SolFire Gardens - Miami Mami and Lung Buster

We're off and running! 6/6 germination. Thought I might have some issues in germination because, during my last grow, I experienced terrible germination rates. I ran some LIT Farms gear and out of 13 beans popped, only 6 germinated and sprouted into plants. I employ the cup of water method - toss them into a cup of water, cover them, and wait 36-48 hours. They popped after 36 hours, but one or two seeds had small taproots when planted. Thankfully, all 6 sprouted! 6/6 is fantastic. Excited for this grow because I've heard good things about both cultivars. My nutes/amendments are the Gaia Green line - 4-4-4 all purpose and 2-8-4 power bloom, along with earthworm castings (EWC). I'll be using Gaia Green 4-4-4 only and EWC for now. I pre-mixed my soil for the solo cups with about 1.5 tbsp of 4-4-4 for about .75 gallons of Pro-Mix HP. A little understrength from their recommended veg premixing, which is what I want. Wanted them to have some nutes for the first couple weeks, and this same method worked well during my last grow. In previous grows, I've used Pro-Mix HP by itself for 2 weeks without nutes and the sprouts were fine until transplant, but I like the idea of them having nutes as needed. I'll be transplanting these girls into 2 gallon pots at about the 2.5-3 week mark, and then they'll go into 5 gallon pots for flowering. I'll veg them in 2 gallon pots for about 3-4 weeks (6-7 weeks of total veg between 2 and 5 gal pots) and then transplant them into 5 gallon pots. After that transplant to 5 gallon pots, I like to flip to flower after about 5-7 days. These will be flowering in two separate 3x3 feet tents (3 plants per tent). Thanks for coming on the ride with me!

Looking good after a week! Two of the Lung Buster are leggy little girls. Not worried about that since I'll just bury the stems when I transplant. Added a little support to one of the Lung Busters that was leaning a bit (in the form of a piece of plant tie makeshifted into a mini stake). Coincidentally, that same Lung Buster has one bleached leaf tip. Not worrying about that, though. Overall, I haven't really done much with these girls. Just kept the humidifier filled with water and sprayed the top of each when they get dry. Won't start giving them actual waterings for another week or so. Observation: looks like each strain will have one runt. One LB and one MM are each lagging behind the others a little.

Day 15! Seemingly a little slow growing and I think the majority are "runts", but we'll let them rock. Can tell that one Lung Buster is really wanting to take off. Haven't fully saturated the soil on these yet - still just spraying the topsoil with a spray bottle to keep it moist - but will saturate this week so deeper roots get water. Hopefully my doing this has allowed roots to spread out to look for water, creating strong roots. I always like to give seedlings ~2 weeks to establish those good roots before I saturate fully for the first time. Cotyledons on one of the LB are starting to yellow (not a problem, just a note). Nothing negative that I can see! We're chugging along. Based on today's sizes, won't be transplanting into 2 gallon pots for another week-to-ten days at least. Maybe 14 days.

Looking great to start week 4! They really shot up the last 10 days. Looking like two of the LB are branching already. Only one of the MM is doing so just yet. Will be transplanting them this week into 2 gallon pots, most likely before the next update. I have to get some nutrients and earthworm castings first. Watering has been fairly light. 2-3 ounces per ~36 hours or so. Will start giving them more this week as we get ready for transplant.

Start of week 5! These girls were about a week behind schedule in transplanting, so they've been visibly hungry for new soil and food for a little bit now. I was a lot lazier than I should've been in tending to them. I'm surprised they don't look worse, honestly. These were transplanted 48 hours before these pics into 2 gallon pots with ~8 cups of earthworm castings and 3 tbsp/gallon of the gaia green 4-4-4 (and of course mycorrhizae). Will top these girls during this week and will start training them shortly thereafter. Having some weird humidity issues with my tent and humidifier. If I have the inline fan running even on the lowest setting, my monitor says RH is between 55-60%. But if I turn it off, it skyrockets up to 75%+. Keeping the inline fan on indefinitely or might look into an automation solution, but I don't have much interest in buying more equipment lol. Updates every Monday!

Starting week 6! Should be another 2-3 weeks of veg before flipping. We're doing well post-transplant! Just topped these girls about 30 minutes before taking the pictures and posting this. With all 6 now topped, we're gonna let them explode with growth and train most of the branches to get a nice, flat canopy. As flat as we can get! Hopefully will end up with 10-12 big top cola sites on each plant, maybe more if we're lucky! Not liking how the Miami Mami #2 pheno is growing. Very tall and branching has been super slow so it just looks like a twig lol. Hopefully it fills itself out over the next couple weeks. On autopilot for now! Next big action will be transplanting into 5 gal pots about a week before flowering (not for another 2-4 weeks). They look terrible now, but in about 2 weeks they're gonna be sexy lil ladies lol

Look at these girls go! Starting week 7. One of the Miami Mamis had a root about a foot long growing out the bottom. I'm so confused how this happened (never seen it before in all my time using fabric pots) but I'm just gonna prune it off and go about our merry way lol. They're starting to drink lots of water now that the roots have spread out the last couple weeks. Planning to veg no more than 3 more weeks. Hopefully more like 2 weeks. 7-10 days until transplant to 5 gallon pots and then another few days after that before flipping. These girls have bushed out nicely. Haven't really had to train the lower branches yet. Will do that over the next 2 weeks. Been a super easy, hands-off grow so far! Thankfully, I'll have no issues with humidity in flower because it's been very, very dry lately - in the 20-30% range.

This is two days late, my bad lol. I try to do updates every Monday but I failed this week. We've made it to the last week of veg! They look sad because they were dry and watered just before taking the pics, along with getting some more LST done (and adjustments). These have really bushed out nicely! Can tell they're going to be really hungry in about a week, so I'm going to transplant them in the next 2-3 days into 5 gallon pots. Will then flip them somewhere between 4-7 days after transplant. Will be using a 50/50 mix of the 4-4-4 (all purpose) and 2-8-4 (power bloom) Gaia Green amendments - premixing soil at 3 tbsp/gallon of medium. Gonna go through like 60 tbsp of the stuff! Hope yall have been enjoying the diary. This is new for me even after several grows, so it's damn cool to see the progress so clearly.

Okay, this is the *actual* last week of veg! I thought last week would be, but I didn't time it right. These ladies have all been transplanted into 5 gallon pots (1-2 days before the pics) with a 50/50 mix of the 4-4-4 all purpose and 2-8-4 power bloom (with EWC too). They're again looking a little sad (especially the LB) because they're thirsty. Will be training them some more this week, making sure they're healthy, and then flipping over the weekend! Let the flower journey begin...

Here we are! Flowering! I flipped both tents a couple days ago, so we're just getting going. Seeing a bit of the stretch starting already in the Miami Mamis. Not much yet in the Lung Busters, but it's so early. A few of them are already showing the lovely pre-flowers! I'm liking the canopies we're getting, but want to fill out the Lung Buster canopy, hopefully, as they stretch. I'm loving what I'm seeing in my Miami Mami tent lol. I turned my lights up a bit and raised them - we're sitting between 600-800 PPFD around the canopy. The plants should be eating the new food in the soil we transplanted them into about 8-9 days ago! Roots are surely spreading out nicely. I bottom-watered the Miami Mamis a few days ago and plan to do the same for the Lung Busters here tonight. I feel like these girls are gonna do some goooood work in the coming weeks. Already seeing some purpling on the leaves (and have been for a couple weeks), but some of that could be from slightly colder temps at night (bottoming out around 68). I'm also seeing a bit of magnesium hunger, so I'll be adding some epsom salt into my next batch of water tonight. All in all, I think we're looking pretty good. Not the prettiest grow out there, but it's doing the job and I should get a great yield! Should be between 9-11 "tops" per plant, plus all the lower nuggets. This has been my formula for several grows now. Each has been better than the last, so hopefully this one is too! Appreciate any and all who have followed and have read any of my blurbs. Say hi in a comment and I'll check out your stuff too!

This is a day late again, my bad! I added a trellis to one of my tents, so I didn't get the single plant shots like I'd like. I forgot to do them while I was watering and before I added the net lol. I may be able to do more later but we might just be locked in with the trellis soon! The Lung Busters haven't stretched as hard as the Miami Mamis have, so I haven't added a trellis in there yet. We may not have to until after the stretch, but we'll see. Both tents are pretty full so now I'm just trying to even out the canopy and get as many bud sites as much light as possible. Thanks for looking! Will have a better update next week when I'm not neck deep in MLB The Show 25 that just came out LOL. Hope everyone is doing well. Stay up!

Week 3 of flower! Almost done with the stretch. They haven't stretched as much as I expected, which is fine! Still looking like a couple of good tents. :D Not much to report, just letting these girls rock. I'll be top dressing in a few days to get her through the rest of flower. My process for that is working the fresh dry amendments (and EWC) into the top soil, watering a bit, and then tossing some fresh soil on top. Almost like adding a new layer. I find this helps with keeping a consistent flow downward when you water in the new dry nutes. Basically so that they don't float and become useless on top. At least they're buried under some new soil and each subsequent watering will continue pushing the nutes deeper into the root zone. Idk, maybe it's not actually how it works, but I like to think so because that's how I've been doing it for almost 2 years lol. Will be doing a defoliation/lollipopping in the next few days as well! It'll be sorely needed to uncover some lower bud sites. Thanks for following and reading! Much love, yall. Stay up!

Week 4 flower (started 2 days ago)! Over the weekend, I top dressed and lollipopped all the girls. I started with the Miami Mamis and took off a ton, then did the Lung Busters and decided not to take off as much lol. The Lung Busters are shorter plants, anyway. They're so short and stout that I haven't even bothered with a trellis net. All the branches are incredibly strong. Will add one for support late in flower if I need it. We're looking good, imo! The top dressing was 5 tbsp each pot (1 tbsp per gallon of medium) of the 2-8-4 power bloom and a handful of EWC (I didn't realize I'd run out of castings...oops). I also tossed like half a tbsp of 4-4-4 into each pot just so they have a little extra. I don't like having deficiencies late in bloom! lol I'm gonna let these girls rock the next ~5 weeks. Not gonna mess with them much except maybe taking off a leaf here and there as needed to open light to other bud sites. Looking forward to these next few weeks as they fatten up and start showing me what they'll give me! Thanks again for reading and following. :)

We're in the home stretch! Started week 5 of flowering. We're looking pretty good. The Miami Mamis have started to turn a bit purple on the upper leaves and buds. Can't wait to see how much she turns! The Lung Busters are a bit shorter still. Was hoping they'd catch up during the stretch but they never did. LB#1 is pretty damn leafy on the tops, which I don't like very much, but hoping she'll beef up nicely over the next 2-3 weeks and will finish nicely. We're done top dressing and all that maintenance stuff, so we're just letting these girls rock for the next month - only watering regularly and giving recharge as needed. :D Thanks for looking! Stay up, yall!