of the buds from Blackberry #2 and she was much fruitier/sweeter than this one is. I can still taste some sweetness in #3, but she also tastes bit more harsh than I remember from #2. I yielded 16 gr from the 3rd plant and never weighed the first two, they just went straight to my edibles pile, but I’ll guess they may have yielded another 16 gr combined, which would total 32 gr for 3 plants.

The Barney’s Farm NYC Diesel turned out pretty nice. Got some pretty nice and solid buds from her. She definitely tastes and hits like Diesel. I’m very happy with this girl. She only yielded 18 gr dried, but I didn’t really do any training with her at all. And she survived through all of my soil and ph issues like a champ!

Overall everything is doing great. The Critical+ has the most trichrome coverage so far, but the DinaMed CBD+ has the thickest and densest buds. The Cream & Cheese CBD+ is somewhere in the middle - medium trichome coverage, medium density. But the Cream & Cheese CBD+ is the bushiest with the most amount of sugar leaves down the stalks with the buds. The 3 Cherry CBD Hemp plants are doing great also. They are the smallest 3 plants in group, but starting to show some red hairs. I think I'm about a month away from harvest. I'm not going to rush it, but that's what my guess is for now. I transplanted my babies from dixie cups to larger nursery pots. There are a variety of seedlings and clones going. I'll start a new diary for these babies soon with details on which strains, etc...

February 14, 2019 update: I rearranged the plants to get better airflow. In the video I mentioned that I thought I saw what might be spider mites. After closer inspection, I don't think its spider mites but more likely a combination of left over damage from the fungus gnats that came in with my wife's plant a few weeks ago (now gone) as well as ph fluctuations. But I like getting airflow on the plants themselves anyway, I just wish the oscillation worked on the fan I have now. I'll buy a new fan or two with oscillation soon. Also I failed to mention it in the video but there is also a ceiling fan blowing down on the plants. Overall, I'm very happy. The DinaMed CBD+ has taken the lead in the bud development category, Nice fat buds that are very dense. Sticky and stinky as hell too. She is supposed to be somewhere in the teens for CBD percentage and less than 1% THC. I'm hoping she either comes in below 0.3% or has well over 1%. I'm allowed to submit for testing 3 weeks before harvest. I'm going to cut a mid level branch and submit for testing next weekend. My other DinaFem strain, Critical +, is doing great too! She's in the lead with the most trichome development. Her buds are coming along great also! Not super fat, at least not yet, but great shape, color, density and have I mentioned the trichome development yet? 👍 This one is supposed to have mild CBD, low single digits, but high THC. I'm looking forward to smoking this one! Next up I'll talk about my Cream & Cheese CBD+ from Seedsman. She's in the lead with just overall looking awesome!!! The buds are long and super healthy looking with tons of leaves along the branches and I've defoliated a few times. The remaining leaves don't seem to be blocking much because most branches are bent over due to the weight of the buds! She is supposed to be in the 20's with BOTH THC and CBD. I'm looking forward to smoking this one also! 💪 That leaves the 3 Cherry Hemp plants. They are the smallest 3 plants in the room, but are all looking very good as well. They look like they are in the lead with possibly being ready to harvest earliest. I'm seeing the most amount of darkened and curled in hairs on these 3. The largest/oldest of the 3 is starting to show fading on the leaves. She may be ready in the next week or two. I'm waiting to start seeing some amber trichomes, so far they are still all white. These are supposed to be around 16% CBD and less than 0.3% THC. I'll be taking these in for testing soon and will be using these strictly for making CBD products - Salves, Oils, Capsules, etc... I'll keep you posted on this. This week I fed MegaCrop and Cal-Mag Pro (both by Greenleaf Nutrients). I fed according to their feeding schedule for late bloom. I think I'm going to stick with Greenleaf Nutrients for the duration of this grow rather than changing it up as I have been. Its super easy stuff to work with. 👍

February 20, 2019 update: Pretty much just waiting for these girls to be ready for harvest. Everything is moving along nicely at this point. Planning on feeding until the end of February, then starting a 2 week flush - at least with the Cherry and DinaMed, I may let the Critical+ and Cookies & Cream go a little longer. Fed MegaCrop, Cal+Mag Pro and Mammoth P this week. I've used up the last of my Mammoth P at this point. It will be MegaCro & Cal+Mag Pro only until flush. All pics were taken with the lights on. I tried color correcting the best I could, but the pics really don't represent the actual colors very well. Usually I try to get some pics with the lights off also, but I was not able to do that last week. I'll make sure to get some better pics next time. 👍

February 28, 2019 Update: Getting close to the end here. I'm going to start flushing the Cherry Hemp plants this weekend and chop them down the following weekend. The DinaMed, Critical+ and Cream & Cheese should only be a week or two away from flush also. Feeding only MegaCrop & Cal+Mag Pro until the flush. This week I took pictures with the lights off and my camera flash on, I think these pics look better than last weeks. Bonus pic at the end of the view from my bedroom window. I'd love to see my buds get that frosty! 👍

March 7, 2019 Update: I've been flushing the DinaMed CBD+ and Cherry Hemp plants since the weekend. I'll chop them down and hang them to dry this weekend. Critical+ and Cream & Cheese CBD have been fed this week with MegaCrop and Cal+Mag Pro. I'll start flushing the Critical+ and Cream & Cheese CBD this weekend for a week. The Critical + has the best trichome coverage, DinaMed has the fattest buds and Cream & Cheese has the longest buds. Win-win-win!!! 😃

***Video Added March 14th*** March 13, 2019 Update: We’re getting to the end of the road here. DinaMed and all three Cherry’s were cut down on Saturday and hanging. The Critical+ and Cream & Cheese CBD are flushing with straight water and will be cut down this weekend. I’ll be taking samples of the DinaMed and Cherry to the local dispensary for potency testing this weekend. Pics were taken both with lights on and lights off. I used a flash when the lights were off. The first round of pics are with the HPS off and the flash on, the second round is with the HPS on and the flash off. I probably won't update this diary again until I have the test results back and final dry weights for all plants - 10 days or so. 🙏 p.s. I'm starting a couple new diaries next, check em out! 👍

This could become my new favorite strain. She smells fantastic, tastes wonderful, and yields very well. I have some clones in veg now that will be bumped into flower soon. Seedsman really hit it out of the park with this strain! I haven't had it tested, but its definitely high THC as its supposed to be. I expect the CBD content is high also because it is very relaxing, but not in a comatose or couch lock way, just chill. Highly Recommended! 👍👍

Critical+ is a lovely growing plant. The trichome development was off the chart! I personally prefer buds that are a bit more fruity in flavor, the Critical+ tastes more earthy to me, but knocks me on my ass! Well done DinaFem!

She's a keeper! We're going to make some great CBD products with this harvest. We already made some fantastic edibles that are a hit so far with our friends. I'm working on the website now for web sales, stay tuned!!!... 😀

Awesome plant from DinaFem. I'm totally psyched that she came in well under 0.3% THC so I can use DinaMed with CBD products. She's a keeper! We're going to make some great CBD products with this harvest. We already made some fantastic edibles that are a hit so far with our friends. I'm working on the website now for web sales, stay tuned!!!... 😀