1st Grow Ever : BruteBucket & Cob led

TheOutlawBubbaKush Hello everyone! This is my first ever grow , so please give any advise you see fit. I have a unique situation and am trying a unique grow to compensate. I live in a VERY small apartment and cannot fit a grow tent anywhere. I came across r/spacebuckets on reddit and a light sparked. I started doing research about optimizing yields and grow times in order to make this worth the time and money I'd have to invest to get it all going and offset my dependency on the local overpriced dispensary's. LIGHTS: I built my own light with the help of growmau5 vids on youtube. It's a small but powerful duel COB running VERO 29's @ 3000k 90cri running off a meanwell 1400mh driver with a dimmer. SPACE: The grow space is made out of 2 modified and stacked 32 gallon trash cans/bins. It sits 43'' high in total, on top of my refrigerator. It's insulated and lined with reflective material, with a large pc fan venting out and passive filtered air intakes. There is also a 5 meter led string light running smd 5630 in 5000k spiraled along the inside walls. MEDIUM: OK, this is where i just didn't know where to begin, There were so many options and I kind of wanted to go hydro for the speed and control with the plan of eventually going organic. So I'm going with a 75 Coco / 25 vermiculite mix in a 3 gal hempy bucket. Iwent with the hempy bucket style because it's a passive hydro. It allows the plant to always have a h2o reservoir while at the same time allowing all the upper roots lots of air. of course NOW im second guessing this as i see so many people use fox farm soil. oh well I'm committed at this point to do the grow I've set out to do, and if this doesn't work I'll just learn and try again. NUTES: got Canna A & B for full grow, and pk 13/14 for flower. also got budcandy for carbs. Thinking i might need a rhizotonic for roots ? My Avt Bean just popped out of the wool cube and looks good. Going to wait a few days to pot up. I'm also going to have to keep this plant as short as possible, because of the size of the space and distance to light. So i expect to due lots of LST and even topping, and I might even have to do a scrog.

TheOutlawBubbaKush Well made it into the 2nd week. Saw roots coming out of bottom of rockwool cube so i planted it in the coco hempy bucket. The bucket has perlite in the bottom, a 2 inch resevoir, and a 70% coco 30% perlite mix on top. I think the size of the bucket and re-potting it so small stunted the growth a little. It seems runty compared to other grows, but I think once the roots hit the res it will explode in growth. I have NOT been watering or feeding it too much, like every 3 days. maybe i need to feed it more? i didn't charge the coco with CalMag first, so that can be a problem later i guess?

TheOutlawBubbaKush On DAY 16 now. It's safe to say that I've hit veg growth stage. This runty little sprout has been growing..well..like a weed. Over the last 4-5 days it has been growing 10-15% bigger every day. I tried to align the pics so it's easy to see the growth. I have been watering every other day, alternating between nutes, and water/calmag. last feed i upped the nutes and the plant seemed to like it, so i think ill stick with a little higher feed and start feeding more often, like with every watering. I feel like it's growing fast and will need the food.

TheOutlawBubbaKush Growing strong! The plant started stacking on nodes and on day 16 I started some LST. I supported the base of the stem with some ties, and cranked it over from the top. Within a day i could notice the plant respond amazingly! The stem started to grow much thicker and look heartier, and the side branching started to take off. I've been adjusting the LST every day and added it to the branches as well. I'm trying to keep this plant as under control as possible because of the limited grow space. On day 20 I tried to FIM the plant ?🙏😓 Not sure if I got it right but i guess I'll find out.

TheOutlawBubbaKush My timeline is off because I started these at the beginning of the week, instead of the end. Another beginner mistake. So I'm just going into week 5. I didn't like how stiff and difficult the wire i was using for LST was to adjust. I got some 1/16 inch elastic cord (para cord) off Amazon and tied some across my bucket. It works great and I'll do it again but, in my spacebucket config. I needed something more adjustable. The plant grows so fast that i'd have to keep adding straps across. So I cut small pieces of the cord and fashioned hooks out of the wire on either end. So now it's like a tiny bunji cord that i hook around the plant and to the side of the bucket. If this plant was standing it would be about 15 - 18 inches tall but the FIM i did really slowed down the tip growth, but also exploded the branch growth. The plant never slowed down after the FIM just redirected energy, and now the top is coming back healthy with what looks like 4 tops. On day 29 I Supercropped a lot of fan leaves instead of defoliating ( see pic) I was going to defoliate to get light inside to the developing canopy, but chickened out and tried supercropping for the first time. Some of the fan leaves were fairly thick. I gave them a twist and crunch along the middle and bent them below and out of the way. I hope it works.

TheOutlawBubbaKush As I move into week 6, here's what happened last week. I removed all the old wire LST and replaced them with the elastic hooks i created. The elastic hooks will continue to gradually pull the branches towards it while the plant continues to grow and they are easy to adjust and remove. The plant has been growing vigorously, with lots of side growth branching. It's a continuous struggle to keep it contained. I've also noticed that even though it's in a hempy bucket, I've been watering it every day, at almost 1/2 gallon, to keep the reservoir full. As the secondary branches have filled in the canopy, I started to defoliate a little every few days. Removing about a dozen large fan leaves each time, while tucking other leaves down. Supercropped a few of the really stretchy branches that were growing above canopy, and 12 hours later they were turning back up toward the light. On day 33 I saw the first sign of flowers. just a few pistils. And noticed a light "someones growing weed" smell when I came home. Can't wait for that to become a robust punch in the face when walking through the door. Took her out of the bucket for probably the last time, she's getting too big to remove without damage. She looks healthy, my LST is obviously a beginner attempt, as it's very hap hazard and messy. My next grow I'm gonna try to be more uniform or even try Mainlining to keep everything more symmetrical.

TheOutlawBubbaKush Going into week 7 - It's safe to say that we are IN Flower!!! So excited for this to play out. Also concerned about controlling the height of this bush. I can't go higher with the light so all I can do is tie her down more and more. And every day she's an inch taller. Next grow I'm going to use a smaller hempy pot ( 2 gallon ) and plan my LST to be more uniform and logical. I've been upping the nutrients a little with each feeding this week. Starting from around 750, and moving to 900. Still unsure of nutrient feedings and how exactly I should be doing it. I've been adding the above nutrients in those quantities per gallon, but I then have to dilute that gallon to get the ppm's down. It starts out at near 1200 PPM. Essentially turning it into 1 1/2 gallons of mix. Which means my plant has been getting much less of the micros than i thought. Do ppm's added from micro nutrients matter toward the final number? I've been defoliating every few days, just a handful of leaves at a time. Mostly just lower fan leaves and some of the upper fans blocking bud sites. A lot of this plants branches have had secondary and tertiary branches that are now at canopy height. So ther's lots of bud sites trying to fit into the canopy and it's getting uneven. I really hope it stops stretching soon and just fills in. If this plant was in a tent it would have been a monster.

TheOutlawBubbaKush As I put in the title of this diary, this is my first grow. I did a lot of research before hand, and spent a decent amount of money building my setup and buying all the necessary parts to have a successful grow. I read lost of info and even made a paper journal I took notes in while reading and watching grow videos. I wanted to get away from buy cannabis at the dispensary because they are now charging exorbitant taxes and restricting dosages. I was hoping to grow a classic looking plant, but just keep it small with LST. And when my plant started to send out big branches after I FIM'd and tied her down, I thought I would get 5 or 6 nice colas at even height (that was the goal). But...my plant just kept branching. Instead of having a main trunk with top cola and a few side branch colas, my plant has branches that come off the main branch and then more branches that come off those. It became a tangle of long skinny shoots coming up from all over the plant, and most of them started to flower. On Day 46, out of frustration of my plant putting energy into so many skinny little shoots, and not looking like I thought it should, and being a noob grower thinking this plant is behind and won't form quality buds because it's some kind of mutant,...I cut a lot of the shoots off. Not sure if that was the right move 1 week into flower, but i cut about 15 long skinny shoots off and lots of leaves. It did open up the canopy some and let more light in, and the next day she was another inch or 2 taller , so it didn't slow her down. All week I've been upping her nutes to full strength. The food and calmag come in at around 800ppm and then with the other stuff it measures around 1200 PPM. She has shown NO signs of nute burn so not sure if I should keep her here or push the nutes a little harder. The flowers are starting to fill in, I still feel like they don't look like everyone else's and hope they will turn out ok. I'm guessing she'll go longer than the 75 days, probably closer to 85-90? Humidity has been low for last 2 weeks also. Really dry air here right now. I put water trays and wet towel in grow area but it never gets above 35%. Just bought portable humidifier to help. Doe's she look normal? Will these buds fill out? Reassurance needed. Thanks

TheOutlawBubbaKush Starting week 9..here we go,,, First off, thank you to everyone that gave me positive feed back when I was starting to doubt this plant. It finally rained here and the humidity made it closer to 45% for a day or two and now around 30%. I guess it's fine, even though i see lots of things say to aim for closer to 50% in flower. I also installed a UVB CFL bulb above the plant. I'm running it for just an hour or two a day, because I've read some research about cannabis grown in higher UVB levels naturally (usually seen at higher elevations) produce THC at higher levels to protect itself. It might be pointless but oh well. Needed to defoliate again and get more light to the lower buds. Noticing a light frost growing on the smaller leaves and buds, I hope she gets frosty as fuck. And the buds are starting to grow and fill in..finally. Next week I'm starting adding some PK 13/14. I also germinated a seed for my next grow and popped it into a rockwool cube, waiting for it to pop up. Next up Mephisto : Chemdogging

TheOutlawBubbaKush Another week and she's plugging along. This week I started her on the Canna Pk 13/14. 1/2 dose first 2 days then full dose for rest of week. It shot my PPM's way up ( like 1700 ). She took it like a champ. Going forward I'm gonna drop back to base level nutes, but keep the terpinator and budcandy up. I'm thinking I might have 3 weeks left. It's mostly a waiting game from here. In preparation, I popped my next bean. Mephisto's Chemdogging. I'll be starting a journal for that grow next week.

TheOutlawBubbaKush Not a lot to report this week. It's mostly a waiting game right now. She's drinking almost a gallon a day so I'm constantly making another batch of mix to have ready. I think the buds are beginning to swell. The smell has really increased this week. When I come home from work it has a sweet but kind of diesel smell. I'm sure that's going to get strong in the next couple weeks. I'm guessing that's how much time is left maybe even 3. It's hard to guess because I've never seen this process before and I'm going off of other similar grows, but the pistils haven't started turning orange yet, and there's a lot more frost to come.

TheOutlawBubbaKush Good things come to those that wait. That's what i keep telling myself as this girl slowly ripens. She getting close now. Flowers are starting to turn orange and i'm going to have to start watching the trichomes. Which will be tough because I can't get to the top of the plant. I have to stick my arm up inside the bucket and take photos and then examine the photos. I'll have to refine this process because it's not optimal. She's drinking about 3/4 gallon per day, expecting that to start slowing down soon. All I can really do is water , look for issues, and wait.

TheOutlawBubbaKush Another Week! a little more progress. The flowers are still beginning to turn color. Some have already turned orange in places and some are still white. It's easier to see up close but I can't really get to the top of the plant, because of it's location, so I stick the phone inside to take pics and video. Man, it's hard to tell but... 2 weeks? I started to lower the nutes and will continue for the next week, and then will flush for a week. I got a loupe to check the trics but like i said, they're hard to get to. only time will tell,,,tic,,tock,,,tic,,tock

TheOutlawBubbaKush I have been worried for a while about how close the plant grew to my led lights. The usual recommendation is like 16-20" above , but I can't raise my lights and this plant stretched so fast a couple colas got away from me. As you can see in the photos and video, some are as close as 6-12 inches and because this plant is a slow developer, I think it's starting to Foxtail. In response to this and preparation for upcoming harvest, I lowered the intensity of my light and changed the light schedule from 19/5 to 16/8. I've been lowering the nutrients all week and will be flushing all next week. I've been preparing for trimming and drying, only worry is keeping the correct humidity, but we'll see.

TheOutlawBubbaKush Not sure why I HAD to choose a "Bummer" effect in the above "Tastes and Effects". It doesn't give me dry mouth but whatever. Also think they need a Sour taste. Super happy about all this guys. Thanks to everyone who helped my along the way, and the words of encouragement when I needed them. 5.7 Oz is even more than I thought i could get! It's not the prettiest buds, lots of little larfy bits too, but it's all quality smoke. I dried the buds for 4 days but the humidity was getting low and they started getting crispy on the tips. They've been in the jars for 4 days and already taste good and smoke smooth. I know they need to cure longer, but I'm happy it will only get better. I'm happy I have more of these seeds and will definitely be growing AvT in the future....but I don't need to for a while. Thanks Everyone!!!0