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!

Growverse420 Week 6 was solid for the two Hella Jelly’s, one Vanilla Frosting and one Jelly Donutz (all Humboldt Seed Co.) The Jelly Donutz, which is two weeks behind the others, should have been mostly active beneath the soil, with its roots expanding and growing into its new bed. I don’t see any deficiencies or issues up top and expect week 7 to start showing more growth above the soil. This is primarily why I have decided to wait another week before flipping to flower. I would like to see a bit more of the 4x4 covered and want to make sure the Jelly Donutz is established well enough to at least give a good main cola. I can also afford to wait another week or two before flipping to flower, because my recent Apple Fritter harvest, which I trimmed and jarred this week, came to 10.6 oz dried. This will be enough to replenish my stash until the first harvests of my new perpetual setup with the veg tent, 4x4 and 5x9. After that, I shouldn’t have to worry about running out ever again! lol I was excited to add two new products to my watering routine this week– Rootwise Enzyme Elixir and Rootwise Bio Phos. These round out the Rootwise Trio System centered around Rootwise Mycrobe Complete. The Enzyme Elixir basically “wakes up” the microbes from Mycrobe Complete, and also jumpstarts the breakdown of nutrients in the soil into plant available nutrients (it’s a concentration of the same enzymes the microbes already produce). The Bio Phos is supposed to help the uptake of phosphorus during flower. In living soil, phosphorus can get locked up by binding to minerals like calcium. The specific microbes from Bio Phos are supposed to secrete enzymes which act as scissors and “snip” phosphorus molecules away from organic matter they are stuck to. I’m excited to use this trio and see how the plants respond, so far they seem to love it! For my main water this week, I added per gallon: 1/4 tsp Quillaja Extract, 1/2 tsp Rootwise Mycrobe Complete, 1/2 tsp Rootwise Bio Phos, 5 ml Rootwise Enzyme Elixir, 40 ml Thrive “Holy Cow” Yah-Whey Cincentrate. I watered around 2 gallons per bed. I also added 1/2 c Craft Blend per plant, 1 tbsp of Ocean Grown per plant, and another 1/2” of BuildaFlower, plus a sprinkle of Kashi gold underneath. They should be good to go from when we flip to flower, hopefully, next week until the end of their lives!

Growverse420 Week 8 and the end of week 7 brought with it a massive snowstorm and below zero temps outside, BUT we didn’t lose power, Hallelu! Had we lost power, my plan was to take battery powered under-cabinet light strips that I have available, and I could have used those to interrupt the plants’ dark cycle for 10 minutes every hour or so to prevent them from flipping to flower or herming. Thankfully, I didn’t have to resort to that, and the worst we had to deal with was temperatures dropping into the high 50’s at night. Not ideal, and it can slow growth, but it’s nothing that is detrimental to their health. The 4x4 tent with two Hella Helly’s, a Vanilla Frosting and a Jelly Donutz (a few weeks behind the other three as it had to replace a runt that I culled), is going to be ready to flip to flower on Sunday. That means this week is about taking clones so I can have a genetic copy in case one turns out to be a keeper later on! So keep an eye out next week on a clone update/rundown. I’ll be setting up a separate veg tent for the clones, which will ultimately be the tent that feeds both my 5x9 and 4x4 flower tents, and I will also be starting a run of Autoflowers in this veg tent. Looking forward to starting a new diary next week of Speedrun’s Frosted Cherry-O’s F3 using an Earthbox. Keep an eye out for that too! As far as watering procedures this week go: I was finally able to install Autopot’s Tray2Grow automatic watering system and get it working for the Hella Jelly and Vanilla Frosting in the left bed. I had been using this watering system for an Apple Fritter grow that I just harvested, which is why it wasn’t set up from the get-go when I initially planted these two. Unfortunately, that meant I had to somehow figure out how to lift the almost 30 gallon bed of soil with two plants and get it out of the tent in order to put the Tray2Grow into the tent. Then, I had to move the bed of soil and plants back onto the Tray2Grow, all by myself. It was awkward and heavy but SOMEHOW I managed to do it while avoiding what I thought would be certain catastrophe. Lol Phew 😅 That being said, it was totally worth it, because the Tray2Grow is a BEAST and, honestly, it is too easy!!! Hella Jelly and Vanilla Frosting responded right away and have been drinking a ton. I just fill up the 25 gallon Flexi-Tank and let ‘em drink! I have a Blumat drip tape system that I have not used before, which I plan to use for the 2x4 Grassroots bed on the right. That may be a project for this week, as it would be nice to have the entire tent on automatic watering when I flip to flower Sunday. However, I have to set up a new reservoir as well, so this may be put off a little longer. Other than that, this past week I watered the 2x4 bed twice with around 2 gallons each time and used Quillaja (1/4 tsp/gal as a wetting agent), Rootwise Mycrobe Complete (1/2 tsp/gal), Rootwise Enzyme Elixir (5 ml/gal) and Rootwise Bio Phos (1/2 tsp/gal). When I watered I would do some on the Tray2Grow bed as well, so the could benefit from the microbes, but not nearly as much because I was keeping the Tray2Grow running and not turning it off to top water. Thanks for following along, happy growing everyone!