Venom OG 2020

Picked these clones from a dispensary that carries Dark Heart Nursery Clones. They were considered “teens” although they were pretty small for teens. The garden a little hot this first week as I was trying to navigate a new system in a new space plus we had a heat wave this week. My main kink to work out was figuring out how to properly ventilate given the restrictions of my space. I started with a 4” exhaust with a carbon filter and passive intake. This was not enough. I also started with the lights too close and on at full blast. Whoops! Things got a tad crispy but I backed it all off and the ship righted itself pretty quickly. I also went right in with some Kyle Kushman chiropractic technique paired with bending the main stem over and massaging the stems until they softened. They bounced right back from all of this within a day and started to harden.

Still struggled with heat this week. But the plants didn’t seem to mind. I reported in some soil king big rootz soil from 1 gallon to theee gallon pots. Big rootz is great because it has all of your veg nutrients for the first 3 weeks and the you can ease into your nutrient line after the 3 weeks is up. The plants continued to branch out. I continued to employ lst by bending and tying down paired with defoliation. I was careful to keep my water ph at 6.3 I added a box Fannie the room, a 4”oscillating fan in the tent, and a 4” intake fan. Our heat wave continued and so did my heat in the garden. Temps got into the low 90’s at times. I added two co2 bags (breathe bags) and they really seem to love those.

The plants really exploded this week. I continued to employ lst and HST paired with defoliation and tying down. I also figured out how to bring some fresh air intake and my temps gave leveled out. I now have an over engineered airflow system that is deigned to keep temps stable during freak heat waves (two 4” intake fans, one pulling from outside and the other pulling from inside in the event that I need AC. I also switched from a 4” exhaust to a 6”exhaust. I was previously maxed out on all my fans. I now run at half. My temps are stable at 79 during sun and 71 during the dark cycle.

Employed the last round of HST. Temps were stable. Humidity hovered between 47-53%. Started employing my gen hydro nutrients and recharge. They’re growing very quickly at this point and are taking almost a gallon of water per day. I continue to defoliate and I started lollipopping.

Lollipopped, defoliated, added bloom nutrients. Kept ppm at 900, ph at 6.3. They are a stretchin! Getting tall quickly. I see some undergrowth that is never gonna make it. I’m going to take one round of clones at the beginning of week two. This will be my most aggressive pruning before flowering. From here on it’s nice n easy.

Pistils starting to show and bud formations beginning. I’m fertilizing every other watering and using recharge once per week - 10 days. Lights are closer to 12” from plants at this point with no signs of problems. I’ll aim for this height for the duration. Everyday I spend about 30 min going through and pulling damaged leaves, removing undesired growth, twisting and bending branches, both plants are responding well. I also took cuttings at the beginning of the week. They are doing well and both plants responded well.

Solid week of growth and development. Temperature, humidity were solid and dialed all week. Both plants were defoliated and trained towards the beginning of the week. They bounced back quickly and started to pack on weight which led me to look into trellis. I don’t like that you can’t move the plants once the trellis is set and that it’s stupid pieces of plastic. We’ll see how many times I can re-use the trellis before it’s trashed 🙄. That said, I can already see the benefits. It really helped me even out the canopy and lower a few stubborn colas as well as open the lower levels to more light. Nice. I’ll be investing in some biodegradable trellis in the future if I like the results. I started using Fish Shit! between feedings to condition the soil. So far, so good. As for the clones, I used hardware store rooting hormone instead of a high quality gel or powder rooting hormone. You get what you pay for . . . I also think I’ve kept my growing medium too moist. I’ve had one clone root and transferred. I’ve been trying to dry the medium out a touch. Hopefully I get at least two more rooted within the next few days. This upcoming week I’ll continue the nutrient regiment and begin the pk boost for weeks 4, 5, and 6.

The Update: Great bud development this week. All of the colas are stacking up nicely. They’re also developing a fair amount of trichomes which you can imagine are contributing to an increased intensity of fragrance. Some of the buds are also developing some purple which is apparently to be expected with this strain. We started the week with a regular nutrient feeding along with a pk boost (700ppm). We watered with plain water next and followed up with a slightly ramped up ppm of 900. In all cases the water ph was 6.3 and just under 70°F. It was slightly colder this week which ultimately we are stoked/pumped/hyped on. The watering slowed a touch earlier on but the more they stacked the more they consumed. The temp and humidity are really under control at this point. We’re setting up to finish in a well balanced environment. *UPGRADE* The much anticipated light upgrade to the Mars Hydro SP3000 happened this week. This fixture is getting the job done better than the three lights we had before and with less power/less heat. That gives us more control and we like that very much, very much indeed. The plants have responded well, but the proof will be in the yield. In Retrospect: When we started we were super worried about height during veg and went pretty ham on the lst. We know now that we can definitely let them get taller in veg. Given that we’ve just taken cuttings, we’ll probably go right back into flowering another round of Venom OG once these are done in about a month or so. The timing should be pretty good. Last week we had lamented about using trellis. A week later we’re here to say that we’re sold. Next time around we’ll get it going on earlier in the process, like late in veg as the canopy is developing. We also found a source for biodegradable trellis 🐬 Concerning nutrients and medium: When we first started doing research a few months back there was a sea of information and so many options for everything, especially nutrients. It made our heads spin. We went with GH nutrients because they had been recommended, they were easy to get ahold of, they’re cost friendly, and we saw a lot of reviews about people liking them and talking about how easy they were to use. GH nutrients are all of those things, but after learning what we have learned about organic growing, we think having well dialed and conditioned organic soil will be even easier. Time will tell. We have to give a shout out to CaliGreen on YouTube. This guy spits some serious knowledge about growing organically. His videos are solid. Check them out if you’re interested in learning about growing organically. We honestly were super intimidated by starting organically. It seemed like it was too advanced or too nuanced for a beginner grow. Thanks to his vids we’re going to embark on an all organic journey. Looking Ahead: We’re going to ride out our GH nutrients until they’re gone and go fully organic thereafter. We are officially turned on to that shit. The clones have also mostly taken off. We got the environment under control this week and that was the key. They got a little stressed out along the way man but I think they’re going to be alright. The success rate for rooting turned out to be around 80%. Not too shabby for something we were both unprepared for and didn’t ever plan on doing. We also ripped on that hardware store rooting hormone and we have to take it back. It was user error, the product works well and once we dialed the temp, humidity, and light we saw lil furry white root tips poppin and searchin. Looks like 4 or so more weeks of flowering. We can’t wait to see these buds get fat. That’s it for the week. Thanks for stopping by! If you have any tips or questions, please comment in the section below. Thanks!

Theme of the week: Stack it up and pack it on Not a lot of work this week. Just monitoring temp, humidity, and trying to stay close to a 1.0 vpd. Averaging about 1.25 or so. We picked up an inexpensive humidifier/dehumidifier and humidity control unit this week. An inexpensive upgrade that has totally eased our minds. Still alternating feedings with plain water and that seems to be working out. These plants are getting stinky! And fat!

What an excellent week of growth and development. We’re closing out week 6 with the first signs of catching the fade. Buds and trichomes have continued to develop nicely and the smells have gotten a lot more punchy. The purple tones mixed with frosty trichomes make for really nice pics. We just couldn’t stop this week. It was like paparazzo in there! The last round of nutrients were given yesterday and from here on out we condition and flush. Just desserts 🍰 🥧 🍭 🍬 We’re looking forward to the next two weeks as these ladies mature and finish up. Thanks for stopping by and happy growing! 🙏🏼✌️🏼♻️✅🌞

We’ve gone trichome spelunking this week as they’ve continued to develop and stack. We’re not quite there yet as there are still some clear and a lot transitioning ambers. There are some full amber heads as of today. We’ll keep an eye on it 👁️ 🔍 Only water with molasses this week. Also picked up a pump sprayer for watering. It takes longer but it helps water with little to no runoff. We’ve also taken up fungus gnats. We’ve got sticky pads in place and are adding mosquito bits before the night is over. Hopefully they haven’t impacted things too much. Plants still seem happy and healthy. Looking forward to chopping soon. They smell great and I’m dying to try the smoke. More soon. Thanks for stopping by and happy growing ✌️🏼🙏🏼

We’ve continued to water with molasses this week. The colors have continued to change, trichs stacked, and the buds pushed one last bit of growth. They look and smell great. The gnats were handled by the mosquito bits and are gone. We’ve been dealing with the potential mites by very carefully defoliating anything that looks like it may have had eggs on it and then washing all the tools and clothes involved. We also removed two small lower branches that would have been too difficult to carefully prune. Since then we have seen no additional spots. After chop we’re going to go nuts cleaning the space. They’re 12hrs into 48hrs of darkness before chop. This has been a great experience. Looking forward to cure and smoke! Thanks for stopping by and happy growing! ✌️🏼🙏🏼🌱

There are a lot of rock hard crystal laden purple buds that come from these plants. The smell is intoxicating and the look matches. There’s a bit of a head rush upon exhale and tingly sensation that rushes over your face for a sec. From there you’ve got a creative productive period that melts into total relaxation. We smoked this all day yesterday and had a very productive day followed by a couch-locked 3 holiday film marathon. Forgot to make dinner lol but didn’t forget to eat. Great times Overall the grow went well. We think we could’ve used less training over all and let the ladies get tall like they like. That said, we’re really happy with the yield given that we were figuring out a lot of stuff as we went. We have more of an established system now and expect to see some improved results in the future. We’re going right back in with another batch before we pop some exciting seeds. Thanks for stopping by and happy growing! ✌️🏼🙏🏼🌳