First Grow

sir_root 10-22-2025 - Still growing. Second set of true leaves have started to emerge. The Black Cherry is catching up to her Sativa sisters in height, but everything else has stabilized. Hopefully by this time next week, there will some additional growth. The breeze from the circulation fans seems to be helping keep them strong. 10-24-2025 - The plants have not changed in height, but I am starting to see more above ground growth as the second set of main leaves is coming in. I am keeping everything consistent. A little spritz with water from my spray bottle (ph 6.5) to give a little moisture, but not soaking the rooter medium. They seem happy, swaying in the gentle breeze from the circulation fans. I started setting up the irrigation lines, to get ready. Optimistic that I will be at a point this time next week when I can move them into the pots. 10-26-2025 - While the plants have stopped stretching and I am seeing the second and third sets of true leaves, I am still concerned with the rate of growth. I turned the lights up from 20% to 25% last night and moved the lights up about an inch. Everything is looking good still this morning, no wilting or other changes. Plants are actually turning the leaves up a bit, but I am not seeing any deformities in the shapes of the leaves. Entering another dark period now and will see how they look coming out of it. I am really debating on transplanting them today into the grow pots. I am a little concerned that the rapid rooters have not expanded and are not blocking enough light in the grow tray, for the roots to really be able to grow.

sir_root 10/27 - I have decided it is time to repot the girls into larger 3 gal pots. After the dark cycle today, I will move them this afternoon. I was looking for a solution to watering around my plans, once they are in the larger pots. Most of the watering ring things I saw were overpriced and got pretty crappy reviews, so I made my own out of irrigation tubing, which has emitters every 6". I am using a LetPot automatic waterer, since I will have multiple moisture sensors in the space, so I can trigger watering from anywhere. After the dark period, I repotted the seedlings into their pots. 1/3rd Cali Super Soil, the rest Fox Farm Ocean Soil. Used my sprayer to water them in and ran the drip system for about 20 minutes to get the pots wet. I have a wifi enabled moisture meter setup, so I can track the soil moisture level. With the wifi irrigation system, that lets me turn on the drip system. No nutes to this point. Water ph 6.5 10/31/2025 - Moved my sensors down in the tent to about the same level as the top of the pots. I might move one up later, which is just an external sensor, but I found that the heat at the bottom of the tent, under the lights was about 3 degrees hotter than what I had set the heater at. VPD was good, but was skewed and obviously they were running pretty hot. Sats were responding well, but I noticed some upward leaf curl on the Indica, so I am hoping this one adjustment helps. Will let things run for 48 hours or so and see how things proceed. 10/30/2025 - I just had to upload some updates from the last couple of days. Just running the light cycle and maintaining humidity. I still run about 77 F during the "day" and drop to 71 F for my 6 hour dark cycle. The plant saucer upside down in a larger plant saucer seems to have worked well. Allows the runoff and keeps the pot out of it. I am going to drill some holes in the smaller saucer to let some of the runoff drip down better. All in all, they all seemed to have taken to the repot well. The Black Cherry (Indica) is going a bit slower, but today it looks like she will take off in the next day or so. The Sats have all officially started their first nodes. They are watered in well and will let things sit and not setup an automatic watering schedule yet.

sir_root 11/3/2025 - I spent a lot of time making slight adjustments last week, to attempt to get a more stable grow environment. Moved the heater and humidifier sensors to the middle of the tent hanging down about 18" above the lights. I am leaving the lights at 20" and turned them up to 75% intensity. DLI is between 28 and 30. One of my circulating fans started acting up over the weekend. It stops oscillating, which has prompted me to order two new fans from AC Infinity. I will admit, I am a bit disappointed that the fans supplied with this kit from The Bud Grower, failed after just a few weeks. I will continue to monitor for any stress, but all of the plants have seemed to adapt to the higher light levels well. They are growing very quickly now, so I expect I will be topping at least the Cinderella Dream ladies later this week and getting them ready for manifolding. I noticed a little bit of curling up at the ends of the Sats. The leaves are still more or less flat, except for one which is curled, but I think that is because of one of the circulation fans. So, earlier today, I moved the lights up about 6". I measured and they are now 20" from the top of the tallest plant. I may move that fan up tomorrow, but it is on low and moving again. I also watered them again, for 3 minutes. The moisture meter was showing 24%. The outer part seemed dry, even though I could tell the root ball was still damp. Anyway, was a sprinkle. Metrics at the last check(That I can measure). VPD .88, tent temp 77 F, Lights 75% I also noticed that the edges of the fan leaves are curling up a bit. I suspect temp and light intensity, since I had just raised the light level. I moved the lights up another few inches, so now they are 20" above the top of the tallest plant. Will let this ride for a couple of days and see if they improve. The little Indica girl is starting to catch up to her cousins, so maybe she will be ready too. 11/5 - They all seem to be doing really well. Noticed my watering system was siphoning a bit, so I moved the res to the floor and added a check valve to the line. Really glad I only fill a little water at a time, so I didn't have mess. The little ladies are well through the third node development and it looks like they are taking off. Noticed something today. I had the heater turned down to 75, because I had to leave my house before the end of the light cycle. I generally bring the temp down. When I went to check on it, tent temp was 77, about 20" above the lights. I think the lights and my heater were competing. My humidifier was cranking all the time to get VPD down to .8. Now, heater is set to 75, tent temp is 77 during light schedule and my VPD is holding strong at .79. Humidifier has barely run all day, except in dark cycle.

sir_root 11/8 - Broke down and did the manifold on the Indica a bit earlier than I probably should have, but she is starting to rebound. Sats are doing great. No slow down, low shock from the manifold trim up. Continuing LST to flatten the canopy. Waiting for 5-6 nodes before I do the second round. Slow growth, had me a bit concerned. I may add a small dose of nuts next week, if they seem to be slowing down too much.

sir_root 11/13 - Decided to give the plants a little bit of a boost and added 4tsp to a gal of water for the next water cycle. It seems to have helped, as they have started to take off and grow much faster. Also, continuing LST and keeping the canopy flat. Raised lamp height a bit and increased light level to 100%. It seems to be helping quite a bit.

sir_root 11/19 - They are taking off really well and most of the leaf tone, which made me think nutrient deficiency, has cleared up. Continuing LST and I think I will perform the next trim up for the Sats today after the dark cycle ends. Will hold off on another feeding of nuts, since the leaves look like they have recovered. Maybe another dose later this week. Second trim up for the manifold on the Sats is done. They look great!

sir_root 11/20 - I feel way behind, but really things have been just growing. I did a bit of a trim to get more light to the important parts. They are starting to take off and grow really fast.

sir_root 11/30 - Fed them mid week and let them grow over the holiday. Today, I did a big trim on the lower fan leaves and tried to remove anything that was blocking light from reaching all the growth tips. I was pleased that all the leaves were very healthy and I didn't see any negative signs to be concerned about. Raised the light up a bit, checked PAR. I think I will need to replace these lamps in the future. They are at max and I am only getting about 26 DLI out of them at 20". The plants seem happy though, so I am not going to fret about it too much. Gave them a bit of a dose of nuts, per the fox farm instructions. I am not following the schedule exactly, because I am also growing with concentrated soil. This is just to give them a bit of an extra boost after I trimmed so much off. I guess I now just have to watch and look for the bud sites to start forming.

sir_root 12/8/2025 - I am just feeding them and letting them grow. Once the bud sites finish forming, I will perform another trim and removed most of the small stuff under the canopy. 12/10/2025 - While everything looks healthy and I can see the bud sites just starting to peak through, I did take the opportunity to defoliate just a bit. Took off some larger fan leaves on the inside of the main branches to get more light into the center of the plant. Basically, just anything that was blocking something I wanted to grow. Trying to keep things to a minimum. Added a small dose of nuts for the flower stage. While I am growing in super soil, I think a little bit more isn't a bad idea, but I guess I will see.

sir_root 12/15/2025 - Mostly left things alone since I did the last minimum defoliation. I just wanted to make sure that light was getting to the bud sites, while the plants continue to develop. I am not planning to do any thing this week, but will do a last major defoliation next week. I realized, that I have not been tracking the settings I have been using on my different devices for a while. Well, I had received an AC Infinity controller , to compliment my fans (I bought these, yeah. The ones from the kit were flaking out), humidifier and heater. Well, for the veg stage, I used a VPD target of about .8-1. Temp range of 70-80F Day period/65-75 Night period. I had the dehumidifier and heater trying to balance this between their different sensors, which were right next to each other, spaced about 1" apart. The controller let me just set it where I needed it. I still checked them like 10-12 times a day, but it was great to be able to watch it during the night schedule. I am also tracking CO2, but I am not doing anything to manage that during this grow. When I flipped to flower, I changed VPD to 1-1.2 and 65-78 F Day/65-75 Night Also moved to the 12/12. So, I was watching and on thing that was really bugging me was RH. It was fine when it was high during veg and I hoped that the controller would focus on that, but alas, it only was dealing with VPD and some pretty high temps. I need to get LED lights with detachable drivers. These generate a lot of heat and I don't want to get an AC unit for this tent, when I may need to get a dehumidifier. Then I realized, I could change the focus of the controller to Temp an Humidity. Duh, of course. Now I can set a target humidity low and well, crap, I don't have much I can do to drop humidity right now, except that my basement is at about 26-30% humidity. Hmmm. Maybe I will get a dehumidifier for Christmas. Anyway, I set my new Day temp to 77 F. Humidity to 40-50%. Opened both my vents at the bottom of the tent and cranked the vent fan up to max. It has come down, but of course it is night. Still, it seemed to keep up with the bump up on humidity when the lights went off. Inside is 67.5% and RH is 45%. Will watch day time tomorrow. I am sure it will overcome the RH I want to keep it under, but time will tell. 12/16/2025 - Whelp, lights came on, temp up to 75 F and humidity up around 65%. I am going to need a dehumidifier in the next two weeks. 12/17/2025 - Obsessed with RH. Opened up one of the ports in the tent near the top, which is helping vent some additional air. At least during the day, right after watering, I am at least under 60% now, so I have some time.

sir_root 12/22/2025 - Did my last major defoliation a couple of days ago. They were quite bushy and I wanted to get more light to the bud sites. I also think that my watering is not even. Moved the moisture sensor over to the Black Cherry, since she seems a little wilted. Also, directly watered her and the Cinderella Dream on the left. Adjusted the valves on each plant to hopefully even out the water distribution a bit. I really need to get more sensors for my next cycle. Overall though, pretty happy with the progress. Really looking forward to watching the buds develop. Still hoping for a dehumidifier for Christmas, since I have this thing opened up all over the place to keep the humidity down, but it still is not going to be enough for late flower. 12/26/2025 - Did another minimal cleanup of some leaves today. While my dehumidifier is back ordered until Feb, I think I will be okay. I did get a small water fountain pump to run in the water reservoir to keep the nutrient mix circulated. That at least saves me needing to stir everything every time I want to water. Took a bunch of pictures of bud sites and I updated the album with some shots to show the progress. Not quite week 4 yet, so pretty pleased with the progress. I did realize that I should have probably kept up training on the main colas, but that is a lesson learned for next time. Now just to wait, watch and hope I get the yield I am shooting for. 12/27/2025 - Noticed some slight curling and yellowing on the leaf tips. I posted a question and got some great feedback. Limit on Nutes and raise the lights, which I am already doing. It really bugs me about this platform that questions are so limited in length and lack the ability to respond to people's answers. I guess it keeps arguments down. Anyway, I ran a sledgehammer flush this afternoon, with a gallon of water. I diluted the nutrient base in my reservoir. I need a few days to let my refilled buckets air out and dechlorinate. Hopefully this will help. I had some runoff, so fingers crossed. I also realized that my lights are definitely bright, but the are so close together, DLI in the center is great, but it drops off fast at the edges. New lights will definitely be in my future. Another note on watering. I have a sensor in the Indica, since it seems to get the least water out of my irrigation system. When moisture drops to around 25%, I water. 24 minutes, with drip irrigation for 2 minute intervals and 4 minutes off, until the cycle completes. This seems to be working well, but I am also thinking that the balance of the system is not perfect. I will have to play around with the valve adjustments before I get into the next grow and see if I can balance it out. 12/28/2025 - Moved the lights up a bit more today they are about 22" from the top colas. Also reinforces that I think I want two light units, when I replace these down the road, instead of 1. Letting the pots dry out a bit and prepping some plain water to hand water them for the next few days. Thinking about a reverse osmosis system for water down by where I have the tent. Might make life a lot easier down the road. Filtering and waiting for the chloramide to evaporate takes so much time when I just want water with no nutes.

sir_root 12/29/2025 - Stopping supplementing nutes going forward. The nute burn seems to have stabilized. I let things dry out quite a bit the last couple of days and just gave each plant 24 oz of pure drinking water, it was what I had on hand and it was already a PH of around 6.5. I have tap, gassing out and will treat it to get PH to 6.5. Will keep up the hand watering for now and watch to see how the buds fatten up. I was hoping for more in week 4, but I know I was pushing a lot of parameters around. Speaking of which, I raised the day temp to 73-80 F and 45% RH. Night temps will be 70-75 F and RH of 45%. At least things are dry here, outside air wise. Should help me keep the RH in check, while I continue to wait on my dehumidifier. 12/31/2025 - I have just been watering with plan ph balanced water (6.5), since I stopped nutes 3 days ago. Girls are drinking about 32oz a day and seems to be doing very well. I am so looking forward to when these buds start to swell up. They are looking really good and frosty. Uploaded a couple of pics to show the worst leaves today. Hopefully the burn won't continue, but it has shown a bit more on the edges of the leaves. Keeping my fingers crossed. Anyway, it is only on the Cinderella Dream plants and they have quite a bit of leaf mass, so I am feeling okay. The Indica seems perfect, she must have liked the extra supplements. She is getting the same water that the Sats are getting, so I will just keep an eye on her. 1/2/2026 - Happy New Year! Wow, totally aside, I found a few more flower enthusiasts in my family over the holidays. That was pretty awesome. I have also been reading a lot. I have become a big fan of Nebula and actually used their guide for this first grow. I should be acknowledging the shoulders I have stood on. In any case, I wanted to take some notes for myself. I will forget this later. Run the tent hotter, because I am growing under LED. When I switched to flower, I had dropped the temp on the night schedule to 65 F min, 75 F max. I think this stunted my growth a bit in early flower. Maybe I am just clueless, but the leaf temp (no I do not have a temp gun, it is on my wish list) differential under LED was huge. I think at night, my girls may have gotten a little too cold. Since I cranked up the temp, to 70 F min, 75 F max at night, things seemed to have picked up. I guess that will be apparent tomorrow. The other thing, which I got to thinking about was the 3-Day Dark Period before harvest. Hm... One other thing. Seriously debating if I should do any more defoliation in the middle. I know there are bud sites that are not getting a lot of light, but I really don't want to shock them this close to week 6 or regret them not having the energy to produce on the huge number of buds which are looking so good. I think I just settled my own question. 1/3/2026 - Did a little LST on the Indica girl. Just used the old plant wire to try and flex out the main colas a bit to get a bit more light into the side buds. I really need to be more diligent about this on the next grow. I got lazy and let the go, when I could have kept the horizontal stretch. Related, I had purchased some plastic clips, to grab onto the edge of the fabric pots, which I attached the wire to. The plants are strong, they eventually pulled the clips off. I think I will add some stainless steel gromets to the edges of the pots, before I start the next grow. Should give me more stability.

sir_root 1/5/2025 - Dumped all of my nutrient supplemented water over the weekend, cleaned out the res and got a couple of more 5 gal buckets for water prep. Thankfully, we are on pumped lake water, so I just need to gas it out for a few days. The girls are drinking quite a bit and I am continuing to try and flush a bit with run off. Alternating between when lights first come on and when lights are about to go off, so a full water every 36 hours or so. The plants affected by the nute burn are still showing the impact of this. The leaves that were already affected have progressed to get a bit worse, but the new growth and other leaves seem to be bouncing back quite well. Again, this really only seemed to significantly affect the Sativas. The Indica (Black Cherry) showed a little stress, but no progressing on leaf deterioration. Just keeping them going, with fresh 6.5ph balanced water, as they need it. Had to update the smell, it is strong! My little 4" exhaust fan is struggling to keep up and I had to close one of my vent holes at the top of the tent, because the house was starting to smell. Definitely going to upgrade later. Would love to go 8", but finding an exhaust kit for the window for that size is going to be more of a challenge. I will probably have to make one. 1/6/2026 - Well, RH is at least staying under 60%, but not where I want it. Closing up the vent did help with the odor in the house, but now I have a humidity issue. I have an AC Infinity dehumidifier on order, which will be setup in a closed loop. Unfortunately, it will not come until Feb, which will be great for harvest and dry, but it won't help me as I get through my last weeks of flower. So, I ordered a small dehumidifier, which I think I can fit into the tent and just set to run. It has a drain hose, so I won't have to babysit it. 1/78/2026 - Trimmed off some of the larger fan leaves, which were getting pretty yellow and ugly. I am not sure if this is just progression of light burn, but I know it could be a few other things too. I just don't think that I have a nutrient deficiency problem. So, I raised lights up a bit too. 1/8/2026 - Really trying to get some good pictures of the Indica, to determine how close I am to harvest. Noticed something today though, which makes me wonder if she is going hermie on me... So, I asked here and got an answer and asked some other experienced growers I know, who all agreed. Time to chop the Indica girl down and trim her up for dry. I am satisfied, but I probably didn't do the best job on trim, but she was so small. Not going to mix genetics next time. Still stick to one strain while I get my groove going. Figure probably another week or maybe two for the Sats to finish up. They are looking really good and the buds are starting to fatten up a bit more. 1/9/2026 - Looking this morning, the plants are doing great, but I am noticing that there isn't enough light getting to the lower branches. I know I should have done a better job with LST, when I switched over. Anyway, I decided to do a little LST today. I built a frame around the pots, to get more lateral leverage from the base of the plants and ran some garden wire from each main cola down to the frame and stapled it in place. It went really well for most of the branches, but a couple of them I grabbed too high and they bent over. Other than being bent, they are not split or broken, so I guess I will get a little late flower HST learning on a couple of the branches. Everything is so much more opened up, I am feeling better. Was able to lower the lights down, so they are 22" from the new flat canopy. Hopefully I didn't stress them out too much.

sir_root 1/12/2026 - They are maturing fast. I don't know if my effort to spread the canopy caused things to slow down or not, but the pistils are darkening and things look like they are fattening up quite a bit. Looking a little closer, I think they will be ready for harvest around the end of this week. End of the day and checking on the ladies before the lights go off. I think the one on the left is really getting ready for harvest. The other one, may be a day or so behind. I am starting to think that my left light does not have the same output as my right light. I may have to double check my PAR map again to figure that out. Anyway, will check her again tomorrow and figure out my plan. I won't be around Wed, I know one day won't make that big of a difference, but still.