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This is my first cannabis grow. I want to grow 2 plants on a balcony in Northern Germany after starting indoors under a 42W LED. One plant will grow in soil, the other one in a Kratky Hydroponics setup.
For germination I put the seeds into soaked cocos pellets and those into an airtight lunch box. After one day of darkness they were put under the grow light. The seeds sprouted within 72 hours.
After sprouting the seedlings looked quite sad. I suspect that the cocos pellets were far too wet, so I potted them the next day.
The first plant is now in 15l of tomato gardening soil.
The second plant is in a jar and dipping it's root into 300ml of Hydroponic solution. This will be a Kratky grow, but it will only enter it's final container with a higher nutrient level after growing a bit.
On day 6 the plant in the soil became yellow at the edges of the leaves. The soil was dried up, so I did a good watering. That fixed the issue as far as I can tell.
On day 8 the second pair of true leaves appeared in the soil plant and the root system visibly started developing in the hydroponic jar.
Starting the 2nd week of vegetation! So far everything is looking very good! The hydro plant is lacking behind a little bit, that's probably because of the low concentration of nutrients. So today I mixed a new batch with 2ml/L TA Organic Grow, which was recommended on the packaging for the growth phase. The roots look healthy, having reached almost the bottom of the jar already.
Day 12: The diagonal leaves are starting to come out for the soil plant.
Day 17: The hydro plant continues to fall behind. There is also build-up in the jar. I'll be switching to an anorganic fertilizer later today to hopefully stabilize the plant development.
The third week! The soil plant continues to grow beautifully! I want to do LST, but I'll probably give the plant some more time to grow first.
The hydro plant unfortunately looks quite stunted in it's growth next to the soil plant. In hindsight I probably should not have used an organic fertilizer. Even though it was marketed for hydro, a Kratky grow without water movement or changes really invites ... "organic growth". It stinks.
So today I switched to an anorganic fertilizer in the hopes that the plant will see some better growth out of it. Also cleaned the roots with a ~2% hydrogen peroxide solution.
Day 19: Watched some videos about the topic and decided that she is a big girl and already and can handle LST. Within 4 hours the plant is already looking up again. I am very impressed.
The hydro plant clearly improved since yesterday, I think the new nutrient solution works a lot better.
Day 20: The sun appeared on the sky. Really a special occasion in Northern Germany. The plants can now go on the balcony for the first time. Although I have to craft some thermal isolation around the Hydro container first, otherwise the water will heat up like crazy in a black box in full sun, 30°C.
Day 21: Isn't she sparkling like a little princess?
Day 24: The soil plant continues to grow well, but the Hydro plant is just really behind. The roots really didn't develop properly in the organic fertilizer at the beginning of the grow and the development is simply stunted.
Day 25: The hydro plant is going into flowering! Well, I wasn't expecting a sizable yield anyway at this point, but it's still really tiny. The soil plant on the other hand seems to have adapted well to the LST and continues to grow a lot of new leaves.
Day 29: Did the final water change for the hydro plant, with the flowering nutrients. I chose a low concentration, because the plant is so small, with only ~1.2 EC.
In general I try to have the plants on the balcony as long as the sun shines and take them inside under my grow lights in the evenings.
Day 32: It's the 5th week already! The soil plant is starting to flower as well. The roots of the hydro plant are healthy again, although the plant is of course still very small.
I removed a few leaves that overshadowed some of the lower flowers/nodes.
Day 34: The results of the LST really start to show. A number of flowers begin to grow. The plant takes more and more horizontal space. I redid the LST today to move the buds even further away from each other
Day 37: A lot of growth / stretching went on this week. For the soil plant I redid the LST again today, and the whole pot is almost covered when it was only half of it a couple of days ago. The hydro plant has quite a bushy top now.
Day 39: The plant get a couple of hours of sunshine on the balcony and in the evenings they are moved indoors toget some time under the growlights.
Day 40: I'm really happy with the growth of the soil plant, exploding in size once the flowering started.
Day 45: Buds are developing. The weather is pretty bad atm, so they stay inside.
Day 48: Buds are growing. Weather isn't too great, so I kept the plants inside the last couple of days. At this point they smell. I don't really have any comparison, as this is my first grow, but even a "mild smelling" strain like Royal Jack is very noticable without ventilation. I might put them outside for good if it gets worse.
Day 52: The hydro plant's pistils show some orange
Day 55: They've been fully outside on the balcony for a couple of days now. We had a few sunny days, followed by some days of rain and very cloudy sky. It's typical Northern Germany weather I'd say. Definitely not ideal, I just hope that the plants don't get any mold problems from it.
Rainy weather, very little sun this week.
The soil plant continued to ripen.
The hydro plant developed a few brown sugar leaves, which in hindsight was unfortunately the first sign of bud rod.
Day 68: Now it's very clear, the single bud of the hydro plant has bud rod. Chop chop time it is!
The original wet weight was 19.8g, after cutting of the compromised top half 13.8g was left. Almost all of the trichomes are clear/milky, but I also got a shot with a few amber ones.
As this is still my first grow ever, it at least gives me a good opportunity to test out the drying process before the big harvest from the soil plant comes in.
Day 69: The buds of the soil plant really fattened up. Promising look!
Day 71: Weather is getting better, we have some sun again. I also finally updated the diary ;)
Day 74: The trichomes have started to turn amber. It is harvest time! The wet weight is 294g, but I didn't do any trimming besides the removal of large fan leaves. I'll post the final "Harvest week" when the drying process is complete.
The roots have gone through the whole pot, without having formed super dense ring roots at the bottom yet. Overall very happy with the plant's growth and the pre-fertilized normal vegetable soil I used.
A great finish for my first ever grow! 😀
After drying, the hydro plant's bud smelled a little different. Considering the small amount and the bud rod that was cut away previously, I didn't want to risk anything and threw it away. So the harvest is just about the soil plant.
I dried the whole plant except larger fan leaves. As this was an outdoor-ish grew I don't have any specialised equipment. It just had to dry in the room, which averaged 24°C and 60% humidity, probably not ideal. After 10 days it was trimmed and finally weighed. Might still be a little wet though.
Final dry weight was 42g, after weighing in wet and untrimmed at 294g.
Hanfstadt_Hamburg
