Aurora Borealis

FriedPlantain This is my second grow, though I’ve haunted this site for months. I’ve gardened for decades, but never tried growing cannabis - too much baggage attached, and it’s risky. But I need medication that works, as I’m running out of pharmaceutical options, so necessity forces my hand. So I started a RQS seed, bought a better light, and prepped my space. I name my plants, and this one is named Aurora.

FriedPlantain I pulled the lights up away from Aurora as I noticed she looked a little crisp - this was after moving it closer because she got leggy and I had to bend her stem down to root, hoping it would act like tomato or pepper stems and root (note: she did not! Next time I will just dig her up and plant deeper). These are new lights to me, so I had to figure out how to adjust, and finally got it right. Just water, as I’m using full Biobizz soil - which I’m pretty impressed with. All water sits for at least 48 hours before I use it. I don’t do ph balancing, the soil and the time sitting out takes care of that for me. Our water is VERY hard, but it works. Started the first of the training to break apical dominance - everything is an experiment, but I prefer working with a plant rather than forcing it to do my bidding. If she can take it, we do it. If she can’t, we don’t. This is how I roll.

FriedPlantain Aurora grew very nicely, and I keep training her main stem down, spreading out the side shoots to try and get a canopy started. Training plants like this is new to me - I tend to be a light touch on things I grow - but in such a narrow space, only able to grow one plant, I need to focus on yields. Need to grow as much flower as I can to sustain me between grows, especially for winter pain. So I’ve done a lot of reading this site and others to figure out what to do, and how to do it. It really helps that this strain grows pretty quickly, but not so quickly I can’t keep up. All in all, the week went well.

FriedPlantain Aurora filled out nicely! The training seems to be light enough to keep her going without slowing her down much. At this point, I was eagerly looking for bud sites, but it wasn’t happening yet. Still, it was only a month in, so no rush. As long as she was healthy, all good. At this point I think I started using nutrients - after a month of letting her just use the soil. So, we continue to admire her growth, and wait.

FriedPlantain This was the week I got a bit nervous - my growing window is not long, and I had chosen this strain because it was autoflower, and I hoped it would grow quickly, but still, no bud sites. I hunted all over here, and other sites, trying to figure out if it was something I was doing wrong, and I wondered if I have a phenotype that needed less light to flower - so I flipped the lights. It was a bit of an agonising decision - I didn’t want to slow down my grow if I was just being impatient, but I decided to go ahead and give it a try and see what happened. I added some more nutrients at a lower dose, and watched carefully for any signs of nutrient burn. So far, so good...

FriedPlantain Aurora began stretching this week once I flipped the lights. Sudden growth EVERYWHERE as she shot upwards. I trained down a few of the stems but for the most part I just watched in amazement as she grew, and grew, and grew, straight up. If I looked at Aurora in the morning, she looked as if she’d grown a few cm by evening. I’ve only seen bamboo grow that fast! It’s impressive and I delighted in just watching the transformation, but still got nervous about buds - or lack thereof. At this point I could only trust in the process.

FriedPlantain Finally, buds! It seemed to take forever, but that is the peril of looking at a plant daily; you’re going to miss details from familiarity. I take photos daily so I can track progress, as this is a new plant and I don’t know her ways yet, how she grows, what she does, or what she needs. It’s all observation. Her lemony leaves are from a result of growing so fast, and often they would get darker green the bigger they got, but at this point I noticed some were staying lime green, so I slowly worked on increasing nutrients. If this is a different Pheno, then my theory was she was going to need more nutrients than an autoflower, and I decided to increase over time. I think that proved to be the right choice.

FriedPlantain I have no idea what I am doing. No, listen; that’s not a bad thing! This is a new plant, and I am regularly fascinated at learning how to tend it, which means admitting when I know nothing and need to figure it out. Defoliating like this is something I would normally never do - it’s too high stress for a plant, and too much messing with nature for my tastes. If Aurora wasn’t such a good plant with strong stems, I’d probably never have tried it, but this was my experience, to push the boundaries of what I know, and what I don’t, and see what I’d learn. Since my growspace is so narrow, all the light comes from above, and that needs to penetrate as deeply as possible. So, I took leaves out, opened up the space - got a bit scared, and avoided taking as many as I could have, let it sit for a few days, and then took a few more. I managed to defoliate quite a bit, and watched where the light went to learn where to take more leaves. All a process!

FriedPlantain My husband is the stoner in my house - growing up in Amsterdam will do that, I guess - so when he said ‘sticky icky’ I just gave him a blank look. I am the most uncool chick ever! But I get what he means now; all the trichomes and resin on the leaves, I could start to see it this week. I continued with my nutrient schedule, and compare notes with other grows, to try and figure out if I could get even a rough estimate on when Aurora would be ready to go. Our harvest window is tight but again, trust in the process. I experiment with more defoliation and pulling leaves, watch progress, check for anything that might signal a problem, but I’m meticulous - in a small growspace, cleanliness and airflow is vital. Keep that under control and nothing can get a foothold. So far, so good!

FriedPlantain Isn’t she pretty? I can’t get over just how ridiculous and bizarre cannabis is - it stinks to high heaven, grows like a thistle, makes my arms itch like I’m brushing up against nettle and is so covered in resin I need to use olive oil to get it off my skin (old strategy I learned from harvesting poplar buds and pitch wood in the wild). I’m fascinated, and I’m learning a lot. In my observation, she looks too green for me - there’s too much nitrogen, I think, so I cut down the nutrient dose a bit. Seems to help. Aurora keeps growing and the pistils keep getting bigger. At this point I think I’ve accepted this isn’t as quick as the autoflower I’ve seen other people grow. Maybe I just got one that takes longer. It’s a little worrying, I have a ‘harvest by’ date and I can’t push it out, so we just have to be patient and trust in the process, hoping I can get a good harvest even if I may have to pull her a bit early. We’ll see.

FriedPlantain What a fascinating process. Aurora grows very well - I give her water about once every two days, give or take, and turn her pot so the light has a chance to hit various budsites a little differently - I have trained in such a way I can move Aurora without worry, as I feel shifting her position is good - the canopy isn’t as even as I would like to moving the pot around manually helps. I wonder if I trained her down more, would I move as often? Or would I even need to? An experiment for another grow. Right now I’m just waiting (rather impatiently) for Aurora to ripen. I can see her buds starting to fatten up, but there’s still a way to go. Unfortunately, I’m running out of time, and I’ll start flushing now - she won’t be as ripe as most would like, but I’m aiming for a cerebral motivational high, not a couch-lock. Fatigue is my enemy, and combating it is a good portion of the motivation to grow. As an aside I had to turn up my scrubber as, for a strain that is supposed to not be so smelly, I could smell her in my growing space: faintly floral, somewhat skunk-sweet with a hint of citrus. She proper pongs, and I hope my air filters will give one last hurrah before I swap them out after this grow is done.

FriedPlantain This is the week I must flush and harvest - I started flushing last Friday, after a week of cutting back on nutrients. Aurora is starting to fade, the tips of her leaves are turning and her pistils are all turning in. I’ve taken a lot of the popcorn stems off to allow Aurora to focus on her larger stems and flowers. I’ll put some more photos up of her through her last week. Isn’t it amazing - one plant can provide different things depending on how you harvest, what environment you expose it to, and how you tend it? I have friends who enjoy being stoned, and others who want to be elevated or enjoy the racy effects. I want to be creative and as pain free as possible - and these plants can provide for us all. It’s a gift, and I am grateful. So I give my thanks to Aurora for all she has taught me, as I prepare to put her to rest, and grow one of her sisters for my spring requirements. Onward!

FriedPlantain Aurora gave me a bit of panic at first; she didn’t flower until I flipped her lights to 12/12 - even so, she finished up relatively well and quickly, with so many stems and buds. She will provide me with more than enough medicine for the next few months - I think I’ll be able to fill two jars. Apologies to all, but I don’t care much about weights or ratios, and I don’t bother weighing. Since it’s just for my household, I’m not fussed. I don’t throw anything away when I have a plant in such good health - trim, larf, and sugar (raw and wet) all goes into a jar full of spirit to make tinctures, washed roots too. Then I add some dried flower and trim, and finally some decarbed/AVB. Anything that can create a rounded medicine, I put it into a jar of vodka, strain, and use. And this is why I’m able to walk now, and my powerchair is sitting in the corner :) Thanks for stopping in - and thank you, Aurora. You have taught me much. I will apply what I’ve learned to the next grow. Northern Lights Auto proved to be a trooper - looking at her structure, I was shocked to see the size of her main stem - and how much the staking I’ve done damaged it :((((. BUT Aurora didn’t struggle at all, and took it in stride. I will definitely pay more attention to how I train limbs in future - it was preventable, and I’m probably really lucky I didn’t end up with a diseased grow as a result. More care and attention on my part!