Bonsai NL - 1st Grow [1x1x2]

Started her out in a smaller pot outside in May.

First week in the box. She's adjusted to the longer light exposure and different temp/humidity quickly and growing well.

Overwatered and droopy for a few days, but still growing ok.

Started adjusting pH for watering and gave her some generic slow release nute pellets. Has made a difference. Got some biobizz coming in the mail so looking forward to seeing how she goes once I start feeding her properly.

Biobizz nutes came last few days and still too early to tell definitively if its made a difference but seems to have perked up. Using biogrow with pH'd water.

Transitioning to flowering

It's flowering time. Added an extra 1.5 hrs of darkness each day over the last week and seeing first signs of pistals already. Have also cranked up the grow lamp to about 80% and she's responding well.

First grow so don't really know what to expect but would say it's going pretty well. Weak smell when I take her out to water + feed, but otherwise don't notice it at all. She's really shot up since I started using nutes and switched to flowering, as well as giving up on a few of the lower leaves to focus on flowering. Now looking forward to watching the buds fattening up.

Buds starting to pop out of the lower nodes. Lots of new pistals have formed this week, feeling for room where the buds will eventually fill out. Will get her out for some photos in natural lighting next week when the buds are more mature.

The vertical growth has slowed down, so I'm using bio-growth every 2nd watering water now and more biobloom. Took a few of the lower stunted and gangly buds off as well as a few old fan leaves down the bottom. Fingers crossed she'll take off this week.

While not root bound, I think she's just about maxed out the container, considering the grow medium is less than 10cm deep and container is about 22cm wide, so about 3.8l in volume if my high school maths hasn't failed me. With the benefit of hindsight, I would have gone with a slightly taller container, but vertical room in a 2 ft tall grow space is at a premium. However, also good to have a bit of buffer, especially if the weather gets warmer, considering with the grow light running at max, temp in the tent is about 5-10 degrees warmer than ambient temp. I'm having to water her everyday, which is actually quite tricky when I take her out of the tent as she's filled out the grow space, so decided to get an automatic watering system, which would also be useful for when I'm away for more than a couple of days. It's a pretty neat system and not too tricky to set up. Otherwise, buds have filled out noticeably, and the trichomes are coming on thick and fast, which is especially noticeable when looking at pictures with the camera flash glare. Will take a few more pictures of the buds under a loupe at the end of the week. If things go well, I should be looking at harvesting in about a month or just over.

Buds are not as big as I'd hoped going into the 6th week of flowering. Not sure if it's got anything to do with it, but it's been quite warm this week. It's cooling down next few days so hopefully can get the temp back down below 30c with the lights on. A couple more of the lower leaves have yellowed and dropped off, and now there's a clear canopy area between the leaves at the base of the colas and medium, which should help with airflow. There's been no noticeable vertical growth beyond colas getting taller so I've dialed the biogrow back a bit more, and will probably stop using it all together from next week onwards.

Buds are fattening up finally and getting some decent stacking on couple of the more established colas, which was nice to see. I've not had to water as much and some more of the older leaves has been sucked up and withered. Have stopped using bio-grow and will start flushing in 1-2 weeks to target harvest in 2-3 weeks. Looking more bud than leaves now, and now that I can see the bonsai branch structure that my lst/hst has resulted in, I've got a better appreciation of what I should be doing better for the next grow. Not sure if it's normal but I've got a bunch of leaves (looks like sugar leaves, but larger) forming on the base of some of the colas. Otherwise, still not much smell other than a slight indistinct musk, for which I'm pleasantly surprised. Will add some pictures of trichomes and close ups of buds later this week when I get her out to remove the training wires.

Going into the last week or so of flower. Have dialed back on nutrients and will start flushing in a few days. Unfortunately the buds haven't gotten much bigger, but fingers crossed I'll still hit my 1o target. Temperatures have recently dipped at night so getting some funky purples and blues on the sugar leaves coming through. Otherwise, all of the lower leaves have wilted or yellowed. I've got some weird foxtailing going on, which I think is from stress during a couple of hot days where temps were around 33c in the box. Also, lots of white stuff on the leaves which I think is calcium or lime from the hard tap water I've been using, so I'll flush with dehumidifier water. I'm also pretty sure my pH is all out of whack (been using tap water and then pH down with a squirt of vinegar) which probably hurt my yield so I got a pH meter for the next run. Update: Moved her into a bigger tent which I'm planning to grow two auto-flowers for the next run. Going to 48 hrs darkness tonight, then it's harvest.

This was my first grow so it's been a great learning experience. Being able to harvest a decent amount of quality bud is also a rewarding bonus. Growing in a small box was always going to be limiting in terms of yield, but still pretty pleased managed to get 30g in trimmed top bud and 5g worth of popcorn bud. The main challenge I faced in this grow was heat during the later stages of flowering, when my light was on max, and the ambient temperature was also hotter than usual. My next grow will be in a 40x60cm space, which should be relatively easier to control temps. I'm hoping to get 100g harvest from two autos. I'll update once I've cured for two weeks.