White Widow Autoflower - first grow

This was my first grow ever. The photo is from the end of week #1 of the larger pots. I started the one plant in the ceramic pot (there is a hole in the bottom for drainage) a week ahead of the 2 larger pots as a tester. Using Fox Farms CocoLoco for the growing medium. I am around 30 days from harvest at this point so this diary is really just a summary of how the first grow went. As this was my first grow I tried to temper my hopes & dreams for a large harvest. Coming into this I was going to be happy if I got 3 ounces total from all 3 plants combined. Even a harvest of 2 ounces would allow me to break even on my investment in the equipment and seeds versus buying flower outright.

This was around the one month mark of the grow (my apologies for the lights being on for the photo). My tester plant was just starting to flower, but the 2 main pots were still in veg. Up to this point everything had gone well. My temps and humidity was where I wanted it to be and my feeding schedule was going well. At this point I was watering twice a week. One with PH water only and the second watering was with nutes (the general hydroponics trio with calmag) according to a schedule I found for autoflowers in coco. Looks to be about 1/2 strength compared to what is posted on the GH website. I started to see a few gnats so I sprinkled Diatomaceaous Earth on the day after a watering and it seemed to take care of them. No signs of any other pests. Growing is soooo easy right? LOL

Ok.. Houston we have a problem! Again sorry for the light being on as they pics were just for my viewing and I had not planned for a diary. The week before this picture is when I started to figure out I was going to have a space problem! a 2x2x4 tent is not going to hold those 2 plants plus my tester. By this time I had added a carbon filter to my set-up for the growing smell and my reduced airflow from my crappy 100cfm fan was causing the temps to rise up to around 80 degrees. All three plants were now 15" from my light so I added the net to try and hold them down as the 2 main plants were now starting to flower and stretch like crazy. My tester (in a half gallon pot) was just finishing stretching at this point. Also at this point I had to take a business trip for a full week. I enlisted my son to at least water them every other day, but he didn't touch the plants besides that. I needed a new plan. 1) bigger tent 2) bigger fan 3) more light for the bigger tent. So I ordered a 2x4x5 tent along with a 400cfm fan with a dial to turn it down (I wanted more than I needed so I could turn it down versus not enough). I added a second light of the same make and model I already had. I know its a cheap chinese light, but reviews were good and it had done well so far. What will happen to the 2 main plants during the next week?

Sorry for a lack of photo, but I didn't take one last week. So by the time by new tent arrived the two main plants were only a few inches from the top of my tent. I had them in the back with the light moved to the front to prevent light burn, but at thr same time they weren't getting much light except for one side! I set-up the new tent, fan & light and did some serious LST training on the two main plants to pull all the branches out from the main and create some air flow and light penetration now that I had some room in a tent for them to open up. used ties all around the outside to open them up and pulled the tops down best I could also to make sure I had at least 16" below my lights. I plopped each one directly under their own light and put my tester in between them so it got light from both to hopefully keep it at a nice level. Speaking of the tester pant....it has been a champ! Original plan was to put it on a shelf in the dining room by the back door. After the first week we saw that wasn't enough light (stretched until it fell over) so it went into the tent after that. It quickly recovered and has some decent looking buds on it now. Originally I had hoped to get a 1/2 ounce from it and I think I may exceed that in the end. My two main plants seem to have recovered from the combination of heat, no space & no light pretty quickly. The flowers are growing and I can see them starting to get ready to stack up so hopefully I will have some nice colas in the end.

Well we are to the present time now. The buds on tester plant are fattening up and are very frosty looking. I should have one more week of ripening and then I’ll start the flush on that one. I’ll start checking tricomes this week though and won’t flush until they turn cloudy. The two larger plants still have a few more weeks of flower to go, but the buds are starting to grow now. Hopefully they will recover nicely and fatten up under the better conditions.

Looks like the left plant has some light burn happening. It’s under the new light and there is less dust, etc on that one. I’ve rotated the two plants to see if it makes a difference. This should be the final week for the tester plant before I start the flush. I’ll verify tricomes before I begin the flush though. I defoliated the two main plants today and removed most of the large fan leaves. Took a few smaller ones that were covering bud sites. Photos are after the defoliation.

Well I think I have some mold! Been watching the top cola for the past week on the tester plant. It had a few spots that I wasn’t sure about. It’s very frosty but in a few spots it looked kind of webbish. Made the call today to chop off the top cola. I trimmed it and broke the buds down and tossed about a third of the cola. Anything that has a hint of mold I tossed. Thankfully I caught it early and I know it was caused from poor airflow in the old tent. Heading out of town in the morning but will post more pics Sunday night. Good news is that I start my flush on the tester next week and plan to harvest in 2 weeks. The tester plant now has a level canopy of buds now too. Oh yeah on a final note the top cola weighed 27grams wet AFTER trimming all leaves and stems off.

Flushed tester plant for past week. Trimmed fan leaves and chopped tonight. Humidity in second tent has been running around 60% so I decided to trim fan leaves prior to chop. Ended up with 1/4 ounce dried from main cola I chopped 8 days ago. I hope to get 3/4 ounce dried from rest of tester plant. Will be happy with 1 ounce from this 1/2 gallon pot. The 2 main plants are filling out nicely. Looks like the harvest will just need to be delayed by a few weeks. They were started 2 weeks behind the tester plant but with the lighting and space issues I had during early flower I feel they will run another 4 weeks before harvest. The main cola smokes smooth already and getting a nice buzz from the buds without even a good cure on them yet.

Tester plant is now dried and into a jar. Final weight was 1/2oz from rest of plant. That gives me 3/4 ounce dry total from the tester plant. Not too bad for first grow in a 1/2 gal pot. The two main girls are filling out nicely and hopefully have just a few weeks left before the flush will start. Lots of lessons learned from this grow and I already have many changes in store for the next grow.

Getting light burn on the tops of both plants. Running 8-10” from light but nothing I can really do at this point but finish it out. Decided to run these at least 2 weeks longer than the tester plant. Tricomes are mostly cloudy at this point, but some still clear. Plan to let it run one more week before I start the flush. Hopefully she will continue to put on weight even with the light burn happening at the top.

I’ve started the flush yesterday. I’ll be putting them in the dark for 48hrs in a few more days. Plan to chop in approx 1 week.

I will post more pictures tonight along with the final dry weights in another week. I do not plan to wet weigh as I still have the branches and some trimming to do and it would not be a good comparison. I chopped the plant in the picture last night and have it hanging in the tent by individual branches. All fan leaves have been trimmed along with any of the larger sugar leaves that stuck significantly out. Once dry there will be a final trim along with removing the buds from all the branches. The second plant is partially trimmed and will be finished up tonight. I learned a lot on the first grow, but am very happy with the results so far. The goal was 3 ounces between the 2 plants and the tester (1/2 gal pot) and I already harvested 3/4 ounce dry from the tester plant. The two main plants are significantly larger and the trimming alone has taken much longer compared to the tester plant. I do not want to count my chickens before they dry, but I think I may get at least 4 ounce total between the 3 plants and possibly more. We shall know in approximately 7-10 days. Update: 10/7. Have done final trim on harvest. Took forever! 7.5 ounces of bud, 2 ounces of dried fan leaves and 1 ounce of dried sugar leaves. Wow!! This grow really exceeded all my expectations.