First Grow Somango XXL

Hey gents, First, obligatory long time/first time. I'm excited to start this new hobby after lurking for a while. My background, Army veteran who's been self medicating since I got out I'm 2016. I'm really looking for a steady quality supply and a calming hobby. Anyways, after a ton of research I've put my build together which you can see below. I'll be doing my best with daily updates but I'm sure I'll miss more than a few. I went with Somango XXL for my first grow because I wanted to try something besides northern lights and Nirvana claims this seed is easy, short, and has big yields. My plan is to grow 3 plants in soil so I have some room for error. I'd like to top at least once and practice some LST. I certainly don't expect everything to go perfectly but really seems like the fun part of this hobby. If you have any tips or advice I'm definitely looking for some coaching. I'm going to start each week with a plan and update as the week goes on so you can see my thought process as well. In any case, let's get to work! Week 1 plan: Seed Germination. I'm starting 3 seeds in rapid rooters and a humidity dome. I'd like to keep humidity between 70-90% and the temperature around 75-85° in the dome. I'll need the LED 40 inch from the top of the rapid rooters since the manufactures recommendation was 36-40inches and I want to error on the safe side. If I see signs of stretching I'll readjust. I'm not going to give any nutrients as they won't need them until around week 4 honestly since I'll be growing in fox farms ocean forest which had plenty already. Day 0: Set up. Tent: 3x3x6 Light: LED Viperspectra 600w equivalent Exhaust: 4inch inline with a carbon filter Intake: 6 inch desk fan Air Flow: 6 inch desk fan Day 1: Placed 3 seeds in rapid rooters soaked in pH 6.5 water. I didn't soak the seeds and anything though, as I read in a couple places that it's better to just put them directly in the RR. Then placed them in a small humidity dome to grow under the light. Managed to keep the temp and humidity surprisingly stable at 77° and 87% respectively with the help of a small heater in the room that keeps the room at around 75° and good airflow. Day 2: No change in the temperature or humidity. No signs of life yet. Day 3: The first sign of life! A small white baby stem in 2 rapid rooters! Temp and humidity are unchanged. I added just a bit of pH 6.5 water to maintain water in the bottom of the humidity dome. Day 4: Small white stems are getting closer to the surface. I still don't see it in one but she still has plenty of time. Temp and humidity are still in range. Day 5: We have seedlings! Two seedlings are finally showing through. I'm a little worried that they're over watered so I'm leaving the dome off for now. There's already one root sticking out of the bottom so things are looking good. I'll probably transfer them to a solo cup this weekend. Day 6: They're growing! Gave them a bit of water to keep the humidity up.

Watered twice this week and transitioned all of my seeds to Solo cups.

All the plants are now in their fabric pots! I'm still going to wait at least a week before I add any nutes. The plants are growing at a great rate and I expect to start LST sand topping next week as well.

I'm waiting for four well developed nodes before I top any of them but I've been touching and moving them a bit everyday to help promote trunk growth. Overall I think they're growing great. I haven't started with nutes yet either but I'm going to test the ppm after my next watering to see if it's time yet. On a personal note, I'm really enjoying this hobby more and more every week!

Decided to do some topping on 420. Topped my two largest plants to the 4th node to keep them growing out instead of up. I didn't do any defoliation since it's my first grow and I don't want to mess it up. Once plant 3 gets a developed fifth node I'll top it as well. I think I'll start LST next week once the growth tips have a chance to grow out a bit, right now it seems like everything is in the right place for light and air.

I started a new job this week so I completely forgot to take photos. I did LST on my two biggest plants. It was fun to do but took me about 30 min per plant. Both plants recovered in hours and exploded with growth afterward. I also have nutrients to all plants. I gave half the "recommended" dose on the back of the bottle and the plants recovered well. Sadly I probably let my smallest plant dry out too much because the oldest fan leaves dried out and curled in. It seems to have stunted growth a bit but I still topped it after giving nutes. It's a good learning moment for me and good indication that I need to start watering every other day instead of every third.

LST'd all of my plants this week. The growth is getting quite amazing! I also trimmed a lot of fan leaves to give the lower growth more light. I'm not really concerned about extending the timeline as I'm going more for quantity more than speed. In total the LST, Trimming and watering took about an hour each, I really enjoyed it though. The third plant that dried out last week seems to have bounced back quickly. I trimmed the leaves that were dried out since they were only going to be a drain.

Trimmed my two healthiest plants, they're growth in the last couple of weeks has been astounding! My third plant is still showing signs of heat burn. I'm not sure why as neither of my other plants has shown any and they're all the same distance away. I've moved it around the tent every few days and had the wind blowing on it both directly and indirectly, nothing seems to be helping! It shouldn't be too bad of an issue as it still has good growth every week although it is visibly lagging behind the others. I've started giving all my plants "Kelp Me Kelp You" every nutrient feeding. I figured it may help my weak plant recover and the other two plants bounce back better from their weekly trimmings.

Did training on every plant this week but only did pruning on plant three. They growth is explosive! This plant really requires a lot of TLC every week but it's really fun to work on as a beginner. I'm thinking I'll probably switch to flowering next week as they're almost to half of the final height I'm looking for.

Popped this bad boy into for this week! I did a pretty through preflower trim. I essentially cut all but the uppermost fan leaves on every stem so they're all looking pretty scrawny in the photos. I changed the lights to bloom setting and the timer to 12/12.

They're looking amazing! Buds are really starting to form now and the smell is really starting to pick up. I did some light LST on some of the stems that were sticking out. I'll probably wait one week and then trim one more time.

Just let her grow this week, no trimming and only a light amount of nutrients. Their grow has continued to grow and she's gotten bushy. Next week I'm going to trim her and and that'll be the last big trim.

Trim went really well. Flowers are developing very nicely and I have them a good bit of water and nutrients after the trim. Plant 1 is definitely the strongest of the three. Lots of Bud sites all packed densely together. Plant 3 is really stretched out which is looks really weird in the tent. I'm still lightly training all three to make sure I get the shape I need to fill the whole tent. As you can see from the pictures the training has gone every well and I have a nice canopy, although it could be a lot better. Overall I'm pretty happy with my current product considering it's my first time.

Great bud growth this week. Loving all the white hairs being produced and beautiful sparkling tricomes developing. I literally had to do a double take one night because the sparkling was getting so crazy I got worried I had mildew. The difference between the three plants is really apparent too. Plants 1 and 2 have long tightly packed stems with buds every centimeter or so. Plant 3 has buds spaced far apart and only a few stems sticking high above. I'm still not sure what I did so different on that plant to have such a different result. The stretch had mostly ended as well which is probably a good thing because I don't want them much closer to my light.