Cherry Bomb

Let’s call today Veg Day 1 for this feminized cherry bomb seed. Germinated the seed in a jiffy puck, took about 7 days to pop up. I just re-potted into a 2 gallon mix of coco and pearlite with a handful of worm castings and some Gaia green all purpose dry amendment. I’ll keep the clear cup on as a humidity dome until the true leaves are out and starting to touch the sides of the cup.

Pulled the dome off yesterday. Decent growth but nothing spectacular. A little yellowing but it seems to have bounced back. Seeds are always a slow start. Watered once the day before yesterday and again this morning.

What I love about organic growing, just water and it grows. Looks to be about a week away from getting topped and having the bottom two branches cloned off. I like to top a little later than some, so I have a couple extra nodes to work with and clone from before flowering the plant.

A few days ago I stripped all the fan leaves off the main stem. Then yesterday I transplanted into a 5 gal square pot that I’ve drilled out with a bunch of extra 1/2 inch holes. Soil mix is coco, pearlite, 1/3cup Gaia green 4-4-4 and 1/3 cup Gaia green 2-8-4 and 1 cup home made worm casting. Watered in with a compost tea to kick things off. The soil has been sitting for a couple of weeks already. This morning I topped her and have saved the top in a peat puck to root under a dome over the next few weeks.

This cherry bomb has really taken nicely to the topping. It has branched out and beefed up significantly in the last week. It’s so bushy that two opposing branches have started pushing out 4 bud sites per node instead of the usual 2. I’ve done two passes removing a bunch of fan leaves, to increase airflow and ensure sufficient light is reaching all the inner nodes. Apologies for the purple photo, it was taken with my phone which can’t fix that white balance like my camera can.

Things really took off this week, this morning I’ve moved it into the 4x4 flower tent under 2 240watt quantum boards at 3000k. Starting her off with the dimmer set to about 60-65% and will slowly turn that up to 100% over the next two weeks.

Today, albeit a week late, I finally got around to clearing out all the extra growth off this bush. I also top dressed with 1/2 cup of Gaia green 2-8-4 bloom blend. One of the stems looks like it has a mutation where the top of the bud looks like a caterpillar; it’s a specific mutation that I’ve seen once before but I’ve forgotten what it’s called. I’ll post some close ups of it next week when it’s a little more developed.

She bounced right back after defoliating last week. Stacking up right down the length of each branch now. The one branch has some Faciation, so that’s going to be a monster bud when it’s done.

This cherry bomb is crushing it on all fronts. The smell is epic citrus berry. I’ve got her on a drip line now, with two 2gal/hr emitters running for 5 mins a couple of times a day. Can’t wait to watch the buds really fill in now.

Just on cruise control really. I’ve got the drip line hooked up to a timer and really only have to make sure that there’s water in the res and it’s the proper ph. Probably going to pull her out of the tent and do a final leaf strip at some point this week - just to make sure the lower buds have a chance to fill out a bit more.