Super Skunk

Forgive me AGAIN I have started logging this actual journal several weeks after I have started the grow, but never the less, I still have dates on photos to help me track the growth so far. I decided this grow that I would try reusing my dirt from the last grow and was able to sterilize it by cooking it in the oven🙌 I did loose a little bit of dirt but decided I would just combine coco coir that I had around with the soil 1:1 to even things out. Week 1 wasn't particularly interesting. This time around I choose to only plant 2 Super Skunk (fem) seeds because I needed have a "do over" with this strain. Last grow (mid flower) I lost control of my plants and I am looking to redeem myself because this strain grew beautifully up until that point. I went ahead and germinated seeds the last week of October and had sprouted seeds by Oct. 31. The first week was pretty typical with the exception of one seedling who's shell was causing the plant difficulty in releasing. For several days I tried to just allow nature take it's course but, then I became incredibly impatient and attempted to remove it myself (BAD MOVE). The whole head snapped off of the fragile seedling and I had to immediately start over. Also the humidity in SOCAL has extremely low (in the teens) which made getting regulating humidity even more challenging. *P.S. I only gave my plants distilled water from a spray bottle to ensure that there was no over watering*

The second week wasn't too problematic for Super Skunk #1. The seedling is steadily growing and I went forward with only feeding it distilled water. I recently came across some growing information and heard about the magic of bokashi so I figured I would incorporate it into my grow this time around to see the effects. I also decided that based on my experience last grow, I would switch over to a more kelp based nutrient during flower. What I came to realize (amongst other things) was that I had most likely underfed my plants during flower, and although my "no bottled nutrients" challenge got me through veg. without a problem, it appeared that my plants could have used a bit of a boost during flower. This time around I plan on sticking to: -rice water -coconut water -banana peel water -onion/garlic peel water during veg. and once I decide to flip to flower I will go back to using my trusty Green Plant "Medi-one" bottled organic nutrients. *the second plant that I replanted is looking pretty strange so I'm thinking I might need to germinate another seed*😑

This week was when I first recognized that there was something wrong.... Initially I only realized that the stems of my little girl were slightly bent downward. In some cases I have experienced this orientation when a plant is exhausted and about to got through its sleeping period but, this seemed different. In the following days I began to notice that the lower leaves were beginning to fade, the stems began to turn red, and still the leaves were bending downward and not praying to the light! At first I just figured that my plant was in need of a feeding and transplanting to a larger container but, after doing a bit of research I realized that the I may have been experiencing a phosphorus deficiency. From my understanding I knew that these plants require nutrients that is high in nitrogen during the vegetative part of its life however, I did not realize that it's still needed an adequate amount of phosphorus in this stage too. As I mentioned perviously, I decided to reuse my soil for this grow and as a result of sterlization my growing medium no longer had any nutrients to offer my plant at the time. I believe this is the reason I began to see signs of deficiencies and going forward if I ever reuse my medium again I will make sure to re-amend it before using it. *I also topped the plant at the 5th node this week as well*

I don't have much to show or say for this week.. It was incredible to notice the radical differences in the plants appearance in just sever days but it was also quite nerve wracking!!! Once I got the plant transferred I decided to go ahead and feed her with Green Planet's Medi-One (an organic bottled nutrient that I still had lying around). The original plan was to attempt a dry amendment grow but as the dry amendments where no where to be found after placing my order, I opted to use what I had handy. I went ahead with a water soluble nutrient that would immediately activate the roots and supply nutrients to the sterile medium and I am happy that I did. The very next day after the 1st feeding the plant already started to look different and just "perkier"

I am so glad I decided to do some low stress training!! After that one feeding at the end of last week the plant truly bounced back and showed no more signs of deficiency problems.. 😅 Because I started some early LST I began to see the much smaller nodes develop over this week and it started to give me hope lmao. There was not only a difference in the vibrancy of the green leaves but there was also a difference in the texture of the leaves as well! The ones that were damaged were thicker and more rough, while the new healthy leaves were much softer! For now I will leave some of the damaged leaves on because I don't want to strip her too early but periodically over the next couple of weeks I am going to start pruning and training her more (especially since she's a keeper). I also went ahead and started giving my girl a foliar spray feeding of diluted garlic & onion peel water which I plan on continuing with while in veg.

Things have been coming along great so far; This week the plant really exploded in size! I am really happy with the development so far and I would like to continue training her to stay low just to even out the canopy. Because I decided to grow in a mixed medium of Coco/Soil/Perlite I wasn't sure exactly how often I would need to water my plant, and at what Ph level. So far I haven't run into any issues and I have been watering and feeding interchangeably at a Ph level of about 6. I really like the combination of coco & soil and I really do feel like its the best of both worlds. I am noticing that the medium seems more fluffy/airy and I love that the roots can move freely without being compacted. My goal is to have this plant cover the circumference of the 5 gallon pot before I flip to flower. Since I'm on'y growing one plant I want to make it worth my while.😌 *I've used Medi-One before (on my very first grow) and I enjoyed it but I do think that you can probably get away with feeding your plants at half strength... and this time I am feeding gingerly to ensure that we avoid nutrient burn at all costs*

I have roots busting out of the bottom of my pot and honestly.... I couldn't be happier! After the first few weeks this grow hasn't given me any troubles and I am seeing healthy white roots sprouting through the sides and the bottom of this fabric pot which speaks volumes to just how healthy/happy she's been lately. I told myself that I would push this plant a few more weeks in veg just so I could maximize my potential yield (since I'm only growing 1 plant this time around). I have topped just a few nodes to even the height of the canopy and I have also continued with low stress training; staking down each branch and stretching it further as it turns up towards the light. My goal is to cover the circumference of the pot before I flip to flower (which may take a week or two more) but, I won't be too picky if it doesn't cover the full size of the pot.... especially since the real stretch will start in early flower! Lastly, I have really been feeding this plant gingerly; so far she has had a couple feedings at nearly half strength and I think the color of her leaves indicate that she is happy and healthy. I really do Like Medi-one but I'm sure like many other nutrient lines "less is more". I also had some left over garlic & onion peels that I had collected from cooking and instead of making a "tea" with them I decided to grind them up in the coffee grinder and use it as a top dressing! which I will probably do again.

This weeks nothing out of the ordinary! I continued to feed and water Penelope as I have throughout veg. & decided that I would give her just one more week of veg. after this and then flip her to flower! Humidity and temps have remained a challenge throughout this grow but now that we are moving into flower I think she will actually appreciate the natural environment and continue to flourish. I am excited to see how she will fill up my 3X3 tent and I'm hoping she yields well!! Keep your fingers crossed. 😉

**Let me preface this all by saying... that I am slacking on weekly updating this journal & I apologize! Overall, I am loving the fullness of this plant. Week 9 was my last full week of veg. and although I didn't complete my goal of having the plant reach the full circumference of the pot, I can tell that with a little more training she will most likely yield well. The weather during and after Christmas was particularly cold and rainy so although humidity wasn't too much of a problem this week, temperatures were. I assumed that the temps would have had a larger impact on the growth but honestly... she did just fine! From my experience growing this strain she is generally speaking, not too temperamental!!! This has been my longest veg. so far and I am ready to get this baby into flower😊

*** Something odd happened while adding week 10 and for whatever reason when I removed the week to redo it, the whole week got completely deleted😑 *** Week 10 was the first official week of flower and Penelope seems to be pretty happy! With a combination of both topping several times and low stress training she began to bush out really nicely, however she was slightly uneven on one side. I decided by the end of this week that I would put up the trellis net because I wanted to control her height and spread her further thus creating more available tops (in hopes of an even higher yield). I am really happy with her color! She has remained a lovely vibrant green practically this whole grow and my concerns about her becoming too dark because of a nitrogen toxicity has been avoided!!! I haven't moved my light any closer to the plant because I believe the COBs are pretty strong so I'm not taking my chances. However, I did flip the "bloom" switch on my Hipargero and we shall she the growth and development in the next couple weeks.

This was the 1st full week with the trellis net up and as much as I enjoy the gentle manipulation that comes with implementing this technique I do believe there are some down sides and I am considering whether or not to use it again in the future. I think as I continue to grow and set up my perpetual grow system, it may not be conducive to this style of growing. I can see myself getting very frustrated in the future because adding plants to the "flowering tent" would be a pain in the ass with this type of netting up! With that being said Penelope is doing just fine and by the end of this week I began to notice the very early stages of bud formation which is always exciting. She still has a very faint smell but I'm sure in the weeks to come it will be more prominent. With regards to feedings she is still getting her dose of Green Plant's Medi-one which I do love. I would like to try other organic nutrient lines in the future so if anyone has recommendations please leave them in the comment section! p.s. for whatever reason I can't change the light system that I am using and I want to clarify that I am intact using the hipargero 800w cob setup and have flipped the switch from "veg" to "bloom"

**I want to preface this update by saying that my watering and feedings have never been extremely regimented; I only feed and water my plants in response to how I see them behave. As much as I would like the add what I use to supplement my grow and amend my soil there really isn't an option to do that based on the unites of measurement provided above so I will go ahead and list it here. As I have mentioned in my last grow I enjoy doing DIY projects and that includes how I feed my plants. This grow I have been saving, drying, and collecting both banana/plantain peels and garlic/onion peels to grind down and sprinkle in as a top dressing. In my previous grow I used both of these items in a different fashion adding them to water and letting them steep for several days before I fed my plants. As much as I enjoyed that method and saw a positive response, I feel like storage-wise, keeping them as dry adamants made more sense + I didn't have to deal with any funky smells. I would probably say that I sprinkle 1.5 - 2 tables spoons of each powder to the top of my substrate and then water them in thus allowing them to break down, release nutrients and feed the microbial life in the substrate. There was nothing particularly challenging about this week. What I have noticed though, is that that the combination of coco & soil in a nearly 1:1 ratio has improved moisture retention. Unlike growing in straight coco where you have to water everyday I have found that this is unnecessary and the plant can go quite a few days in between its next watering/feeding. I had noticed this several weeks ago but it was confirmed to me after listening to an episode of "The Cheap Home Grow" podcast where there was a debate about growing in soil vs. growing in coco between Jeff Lowenfels & Dr. MJ (definitely worth the listen)!👌

By week 3 of flower I could already tell that this plant wasn't going to be a stretcher. I think I had expectations for her because of my previous grow and how much taller those Super skunks were, but this one was much shorter in stature. Week 4 of flower was the beginning of true bud production. There is still only a faint smell but as the weeks progress I know that she will begin to become more aromatic. As for the trellis net, I think this may be my last time using it (for a while at least). I think my biggest frustration is the sizing of each square. I really love the fact that the netting is reusable but if the square sizes were smaller then I think it would be more practical and beneficial. Because of the large square sizes there is only so far that this plant can extend and because she isn't a stretchy plant I am finding the netting to be more of a hindrance. I really think that if I had a slightly different set up I would have been able to extend her a little further, creating more potential tops, but I'll take what I can get. If anything these are all critiques that will help me improve my future grows.

**I realize that on the previous update the air temp was left @ 50 degrees which isn't correct. The temperature has never dropped that low but in adding information I messed up; my apologies! I made an attempt to fix it, but for whatever reason it won't edit 😑 (for the record the temptress have only dropped to the low 60's at the most). Prior to this week I had been running both the veg and bloom switch but I realized that while un attended the temps were getting to high for my liking so I went back to just running the bloom stitch only. Also, this was the week that I unfortunately became lazy and payed the price. I noticed that there were rust spots forming on some of the lower leaves and realized that there was some type of deficiency at play. In my lack of attention I had not give this girl an appropriate feeding and I believe that's when the problems began to occur. I made sure to give her a proper dose of nutrients and over the next couple of days I didn't see any major casualties so I believe the problem is now stabilized. As I was feeding the plant I realized that she was extremely hungry and it took a lot more to feed her 'til run off than usual. The next day when I checked on her, her leaves were "praying" and that automatically was a good sign to me. Going forward I will probably increase the recommended amount of nutrients in flower from 7ml/l to 10ml/l and see what type of difference that makes. I believe this is also the week that I did another strategic defoliation around the center of the plant to allow the lower parts of the canopy to get more direct light. I even took some twine and tied back one of the branches in an effort to expose it more to the light. Again, because this trellis net isn't ideal for "non-stretchy plants" I had to find a way to pull back certain tops that weren't tall enough to be gently tucked back, into the trellis net. For more of an in-depth conversation about this grow you can checkout the highlights section of instagram and tune in for the weekly updates on Sunday: @_taylor.darling_ 😉

I did a wee bit of defoliation this week and removed two lower nodes that didn't appear to have much potential. When I originally thought about it, I posed a question to my instagram community and got a few mixed answers. There were a few people that said cutting off the nodes in flower could stress the plant. On the contrary I had other people suggestion that I harvest the plant in segments and allow for them to mature more when exposed to more light. As good of an idea as the latter suggestion was, I personally felt like it wasn't worth the energy spent on it. Since I now have my 2nd tent up and running, it made no sense to me to hold up the perpetual grow for larfy buds. I don't think the suggestion was obsolete and I may try it in the future but it didn't seem worth the time and effort on those little nodes. As for the potential stress of the plant........ she's doing just fine!😏 After noticing some discoloration, I had a conversation with a friend regarding what he generally does to fix any deficiency problems. He told me that he adds a decent layer of worm castings to his soil and that usually does the trick. I decided to give it a shot myself and I thought it would be useful to also incorporate some bokashi to help break things down faster and oyster shell powder to add a boost of calcium and to balance out the pH. I think in general I am going to attempt to make better use of these dry amendments in all stages of life. From what I've researched they seem to have tremendous benefits to the garden and I haven't heard of anyexperiences where they caused the plants harm (to my knowledge). In the future I would like to build my understanding of amending soil. I have already gone through the process (several times) of reusing my soil and sterilizing it but, I know that if I learn to take matters into my own hands, I won't be as reliant on purchasing more products like quality soil. I think its important to try to be mindful of how I am growing and whether or not it is environmentally friendly so taking this route in my future seems like a step in the right direction.

This week wasn't necessarily challenging however, I was still noticing the deficiency signs. I was no longer seeing large irregular rust spots but instead they had minimized to much smaller freckle-like marks with a slight bit of gradual yellowing (the progression wasn't rapid though). I only saw these spots on the older, more mature leaves and all of the newer growth seemed to be okay. My prediction is that the dry amendments that I had added a week prior would be slow releasing so although they were combating the initial problem, it wasn't going to be a quick fix. From what I noticed it didn't seem as if this slowed down the grow process too much so I continued to proceed. I did notice a few fungus gnats crawling on the ground so I added a bug trap to collect them. As the week progressed I noticed that the trap had very few bugs which to me was a good sign. Considering I got this far in my grow without any real "pest problems" says a lot to me. I am wondering if it was the fact that i sterilized my reused soil or if it was because I mixed in coco coir at nearly a 50/50 ratio.... honestly, it could be a little bit of both. so far I am pretty pleased with the way she has stacked up and her shape is becoming more defined and very conical; tapering at the top like a little christmas tree.

This week the temperatures went up in the grow tent because I opted to run the light a full strength within the last few weeks of flower. The tent isn't excessively hot and over all, the plant seems to like it. What I find interesting about this strain is how the shape of the buds actually developed. In my 1st grow of Super Skunk I had a completely different setup. My light quality was not so great and the environment stayed a little too warm but the buds stacked up pretty well. Regarding the actual shape and over all look, I recall my 1st Skunk having more calyxes stacked on top of each other vs. this current shape where she appears to be more "leafy" and tappers more like a Christmas tree. In short, I am wondering if this has more to do with the difference/quality in light spectrum or does this have more to do with the actual phenotype. Regardless, I find this particular plant to be the most resinous our of ant of the other plants I have grown so I am happy to see the level of potency. At the end of the day my focus is more so on quality of quantity and I have defiantly seen those improvements in every completion of a grow. The plant has slowly started to fade and I am only focused on giving her water as she is steadily nearing harvest. This is the last week she was given a feeding.

This was the final full week of flower before harvest! I was hoping that I would be able to push the plant just a few more weeks but the moment I started to see the amber trichomes and the change in color I felt it was about that time. I was actually amazed at the amount of color that came through after flushing my girl with just distilled water. In general I enjoyed the grow but, in the future there are a few things that I would love to do differently. I checked the packaging for my fishbone meal and I realized that I should have added more than I originally did in early flower. I think that Green Planet's Medi-One is a great nutrient line (especially for beginner growers who are considering growing organically). However, it seems clear to me that an appropriate increase of phosphorus would have done the plant good. I've also been looking into humic acid as another dry amendment and I think I will be including that to my future grows as well. After I chop her down and dry her I will come back with a conclusive report on the overall harvest.

Okay so, dried my harvest and it's been curing for the last couple of weeks. Not to my surprise, this was a relatively low yielding harvest (still). The quality of the cannabis is excellent and already has a really smooth finish. However, in the future I would love to add some additional supplements in the flowering stage to boost her chances of being more fruitful. One thing I realized a little too late into flower, was that I should have added a larger quantity of fishbone meal earlier than I had and I believe that in general the plant could have used a P/K booster (which is what I am looking into for my next grows, along with humic acid). The plant filled in nicely but I would have loved for the internodal stacking to be greater and more dense.