First grow, few autoflower strains

I added 2tbsp per gallon of gaia green dry fertilizers (70/30 ratio of all purpose to bloom) and planted 4 seeds directly into the soil. 2x sweet skunk auto from Sweet Seeds 1x blue critical auto from Dinafem 1x White Widow xxl auto from Dinafem day 1 planted day 2-3 spritz with spray bottle of water just around seed 1 or 2 times a day day 4 three seeds sprouted, 1 of the sweet skunks did not day 5 spritz 2x with water day 6 the other sweet skunk sprouted 2 days behind the rest day 7 first watering ~1/2 cup

Week 2 has gone Ok. There is some odd colouration on the Blue Critical, but other than that they seem to be doing ok. I have never grown weed before so I don't really know if this amount of growth is normal or OK for 2 weeks since I planted the seeds. Only been using tap water left out in a bucket with air stones to dechlorinate for 24 hours. Ph 6.5-7. Watered on July 22, 24 & 26 (day 9, day 11, and day 13 since planting the seed). Not much too exciting still at this point. 18 hours of a light and water a small circle around the plant every few days. That's about it for now.

They are still growing with just the original soil mixture and water. I have watered with tap water left out with some ascorbic acid to get the ph down and also to neutralize the chloramine. Been watering every other day. Accidentally lost track of days and watered them two days in a row and they looked a bit unhappy so I let the dry out a bit over the next 3 days and now back to every other day. Blue Critical still has some odd colours but it's growing strong and the new growth looks better. I want to try some low stress training soon. especially on the white widow xxl which is growing bigger than the others.

Today was a big day. It's been 4 weeks and I'm starting to see pistils (and they all look like females) so I'm giving them their first top dressing with Gaia Green dry amendments. 1.5 tbsp per gallon at a 50/50 ration of All Purpose 4-4-4 and Bloom 2-8-4 as well as some extra worm castings on top. I also tried some low stress training. As you can see from the photos they are looking a bit droopy after the bending and tying down, but I'm really hoping they recover pretty quickly and i see some new prime bud sites. This is my first grow so i'm not sure if I did it perfectly (I doubt I did), but I'm giving it my best shot. I also tucked a few big fan leaves down under bud sites so that they get a bit more light. I'm just gonna leave them alone for a few days to recover.

This was a rough week on the plants an it's all my fault. This is the first week of flower and it was a week filled with newbie mistakes. The week started off well. I gave them their first feeding by top dressing the all purpose and the bloom from Gaia Green and that went well. But then I went camping for 3 days and was worried that the girls would get too dried out, but because of this worry I actually gave them way too much before I left on the camping trip and too much again when I cam back. The plants got overwatered and are only now recovering after a few days of drying out. I probably won't water for another 2 days still. I also saw 2 dead gnats in the tent. I'm not super worried yet, but I'm definitely keeping an eye out for more fungus gnats. :( My worst mistake yet happened when I tried to bend the main cola on the Blue Critical for some LST, but it just snapped off in my hand. I guess I was too rough. :( It snapped clean off and there is nothing i can do except learn from this mistake and not bend so hard in the future. The Blue Critical Auto is obviously very stressed out from the overwatering and breaking the main branch, but it's still the first week of flowering and many side branches are still looking strong. I will grow it out and hopefully still get mediocre yield. Wow what a rough week. I'm gonna let the pots dry out well and i'm making a worm casting, kelp and molasses tea with a fish tank bubbler in a 3 gallon bucket. I'm gonna let it "brew" for 2 more days while the soil dries out and hope that the tea helps them recover nice and healthy after they dry out a bit.

This week has been all about stretch and flowering. Although this has created problems for me that I didn't have during the vegetative stage. The plants seem much more finnicky about watering. If I water just a bit too soon, or wait too long the leaves look very droopy. I made a compost tea, but now some of the tips are starting to yellow as it droops. Not sure if it's overwatering to too much nutrients or light. I'm a bit too new to quickly diagnose this issue. They aren't the happiest looking plants at the moment but they are still stretching and producing buds.

This week has been a struggle. Last week it looked like my sweet skunks were about to die and they have perked up a bit, as has the white widow, but the blue critical is super angry. It looks like a calcium deficiency but there is calcium in the soil. I did some testing and it turns out my soil is quite acidic. The Sweet Skunk and White Widow soil is sitting right around 6.0 ph, but for some reason I can't figure out yet the blue critical soil is about 5.5. So I think the leaf death is caused by calcium and other nutrients getting locked out by the acidic soil. I added a bit of dolomite lime and have been watering with my regular tap water (in my city 7.5-7.8) hoping that brings the ph back up. :( They still don't look happy though. I'm not sure i'll be able to save the stunted and angry blue critical. But the other 3 are slowly bouncing back at least.

This week I haven't added any dry amendments or tea most nutrients, and continued to water with higher ph (7.0-7.2) water to try to get the 5.5 soil back up and fix the lock out issues. I had added 2tsp of molasses to each watering, and added liquid kelp to 1 watering. Right now my medium is pretty dense and solid. I don't know if I didn't added enough aeration (perlite) or if it's just the rootball. But because of the overwatering issues i'm mostly watering every 3 days now. Sometimes if i water less then every 2 days. Sweet Skunk #1: first to germinate and looking strong. The buds are getting frosty and just starting to thicken a bit. Sweet Skunk #2 germinated 2 days after the rest and it's not very frosty. It will probably need a bit more time than #1. we will see. Blue Critical: This poor girl has had so many issues. I snapped main cola, the soil got super acidic and developed bad calcium lock out. But although she got stunted and the yield will probably be low, the buds are the most dense and the thickest. Do stunted plants flower faster? Because she almost looks ready to come down in a week or so. White Widow XXL auto: Wow this one is in a 5gal pot rather than 3gal for the others and she is the only one that hasn't had any issues. She has been going strong and looked healthy from day 1 in spite of Ph and overwatering issues. She's much bigger than the other 3 plants.

So life and work got busy and I sort of forgot to take pictures this week. But I wanted to finish this diary so I'm at least adding comments. week 9 was pretty uneventful. The girls were very thirsty and the Blue Critical really started to thicken up and look about ready to harvest.

I sort of got busy and forgot to take pictures, but I noticed seeds (no pollen sacks or nanners though) on one of my sweet skunks so i chopped her early. Mostly I was just watering when dry with just water as they were all getting close to harvest.

I haven't weighed or smoked these yet. I'll come back later and edit to give a final result. SS#1 was bigger, but didn't smell as strong, I also found 4 seeds on the main cola and chopped it a bit early (never saw nanners or any other sign of hermie) SS#2 was slightly smaller, but also frostier and it smells stronger. The smell is amazing, skunky and a bit fruity I can't wait to get it in my vaporizer, but still gonna wait a month for the cure.

I messed this girl up with tons of newbie mistakes but she still gave me a few amazing dense buds that smell so fruity, It's smells like weed on a lemon blueberry muffin. I'm happy I have 2 more seeds. I'm looking forward to running Blue Critical again and making less newbie mistakes and getting an even better harvest.

I chopped all my other plants besides the White Widow XXL auto. She's getting close maybe another week or so. She has been a pleasure to grow. She forgave all my newbie mistakes. Inspite of over watering, acidic soil etc... she grew big and her buds are starting to get nice and dense now in week 11.

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