Winter Wonderland w/ Californian Snow

Nov. 5, 2019.. Just planted germinated seeds into 5gal. fabric pots into organic soil mixture of... Equal Parts Of... PeetMoss/Coco Worm Castings Perlite Then added... 1 Bag Water Only Soil Mix Azomite Dolomite Lime 1/4 cup FoxFarm Seed Starter 1/2 cup Kelp Meal Nov 6, 2019 Germinated seeds just popped through the soil. Nov 9, 2019 Seedlings are taking off. Probably almost 2 inches now. New pics will be up this evening or early tomorrow. Put them on an 18/6 light cycle now. Added a space heater to the veg area. In monitoring the temp and humidity with my Govee while at work I notice the temp drops a little more than I like (low 70's lights off) once the light cycling started. Rotated pots a half turn just about every day as I noticed them leaning off to once direction. Watering as needed just around the seedling. The soil around the outer area of pots are gring a little dry. Contemplating giving the whole pot a complete watering. Nov 10, 2019 Noticed the seedlings are stretching a bit too much. I questioned myself several times as I watched them grow over the last 4 days... seeing this with other people's grows... reading forum responses..." you lights are too high". I was over cautious with this as my first grow experience. My son verified my thoughts so I lowered my lights to about 7 inches from the tops of the seedlings. I'm vegging under t5's. I'll give them a look tomorrow morning to make sure I'm not getting any leaf burn. Nov. 11, 2019 I was advised by a member over at Grasscity forums... thank you Organic Since... to mound up the soil around the stems to counter the stretch. I'll post after pics on the next weeks veg. calendar. Continuing to water and doing foliage spraying with straight water as needed.

Nov. 12, 2019 Seedlings are looking great. I had a bit of stretch going on with all of them. I ended up lowering the light in stages.... starting from 18" to its current height of about 7" from top of leaves. I took some advise and mounded the soil up around the stems leaving about .5" of each stem exposed. I took pics of 3 of the 6 after mounding the soil. Nov. 16, 2014 After 4 days of having the lights lowered, we've noticed some weird leaf deformations. On three of the seedlings there is some sort of twisting of the leaves going on. After doing some Googling and forum reading I think it's either normal or from heat from the lights being too close. So the latest change is I've raised the lights back up to about 15". I'm going to leave them there and after five days see if there are any changes. I've added updated pics. Its kind of hard to see the leaf deformation in these pics. Nov. 19, 2019 Week 2 ended well. Seedlings have turned into little vegging plants. Decided to lower the lights back down to around 9 inches. Leaf temperatures are staying at acceptable temps leading me to believe the deforming leaves...I think it's a characteristic of the plants. The one thing I am trying to figure out is watering. I'm a newbie using a light soil in fabric pots. They dry out quick... not sure im giving them enough water. Also reading about the genetics of the plant and learning it likes to drink alot in is early stages....I started near the end of this week giving them 1 cup if water a around the base of the stem daily. I'll observe this for a few days and adjust the amount upward as needed.

Nov 20, 2019 The plants are doing well. Gave them and the soil in the entire 5 gallon pots a good drenching with a compost tea, kelp, alfalfa, fish hydrysolate, and molasses blend. I'm also realizing I could be watering these girls a bit more. Being a newby I'm over cautious of over watering. But I'm finding the light airy soil mix I made combined with fabric pots.... the soil dries rather quickly. No signs of under watering, but I think I can water them more. This week I'll start watering a couple of cups daily and once a week give the whole pot a good drenching to keep the rest of the soil (where the plants haven't grown into yet) damp.✌️ Nov. 22, 2019 Well I think the girls are starting to give off a little accent. Opened the doors to the room and noticed a slight aroma of dank. Put my nose right up to the plant.... and yup, they starting to smell. I also noticed earlier in the week the front row of three was growing faster than the back row of three. I swapped back row of three with the front row of three. Did the swap on Nov. 21. Nov. 23, 2019 LST'd CS #3 with the "traditional" method of bending the stem over to the edge of the pot. This plant was a little taller than CS #'s 1&2. Notice by Sunday Nov. 25 the leaf edges are turning up, kinda looks like teeth on a saw blade. The fingers on the edge of the fan leaves have curled up. I'm thinking it's stress from the training. LIFTA and check back in a couple of days. Nov. 24, 2019 LST'd CS #2&1. I used the LST method as described by a member at GrassCity forums Organic Since. This method uses stakes on the fan leaves which holds them in their natural growing positions, then as the bud sites grow from there you stake those to the fan leaves This method seems much less stressful to the plant, kinda like letting it grow but naturally guiding the cola branches. I'll compare both methods. Stay tuned and see.

Dec, 2, 2019 Week 4 has come to an end, week was Nov. 25 - Dec. 2, 2019 Watering stayed unchanged... 6-7 cups every other day. Top dressed all plants with Alaskan Humus on Friday Nov. 29 and had a major scare. After top dressing with approx. 2 cups Humus per plant I watered with my usual amount. Well the humus turned to mud and would not let the water soak in. I literally had puddles on the top of the soil in all my pots. Rookie mistake... Newbs please do not do what I did... totally made a mess of my top soil. I PANICKED!!!...lol. Walked away for about 1 hour and later checked in on the girls. The soil had dried enough so I could use my fingers to till up the top inch or so of the soil in all pots and work in the Humus. Next watering and everything had recovered and looking great Nov. 25- Dec.2 LST'd all 3 plants near the end of week 3. Continued into week 4 making the normal LST adjustments to maximize new site growth. A couple of important notes to track with my LST adventure is.... Californain Snow #1 and #2 were of the method I learned by a member at GrassCity forums named Organic since... his method is less stressful I think. The leaves are staked down in their natural positions in a way that maximizes light to new growth sites without bending the main stem to the edge of the pot. Think of trying to make your pot plant look like a Christmas tree... tis the season. Califorian Snow #3 was LST'd with the method of bending the stem to the side of the pot. All plant look healthy and I can not tell at this time which LST method is making a difference.

Dec. 2 - Dec. 9, 2019 Week 5 has ended. I was pulled away for several days due to my work schedule. I was not able to keep up with recent pics and diary entries... I was barely able to keep up with the grow 😣. Due to my schedule I only performed routine watering until the near the end of the week Dec. 7 Performed LST and defoliation to maximize light to new bud sites. Plants are looking good, no signs of pests or nutrition issues. It is worth noting CS #3 is not growing at the pace of CS #1 & #2. I believe it has to do with the method of training. CS#3 was bent over to the edge of the pot... normal LST method. CS #1 & #2 were trained differently... they were allowed to grow in their natural position but with staking fan leaves out of the way of bud growth sites and staking bud growth sites in place to get optimal light. It ends up looking like a Christmas tree. These two plants are producing very well. Dec. 8 Moved the plants into their new home... 4x8 tent with air cooled 600w HPS hood, tent is vented through carbon filter by a 6" variable speed can fan. I'm vent the tent into the room neat the ceiling and venting the light through ceiling rafter over a wall into the next room. My grow room is in a work shop in my finished basement next to an unfinished room where my furnace and water heater are. Top dressed all plants with 2 tbsp of a blend of Good Earth powdered amendments... kelp, crab, alfalfa, neem, azominte, fox farm jump start. It's winter time here in the mid west and I'm finding this is working very well controlling the tent environment. I am able to control the tent temps and humidity by varying the speed of the tent's exhaust fan.

Week 6 Dec. 9 - Dec. 15, 2019 Dec. 11, 2019 They were moved into the tent late in week 5. They took a couple of days to get back to normal... had some drooping leaves for a couple of days... ended up raising the light to 24", it started out at 18". Continued to LST and some defoliating. Noticing as the babys get further into flower they are getting THIRSTY, I'm up to watering them about .5 gallon a day. You'll see in the pics I LST'd 2 plants the same and one differently. CS #3 flowering is about a week behind the other two. This the only one of the two I trained by bending the stem toward the edge of the pot. In the pics you can clearly see the other two plants are a bit a head. If I grow this strain again I will most likely LST by letting the plant grow straight at staking the leaves down out of the way as it grows.

Week 7 Dec. 9 - Dec. 15, 2019 Dec. 18 All the plants are getting a little frosty. I did experience a couple minor issues late into week 6. The CS #1 and #2 started to show signs of light stress. The lights distance for all the plants that were trained while letting grow upright is now 30". The light distance for the plants bent over is 24". I also believe my water ph was too high. Normally the organic soilless mix would buffer the water ph, but I believe mine was to high at 8ph. I am now treating my water with pure lemon juice concentrate with brought my water ph to 6.8. My water source is well water ran through a filter before the water softener. I thought CS #3 was going to be a disappointment. Well I think this is going be my favorite plant of the bunch. It's still about a week or two behind in regards to developing bus sites, but it took to the LST training really well. You'll see in the pics the stem is going around the edge of the pot and there is some nice growth uniformly. I watered at the start of the week with 1.5 tbsp per gallon fish hydrosolate. This helped get my ph in down until I could get some lemon juice concentrate. Outside of that just normal watering, of about 8 cups straight water every other day or so.

Week 8 Dec. 17 - Dec. 23, 2019. Dec. 25, 2019 Week 7 has ended, week 8 has started. Catching up a little late due to the Holiday. Merry Christmas. Nothing has really change much during week 7. Top dressed all the plants with 2tsp of Roots organic Uprising Bloom at the start of week 7. Californian Snow #3 still is at least a couple weeks behind the other plants for some weird reason, I wish I knew why it was soo far behind. You'll notice in the pics lagging behind in the pics. I'm still impressed with how the cannopy evenly filled in after training... we'll just have to see if it produces the buds. The other two plants are getting very sticky and the buds look to be getting thick and dense

Week 9 Dec. 29 - Jan. 5 Jan. 1, 2020 Week 8 is in the books. Nothing changed, kept with every other day watering schedule. Watered at the beginning of week 8 with a table spoon of molasses per gallon of water. Each plant is taking about 10 cups of water. The plants are definitely loading up with tricomes and the smell is getting stronger, with the exception to CS #3, I'll get into those details in a minute. I would try to explain the scent but I have a poor sense of smell along with a hell of a cold this week. They will be ready for harvest with 2 - 3 weeks (except #3) I believe. After looking at other diaries and journals of other growers growing this breed of Californian Snow #3, the one thing that stands out with my grow is CS#1 & CS#2 did not get as tall as others'. I believe I made a new grower mistake and kept my lights a bit too low to the plants. This kept them from stretching out a bit prior to their transition into flower. If I do grow these again I'll keep my lights higher from the cannopy. In the pics you'll see I trained #3 differently than the other 2. #3 I bent the stem to the side then trained it to go around the pot. This made it shorter than the other 2. I had my light height set based on CS #1 & #2, the taller plants... which I had the light too close to then as well that's why they are shorter than they should be... but I believe this is why #3 stretched out and became taller than all my other plants even while being LST'd to the side of the pot. What I can't figure out is why #3 is at least 2-3 weeks behind the other CS's in bud development. When it does complete the growth cycle I think this plant will be my highest yielding one. Also since CS #3 is a larger plant and has more vegetation it is getting an extra watering or two as needed per week. I also top dressed with Organic Roots Uprising Bloom mid way into week 8 due to it still being in the early v stages of flowering. This will make 2 top dresses for this plant in two weeks.

Week 10 Jan. 6 - Jan. 13, 2020 Jan. 8, 2020 Californian Snow #1 & #2 are growing nicely. The main colas are as tall as my forearm and the buds are as thick also. Californian Snow #3 is filling out nicely also. It's still a bit behind. It leaves are getting quite a bit on TNT light side. I've given a couple extra feedings...top dressed with Neem meal and kelp meal yesterday. Watered with fish hydrysolate during week 9 I think because there's soo much more foliage on this plant, being about 3 weeks behind the others, and my soil is organic water only...I think the nutrients are running out for what this plant needs. The lower leaves appear to be getting darker so I think the plant is responding well.

Week 11 Jan. 13 - Jan. 19, 2020 Jan. 15, 2020 CS #1 & #2 are coming along nicely. No amber trichomes but wow t the plants are frosty and they have a strong pungent smell. When thr main cola is bent a little sideways it really begins out the smell. The smell is like a gassy, diesel fuel, strong chemically smell. I love it. CS #3 is giving me some problems. The pics might show it. The leaf tips are curling up and thr leaf edges are turning brown. Not sure if I can correct this befor harvest. It's late into flower. I may just ride it out until then. I've topped dress once weekly for the last 4 weeks with kelp, and a blend from roots organic for bloom 4-6-3.

Didn't do much training to CS #1 and #2. and I had the best yield from these. CS #3 I LST'd which produced more top but the buds were much smaller. I also think #3 plant requires more notes near the end and my water i only organic soil mix ran out. The pics will illustrate the difference between CS #3 and the others. I enjoyed growing these. The smell near the end of flower was awesome. Very strong, diesel fuel, turpentine, with a little piney hops.