Skunk Sandwich

GrowSquire Hey everyone, first grow diary here. 😁 This site has been a use useful resources during my research phase, so it felt right to give something back. I spent a few weeks going through forums, grow diaries, and even a couple of research papers before starting, nothing too serious, just wanted to understand what I was actually doing before touching a seed. This journal is my attempt to document everything properly. I’m a beginner, I’m figuring it out as I go, and if anything I write is wrong please say so, I’ll update it. The lineup is 3 fastbuds autoflowers : - 2x guava rf3 - 1x skunk The skunk was a last minute swap. I originally wanted a banana purple punch rf3, but it was out of stock everywhere. Found one site that claimed to have it, spent way too long going back and forth with them, and it turned out they didn’t have it either... Ordered directly from fastbuds, got the skunk, done. It’s a fast flowering old-school strain, and I kind of like the contrast with the guava which is about as modern as it gets. An old hippie sandwiched between two hype girls ! Now for the timeline, germination on April 30th, hard deadline July 16th. That’s 77 days total. The guava and the skunk are listed at 8-9 weeks by fastbuds, but for outdoor grow it should be longer. So we’re cutting it very close, zero room for error. Fun start !!🙌 Substrate was originally supposed to be a 50/50 mix of batmix and gold label light mix for all 3 pots. The idea was to combine the richness of the batmix with the lightness of the light mix, and a 50/50 ratio should normally be diluted enough to avoid burning seedlings. The risk of a vigorous root system reaching the hotter layer early was probably small, but it was still a risk. And with a small deadline and no backup plan, I didn’t want to gamble even on a small risk. I’d already used a chunk of my light mix in my tomato garden, and I didn’t have enough left for three full pots.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​😂😂 Two pots got 100% light mix, low EC, very airy, great drainage, ideal for autos that need to explore freely without getting hit with nutrients too early. For the third pot I kept the batmix idea but went with a progressive gradient, from 100% batmix at the bottom (pre-rinsed to lower the initial EC) through several diluted layers up to about 80% light mix, then 12-15 cm of pure light mix at the top. No extra perlite since the light mix is already airy enough. The two full light mix pots now serve as a natural reference for comparison at harvest. Didn’t plan it that way, but I’ll take it. Soak night of April 30th, 22 hours, pH 6.0 water with rhizotonic at 4 mL/L and some azos powder. Rhizotonic has amino acids and vitamins that are supposed to stimulate germination and help soften the seed shell. Azos has bacteria that support root development. Some growers swear by both products early on, and at these doses it shouldn’t cause any harm either way, so I went for it. After 22 hours, the 2 guava rf3 had cracked and you could see the radicle inside, not yet out but clearly there. The skunk had sunk to the bottom but hadn’t cracked yet. I went ahead and planted all three. Looking back, I could probably have waited up to 48 hours without any asphyxia risk. To keep humidity and temperature stable around the seeds I made little DIY greenhouses out of cut plastic bottles, caps on. My place sits around 18-20°C at night and I was hoping it would help hold a bit of warmth. I didn’t pre wet the substrate before sowing because I’d read that can encourage fungal issues for seedlings, so I watered after. I started with a spray bottle, then got suspicious it wasn’t reaching deep enough, and switched to small pours of 100-150 mL per pot whenever it dried out. Then the weather decided to ruin everything... Rain all week, 12°C during the day, 7°C at night. The plants stayed inside without a dedicated grow light, relying on whatever weak natural light came through the windows. The result was some serious etiolation, the seedlings stretched tall looking for light, ending up with thin leggy stems. Repotting deeper would normally fix this since buried stems develop adventitious roots, but with autoflowers you really don’t want to repot. Their internal clock starts ticking from day one. So instead I made small mounds of substrate around the base of each stem, pushing the surrounding soil toward the center to support the stems and partially bury the lower section. Improvised, but it made sense. Doing that lowered the substrate level around the edges of the pots. My plan is to top them up with some generic indoor potting mix cut with around 20% perlite, but I’m waiting a few more days first. That potting mix might be a bit nutrient rich and I’d rather not stress the seedlings while they’re still this young. I’ll probably give it a rinse before using it just to be safe. By day 7, still inside, still no sun, but the forecast was finally improving😍. My babies were alive !