First Time Grow - Keep it Simple

ChilliBud May 11: Repotting I originally ordered 11L fabric pots for the final pots, but they are probably more like 15L, as the 40L hemp soil (Sonnenerde) only filled the pots to 2/3. I decided to fill one pot per strain completely with hemp soil and the other with a mix of tomato soil and Seramis. The soil was moistened piece by piece with rainwater beforehand and well mixed. Additionally, I placed a 3 cm thick layer of Seramis at the bottom of the pot to hopefully achieve better drainage with the planned bottom watering. The seedlings were also planted in a fist-sized area (~1L) with seedling soil (Compo, not the organic variant) and sprayed with a few squirts of tap water. Finally, I put transparent plastic domes over the plants to maintain humidity. After the temperatures rose to 50 degrees Celsius in the sun after half an hour, I decided to put them in the shade for now. May 15: Blue2 and Jack1 had a few aphids. They were removed manually and will now be checked daily. May 16: Blue2 and Jack1 are curling their leaves. It could be due to the aphids or the fiddling around. May 18: Blue2 and Jack1 are still curling their leaves. They all received a little water as the soil is slowly drying out. Week 1: 3 cloudy/rainy days, otherwise sunny/slightly cloudy Daytime: 20-24 degrees Celsius Night: Basement, 18 degrees Celsius

ChilliBud May 20: The first 2-3 cm of soil are now dry and the pots are noticeably lighter. Today is a warm, sunny day and the little ones are getting their first bath. From today on, the little ones will spend their first night outside, as the temperatures now stay above 10 degrees at night. May 24: The little ones are now two weeks old. This week was almost every day cloudy or rainy. Still, you can see that they are slowly starting to grow faster. They are a bit small for their age, but considering the suboptimal conditions at the beginning, they look pretty good. Unfortunately, there are regularly aphids on the leaves, so I need to do something about that...

ChilliBud May 25: The hygrometer has finally arrived. From now on, there will be more accurate temperature and humidity data. May 29: Neem oil mixed with emulsifier has arrived in the spray bottle. To combat the aphids, the plants were lightly sprayed, mainly on the underside of the leaves, and additionally, half a clove of garlic was placed underneath. Weather: The weather this week has unfortunately not been very good. Every day was cloudy with rain, and the last two days it rained continuously. I moved the plants to the covered terrace so they wouldn't get waterlogged. Unfortunately, very little sun and an average temperature of 15 degrees Celsius.

ChilliBud June 2: The plants were sprayed again with neem oil. The number of aphids is now very low. June 4: Blue1 and 2 were eaten by snails. :( Weather: The weather wasn't particularly good this week either. Lots of clouds and rain, except for two days when the sun came out. The average temperature was 17 degrees Celsius.

ChilliBud June 9: Now the snails have also nibbled on Jack2, luckily just a little. So, it was time for a snail hunt. I managed to find five that were hiding nearby. Hopefully, it will be quiet for a while now, but I will keep checking. June 11: The pots were very light and the first few centimeters were dry, so it was time for a bath again. June 13: Gave another dose of neem oil against the pests. Weather: This week it didn't rain as much as last week. The sun also came out on a few days. :) The average temperature was 15.5 degrees Celsius. A bit colder than last week.

ChilliBud 18.06. The plants have moved! At the new location, they are more protected and get more direct sunlight. 20.06. The soil is dry and the pots are noticeably lighter. So today there was another water bath. This is quite convenient since they have to manage on their own until Monday. Since I was away over the weekend, there’s no Saturday update. Otherwise, the weather this week has been significantly warmer than last week, averaging 19.7 degrees Celsius, which the plants probably enjoyed. The sun also came out more often. :)

ChilliBud June 24: Back home and checked the plants. They really exploded over the weekend, Jack1 has gained about 15 cm! June 26: Pots are light again and the soil is dry. Bath time! The bottom two leaves of Blue2 are turning yellow. Deficiency? I’ll keep an eye on that. June 29: I removed the yellow, already dry leaves from Blue2. Weather: This week has been quite changeable, sometimes full-on sun, then rain again. The average temperature was 20.6 degrees Celsius. So, a bit warmer than last week. Despite the cloudy weather, the plants have almost doubled in size.

ChilliBud This week it rained more again. Since the plants are currently only half protected and getting rain, there was no need to water. Unfortunately, the hygrometer has been defective since the last update, and I had to check the weather data online. The plants have only gained about 5 cm in height. The stretch should be over now, and the focus should be fully on flower production. You can especially see this with Blue2 and Jack2. Jack 1 is still lagging a bit behind but has gained some good height and has overtaken Blue2. With all of them, the older, lower leaves are slowly starting to wilt, which I think is normal at this stage. Currently, it's just the lower 1-2 or damaged leaves. These will be removed as soon as they are completely yellow. Yesterday my phone magnifying glass arrived, and I was able to take the first pictures of the trichomes. So far, it looks good.

ChilliBud July 10: Plants were bathed again. July 11: Of course, it had to rain today 😂. Overall, the weather wasn't bad this week. The plants are now protected from the rain, although they get a bit less direct sunlight. Once it's certain that it won't rain, they'll go back to the sunnier spot. The buds are getting thicker and the smell is slowly increasing. More and more leaves are turning yellow on all of them. The leaves on Jack1 are also turning a lighter green. I'm curious to see how long it will take for them to be ready.

ChilliBud July 15: Plants were bathed again. Overall, the weather this week was quite good, with occasional thunderstorms. The plants are slowly transitioning into autumn with more and more yellow leaves, and some leaf stems are turning purple, which is probably due to the high phosphorus demand. The Blueberries are a bit further along in flowering development than the Jacks, especially Jack1, which is still lagging behind a bit. However, since the buds on all of them are still growing and new pistils are appearing, I will probably give them at least another two weeks. 😉

ChilliBud July 24: Had another bathing session before the ☀️ days start. Pretty good summer weather this week. Nice and warm with lots of sun. You can already smell the four before you turn the corner 😘. The Blueberries are looking quite good, the Jack Herers still need a bit more time. Since I have little time next week and won't be around over the weekend, I will harvest the Blueberries tomorrow on Sunday and start drying them while the Jacks can continue to enjoy the sun. ✌️ Unfortunately, I forgot to take a group photo before the harvest 🙂⏬.

ChilliBud July 29: Bath day. August 2: Bathed again before I’m away for the weekend. Since it might rain, the plants were moved to the covered part of the terrace. This week had a lot of sunshine, which has been great for the plants. Jack2 seems to be quite ready for harvest, while Jack1 will probably need a bit longer. However, there isn't much time left between the harvest and summer vacation, so I’ll be harvesting both on Sunday.

ChilliBud Since there were a lot of insects stuck on the buds, I decided to do a bud wash. I followed the online recipes for this. In the first bucket, I mixed 1 teaspoon of baking soda + 1 teaspoon of lemon juice in 1L of tap water. In the second, I used tap water at room temperature. In the third, I used cool water. The buds were dipped and stirred for 30 seconds in each bucket. A few flies came off, but I found that some were still stuck. I carefully removed those with the tip of my scissors. Next time, I'll try double the amount of baking soda and citric acid per liter and maybe soak and stir a bit more vigorously. After an hour in the basement on the drying rack at about 23 degrees Celsius and 60% humidity, the buds were superficially dry and were hung in my 60x60 tent on taut strings. The oscillating fan over the buds was set to level 2/3, and the 3 PC fans were set to full strength. I had to experiment a bit with the exhaust fan (4" iFresh Inline Fan from Marshydro) to get acceptable conditions. After 7 days of drying at an average of 24 degrees Celsius and 58% humidity, the buds felt quite dry. The stems hadn't cracked yet, and the sugar leaves snapped back into position after bending without crumbling. As a test, I packed two stems with untrimmed buds and a hygrometer into a TerpLoc Bag overnight. It maintained the humidity at a perfect 60%. Due to time constraints, I only trimmed Blue1 on day 8 and Blue2 on day 9. Overall, I spent about 4 hours on both, taking it pretty easy. After a while, I just snipped the very small buds into the trim. 😆 The total dry weight was 66g, consisting of 28g of trimmed buds, 9g of stems, and 29g of trim. That's a 4.7x reduction in weight.

ChilliBud Auch bei den Jacks wurden die Buds wie bei den Blueberries gewaschen. Allerdings hab ich dieses Mal die doppelte Menge an Natron+Zitronensaft genommen, also je 2 Teelöffel auf 1L Leitungswasser. Wie im „Eimer“ zu sehen ist wurden mehr Insekten und Dreck abgelöst. Ob das nun an der erhöhten Menge Natron+Zitronensaft, oder an dem etwas gröberen Waschen liegt kann ich jetzt nicht sagen. Ich habe sie auch länger abtropfen lassen als die Blueberries, zusätzlich war der Raum auch wärmer (24-25 Grad Celsius) und der Luftentfeuchter war inzwischen auf 55% anstatt 60% RLF eingestellt. Das hat womöglich dafür gesorgt dass das Nassgewicht etwas geringer ausgefallen ist als bei den Blueberries, obwohl die Buds, vor allem bei Jack2, meiner Meinung nach größer waren. Schön fand ich auch noch, dass Jack1 anfing sich violett zu verfärben. Hätte ihr gerne noch mehr Zeit gegeben sich voll zu entwickeln. Nach 6 Tagen trocknen bei durchschnittlich 24 Grad Celsius und 58% RLF fühlten sich die Buds auch schon trocken an, allerdings nicht ganz so trocken wie bei den Blueberries. Die Stängel haben noch nicht geknackt und die Zuckerblätter sind, nach verbiegen, zurück in ihre Position geschnellt ohne zu zerbröseln. Insgesamte Trockenmasse lag mit 36g getrimmte Buds, 19g Stängel und 31g Verschnitt bei 86g. Was einer 3x Reduktion des Gewichts entspricht. In den ersten 4 Tagen curing stieg die RLF bei 22 Grad Celsius auf 68-70%. Daraufhin habe ich die Buds täglich nochmal für 15 min auf einem Zewa ausgebreitet bei 55% RLF. Am fünften Tag stieg die RLF nicht mehr höher als 65%. Da ich demnächst für 3 Wochen im Urlaub bin, haben die Buds schön Zeit zum curen und ich freu mich schon auf das finale Ergebnis.