3rd Grow - 3 Plants & Strains

Hello everyone and thanks for checking in on my third ever grow. I hope you get a good laugh from my n00b growin' a$$, and anyone newer than I am can learn what not to do. 😂 I'd like to start off by thanking Barney's Farm for sending me some free seeds. They asked for nothing in return other than pictures of my grow, which I will be happily sending along to them at the completion of a two week cure when I take final pics and weights. Barney's actually sent me 3 strains. Two of which, (the Blueberry OG and the Peyote Cookies), are in this grow, and Strawberry Lemonade. Unfortunately because of the longer grow time, Strawberry Lemonade will have to wait. I dry my harvest in my grow tent...and you can't really dry a crop when you're trying to finish flowering another plant for 2 weeks...so another grow it will have to be for some Strawberry Lemonade. 😭 Anyway, enough of my rambling and lets get to what's important. This grow! What am I growing now? How am I doing it, and how am I going to f@ck it up? So, what I'm growing is: the aforementioned Blueberry OG and Peyote Cookies...and then we've got good 'ol Barney's Farm Critical Kush as my little control group from seeds I bought myself. CK has withstood all of my mistakes so far, and has given me a consistent yield in my two previous grows so she should be a good barometer of how this third grow goes. A couple of changes since my 2nd grow. During the 2nd grow I thought one of my problems for low yield was a weak light. There was a sale, and I was flush with another form of green so I upgraded from a Kind LED XL600 to a Kind LED XL1000. Point of fact, before the grow started I had already changed my opinion about that. The XL600 is a fine light and "weak light" was not my problem in the least...unless you count the weak light in my head. HA! But seriously, the XL1000 had a couple of nice features such as wifi that allowed me to ditch the wall timer and it has a seedling light preset which changes the light levels (basically, super paraphrased, it's got a built in dimmer) so it doesn't kill the children. That allowed me to dump the crappy fluorescent light that came with my seedling dome. I had ballast issues with that from day one but wasn't even worth replacing...but I digress. I think that covers it...nope. One more thing...and I think this one is a learning moment for all of you n00bs like me...and yea I'm probably gonna ramble on a bit here but hey, take a toke and hold it in an extra second, and enjoy the ride. If you've read on this long I promise this'll slide right into Week 1 and you're not even gonna realize what I did to you. In my opinion, my 2nd Grow was pretty much a complete failure. None of the goals I set were met other than keeping the plants alive. So I went back to basics. I got my feeding schedule and brand of nutrients to use from growpotcheaply.com so I went back to the source so to speak. I started watching the videos again on this guys YouTube channel. Paying just a little more attention...and I'm watching this one video and he's talking about people coming to him with issues with their grows and and he always comes back to the same thing; Environment Environment Environment. Here I am, Day 5 from popping out of the coco and I'm still trying to figure out environment issues. I've got an air-conditioner, a de-humidifier, a humidifier, heaters, fans, multiple thermometers and hydrometers, proper flows. My sh!t is regulated! What the hell am I missing?!?! I decide to throw down the $7 for this guy's amazon e-book to see what I'm missing. It's Day 6 now and I don't know what I'm missing?! Maybe I need Grow Weed Easy for Dummies, I don't know, but I'm doing something wrong, or not doing enough of something right but I'm not getting what I'm putting in if you get what I'm sayin' here. There is a point where ROI has to play a factor. The proof is in the puddin' as they say, and this guy's got it. He's got the yields. I read pretty much word for word the whole thing and I decide that I need a CO2meter (and an automatic watering system, but that's a story for another week). That's the only thing that is in this guys info that I have absolutely no control over and no idea how much there is or isn't in my environment. My tent is in a walk-in closet in my master bedroom. There is no door to the closet but there isn't ranything around to make any CO2 (yes I have an in-take fan for cooling. I'm a n00b, not brain dead 😜). Thank the Cannabis Gods for amazon. A CO2 meter in my hands in what is Day 9 since my seeds popped thru the coco. 400-500ppm 600-800ppm if I sit in the closet with the tent open. Yikes! This is not going to work. 😱 Saturday, Day 12, I get a 20lb CO2 canister (I already had a regulator that came with a hose) and hook it all up and hit the girls with their first nutrients. (I also turn off my exhaust fan for the tent so I don't exhaust my newly purchased CO2). I took it back to basics with the nutrients too. In my 2nd Grow I had bought all in on the line of Cyco Platinum line of nutrients. And I still do believe in them 100%, and look forward to using the entire system again in upcoming grows. But for this grow I wanted to minimize my variables from what I considered my "control" grow. My First Grow...so, back to minimum nutrients and the grow weed easy watering system. Which is, first 7-10 days seedlings get hit with Bloom instead of Grow. According to the author, Neil (and paraphrased by me) Bloom has the same nutrients that you would be feeding to your plants early on. Well, hold on now. Just look at this sh!t for a second. I already f@cked up. It's already Day 10 as I'm realizing what I've read and I hadn't given my girls any nutes. Just above I said I gave them their first nutes on Day 12. What the hell is wrong with me? 😔 Saturday, Day 12, Nutes and CO2. BOOM! Sunday, Day 13. What I have decided is the beginning of Flower Week 1. These girls love the nutrients & CO2. They look so much perkier and greener out from their dome. Tues. Day 15 the girls move into their 7 Gallon forever homes and started getting Grow nutes. Fri. Day 18 I changed the power setting on the light from Seedling to Flower, closing out Week 1 on Feb. 29th, Day 19. *As I write Week 1 of this grow diary, this grow is actually in what should be it's final week or two before cut down and drying (barring any setbacks) so I'll just be filling in as much as I can day-to-day to catch up the weeks. Sadly with the current crisis there were a couple of weeks where I didn't take pics. I just had other things on my mind. But I have my notes and my musings, so stay tuned for more to come...and best of all...how much more I f@ck up. Thanks for stickin' with me till the end and checkin' out my grow. Till next week. Keep smokin'.

Easy week. Kept the temps and rh within accepted +/- and I removed the false leaves from the girls on Day 23...and that was Week 2.

Here we are in Week 3. At the beginning of the week on Day 27 I FIMed the Blueberry OG. The other two didn't look ready yet. On Day 28 they looked like they were up for it. Maybe they just lost their nerve a little after watching their sister get hacked up and they just needed a day to collect themselves. Regardless of the reason, all 3 cuts went swimmingly and these young ladies excelled the rest of the week. On Saturday, Day 33 I removed 4 large fan leaves per plant because I thought they were covering too much underneath from getting any light and it was going to stunt the growth of those branches.

Pretty standard week. On Tuesday of Week 4, Day 36 the girls got a "Big Trim" according to my calendar. I'll take my word for it but I can't see the difference in the pictures. But that doesn't mean I took the pics before the trim either. hmmm? *This was around the time when sh!t was gettin' real for a lot of people I had to deal with the fallout of other people panicking and hoarding stuff. The week was Mar. 15 - Mar. 21. My first full week (maybe 2nd) working from home...and unfortunately my regular time shopping trip fell when the proverbial sh!t hit the fan in America...and of course I needed to buy everything that people were hoarding. Good times. My poor wife! Super props to my lovely wife for standing in line at multiple stores for HOURS. My mini-complaint is over. I'll shut the f@ck up now. There are plenty of people worse off than I am.

So I mentioned in Week 1 that after reading the Grow Weed Easy e-book I got the idea for CO2, and an automated watering system. <Cue the world's smallest violin> I'm away from home 12-14 hrs a day during the week. I don't have a lot of time during the week to split between my family and my green girls. Time is limited so mixing nutes daily, which is what I have been doing for about 1 year now, is time consuming. I've tried various things to make larger batches. My most recent thing was a 5 gallon mop bucket and mixing the 3 gallons of nutes and then filling up my 1 gallon watering can for each plant. Still time consuming but at least I was out of mixing nutes in 1 gallon water containers and having to ph 3 times. It's decided! Automatic watering system is the way to go. I find everything described in the book. Everything comes separately over the course of 2 weeks and I'm ready to roll as soon as the lights turn on for Sunday, Day 41. The first day of Week 5. I hook it all up. I'm like a man on a mission. I gotta get this done man. My girls gotta eat. I had mixed up 30 gallons of water with my nutrients in a 55 gallon drum before the lights came on and they were staying all mixed up with the separate pump for that, and I got the feeding pump and the hose laid out and I'm ready to test this baby. I turn it on for a few seconds and I'm not getting the coverage that I want to I get down closer to look and WHOOSH! All the stakes with the water hoses come out of all 3 pots. There is water flying everywhere. I'm getting blasted in the face and I'm soaked now. The tent walls are all wet. The girls are all wet. I somehow manage to unplug the pump without getting electrocuted and proceed to clean myself, the tent, but first add most importantly, the girls. As I'm cleaning up the mess I just made I come to a realization. I DON"T need an automated feeding system. (I told you all I was dim upstairs.) But what I can salvage from this bad experiment is the reservoir. I will continue to make larger batches of nutrients. Keep it "churning" with it's own pump. Give it a little extra stir everyday. Check the ph daily. This will save me A LOT of time...or at least distribute my time differently. I'm now going to mix up on the weekend and make enough to get me through 2 weeks for the 3 plants. I also added a touch of Potash to the nutes for this batch. On Friday, Day 46 I decide to FIM all 3 plants again. IMO the outer branches aren't growing fast enough to become tops by the time it comes to change to flower. I'm gonna wind up with 3 dwarf sized Christmas trees again like the Triple Cheese from last grow. No thank you I think you can see the evidence of the "Big Trim" in the under neath angle pictures this week. I now realize that I must have been talking about clearing lower nodes, branches and leaves.

If you've noticed, I've not kept a height record for the girls this grow. This was on purpose. I decided, why am I going to drive myself crazy with a height record for so early a period. I can eyeball how they are doing during the early parts of the grow and then keep an actual measurement later on in the grow. When it counts more, say...like in Week 7. The first week of Flowering. I can track the stretch. Except you see. Your good friend Samson420 over here. He f@cked up again. It started out as such a good day too...but you all don't care...I know what you want. You want the carnage. You want the struggle. The trials and tribulations of stupid people growing weed. So here you go. I fill up my 55 gallon drum 2 gallons at a time because that how many containers I can hold with my two hands, until I decide that 30 gallons is the magic number to stop at. I throw in and mix my Cal-Mag. I throw in and mix my Grow A..hold on, wait a second, what!?! Did I just add Grow A to my nutrient mix when it's the first week of Flower and I should be adding BLOOM A!?!?! Did I just contaminate my first week of flowering nutes mix with the wrong nutrient?!?! Did I just waste 30 gallons of water!?!?! I am such an a$$hole! WTF am I gonna do. I can't just toss 30 gallons of water. That's just such a waste. I can't really replace the water either once I do decide what to do with it. After some decision making I say F@ck it! I'm going forward. I mix in my Bloom B now...and I add Potash again. I came to the decision to add the Potash after comparing the labeled ingredients in the Grow A & Bloom A. Bloom A has a slightly higher percentage of Nitrogen and it has Potash. So I figured, It couldn't hurt any more than already using the wrong nutrient to begin with. So this "little screw-up" made me decide to not bother to keep a height record at all for this grow. It would be tainted data and skew any kind of chart I keep. No, the single marker of this grow will have to be one thing, and one thing only. The Yield.. No pics this week, but I have to post one in order to save the week. Week 6 was the same. Status quo (minus the fluid mix-up). Steady as she goes. We'll see how she responds to my blunder next week. <Geez I'm such a screw-up>

Well thank the powers that be, they didn't die!...and they don't seem to be starving for anything either. The rest of the reservoir should be done by the weekend and then I can mix up a new proper batch of nutrients. If you reading the week before last week's entry, head back to Week 7 to find out what I'm talking about. Week 8 in the books with nothing unusual going on.

Again, thankfully. The girls weathered the two weeks they were forced to endure incorrect nutrients. On Sunday, Day 15 of Flower I mixed up a new 30 gallons of the proper nutrients this time...and as you can see from these pictures from the end of the week on Day 21, they look pretty healthy. Dare I say thriving.

WOW! Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Look at those bud sites. This is a really exciting week for me. From what I can see, the size of the buds right now in Week 10...they're already bigger than anything I've harvested in my previous 2 grows. I've decided to throw a flush day in there here on the last day of the week Saturday, Day 28...mostly because I think there is a little too much undissolved nutrients at the bottom of the mix this time. Time for a new batch tomorrow anyway.

Made a new batch of nutes on Sunday, Day 29. Nothing to report really this week...but I've got a comment: Holy Sh!t. Look at those buds. And they're so dense too. ...but don't count your chickens before they're hatched. <Pleasantly Optimistic>

Am I really helping to grow this? Even with my nutes screw-up? Is CO2 the magic elixir of the Gods? I had to turn my dehumidifier on, on Day 41 because the temperature finally decided to break 80F for the first time this year. You can really see the difference now between the three strains. The Blueberry with this bright yellowish and now orange hairs growing in. Peyote Cookies has this nice purple hue and the buds look like they've been squeezed out of a piping bag. And as usual the Critical Kush is just a really beautiful and good looking marijuana bud.

Here we are in the home stretch. The final 2 weeks or there-about. I mixed up a new batch of nutes on Sunday, Day 43. I calculated a little less than normal to account for the final few days of flushing next week. There was a big defoliation on Wed, Day 46. I got rid of all the really big fan leaves and made sure there was clear space in-between the lower buds to make sure light was getting through to make sure everything ripened and got air-flow This was also the day that I turned off the CO2. Day 47 I switched my light to the "Late Flower" setting, which lowers the Red light down to about 75%. (Probably should have done that at the beginning of the week)

Exciting time around the 'ol homestead this week. This should be the final week before harvest. Trichomes look to be where I want them to be. It's Tuesday, Day 52...it must be time to start flushing...or I miscalculated how much nutrients to mix and shorted myself by a few days. 😴 Asleep at the wheel as usual. I doubt that ending the grow this way won't have too terrible of an effect on things. It's different than the rest of the "instructions" that I've been following, but I checked my notes, and I flushed similarly the previous 2 grows and my herbs' taste, smell and potency were just fine. All 3 ladies received 1 gallon of water each (ph to 5.8) for Days 52-56. They should be coming down any day now.

Sunday, Day 57 I decide to not turn the lights on and take down the Blueberry OG. She could/should have gone another day or 2 but the Critical was probably over by a day at this point...but for some stupid reason instead of starting with that one, I chopped down the Blueberry...we'll just add it to the list of mistakes that I've made this grow. Gotta finish up strong. 😜 In my previous grows I did a wet trim, and due to the ambient conditions that I sometimes have to deal with weather-wise I feel that I over-dried my buds. I didn't think that I had the room to hang 3 whole plants so I cut off the branches and then placed them in my hanging drying screen tray "thingies" (as my wife would say). 5 days later on Friday morning, what would have been Day 62 of life is when I decided that Blueberry was dry ready for trimming. It took several hours, with a couple of small breaks but behold the fruits of my months long labor. 😆😆😆 If you've read my other diaries until now you'll see this is my largest yield to date from a single plant...and this plant alone came moderately close to equaling the entire previous grows on their own. 3.7oz. or 104g according to the scale. Either way, these buds are dense. I'm definitely happy with the yield from this plant.

I started so late harvesting the Blueberry on Sunday night I had to wait until Monday morning on what was then Day 58, to chop down the Peyote Cookies. Like the Blueberry OG, she could have gone another day or 2 but the Critical Kush trichomes were telling to get cut her down immediately...and I made the mistake not once, but now twice. I should have taken down the Critical...not Peyote.😖 That's an additional day or 2 that I could have given to 2 plants if I had just cut down the Critical first.😖 Like I said in the Blueberry Harvest...finishing up strong! 😆😆😆 In my previous grows I did a wet trim, and due to the ambient conditions that I sometimes have to deal with weather-wise I feel that I over-dried my buds. I didn't think that I had the room to hang 3 whole plants so I cut off the branches and then placed them in my hanging drying screen tray "thingies" (as my wife would say). So 5 days later on what would have been Day 62 of life, Peyote Cookies was the 2nd plant to be trimmed up...and G@ddamnit did she take some work! 1.1oz of Trim. Are you kidding me?!?!...and you know damn well I didn't throw it away either. It was all so covered in crystals that I felt bad even trimming it off...but that sh!t went right in the freezer and I'll be making some butter for edibles! 😵 The buds from Peyote weren't as large as the Blueberry, but still very dense. I was questioning whether or not the placement of the plant in the tent, in relation to the distance from the fan circulating the CO2, had a determining factor on the yield from each plant...the CO2 fan was directly over the Blueberry on the left side of the tent, Peyote in the middle and the Critical Kush to the right...You'll see in the Critical Harvest why that hypothesis was dismissed. I'll chalk it up to genetics (or more likely one of my mistakes). I've got 2 more seeds of this so we'll see. 2.9oz. on the scale, or 82g if you prefer. More than respectable IMHO. Obviously still blows away any other plant I've grown before this grow. Very pleased. 😁

<drum roll>...and now...last but not least. The girl that should have been cut down first, but somehow, stupidly and idiotically I cut down last...Critical Kush. My "control strain". The only strain to have been grown all 3 of my grows so far. Of the 6 strains I've grown so far she has been the easiest to care for. She has taken each of my mistakes in stride and just shrugs them off. Monday, Day 58 was Harvest Day...should have been a day or 2 earlier but if you read the last 2 harvests for this grow you already know what an idiot I am. 😔 In my previous grows I did a wet trim, and due to the ambient conditions that I sometimes have to deal with weather-wise I feel that I over-dried my buds. I didn't think that I had the room to hang 3 whole plants so I cut off the branches and then placed them in my hanging drying screen tray "thingies" (as my wife would say). It's almost 7pm now on Saturday, Day 62. The last girls to get trimmed seems to take the longest but I think that's just because I was pretty tired by this point. My back and one of my shoulders was starting to ache because I was leaning to one side...y'all know what I'm talkin' 'bout! 👊 She takes me the distance. It's almost midnight by the time I'm done and she's weighed up and in the jars to cure. 3.6oz, or 98g for those wishing for a more exact accounting of things. Continuing from the Peyote Harvest...you can see now why I quickly dismissed the thinking that proximity to the CO2 fan had anything to do with yield weight. This was the plant furthest away and it was the second largest yield. I think that I'm a pretty happy guy. 😁 Overall now, between all 3 plants in this grow, that is a total of 10.16oz of flower. Shattering the 8oz. combined total of my previous 2 grows.