Hella Jelly and Vanilla Frosting- 4x4

Growverse420 Today I watered (6.3 ph) the seedlings with Rootwise (1/4 tsp), Thrive Yah-Whey Concentrate (3 mL), and Quillaja (1/4 tsp as a wetting agent). I also added the straw mulch layer over the cover crop to maintain the moisture on top of the soil. I used a gallon of water total, but made sure to only lightly water (maybe 2 tbsp) around the seedlings. The rest is for the cover crop and maintaining moisture in the bed.

Growverse420 End of week 2! I watered a gallon of water (7 ml Thrive Holy Cow, 1/2 tsp Rootwise Mycrobe Complete, 1/4 tsp Quillaja 20) split between the 2 beds, making sure to lightly water around the babies and maintain an even moisture throughout the rest of the beds. One of the Hella Jelly's is a bit slow out of the gate. I'm watching her closely to see how she develops. I also chopped the cover crop that was encroaching on the babies. I also popped 10 new Humboldt seeds this week, which will be moving into our new 5x9 tent (8 30-gallon living soil pots). Excited to begin sharing that diary with everyone as well!

Growverse420 Watered a gallon between the four of them this week (goal to maintain moisture in the beds.) found mycelium growing on top of the beds today, a great sign for soil health! The runt is still runty; if one of the seeds in the solo cups overtakes her in growth, I will probably cull the runt and replace her. Going to be topping in the next day or two, deciding if I am going to do a full “mainlining” run or just top them. TBD

Growverse420 Trying a sort of hybrid “mainlining” technique. I topped above the 3rd and 5th nodes roughly and left two “mainlines,” trimming everything else. I’m hoping this doesn’t stunt them, so far their growth has been vigorous. It looks like the runt is going to end up being replaced by one of the extra seedlings. Mainlining the other three plants in the tent allows the replacement seedling some time to catch up!

Growverse420 This week was a slow growth week. They were mostly in recovery mode after being topped and trimmed last week. From here on out I think I’m going to let them grow naturally and keep it mostly low stress. I top dressed this week with Build-a-flower, Kashi Gold, and Gnarly Barley from BuildaSoil to prepare the soil for the flip to flower. I’m seeing a lot of amazing mycelium growth on the top of the beds, and the cover crop seems to be thriving. We are looking at another week or two of veg I think, and then we will flip to flower. I’m hoping to see some strong growth this week.

Growverse420 Today is the first day of Week 6! This past week in the 4x4 “Blackbox” Tent, the front right Hella Jelly continued to thrive and push new growth, this one seems to be the most vigorous of the plants in the tent. The front left Hella Jelly struggled with some droopiness this past week, and one or two of her fan leaves had holes from what I’m guessing may have been a caterpillar or some other pest. I ended up cutting some of the lower fan leaves to keep the plant high away from the soil. The Vanilla Frosting in the back left was stunted a bit by the topping, but now she seems to be doing well, she is sturdy and the new growth seems healthy. Her sister on the right is two weeks behind and hasn’t really taken off since being transplanted. I’m hoping Week 6 (her Week 4) will be her week to really start pushing new growth. I needed to get the humidity higher in a couple of the tents and, not having any extra humidifiers available, I decided to try hanging a beach towel from a hanger in the tent. I dangled the end of the beach towel in a 5-gallon bucket of water, allowing it to wick up the moisture. This increased the humidity in the 4x4 by 20% (from 37%-57%). This was incredibly helpful because my “smart” humidifier is currently dedicated to the drying of my recent Apple Fritter harvest, and my other humidifier is not larger enough to maintain the humidity in the larger 5x9 tent for more than 18 hours before drying up. When watering the 4x4 this week, I added 1/4 tsp/gal of Quillaja extract, 1 tsp/gal of Rootwise “Mycrobe Complete,” and 1 oz/gal of Thrive “Holy Cow” Yah-Whey fermented extract. I also top dressed with Kashi Gold from BuildaSoil and worm castings (about 1/2-1 inch layer). I water 3 times this week, the goal being to maintain even moisture. The cover crop has been thriving, and by the end of the week it was time for a chop and drop. I did so and added it back to the soil and aLeo added more straw as a mulch layer. Something else that was exciting this week, was adding 2,000 worms to the 8 30-gallon living soil pots in the 5x9. Before I added the worms that I ordered(from Buckeye Organics), I tried using avocados, cut in half and laid face down on the beds of soil in the 4x4. This worked surprisingly well! The worms are very attracted to the avocado and end up creating a “worm ball” where they rub up against each other, reproducing and creating even MORE baby worms. I did this several times, moving the worm “orgies” to a few of the 30-gallon pots, simply by transferring the avocados. This was my first time using “avocado tech,” and I have to say, it worked SO well. Looking at upcoming Week 6, I’m hoping to see more growth from the 3 vigorous plants, and for the Vanilla Frosting that is a couple weeks behind, I’m hoping for her to begin filling out more. The goal is to flip to flower in the next 1-2 weeks, unless I decide we need to go longer. Full steam ahead!