2nd Plant: Mazar

Week 1 (Dec31 - Jan 10): Planted seed sprouts on New Years Eve. Including the pre-week (Jan 1-3) within Week 1. This time we're going organic. True organic. No chems or synthetic nutes. Thing 1 and Thing 2 were started with Performance Organics from Home Depot. But luckily I found a "MJ-friendly" grow supply shop with all the supplies I need to do it right. Thing 3 and 4 were started a week later in Great Lakes Water Only organic soil.

Week 2 (Jan 11 - Jan 17) Giving 2 more seeds a try. This time using the new water-only organic soil found at the hydroponics place where we got the advice to go organic and helped pick out the right materials that didn't break the bank. Fingers crossed, but feeling hopeful.

Week 3 (Jan 18 - Jan 24) So far so good. The new plant (in the new water only organic soil) is doing a good job catching up to the others. Going to name this one River. Oddly enough though, her partner isn't doing well at all. Going to give it a few more days, but looks like we may down to just four plants for this grow.

Week 4 (Jan 25 - Jan 31) Time to transplant! Note: Posted this a couple days early (actual transplant took place on Groundhog Day, 2 Feb) 1st time going Organic, plants starting to sag, so decided it's about time to move to a bigger container so I can have a better feel for watering and feeding. Added about 2-3 teaspoons of Wildroot Organic Concentrate Mycorrhizal Fungi to the roots and soil during transplant in hopes it'll give you them a little boost and establish a good root ball.

Week 5 (Feb 1 - Feb7) Added about 2-3 teaspoons of Wildroot Organic Concentrate Mycorrhizal Fungi to the roots and soil during transplant over the weekend, and within 48 hours all three plants not only sprung back to life, they grew at least 3x in size. The droopy leaves all stood straight out like they were injected with Viagra! Grace was grown in a cup with the same water-only organic soil that all three are in. The other two started out with an "organic" soil from a big box garden center. Grace's leaves were a rich, darker green than the other two. But the big box soil did a lot better on starting the seedlings. I lost 2 other seeds in an attempt to start them in the water-only organic soil. Biggest problem was with the density of the soil, which lifted with watering and took longer to percolate.

Week 6 (Feb 8 - Feb 14) Tea Time! This week we introduced our plants to compost tea, made from 1 teaspoon of Roots Organics Bio-Force by Aurora Innovations. There was either a water leak from the humidifier, or way too much humidity in the tent, because the floor was covered in a water. Had to vacate the whole tent, which gave me an opportunity to arrange the plants just where I want them to get ready for the SCROG net in a few weeks.

Week 7 (Feb 15 - Feb 21). All three plants are doing nicely, and River, our youngest plant, is doing a good job keeping up, but still a couple inches shorter. So, I decided to FIM the older two plants to see if it evens them out, or sends them into a growth spurt. If the later, then I'll give River a FIM next week.

With the new netting up, I switched on the red lights along with the blues to help the plants stretch a bit to reach through the screen. It looks like it is taking effect, so late in the week (Friday) I trimmed some of the lower branches. Last week I FIMmed Zoe and Grace to give River a chance to catch up, and I expected 1 of 2 results: 1) FiMming will encourage growth in the cut plants causing them to grow taler than River, or 2) Things will stabilize and River will be on par with her siblings. But instead, I discovered a 3rd result: River is continuing to grow bigger and thicker each day and is even taller and fuller than her sisters. In addition though, the trimmed plants are developing nice, strong, sizable leaves, and most of the new growth is coming from down below, rather than near the top. Oh, and this week I added a new camera (Wyze) to the time lapses so I can take my pro camera out.

NOTE: Measuring light distance from top of net rather than top of plants for consistency. - Plant were developing nice broad leaves, but were refusing to grow any taller to push through the netting. So, I raised the light 3 inches and switched on both blue and red lights to allow them to stretch through, which did the trick! - Placed a lot of stress on the plants this week trimming and training them to grow throughout the ScrOG netting and removing lower branches that were not receiving as much light to allow the top leaves to get more nutrients. - NEGATIVE: switched off the grow lights to get natural color photos and forgot to turn them back on until several hours later! :-O My babies are too young to flower at this point. Hope they stay in vegetative state without any serious impact. Fingers crossed! - Been experimenting with clones from clippings. Last week didn't do to hot, but this time I got two nice long pieces and trimmed off the majority of leaves to give the roots a chance to develop without fighting over nutrients from the leaves. The trick this time was 1) sufficient size of clipping, 2) minimal leaves, 3) dipping the base in mycorrhizal fungi concentrate, and 3) placement near the humidifier to ensure leaves get sufficient moisture. So far so good. Check them out in the time lapse video.

Taking it slow with the veg state to develop larger, stronger plants and it seems to be paying off. I've trimmed the lower leaves at least 3 times this week. I think I'm going to extend it out at least one more week before switching to flower state. Early in the week I switched from blue to purple to allow the branches to push through the screen more. Then mid-week blue, to rebuild the fan leaves, then back to purple once I rearranged everyone into their optimal positions for capturing light. I see a lot of potential for multiple colas. Each time I switched to purple, I raised the light up a few inches to help them stretch. As noted last week, lamp distance is being measured from top of net (not top of plant). I continue to add compost tea every Tuesday, which they love :-)

Pretty exciting week. Been doing last-minute prep to switch from Veg to flower, by moving lights around and adjusting them between blue and red to encourage growth in that last little stragglers. More significant though, we had a power outage in the middle of the day, mid week, that caused me to scramble to find light. This gave an added bonus because I the weather is getting better and I was able to expose my plants to some natural sunlight and air. You can see in the timelapse the combination of blue, red, and white light as I shift things around. NOTE: This week was also the start of the COVID-19 Self Quarantine, so the time at home gave me a lot more flexibility to tend to my babies. Plants have reached as high as 20 inches or more, but topped off the tallest ones because they were overpowering the smaller guys and also starting to droop. Plus I broke one trying to weave through the net. Next Week: Switch to Flower Stage!

This week I switched over to 12/12 light cycle to begin flower stage. Cycled through a sequence of blue, red, and purple light to develop taller (red) and fuller (blue) foliage, using both (purple) at times as long as I could keep the temp under 79F. Man! once I switched over, they began taking off! Some of the more dominate branches began taking over and blocking the smaller ones in record time. I had to add a couple filler lamps (1 LED & 1 CFL, both white) to even things out a bit. NOTE: reverting back to actual Plant-to-Lamp distance (vs Screen/Net-to-Lamp).

Plants are starting to get out of control. Had to bend and route two of the tallest branches (one from Zoe, one from Grace). River is just hanging out in the back chilling. The new branches started covering the while netting, blocking out the humidifier. Eventually had to cut off a beautifully developing cola, because both branches got kinked I damaged Grace's trying to create space for the humidifier vapor through. NOTE: I stopped color correcting the timelapses in post after fine tuning the White balance in-camera with custom settings. Left as is to better show when I'm adding blue light to develop broader growth. Halfway through the timeplapse you can see where the screen turns dark green. That's from the fill light being plugged into the circuit not controlled by the timer. Thank God my plants have been very forgiving. I think I'm going to need to add a second grow light, because now I have some really short sections, and some really tall areas that aren't getting any light when I bring the lamp closer to the shorter blooms.

Plants are getting too big for enough light coverage, so had to buy a second grow light. As noted before, the plant was getting out of hand and growing at many different heights making it difficult to set the optimum light distance. So, I went a little crazy and did some serious pruning (yes, during flowing, I know). Also trimmed off a number of fan leaves that were either beginning to yellow or were otherwise blocking valuable light from the many of the smaller buds. Fortunately my plants are very resilient and are finally at mostly equal heights now. Hindsight 20/20: I now have a better idea of how to route my plants using the ScrOG method. I found a well written blog that answered all the questions I had that other article didn't. Bottom line: Instead of allowing the main branches to grow through the netting and re-route the offshoots, I've found it's better to keep the main branches under the netting and allow the off-shoots to grow through instead. Think of it as the plant growing sideways.

Just 3 More Weeks Until Harvest Window! Finally starting to see more stable growth, the second light was a big help and the plants are doing well after last week's pruning. Now we are starting to see the larger fan leaves beginning to yellow and beautiful sugar leaves and trichomes developing.

Today is Friday, 24 April 2020. Harvest window is calculated to begin Saturday, 9 May and last through 19 May. Grace, the plant in the back to the right, is showing signs that she's almost ready to harvest. I will continue to monitor her throughout week 17, but believe she is just about fully matured: Leaves have begun to turn yellow all over, pistols are brown and starting to curl in, and trichomes are beginning to become cloudy. I will begin the harvest once the trichomes begin to turn amber.

Getting closer to harvest every day. In fact, had to start early with Grace, as all of her leaves turned yellow and the trichomes are starting to cloud up. Decided to try the top bud harvest method and allow the smaller buds on the lower portions of the plant to develop more. Read somewhere that it'll allow me to reap an additional 25-50% more flower.

The harvest window was calculated to start next week. However, I've been monitoring the trichomes under a microscope and the majority of top buds had a nice mix of amber triches, I had to begin harvesting a week early. This week I began harvesting the topmost buds only in order to allow the lower ones to continue to develop and mature. We certainly had a few hearty colas, with a number of well defined buds throughout all three plants. Next week we will harvest the remaining as initially estimated.

Harvest Window began this week (May 9-19). Last week I began harvesting early (top-most buds only) because the trichomes were turning a nice amber.

Each plant got 3 harvests out of them resulting in more than 80 grams of quality medicine. Grace: 1.10oz/31g, Zoe: 1.25oz/35g, and River: .75oz/21grams. River thrived the most throughout most of the grow. unfortunately, she yielded the least. Turns out I forgot about a split I repaired, which restricted the flow of nutrients through her main stock.