Super Lemon Haze - Just Feminized Seeds

Okay, so, not quite sure why I'm doing a diary on here, I guess in the hopes that I get some feedback as I progress on this little experiment. This was a bit of a whim, purchased 5 Super Lemon Haze seeds and whacked them in my propagator seeing as I'm already growing tomatoes, chillis and strawberries, so why not branch out? Am trying to use classic regular gardening techniques, no low stress or high stress methods, just put the plants in soil, give them plenty of light, nutrients and water, and see how they fare... I also am experimenting with some cheap light panels from Wish (spoiler alert, don't bother).

So... the new grow area is ready after lots of sweat, tears and swearing (well, maybe not the tears). Had to build a custom "drip tray" out of some lumber and plastic sheeting to try and make the most of the space. I seem to be buying additional lights everyday to try and maximise the use of the space and am now regretting not just purchasing a single proper grow light early on in this experiment as the cost is starting to add up. The two plants that are mostly under the cheap wish LED panels are a much deeper green than the three plants that are mostly under the nice three prong lights, so guess what? Time to purchase two more 3 prong LED lights along with all the bits needed for them! This means my rather overly optimistic experiment with lights from Wish will now be used solely to provide side lighting for lower foliage. Total real power consumption for 5 of the three prong LED lights plus 4 LED light panels is 201.7 watts. Also decided to try using my modular tomato cages that I 3D printed (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3575343), am hoping they'll provide some good support as time goes on, I've also been researching the various feeds and nutrients but so far I'm finding it hard to be convinced to buy them for just soil growing and am going to stick to tomato feed for now. Final step for this week has been clearing out my second grow area for the Granddaddy Purple Feminized seedlings that are in their first week (and have some Cream of the Crop Sticky Zkittlez Glue on back order so will be able to see how the three varieties compare growth wise).

So, coming on well this week, and, after lots more research, I've stopped the tomato feed and switched to a high nitrogen feed during this vegetative period. I also installed the other 3 prong LED lights so now each plant has its own light above it attached to a pully for height adjustment, and, thanks to the 3D printer once more, I created a custom bracket for the 4 cheap wish LED panels and am using them to provide some foliage lighting for the lower canopy once these start to need it, the last thing I did this week was to change to a 6/2/6/2/6/2 lighting schedule. Watering schedule is once every 48 hours, at the beginning of the week it was about 1 litre per plant each watering, now towards the end of the week it's 2 litres and they're drinking it up. Am hoping that using the grow bags will keep the roots from being oxygen starved, and so far everything is looking healthy. Now I'm undecided how long to leave it before starting the flowering phase, some guides seem to advise 8 weeks if grown from seed, others say a minimum of 3 weeks, either way, I'm definitely going to give them at least one more week and take it from there. Current energy figures are 197.2W when lit, 3.55KW total per day, approx 108 KW per month or $20.30 per month to run. Have also just added up the cost of everything I've purchased so far in this experiment, and with the exception of soil and seeds, it's just under $500 in total for equipment. Other random little factoids of the grow, no perlite, no coco-coir, nothing other than soil, initially some biodegradable grow pots for the seedlings before being moved to big boy pots, regular off the shelf feeds, no reverse-osmosis water etc, trying to keep things natural where possible (if you ignore the 6/2 light cycle and the fact they're being grown indoors in smart bags). Update: it's the final day of week four, and the growth spurt these have displayed is astounding. I don't know if it's just the way they grow in general and this is normal or whether it's due to the change to the nitrogen rich feed, but I'm seriously going to have to look at some pruning options and decide how I want to progress. 1 more week for pure vegetative on a 6/2 light schedule, followed by a week of adjusting to a bloom schedule are the next steps.

So it's the start of vegetative week 5, this is going to be the last week in pure vegetative and next week I'll be gently transitioning them over to a 12/12 schedule for flowering (see the first image above for how I plan to do the gentle schedule change). Only one significant change in my setup this week, I've just added a 100W Warm White LED Security Light as a grow light to try and fill out some of the spectrum a bit more and to just give a good boost of light in general, this is a true 100W panel and roughly the equivalent of a 550W standard light type. Unless anything major happens, I'll most likely only update the pictures on Day 1 and Day 7 for the rest of these diary entries, that way it gives a better idea of the growth in that week. What else is going on? Still sticking with just the Nitrogen rich feed this week and feeding/watering every other day, but next week I'll start moving them towards a bloom feed, the fit out of the other grow area has started and the walls are being lined with the white plastic sheeting. Current energy figures are 309.9W when lit, 5.58KW total per day, approx 170 KW per month or $31.95 per month to run. Total cost to date of everything I've purchased so far in this experiment, and with the exception of soil and seeds, is just over $540 in total for equipment for this grow. Footnote: These are from seeds and I've classed Week 1 - Day 1 as the morning I came down and saw the seeds had developed tap roots and put them in soil in the propagator.

So this is the beginning of week 6 and when I had planned on slowly moving them over to the 12/12 light schedule (see last weeks comments and pictures for how I intended to do that), but... I instead decided to top the plants near the end of last week so this means I'm going to give them one more week of pure vegetative and then next week start moving them to a flowering schedule. No issues with the grow so far, no mites, no droopy leaves, nothing what so ever to indicate any problems with their health, if anything they're growing too well! Still giving each plant two litres of water every other day along with some high nitrogen feed. It's now 2 days before the end of week 6 for these, and precisely one week since they were topped, but I've decided to start moving them to flower sooner than planned because the growth is almost getting out of control. I'll be doing some defoliation as they hopefully shoot upwards during flowering.

Welcome to the transition week, this is the week that I'm slowly adjusting the lighting schedule each day moving the plants from a 6/2 schedule incrementally to a 12/12 schedule. I was going to wait a little longer to do this as they were only topped 7 days before, but they're growing so fast that I needed to make the change sooner than planned. As they start to shoot up a bit more I'll be doing some defoliation lower down but still trying to make sure there's no gaps in the canopy. Moved them over to a tomato feed and doubled the watering amount to two litres a day instead of two litres every other day. Still no signs of anything bad going on with the plants, they're all looking healthy as hell.

Just entering the first proper week of flowering schedule (last week was for gradually adjusting them to the new schedule) and they're growing like mad, 20cm in one week! I'm going to be spending some time early in this week doing some defoliation of the lower branches without hopefully stressing them too much.

The beginning of the second proper week of flowering, and I "think" I'm seeing the start of the bud sites appear (someone please let me know if I'm wrong and I've just spent two months growing males!). These are getting so tall, I was quite harsh with the defoliation last week on the lower stems, but from here on they're going to be left without any fiddling so as to cause the least stress possible. No signs of anything unhealthy, they're still loving life and growing wild. Update 1: Have had to add a dehumidifier to the grow area as the humidity was getting out of control. Update 2: Have started using Canna Boost and Canna PK 13/14 to give them a bit more support

It's the start of the third proper week of flowering and I really need these lovely babes to stop growing quite so much, they're currently about 3'6" from the top of their pots and growing about another 2 inches a day, if I'm not careful I soon won't be able to raise my lights any higher. Still seeming very healthy, although I am noticing a lot of the lower branches are snapping off just when I move against them when watering them, it doesn't seem to be affecting their overall health, and I'm assuming it's just down to lack of light on the lower foliage. I'm also seeing the bud sites develop nicely. Am stopping with adding Canna PK 13/14 and Canna Boost this week as all my research seems to indicate that it's only really beneficial in the first few weeks of flowering. Adding a dehumidifier at the end of last week is bringing the overall average humidity down slowly, but am still concerned it might not be enough to prevent the potential of bud rot, but only time will tell.

Loads of lovely bud sites and they seem to have not flinched at all from the harsh defoliation of all the lower branches, but I'm going to give them a few more days before I do the final round of defoliation and get rid of the most likely popcorn bud sites, I'm a little worried that for my first ever grow, so far things seem to be going perfectly (which no doubt means I'm going to monumentally screw up during the drying and curing phases no doubt). Humidity is still a little higher than I'm perfectly happy with, but I can't afford to buy a bigger dehumidifier at the moment, so it is what it is. They're also still growing, with the tallest being 5' 1" / 155 cm, and almost at the cap of how high I can raise my lights, so it's a good job they run so cool! Not much else to report, they optimal watering at the moment seems to be 1 litre in the morning and another in the evening just before the lights go off, and the following day 1 litre in the middle of the day, so it averages 1.5 litre a plant a day, and I'm still sticking with just the tomorite tomato feed as it's seeming to give respectable results.

Final round of defoliation this week, trimmed (what I think were) all the popcorn sites from the lower sections, and now these girls are going to be left with no further tampering until harvest. Bud sites are developing well, the cones are plumping up nicely, still only on tomato feed each day. Humidity is still dropping, although as we now seem to be approaching the early days of Autumn, that's no doubt helping keep things controlled. I'm away for 7 days after today (there's a caretaker looking after them for me), but I'm going to be very very interested to see what changes there are in them when I return!

Am a teeny touch disappointed, I went away for a week and was hoping to have seen the buds to have turned into giant majestic colas of delight, but alas, just some plumping and moderate increase in size, but still healthy and lush looking (the caretaker did a mighty fine job in my absence). Probably another week of flowering with the tomato feed, and then two final weeks of plain old water to flush them with.

I had to miss a week of updating due to a broken phone, but I'm now back armed with a bit of a shittier camera but serviceable at least. Yesterday was harvest day as nearly all of the trichomes were cloudy without yet turning amber so this is the last update for them during growth. For the last week they've been given nothing but plain water to help flush, ideally I would have liked two weeks of flushing but I miscalculated when these would be ready to harvest. Last week I did have to use some twine to gently support some of the branches as the buds were getting too heavy for them and were dragging them down, but that's been the only problem so far that I've encountered, apart from feeling guilty when it came time to have to cut them down (it feels like they've been my little babies). The buds didn't get as fat as I would have liked, so I'll be looking into some additional lighting options for the next grow, but I'm still pretty happy for my first ever attempt at growing. A few little stats on this grow. By the end my total power draw during lights on was a tiny 308.4W (not including the dehumidifier) and the total electric usage over the whole grow was 338.94 Kw/H giving a total price for electricity at around £48.71 / $45.11 (using national averages). Next update will be in a week or so once they've dried and I can give the final report and break down.

Such a super easy first ever grow and harvest with this strain. They did end up quite tall and lanky, plus I need some more powerful lights to help get the bigger fatter buds, but with just over 1 ounce per plant dried and harvested, I'm not complaining! It's now all in air-tight light safe containers with Boveda 62% RH packs in each container and being left to cure for a week or two. I did speed dry and try some of the small nugs that fell off during harvesting, and it certainly packs a punch, so I can't wait to try and properly hung and cured product now!