Purple Strawberry Bliss

First time growing! I set up a ghetto 3.5x3.5 diamond mylar grow area in my basement with a 315W CMH as my light. This strain from Pheno Finders I thought looked pretty cool and I wanted to try it out. It is a mostly Sativa strain and I have plenty of height to work with in my homemade ghetto grow room so it hopefully will be fine. I have another seedling that just sprouted as well that will be in a separate diary. I started out using the wet paper towel method in a plastic baggy that I placed over my modem in order to germinate my seed and it was ready to be placed in my 5 gallon fabric pot containing Promix HP after 24 hours. The seedling showed herself after another 24 hours and we have liftoff! I am excited. The issues I'm running into is I live in a very cold but recently legal state and this room is in my basement so the nighttime temperatures are getting a little low for my liking. I recently purchased a small ceramic space heater that I hope will remedy the cold night time temps. The RH is also quite low between 25-35% so I'm hoping to get a humidifier soon as well.

This plant is very short and squat compared to my Gorilla Cookies growing in the same space. It is a little bit slower with the growth as well and the inter nodal spacing is super tight! I didn't realize how much different the two plants would end up turning out already but I'm just glad it is healthy and happy so far. I'm not sure if I'm going to top this plant this coming week or not it really depends on how much taller it gets in the coming weeks but it definitely wants to grow horizontally instead of vertically so far. I also believe this strain could be more susceptible to the cold temps I was having at night during week 1 and that might have slowed down its growth a little bit. No worries though it is a beautiful plant so far and I'm excited to see how it continues to grow in the upcoming week. The issues I had before are mostly resolved with the range of RH being much better and the temps at night not falling as much due to the ceramic heater and humidifier I purchased and placed in the room. I moved the lights 4 inches closer and the plants seem to be enjoying life. I started feeding them 1/3 of the recommended dose of the Emerald Harvest nutrient line that I'm going to be using with a little Cal-Mag as well. Thanks for checking out my grow! 👍

Super cropped, topped, and tied the plant down to the side of the smart pot on day 20. I have been very slowly increasing the nutrients each feeding and I believe this week I will continue to do so. I let it dry out pretty badly a few days ago and it looked pretty sad and has not recovered as well as the Gorilla Cookies in the same room. It has been a slow grower though and I'm not sure if it is just because of the genetics or if I am possibly doing something that it doesn't like. I will continue to monitor it though and hopefully it continues to thrive! The smell from this PSB is a lot different already from the Gorilla Cookies. It definitely has a sweeter and a little more vegetative smell that I like a lot. I really hope this lady pulls through and maybe stretches out a little more. I increased the distance of my lights from 22 inches to 26 inches to hopefully help with that.

Sorry this update is a little late but the pictures are from day 28. The PSB is recovering wonderfully and I have only been watering once every 4-5 days and when the pot feels really light. The new growth is looking good and I am happy with the progress so far. I think I'm going to veg for another 4 weeks or so and try to create a pretty large plant. Space isn't really an issue as the room has a height of 8.5 ft. I'm excited to see how this thing continues to grow and recover!

I noticed today the plants are looking a little yellow and the growth hasn't been as vigorous as I would like it. My other plant that I'm feeding the same amount of nutrients to is also showing signs of some nitrogen deficiencies so tomorrow on day 40 I will be stepping up the nutrients a bit to see if it reacts well to that. I have been cutting the recommended doses of the emerald harvest line in half and that might have been a mistake. We will see. I've been keeping up with my LSTing and the plant is bushing out nicely! I'm thinking probably 2-3 more weeks of veg and I will flip to flower. Vertical space isn't really an issue for me so I will see!

The plant is much healthier this week with no more yellowing leaves after I upped the nutrients to what Emerald Harvest suggests instead of cutting them in half. It also is shooting off way more growth and I'm waiting for the middle of the plant to fill in before I switch the light schedule to 12/12. I love how much healthier it is so far and the leaves aren't drooping as bad after getting my watering schedule right for this girl. I noticed some preflowers on her which hopefully means it should be ready in a week or two. I have kept up on the LST to allow for more light penetration to the new growth. It smells a lot different than my other plant in the same tent and I love it!

Well this was a weird week and it kind of sucked. The pH meter I've been using has been off by 1.5 so I have been pHing at about 4.5 when I thought it was 6. I recalibrated it this week and the plants have instantly responded and look a lot healthier/happier. I'm not too sure exactly when the pH meter was so far off it could have been weeks but I really started to notice it this week. I have extended my veg time for one more week because of it though so maybe I will have some good sized plants.