Second run

Hitting that growth stage where the leaves just start coming in one after another. I have 2 Cheese in the background that is s l o w moving. One barely looks to be growing and had deformed-ish leaves, the other is just taking it's sweet time. Soil- Canna Bio Terra Plus

Transplanted the other day and I wish I'd taken a few pictures of the roots. One of the cheese (far right) was the munchkin with the deformed leaves but it looks to be taking to its own. The gelato and kush look to be the growth winners this far, but I'll keep em going. Looking forward to the continued growth in the coming weeks and even more stoked to start nutes and see these explode.

Wouldnt you know it, but I snapped a mfer. All this time talking precautions and being careful... The one time I'm like, "bah, they're plants" and I snapped the top off a cheese when trying to adjust the training wire. I taped it up right away and hope it will come back ooottthhheeerrrwise, we are going to have autoflower topping experience without wanting to! Otherwise, this week I started with some nutes and they are looking good. Except the Banana Kush, for some reason it always looks droopy. Feels healthy and smells amazing, just, kinda looks like it was overwatered- but unless it's got a way different water cycle than the others- I'm pretty confident it's not over/underwater. Anyways, will update more about that snapped girl. Fingers crossed gang!

Last week I broke off the top of a plant and I figured I'd try to root it and see what happens.... Welp, it looks to be thriving after a quick search on autoflower cloning. I came across a great visual on how to clone and how to chop. Following that I ended up with the little tree and it appears to be going! Hoping for some single cute little nug. Otherwise, I saw that one plant was getting into trouble with the wire and moved that around and it seems to be recovering. Overall, all 4 (.5) plants appear to be crushing, and the Gelato appears to be in preflower! Crazy how fast they grow!!! Started to add a bit of nutes. I'm staying here that I am just eyeballing the mixture and realizing that it's a mistake. Going to get back into making a premix and keeping it on hand.. 😬😬😬

Not much of a change other than I realized how dumb I've been.... I've been wayyy under feeding from last grow into this one! Bottle says 2-3 tsp, and I'm putting down like 1-ish. Nervous to over do it but decided the other day to mix up a solution in a 1 gal jug and start feeding. The girls seem to be enjoying it, and they are smelling so sweet right now!

This week I got the surprise of little white dots on the leaves of my near harvest gelato auto... And when I started getting in closer I saw the borg 😔. Luckily, I took swift action after dealing with these assholes last year on my house plants and started to do research, asking questions, and working to remove them. I noticed Monday morning a few leaves looked to be showing a calmag deficiency and then noticed the dots. After busting out my scope I saw them. I immediately started squishing and defoliating. I figure this close to flower it may end up with lower bud density, but save what bud there is. I did a quick rosemary and water spray up front, went and got Azamax for all my houseplants as that appears to be there source, and a prep incase I. Get these buggers in veg next run. (By "all" my houseplants I mean the ZZ and Calidora Alocasia that are in the same room as my tent...learned that lesson). Treated everything else just in case anyway as it's December in Chicagoland and I'm not honestly surprised these are here. Anyway, one treatment of rosemary and water at lights out on Monday. A treatment of SNS217 on Thursday. I'll spray water on the girls undersides and stems at lights out today and hit them with the SNS on Sunday and hope for the best. Gelato is starting to turn amber, but going to let it ride a week or so longer as I legit realized I never switched to bloom nutes and am going to pump that in before a final few flush. Lastly, Not doing 3 different strains next run. These all have different dates and needs and it's a bit time consuming. Super glad I am learning this lesson right now!

Been working on these spider mites. I'm tentative to say they're under control, but I've been a monster to them with rosemary oil, then SNS217, now Lost Coast Plant Therapy. Working with defoliating leaves with eggs and close monitoring. The gelato is close and banana right behind. The 2 cheese plants have maybe a month till I even think about harvest.. which is good. Using g the Spider Farmer-1000, I can use these first 2 to harvest and give more light to the others. I check daily on the trichs for Gelato and Banana, but wee are still clear. Today (12/18) was the first day they starrrrted to give some cloud. So gonna let that run a bit more. Deff noticing the main cola (even tho LST) has a few Amber's in there. Ah well, it's the color of their energy, lmaoo

Ok, so I actually think I missed a week on here cause I think I'm at week 9 now, going into 10. I started germ on Oct. 20 and have had a hell of a time trying to figure out if when seeds say "8 weeks," if that means from taproot pop, or for flowering. We are just about done with Gelato. I am getting my hangers all set up today. I watered it with flush yesterday (3rd time), and will give it one more plain water Tues/Wed.then leave it in the dark closet and let it wilt. Then cut the whole thing down and hang. The Banana is suuuper light, airy buds. Nothing like the Gelato which is kind of a bummer, but I guess that's what I get for not monocroping. Somewhere I didn't pay as much focus. Cheese plants are going to need a few more weeks. Just starting to flower now. I lost the little top that I broke off the one plant. I checked it out one-day this past week or so and saw that it had some fungus growing towards the rooter and stem, no roots though.

What can I say other than I love this game?! So, we had spider mites that must have come in on an ornamental plant early into the fall and just waited. I managed to get them under control, in flower, without issue (fingers crossed, always crossed lmaooo) using a rotation of rosemary oil and water (to start), SNS-217 (spray, not concentrate), and Lost Coast Plant Therapy (concentrate). I had also purchased Azamax, but after reading much more on mites during flower I decided against using any sort of neem oil on the bud... but it actually worked great on my Dracenia, Alocasia, Abasynian Banana, and Milk Tree! I've actually started to use it as a soil drench too! The Internet has tons on both sides of this argument (internet, amirite?). Anyway, the mites brought me into the defoliation conversation on autos and I honestly have to say that the bro science and reg science just kinda confuse the hell out of me. 1. Sun leaves, photosynthesis, etc. got it. 2. Defoliation stresses the plant and makes it focus its energy elsewhere and gives ya bigger buds... okok, but I needed to remove these eggs and mite houses to save the garden overall so I opted to defoliate. And you know something-- I'm honestly not upset about it.... While the plants are showing healthy and late in flower, I figure the small leaves still photosynthesize and I am not a farmer, so super large buds are not quite what I am after. So I just went with it and once the mites were under control just let the plants do their thing for a while. When they showed no negative signs, I did a bit more and a bit more... All seems well! So for the record-- this grow was 3 strains and all of them reacted not bad to topping, defoliation, LST, drought, and this is my first grow with a Qboard.. so all that and LEDs and only a second grow. One thing I have learned this round is that the lengths of time to harvest on a website are super dependent on the ecosystem the plants are in... that makes perfect sense yea? Welp, for a generalized newbie- I was like, OK- they bred this seed to grow and flower and harvest in exactly 8 weeks. Maybe it's my background in tech that wants instant gratification, but I understand there are TONS of factors that go into the beauty that makes this plant so much fun to care for and grow! Also, the buds on the Kush are super airy but pretty well covered in trichs. Thinking about getting a Ju1cebox to make small amounts of rosin out of these sticky bois. Since I am not sure about getting a bigger one just yet, that guy seems to have pretty good reviews, although I see that it's for small amounts and super manual... if I dig the rosin game too, maybe ill get a bigger one in a world where there's a bit more money to spare on infrequently used tools.

This past week I have been letting the plants do them. The Gelato was ready for harvest, so I popped it into a dark closet for a few days before the chop and it has been curing. I still have some stems on the bugs, soni have red done a weight check yet, but it doesn't look like too much. Maybe 1/2 oz, which is plenty for personal use of one plant. Banana has tons of muh smaller leaves, and the two cheese are so sticky. I moved it to the closet yesterday and will chop it tmro for a full hang, and the last two (cheese 2/cheese1) are showing monomial amber, and cheese2 hasn't even turned cloudy yet. So I am going to age them a bit more...like a fine cheese. I also got a Ju1cebox for some fun pressing trys. I pressed a bit and got limited return, but one was open dispensary SlimerOG that was pretty brittle (pictured) and I tried it with some keif. I dig it. I can imagine the handheld is going to be a pain in the ass, but imma try it with my trim and stems, see what I can make from waste.