Laughing Buddha - Barney's Farm

Martin82 TThe heatwave is almost at its end, but given the circumstances I'm happy the sweating buddha is still alive! 😓 The Rainwater Cistern is almost empty, but that's supposed to change tonight. Hang in there tiny buddha!

Martin82 yep, the heatwave is over, for now. As soon as the temperatures dropped the sweating buddha became a growing buddha. Keep growing, little buddha!

Martin82 I topped her, she recovered like nothing happened, and then followed two uneventful weeks of veg. Yesterday she moved into the Mars Hydro tent. Tomorrow we initiate the flowering protocol. 👽🛸

Martin82 Finally, a week where something happened! I applied my first ASTRA (Adaptive Stress Training Restraints, Advanced... also known as hemp cord 😄), and she recovered incredibly fast. I also flipped the timer to 12/12, so now it's time to lean back and enjoy the show... at least for a week or so. 🌿 Explaination: ASTRA – Canopy Bowling 🎳😜 Don't flatten your canopy. Bowl it! Instead of forcing every top to the exact same height, I'm experimenting with what I call Canopy Bowling. The idea is to let the stronger outer colas sit slightly higher while allowing the smaller inner bud sites to remain a little lower, where the center of the light footprint is strongest. Rather than creating a perfectly flat canopy, I'm aiming for a very shallow bowl that exposes as many bud sites as possible without excessive training. It worked surprisingly well in my previous grow, so now it's time to find out whether the same principle works with a completely different plant architecture.

Martin82 First full week of flower with the stretch in full swing – loving every minute of it! I started the week with a few ASTRA adjustments, which she handled like a champ once again. A day later, I decided it was the perfect time to get rid of a few lower branches that apparently never got the memo. As far as I could tell, she didn't even notice. I love opening the tent every morning, only to have her scream at me once again: "I AM STILL A SATIVA!" 😝 👉 Edit: Mystery solved! I finally found out why the 4th branch was lagging behind. I accidentally nicked it while topping during veg, so it had to start the race on crutches. Turns out it wasn't doing too bad after all! 👈 (last pic)

Martin82 It was quite an eventful week. One day after realizing I had almost killed branch #4 while topping, the ventilator decided to have a go as well. 😅 The branch now hangs a little lower, but recovered surprisingly quickly and seems perfectly happy again. I immediately hired a team of external security experts to teach some basic self-defense techniques against aggressive ventilators. 💪👊

Martin82 I removed three leaves because they were touching the buds. NO TOUCHING! 😄 Apart from that, I just enjoyed my five minutes with her every morning. Sometimes the best thing you can do is simply let her grow. 😊

Martin82 Weekly update: Removed a few tiny lower shoots. Learned that watering "every 3–4 days" has officially become "ON day 3." Green Sensation still seems to agree with her. She completely ignored my interference and continued building flowers. I'm slowly running out of things to write because she's doing all the work now. 😍