Grow #1: Auto Gorilla Grape

Bed_Head_Fred Filling Retroactively Started seedlings in a 2x2x4 indoor tent that I normally use for vegetable/fruit seedlings before moving outside into the garden. I'm a complete noob for Cannabis and indoor growing, so mistakes will be made lol. I'm used to organic fertilizers like compost, manure, bone meal, worm poop, worms aerating soil, etc. I'm not against synthetic fertilizers at all, I just never needed it outdoors. This indoors thing is going to learn me something new, I can feel it.

Bed_Head_Fred Filling Retroactively Still growing. I've got no idea what I'm doing, despite absorbing lots of "bro science" on youtube 😬

Bed_Head_Fred (Filling Retroactively) I've made a bunch of mistakes unsurprisingly, and a couple of the plants aren't doing too hot. The bottom right plant was transplanted into pure potting soil because I was winging it at this point. The white powder around plants is just powdered egg shells, because at this point I (like all noobs) thought it was a lack of something making the plants unhealthy, rather than looking at my grow environment and grow medium choice of layered coco coir and potting soil, as well as the obvious malnutrition showing in some leaves. 💩

Bed_Head_Fred (Filling Retroactively) Week 4: One plant died of sadness. Well, to be fair it died because of my incompetence at indoor growing. The transplanted plant (Stumpy) I moved outdoors into my greenhouse to toughen it up a little in the cool spring air, and the other remaining two stayed indoors (Stompy and Stampy). I moved Stompy and Stampy into the big tent. It was at this point where I really started reading up on every bit of real science I could find on weed cultivation because I was now invested in getting it right, even if it was my first grow--especially after spending prior weeks watching youtube videos and getting lots of bro science but not much real science.

Bed_Head_Fred (Filling in Retroactively) Stumpy has moved back inside with Stompy and Stampy. You can guess which plant is Stumpy. Stompy on the left doesn't look too well, but at this point I couldn't recognize the obvious nitrogen deficiency giving it a pale green hue. In fact I didn't even know there was anything wrong at this point with Stompy.

Bed_Head_Fred Week 6: Stompy died while I was attempting to transplant her. Roots were all bound up in clumps of coco coir because I hadn't mixed it properly with enough perlite to keep it consistent, and the layers of potting soil just exacerbated the clumping problem and possible over-watering adding on top of all that to effectively suffocate and strangle the plant. I legit felt like crap for a day or two after, death by incompetence. But on the bright side Stumpy is maybe a week or less behind Stampy, and considering she came back from death I'm really amazed how she's recovered and sprung back to life. It didn't Hermie either so that's a bonus. My goal for my first grow was always to learn as much as I could, and it seems like every week I'm learning so much that I can hardly believe these plants are still alive.

Bed_Head_Fred After 3 weeks into flower I trimmed the bottom 2/3's of the plants to help focus their energy into the buds that mattered, and cut out all the larf. It's a bit nerve-wracking seeing them so naked after being veritable bushes before, but within a couple days the sugar leaves started coming out and buds started fattening just a little, so fingers crossed I'm dialed in. There was a bit of nutrient deficiency showing in Stampy's leaves, and after a bit of research determined that it was a manganese deficiency. It makes sense as none of the nutrients I had been feeding it contained that micronutrient, while Stumpy was on a nearly pure grow medium of potting soil after being transplanted in week 3 and being brought back to life. Rather than spend money on chelated micronutrients to get the manganese, I dissolved a few multivitamins (Centrum Fort) that contained all the minerals that a plant would need (copper, iron, manganese, magnesium, calcium, etc etc) into water and poured that into the watering base. It's expired multivitamins lol, sometimes the cheaper option ends up being adequate. Oh, and those blue bottles with tubes coming out are just DIY CO2, using 1L sparkling water bottles, a cup of sugar, warm water and a teaspoon of yeast. Ethanol production at it's most basic level, with a slow release of CO2 as a by-product.

Bed_Head_Fred - Week 8 was a bit of a struggle. I bit the bullet and bought some proper micronutrients for Stampy, as it was obvious I had overfed it with phosphorous and Potassium but neglected the magnesium, sulfur, calcium, manganese, etc. to help deliver the nutrients properly. I also started getting serious about dialing in the vaper pressure deficit to where it needed to be, as the humid summer here (especially with the rain we've had that pushed the warm outside air's Rh to 100% for multiple days straight) has forced me to move my big dehumidifier into the grow tent, and try and find a happy RH and Temperature balance that stays below 55% RH and below 75F at all times, while maintaining a 1.2-1.5 VPD. It's a lot easier at night as I can blast the Window AC and bring the living room down to 65F and humidity down to 45-50% in the grow tent, and shut my bedroom door so I'm still comfortable.

Bed_Head_Fred Week 9: Plants are in the final stretch. Stumpy is visually behind Stampy, but trichomes are a couple days behind.

Bed_Head_Fred - Day 70: A week ago I noticed some new shoots coming from just under the soil with fan leaves, and I thought it was a bit odd and I cut them off and tossed them into the compost. Saw more shoots coming out from the soil today with reveg leaves. I guess technically one could do a perpetual grow but with an autoflower? So, for the next 48 hours it's lights out for these plants, next time they see light is 4pm Tuesday. Stampy has mostly cloudy trichomes with maybe 5% amber here and there at the top. I'll probably just harvest her and Stumpy in a couple days as Stumpy's trichomes are mostly cloudy anyway, maybe a few days behind of Stampy under the microscope. I thoroughly flushed both plants last night, no more water from here on out. This will probably be it for Week 10 updates, and the next update will be harvest. My goal with my first grow was to learn, and I feel like these last few months were a semester in college with how much I've "downloaded" into my head, and still have so much of that knowledge to put into practice for the next grow.

Bed_Head_Fred - Glad to be done and curing, can't want to test this strain out when it's ready 😃👽 - Plants have been cut down and dried. Buds have been trimmed (to the best of my beginner abilities... might buy an auto trimmer in the future lol), dried and weighed. Total Dried Weight = 91g | 3.2oz | 0.2LB Not a terrible haul from 2 plants on my first grow ever. More than what I was expecting, less than what my ignorance had hoped for when I first started out. All that matters is I learned a ton, both from reading and listening to others online, as well as putting that knowledge into practice. - The smell after harvest and while trimming was intoxicating. Very citrusy to the point of sensory overload. After drying and placing into grove bags the enzymes are now at work breaking down the starches, giving off that weird grassy aroma. RH Holding Steady. I used a few tricks with paper bags , paper towels and computer fans to bring internal moisture level down to 11-12% without destroying terpenes (in theory) by tunnel drying and paper bag sweating back and forth on repeat, in order to pull moisture out of the center of the buds as quickly as possible without getting the outside of the buds too dry. In the future I might just create a separate drying area, or just buy a Cannatrol at some point, maybe as a Christmas present to myself (Hey sometimes the best presents come from yourself). - I'd say this strain is really stable and easy to grow, despite my utter incompetence I ended up with 2 dead and 2 harvested out of a 4 seed pack, when by all rights I shouldn't have made it past Veg phase. Given the parents are Gorilla Cookies Auto and Double Grapes Auto, it's not too big of a surprise. - Once the buds have been cured for long enough I'll weigh in on the flavor, aroma, effects, etc. and give this strain a more accurate rating (as accurate as subjective data can be).