First Grow - 3 Plants & Strains

Let me apologize for any lack of data during these first few weeks. I just wasn't keeping track of certain things. Well, I was, I just wasn't writing it down. No excuse really, but I'm trying to do better now. So this was week one. All 3 seeds were germinated in damp paper towels for 3 days on top of my refrigerator until the tap roots popped. They were planted on a Friday, 4/26. I'm calling the following week, 4/28 - 5/4, Week 1. That is the week that these pictures are from. The 2 collage pictures are from 4/28 & 4/29. All "weeks" in this diary are a traditional Sun. - Sat. If you'll notice the pots. I bought them thinking that they were 1 gallon fabric pots, they weren't what I thought. They did have fabric inside...they just weren't any good. There was absolutely no drainage, which obviously isn't good. I thankfully realized what was going on and ordered different, actual fabric pots, and transplanted them next week. At this stage all 3 plants are in a Super Sprouter Dome with a 1ft T5 light and a heat mat in my 2x4 Gorilla Tent. The temps were in the 70s and humidity varied from 50-60%. They received nutrients the day after they were planted (4/27).

So at the beginning of the week on Sunday the girls were put into their new pots. I gotta tell ya. I had my doubts that they were all going to make it. Almost every day I was adding or moving coco around to prop up the Cheese or the Kush, But come the end of the week they pulled through. The Widow was a bulldog. She took every screw-up I could throw at her in stride. She seemed to be first to everything. She was the first to get her taproot. The first to break thru the coco, and as you can see from the 5/10 pics the first to get a 2nd level...and she's the throw in. I bought 5 seeds each of the 2 Kush and the Cheese and got a bunch of 4 free seeds of different strains. I picked to plant the Widow this go 'round with the other 2 to beak up my smoking options later on. They were still under the dome with the heat mat until Saturday as well. On Saturday I decided they were too tall for the dome anymore and switched over to my Kind XL600. The girls got nutrients on Monday and then again on Saturday. 1/3 a gallon of liquid each time. I don't have anything on my calendar about plain water during the week tho.

It took me 3 days but I realized that the girls weren't ready for the full blast of my LED...or maybe it was that I wasn't ready. Or at least my setup wasn't. After the 3rd day under the LED I turned it off and rigged the T5 light from the super sprouter kit from the extra length of cord to hang down low over the plants. What I realized was that while I was exhausting out of the tent. The tent is in a walk-in closet, and I hadn't run my exhaust out of the closet yet. I needed to drill a 4" hole into a panel that leads into my attic crawl space. I also didn't have a fan to push new air into the tent. A run to Home Depot and another order from Amazon and my solutions were in place on Saturday and I turned the LED back on. This was also the week that I decided it was time to start drowning the girls and over nutrient them. On Monday 5/13 I started feeding them water in the morning @ 5am when I leave for work and then @ night around 7pm when I got home from work will full nutrients. Filling them up till I was seeing about 10% run-off. Temperatures were fluctuating wildly. This was another week where I wasn't sure if any of the girls were going to recover from my screw-up.

At the beginning of the week I switched nutrients from Bloom nutes to Grow nutes. I realized at some point during the week that I was killing my girls. Only, I wasn't exactly sure how. Once I started seeing signs of deficiency, that made me realize that I was giving them too much of everything and they locked out. Instead of doing a full flush, I gave them 1/3 gallon each to help clear stuff out and then didn't give them anything else. It was 2, maybe 3 days because on that Friday 5/24, I transferred them into their new 5 gallon forever homes, and I gave them each 1 gallon of 3/4 strength nutrients. No water or nutes on Saturday. I think I must have not taken pics because they didn't look so great and I wasn't seeing much growth...but you can see my new 4" exhaust line into the attic crawl space.

Week 5 was quite eventful from a new grower's standpoint I think. The girls really took off after de-stressing from the transplant. I had to add a small humidifier into this week too because humidity was dropping down to 30% at points during the day and I was afraid of swings killing the girls after I had just brought them back. Temperatures were still going wild so I upgraded to matching 6" exhaust and intake AC Infinity Cloudline 6" fans. and I bought a portable AC try try and reign everything in. I was consuming videos and blogs like an animal trying to learn from my mistakes and keep from making new ones. I was paranoid about over nutrienting them again so I cut back .5ml per gallon for Grow A & B, and paying extra attention to how much water I was giving them. Just trying to keep the coco damp...but I think I was still over-doing it with the water. Monday the girls drank down 1/3 gallon of water with the cut-back nutes. Same for Tues. Wed. they drank down 2/3 gallon each and Thursday they drank another 1/3 gallon. Fri & Sat the ladies got no water. I think it was at that point that I found a video, and I'm kind of pissed I didn't save it or subscribe to the channel at the time. I can't find it in my history or remember his name. Basically, this dude just put watering into perspective for me. He said basically, paraphrasing here; Hey, these are weeds. They thrive in non perfect conditions. A little less is more, or better. Everything that you're doing is for the roots. Not the plant. It's not a plant, they're weeds. He went on to say that he waits to water until they are dry or almost dry. He mentioned getting used to the weight of your plants/pots with and without water so you can tell if there's water in there. Checking visually from the top layer of coco doesn't necessarily give you the right view of what's going on in there. Thursday, 5/30 was a big day for me as I started training the girls. My tent is only 6"11" tall so I'm a little paranoid about over-growing them. Because of the fabric pots I couldn't see how I was going to be able to use the string method. It was this week that also I found GrowDiaries.com. A shout out to grower Ricks who shared a picture of a garden staple that he decided to use. Talk about an "Ah-Ha" moment! I order a box of 6" and a box of 12" staples and LST was underway. I also FIMmed the Triple Cheese and the White Widow. I didn't FIM the Critical Kush until Friday. I just didn't think she was ready the night before. Saturday, April 1 everybody got some more LST. I also measured the ladies for the first time. They were all just about 8.75". At this point I'd like to give a shout out to GrowDiaries grower Ricks, and YouTube channels run by Grateful Grower & Pigeons 420 for knowledge that I've gained from their video channels. GrowAce.com also has a very good basic information guide/blog: Growing Marijuana Indoors - 2019 Guide

Sorry for the lack of pictures for this week. It was very uneventful since I found my new mantra of Less is More. 😄 The ladies got 1 Gallon of nutes each on Sunday June 2. 2/3 gallon each of nutes on Wed. 1/3 gallon each of nutes on Thurs and then another 1 gallon each of nutes on Sat. There might have been a very little fan leaf removal this week as well. To be honest I can't be sure. I can't save this week in the diary unless I add a photo so I'm adding the only pictures I took the entire week. This little cutie started hanging around my house the week before. My wife has adopted her as an outside cat for now, but I expect her to be inside before the summer is over. 😸😻

Another big week for me I think as a first time grower. (I guess they're all big weeks when it's your first grow 😃) I put up a scrog net at the beginning of the week...and removed it by the end of the week. I decided that I was adding yet another layer of complexity that I wasn't ready for yet. The young ladies drank down 1 gallon of nutes each on Monday, June 10 and Wed, June 12. Also on the 12th there was some serious fan leaf removal, more FIMming, and since I could now see from the leaf removal more staples added or moved around for LST. Friday the 14th the ladies drank 2/3 of a gallon of nutes each. I wanted to make sure that they're gonna be thirsty on Sunday before the light switch happens. I'm pretty happy with how the girls are shaping up (or OUT as it were) and how thick the structure is getting. If I've absorbed the information I've been reading correctly. They look really good and I see A LOT of potential bud sights. I'm still terrified of killing them somewhere along the way, but my paranoia aside, the plan is to switch them over to 12/12 lights on Sunday night to kick off the Flowering cycle for Week 8. I'm a little worried about possibly jumping the gun a little but I don't know how much they're going to shoot up and continue to grow the rest of the way. You live and you learn, right? Every grow environment is different and what works for 1 person may not work for another. You grow, you adapt to the changing circumstances of the variables thrown at you.

The first week of Flower is just about in the books. A big week from the girls perspective, but relatively quiet from this growers point of view. On Sun., 5/16 The lights went out @ 8pm to kick off the first week of Flower. On Monday evening around 7pm they got 1 gallon each of the new nutrient mix Bloom A & B and I decided to raise the light up to 36". I wanted to give the ladies a reason to grow again...(I think they came thru.) No water or nutes on Tues. Wed., 5/19 they got another gallon each of nutes, but run-off was more than I expected, so I knew they were getting skipped Thurs. On Fri., 5/21 I lifted the pots again before watering to make a final decision and I was surprised that they were still kind of heavy. Well yes and no. It rained a lot this week and humidity was a b!tch to maintain. I had to buy a new dehumidifier to try and even things out because the small one that I can fit inside my tent just wasn't cutting it, even with the portable air conditioner. There were 3 days were I wasn't able to get the humidity lower that 80% before I was able to get the dehumidifier. I think they girls were stressed and didn't drink as much as they would have...anyway on Fri., 5/21 I gave them 1/3 gallon each of water, no nutes. I figured they'd drink that up and they'd be ready for big water today (Sat., 6/22) but they still felt like there was some weight in there towards the bottom 1/3, so nothing more till tomorrow. I pushed the stakes down a little bit for some LST but that's it. Again, I think it was the humidity this week that kept them from drinking. Today was really the first day all week it hasn't rained at least a little. I have the dehumidifier and the portable A/C off at the moment (after 9pm) and it's about 75 F. and 48% Hum. in the tent. Sad to say, no little balls that I can notice growing yet...but the girls did get a little growth spurt. Comparing the pics/measurements from last week to today, well, here are the numbers. I think I'm being realistically conservative. You can look at the pics and decide for yourself if where I'm measuring to is the right place. Triple Cheese last week: 15.5' this week: 18.5" White Widow last week: 14" this week: 16.5" Critical Kush last week: 16" this week: 20.5" So it looks like the ladies on the ends have taken over the Widow in the middle by a significant margin now. I think that covers everything this week. More to come next week.

So I started out the week not wanting to "do too much" because I hadn't started to see any bud site growth. With their last water on Sun., June 23 they all drank 1 Gal. ea. with nutrients and the same on Tues. the 25th. On Wed., the 26th I finally started to see those little hairs that every one so greatly anticipates. Of course I took pics for posterity. I was happy to see that in the 5 days since I last took measurements that all 3 grew 3.5" each. The girls and I seem to have gotten into a nice pattern of watering every other day but before feeding them on Thurs I was talking with my wife and we came upon the subject of why the Widow, which was the clear growth champ at the beginning, was now the runt of the litter. My wife thought that she might have been getting shaded by the other 2 plant and suggested sliding them over an inch...and so the Cheese and Kush were moved and inch away from the Widow that sits in the middle. Also on the 27th I removed all of the lawn staples that I was using for LST and performed some lower pruning. Getting rid of leaves and lower end bud sites that wouldn't really grow into anything, giving the plant the focus to concentrate on the higher bud sites on the branch. 1 Gal. each again with nutes although there was no run-off from the Widow so I gave her what wound up to be another 1/3 of a gallon of water (no nutes) before I started to see some run-off. So here we are at the end of Week 9/Flower Week 2. Before feeding it was measurement time again. So in the 3 days (which isn't a lot) since their last measurements (drum roll please)...Triple Cheese grew 4.5" to 26.5", White Widow added 3.75" for 20.75"., and Critical Kush must have slipped some roids past me because she bulked up 4.75" up to 28.25". What!?! At the beginning of Week 8 I had raised my light up to 36" from the Widow, which means it was around 31", 32" away from the Kush. Today the light was 18" away from the Kush. I raised my light again nowbefore closing it up. It is now as high as it can go in the tent and it's 24" from the Kush. (I hope this doesn't become an issue.) I decided it was time for some de-foliage. There were a lot of fan leaves that were shading others and some (what I think to be) pretty good bud sites. I also did a little more pruning on the inside, & lower parts of some stalks(?) so the plant can concentrate it's energy on higher bud sites. Afterwards the girls drank a gallon each with nutes with barely any run-off. It might be time soon to start adding some amount of water with no nutes to the "off days". I'll have to take a look tomorrow and make a decision.

Week 10/Flower Week 3 is in the books. Still with the feeding/watering schedule of 1 Gallon each, every other day. On Monday, July 1st I added 2ml of Potash to the rest of the nutrients for each gallon of water. This is the only time that I added Potash to the mix. (I plan on adding Potash 2 more times during the grow; halfway through Flower, and when the buds start to swell. Wed., July 3rd I did some strategic defoliation, removing particularly large fan leaves that were shadowing after feeding. Fri., July 5th was watering and some more defoliation that I didn't have time to complete on Wed. Sat. was measurement day. Triple Cheese jumped up 10.25" to 36.75" (from 26.5") White Widow added 12.25" to 33" (from 20.75")...Looks like my wonderful wife was correct that the Widow was being being shadowed by the other two plants on the outside. Critical Kush grew tacked on 10.25" to 38.5 (from 28.25") That's all for checking on on my grow.

Week 11/Flower Week 4 1 Gallon of water with nutes Sun., Tues., & Thurs with a pretty heavy defoliation on Tues. During the week I bought some 48" bamboo shoots to use a stakes and on Sat., added 1 each to the Cheese and the Kush. Because of how tall they are, they're getting hit a little too hard by the fans, but I can't raise the fans any higher before they become ineffective. Also on Sat., I decided it was time for a flush. 1 & 1/3 gallons of water without nutes each. They were bone dry when I watered. I gave them a gallon each at first and then came around with the additional third. There was no runoff until after that additional third, but then there was plenty. I took the girls out of the tent for a little while today (before watering) because I needed to try and add the 1ft extension poles to the tent. When I initially put the tent together I didn't think there was enough clearance, but the Critical Kush has gotten so big I had to at least try. With a little help from my wife I was able to add them in with a moderate amount of difficulty while not having to take out the fans, filer and ducting. So now with the light as high as it can go I now have 20" between the light and the main bud of the Kush. Let's get to the numbers. I think the pictures speak for themselves. 😁 Triple Cheese 39.5" (+ 2.75") White Widow 36" (+ 3") Critical Kush 43.75 (+ 5.25") So it looks like "the stretch" is slowing down...but the Kush. My Word! She's a Beast. I was literally saying that to her...several times this week in fact. She's been practically growing herself. She's needed the least amount of training. She's just been a monster since we got around that little trouble early on with my over-water/nutes nube mistakes

Week 12/Flower Week 5 Mon., 7/15 I added 3 ml of Potash to the usual 1 gallon of water with nutrients that the ladies get fed. This was also the fist feed after the flush on Sat. so my thinking is that they'll drink it all down nice and get those buds swelling Wed., 7/17 the was back to normal nutes without Potash and a nice defoliation, which because if the limited time I have with them when I get home from work, continued into Thursday. Friday was just a feeding day. I didn't take height measurements because it's getting difficult to get the tape measure through without hitting branches or buds. I'm thinking at this point it probably more helpful to measure the main cola and keep track of that. I also didn't have time to take pics from earlier in the week, but if you look at last weeks pics and compare them to this weeks you can see the buds are really starting to swell and I noticed a couple of hairs changing color. 😁😁😁

Week 13/Flower Week 6 A slow week maintenance wise. Just kind of let them do their own thing this past week. Added Potash to the first feeding of the week on Sun., 7/21. Regular 1 Gal of water with Nutes the rest of the week. Took off a few fan leaves across all 3 plants. Nothing spectaclar. I took cola measurements on Mon., 7/22. All 3 ladies measured in about 2 inches each on the main cola. But since this entry is late I can say that they've grown significantly since that measurement. Make sure you come back to check the new numbers next week. Enjoy the pics. I tried to super zoom on a couple of the Triple Cheese pics. I don't think they came out too great but I included them anyway.

Week 14/Flower Week 7 Basically in cruise-control this week No more Potash adds. Back to regular nutes. I gallon each per lady. This week worked out to Mon., We., Fri. On Wed., 7/31 I did decide to swap the position of the Triple Cheese and the Critical Kush. They were on either end of the Widow. I had noticed that the Cheese, which was closest to the intake fan, was drier than the other 2 plants. Actually what I noticed was that each pot, in succession, the Coco was noticeably darker and was holding more moisture. Initially I thought that the Kush (furthest away from the intake) was just slowing down. In my head this made sense. She had grown the most. Why shouldn't be the first to slow down and not need that much water. After about 2 more feeding I noticed the pattern in the Coco, from left to right, the gradual color change from the moisture, or lack there of. But I had to confirm, so swapped they were. Sure enough. Next feeding, the Kush was completely dry and the Cheese was still holding moisture. I'm not sure why this has suddenly become an issue in the tent. This was not happening in the beginning. Odd that it suddenly starts the last 3 weeks of my grow. I'm not particularly concerned at this point. Girls are thriving and this is (hopefully) the last week coming up. I'm thinking I might buy a 2nd intake fand and put it on the opposite side of the tent. I can then run them both at a lower speed which will cut down on noise, as well as even the intake airflow. I also keep fighting back and forth with myself about whether I'm going to grow 3 again on my next grow, or cut back to 2 plants and try to train them more to grow out and hope fully get 2 larger plants to make up the missing third. I think that my yield from this grow may have an impact on that decision. I guess we'll see. So here we go. In the home stretch, so to speak. Gonna start the week long flush, which should work out to 4 feeding. Each lady will wind up with 4 gallons of fresh clean water next week. I haven't seen the turpines start to get cloudy yet. Hopefully that starts next week. Oh! 😵 Almost forgot. Cola measurements. So last week they were all about 2". Drum-roll please. Critical Kush: 5" White Widow: 3" Triple Cheese: 2.5" The Kush surprises yet again. The Widow was about what I was expecting all around actually...and I gotta say. A little disappointing with the Cheese. Although I will say, she looks like she's got some dense bud goin' on. So that's that. Thanks for checkin' out my diary this week, and hopefully next week will be the last weekly entry before harvest. Enjoy this weeks bud pr0n. Happy Smokin'.

Week 15/Flower Week 8 Here we are. On the cusp of harvest! I'm ridiculously excited. I actually had to talk myself down from cutting these beautiful girls down Sat. 8/10. It would have been just a little too early. Trichomes on all 3 plants are starting to turn cloudy and I think by Monday everyone will be ready for harvest...but I'll let the girls tell me when they're ready. Monday, 8/12 may be wishful thinking but that's my target. Very uneventful week all around. It was Flush Week. Sun., 8/4, Tues., 8/6., & Thurs., 8/8 the ladies drank down 1 gallon of plain water each. I was going to water on Sat., 8/10 too but I changed my mind...if I decide to chop 'em down on Sun., they'll be too wet, and possibly the same for Mon., so I decided to skip this last watering completely. No changes on the Cola height sizes either this week. Another indication to me that these ladies are about ready to come down. I can also tell that the buds are at the end of putting weight on too as the number of them I have had to help out with string has stopped growing as well. Cheers to you! Happy Smokin'! Enjoy the pics. Next entry will definitely be harvest.

Being completely honest, I have to say all of my plants during this first grow really grew themselves. I just tried not to give them too much or too too little of what they needed and try not to kill them . They really did all the work and I think they came out pretty well. I has very happy and pretty proud of the complements I received from the quality of this strain.

Being completely honest, I have to say all of my plants during this first grow really grew themselves. I just tried not to give them too much or too too little of what they needed and try not to kill them . They really did all the work and I think they came out pretty well. I has very happy and pretty proud of the complements I received from the quality of this strain.

Being completely honest, I have to say all of my plants during this first grow really grew themselves. I just tried not to give them too much or too too little of what they needed and try not to kill them . They really did all the work and I think they came out pretty well. I has very happy and pretty proud of the complements I received from the quality of this strain.