Aeroponic Grow with Auto-Flowers

This is my second grow using a vertical aeroponic grow tower. I am still learning and hope to use the lessons learned from my first grow and appreciate tips and comments to help me along. I used the paper towel method to germinate the seeds and all 8 seeds popped. After about 3 days in the dark, tap roots growing, I placed them in rockwool and covered them with vermiculite. I am keeping the rockwool damp by spraying them using filtered water from the refrigerator I allowed to come to room temperature. I am using a General Electric BR30 Grow Light With Balanced Spectrum Seeds & Greens LED Light Bulb, balanced light spectrum for seeds and greens, high output PPF: 16 micromoles per second (I don't really know what all that means, so....) I am not sure how good the light is but I am only using it during the seedling stage and to give them a guaranteed 18 hours of light. After they get a little bigger, I will put them outside in the tower in the greenhouse.

This week I decided to give the babies some real sunlight, since it's "God's grow light and is infinitesimally more powerful than artificial light". But since it's still pretty hot in the afternoons (90+°F), I only put them out until midday and bring them back in. A couple of days I left them out longer because they seemed to love it and I felt bad bringing them in on such nice days. I am afraid my last grow was slightly stunted because of extreme heat so I'm trying to be cautious. They seemed to really like being outside though! I also started adding some mineral solution to the spray water. I added 3/4 tsp mineral B and 1/2 tsp mineral A to 1 1/2 cup of water in the spray bottle. Mineral B is 2-0-0 and mineral A is 0-1-3. I figured the babies need more potassium and phosphorus right now during the veg period. Since it is so dry here, I added a humidifier close to them while they're inside under the grow light. I try to keep it around 70% RH. They seem to be doing pretty good so far. I do see a difference between my babies growing in rockwool vs what I've seen from others growing in soil. Mine are smaller and kind of fragile-ish/skinny compared to the soil-grown seedlings. The last plants I grew ended up being kind of small with decent yields - pretty high potency - from everyone that has smoked it has said - however, I am hoping for bigger plants this time with bigger yields while maintaining/increasing the potency. We shall see.

This week, we were going to have guests at the house so I moved the babies into my drying tent with the grow light for a few days (initially, I had them out in the dining room). At almost the end of the week, I felt like they were ready to go into the tower. I have indoor grow lights that attach to the tower but had not used them yet (they are mainly for growing green leafy plants and not flowering plants) so I decided to use them since I'm still waiting for my greenhouse to arrive and I didn't want to put them outside full-time until I can house them in the greenhouse. The set up looks beautiful however, I slightly over-watered the babies because the timer for watering is 15 min intervals. With them being inside, the rockwool had not dried up enough before the next watering cycle. I had it set for one, 15 min watering per day but even that was too much. So, needless to say, the babies started to wilt some. So I put them outside for a little while to let the sun do its magic. Thankfully, they perked back up. Only the tiny tangerine baby is still looking kind of sad so I'll have to keep my eye on her. I'm trying not to feel discouraged because of the overwatering mess up. They are already so delicate and small, I hope I didn't mess up their chances to grow big. I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself for this grow to be bigger and better than the last one but I feel like I'm all over the place with it. I'm really hoping to get more settled and in a better routine once my greenhouse is built (hopefully this weekend). I'm pretty OCD so I'm trying to reign in my compulsions so I don't overdo it. This is supposed to be FUN dang it! Haha!

15 - 21 Sept: This week has been hella challenging! After the overwatering fiasco last week, the girls perked back up after getting some outside and sun time. However, in fear of overwatering again, I accidentally underwatered them one time! 🤦‍♀️ Then I noticed a couple of curling and yellowing leaves in a all of the plants except one (Tangerine Dream) once they perked back up. 😫 So, I used my new pH meter to more accurately pH the water. I sprayed the rockwool with pH'd water only (no minerals) until it was saturated and gently squeezed out the excess for a couple of days to kind of "start fresh". The girls perked back up again overnight and started looking healthier so I'm sure the pH was the issue. I'll start back with pH'd and mineral nutrients at the start of week 5 and see how it goes. 🤞 But what a hell of a week it has been! I took the girls out of the tower so I could individually tend to each one until they got over my watering mistake and so I could easily put them outside when the sun was out (and now we've got rain so, it's indoor lights only for now). I moved the fan to give them a little more direct but gentle airflow too. I feel like I'm failing with this grow so far, though. Time will tell if these early mistakes affect their growth. I suspect my plants will be smaller than normal, again. I read about starting seedlings in soil then transferring to rockwool when ready to put into an aeroponic system for bigger, sturdier plants so I'm considering doing this for the next grow, depending on if my girls do well or not this time. I'm hoping for the best.