Early Skunk - Caramel CBD - My first run

All the babies came out from the ground. The last one took one week to come out. She was giving us hard time, but in the end all good. Now their journey begins!

The babies are growing healthy and strong. They have been named, mostly after princesses :) All nominal, I'm considering germinating the last seed and putting it in the middle. That will grow only as apical, while with the others I will do a ScrOG.

The babies keep growing well. Quite a big change since last time, only 6 days have passed! Lucilla seems to have a bit curled leaves. Not sure why, but seems anyway healthy.

The babies keep growing strong. I was out this week and I'm impressed by how much they have grown! Esmeralda is a bit less developed than the others, I will change her position for this week and put her in the place of Megara, to see if that spot will help her to catch up. Anyway, no one is showing signs of deficiency and all seems good. Maybe next week is time for Megara to be trimmed and go through some LST!

Here we are. Week 5! The babies are growing fast and strong. I decided it was time to start some technique. I topped all of them except Lucilla, leaving a minimum of 3 levels. I removed the bottom leaves plus some big ones that were on the way. I started some Low Stress Training to make sure the new growths are as much levelled as possible. From tomorrow I will start to give them some nutrients. I set the lamp at 80%, to compensate abit to the height they loss due to the LST.

This week was not great for all the babies. Megara and Esmeralda are doing great, but Lucilla and Aurora are looking sad. Their leaves are going closer to the soil like they are tired. Their colour is more deep green in comparison to the other two. I think it has been the stress from the LST and maybe I overwatered them. This week was the first time I used the BioBizz Bio-Grow. I may accidentally give them too much water. I'm keeping them dry those last two days with the hope they get back on track. Also, I wanted to plant the other seed, but it failed. I put in a glass of water, and after 2 days I found the root detached from the seed on the bottom of the glass. Never seen something like that. So officially 4 out of 5 seeds managed to germinate properlly.

So things are not going well. The situation degenerated since last time. Esmeralda and Megara are sad and droopy, while last week they seemed to be good. Aurora and Lucilla are very weak. I'm not sure what's going on, I think multiple things went wrong: 1) They were probably too young to undergo the stress from topping and LST, specifically Aurora and Lucilla. The others seem responded well in the beginning. 2) The PH of the water was not very on point. I realised the PH tool I was using was not calibrated and in general, it was not reliable. I bought the Apera PH20 now, which should be a proper instrument. 3) Not sure about watering. I feel I was not overwatering, I was spraying to top soil with ~100ml every day per plant. Never seen bad signs until last week. I feel this cycle is gone. Now that I see more diaries as a reference, I see they were also quite smaller than others at week 5. I'm planning to start from scratch, but before then I would like to understand exactly what went wrong. My main guess is the PH, but it would be nice to confirm this.

So here we are. I decided to terminate the ones that were in a worse state and keep only the best, Esmeralda. I did a good flush with oxygenated water PH 6.2. It was a good experience to see how much water the pot can retain. I did this yesterday (21/03/2024) and today Esmeralda seems back alive! She seems perky, the leaves are more light, of a brighter green, and they are standing up. A massive difference from yesterday, check the picture! I will try to keep her alive, and use her more to experiment. For example, now I would like to understand what's going on by looking at the leaves. In the meantime, I'm starting a new cycle of Sweet Seeds Cream Caramel CBD. I'm thinking I should open a new diary for them. Should I keep this for Esmeralda, or transition everything on a new diary?

Here we are. 1/04/2024, it has been ~9 weeks since I started and Esmeralda is fully recovered. She has grown a lot in the last week, and I'm back to being positive about getting good results from her. I'm performing some Low-Stress Training to make her take as much space as possible before she starts growing vertically. I put into germination 4 new babies for Cream Caramel CBD. Two of them are already in seedling stage (sprouted ~29/03/2024), one got mould and I had to scrap it, and one is almost there but it's taking its time to unfold. I can see the cotyledons closed, almost out from the soil for days now, I'm wondering if something went wrong or I just have to wait another bit. Anyway, starting with 3 new plants plus continuing the old one is a good practice and I will like to have two different strains. I hope the new ones grow fast since the other is going to take up a lot of space otherwise.

Here we are. Another week passed and the babies are doing fine. Maybe I should start calling Esmeralda "lady" since is not a baby anymore. Today (07/04/2024) she received some extra attention. I wanted to do some main lining, but the plant has not been properly trained since the beginning to do that. So I'm going more for a hybrid method, a bit feeling my intuition. I topped a few of the tops and removed some leaves of branches that were going to be shadowed by the rest. Let's see how things will evolve. Last time I did this process I lost the 3 plants, so I hope I didn't do anything wrong this time. I gave here a bit of root juice that I purchased recently. The cream caramel CDR seedlings are doing well. I gave to them as well some root juice.

Things seem going well I think. The small babies are growing, and Esmeralda is catching up after the topping of last week. I managed to distribute the branches well, when I put the net I will rearrange them properly. I'm starting to give them Bio-Grow and Root-Juice. I think I see her more perky a couple of days after watering with fertiliser, and very light green the new growth. The small ones will find their new home next weekend. I think they are ready to be transplanted, I'm just giving them a bit more time. I bought some mycorrhizal to help them settling in the new house.

The situation is great, the babies are thriving. Yesterday I transplanted the small one into the bigger pot. What a great moment to celebrate 420 day giving my babies a new home?

The status of the ladies is very good, the new ones are growing exponentially. Every day of this week I remained shocked to see how fast they were pumping. Whatever I'm doing this time, is working. I can definitely see the difference from the first ones. It's probably the PH, the mycorrhizal, the watering approach. Many things I fixed since the first time are giving good results. Today I decided to do some defoliation to Esmeralda since she was getting a bit too crowded. Now there are around 18 tops, maybe they are too many, but there is time until the small babies catch up. I put the net to help her spread a bit more. For the small one, I decided to start doing some main-lining. I topped the 6th node and kept only the 4th and 5th nodes. I know that for main-lining I should keep only the 5th, but since I'm not sure I have time to keep topping, I decided to keep the 4th as well, so I can start flowering a bit earlier, with maybe 8 tops. The other plant is a bit smaller, so I'm giving her a few days more before doing the same. This is also to see how the other is doing before I do mistakes.

Another week passed and the babies are growing stronger. Esmeralda is drinking quite a lot and she has been in pre-flowering stage for a while now. I can tell she wants to flower. The new ones are growing crazy big fan leaves, I cut the big ones to make a bit of space. I'm not giving fertilisers on every watering, I'm doing one watering yes and one no. I will flower in a couple of weeks, I think the new babies will be ready by then. I'm running out of space and time, so the moment is near!

Another week passed and all seemed good. Esmeralda is growing big, I'm trying to make her expand uniformly. The small ones seem good as well. They are putting quite a lot of leaves, that are shielding the new growth. I'm cutting them to make light penetrate more. I've almost finished the monitoring system to have better data.

Also this week things seem nominal. Esmeralda is taking 1l of water every 2.5 days. For the small ones I'm giving half a litre every week, but I'm starting to think that is too low maybe. I feel they didn't grow a lot this week, they just put a lot of leaves that create this kind of dome of green, but they didn't stretch a lot. So today I gave a full litre to both of them and see how they will react. In the end, they were transplanted with mycorrhizal, so I think their roots are strong and took over all the space possible. It's reasonable that they are starting to drink more. About the nutrients, I'm not giving at all the watering, especially to the small ones. They are darker green with respect to Esmeralda, so they should be fine with everything. I'm giving half a dose of nutrients, alternating with clean water. Next week it's time for a major defoliation to Esmeralda. I will remove everything below the 4th node to all the branches, so she is set for the flowering phase, which will start at the beginning of June. Finally, I managed to start the monitoring system. It's useful to see the soil moisture level since it tells me when it's time to water. Of course I can see from the leaves as well, but it's nice when data and observation are matching.

The ladies are entering their last week of vegetation. I did a good amount of defoliation, removing many things below the 5th node on Esmeralda, so the remaining tops will have all the energy and nutrients they need. I lifted the small ones so they are more or less on the same level as Esmeralda. One day last week, I opened the box and one of the tips of the small baby was broken. Not sure how this happened, it's sad to have lost on main tops. I tried some surgery, but it didn't work. Can't wait to start seeing buds formation!

Everything seems good, the ladies are ready to transition towards the flowering stage. This is the last entry in the vegetative phase. I started bending them under the next to take more space and take advantage of the SgrOG. Esmeralda may have some nitrogen deficiency, but it's expected after this long vegetative phase. I'm starting to give some flowering nutrients.

Everything is ready for switching to flowering. I switched to flowering the 1st of June, so those pictures are just a couple of days after. I pushed more with the ScrOG, bending Esmeralda quite a lot. The sound down has started!

Here we go. The first week of flowering started. I'm writing this post later since I was out of the house. I set up an automatic irrigation system to keep the ladies fed. The situation was not optimal as usual, but they went on pretty well. They are starting to put in some flowers. The small ones are growth a lot, they almost caught up with Esmeralda!

I'm back! This week I took back control of the ladies. They are doing great, putting in very nice flowers. The small ones basically caught up with Esmeralda. They have grown impressively fast. I'm watering them once every 2 days. Esmeralda is taking 1L of water, while the small one-half litre each for now. I stopped stressinge them, I'm just cutting 1 leaf per day on each plant, plus some trimming on the leaves that shadow lower buds.

Another week passed and today the ladies are getting a proper photo shoot. Things are going well, the buds are growing fat and solid. Esmeralda has some sign of deficiency/burn, I'm not sure what it is. I think I just have to accept it since we are almost there. I'm proud of how things are going, there is more or less 1 month left!

They are becoming very big and beautiful. They smell a lot, there is a lot of trichomes full and nice. On Esmeralda the orange pistils are around 45%, while in the others around 30% or 25%. Things are going smoothly, environmental variables are spot on. I'm giving half suggested dose for the nutrients, except Top-Max, which I'm giving the full amount. It seems the can take everything right now, and they are making good use of it.

Nothing major to report. Buds are growing fat and big. I can see many frosty ones. I'm starting to see trichomes with some orange stain. We are getting close to the end. I think in 2 or 3 weeks I will harvest. I will still give nutrients this week and from the next one I will start giving only water.

This last week, I gave them a full dose of nutrients. I noticed they were starting to drink less and less. Esmeralda is for sure mature. There are not a lot of pistils left, and the ones left are orange. For this, next Sunday I will harvest. The small ones are still putting some pistils, but I also see orange tricomes. Since they are less less strong and CBD strain, even if I harvest bit earlier to get some mental high, is going to be fine I guess. Crazy excited to harvest. This cycle was sooo long, I cant wait anymore.

All good so far. This last week I gave water without nutrients, to flush a bit, even if organic should not be needed. I inspected the trichomes and on the two small ones, I could see a good amount of milky, a few transparent and a few oranges. They are ready to be harvested. Esmeralda however has a lot of milky ones, but not many orange. For this, I'm giving her a last week before to harvest everything. I will keep giving all the water, stopping on Tuesday, so they can have a few days to pull the can from the leaves. I will also give a couple of days of darkness Thursday and Friday. The moment has arrived.

The process of harvesting was quite long and intense. The trimming also took many hours but we produced good quality trim and buds. Thanks to whoever followed the diary