Midnight Mass

love_2_grow The first week passed without many issues. As usual, the main event of this first week was planting into the pot. I like to start my grows using peat plugs as I find it easier to germinate that way. However, the plants quickly outgrow the plugs, so I want to get them transplanted into their final pot within a few days. I started by preparing the pots with soil. In this grow, I’m using 50-liter AutoPot XXL fabric pots, to which I added a stripe of plastic foil to reduce evaporation. It’s my first time running with the XXL system, and I’m excited to see how well it performs. The soil I’m using is living soil according to my own recipe. It contains various ingredients, including wood fiber, coco coir, worm castings, insect frass, pumice, rice hulls, basalt, rock dust, kelp meal, alfalfa meal, neem seed meal, soft rock phosphate, malted barley, biochar, gypsum, lime, and a few other odds and ends. After filling the pots, I transplanted the peat plug, using plenty of myco/kelp powder to cover the plug and the planting hole. Finally, I added a small humidity dome over each plant to ensure a moist environment until I get the humidifier installed. The next day, I added a bunch of straw as mulch. I like to do a round of preventative IPM with nematodes when I start a grow. To ensure any critters are held in check. After all, it’s easier to prevent problems in the first place than to have to battle an infestation later. The soil had been resting in a massive bag for a few months, so I decided to make a quick compost tea to boost the overall microbial activity in the soil. Yesterday, I started to brew a mix of worm castings, insect frass, basalt, kelp meal, malted barley, and molasses. It’s essentially a blend of compost tea and sprouted seed tea, providing the soil with microbes, nutrients, enzymes, auxins, and hormones. Today, I added the nematodes after the brew was finished and then fed the entire mixture to the plants. The DLI is around 20-22, which is relatively high this early in the grow.

love_2_grow This week I did absolutely nothing, besides opening the tent to peak in once per day. That was it.

love_2_grow Yet, another week has passed without any effort on my part. I haven't even had to water, and it's now been two weeks since last watering. Another week or so and it's time to turn on the AutoPots. In a day or two, it's time to start her training.

love_2_grow Alright, this week was slightly more exciting as I started training her with LST, and I also turned on the water in the AutoPot. This was also her final week of veg as she is now in flower. Ugh. It's a bit early as she is still small. Maybe the soil was too "hot" for her and caused her to flower early. No clue, but that is the only thing I can think of. Oh well, nothing to do but to roll with it. It will be a modest harvest, but that's OK, although slightly frustrating.

love_2_grow All I did was some LST. That's all for the week as the AutoPot takes care of the watering. Everything is on cruise.

love_2_grow Nothing to report. The only non-stunted girl in the tent.

love_2_grow The only non-stunted girl in the tent. Just quietly doing her thing as the buds are stacking.

love_2_grow Well, this week there was some excitement in the tent, but not of the good kind. A couple of days ago, I noticed how one of the top colas looked discolored and strange. I've seen this symptom before and sure enough, she had bud rot. Ugh!!! The only non-stunted plant in the tent and then she gets bud rot. Fuuuuuu... I snipped off the cola and discarded it. Fortunately, I couldn't find any more rot. Turn out that it was entirely my own fault as I had put the humidifier next to the plant but didn't use the tube to ensure the humidity didn't emanate close to the plant. So instead, the closest cola got too wet and got rot. Lesson learned, and hopefully I'll only lose that one cola.

love_2_grow The good news are that no more bud rot has been spotted. It seems like my stupidity only cost me one cola. I haven't scouted the trichomes yet but she is turning purple and I'm starting to see signs of senescence so we're slowly seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.