Mini Babybel

Northern_Cannabis_Grower This is my first auto flowering and will be my first "seed to harvest" indoors. Now that Canada has legalized these beautiful plants there is no need to trek through the corn fields. 😉 I pre mixed the potting soil she is in with my own backyard compost sift. I plan on feeding her all DIY organic fertilizers. Like my backyard compost and banana tea during flowering. I've barely/never used these methods so we will see how she does. I'm excited! Looks like she started her life missing a cotyledon. 😢 poor girl. I'm sure she will do just fine. 😁

Northern_Cannabis_Grower I am going to be feeding her water mixed with molasses everytime she needs water. I made a compost tea using 2 big scoops of my backyard compost, 2 tablespoons of molasses and 3 gallons of dechlorinated tap water. I aerated it for 24 hours before straining the tea. I gave her a small amount of tea on day 11. In the middle of the week I got my new setup for growing indoors. A 2x4x5 Viparspectra grow tent, 2 Spider Farmer SF-1000's, a 4" AC Infinity inline fan. Waiting on the iPower carbon filter. Day 13 I found some chew marks on the leaves. I checked all over the grow tent, around the pot, under and over the leaves. Everywhere and I found nothing. I put some fresh sticky traps out in hopes of catching the little bugger. If I see more marks I will make a soap insecticide and spray her. Day 14 she has her full second set of leaves and working on her third. She also has he first node branches and her second node branches growing. Besides the bug issue I believe she is growing very well. The compost tea seems to be working.

Northern_Cannabis_Grower This DIY organic grow has been going well. The bug issue seems to have been solved. I found a dead pill bug the next day after spraying her with milk. It was on the soil's surface right under a fan leaf. I didn't think to take a picture of it. I was just happy to have got one. Using the urine water might seem gross but it truly isn't. Do you use bat guano? Are you adding chicken manure to your compost? Human urine comes out of your body sterile. It is high in nitrogen and has a small amount of phosphorus. It also has many other micronutrients. Mixing it with water at a ratio of 1:10. 1 part urine to 10 parts water. Do not get it on the leaves because the high nitrogen will burn the leaf. Since I found a dead pill bug I kinda new what I was dealing with on the bug problem. This is why I looked up "pill bug traps". The potato trap works by getting yourself a potato that's on its way to the compost pile. Cut it in half and scoop out the center to make a dome shape. Place the potato halves down skin side up, like a dome. The idea is that the bugs will find it at night and in the morning you can lift it up to find it littered with bugs. The dome shape is to give you more surface area to catch them. I caught nothing. Within 2 days of giving her the urine water she has grown enough to start LST. Hmm... I have other plants growing and they are suffering from a calcium deficiency. Since I was already making the eggshell tea for them I decided it wouldn't hurt to give her some too. The method used is to take 10 to 20 eggshells, clean them and let them dry. Crush them and add it to a gallon of boiling water. Remove the pot of water and eggshells from the heat. Let sit for 24 hours. Strain and serve. You can use the left over eggshells by adding it to your compost or scratching it in to the top soil of your plants. I just gave "Mini Babybel" the liquid. Final thought: Finding ways to feed her and protect her isn't hard but finding the ones I'm able to do has been challenging. Overall I feel she is growing well. Now to start saving banana peels 😁

Northern_Cannabis_Grower On day 22 I noticed the tips of the new leafs were curling or clawing. To me it looks like Mini Babybel got a mild case of nitrogen toxicity. Most likely from giving her a bit too high a ratio in the urine water and then shortly after giving her a calcium tea. Calcium helps in nutrient uptake. Day 23 I decided to remove two fan leaves. I know I know, you're not supposed to cut leaves or tops on an auto flowering but this little cheese is staying so compact she gave no other choice, imo. After removing the two fan leaves I was able to perform some leaf tucking that actually made a difference. She was given a drink of molasses water pH of 6.4. On day 25 I started making a banana tea. It is very simple to make and is packed full of phosphorus, potassium and calcium. To make the tea just add washed banana peels, the more the stronger the tea will be, to an air tight jar and top it up with water. Put the cap on it and let it sit for 7 to 10 days. You will want to burp the jar at least once a day. The tea I am making has only 3 banana peels. I am making it a bit weaker because I only have one plant that will be in flowering and it will be in the beginning of flowering. I will make a stronger tea later in the flowering weeks. Day 26 came around and the leaf tucking I did a couple days earlier was paying off. Her branches were starting to put on some length. So much so that I needed to do more leaf tucking. Mini Babybel is sticking to her name and staying short and compact. The structure of her is amazingly dense. Day 27 she was given another drink of molasses water pH of 6.7. Day 28 she stands at 6 1/2 inches tall and has 5 nodes on her main stalk. Her branches are growing longer by the day and forming small spacings between the nodes as well. Her smell has increased just slightly. Smelling like a plant growing still and not like bud. I found her first pistil/hair this day. Its deep in the thick of the growth and was too hard to get a picture of it, sorry. Final thought: I impressed with how compact she is staying. Her node spacing is very tight maybe 1/4 inch to 1/2 a part. I will probably give her some compost tea this next week to boost the quantity and quality of the microorganisms living in the soil. I am excited to see her start flowering and interested in using the banana tea. This will be my first time using a DIY blooming fertilizer like banana tea. Happy growing and remember if your plant needs a boost you don't always need to rush to those synthetic bottle nutes and PISS away your money. Sometimes what your plants need is right there at home.

Northern_Cannabis_Grower This week didn't go as well as I had planned. Day 29 I did some LST. I started to see some pistils growing. I also noticed something was wrong with a couple leaves. Day 30 I gave her some compost tea in hope that it will fix the problem arising with her leaves. She is staying very short. Day 31 I finished my banana tea. It was 3 banana peels in a Mason jar topped up with water. Seal it and let it sit for 7 days or so. Make sure to burp it once a day. I didn't give her any of it on this day as she was still wet from the compost tea the day before. Day 32 things were not looking better. In fact they were getting worst by the day. I couldn't put my thumb on exactly what she is going through. What kind of deficiency is happening? Day 33 I gave her the banana tea. It's a concentrate so you want to mix it 1 cup of tea to 1 gallon of water. I had hoped this would help bounce her back. Plus she was in her first week of flowering so I thought a bit of Potassium and Phosphorus would be good. Day 35 I finally figured out what she is suffering from. I messed up. I gave her a Calcium tea with the eggshells last week and that has caused a Calcium toxicity. Not to mention the banana tea also has a good amount of Calcium. This toxicity has locked out the micronutrient Boron. It is rare for a cannabis plant to have a Boron deficiency so it was hard for me to diagnose her problem at first. The new growth yellowing and being disfigured. The necrosis that is happening on the new fan leaves and not the older ones. The slowed growth right after giving her the eggshell tea. All these were signs that she was telling me something wasn't right but having never had a Boron deficiency happen before I couldn't tell what was wrong. Final thought: I am not sure if she will bounce back from this. I plan on flushing her then starting over by giving her a compost tea again to put those microorganisms, fungi and bacteria back in the soil. If we even make it to harvest I will be surprised. Fingers crossed🤞.

Northern_Cannabis_Grower She grew short and wide quickly at first. The node spacing on her branches were ideal but her height could have been taller. She survived having sprouted with only one cotyledon and a bug infestation. In the end it was being a guenea pig in a weird experiment on using DIY nutrients that did her in. RIP Mini Babybel. For now you will become a nutrient in my compost and help me grow other plants, hopefully without a Boron deficiency because the shit sucks. Thank you to everyone that tuned in to see how this crazy idea would turn out. It's a shame I killed her doing this experiment. In my opinion DIY nutrients isn't the easiest but it does work, sometimes too well. It also gave me an appreciation for what's going on under the soil. Happy growing!🌱