Autoflower Grow #1

The AK420 sprouted with a slight defect. The first few set of leaves are deformed, resulting in delayed growth. Other than that there is nothing else to report on. The girls all have a nice green to them and are looking healthy!

The AK420 seedling is still struggling as to be expected. Happy Growing! -Day #11 update I'm really happy with the growth of the girls in the past couple days. They were getting ready to out grow their solo cups so I transplanted them into their final pots for the duration of the grow. The brand of soil that I am using comes from Coast of Maine, the specific soil I am using is their Stonington Blend with an addition of Miracle Grow Perlite. The reason I added the perlite was for additional drainage as the Stonington Blend I felt didn't have enough aeration. I used a full 8 quarts of perlite per 1.5 cubic foot bag. Little side note, one of the Thin Mint has developed a neat leaf mutation. Making a set of two leaves on a single side.

Noticed a small burst in growth this past week. Most of the girls are nice and healthy, expect the AK420. Which is starting to develop a strange node structure on the bottom of the plant. I'll probably just end up trimming that section later on in the grow as the new growth is more on par for a cannabis plant. Day #19 Update: The girls are starting to fill out the pots . I did some light defoliating, removing a couple of the bigger fan leaves to allow more light to penetrate the lower growth. The plan is to start low stress training on them once week 4 comes around and they are a little bigger. Day #20 Update: Had a happy accident ( as my boy kali would say) in the garden this morning. Was attempting to do some training on a Thin Mint Crack as it was the tallest with the most internodal structure with a tick stem. Figured it would work out fine. Boy was I wrong...😓😡 Well I guess were gonna see how well the topped plant does compared to the non-topped one.

The Blackberry Gum and the one Thin Mint Crack that wasn't accidentally topped are still cruising along nicely very even growth all around. Today I clean up some leaves off the AK420 and to my surprise it had self topped the lower nodes! I wired down the branches to try and give them more space to grow. Think Mint #2 has responded slightly better than I thought it would. There was more growth on the lower nodes this week than all the other weeks combined. This week is has been sunny out so I'v been trying to give them 4-5 hours of good sunlight a day and they are loving it. 😎 Since iv been letting the plants get some natural sun. Most of them have doubled in height. I noticed pre-flowers on 3/5 last night.

Right after my last photo update mid-week 4 there was an unfortunate situation happened where a mirror fell on two the plants. One of them being the already abused Thin Mint Crack. It took the brunt of the damage and for that I am thankful. It crushed the main stem and broke off one the new tops, it snapped one side branch but I was able to tape it up and it was fine. Took a couple days to recover but she is a trooper. The other one wacked was a blackberry gum. The damage on this was less sever to the plant overall but the mirror did shave off 2 branches on one side leave it bare.

I took a week vacation and I came back to some happy plants 😎

The plants have really bulked up this past week. There is no longer sufficient room for the Ak420 in the tent any more because the canopy of the other plants is blocking the majority of the light. The bud sites are stacking really well and they are starting to give off their own unique smells to the strain. The blackberry gum smells sweet and a little fruity, while the thin mint crack has a strange piney / menthol musk. I noticed a slight yellowing of the leaves on the blackberry gum and they all started to have brown spots on the leaves indicating a calcium deficiency. I ordered a small bag of Fish bone meal from the Coast of Maine. I mixed in 2 tbs per pot and watered it in. The NPK ratio is 5-13-0 (with 18% calcium) This dry amendment is perfect for flower and the plants shouldn't need to much more intervention till harvest. I'll just give it some compost tea every two weeks and they'll be right as rain.

The plants are doing well. The buds are getting thicker each day. I noticed that the blackberry gums are starting to fade a little bit. I'm not really sure of the cause but I'm guessing its strain related as the Thin Mints are still dark dark green. Its a little concerning to me as I feel they have another month left at least. 6 weeks for the abused Thin Mint. I gave all the plants a tiny boost of some cal-mag just to easy my mind as some rust spots on the blackberry gum and thin mint were getting worse. I was wondering if this was going to be an issue with this soil. When filling my pots I came across several big chunks of lobster shell, I'm talking like nickle sized piece. That leads me to conclude that they didn't properly breakdown the shells into small enough pieces and composted long enough to decompose the calcium so its available to the bio-life in the pots and the plants. I'll keep you guys updated 👊

I took the weekend off and was out of state. When I came back today I found that most of the plants have gotten thicker. I noticed on the thin mint crack that didn't have the mirror fell on was infested with some some white bug, possibly spider mites, I ordered some lady bugs from amazon to combat left over pests. I also found a caterpillar nested inside one of the lower bud sites. I removed the afflicted bud site and called it a day. They are due for a watering so I'll give them another dose of cal-mag. The fading of the leaves was pretty noticeable after being away for a couple days away I don't know if I should be worried about it or not at this point in flower. They are still chugging along nicely so I'll probably leave it. Ak420 is not pictured, it's still doing its thing, just outside. It's not any where close to as dense as the ones in the tent.

The smells are really starting to break through this week. The blackberry gum has a very fruity, sweet smell. Fruit Loops would be a good comparison. The thin mint crack is musky and mintier than ever. The AK420 has a really strong gas, spice smell. I mixed up another batch of compost tea this week. I probably added 5 solo cups worth of compost to a 5 gallon bucket and stirred it up for a while. Some pretty colors are coming though now on both strains, the last couple days the purple on the thin mint has exploded. Thin mint #2 seems likes its starting to finish up. There wasn't much change to the overall buds the past week. The buds stayed golf ball sized but they are the most dense out of all the plants. The lady bugs came in the mail for the aphid infestation. After deploying them they seemed more interested in the cloth pot than they did the plant and aphids. The ones who found their way onto the plant would mostly ignore the aphids, even walking directly on them and passing them by. Wheres the killer instinct 😤. While it was amusing, I struggle to comprehend how they are an effective pest control strategy. Ill probably give it 1-2 more weeks then chop. No point in letting the buggers multiply just so I can squeeze a couple more grams out of it. Smoking insects is not something i'm interested in.

The colors in the Thin Mint Crack have exploded, so has the bud development. I snipped off a branch off the Thin Mint Crack with the aphids and dried and smoked it. The trics were probably 50% clear and 50% cloudy. It was a smooth smoke and it had a slight mint undertone. Similar to an Altoid. They are getting more and more frosty each day! The finish line is soo close I can almost taste it! I took some photos of the Ak420 just to give you an update on it. The development has been behind the other plants by a large margin. I wouldnt be surprised if it goes 120+ days. That plant I think is going to get turned into hash as its the frostiest of the bunch and it isn't going to make for good smoke.

I chopped the Thin Mint Crack that had been outside. There was some bud rot starting to form so I decided it was her time to come down. I got something close to an ounce. The other Thin Mint Crack is super close to harvest. The trics are all cloudy and about 15% are amber. One Blackberry Gum is coming down with the other. She smells like a fresh bushel of berries. While the other one smells like dirty underwear haha. That Blackberry gum is going to get probably another week there are a lot of white hairs and the buds aren't chunky as the others. The Ak420 is still doing its thing in the corner.

One of the plants didn't stretch at all once pistils started to appear. The aphids didn't help the growth either and leaving it outside for the last 5 weeks wasn't ideal. The one that was crushed by the mirror was the complete opposite. It took the undamaged side branches exploded with new growth. Which is very unusual for an auto flowering cannabis plant. It still managed to get to the same height as the blackberry gums in the tent. Overall i'm pleased with the quality of genetics SeedStockers has breed. I will 100% buy more seeds from them.

Today was the day one blackberry gum came down. The plant was really starting to eat itself the past couple days. The tric's weren't maturing anymore so it was her time. The other one is following in its siblings footsteps its starting to cannibalize itself. Shes still throwing white pistles and getting thicker and thicker. She has another week left in her. I'll update you guys later tomorrow with a harvest total for the Thin Mint Crack

Sorry for the late update, school started up again and I got swept away in all the class work. Heres the grand total for this run. Thin Mint Crack #1 28g, Thin Mint Crack #2 20g, Both Blackberry Gum 80g, AK420(guess) 14g. = a total of 142g or 5 Oz

I haven't smoked much of it as it was finishing up after I left for school. My sister chopped, dried, trimmed it on her own and I gave it to her as a small gift. This one was basically a test run for next grow. It definitely didn't match the quality of the other plants. The next grow will consists of 2 AK420, 1 Thin Mint Crack, 1 BlackBerry Gum.