Grape Ape - first cannabis garden

Day 63: Just learned how to properly water my plant... Seems basic, but holy, so many different ways to do one thing. I learned that I must be letting 25% of my solution run out the pot in order to prevent salt build up. Today is the first day where I've watered until the runoff was the same as the solution. Cheeba took 3 litres to get 750 mL of runoff. Ppm - 1080, pH - 6.2 Later that day: Looks pretty overwatered. Since I've done the flush I've watered every day. Too much, Matt! Will post a picture tomorrow morning. Hopefully the leaves perspire lots tonight. I'm running the tent with higher temps and more airflow to help her get lots of fresh air through the root zone. Day 64: She's drying out today and looks happy. It might just be me but I think she's a darker shade of green today. This is the last week that I'll let her veg. I want to get some smoke off this baby and get another plant started! I did some defoliation to prepare for flower and give light to all the little sub-branches. I feel like I finally understand the idea of how to water and feed her, so I'm taking this as the last chance to do any stressful training and adjustments. I want her going into flower with some zest. She's got five days to recover and show me what she's got. Consistency will be my main goal from now until chop. Some root hairs were showing on the soil surface. I mixed a bit of extra soil to cover up any exposed roots. Added about an inch and will water it in tomorrow. Day 65: She drank 5 litres this morning. Got one litre of runoff. Ppm - 1100, pH - 6.2. Things look good with the addition of topsoil and defoliation. No real signs of stress from the trim which is awesome. I may add a litre of tap water tomorrow to keep the medium from drying out too much. I'll see how the top couple of inches feel tomorrow morning. Day 66: Cheeba looks great today. She's opening up some big leaves around the main tips and the sub-branching is coming up into the canopy. The foliage is much darker green than it has been. I didn't realize how yellow she was getting. I'm thinking she was locked out of magnesium due to over watering and an acidic medium. It's taken way to long to get to this point... But at least she's well trained and I've got my act together for flower. I think that I could have stripped a few more bottom branches at the last trim. There are some that don't look like they're going to make it to the top. If they don't have good access to light at the end of this week I'll probably trim them so the plant doesn't waste any more energy on them. The additional soil was a good call. While protecting the root mass it will also help hold a bit of extra water. I added some mychorizzae into my top soil mix. I wonder if they are why she's shown no stress at all after her trim? Later that day: I noticed that some of the leaves were standing up around the edges a bit. Looks almost serrated. My handy book tells me this is the plant trying to transpire as much water as possible. I want to make sure she's not heat stressed now that I'm dosing her with the nutrients, so I have lowered the temperature to hover around 75F. I figure this is good anyways as I want to roll with lower temperatures throughout flower. It would be cool to see some of her purple expressions if there's any in this phenotype. After I'm through with the nine remaining seeds I have I will be a Grape Ape aficionado. Day 67: Gave her 6 litres this morning. Runoff - pH 6.1, ppm 1200. Heading into flower with the next watering in a couple days. I'm going to dial back the nutrients just a bit for the start of flower, especially as I'm going to be adding a few more ingredients to my potion recipe. Things are a little spicy in the root zone right now. I'll bounce the pH up to 6.5 at the same time. Gave the lower part of the plant a serious hack back. I took out any branches that weren't looking at the light. There were a few fan leaves in the way on top of the canopy, but most of the foliage came out from underneath. Previous trims had been mostly fan leaves while hoping all the branches would find their way up. Twas not to be. I can now let 'er buck. Although that's what I though a month ago... A couple more days under 18 hours then I'm flippin' the switch. Day 68: Looking good in the tent today. Once again there was no signs of shock after the trim, and yesterdays trim was not forgiving. This baby must be feeling pretty good right now. I'll try and keep the theme rolling. Now she's been pruned to the branches I want to turn into bud, I'm wondering if I should do another week under 18 hours of light? Thinking this might allow the smaller sub-branches to beef up a bit more rather than send her into flower with a bunch of little tops. I really don't know how much she's going to stretch and I want the branches to be able to support some weight. A second trellis might be a better option and allow me to throw her into flower this week... After staring at my plant for half an hour I've decided to go to flower. She'll be what she'll be. Day 69: The plant had its first night with 12 hours darkness. Now the clock ticks until harvest! Gave first round of bloom nutrients today. I put 8 litres through her to get the ppm even with my mix. She probably only needed about 5 litres but I noticed the ppm jumping up. When I checked the first little bit of runoff today she was up at 1800. Got 2 litres of runoff. Ppm - 1160, pH 6.2. Hopefully I'll have some fuzzy pictures to post next week.