Noob Tries Baking Auto Colorado Cookies

We're a week in from planting now. They are about a inch and a half in height and look OK to me but that doesn't mean anything because I've never done this before. It is truly an exercise in patience. I'm using CocoCoir and Perlite and have been watering twice a day with PHed water+nutes in the morning and without nutes with PHed water before going to bed. I’ve read it is hard to overwater using coco but fear I am watering too frequently. Going to tone it down after this first week and move to once a day and alternate days on the nutes Vs phed water only. I've been trying to vary the PH between 5.5 and 6.5 since I've read that you don't want to stick with a single PH and that it is better to use the whole range. 5.9 is simply the most recent reading. If anybody has any recommendations/thinks I should be doing something different would be happy to hear from you. "I’m feeling at peace right now.... I’m feeling at ease right now" - At Peace by Through the Roots

Things are still looking OK to me. The plants sometimes look a little yellow compared to many pictures I see but I think it may be caused by the light because if I put my hand between them and the plant they look more green. Anybody have any thoughts? Are they looking OK to you so far? They didn't grow much taller this week - less than half an inch. The leaves definitely started coming in, though. I'm looking forward to what is coming and hope to start seeing them "grow like weeds" in the near future. Righty (2 inches) seems to be a little further along than Lefty (1.75 inches) but not by too much, and Lefty has a little bit more bend to her stem. I had been watering twice a day but grew concerned I might overwater even though it was Coco Coir+Perlite which as I understand it is hard to overwater. So I made an adjustment and this week started watering every other day - nutes and PH'ed water alternating between the two. The hygrometer still shows the Coco as remaining slightly moist/I'm not letting anything get all the way down to dry. I also changed from our super hard+high TDS Arizona tap water to using RO water from a nearby business instead (getting it in 5 gallon re-usable jugs). That new RO water starts at 20 TDS instead of 440 TDS (Tap water before even adding nutes) which had seemed way too high based on what I've read. After doing PH minus to get between 5.6 and 6.2 PH the TDS for ROed water rises to about 150 for whatever reason (I'm still researching) but this is a whole heck of a lot better than tap water! Finally, I added an Inkbird temperature controller + a Lasko personal space heater to ensure the tent doesn't get too cold. Temp is now kept in a range between 68-74 pretty consistently and I am not afraid of things getting way too cold as the winter gets colder which is what I was facing before. Although the video doesn't show the leaves moving with breeze too much, they are when the front tent flap is closed. I read that having them shake a little helps get the stems stronger etc....so that was another "improvement" in recent days I hope to carry forward. "One love one love that's what you're telling me, Except for them, never them they're not your family, That's the same old story the same old ideology" - Translation of One by SOJA

I kept my "improvements" going this week and the girls are still looking pretty good (I think - I am a first timer!). Each of them doubled in size in the last week, with righty still a little bigger due to the curve in lefty's main stem. The stems have thickened up a little, hopefully helped by the fan breeze. I'm watering every other day, 1/2 gallon of RO water for each plant with the GHE + CalMag nutrients and a decent amount of runoff. PPM on the water is 360 going in and 480 coming out. I'm struggling with the when and how of LST. I've seen other folks start right about now, seems to me like the strategy is to stabilize base of the plant and then pull over the top with wire without snapping or damaging the plant in order to allow the lower parts more light to try and catch up to the main top of the plant.....and that's about it. I may try to do that in the next couple days unless somebody comments and suggests that I wait or has other advice to offer. I may skip LST altogether or only do it for a single plant. Still debating & researching. Otherwise since nothing about the plant appearance is freaking me out I plan to stay the course and see where this all goes. "Stay the course, you can't turn back You might get scared, you might get lonely Thinking about ways you could lose the path It's all harmful distractions" - Stay the Course by Iration

Here we are - about 1/3 of the way through this journey now? Righty is about 8 inches and Lefty is about 6 inches tall. Might be partially because Lefty started with a curved stem and was always smaller as a result, or maybe some genetic factor/phenotype. They've doubled in height since last week. I started seeing some yellowing between veins especially on Righty on many of the leaves. Some research suggests it is probably magnesium deficiency related so I upped the amount of CalMag I am giving...the charts I'm using from GrowWeedEasy had me knock it down to 1/2 tsp in week 3 but I've reupped it to 1 tsp for the feeding yesterday, especially considering I'm using both RO water + Coco. I may increase it a little bit more if I don't see improvement. Despite this they otherwise look like "reasonably healthy plants", at least to my eyes. My PPM is still quite low based on the information I've seen online..., ~550 in the nutrient water I'm adding on the 500 scale. I have not fed just PHed water since the seedling stage at this point - every feeding has had nutes. I am feeding enough so that it drains 10-20% of the liquid each time. I tried doing a little LST earlier in this week and tied the main shoots/colas down for about half a day but then released them to go back upright. Ultimately decided against it for my first grow...a combined lack of confidence and it not feeling right with the amount of room I have in this tent to be playing around. The bigger plant is only 8 inches - I may have felt better about it if they were taller and if there were less space between the grow medium and the side of the pot (mine are sunken in a bit). Maybe I will try again later this upcoming week. Then again, I may try LST again for my second grow and see just how much it increases yield in practice, especially if I try Colorado Cookies again (I do have some more seeds to use). I am not sure if that is the start of flowering I'm seeing in the last picture? I think they are because they look like flowering pistils I've seen in other photos. The seeds I used were feminized so this isn't too surprising! I guess my next post for week 5 will be for the flowering stage, which matches the schedule other folks were on when I look up other Auto Colorado Cookies diaries. "Once in my life I had to find, my way out of the dark so the sun could shine Not to promise but effort given, to make it better I'm trying" - Life I Lead by Konu

I worked up the nerve and did end up doing a little bit of LST this week after all - just bent over the top/tallest stalk and tied it down for each plant. Did a little bit of leaf tucking just to make sure the oldest biggest fan leaves weren't propped or tangled in with new growth and preventing light from reaching it. Both plants are pretty bushy, Righty is 11" and Lefty is 9" after being bent over. I believe they are transitioning to flower, after all I saw the pistils about a week ago now. They're growing pretty quick now. I moved back to watering once a day this week after reading more on the cocoforcannabis website (most of my learning was on the growweedeasy website up until recently) - they suggest watering even more frequently but I don't think I have the patience to go that far (yet). The plants still look good (to my inexperienced eyes). Looking forward to some more vertical growth! "And here we stand at the end of times fighting for dollar signs" - One Life by Dustin Thomas

I did some very, very light defoliation earlier in the week, just removing some older leaves near the bottom of the plant that weren't receiving much if any direct light. This activity was very light and restrained kind of like my LST where I'd only pulled down the main stem without training any of the offshoots at any point (didn't seem like I could go wider in this size tent with two of these). Lefty is 14" and Righty is 16". Righty looks noticeably more dark green to my eyes (but not so green that I'm thinking N toxicity). Generally I'd say Righty looks better to my untrained eyes in just about every way - size, color, flowering, etc... If things keep going this way I suspect Righty is liable to provide better yield. I think the plants look healthy in general, although obviously I have some space issues fitting them both in the grow tent. In the last picture you can see after taking the initial photos/video I moved the heater from back to front and moved Righty back to give them a little more breathing room in the tent so they weren't right next to each other. So I'll be going forward with a little extra space horizontally although I expect/hope to see nearly all new growth happening vertically at this point. I turned down the humidifier a little today and turned up the AC infinity fan to move a little more air, since the sources I see say I should be at 40-50% humidity and I'd been keeping it higher at 50-55%. So I'll try to target 45% humidity this next week instead of 50%+. Should be easy since the air here in Arizona wants to be a lot dryer. I've been comparing my results to the @drainboy "First Indoor Grow ACC DP" diary since he has the same strain and was kind enough to put specific days on his photos. If I compare my day 41 to his day 45 for example, it seems to support my belief that things are going well. As always I am happy to hear from you if you think there is anything I should prepare for or if there is anything I should be doing different. "Move forward, Feel the sun on your skin, my friend.... Let's leave the grey clouds behind" - Move Forward by Iration

Another good week, as far as I can tell. Righty increased from 16 to 19 inches and Lefty surprised me and exploded from 14 to 23 inches. Righty was always the bigger of the plants until this week but that has changed considerably. Righty is still darker than lefty but not to the point where I'm worried about excess Nitrogen or anything. Both are still flowering and seem healthy to me. PPM going in is 550 and coming out it is 450, so they appear to be feeding. I did very light defoliation earlier this week removing only the older looking leaves and a couple that were blocking bud sites. I have no doubt there are many folks who would suggest my plants are way too bushy and need more but I don't have the stomach for it. The plants are seriously crowding this 27"x27" tent, even in 3 gallon pots. It may have been more appropriate just to have a single plant but I feel like with this autoflower etc I am likely to get more bud out of two plants than one even if I had gone with one plant + the extra space for it to branch out. If they grow much taller I am going to have trouble raising my light any higher and will have to move around the fans, etc. I'm hoping they focus more on bud growth than vertical growth this upcoming week. "Life will find a way, no matter what they say" - Minimum Wage by The Expendables

I think things are still looking OK. I have fewer leaf problems than another reasonably successful Colorado Cookies grow that I was following on this website. Lefty continued to grow and is a good 6 inches taller than the tallest part of Righty at this point - Righty has a couple shoots that grew a few inches higher than the rest of the canopy. There might be a little nutrient burn on Righty at this point (tips of leaves in the last picture) so a flush might be in order in the near future? I don't have a lot of room to raise the light at this point without moving the fans somewhere else so I'm still hoping the vertical growth slows and bud formation increases. Between size and coloring is almost hard to believe Lefty and Righty are the same strain.... I know genetic variation/phenotypes yields different kinds of plants, but this is something to behold. I intend on starting to add Liquid Koolbloom supplement starting tomorrow to help with bud growth - would have started earlier but just ordered it recently. Obviously I have space problems here and my 27"x27" tent is not big enough for two plants. Where I went wrong was in looking at reviews people were saying you could fit four 3 gallon pots with no mention of plants or anything - and I figured I was being conservative only doing 2 of 4 pots. As it turns out Cannabis gets a lot wider than a 3 gallon pot. Noob mistake! So my current hope is that by having two plants I will wind up with enough bud to make up for the impeded/restrained growth. I guess we'll see? If I wind up with less than 2 ounces in the end I will take that as a sign to just do one plant next time ;-) "There may not be an ounce of sleep tonight.... Wouldn't sleeping be a waste of time" - Slow Down by Three Legged Fox

I added Liquid Koolbloom this week (1 tsp/gal) as I said I would in my last update and will be adding it until the final flush. There wasn't too much vertical growth this week which is nice because Lefty is already quite big and I don't have much room to raise the light without moving the fans, etc. She is definitely crowding Righty and I suspect will negatively affect yield for both plants. I've said it before and will say it again - hopefully having two plants will make up for the yield I use with these less-than-optimal conditions. Unless I get a huge yield I will probably only go with one plant next time for my limited space. Lefty is at 29 inches and righty is at 25 inches (at the tallest point!) and is more like 22-23 inches on average so is much smaller than Lefty. They still look healthy to me so I'm continuing to march forward without any major changes aside from the Liquid Koolbloom they got this week and will continue to receive. Hopefully the buds continue to grow and fatten up - I think we have under 3 weeks left! "But I don't wanna wait, Today, For something that might never, ever show its face" - I Don't Wanna Wait by SOJA

No vertical growth this week. Pretty sure I'm going to pay the price on yield from lack of training/crowded conditions in my tent but maybe this last week could surprise me with bud growth. I think Righty in particular would look far better if closer to the light and with more space. This was my first grow ever....live and learn! Barring some kind of last minute bud explosion my takeaway is that I'll only do one plant next time. If the buds do explode last minute I'll probably try for two again ;-) Starting to fade some in righty. I guess I have less than 10 days to go before chopping! I ordered some Flower Fuel and will start using it tomorrow to see if it helps with last-minute bloom/ bud formation. Dutch Passion recommends 75 days for these plants so I'll probably keep doing it through next Friday and then flush for a few days and chop them down if the trichomes look reasonable through the Jeweler's loupe. "Waiting for you to come back around girl, So you can save my world, And when the lights go on in the night I'm not lonely" - Back Around by Iration

We're nearing the end. I started Flushing the plants a couple days ago. Still doing CalMag but dropped all the other nutrients, which is why my TDS went from 550 to <150. Buds are nowhere near as huge as I see other people achieve but it is looking like this will have been worth my time - I think I'm going to get a decent amount out of these plants in the end. Fade is setting in more on Righty than on Lefty. Dutch Passion says these plants from seed to complete are 75 days. I'm 77 days in and not convinced I'm done yet - the Pistils aren't as brown as I'd like and the Trichomes aren't as cloudy as I'd like - not even sure I see any amber ones. I was hoping to chop this weekend but I'm not convinced it is going to happen unless many amber trichomes appear in the next 2 days. Will take a lot to restrain myself from doing it anyway ;-) "The waiting is the hardest part" - The Waiting by Tom Petty

The trimming took way longer than I thought - I ended up wet trimming and then using a drying rack which took about 3 days and probably dried too fast, so I may not do that again. I am doing the curing the recommended way, a few weeks with the 62% Boveda packets in mason jars....so hopefully that will make up for any sins w/ the fast drying. I did use a Humidifier for those 3 days, at least! I ended up with 1.8 oz in the end which is not great, but as this was my first time ever I am still happy the plants made it to maturity because many beginners don't even get there. Still, 1.8 oz of cannabis is quite a bit and so I have no major regrets. I will smoke this strain when it is cured and if it is good I may try it again with the single plant in this tent where I can trim more effectively and engage in LST for real, etc.