Stealth Banana

I had to stop growing while shifting house. Now I am in the new place I have changed things up a bit. I need to go even more stealth here. I’ve halved the height of the tent for a start to 70cm. Just set the tent frame up with a single vertical pole height instead of two. I have to fold the top of the tent down but it can now be hidden within plain sight. I brought a new Marshydro TS 600 fanless LED. I have attached it to the very top of the tent. The extractor and air filter are both on the outside of the tent now. The extractor is also now on a speed control turned right down. Minimum throughout required on the tent (15 CBm/hr) means the extractor should still be effective down to 15% of its expected throughout. No circulating fan atm. I’ll see if I need one. Finally the 4 gallon fabric pots have been folded down to 2/3 height. Probably getting 2-3 gallons of soil in them now. But height is going to be important. I’ve switched from ILGM to Royal Queen this time too. Two new strains to try. Fat Banana and Green Gelato autos. GG is a mix but FB is leaning heavily to indica. Royal Queen sent me three free Northern Light auto seeds as well which was really nice. Really keen to try an all out indica. They will go into the next grow. I’m going to attempt another scrog grow. Very low profile. I’ll lollipop what i can and will try to train the plants as low as possible. I will also train them up 3 sides of the tent with additional netting. Hopefully I’ll get a cube-like grow to maximise the space I have.

The new fanless lights are keeping the tent warm. As I’m drawing the air in over it and then down into the tent. It is staying around 27c. Hotter than I would like at the seeding stage but acceptable. It will be a good temperature for most of the grow. If it gets any hotter I’ll draw the air out from the top of the tent instead to see if that drops it. All 4 seeds popped. This is my first time hitting 100% from seed. I’ve previously used paper towels, plugs and water cups. This time I just dropped them straight into the soil and watered. This is also good because it means they have all started at the same time. The seedlings are starting to grow fast. They all have their first and second leaf sets out. One is just showing a third set. The netting is low this time. They will be growing through it in another week and I’ll start to train from there. No LST bending of the main stem this time. Just scrog. I’m starting the feeding schedule this week.

Not much to report. The tent is down to 25c. The plants have all reached the low scrog net. I’m going to start training them into it this week. Expecting one to two more weeks of veg, but I’ll also start introducing the flowering nutes this week. I think the early intro worked well last grow, so I’ll do it again.

Lots of training going on this week. I have a path planned for each main stem that will hopefully keep things controlled. My last scrog was good, but I gave two plants more room than the other two and they all criss crossed each other. This time I will try to keep them from crossing over too much. I am hoping I get them to continue up the sides of the tent along the vertical netting. Also started the flowering nutes. I can see preflower pistols starting to develop. But I’ll call this week veg still. Expect to be in flowering phase by next week.

Not a good week in the tent. I trained them too tightly. The back two plants split their stems this week. One half split. Back left Fat Banana. It has recovered. I dare not bend it any further though. It will be hard to keep it down now. The other one, back right, a Green Gelato, completely snapped off the top growth. I tried to graft it back on but it didn’t take. It will slow the plant, but hopefully it will not stunt it. I didn’t realise how hard it would be to keep the plants at the new low stealth height. I’d like to think that the tent will still end up being covered with 4 plants. But I’d really like to get to a point where I feel I can afford to grow less than 4 at once. Maybe even just one. I need stock to do that. I’m still pushing quantity over quality in such a small space. One really important learning point for me was that each split occurred at a point where I tied the plant stem just a little too tightly with training wire. It didn’t take much of a cut into the stem for it to weaken. One was even literally chocked by the wire. Stupid mistake. I’m watching all the contact points now for signs of the same thing. I’ll look into better training wire for next time. Lastly the temp/hum are really varied in different parts of the tents. I’m going to have to put a fan back in to even it out. The good news, this week, is they are all showing clear signs of flowering. Based on the time in veg I’m expecting a full 12-13 week grow cycle. I’m gonna run out of stock for sure. The gap between grows was too much this time. Oh well. Next time.

After snapping stems last week I have been super careful this week. The week 6 stretch is well on too, so I have had to constantly pull growth back down or tie it to the side netting. I think I have another week of it at least before it settles down. Buds are clearly in on all the plants. They are still just tiny cotton buds. Temp/hum are stable around 24c/60% during the day.

Lots more growth still this week. I hope it stops soon. It is getting difficult to keep them away from the lights. The temperature has dropped to 20c in the day and 17c at night. We will be putting the heating on regularly in the next few weeks. Until then I might need to put a small heater in the room. The humidity is more concerning. When I close the door at night the humidity jumps from 60% to 80%. I’ll set up a dehumidifier to try to lower it. I can smell the dampness atm though. I don’t want bud rot. Not sure whether the half height setup is really working out. I might go back to the full height tent next time. Or I go down to 2 plants with room instead of cramming 4 in there. The buds themselves are all starting to fatten. I can see faint signs of trichomes starting to appear. I don’t think I’ll reach last harvest’s quantity. Hopefully quality continues to improve. Once again, I’ve run out of stock half way through. Waiting again. 5 weeks to go. I’m thinking of setting up a nursery tent to get the next batch underway early. I think I could knock 2-3 weeks off the cycle by doing this.

The stretch has pretty much stopped this week. The fat banana buds are, true to their name, fattening up nicely. The gelatos are still tiny cotton buds though. Maybe they just take longer? The trichomes on the bananas are surprisingly developed. Lots of cloudy ones but no amber. The pistols are all still white though. The temperature has dropped to 16c overnight and 20c during the day inside. I’m now using a heater to bump that up by 4c. It might be impacting bud size. The tent is too small for 4 plants in 2.5 gal pots. I can see this. I would really have to train them hard to keep them down. They are just a bit too close to the light. I turned off the uv lamp. Just the main 600w on. That is all i can do for now. This will take some thought for the next grow. I have to keep the tent low. So I might have to drop to 2 plants, maybe even 1 in a big pot. Maybe I just fill the tent lining with soil... Whatever I decide, it is time to put the next seed crop into soil and get them popping. I have my old lights. I’ll just have to transfer them once this crop is harvested.

The smell is increasing. A good sign. The banana buds are swelling. Still not sure if the gelato will produce much. Pistols are 1/3 orange 2/3 white. But quite a few are still all white. Trichomes are half clear half cloudy with a few amber. Quite advanced. I’ve flushed them a week earlier than normal. We decided to test the grow. I dried a few grams of both the Green Gelato and the Big Banana. The taste is green and grassy, but at 9 weeks in the strength and quality is surprisingly good. I think I will harvest in stages. It will give me a sample of the plants at various stages. I can also expose the under canopy to more light for longer. Harvesting a batch gave me an idea. Instead of one tent harvesting every 13-14 weeks, I’m going to set up a perpetual grow with two tents. One will be a veg tent and the other the flowering tent. I will also harvest the plants in stages to continually expose the buds and mature them. I should get a much steadier supply this way as well as better control in the small space. So with that in mind I’m starting my next perpetual grow now. One Northern Lights auto and maybe another Green Gelato in 5 gallon pots. Once the current harvest is in I will move the new plants into the flowering tent and start scrogging them into the net straight away. Starting early should knock a good 3-4 weeks off my grow cycle which is currently ~14 weeks.

I’ve done a second harvest at 10 weeks. I’m taking from the top each time. The tent looks tidy again. I’ve also started a new grow in the new veg tent, covered in the ‘Two Tents’ diary. I had to change the air venting to a larger extractor and filter. Enough to be able to draw air from two tents. I started the week by flushing the plants with ph reduced water. Seems like they only have two weeks left. The first harvest from week 9 is dry and curing. We are sampling it and it is already very strong. The Green Gelato is grassy but I can smell spice already. The Fat Banana is very pungent and really does smell like banana!

I just did the main harvest. I’ve already taken just over 2oz dry weight in the past 2 weeks and harvested what will be another 2oz today. The Banana totally dominated the Gelato. Four plants get too cramped in the new size. The Banana buds are all solid but the gelato buds are all a bit larfy. I’ve left about 1-2oz dry weight on the plants. This will go for one more week max.

I did the 3rd and last harvest of the plants this weekend. About another 1.5oz dry weight. I’ve ended up with a 6oz harvest across 4 weeks. Down on the 10oz of bud I squeezed out of the last grow. I haven’t harvested any sugar leaves this time. There clearly isn’t enough room for 4 big pots in the low height. The gelatos never got room to fatten up. The bananas took that room and made some good looking buds. Two bigger pots next time. I’m two weeks into the next grow and about 5 weeks away from popping 2 more seeds for the following grow. I’m thinking Fastbuds Strawberry Pie for that.

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