Blueberry

This is my second grow. Will the wonders never cease? I soaked seeds for 24 hours before placing them in the Promix that will then be placed into hydroponics system. Only 2/5 seeds sprouted, in retrospect it would have been nice to germinate in paper towel so I could KNOW that the seeds that didn't sprout didn't sprout. Perhaps I could have tried cracking the seeds that ended up being duds.??? I put pots directly into a grow tent with my other plants. Not ideal. Will transplant to humidity dome in short order. I watered so that the promix was moist but not soaking. A fair amount of moisture is evaporating it seems. I have two hydrometers which give wildly different and inaccurate information... Ah well.

This is week 2 from seed. Things are looking good. Day 10 I moved the seedlings from my main tent to the "Thunder Dome". I didn't realize how humid it really was in there until I looked Day 11 and there was condensation all over the dome and the plants. I thought this was a good thing until I listened to Rasta Jeff's "Grow From The Heart Podcast" where he spoke of common growing mistakes and the need to burp the dome or it would get too humid. I'm glad I heard that when I did - timely to say the least. I burped the dome for 30 minutes day 11, left the lid off for about 3 hours Day 12 and an hour Day 13. The earth was a little dry after the hour Day 13, I took some water and added a small amount and covered it again. Also when I moved the seedlings they lost balance in their pots and Thing 1 fell over and bent a bit. That was Day 11 and she doesn't seem to be upset. She never was that hurt I think... didn't even show up in pictures. I was also 12-12 for a couple of days until I read that it would likely seriously stunt the growth. Since I moved to 18 - 6. I am hoping that there will be no problems from this. I doubt there will be.

Happy with progress of plants. Day 15 - Thing 1 has a hole in it's leaf. No idea what would have caused that. Need to be on parasite patrol. the other thing I need to monitor is the algae that is growing on the Promix growing medium. I'm not sure if that is something to be concerned with or not. Live and learn! Day 18 - Transplanted both plants into 3.5 gallon bubble pots. Each has it's own home. Day 19 - All seems well with both plants. Bubble pots seem to want to drip a lot. A bit too much liquid it seems, but not so much that I need to do anything about it. No pictures today. Day 20 - All well... no need to micro-manage. It seems these guys are going to be OK "on their own"... at least for now. 🙏

Day 23 - Moved to 24 hours light schedule - read that it was a good idea - I made the change 3 days ago and the Things are responding very well. Day 21 the leaves were looking pretty pale. I reduced the PH in the nutirents to 5.8 from 7 and along with the extra light they have responded very well. Can't believe it is week 4 already. Observation: Thing 2 is now looking more robust than Thing 1. I don't know if this is due to different ppm or ph or light placement or genetics, but Thing 1 had a big lead and is now slightly lagging. Day 24 - Temperature in grow room was high today. I can' t be exactly sure but about 85 degrees at 6 pm, may have been higher around 2 pm. The leaves are curling on the plants. I have made moves to reduce the temperature in the room - I will look later tonight and tomorrow to see if it worsens. Day 25 - 7:30 am - before leaving for work I checked plants to see if leaves stopped curling to find out if they were better. To my dismay they are worse! I didn’t have time to look at leaves in white light to see if they are discoloured but they do look somewhat pale. They are trying to speak to me but I don’t speak plant fluently. I took a bit of water in the buckets out for fear the levels are too high but I don’t think that is the problem. Levels in buckets aren’t overwhelming the grow pots. I will document later. I took quick pictures with my phone. I will take plants off of 24 hour light schedule to see if they improve. 8:15 am - went back to grow room to adjust light timer and found that my cat had followed me in at 7:30 and I had locked her in there. Would have been the biggest mistake in my two grows to have left her in there all day! So glad I went down there once more! Day 26 11:00 pm - I changed the water in the buckets yesterday. PPM 600 PH 6.3 - I looked back today and the plants have perked up, still a bit of curl for T2 though he does look better. I added a tsp of Epsom salts to the 17 Liter bucket. Brought the PPM up to 800. I have also worked on reducing the heat and humidity in the room. Back to 72 degrees and 45% humidity. if I'm comfortable I figure the plants will be too. One difference with the buckets is the T2 bucket - after the water change - is brown and the other clear. some peat from the growing medium - I'm using promix - has mixed in with the water... I am now officially doing different things with the plants. It will be interesting to see if one does better than the other. I wish they were grown from clone and not seeds. I will do that experiment on my next batch but in the meantime, it will be great to see which plant does better. I will use some products on one and not the other etc. See how much using products help.

WOW Busy week. So much going on. I'll take quick photos and put them up tomorrow... yeah right. These plants are BEASTS... the thing that is amazing me is the size difference between T2 and T1. In the beginning T1 was moving faster, but T2 now is drinking a bucket every couple of days. Growing like crazy. They aren't demanding quite so much attention now, day 34 I was able to just not even do more than a quick check on them. I will do my best to document per day again, just to stay up to date, for everyone especially myself. One thing that is great about this is comparing these plants to the Pink Kush that I'm growing which though i think I stunted it, is a full 2 weeks behind. These things grow like weeds once they get going... more than weeds... I should rename T2 to the Swamp Thing... A note... I wish I had taken better pictures... Switched to 5 gallon buckets... raised light... topped T1 and T2 two days ago. I'm cloning them... well if they take... I have killed 7/8 clones so far. i should start a journal on the plant I call CTL or the Clone That Lived... 😅

Day 36 - Added 1.5 Gallon of nutrient solution to T1 - 2.5 gallons to T2. Will look to take a bunch of clones off of them in the next couple of days. Day 38 - Girls need a haircut. I have made an appointment at the salon. Day 39 - Tried to be a barber... cut multiple clippings from both plants to try to make clones. Unfortunately I did this while listening to Grow From Your Heart episode 364 with Rasta Jeff... I really, really should have listened to that before I tried to make clones. Didn't wash the gear properly, didn't think to cut the clones and put them in water before putting them into the system. Didn't have the proper rooting solution... I don't think that all is lost... we will see how it goes... worst to worst I will try again in two weeks or whenever the clones are dead and T1 and T2 are up to donating some more cuttings.

Day 44 - Just letting them veg for a while. Will have to prune shortly to keep these guys under control. I don't want to flip to flower for another 4 weeks... I can't risk them smelling too much over the first weeks of October... Having guests over...