1st GROW! 3 clones 1 seed

Hey guys, thanks for checking out my grow journal!! Long time smoker, first time grower. I've helped quite a few people trim their harvested buds so I've been in on some great conversations and info, but never took my own leap. Well, here we are, my wife and I commencing our first grow! I did months of research before I decided how, when and where we would put our grow tent. Friday July 24th is what we picked. We both decided on a local dispensary for clones, one who has a good overall rep and whose source for their clones I can trace. Went in to get Gelatos, ended up getting 2 Purple Punch and 1 Fruit Tree. The Fruit Tree was immediately traumatized in some manner but not irreparably. I'm VERY excited to get this chapter of my Life in motion! I know what I want in my weed, and I know the basics of growing vegetables and flowers, so I'm confident in my ability to maximize my yield, and to keep pests at bay! We'll see!

Not much to speak of for week 2, really. Growth rate is steady but since this is our first grow, we dont really have anything to compare it to. At this point they have been getting daily feedings with half level nutrients, and one week from now I will step up to the manufacturer's full nutrient schedule.

NEW LIGHT THIS WEEK! Added a Bloom Plus BP1000 that I won in a raffle! Cool little light, I really like it, and perfect timing because the TS 600 was way too small. This is a fact I overlooked in my research come time for flower, so I hope this will do for now. The plants are responding nicely! Oh and I also added an old boombox to the space, put it on the local classical station. It makes the space SO CHILL when I go in there to water, I really enjoy it.

Another week of nothing really eventful. Did a decent amount of defoliation at this point. My wife was FREAKING OUT but she doesn't fully understand my intent to maximize yield on these plants, and not just let them grow willy-nilly like our crazy ass Japanese maples outside! They need training. I've showed her videos and articles and it helped calm her down, lol. OH ACTUALLY yeah this is the week I switched out for the Mars TSW 2000. Now I have enough light to flower these plants for sure.

New addition to the room this week! Seedsman Kush Auto. Basically, I was practicing germinating seeds and I don't know why I dipped into this stash. I also had a few bag seeds to play with, which I also did, and I didn't want to waste them. So, it'll pretty much spend a week and a half on 18/6, then its entire life on 12/12. I also discovered GNATS, and what looks to be red spider mites! SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!! And I've kept everything so clean; the tent, the lung room, I even spray the window outside the lung room every 10 days with bug spray! Such a huge setback & discouragement. I totally freaked out and foliar sprayed with Organocide at lights-ON instead of lights-OFF. I attribute this to my overwatering and overfeeding, and also to not using the Organocide at least weekly. I had intended it to use it monthgly and last application went flawlessly about 3 weeks ago, plants LOVED it, and it was done at lights-out like it was supposed to. Anyways, they're already bouncing back but man I got reeeeeallly bummed out for a few days. This had all been going so flawlessly up until now.

Today marks the beginning of week 6 AND the beginning of the flowering period!! I switched the lighting to 12/12 over the weekend. I considered doing the 24 to 48 hrs darkness, but I really want to minimize plant stress, maximize the stretch growth as much as I can before they start packing on flower weight. The Kush Auto is 14 days old today. Just when I was worried that I had stunted it, it started popping a new node! I'm curious to see how well this will do under an entire life of 12/12 lighting, but, as mentioned, it's not going to impede the harvest of the other 3 in any way.

Just now starting the "Early Bloom: nutrients and switched everything from less Gro, to way more Bloom. The girls are really starting to show their shape as to how they're gonna stack on the flowers! I'm getting excited! I also decided, for my next run I'm going to try something where i use the Flora Trio nutrients on all 4 plants, BUT with 2 of them I am also going to add KoolBloom and Floralicious. I really want to see if the buds get fatter and if Floralicious really does enhance flavor or aroma. We'll see! *edit* as of 9-11-2020, dialing down the nutrients. I think I'm noticing nutrient burn on some leaves so I'm going back to my original schedule that i obtained off of Growweedeasy, which is about half the manufacturer's recommendations.

15 days under 12/12 lighting and they started showing flowers!! My original timeline of a Halloween harvest is still looking possible. I'm REALLY excited to see these plants progressing, both clone and seed!