The second grow, winter is coming

gamberro Veg week 1 started a bit rough, as growth was quite slow while I was fighting with the Spider Farmer GGS kit to get all the sensors properly calibrated; the readings for temp, RH and EC were jumping all over the place, so I preferred to keep waterings very light and not risk overdoing anything. Once I finally dialed it in, temperatures stayed mostly around 20–24°C, RH moved in a decent range for early veg and VPD settled close to where I wanted it, with a gentle PPFD for a small plant. I gave her about 100 ml of water at pH ~6.1 with a very low EC (0.11 mS/cm) and just a touch of Root-Juice (0.1 ml/100 ml) to encourage roots rather than push foliage. She stayed small and a bit stretchy at the beginning of the week, but by the end the stem looked a bit stronger and new leaf pairs started to stack with a healthy green color. Not a crazy explosive week, more like a “getting everything under control” week, but she finishes this first vegetative week happy, stable and ready to pick up speed next.

gamberro This week finally felt like a real veg week. After last week’s calibration drama, everything is behaving much more consistently and she’s clearly responding: the plant looks healthier, thicker and noticeably more “stacked” day by day, with tight internodes and fresh lime-green new growth pushing from the top. Early in the week she was still small and upright, but as the days went on she started building proper fan leaves and widening out. I also began some very gentle LST (I’m keeping it soft because she’s an auto): first using small training pins/clips to open the plant and encourage lateral growth, and by the end of the week I added a light tie-down to start shaping the canopy. She’s staying low, compact and already looks bushier compared to the start of the week. Environment-wise, temps have been pretty steady around the low-20s °C, while RH has bounced a bit (you can see it reflected in VPD swings), but overall she’s coping well and the leaves look clean—no burn, no clawing, no obvious deficiencies. Light was stepped up gradually through the week (gentle increase, no shock), and she took it like a champ. Watering stayed on the conservative side: midweek I gave 200 ml @ pH 6.0, very low EC (0.11 mS/cm) + Root-Juice, and later in the week I did a slightly richer mix (250 ml @ pH 6.57, EC 0.62 mS/cm with Acti-Vera, Bio-Grow, CalMag and Root-Juice) to start feeding a bit more without pushing too hard. Overall: much better pace, more structure, and she’s finally starting to look like she’s ready to accelerate—winter is coming, but she’s not impressed.

gamberro This week she finally started to look like she’s properly in veg and not just “surviving”. She’s staying short and compact with tight internodes, and the LST is already doing its thing: the main top is kept down, the plant is opening up, and you can see the side branches starting to push and fight for the canopy. From the pictures she looks healthy overall, nice solid green on the big leaves and lighter green in the new growth, no weird spots, no clawing, and she doesn’t seem stressed by the training at all. The environment has been pretty decent for winter: temps mostly in the low 20s with lights on, but the night dips are real (high teens at times), humidity hovering around the 55–65% range with some drops, so VPD moves a bit but nothing extreme, and PPFD has been sitting roughly around the 450–520 range (the graphs show it pretty clearly). Feeding stayed light. Earlier in the week I gave her 250 ml at pH 6.30, EC 0.65 with Acti-Vera, Bio-Grow and CalMag. Then on Sunday I had to travel, so I gave her a bigger drink than usual, 500 ml at pH 6.32, EC 0.40 with Acti-Vera, Root-Juice, a touch of CalMag and Bio-Grow, basically hoping the pot would stay moist enough to last the whole trip and not come back to a completely dry medium. Overall I’m really happy with how she’s shaping up, she’s getting bushier, the canopy is opening nicely, and it finally feels like the grow is picking up speed.

gamberro This week was basically a remote grow week. I was traveling, so until Thursday morning I could only check her through the webcam inside the tent, which is why some of the pictures look way more yellow than what she looks like in real life. The week went smoother than I expected considering I wasn’t home: she kept that short and compact structure, getting wider and bushier, and you can see more and more tips popping up everywhere, so it really feels like she’s building the base for what comes next. The big fan leaves still look strong and dark, and the new growth is that bright lime green that usually shows up when she’s actively pushing, so overall she looks healthy and not stressed by the training. And yeah, she’s started to preflowering already, you can see the first signs in the tops, so things are definitely moving into the next phase. Temperature-wise I actually dropped it a bit on purpose. I’m keeping it around 23°C during the day and about 18°C at night. Since she’s a Northern Lights she should handle the cold pretty well, and honestly I wasn’t about to burn money on the heater just to chase higher temps. From what I’m seeing so far, it doesn’t look like these temps are bothering her at all, she’s still growing and staying nice and compact. The environment graphs explain the weird parts of the week. Humidity had that big drop around the 24th, and it wasn’t anything mysterious, the humidifier I left for the trip simply ran out of water and RH crashed for a while. After that it stabilized again around the mid to high 50s most of the week, so VPD stayed in a decent zone, moving a bit but nothing crazy. Light has been pretty steady and I also stepped it up compared to last week, starting around the 500ish PPFD range and then sitting closer to 600 to 650 during lights on by the end of the week, and she didn’t seem to mind at all. CO2 is basically ambient as usual, with the random spikes here and there. Feeding stayed gentle, but I’ve started introducing bloom stuff because of the preflowering. On Thu 25th I gave her 500 ml with just a bit of CalMag, pH 6.60 and EC 0.17, basically keeping it simple while I was away. Then on Sun 28th I did 700 ml, pH 6.29 and EC 0.52, with Acti Vera, Alg A Mic, Bio Grow, Bio Bloom, Top Max and a touch of CalMag. Still not pushing too hard, but slowly stepping things up and starting that transition into flowering nutrients now that she’s showing it’s time. Training wise, Friday was a proper “tidy up” day. I did a small defoliation first, just enough to open her up and make it easier to see what I was doing, and then I tried some new binder clips to get cleaner anchor points and start marking the branches better for a future scrog. She seems to be responding really well: most of the branches are already sitting more or less at the same height, except for the main one, which I’m still bringing down with LST so the whole canopy evens out. Once the tips stretch a little more and I’ve got enough length to work with, I’m going to tuck them into the scrog and start guiding everything properly. Overall she finished the week wider, bushier, and more “planned” looking, and it really feels like the grow is finally picking up speed, winter is coming but she’s not impressed.