It's just a plant, dude

This week more tips and also a shameful misstake that happened to me. Of course it would happen, I'm writing a guide. I almost abandoned writing this guide, since this leaves me with 3 viable plants which really dimishes my premise, but I eventually prevailed and decided to make this the most perfect grow I have ever done with the resources I still have. The two misstakes, which I really should have known better to avoid, were firstly: I pushed the seeds a little too far into the Smart Start germination pots. (a good planting depth for any seed is the diameter of the seed) Second: Even though the ambient temperature in my makeshift growbox was ~23C°, the computer fan blowing onto the small pots generated constant evaporation, dropping the soil temperature to 18C° and forcing me to overwater them regulary or they would have dried out dangerously every 12 hours. Since (cannabis) seeds don't need light to germinate UNTIL they pop above the soil, they shouldn't have been in the growbox in the first place. I really am to blame for the consequences of this. Anyway, when they didn't germinate I moved the tiny pots into a bowl, covered that loosely with bubble wrap and put it onto my computer, where the soil is now at a constant ~25C°. There they don‘t need waterings and three peeked out in the days after that, at which point I -immediatly- transplanted them into their bigger pots and put them back in the growbox under light and fan. The soil tempereature in the bigger pots in there is now a very comfy 22.6C°. I doubt the other two seeds survived - but I will give them another week to germinate anyway. It is to be expected and perfectly normal that about 1 out of 5 Seeds are not able to germinate. It's just natures exciting lottery. After enough tickets though, you might win a super special trait or a random curiosity, like a trileaf or an unusual coloration. If you now start to worry about 'the best' germination practises, there will be nothing more valuable than trying them all out yourself with hemp seeds – if you have the time. These are readily avaiable as horsefeed or an addition to cereal across the internet, taste amazing with chocolate and are cheap enough that you could literally start a whole plantage for 30€. Common quantitys, for example 1kg, should cost you about 5€ and it's how I developed my understanding for grow behaivour. You can also use them to test out the viabilty of a potential growspot. This won't just show you if a spot itself get's enough water and sunlight, but also if it is ever discovered and recognised. Among other things I used hemp seeds to test out how root depth affects plant height, whenever a wide but shallow container is viable and what improvised containers are ok. Improvising pots isn‘t nessecary, even with a non existent budget. Apparently cemeterys have big dumps where old pots are discarded into, and boy are there a lot of pots. The pictured container got emptied a few weeks ago and still has enough pots to start a garden centre. As a bonus for recycling what would otherwise be waste, there are oftentimes many freshly discarded plants, which you can also take. I took a couple of flowers and gave them to my mom <3 . Just like nature, she just wants your love. There are also makeshift pots, you most likely have lying around already, pictured alongside the cemetery haul. Any pot you use must however stop light from reaching the roots, since that would stunt any plants root growth, promote rapid bacteria replication, algae would grow and the soil would dry out quicker than it should while also beeing hotter than it should be. Glasses win the „worst container award“, since ontop of letting light reach the roots, you cannot put drainage holes in them, which is not an optional feature. The most unexperienced might think that "Since plants need water, more water = good. Why would plants want the water to run out of their pots". If roots or seeds sit in water or overly soaked soil for days, they will rot and turn mushy fast. It also dillutes the avaiable nutrients and on top of that the lack of a 'dry'/wet cycle prevents the roots from growing at a decent speed. Waste salts will also accumulate in the soil and sooner or later soil gnats and other insects will be buzzing in and out of your pots. More on the most common problem Indicators + pests next week. Last week I mentioned the importance of genetics and why hardiness is desireable over maximum theoretical potency or name for this kind of grow and mentioned Nothern Lights Automatics as a good example for this. My Nothern Lights automatics, from a different - but also currently active grow, survived multiple unusually harsh frosts during the last weeks. Even though my potatoes lost some foliage and some beans died the northern light automatics weren't harmed by the freezing nights and I can thank their genetics for it. Like any other plant under these conditions, they are growing slower during these cold snaps, which is just a limitation of chemistry itself, but reality still is: That grow will be harvested and dried outdoors in the fresh summer heat when others are starting to germinate. As always in this growdiary, everything written has a related picture and the images are commented.