Grape Ape - first cannabis garden

Day 28: 12 hours after FIMing her she had perked up. Just need to let her dry up now so I can juice her. Increasing fertilizer to raise the ppm to 700 this week. The ppm was low at the last runoff check (275). I will dial in the solution to get it close but will continue to do a regular watering at least once a week to avoid nutrient burns and lock up. I want her to kick it into veg over the next couple weeks so I may up to 1000 ppm for week 6. We'll see how she likes her food this week. I won't start LST until next week. This week is all branch development. Day 29: Research and development day today. I know I said there wasn't going to be any further training until further branch development, but I was unhappy with the FIM method. It didn't seem to slow down growth very much at the top. Maybe I did not shave low enough? Topping and bending seems to be a more surefire approach since I am trying to create an even canopy for the trellis. I believe that I could have topped sooner and potentially had a bushier plant at this point. That's okay though. This is the learning curve. Today's training gave some light to the lower branch nodes and she has been officially topped. Looks a little scary but I think that she'll tough it out. We'll see if my methods pay off over the next week. Was also able to feed today. Solution - pH 6.3, ppm 875. Runoff - pH 5.8, ppm 710. Now I know she's got some food to help her push through the stress of any training. Fingers crossed I'm not making a rookie move by taking off a few fan leaves... Later on Day 29: The power went out at 3:30pm while the lights are supposed to be on until 10pm. Brought the plant out onto a window to keep some light on her. In the meantime I hustled down to the hardware store and purchased a 1500 watt generator. Came home and flashed it up. The generator runs the grow tent and our fridge without a hitch, so I think it is not a bad investment. On another note, I found some bamboo stakes to ring around the pot for future LST. Looks better than the carpentry pencil I used earlier. I think that the plant is looking good after training today. Now we'll see how she reaches for the light over the rest of the week. Day 31: Looking good. I wish I had topped two weeks ago so I had some branches to work with. Day 32: Gave the ape regular tap water today. She took an extra day to dry out after watering every other day last week. So until the plant starts to drink more I will be watering every third day with alternating fertilizer and regular tap water rinsing. Lucky for me our tap is linked up to a spring on the property and the water quality is awesome. Out of the tap the pH is usually just above 7.0. Today's water came out at 7.2 which I did not pH down at all in a (successful) attempt to raise the pH of the soil from 5.8 to above 6.0. The pH of the runoff today was 6.3. :) The solution that I fed last was over 800 ppm with the runoff just over 700. With todays water the ppm of the runoff was 260 ppm! I think that this increase in nutrient uptake is awesome. This means that the root system has established itself and is now able to deliver and use nutrients effectively. At the next feeding I will juice her back up with 12mL fertilizer /1.5L water to boost her back up to 700 ppm. Research leads me to believe it is healthy to let the plants get a bit hungry for nutrients between each feeding. Burning the plant will be very unlikely if I stick to the alternating schedule. Maybe it will also be easier to flush the plant at the end? I will be sticking with the Advanced Nutrients lineup as they seem to have awesome reviews and I can justify the expense as I'm only growing one plant. For the flower cycle I'll be using Bud Ignitor, Bud Factor X and Rhino Skin. My goal is to have quality smoke firstly, and around 6 ounces dried. The quantity may be ambitious as I have no idea what to expect in my first garden and small tent, but I believe that I can get some good quality bud regardless. It may take several more weeks of vegetative light before she's filled out into the trellis. In my next garden cycle I think that I may grow two plants in an effort to fill up the tent a few weeks sooner. Efforts in the next grow will be a direct evolution from this one. On the subject of training... She seems to have taken quite well to the bending, topping and light defoliation I've given her this week. I am glad that I topped instead of running with the FIM. By topping and removing a few leaves it has really allowed the lower branches to sprout up. The difference in the lower branches is visible daily. Though they are still too small to work with right now, I know that I will be able to do some LST with them soon.