My 1st grow

First of all, give credit where credit is due: Cheers to ledgardener.com. Without this site I would not have made my grow light. I got all my knowledge of LED strips and drivers from there, folks in forum section are awesome and willing to help. Second site that provided most of the info about growing is growweedeasy.com. LBH's Famous ScrOG Tutorial was the basis for my growt, and other articles on growing were really helpful. Juts one note here: If you read a tutorial make sure to read it. All of it. I though I read all of it, but it turnes out I missed the last two sentences. End result being I only had about 2-3 inches of flowers above the net, white the tutorial instructs to have 6-8 inches above the net. 6-8 inches would have been much better. Since this was my first grow, it was also my first harvest. And it went similarly to the grow: Mistakes were made. Unfortunately, they were all made by me. I've had some good, some bad and even some ugly moments. Sprouting and vegetative growth worked perfectly for me. Except for few pH/EC acrobatics my plant had to endure, I did not do too much to harm my plant. Except for not changing nutes for 6 weeks. Which resulted in slime in my nutes bucket. First lesson learned: DWC bucket must be kept clean and fresh, otherwise there will be slime. SCROG wen't quite well, I tucked like a champ. Except for the branches I broke and had to take off, but that was like just 1/4 of the plant. One of the "ugly" moments, I felt like shit when I had to take that branch off. It was another lesson learned: Plant can be broken, so "may the force be with you" when tucking. After that I started flowering cycle. Seeing first pistils was awesome, seeing first frost was even better. The smell was getting stronger every day, and scents changed during growth from pure fruity to mostly earthy back to fruity/citrusy. Appart from the weird slime smell in between, when my nutes started to stink a bit. During the grow quite a lot of people politely suggested I defoliate my plant "a little". I did not do that. I just let it grow however she wanted, except for tucking under the net. This resulted in a jungle in the middle of the plant. Combined with my failure to read the "6-8 inch above net" thingy, a lot of the buds were below the net, in shade. That would be the jars marked with circle (mediocre stuff) and minus (shite). I'm yet to try how good the mediocre stuff and shite are, but at least I got around 70g of buds from above the net. At the end of the grow leaves started to turn weird color, some became crumbly. Adding Pro Cal seemed to help a bit, but this was very close to harvest so I'm not sure if this would have worked if it happened earlier in my grow. Then there's the harvest. One of the most stressful times, since I had no idea when exactly to harvest. When I thought my triches were milky, they actually weren't. Which meant more waiting, more checking, more hoping that Ca deficiency doesn't creep up to the flowers. I'd say the wait was worth it, since smoking is soooo good. Here's the best advice I got from internet on harvest: wear gloves. I only had one plant to harvest and trim, and I wen't through 3 pairs of gloves because they became so sticky I couldn't work with them anymore. Chikamasa scissors were also lifesaver. Super easy on hands and fingers, sharp as heel and very precise. I love them! Trimming was weird for me... I've studies just about every part of growing from all sources I could find, but I never got around to read up on harvesting and trimming. So my buds might not look that nice and there might be a sugar leaf or two that could be trimmed further back, but that's for the next grows. Then it's drying and curing. Drying was quite easy. After trimming I hung the branches from the SCROG net in growtent, turned of exhaust vent and waited for 4 days. I did measure temperature and humidity during drying: temperature was between 13.5 and 18.6°C, humidity was between 39 and 61%. I kept checking for the elusive "small branch that snaps without leaving any strings", but I was never sure if I'm there or not. After 4 days outside of the buds were dry as dust and I got scared I over-dried it. When jarred, RH was around 55%. This triggered panic purchase of Boveda 62% packs (which are yet to arrive). Lucky for me, humidity in jars kept rising from day to day, settling down at - yes, you guessed it - sixty-fucking-two percent of relative humidity. I could not have been any luckier. After a bit less than a week in the jars the buds don't feel that dry anymore, they actually fell perfect. All-in-all this was a great experience. Next grow has already started, it will be the same strain with the same light and nutes. What will be different is: 1. First topping will be a bit later, because this plant is very slow grower at the beginning, 2. I will back of with pH regulation a bit. pH will be between 5.5 and 6.5, but it will not be corrected as aggressively as this grow. 3. This strain does not stretch. Like at all. So I will grow it to just about it's final size before triggering flowering. 4. Way more frequent nutes changes. Possibly some benes inoculation of roots and bucket. Anything really to keep that slime away. I think that is it. Thanks to everyone following this diary. Thank to everyone who commented, thanks for every advice (even if I disregarded it; I'm probably gonna use it in my second grow), for every encouraging word. See you in my second diary, which should be up any week now :)