Breaking Teeth & Banging Heads 🤘⚗️

ChillSpace Week 1 — Straight Into the 4×4 A great first week for all three! Walter White BX1, Toof Decay × Walter White, and Headbanger’s Ball all got started together. At just one day old I moved them straight into the flowering 4×4 alongside the older plants lol Definitely not the gentlest introduction to life 😂 but all three handled the transition extremely well. They spent the week establishing themselves and steadily picking up speed. By the end of Week 1 they’re all showing healthy new growth, good color, tight structure, and noticeably more leaf mass compared with where they started. Headbanger’s Ball is looking great, just behind Toof Decay × Walter White who is developing a nice compact structure with strong new growth. Walter White BX1 is currently the smallest of the three, but she looks healthy and continues moving forward. I’m especially excited about this group because the original Walter White and Toof Decay × Walter White are already genetics I’ve really enjoyed growing, while Headbanger’s Ball is completely new territory. One week down. They survived being tossed into the deep end on Day 1 — now we get to see which one really starts running. 🌱

ChillSpace Week 2 and these three are officially starting to earn the name Breaking Teeth & Banging Heads. 🤘 Headbangers Ball, Walter White BX1, and Toof Decay × Walter White started the week as little seedlings tucked into the 4×4 flowering tent, almost forgotten underneath the big girls. Once they had some room, they took off. Training started as soon as they gave me something to work with, with small adjustments throughout the week rather than one big beatdown. TD×WW is especially acting like she was born for it, while Headbangers Ball and Walter White BX1 are coming along nicely in their own ways. They’ve got some big shoes to fill after the last run, but they’re already starting to fill them. I actually moved all the flowering ladies out into the 2x4’s and moved the Platinum Lantz project into the 4x4. Now they’ve got more room, a 20/4 schedule, and plenty of light from the EVO6. Week 2 was basically about getting them spread out, building structure, and setting the foundation for what comes next. Slowly but surely… then a little faster. 🤘⚗️

ChillSpace Week 3 and all three ladies are getting a final training session. I spread everyone out pretty aggressively and I’m basically training them in place now so they grow into the space I actually want them to fill. They definitely look a little beat up right after I mess with them lol, but they’ve been responding really well and I’m happy with how much structure I’m getting this early. I just bumped the lights from 30% to 40% now that they’re getting established and spreading out. These three are also sharing the 4x4 with my Platinum Lantz photoperiod project right now. They’ll eventually move into their own finishing space as the older autos ahead of them get harvested.

ChillSpace Week 4 was a pretty major cleanup and transition week for these three. Up until now I did one real session of LST and then mostly watched as they built out as many strong branches as possible. At this point the structure is there, and it was time to decide what was actually worth carrying through flower. I pulled each plant out individually, put them on a rotating base and gave them their final real lollipop. I removed a pretty ridiculous amount of lower and interior growth — weak shoots, buried bud sites and anything else that looked destined to become annoying little popcorn buds later. I wasn’t trying to strip the plants bare or remove productive branches. The goal was simply to remove all the bullshit now that I already know I won’t want to deal with at harvest. Headbangers Ball was easily the densest of the three and needed the cleanup the most. There was an incredible amount of growth hiding inside that plant. Once it was opened up, the structure underneath looked great, with a ton of strong branches already reaching the canopy. Walter White BX1 also cleaned up extremely well and has developed a really nice framework from that early training. Afterward, all three still have very full canopies and plenty of healthy leaf area, but underneath is completely different. There’s actual airflow through the plants now, and they can put their resources toward the established tops instead of maintaining a jungle of shaded lower growth. I also rearranged the 4×4 while I had everything out. The three autos now have the prime positions through the center of the tent, with four Platinum Lantz photoperiods arranged around the outside in a diamond. Since the autos are on a clock and the photos aren’t, I’m prioritizing the autos for space and light while they finish. Once they’re gone, all of that space becomes available to the Platinum Lantz project. Lighting was raised and redistributed now that the seedlings and clones have their own dedicated tent. The canopy is currently sitting around 600+ PPFD pretty much everywhere, which is exactly where I want it. I have more than enough lighting capacity, so I’m focusing on even coverage rather than blasting one part of the tent. At this point the hard training on these autos is basically finished. They’ve been spread, trained and cleaned up, and now I’m ready to mostly leave them alone and see what all that work turns into. Week 4 feels like the point where they stopped being plants I’m trying to build and became plants I’m trying to finish. Now it’s time to let them stretch, stack and do their thing.

ChillSpace Week 5 was a big transition for these three autos in the center row. They’re all officially flowering now and really starting to show their differences. Walter White BX1 is absolutely showing off lol. She stretched hard and is easily the tallest, while Headbangers Ball and TD×WW have stayed shorter and bushy with a ton of flower sites. I moved some 660nm bars into the 4x4 this week and mounted them along the sides, which worked ridiculously well for filling the weaker areas around the EVOs. I added two more oscillating fans underneath the lights too, so now I’ve got two above and two below. While watering I cleaned out some unhealthy leaves trapped in the middle, but otherwise I’m still leaving healthy foliage alone. I even slapped them around a little today to see how sturdy they’ve gotten 😂. Turns out the autos are already built pretty damn solid. My photos were definitely easier to slap around and were still bent over slightly afterward lol. Five weeks down and now the fun part starts.

ChillSpace Pretty damn good week! The girls are settling into flower nicely, stretch is mostly wrapping up, and they’re starting to bulk. I’m really happy with where all three are heading. This was also a big week for the whole grow because I finally got to move this trio into their own 2×4 after my recent harvest. Quick harvest recap: Rainbow Road, Lime Light, and Princess Cake finished at 556 g dry total, averaging just over 185 g per plant — my highest three-plant average so far. I also trimmed all three in around four hours, which was a huge personal record for me in time spent in trim jail. Back to these three. A few weeks ago I lollipopped these a little further than some of my earlier plants. Fuck larf! I did some selective defoliation today. It’s crazy how much difference removing only 10–15 well-chosen fan leaves per plant can make. I also moved the whole grow to 18/6. At this point, it’s mostly about efficiency. Two extra hours per day across four separate tents adds up fast, and I’m already getting plenty of DLI. At some point, those extra hours start giving diminishing returns compared with the electricity it takes to run everything longer. Let the bulking begin.

ChillSpace This is a pretty damn exciting week. The plants are continuing to stack and fill out nicely, but the biggest change by far was finally adding proper under-canopy lighting. After looking at a bunch of different systems at wildly different price points and styles, I ended up going with the FARMLITE 240W under-canopy lights off Amazon. I just couldn’t bring myself to spend around 800, or more dollars outfitting both tents with something like Faven lighting, or even more for Grand Master LEDs under-canopy lighting. Each 2×4 gets four separate 60W bars now that I can place however I want, and I’m only about 250 dollars all-in for both tents. I was also genuinely surprised by the quality when they showed up. One thing that could be a pro or a con depending on how you look at it is that they basically took the bars from one of their upper-canopy fixtures, removed the frame, connected the individual bars with cords, and called it under-canopy lighting. And goddamnit, I love that. 😂 I can’t tell you how many times I’ve considered flipping an EVO3 upside down and figuring out some ridiculous way to grow through it just so I could use it as under-canopy lighting. The bars feel solid, everything is well protected, the wiring and connections are straightforward, and they’re using Samsung diodes. I was concerned that four 60W bars firing upward underneath the plants might get pretty damn hot, and I was prepared to deal with that, but with the driver mounted separately, the bars themselves stay much cooler than I expected. They definitely get warm, but nothing that concerns me having them down around the plants. For what I paid, they feel considerably less “budget” than I expected. I arranged the four bars roughly in a rectangle, with two along the outside edges and two running through the center. Holy shit, what a difference. 😂 The entire lower half of the tent is illuminated now. Areas that used to be legitimately dark are receiving meaningful light, and there’s so much light bouncing around the tent that even spots I considered dead zones are surprisingly bright. And I’m only running the under-canopy lights at 80% right now. I spent quite a while taking measurements and dialing everything in. I’m sitting around 50 DLI across the upper canopy and roughly 30 DLI through a lot of the productive lower canopy, obviously with plenty of variation depending on distance, angle, plant structure, and overlapping fixtures. That’s exactly what I wanted. I’m not trying to turn the bottom of the plant into another top canopy; I just don’t want half the plant surviving on scraps of light anymore. Adding the lights also immediately showed me which fan leaves weren’t doing me any favors, so everybody got another pretty substantial cleanup. I removed leaves that were blocking productive sites, opened up the interiors, and improved airflow. Another unexpected win has been the environment. The extra lighting adds just enough useful heat that I’ve finally gotten the tent sitting where I want it without having to run everything excessively hot. Production has been hanging around the upper 70s to roughly 80°F, and VPD is finally landing around 1.5 kPa. During the colder months especially, I think having that additional light and heat underneath the canopy is going to help keep the whole plant actively developing instead of having mature tops while colder, shaded lowers drag behind for another week or two. I’ve also settled on 20/4 for the light schedule. I considered going 24/0, but I like giving them a consistent four-hour dark period every day while still having plenty of time to deliver the DLI I want. At this point I have enough light everywhere that I can fuck around with intensity and schedules as needed instead of constantly trying to squeeze more light into the tent. I’m still alternating feedings with plain RO water as needed, mostly by filling the self-watering bases, although I’ll add some from the top here and there too. Obviously harvest is going to be the real test of whether the under-canopy lighting earns its keep, but seeing the whole plant illuminated instead of just a bright roof over a dark interior genuinely warms my heart. I can’t believe I waited this long to add under-canopy lighting!