Orange Sherbert Auto - First Grow

OK, so first time, no idea what to expect. Filled 3 x 10 liter pots to about 1.5" from the top of pot with Ecothrive Coco-Perlite Lite 70/30 mix. It says it comes treated with 'charge', which is basically beetle turds. Hope it's not going to be hot on anything. Soaked the pots through with at least 10 liters each to saturate and produce plenty of runoff. All the water I'm using has been prepared in advance (ph'd to 6.00, left open for 48 hours to de-gas). After soaking the pots, I left them for about 24 hours, and they were still nice and damp when I planted the seeds, and threw them all the grow tent to cook. 3 plants, A, B & C, or Annie, Bella and Carrie for the sake of not trying to sound too much like a science experiment. The humidity was quite low (40%) to begin with. I have a shitty little humidifier which is supposed to go by your bed at night, it cost like a tenner from Argos. Bought it once when I had a bad chest and never used it again because it did nothing. Didn't think it would help here either, but it raised the RH to a steady 60-65%. Nice. It has a purpose after all... After 4 days, Carrie poked up through the surface, and looked all good. She has consistently looked healthy in the environment. On Day 5, Bella came up, looking a lot less happy about things :( Shoved her under a cut-off plastic bottle for a couple of days, and by day 7 she is now looking a lot more green and vibrant. Hasn't had a little reach up as much as Carrie, but now she's starting to look better, hopefully she'll have a growth spurt. Will be keeping my eye on her. No sign of Annie. Thinking she may either a) dead or b) not germinated. Will give her one more day, if no sign, then I will probably try and gently exhume the seed to investigate. Like I said, first time, and have no idea what I'm doing! If anyone has any tips or suggestions as to what I could have done better, they will be welcomed! Also, if anyone has any ideas as to why Bella came up looking so sickly, I'd love to hear.

Wow. It's been a tough week.... let me start by saying that when I started this, I didn't realize quite how in-depth it can get. This grow started out in my attic, more for space reasons than stealth. Recently had it all boarded out, it has power sockets, I can keep all the stuff up there and it won't be in the way. But I didn't count on the absurd fucking temperatures it would get to when the British climate decided to give us a spell of nice weather. Outside, temps went up to 27C. The tent in the attic was hitting 38C..... wooops. I tried to keep it cooler, but short of installing AC in the attic, it was just too damn HOT. One of my 3 girls was already a no-show (RIP Annie) and now the other 2 that had made it up through the ground were curling up the tips of their leaves with heat stress. I had to do something, so moved the whole grow into a cooler room on the ground floor. They still didn't respond very well, so I had to start researching what else was wrong with them. Well, it seems that the one problem of heat had caused all sorts of other shit. They were stressed from heat, so not taking up stuff properly through the roots. Also, because of the heat they had endured in the attic, the soil had become very acidic (heat causing more evaporation from the solution, sending ph down below optimal and EC through the roof). So, just moving the plants to a cooler location was not enough - I had to fix the other damage the initial heat had caused. I'm growing in coco/perlite, so only one thing for it. Complete flush with ph'd distilled water to remove all salts and completely reset the balance of the medium. Then replace all that water with a new nutrient solution at the correct levels, and this time MANAGE THE DAMN RUNOFF. After the initial bad start to the week, I am really happy with the way they have recovered and are growing (now I've learned how to do things a little better...). High frequency feedings, completely saturating the pots and replacing the old solution each time. It's a bit hectic, but I've managed to get a system going that I'm happy with. Started out with some light nutes, been slowly increasing the strength from 25%, to 50%, to 75%. Oh, and where I live, the tap water quality sucks, the water is hard as hell. Even after going through a Brita water filter, the PPM is 350, so I've been using distilled water as a base for the nutes with a calmag sup. So now I'm sourcing distilled water like madman on top of trying to balance the feeding events. But it's all looking good....for now :) tl;dr - I taught myself a valuable lesson that heat sucks and can seriously screw with your plants.

The air temperatures dropped this week, thankfully. Managing the heat in the previous week was a real chore, so it's been nice to be able to be a bit more relaxed with them this week. Day temps ranging around 22-26C during the day, and about 18-20C overnight. They have both taken to the nutes like champs. I've been slowly increasing EC and managing runoff within +50 to +75 micros, so I'm happy with that, and they seem happy to. Ask anyone who's researched growing cannabis, and I'm sure at the start there are so many worries about how much to water, when to start feeding, how close are the light, what size pots.... the list goes on. I asked questions on forums, and I often got the answer "Your plant will tell you what it wants". This INFURIATED me at the time, because all I wanted was for someone to say "hey, do this" or "you need to do that". There will come a stage during your first grow, when something clicks, and you get what those people are saying. I had that moment this week, and it really does make sense now. You can follow all the feeding and watering schedules you like, but "one size fits all" just doesn't apply. Keep an eye on plants and take LOTS of photos - these will help you gauge a plants reaction to various stimulus. Examining pics will give you an idea of how your plant 'perks up' at certain times of the day and will also give you a good idea of how any potential problems have progressed. I spent so much time stressing about whether or not I was doing the right thing that I didn't just relax chill and enjoy the whole process. "Get to know your plants and you'll be able to tell what they want"...... I get it now.

Well it's been an awesome week :) Plants have responded way better than expected to both LST & fimming, I've got a good canopy and plenty of potential colas that are growing well and at an even level. Also, won £200 on a scratchy, so decided to invest in a better light. Went from 300w LED (true draw 130w) to 1800w LED (true draw 595w). The difference in the light is clear to see. Both plants have motored through initial training with LST and fimming without skipping a beat. I've read so many mixed opinions on topping / fimming autos, it was a hard decision to make. In the end, I decided to give it a try and find out for myself. If I'd had any concerns about the plants ability to cope, I wouldn't have done it, but if your plant is looking strong and healthy then it may be something to think about. Personally, I think there is no right or wrong, because it's probably entirely situational - too many variables like strain, genetics, environment, growing medium, lights etc to say one way or the other really. But for this grow right here? I think it was a good decision I'm extremely happy with the results. Scrog net now in place, and both girls are starting to boogy on upwards. No sign of pre-flower yet, I'm hoping they grow into the net before they start stretching too hard. Also, some weird findings from my runoff EC since I got the new light. Runoff EC has always been about 50-75 micro siemens above input. It was predictable as hell. But when the new light was installed, the runoff EC started to drop to about +25 from input... then the same as input..... and now my runoff EC is LOWER than input. Thought it might just be an anomoly, but it has now been consistently lower, every feed for the last 3 days. I'm going to post a question, but if anyone has any bright ideas wtf is up with that, let me know!! In the mean time, to all my fellow Orange Sherbet growers - hope you all have had a good week, and may your plants be flourishing.

So after fimming and a reasonable attempt at LST, the plants finally reached the scrog net. They are now slowly weaving outwards, filling in the net nicely. Oh, about that net. I bought a net that was the same size as my space..... Silly me. No tension, no good. By the time it was stretched out tight enough, their was only a 4x4 grid of 16 squares in the net, which was..... not enough. So, I had to MacGuyver up some more holes using soft garden ties to fill in the gaps. It's patchwork as hell, but I'll be damned if it's not working. I marked this week down as veg, but definitely starting to pre-flower now. First pistils (that I noticed) started coming out on day 33. RH has been creeping up, steadily but surely. Lollipopped beneath the net which helped a little, but I've ordered a dehumidifier which should keep things better from here on out. I've needed to be involved in the grow a lot more than I anticipated.... thought I could pretty much leave them be most of the time, but every time I go to water them, there's more leaf tucking, ties to be tied, etc..... leaf tucking could be a full time job with a lot of plants! And is it just me, or does anyone else have OCD about making sure their lights are hanging at perfect right angles to the side of the tent? Never mind. Stay safe everyone...

So this week has mainly been a battle to keep the canopy even and fill the net out as much as possible. I'm fairly happy with the results, had to struggle with high UK temps again this week. I say battle, because it's been 2-3 times every day where I've had to spend time tucking down leaves, training branches.... I'm starting to wonder if I'll be able to get this net off in one piece.... Introduced Canna boost accelerator into the nute mix, and they have responded the same as every other time - sucking it up and demanding more. I've backed off the Rhizo a little to balance out the extra EC from the Boost, but I still need some headroom - I plan to do weeks feeding with PK 13/14 at around the 7-8 week mark, and will want to keep the total EC under 2.0 if possible. I will probably only continue to tuck branches for another couple of days. Then, I will just stand at the doorway of the open tent every morning, gesturing with my hands like the Night King raising the dead. Reach for the skies girls.

Quite a stressful week... Had to remove the scrog net mid-week. One of the elastic threads was cutting badly into a node, and would have severed the branch if left to grow much more. Was hoping to keep it on until chop day, but the tent has already fill out to max capacity, so then only space left is vertical. As the buds get heavier, I may re-introduce the net, but higher up, just in a branch supporting role. Other than that, growth has just been cruising along, buds are building up, all is looking good. I'm planning to do a week's feeding with PK 13/14 in the mix, which will put me at the highest limit I will go to, in terms of EC, but I may wait one more week and just keep them on the current nutes for now as they seem to be very happy, and I think I've still got 4, possibly 5 weeks to go.

So this week saw the first sign of trichomes appearing on the plant, and also the first signs of deficiency. The mottled brown patches were appearing on the newer growth at the top of the canopy. I've been filtering my tap water, so there's a good chance that Calcium / Magnesium has been lacking, especially since I'm growing in Coco. I've started adding a small shot of CalMag to every other feed. I've also introduced the PK 13/14 sooner than I hoped, but hopefully this should put any deficiency at ease. Despite the deficiency, growth has been very solid this week. Colas are forming and growing, getting nice and fat. I did a fairly heavy defoliation and stripped off some lower branches that were getting very little light. Still not much of a smell to talk about. There is definitely a citrus fragrance, kind of like how your fingers smell after peeling an orange is the best way I can describe it. Buds are super sticky to touch. Temperature has been a lot lower this week, and I think they have been enjoying the cooler environment. Average daytime temps around 21C, with low / high around 16C / 26C. So much less stressful when the climate is on your side!

High temps again this week. Heat has been my biggest challenge throughout this grow and I have no doubt my final yield will reflect the struggle. But the plants have been surprisingly resilient, standing up to regular temp spikes of up to 34C. It will have affected the growth to some extent, but they have managed fine. Vertical growth has now stopped completely, and all energy is on fattening up the flowers. Some of the lower growth is not as dense, I've tied strings around the tent to pull certain branches outwards and help get light further down the canopy to help. I've started to inspect the trichomes daily and included a bunch of pics from various parts of the plants. Currently a mix of clear and cloudy. In some of the pics it looks like there is a spot or two of amber, but this is just a trick of the light / camera flash I think, as there is no amber when viewing directly through the loupe. The smell is getting stronger, and is absolutely wonderful. It's not an overwhelming smell like a lot of cannabis, but it's getting more and more pungent every day. Some of the tops look as though they have icing sugar sprinkled on them, and they smell like straight up freshly squeezed OJ. And it's super sticky! Following some advice (thanks to @gmslave) I backed off the nutes a bit, and the plants have responded well. Less is sometimes more and I think this was one of those times! Think this will run maybe 1-2 more weeks before being ready.

The end is in sight!! Think these girls are just a couple more days away from the chop. There has been amber trichomes on the sugar leaves for quite some time, but I've been waiting for them to start appearing in more significant numbers on the actual buds themselves, and in the calyxes. The sugar leaves have almost 50% amber, but the bud / calyx areas are only about 10-20% amber, which I feel is a better indication. Also, have been waiting for the pistils to mostly turn dark orange and curl back into the bud, which has now happened. I've included some pics of the trichomes. The quality is pretty bad, but they are good enough to make out the approximate stages of development and estimate the amber coverage. Going to invest in a microscope for the next grow. A jeweller's loupe is good for the naked eye, but it's a pain in the arse trying to take photos through it. I have been debating whether or not to flush..... I've been following the cocoforcannabis guide pretty much to the letter, and it does recommend flushing, but opinions on the benefits vary wildly from forum to forum. So instead of agonizing over a decision, I'll do both. I've got 2 plants, so I figured I would find out for myself. Over the next 2-3 days, one plant will be given only PH'd water (plus maybe a little cannazyme, as I intend to re-use the coco) and the other plant will continue on nutes at the current level of 1.2 EC up until chop day. I'll be harvesting over the weekend, so I guess that's it for now, will be back in a few days with the harvest update. Happy days :)

*** RESULTS ARE IN *** Final results are in! Updated with pics of dry-trim and weigh-in :) Total yield was 228g of bud + 45g trim to be used for tincture. Total weight 273g / 9.75oz This was way beyond what I was expecting! Was hoping to get around 6oz from this grow, so the final result has absolutely blown my mind. But more importantly, it's a !!REALLY!! good smoke :) I've taken half oz off the top and put the rest into mason jars for curing, but even without a cure, the taste is good - sweet and creamy. The smell has come on LOTS through the drying process. When I chopped, the smell was fragrant, but not too strong. Now, you can smell it across the house and no mistake. It packs a punch too, very potent high - Can't wait to share with a few friends :) ********** Well, this has been an awesome experience for my first grow. Thankfully, these girls were super strong - they took a LOT of abuse in terms of high temps (up to 38C some days) and survived me being an idiot in the early days and not really knowing what I was doing. But here we are! Almost didn't want to chop them down..... but I got over that pretty quick. Total wet weight from both was 1339g (47.8 oz), of which about 150g is popcorn / larf. Super impressed with the yield :) My aim is to be self sufficient, in terms of yield being able to last long enough for another grow cycle to complete. With a rough estimate of 3 months per cycle, and based on my current usage of approx half oz a week, I would need this to result in about 6oz when dried, and I think this could be achievable. I will update the dry weight in due course. Can't speak to the quality yet. As tempting as it is to quick dry a test nug for a cheeky toke, I'll wait for it to dry properly, so I can really appreciate it. I've waited this long to harvest, another couple of weeks won't kill me. Also, I still have some of my current stash (hopefully the last weed I'll ever have to buy!). It's really difficult to be patient though, because DAMN it looks good. I'll give the buds a good manicure and dry trim when they're ready. It smells really good too! The smell is not overly powerful, it doesn't slap you in the face like some weed does, but it's delicious! Fresh, bursting oranges, with just an undertone of that unmistakable weed smell......It's like The Man from Del Monte is stood behind you in a queue, and he has an eighth of dank in his pocket that he doesn't think anyone else can smell. If I had to say I've learned anything along this journey, it's that it's better to be prepared. Research things that COULD happen and have necessary stuff on hand when you need it. Don't wait until that deficiency shows before ordering what you need and finding out it'll take 2 weeks to ship (fuck you, covid-19). And there we have it.... will report back once dried for the final weigh-in and smoke report. Stay safe, stay high :)