Cheese

Starting an early season grow with an expected harvest date around May. I plan to start a main season crop before this one is harvested. I wanted to have another crop of indica, which I'm running low on, to last me through the summer grow season. I also have a ton of seed that I plan to eventually make it through. Probably won't plant any more random mystery seed (see the middle of my seed collection photo) so I can work with some quality crop. This will be my first time growing and harvesting seed that I know what it is (other than my unfortunate male only Durban Poison grow) so I'm really excited about it. (these seeds are fem, so I better not end up with any males) Also, shoutout to Seedsman for having an awesome black friday promo where I got most of these seeds for an incredible price! Take advantage of their promos, you can score with an average price of $1-$2 per seed. I also don't plan on using any special grow techniques this time around, just a good nutrient balance. However, I will be growing outdoors so it will be 12-12 from seed. This time I might put up a lamp for the first few weeks of seedling stage which will take place indoors. Should provide a nice boost to early growth and development and hopefully get larger plants than my winter season grow. (Since I'm planting this week both Gorilla Cookies and Cheese diaries will have the same info, I want to maintain separate diaries though to better track differences throughout the grow.)

These seeds sprouted QUICK! After 3 days they all popped up. The day they popped they weren't under lights. So they got a bit leggy. I placed them indoors on a heating mat, and under an LED lamp and Fluorescent lamp both only a few inches away from the plants. To my surprise they continued to get even stretchier. So I moved them outdoors in an attempt to get them to stop stretching. I'm a bit sad by how much they stretched so quickly. I was planning on keeping them on an 18hr light schedule for a good week or so, but if they're outdoors they're only getting 10 hrs. I don't think I have strong enough grow lights to keep them going inside. I also don't plan on getting an indoor setup since I can grow outdoors. I might try to put them inside again and keep a close eye on them to see if they continue stretching. I really wanted to give these girls a good headstart. (Same comments for both strain diaries this week too)

So, I guess I messed up with these girls from the start. Got a bit too leggy. Probably shouldn't have tried to use my grow light. I have a really weak blue-red LED one that goes into a standard desk lamp. I tried to correct for it by putting the seedlings out in the sun last week, worked decently, tried moving them indoors again to avoid cold night time temps and they just got leggier. My best way to correct for the legginess was to plant them in larger cups, I think this was a pretty good solution but we'll find out. I also think the extra netcup and increased amounts of clay pebbles will enhance rooting, I'm hoping to see a sort of rootbinding effect. This is also my first grow using Rhizo Blast, so I'm expecting to get some nice root development. I plan to transfer the plants that are in the smaller buckets into larger buckets after the harvest of my mystery seed crop. Which is why the lids do not match the buckets they are in.

Forgot to update last week. I harvested my other crop and transferred the seedlings from the small buckets into larger buckets. Now all plants are in the 5 gallon buckets. Since moving the plants outside, the growth has slowed tremendously, not longer vigorous shoots. I'm assuming the temperature and lack of light are slowing growth. However, I expect temperatures here to start rising pretty quickly, and each day gets more and more light. Hopefully these girls will be in good shape by the time they start transition.

Roots are looking pretty good, developing nicely. The leaves are expanding and new growth forming. The growth has been a little delayed and sluggish. Which was expected with this time of the year, coming out of winter right now into spring. My hope is that these will really take off and veg out in the next few weeks as temperatures heat up. This is my first grow using Rhizo Blast, so I'm making a point to monitor root growth and development.

I skipped a week of feed as one of the plants wasn't doing too well. pH and TDS were in a good spot so they were water only this week. One plant is doing very well, looks full and lush. The other seems to be struggling more. I will have to baby the plant that isn't doing as well. I'll think about doing a water change next week if it doesn't improve.

One of the two Cheese plants is still not doing very well. I noticed improved root growth this week, as well as some new growth that makes me feel a bit better on the one not doing well. I decided to fully feed the larger plant, and do about a quarter strength feed for the smaller plant. I decided not to do a water change based on the improved root growth. I think it might be a bit stunted from the leggy growth it had as a seedling and high winds during it's first few weeks growing. The larger plant has algae growing on it's roots. I'm not too worried about this as it might be beneficial for the plant since it's doing so well. I might even take some of the algae and put it in one of the other buckets to see if it will improve growth noticabley for the other plants.

I wasn't able to pay too much attention to my plants this week. I came down with the flu. I didn't add nutrients, looks like they just stretched and started transition. These plants are so small it's a real disappointment. The Cheese strain seems to be doing better than Gorilla Cookies, at least one of these two Cheese plants is a bit filled out. I planted new seeds this week. One more of each Cheese and Gorilla Cookies. I was disappointed with these 4 so I wanted to try something different, I planted in soil and will be raising the new seeds with a root binding technique. Gradually increasing the size of the container after the roots have filled in. I wanted to try and get decent crop in before the summer, but the seeds I just planted will be ready to transition in about 1.5 months which would put me at around 13 hrs of light each day. Since that's not 12-12 I'm not sure if they will transition then or if I'll be waiting through the whole Summer. We'll see.

Flower blooms started to show this week. The Cheese has developed a bit better than the Gorilla Cookies, still small and likely to have a small yield. I added bloom fertilizers this week to start the transition process. I will probably not be adding much fertilizer to these plants in the future, since it won't really be worth however much the plant will increase it's yield which either way will be small. The seeds I planted last week have also started to pop from the soil.

Didn't have much time this week. Only grabbed a photo for record.

Some of the bottom leaves are starting to yellow a bit on the larger plant. It looks like trichomes are starting to push through on some of the leaves.

I skipped a week and didn't grab photos. The largest plant started turning color on the leaves, initially it was just purple but started to show yellow too.

The larger Cheese plant got much more purple. Gives it a cool look to see the contrast of half purple. The other plants caught up with the largest. The smaller Cheese plant is developing thick and short. Pretty frosty at this point too.

This week I did a water change since I realized as the other plants in this grow developed, the plant that grew largest first was now smaller than the others. As well as yellow and purple leaves. This meant to me that I had burnt the plant. A few days after doing the water change I checked the roots and saw new white root growth, which I had not seen for awhile with this plant. Hopefully it will be saved.