Northern lights Auto & Sweet Basil

################ Hi again my growdiaries friends, I received some free Seeds from seedsman on my recent order and since I had a spare spot in the tent I decided to Try seedsman's version of Northern lights Auto Giving me something to compare with when I eventually try other breeders versions of NL Auto. I am also growing some Sweet basil in a mini dwc bucket so will use this diary to show how it grows. There are some ancedotal notes on basil grown near cannabis enhancing the oil production within the buds so definately worth trying plus I love using the basil in the kitchen so win win The seed popped within 48 hours and is now in the rockwool cube (see above pics). Because I am growing in a dwc bucket. So once I remove the plastic film around the cube I will gently fill the net cup with Clay balls. Usually the roots will have grown down thru the cube and netpot to reach the nutrients within 2-3 days. ########## 😁 #####UPDATE 5/7/19 She has shrug off her seed casing and is on her way ############

###### Week 2 and the Northern lights Auto is Doing quite well. The Clay balls are in the netcup now as the tap root has found it's way into the nutrients so I no longer need to hand water. Also the Sweet basil is going really well , I should be able to start using some in the kitchen in a week. The nutrient mix for the basil is fairly weak 0.5mls of both Professors nutrients A+B and the same amount of Seasol and silica. I only change out the nutrients as needed with the basil as it does not seem to drink a whole lot yet. Apparently Basil grown hydroponically prefers a Ph range of 6.5-6.8 and once established the nutes at around 700-900ppm See you all next week ################################# 😃

Welcome to another weeks update on my Seedsman Northern Lights Auto and Sweet Basil Grow Diary Everything is stable and going really well The Northern lights seedling has very distinct leaf shaping and i have yet to have seen this on plants I have grown before. Must be some sort of Indica dominant genetics coming thru in this phenotype. I am loving the vigour this baby seems to have and Hope it continues thruout the grow. The sweet basil is really great too in all the years I have been growing basil in my home garden I have not ever had a plant grow as healthy as this one, and the aroma OMG!! My garden basil needs to be squeezed to release the smell but this one just needs to be brushed accidently and it releases the most amazing sweet basil aroma 😍 Nutrient change on the NL auto was yesterday 16/7/19 2mls/litre of Professors Nutrients both A+B 1ml/litre Cyco Silica 0.5mls /litre Seasol Ph 5.8 PPM 450 The Basil Ph 6.6 ppm 600 Thankyou for checking out my diary this week and will see you all on the flip side Happy Growing 😃 Quick photo update 19/7/19 and 21/7/19

Seedsman Northern Lights Auto & Sweet basil pesto week Three This plant is doing quite well for only her 3rd week of life. The white powdery residue you can see on the leaves is sulfur powder and is there to stop any chance of the rust fungus I had on another plant from spreading to this one. This strain is very easy to look after I basically mixed the nutrients up and she is doing the rest No ph swings No signs of any deficiencies just good solid growth. I will be doing a full nutrient change today and I will slightly up the nutrients to about 600-700 ppm as I am anticipating the shift into flowering in the next week or so. Now for the sweet basil This stuff smells amazing I harvested about 2 cups worth the other day and made up a fresh batch of pesto using roasted pine nuts and freshly pressed local olive oil. Simply beautiful spread on some of the freshly baked Sourdough I had made earlier. I also have some Anise growing in the tent now and plan on introducing some dill to the party as I have read that it can deter the spider mites from settling in. If thats true I think every one should look into companion planting. See you next Week 👌

Hi everyone I had a major panic attack during this last weeks growth period as she developed a sudden potassium deficiency and the leaf edges started to burn and she looked like Death . I was so close to just pulling it out and throwing her away but decided to persevere , Change her nutes and hope for recovery. So far touch wood she seems to be doing well again and I am anticipating the shift into flowering fairly soon so I will need to keep those nutes supplied so it doesn't happen again. The sweet basil is still pumping along beautifully and I have taken four lots of basil amounting to around 4 cups worth so far and she doesn't seem to be fazed at all. When I grow this outdoors it's a constant battle to keep up with removing the flowers from the basil so that it keeps growing new leaves. However in this environment with 20 hours of light provided each day there have been zero signs of any attempt to flower. I have some baby dill seedlings going now too as they are believed to be a natural deterrent for bugs such as the dreaded spider mite. I have always been interested in companion planting with my vegetable growing areas always contain some marigolds, Wormwood, coriander, nasturtions ,onions , garlic just to name a few I also have natural bird feeding plants such as grevillias and proteas as I am against any form of cruelty to nature and love having the birds visit my garden. Feeds for this week Seedsman northern lights Auto Cyco silica @ 2mls/ litre Professor's nutrient's A+B @ 3mls / litre Seasol @ 0.5mls / litre Don't forget the seasol 😁 ppm 750 Ph 5.7 Sweet Basil Professors nutrients go green @ 1ml / litre Seasol @ 0.5mls / litre ppm 400 ph 6.7 So there we have it See you all next week and Thank you for taking the time to Read this 👌

Welcome to week 6 of my Seedsman Northern Lights Auto and Sweet Basil Grow diary This plant is impressive I tied all of the branches down with a LST method and the canopy is fairly even I have seen the very first signs of preflowering So the next update shall probably be the official start to the flowering stage. Some growers prefer to start counting from the moment they see preflowers or for Photo strains when they flip to 12/12 The breeders don't do this they start counting only when the plant is actually flowering. This is why a lot of growers say " my plant isn't ready according to the breeders time schedule" This is usually because they started counting down atleast a week early. Some strains can take 2 weeks to shift into the flowering phase after flipping to 12/12 so you really need to have patience and wait until the pistils are clearly visible before starting to count down to harvest. Anyway The plants feeding is the same as last week except for the addition of some Calimagic from General hydroponics. This stuff will ensure I don't run into calcium or magnesium deficiencies during flowering Simply add 1ml per litre of feeding nutes. Feeding this week GT Silica @ 5mls / litre Professors Nutrients A+B @ 3mls / litre Calimagic @ 1ml /litre Seasol @ 0.5mls / litre PPM 1000 Ph 5.7 Now for the sweet Basil Absolutely going off!! as you will see in the above pictures I harvested another 4 or 5 cups worth and left aprox 40% of the plant intact . This will hopefully take off again and I will be able to harvest another lot in 2 weeks Very easy to look after Does not require a lot of feed or maintenence other than checking the levels of nutrient solution and the occasional pruning to promote new growth. Feeding is as follows Professors nutrients Go Green @ 2mls / litre Seasol @ 0.5mls / litre PPM 700 Ph 6.7 I plant to make some infused Basil and garlic Olive Canna Oil I already made the canna oil with 1 oz of excellent quality trim and popcorn buds from the Royal Dwarf I grew in another diary. Well thanks again for stopping by Hope you enjoyed the update See you all Next week 👊

Welcome again to another week The northern lights is starting to flower and the sweet basil has bounced back from it's hair cut This Seedsman strain is awesome just keeps getting bigger and bigger she is as wide as she is tall so i'll probably need to do some defoliation next week to let some air in the canopy. I upped the feeds for her this week Cyco silica @ 1ml /litre Professors nutrients A+B @ 5mls / litre Calimagic @ 1ml / litre PPM 1400 ph 5.7 The basil feeds have not changed from what I gave last week. 😀

Seedsman Northern Lights Auto and Sweet basil week 8 Well things were getting really hectic up until the other day when the new tent arrived. The 3 plants I have in flower were being crowded by having the seedlings and sweet basil all jammed in the one tent together. But that's not an issue any longer as I have moved the seedlings into their own tent along with the basil and the anise plant I'm playing around with. I'm putting the viparspectra in with the seedlings and will have two Mars hydro TS1000 QB lights hanging over this Girl and my other flowering plants. Hopefully this might help boost potential yields a little with the added light penetration. I am slowing increasing the feed strength as needed and currently running at 1500 ppm ph 5.9 👊

Welcome Back to the Seedsman and sweet basil Diary 28th August 2019 😃 Things Are not how they seem .............. Even tho the plant looks quite green and healthy she has had a case of Root rot for the last week, but I've been managing the problem by using hydrogen peroxide daily. This however is only a band aid solution and today after taking these pictures I removed 60% of the root mass that had turned brown and mushy. I then washed the remaining roots in a bucket of water with some H2O2 and 5mls of pure bleach. After this I put her back into a weak solution of rainwater with Superthrive ph'd to 5.7 . I hope this keeps her alive until some root repair and rot preventative solution arrives in the Post. For those wondering how I knew there was a problem before looking at the roots .. I noticed the plant looked like she was wilting from overwatering. And being in a permanent solution I instinctively knew she was having problems below . ie the root rot was making it hard for the plant to breathe and absorb nutrients and water properly. Now for the Sweet basil report.. Absolutely gone nuts since last week and the change of nutes I gave it. 💪💪 Take a look at the pics above at how much I harvested!! I am sending this lot into the local aged care house for the chefs to use in their cooking. I will let this plant keep producing until it carks it or the seedsman plant gets harvested then I'll probably raise another batch of fresh seedlings and begin the cycle all over again. Thats about it for this week I will update when things develop. 🙏🙏🙏

Welcome back I am updating this diary two days earlier than the usual 7 days between updates. Because the Plant has been suffering from root rot , The high temps within the nutrient res and grow tent were not helping, so I have transplanted her into a Pot filled with perlite and vermiculite and a few clay balls on the bottom. She has also been moved out to the greenhouse to hang out with my Chilli plants until the risk of Frost is over. The day lengths outdoors are still short enough to keep her in flower so that shouldn't be an issue. Time will tell whether this plants comes to anything but I just couldn't bring myself to chop her down incase she can be saved?? The Basil is Doing well after the massive trimback last week she too is outside now and I'll put some pics up next week . 👊

Well the Northern lights from Seedsman is still alive and regaining some vitality. But she's not producing any noticeable Smell or resin . It's probably caused from the stress she was under and now I'm thinking she may never come to much as far as smokeable weed goes but may be perfect for Edibles or Canna Oil . I may even let her get pollinated from the Purple Male pollen I have and see if I can produce some Photoperiod Fast flowering seeds 😏 We are starting to get some warmer days now so I'll be leaving both her and the Basil outdoors from now on. I even went as far as to plant the Sweet basil into my herb garden bed as I'll let it go to seed to hopefully produce more plants for the future. 😃 I'll still need to cover them at night as there is a chance of frosts during this month and maybe even early October ??? I have new seedlings growing already but to be honest I have enough pesto made now that should last until Xmas time . 👍 Until next time See ya round like a rissole

So the Seedsman Northern lights auto wasn't liking the hydro or the perlite so what did I do?? Planted her into one of my vegetable garden beds and bugger me she's actually doing better 😄 We had two nice sunny days in a row and I used the extra warmth to add some heat to the soil by placing a piece of black plastic over the ground. couple of days later I planted her in there and a few days after that ( Today) and she looks a lot happier than she had been. My vegie gardens were all pre amended with worm castings , compost and manures back in August so they could mature over the winter. Because of this I am only giving her a bit of seasol and ozi tonic which is full of fulvic and humic acids B vitamins etc I will definately still need to provide cover for the plant at night until the last threat of Frost is over , which is next month normally. Well thats about it Ive written enough about the basil so far in this diary so I'll leave it at that . Thanks for checking out my diary

Seedsmans Northern lights Auto The buds could have done with another two weeks but alas we have a large rain system and cold front heading our way and I decided that if I wanted to get anything worthwile out of this grow I'd better pull her today. So thats what I did and she is now hanging up to dry away from the rain and cold winds. Very wispy buds that will not end up yielding much once dry however I see a bit of resin on them so I might have a go at some bubble hash or use it to make oil. It wasnt an ideal grow I had root issues early flowering whilst indoors in a Deep water culture bucket , I then transplanted her into a pot with perlite then again into a garden bed where she finally showed some signs of the plant she could have been. Next time I attempt this strain I will approach things differently and will use soil and an outdoor environment. The plant did show a lot of promise earlier in her growth cycle , she seemed very vigorous and developed many branches . During this grow I also grew some Sweet basil in a mini DWC bucket . This was a huge success for me with the plant yielding 3 to 4 times more useable material than I can usually get from a normally grown basil plant ( in soil and outdoors) Sweet basil once established is Absolutely easy to grow , is undemanding and not fussy what you feed her just as long as you provide her a Lot of water!! sometimes it would almost empty the 3 L bucket in one day 😮 A regular trim is a must to promote more growth and to suppress the plants desire to bolt to seed. Thankyou to all that followed along for the Ride .