PandemicProject #6

Pandemic makes you do crazy things. I turned 50 this year, decided it was time to try my hand at growing the stuff I've been enjoying for the last 35 years. I raised orchids in-house for a number of years, makes me feel like I can probably do this... Did the internet research, fell down the rabbit hole, got lost... and ended up just buying some of the smallest versions of everything to give it all a go (off-brand 2x2 shorty tent and 100W UFO LED lite, etc.) Dropped seeds this week as soon as they arrived. Got excited about the freebies in the shipment, so Gorilla Zkittlez gets a chance along side the Bubba Kush. Soaked 2 seeds of each in a shot glass of water overnight (all 4 cracked by next day with white root tips peeking out), then dropped into rapid rooter cubes the next evening. Both of the GZs popped up really fast, but one is now way ahead of the other at the end of week 1: looks like this girl might be the star of the show.

Day 11: One of the GZs has been critically hurt in a humidity dome incident (the smaller one, whew). Responsible parties shall remain nameless. Not going to try to cello-tape a seedling back together, so R.I.P.- and then there were three. I can see the BK seed heads moving upwards a bit in the rooter holes each day- they're not dead, but man are they taking their time. Day 14: Transplanted the GZ- it was practically climbing out of the rooter tray. Rootlets on all sides and the bottom of the cube. Went into a 6" air pot (remnant from my orchid days) with Happy Frog soil. Wondering if I'm going to regret that later when I can't cut the plastic away from the root mass cleanly. We'll see I guess. Headed into the tent and fired up the 18/6 cycle.

Day 15: OK, It's freakin' hot in that tent with the lights on. Even with the exhaust fan turned up and good airflow, its 87F down by the plant. Also gonna get dry here as the fall stretches into winter, and I don't have great humidity control in my immediate environment. GZ is looking stressed, what with the heat, change in humidity and transplant, I'm not surprised. Jacked the light up from it's recommended 24" to whatever the max is I could get- looks like 30-32". Also changing the timer so "night" is from 9AM to 3PM - hottest part of the day here. Day 16: One of the first leaves has a brown spot near the tip. Eep. Can't get the light any higher, so set up a little sunshade for the baby- plastic container lid on three bamboo skewers. Lid is light blue, seems to cut the light down a little bit. Leaves picked up by end of day. Doing a little foliar misting to cool things off, but can't keep that up on a regular enough basis to make a difference. Wondering about a mini ultasonic humidifier in the tent... winter might really suck otherwise (figuring conservatively we're looking at a Jan 15 harvest). Day 17: She seems to be showing some growth again- maybe I'm underwatering? Classic symptom of a former orchid grower... I haven't added nutrients to any watering yet either- seems like I heard the soil is good for a while as is. Just not sure when's the right time to get started with that stuff. Will ease it in either way. Just realized I haven't pH'd my water yet during this grow. Crap. After checking... it needed a tiny bump down. Probably not enough to be tragic, but want to get all the variables dialed in here. Big question now is, I'm working with Chicago common tap (yeah, probably not the best stuff in the world)- I know the water is just a bit hard (we fight limescale in our plumbing all the time), but for a hobbyist level grow, is it adequate without any special treatment or RO? Day 21: The youngster seems to like the "sunshade", increased watering and regular misting. Growth has picked up (including secondary), no further brown spots. Gonna pull the sunshade off and see what happens. (Getting really annoyed by the stripe artifacting in my digital pix caused by the LED grow light's phasing or PWMing. Need to find a low/zero budget way to get better images...) And now for something completely different: The BKs are limping along. They are going so slow, no roots poking out of the cubes yet. I don't have enough experience to say what's going on, but if they're both behaving the same then I would have to assume its based on a common trait like genetics or age of seed... or an inexperienced caretaker... maybe BK is one of those ponderously slow growers? ...so unless they really get going, they'll just hang out in the background- I'm going to focus the diary energy on the GZ girl. I'm behind on this enough as it is.

Day 22: Little Miss GZ looks pretty happy today! Nice growth and color without the sunshade, so I think she's getting used to her new home. Decided to start nutrients today, probably should have done a while ago. Going with the FoxFarm trio, will cut the Big Bloom dose in half for the first jug. Fall weather has finally broken here- for me that means the end of good ambient rH- I'll be lucky to see anything above 40% until April rolls around again. On the other hand, the temps finally look reasonable in the tent. Only hitting 80F max today. Day 23: OK, definitely should have been feeding already- growth "overnight" is seriously noticeable. Couple more nodes and then thoughts of topping begin... Another minor mistake- figured out I had loaded my spray bottle with tap instead of distilled, and now I've got some limescale on a few of the leaves. Glad I caught myself early, cleaned out the sprayer and reloaded. Still pondering long term about the size of this tent and the environment inside- I'm thinking I need more head height and maybe bigger footprint, if I can fit it into my space. Shopping around for now, looking at the GGT2x2.5 as a replacement for this 2x2 cheapie. Day 24: More growth- I've spied the point above the third node where she's gonna get topped... but not yet, need to let her grow out a bit more... Temps have stablized in the tent, humidity is low-ish. Stems on the older leaves are now showing some nice reddish-purple color as well. Day 28: Watered and topped last night. Took off the first node leaves and growth as well. Left the growth and leaves at the second node- haven't decided if I should pull a few clones off this one or not. Seems OK this morning, remaining growth tips all progressing. rH continuing to slowly drop, think I'll add the humidifier to the tent in the next week and see how things go.