Snow White

Nervous first time grower here. I tried White Widow years ago in Amsterdam when I was young. Decided on this strain early as it is recommended for medical reasons and let’s just say my wife would benefit! Then spent some time researching online to see what would be involved. I wasn’t sure how successful the germination would be and don’t have much height (4.5 feet), so decided to try a little sea of green approach. I read this works well with autos as they don’t grow so tall. I figured if I screw some up along the way then I have backup. I started by planting 9 seeds into peat plugs. Put them in my 4 square foot tent in a dark germination container. Put the Mars Hydro 300w LED lights on to keep temperature up, because ambient temp was a bit low at 16c. 2 popped up within 2 days. 3 more popped up on day 5. 2 more tired looking seedling appeared on day 7 (after a bit of careful poking about). 2 didn’t make it. Each seedling went straight into 8 litre fabric pots. Having a bit of trouble getting the humidity and temp to stay within acceptable ranges. Decided to leave the extractor off for now and go with 20/4 light cycle with a fan running to keep air circulating. After an initial flurry of continual micro watering I have settled down to 1/4 litre every 2 days. I’m checking them constantly!

Ok. First rookie mistake. I over-potted the seedlings. Went straight into 8 litre smart pots. This totally set me up for overwatering. You can see the plant directly in the middle is the only one that appears healthy. I guess it is faster to dry out being centre to the heat and light. Even though I was only giving them 1/4 litre every 2 days I was spreading it wider than the seedlings could drink it. I could see that as soon as the leaf shoots appeared they were splotched with yellow markings. They started to die at the tips. I panicked a bit and fed them soil grow immediately, thinking they were deficient in nitrogen. Eventually, after a bit of investigation online I realised my mistake. I have switched to micro watering the affected plants, a few times a day, just close to the seedling, to attempt to rescue them. I’m letting the wider soil dry out more. I also poked a few holes into the wider soil to help with aeration and to dry the soil out faster. The height and feed listed this week are for the centre plant. All the rest are about 6cm, back to just water, PHed down to 6 with a little spirit vinegar. Oh my days!

Snow White is starting to get big fast. Two of the dwarves are making an attempt at catching up. I don’t think the other four are going to get very big though. I’m going to keep them going, for now, to see what happens to them.

A big growing week! Snow White has fully gone into flowering. Four of the dwarfs (2,3,4 & 6) have really put on growth spurts as well. Each is showing a few female pistols. 1, the first seedling to show, just seems to be stretching taller but not bushier. 7, the last seedling to show was a week behind 1, so technically only 3 weeks old. I’m going to be patient with the runt. I’ll start flowering nutes next. Right now I’m feeding every 2nd or 3rd water. I’m not using a schedule for watering or feeding. That got me to overwatering in the first place. Just checking the soil and the state of new shoots. Trying to use intuition. I’ve also started trimming any leaf that is going brown. Most of the first leaves died and are gone. Hopefully things have turned around from the 2nd week. But Snow White still looks way bigger than any of the dwarfs!

I thought last week was a big grow week... Snow White has gone from 25 to 40 cm this week alone! The dwarf right at the back (2) has also doubled in size. I have had to raise the light 3 times this week just to keep the distance from the plants. But to go any higher I’ll need to rerig it a bit. All the dwarfs, except the runt, are growing pretty well too, bushing up, showing pistols. The 3 bushiest dwarfs are well into growing their top colas and side buds. The runt has gotten a bit bushier, no bigger really. No pistols. I have elevated it on an icecream container, to keep it above the canopy. I’m waiting about 2 days between watering, feeding every second water. But still no schedule. I check the soil with a finger to see if it is dry. One of the dwarfs (4) is showing a bit of discolouration in the leaf veins. The runt still gets brown leaf edges. Probably still haven’t gotten the watering quite right. I’ve also started mixing in flowering nutes to the 4 biggest plants, but still giving them veg nutes as well atm. But I think I’ll stop giving Snow White any more veg nutes. I don’t want her growing too much taller than the rest. I’d like to see the dwarfs get closer in height to her otherwise the tent will become unmanageable. Yesterday I took the plants out of the tent and trimmed off most of the lower foliage. Anything touching the soil or growing under the main foliage has gone. Also a few big fan leaves went to open up the canopy a bit. I am tucking flowers up into canopy making sure they are not too obstructed by the bigger fan leaves. About half way through the grow now. I’m starting to get more comfortable with it. Things are looking promising. I can’t wait to see the frost appearing now!

Flowers have been appearing everywhere this week. Snow White has continued to stretch by another 13cm. She is covered in buds. Four of the dwarfs are over 40cm now as well. Not as bushy as Snow White, but they are also covered in small buds. One of them has stretched but not really grown out at all. It looks pretty skinny. Another dwarf is still only 30cm, with no flowers. The runt looks pale and small in comparision to the others. Only 20cm. But she is now showing pistols, so still progressing. I’m curious to see what happens to her. Baby buds? I have switched completely to flowering nutes for Snow White. The rest are getting a mixture of veg and flowering nutes except the shortest two, which are still on veg nutes. Feeding watering cycle is still roughly every 2 days, feeding every second water. I’m thinking of bringing in a small goose neck grow light set to compliment the 250w Mars LED. Not sure if I have enough light for the flowering stage. I also added a small dehumidifier to the tent. RH was breaking over 60% with the wet warmer weather we are having. That has brought it back down to 40-50%. I’m also seeing the frost start to appear. Tiny trichomes around the buds. I looked at them in my pocket microscope. I’ll try to attach it to my phone somehow so I can update diary with photos. I am really hoping to get ~3oz from this grow. That would cover ~3 months requirements while I go through another grow cycle. I was a little worried when I started that I only had one viable producer. Now I’m daring to hope with 4-5 plants looking viable. Still only about 1/2 way through though. Happy growing!

Maybe I chose the wrong fairytale. Things have gone all Alice-in-Wonderland this week. I started the week by adding two additional 25w LED true white grow lights to the tent. Two of the dwarfs are suddenly taller than Snow White. While Snow White has slowed down at around 55cm, one dwarf has just pipped it. The other one, Stretchy, just doubled in size from 40cm to 80cm! Over-stretched unfortunately. She looks odd. She is going to be difficult to keep supported. Not sure why that happened. She was the first to sprout and was always skinny. Something went wrong early on. I have added a twine line across the tent to pull her away from the lights. The runt is no longer the runt either. She is now bigger than the dwarf I call Shorty. She has just started flowering at 7 weeks. I don’t think I will be harvesting these plants all at the same time then? I’m starting to worry about space in the 2x2 foot tent. I planted 9 seeds because I thought they would only grow 30/40cm. Nice little sea of green. But I also didn’t really want to train them specifically in any way. Not this time round. So I have been letting them go. Possibly two mutually exclusive approaches? I’ve started defoliating the lower & outer fan leaves to try to keep a bit of space open between the plants. Keep the air flow and let the light penetrate. I think that it makes sense to let most of the plants focus on their main stems. The desk fan is now also on maximum setting. The tempurature has been around 24-26 deg c. Humidity 45%. But it is rising this weekend. It was 28 in there this morning before I opened all the windows. The soil ph has risen slightly to 7.2. I have started mixing white vinegar into the water, about 1 Tbsp every litre. No sign the high ph has had any impact so far. But I will start monitoring this regularly. All the plants are switched to a flowering feed set now too. So worries, but there is also a lot of good things to see. Snow White’s main cola is starting to look fatter and more fulled out. Sticky trichomes are everywhere. The leaves look healthy in general. I have noticed they are soaking up more water every time they drink. I’m enjoying being with the plants. Each one is different. They are fascinating, beautiful things. They change every time I visit them. They are still just flowering for the most part. But I can’t wait to see how each plant fills out in flower. I’m really keen to see what the expected harvest will be. Still probaby about a month to go...

Only the runt and another late flowering dwarf grew taller this week. All the rest seem to have topped out. So 5 of the plants, including Snow White, made it to ~50cm. One of the dwarfs, the one with the most developed buds, only made it to ~40cm. Stretchy hasn’t grown taller thankfully. Her 80cm stalk has been bent carefully across the tent all this week. She is budding up nicely. I have been mixing a 1/2 tablespoon of white vinegar with every litre of water I feed the plants. Got to keep the ph <=7. One thing I have noticed is they seem to be drinking less this week. I give each 1.5 litres into their 8 litre pots and have been doing so every 2 days, feeding every second water. This week I have stretched that out to every 3 days. I’m expecting them to drink more at this stage, not less. They look fine. If the soil is still damp then I just don’t water. I really don’t want to get back into overwatering. Leaves are all in good condition. Very little deviation in colour. None are going yellow or wilting this week. It feels like time to start monitoring bud development to track when to start flushing. The new “shortest dwarf” has thick sticky knots of buds all the way up her main cola. Most of them have ~20% orange pistols, altough some buds are still completely white. Snow White has ~10% orange pistols. The runt now looks like Snow White did ~3-4 weeks ago. Covered in tiny white hairy baby buds. So I think I will definitely harvest in stages, maybe 3 times, over the course of a month. I think I’m paying for my early mistakes in the variation in height and stages of development. Other than that I have been trying to keep humidity down to ~50% this week. It has crept above 60% a few times. Leaving windows open all night atm and lots of air circulation through the grow room during the day. Temps rising to 26-27 deg c. Today is a hot one too. Trying to guess how much bud I could end up with. Totally ahead of myself now! Right now it looks like 2-3oz in there. Possibly ~4 by the time it all comes in? That is a wild guess really. The truth is – I have no idea. But ILGM says to expect 3-4oz per sq metre from this strain indoors. I’m in < 1/2 that space. Makes me wonder whether less plants in bigger pots and some training would give a better yield? Already planning my next grow!

Something has changed this week. I’ve chilled out. I’m just letting the plants get on with it. Mostly just trying to keep the humidity down below 55%. The weather has been wet. Also planning the harvest. Each plant is at a slightly different stage. The most advanced one has buds with 30-40% brown pistols. There is about 3 weeks gap between the most and the least advanced plants. So I think I’ll do it in two harvests. First one should be week 11-12. 4 plants. That way I get some more mature and some younger bud... I want to see what the difference is in the smoke. The second harvest will be the final 3 plants, week 13-15. I wanted to do the drying in the tent, so I need to think about how to dry/grow at the same time...

Two weeks away from my first harvest. I think... The most mature plant has maybe 70% brown pistols, 90% clear trichomes 10% cloudy. I’ve seen a couple of early amber trichomes so far. I’ve read that the switch from clear to cloudy takes around 2 weeks once it begins. My thinking right now is that I’ll aim to harvest the minimum amount first. Maybe just 1-2 of the most advanced plants that can’t wait. Then I’ll hang them in the grow tent away from the light. That way I can treat it as an early test run before the main harvest. However, I’m prepared to totally switch plans and go for the all-in-one harvest. If the lead plants haven’t advanced as much as I would like by midweek (~30% cloudy), then I might not flush them yet. I would be really happy with one harvest that provides a selection of different buds. I’d go over 50% amber on one or two, 100% clear on others, with cloudy variations in between. My wife’s medical needs require some of the narcotic kind that really knocks her out. I want some cerebral highs myself. Humidity has been a problem. It went as high as 70% a few nights ago. Trying to control it. The tent had a “damp wardrobe” smell. But it has dropped back to ~55% now thankfully. The more mature plants aren’t changing that much. Buds are getting fatter. Pistols going browner. The less mature plants have really changed this week though. The tiny cotton ball buds are spreading and filling in quickly. The plants seem to be taking in less water this week. My last gap between watering was 3.5 days. Humidity? I’ll give nutes to the two lead plants today. The next water for them might be a flush so it could be their last feed. All the other plants will stay on the existing pattern for at least another week. That means just water for them today. I need to be patient. Even after a first harvest I would have 1-2 weeks drying, then at least 2 weeks curing. I’m 10 weeks in from starting the whole thing, but realistically, I’m still 6 weeks away! Who am I kidding. I’m probably going to sneak an early taste!

Midweek I flushed Snow White and the other most mature dwarf (the only actual “dwarf” now). I was in a bit of a rush to get to work so I did it again today. The dwarf didn’t dry out very much at all over the 3 days in between. Didn’t really change appearance either. Snow White drank it all up and her leaves have slowly started to change colour to a lighter shade if green. The dwarf is about 50% cloudy trichomes now with about 20% amber. Snow White is more like 30% cloudy with 5% amber. Looking on track to harvest them next week. The remaining 5 plants are anywhere between 2-5 weeks behind by my estimation. Humidity has dropped back down to ~45% thankfully. The weather is looking good with a high of 35 deg c on the way next week. Temperature might be my next problem. I’m still toying with a few ideas for drying spaces. I really want to use the tent for drying as well. I have a week to decide. I’m running out of the trifecta of Plant Magic nutes sample I got with the tent. Grow Bloom Boost. Especially the Soil Bloom. I will need to start looking at getting some more of at least that before this grow ends. Things are looking good for a 5-8oz harvest all up. We’ll see. Still counting my buds before they hatch!

I just harvested my first two plants yesterday. Shorty and Snow White got the chop. Shorty’s nuges weigh 2oz wet. Snow White’s nuges weigh 4oz wet. That should be about 1.5oz dry. I also took 0.75oz sugar leaves wet. After a week of wondering where to dry them, I have settled on hanging them upside down in a wooden box, feeding the exhaust back into the grow tent (see this week‘s picks). The temp in the box is about 3 deg c lower than the tent. It is still a bit higher than I’d like at 23 deg c. The humidity is 50-55%. That is as good as it is going to get. The temp is set to slowly rise over the week back up to 30. I’ll be doing everything I can to keep the drying process as slow & low as possible. The rest of the plants will probably be given another 3 weeks. That means a flush for them this coming weekend. They have a lot more room now the tent is down to 5 from 7. One of the remaining plants has been showing a bit of nutrient deficiency. Yellow and thin leaves. The colouring just came on over the last 2 weeks. I hadn’t previously noticed the thin leaves. I’ve stopped the nutes and am just giving ph lowered water to her. I suspect incorrect ph. I measured it at 7.5-8. I’ve been using Rhyzotonic consistently since I started feeding the plants. I now know this can raise ph, if over utilised. I probably should have stopped after 6 or so weeks in. The roots would probably be long establised by then. Not much hash from the clippers for such a small harvest. But I smoked a rolled up dot of it and it was smooth and strong. Officially the first smoke of my own harvest ever! UPDATE: forgot to mention that both plants had all brown, totally shrivelled pistols. Shorty had 80% cloudy trichomes with the rest amber. Snow White is more 70% cloudy, 30% clear. I’m going to let the next ones go even further than that and see what I get.

I took the buds and tip out of the drying box after only 3 days. They dried a bit too quickly. I think things accelerated when I let the tent pull its full air intake through the drying box, instead of regulating it. I’ll try to get it right for the bext batch. Or use a different approach. The buds were still damp inside, but too dry on the outside. I switched to letting them dry more slowly while curing in jars. The aroma from the jars continues to develop, getting stronger and more familiar. I’ve ended up with just under 1.5oz from the first batch. After another 4 days curing, they evened out and got dry enough to grind and vap. So we did! The result was a slightly grassy taste, but a smooth draw, with a strong clear high. More in the body than we are used to. Looking forward to seeing how it evolves. The remaining 5 plants are either pretty close to 100% cloudy trichomes with brown contracted pistols, through to 100% clear trichomes with a mixture of brown and white pistols. Two of the plants have leaves that are turning yellow. Seems to be happening from the bottom up. I think that is be expected this late in the grow? I have just flushed them all and will try to keep them going till I have time to harvest them Thursday week after I get back from a trip. Hopefully by then the more mature ones will have significant amber trichomes for my “old widow” medicinal jar. All-in-all, really pleased and relieved to have managed to grow my own marijuana!

Just waiting, waiting this week. Been giving the last 5 plants nothing but water after the flush. They are progressing slowly enough for me to leave the harvest till Thursday. The most mature is currently cloudy with under 1/4 amber. The least mature is clear with 1/4 cloudy. I’m wondering whether to give them one more water on Monday, then turn the lights out for a few days? I’ve heard mixed things about this practice… Then, Thursday, they will get the chop. I might just hang them whole, upside down, in the dark tent this time. See if that slows the dry down more.

Harvest time! Chopped the plants down yesterday. I just separated each at the base, then hung them upside down in the tent. I also had the lights out for the last 24 hours. Now just the fan and the carbon filter extractor are running. The problem is I can’t fully escape the hot weather that is coming up. Just not set up in the UK to need to cool a house with air conditioning. It is 20 deg right now with ~60% RH. But in 5 days time it will be a much dryer 35 deg. So I’m drying the plants whole to try and keep that under control. The two big stretchy plants started to go purple as the remaining phosphorus was used up. Most of the plants had leaves going yellow. Most of them are around the full cloudy trichome stage, with up to 30% amber on some nuges. The smell is amazing. Lots of mango scent at this stage. We continue to sample the first batch. We had started with the smaller popcorn buds, as they were the first to dry. The experience had been really nice, not too heavy. Not the strongest smoke we’ve had, but totally viable. This week I broke into the bigger cola nugs as they had dried and cured for a few weeks. Damn. I got so stoned I giggled like a little girl. I’ll post a full harvest entry next week, with final weights, once they are dried trimmed and ready to be cured. I’m expecting just over 5oz from this batch. That would put me at ~7oz in total, ~1oz per plant. ~2oz per square foot. Then I’m straight on to the next batch! I still have 11 more ILGM WWA seeds and a lot of ideas about how to do the next run. I’m hooked!

The remaining 5 plants dried in about 4 days. The weather just got too hot. I had to move fast to trim and get them in the jars. One in each, with Stretchy almost filling 2. They felt a bit over dried. So I had a damp paper towel in each jar for about 10 hours. They freshened up nicely. Now I’ll wait for the curing to go for at least 2 weeks. I learnt a lot in this grow. I mostly just let them go to see what would happen. I wanted a SOG, so I started with 9 seeds. But I overcrowded the tent even with 7. Next time I’ll go for 5 max in bigger pots. I will try LST to see if I can control the space a bit more. I fed them Rhyzotonic longer than I should have and rose the soil ph too much. Then there was the overwatering the seedlings. I set most of them back 2-3 weeks by doing this. I probably made mistakes I don’t even know about yet. But after all that I ended up with almost 6.5oz of very nice buds. It means serious savings for my family as well as getting out of the street weed scene. I’m so inspired by the amazing grows I see on this site. I start my new diary next week. Cheers!