Barney's Vanilla Kush

Hello everyone! This is my first attempt growing my own stuff so any recommendations are welcome. I would like to start by introducing my growing setup since I spent some fair time reading online guides and dos and donts when it comes to grow inside. Unfortunately I started with a wrong choice regarding the size of the tent. My plan was (still is) to grow just two flowers and hopefully by topping and LST I should get some good results. Having set everything up, 80x80x160 feels small. I wish I had go for 1sqm but fuck it. I ll give a try and see how it goes! So the tent is a classic small to medium sized tent equipped with 100mm vent inlets and outlets. Nothing special here! What I did not like was the fact that there were no supporting brackets for the sides of the tent. For ventilation I picked a MAX-FAN Pro 150 which is more than enough for my volume and have it set to first speed. When the thing is on, you can see the tent turning inside which is a good sign of negative pressure inside the grow environment. Lights and ballast are coming from lumatek and I picked a 250MH for vegetation and a 250HPS for flowering. Having read a lot about the importance of the humidity and temperature in plants growth I picked an ultrasonic mist maker as well. Everything is in place and we are ready to start putting our seeds into jiffys, right? not exactly... Lights on, mist maker on, vent on, clipper fan on and is only a matter of time to see the tent boiling. I had to control what I had available and try to keep my grow conditions under some limits. My background is on electronics engineering and I do lots of automation using custom electronics, pcbs and micro-controllers. Further more I have other things to do than turning my fans, vents, humidifiers on and of trying to keep the temperature and humidity at some levels.... So I grabbed a bunch of boards I had at hand (a microcontroller, a wifi module, some relays and a temperature and humidity sensor) and started meshing around. After COVID-19 I can say that I m pretty happy with the result since I m able to control and log the micro-environment of my tent! I can easily change humidity and temperature conditions inside my tent and also set different schedules according to my growing stage and my day/night conditions. Further more, all data are logged online providing a very good reference which will hopefully help me understand what it takes to grow a decent grade of weed and ultimately come up with a "recipe"! I started by making my solution in order to prepare my jiffys and place my seeds. I brought a Liter of tap water at 30Celcius and adjust the PH at 5.5. Then added 2ml of root-juice and placed the jiffys inside small plastic cups. Poured them with my solution and let them expand. Then I prepared a set of square cloth pots of 3L with biobiz full mix soil. Placed my jiffys inside the pots, placed the seeds and finally covered them with some more soil. I moist my pot one last time and placed them in my tent! Fingers crossed! Plan is to grow two flowers, keeping them low at around 60-65cm and get 50-60 grams (after curing) from each. I will try the nutrient program of biobiz and see how it goes. Plants will need some work in LST ScrOGing and topping and its my first time doing this so.... its gonna be interesting!

[D8]. This would be actually the first week of vegetation and I m planning to focus in their roots. Girls are forming up identical so far :) I will keep the same temperature/humidity profile hoping that it will force it develop more roots. I will add another 2ml/l of root-juice in their next feed. They took 2cm wide in under 12h and inner set of leafs showed progress as well.Height remains the same at 5cm! What I see though is a pale green/yellowish color coming from the inner leafs. Can this be first signs of cal/mag thing or is just the pale color of the new leafs? Before feeding them I m almost boiling my tap water. Should be around 80C for sure in order to get rid of chlorine. Can this also soften my water so much that I need to add call/mag? I should get a TDS meter... By the end of the day we had our first accident... Fan was too strong for one of the ladies and she dropped dead... I had to make her stand up again... We will see how this will come along 😏 Just finished first day cycle of week2 and our girl seems already to recover! Show some strength to people lady 💪 [D9] Girls getting better and more hungry. Soil keeps drying in a day so I started feeding some more. We are at 2nd node and growing We are doing gymnastics a couple of times per day by stretching our stems They are getting 250ml/each and should last for 2 days before feeding again. They get wider! [D11] Getting bigger hour by hour. Some more gymnastics to stretch the bigger stems and allow light to reach the new ones Both doing fine. Today they are getting a baby dose of bloom and activera so that we can start proper vegging. So they are getting 250ml water with 2ml/l root-juice (last time) 1ml/l heaven and 1ml/l acti-vera [D14] Damn they look nice! They are both at their 4th node! Next week we should top and start looking for LST Plant geometry looks really nice at the moment! Cant wait to see them evolve and getting trained :) End of second week and we are at 4th node - 7.5cm long and 11.5cm wide 💪

--D15-- Getting bigger and bigger! Hopefully we will have our first topping this week and some LST They seem to like the stretching I m doing them 2-3 times a day for like 10 times :) Girls are showing their 3rd node - preparing their 4th They are 8.5cm tall and 12.5cm wide They get 250ml each every second day Next feed will be with some more veggie nuts --D16-- Topped... and regret it at the same time ;( I feel that I have should wait until 4 or 5 node and then top to 3rd.... Technically the topping went ok (at least this is what I see) but I dont know if I did it at the right time... Anyway... Did it... Tomorrow they get feed and hopefully they will not be stunned or stressed a lot... --D17-- You see the wanna be collas in the junctions of the branches? They get noticeably bigger hour by hour! I guess that is a good sign right? Plants dont look stressed at all. Only sign is that the first set of leafs (the single ones) seem like "hunging" a bit - not looking for the light. Food time for the ladies that -hopefully- will make her happier and recover faster! 250ml ph6.5 each - 0.5ml/l fishMix 1ml/l actiVera 1ml/l bioHeaven Lets see how they will react... --D18-- Ma girls keep grow... like the topping never happen. Or at least thats how they look! We will see... After a couple of hours of feeding them they raised their leafs to RA again :P Next feed is planed for tomorrow but the "smaller" one seems more dry than her sister. Soil in 2-3cm deep is still wet though. I will keep an eye at her and try to stick to the plan. If they do keep going like this I will have to transplant them next week and start LST... Well... LST may start even sooner but we will see... I want 72 passed after topping before doing anything! --D19-- Heading towards the end of 3rd week! I guess that topping went good.. Of course I still believe that I should have waited a couple days more before topping... The thing is that both of them keep grow at a steady rate. 🙏 Main stem and their new main branches are getting thicker. 👌 Leafs of the new main branches are spiting again and getting ready to accommodate supplies for the fruits 💪 The shy one follows the pattern of her sister but lets say in a smaller scale. Beside her size, do not see any issues so I will say that she is a slower and she will shine in time... 🙏 Better that be the case or I will punish her! 👿 Today's activities included feeding and leaf washing. Same food but a bit more. (300ml/each - 0.5ml/l fish, 1ml/l heaven, 1ml/l acti-vera) I noticed salt residues on top of their leafs and I did not like it to be honest... After working it out a bit I came across solutions including hand/cloth washing out the leafs gently with water Some suggested to add some dish-washer in the solution and then wash them out carefully. I will go with pure water and see if they get better before trying something else... Still D19 and a couple of hours after washing and feeding. I can still see the residues - not so much though. The thing of residues and good fellas @Nobody and @GDub51 made me start looking more into my tds/ec in general and also made me measure the PH of my soil... Recipe involves 3.5L smart/cloth pots and Biobizz all mix soil. Nuts kept according to biobizz schedule for all-mix soil but cut in half. Always PHd all together at 6-6.5 After checking the PH of my soil I see readings of 7 and maybe 7.5 for couple of seconds as I dig around the stem of the pot. Beside the fact that I should have gone with light-mix for my seedlings... I have been very careful with the schedule and my dosages. Unfortunately no actual TDS readings at hand :/ Considering that nuts were always PHd I tend to believe that this is a sign of root block. I want to believe that they need bigger pots and that is all... As soon as they dry out I m putting them in 15L pots. Also the first set of leaves (the single ones) need to go... I was about to cut em today but thought that transplant is more important and needs to happen in next days... That way I will have the chance to check the roots my self and see what we are growing for a month now with so much care and love! Peace 👊 --D20--- Started refilling my mist tank with tap water that has been rest for 24h... Lets see if residues will decrease! Now the good things... I wanted week 4 to start with training... That meant transplant time! Primed new pots with biobizz allMix/lightMix 50/50. When dry, soil was giving me PH reading of 7-7.5 Mist both of them with 2L of water PHd down to 5.0 Measured again and got down to 6.0 but I will have to verify it when they get dry! Right after putting them in the their new pots I did a quick foliar with activera to help them. --D21-- First day in their new home! No signs of stress or something. they keep getting bigger with grown in both new and old leafs. Also stem and branches getting thicker! We are at 12cm height by 16cm wide for the "slow and shy" 15cm height by 20cm wide for the "naughty one" Now may the force be with you girls!

--D21-- Start of the week find girls in their new home, getting stronger and bigger. Everything looks good so far so I let em rest! By the way.... I was having a joint after work and for a time I got a very sweet smell of vanilla... Yeah, like the fcking small plastic cups that they sell vanilla in. At first I thought that someone was doing cookies or something! Then I found out the scent was coming from my girls! They are so happy that they put on some aroma for me 😂 For real? I was reading about Vanilla Kush but never expected to actually SCENT the whole fucking room with vanilla! Amazing 💪 Big cheers to Barneys Farm for this! cant wait to taste them 👌 --D22-- Beast was fimmed instead of topped... Had to make things right and symmetric... There were 3 new branches coming out... OCD error here! Topped again... This time made it right... --D24-- No stress signs from topping. Both asking for water. Increased watering dosage to 500ml each... Nuts remain the same. Started some LST training to help them spread and also allow light to reach lower levels. Sure not the best artist out there back the job seems to be done... One thing... Use thicker wire! I m going to replace it pretty soon... Also took the cotyledons, one-leafers and the small stems above them. No way for these parts to reach the canopy and only drawing energy from ma girls. Fingers crossed and they should keep growing 💪 --D26-- Well, girls are doing fine. no stress from small pruning . --D28-- End of week with both girls keep going. Still feeding them 500ml every second day Also adjusting LST strings as they get wider

--D31-- Getting ahead into week 5 of vegetation and all look sweet. Girls are getting more hungry so increased their food to 1L each every 3rd day. LST is going smooth with both of them getting wider. The "slow" one is still going with her pace whereas the biggie is proving a "monster" I keep bending fan leafs downwards to expose the bud sites to lite. I was thinking about defoliating more but as long I can keep fan leafs out of buds by bending I will avoid it... It also feels that I m getting out of space... Do yourself a favor and get a 1m x 1m x 2m tent if you are looking for >11L pots The plan is to let them stretch now for 2 more weeks and then switch them to flowering for 8 good weeks... Lets see how this will go :) --D35-- End of week 5 and we are out of space. I keep bending and tying them down, filling the scrog. I plan one more week in veg and then they should turn in flowering mode

--D37-- Continue tying them down. Today I m going to flush them and then let them dry before switching to flowering. So both got 4 liters of water (PH 6.0). --D41-- They keep grow so I m doing more LST. Also some defoliation to get light through. Removed low potential bud sites. Both reacted to flushing by turning some of the bottom leafs yellowish. I suspect that is luck of nutrients (low values of N). Today they both got their first blooming feed. Also increased water to 2l/pot. Lights switching to HPS and 12/12 Lets see how they will react to their new food and light conditions 😎

--D43-- Hours after feed and LST and girls are back. Fingers crossed and the transition to flowering should go smoothly. I m keeping an eye on the small yellow spots which showed up after flushing. In their last feed (yesterday) I also added some cal/mag.

Second week of flowering is over and we are heading to 3rd. My phone is playing games with me and the camera goes black... Too bad that I could not update my diary as I would like :( In any case, girls are going strong... Actually too strong and I m getting sweat! They managed to double their height in a week and now I m on the height limit of my tent... Lets hope that they will stop there or I will get in serious trouble keeping a distance from the lights! The need of a second ScrOG is looking imminent but we will see... I keep feeding them 2L every 3rd day but they drink a lot. Next week I will start feeding 3L and see how it goes! Pistils have turned white and they are all over the plants. Buds have started to form up and I hope that the plants will focus on them and they will stop stretching! During this week I had to do some heavy defoliation and get rid off the bottom growth. Any feedback here is welcome :)

Start of week 3 of blooming with a major upgrade! Girls were made for a big life and their small apartment was simply not enough... I could not risk losing them because of the tight space and height limit so I went ahead and upgraded my tent. This time I got a 1.20m x 1.20m x 2.00m tent from Secret Jardin! The thing is huge and the girls are living the dream in their new mansion :P It took me a full day to prepare everything and move them in the new tent but they worth it... Now they have plenty of space and I had the chance to stretch them even more and let the inner parts to reach the canopy! Training went very well and it seems like it will pay off! I m also waiting for a 400w HPS to show up in order to make up for the given space. I could easily go for a 600w but then I would have to get a new ballast as well but no budget at the time for this... The girl on the back has a lot of inner growth and by spreading the outer branches they now have a good chance to produce some nice nugs. I will give em a weak and see if they will prove me right. If not, I m taking them down! Also they have become heavy feeders. Increased nuts and amount of watering to 3L each. That should be ok for the next 3 days! Cant wait to see them forming some nice buds! Fingers crossed and we will have a nice yield in few weeks!

Here we are, at week 4 of flowering! Ladies are focused on fattening their nugs :) I upgraded my lights to 400W and also got a bigger reflector from adjust to accompany my bulb. They like it a lot and it was definitely needed for the space they have now. Trichomes are turning orange (I would say that we are at 10%) and sugar leafs are growing fast. Had a look with the microscope in calyx and they are crystal clear. I would say we need 3-4 weeks before harvest! Both look very healthy and I m very pleased with their progress so far. Specially if you consider that they grew up in a 60x60 tent under a 250W lamp... I keep lollipopping and clearing any new vegetation in order to drive all their energy to the top nugs. I m very curious to see their final stage though. It seems that we will get some nice fat nugs out of the 4 main branches but I m also expecting to get some popcorns as well from the inner stems. We will see! Next grow will be a bit different... Now with the new setup I m looking forward to go for 8 main colas which would give some fat nugs and no popcorns :P PS: they are heavy drinkers... 3L every 3rd day is still not enough! They get hungry by the end of the 2nd day!

Week 5 and getting some nice nugs :) Increased nuts a bit more. Giving them some more bloom since I saw light signs of phosphorus deficiency at the beginning of the week. Lucky me, that was that they needed :) Also added Alg-A-Mic in the mix! They keep going strong and I m expecting to see some some serious progress in their buds over the next two weeks! 😎 More trichomes turning orange and sugar is taking over the place! Lets go girls, I really need a joint 😈 When I started I gave a promise to myself not to buy any weed from the street again... That means I m off for quite some time now... The first joint should be outta space for me 😎 Cant wait for that straight blunt!

Super busy time for me. 6th week for the ladies... still a month to go according to my schedule. Fortunately the girls are doing just fine and they only need feeding. That is 3L every 3rd day. Nutes were increased and nugs are getting fatter :) I still struggling to keep temps low but is freaking hot outside (37-39C...) Main branches nug size is looking good but some of the side branches look tiny (despite getting same light as the others) 😡 Those are mainly branches of 1st and 2nd node which I let them grow. Whatever came out from 3rd node and above looks much bigger... (noted for next grow!) Next week I m going to cut down bio-grow to just 1ml/l Thats it for now

Week 7 and more trichomes turning orange. Calyx seem like 30milky/70water. Few spots in both new and old fan leafs appear. Bio-Grow reduced to 1ml/l and bloom to 4ml/l. Nugs looking good getting fatter and more sticky :D Also smell has increased noticeably... More orange trichomes and more milky calyxes! Lets go!

Week 8, almost there! Girls are having issues keeping up with the weight of the nugs! I will have to support them a little... Next time I will add some silicon to the mixture when in grow! Fan leafs are turning yellowish but I feel its normal for their age (correct me if I m wrong). Trichoms are mostly orange and calyxes are like 60milky/40water Nugs turning to blueish-darker! 1-2 weeks more and we harvest! I m waiting for calyxes to show me their amber colors. As soon as I get them I will flush for a week and then harvest :)