Okay so learned a lot this week.
For starters, woke up a couple days after my last post to my soil being a shiny green colour and an infestation of fungus gnats. At that point I had the brown leaves and the plant was stressed and not doing well at all. Went from smooth sailing to disaster in like 12 hours of sleep.
In hindsight, I can see it now starting in last weeks pictures.
I stripped out as much of the fungus from the top soil as I could, I then moved the plant outside while dealing with the fungus gnats. I immediately flushed the soil with some neem oil and water, and then moved the plant into the hot outdoor sun to dry out the soil for a couple days. By that point, my pump sprayer had arrived, so I started misting the plant and top soil with the neem oil and water mixture. Not much, enough to coat the top soil and plant, as well as the sides and fabric of the fabric pot. The sun would dry it out in a couple hours, and then I'd reapply and let it dry out again for a couple days.
Then did another misting of the neem oil solution, and again let it dry in the sun.
At the end of the week the fungus gnats were pretty much non existent. I've also added a yellow sticky trap to the bucket, so far in the half day it's been in there it hasn't gotten a gnat yet, so hoping I was able to quickly expunge the problem. Next week I'll give it another dose of neem with its regular watering and I've now learned my lesson as to not overwater it.
Also put a dehumidifier in the closet to bring the humidity down in there. Went from mid 70% humidity to 50% in a couple days. Should make it a lot harder for fungus gnats to get comfortable in there again.
I'm also concerned its a bit hot in the bucket. I've been looking at tents, and will move the next grow into tents so I can add some more plants and give it some more space. I'll use my current light in a different part of the tent for seedlings and get a bigger light that can manage 3-4 plants.
After getting things feeling in control again, and giving the plant a couple days to chill out and drink up, I decided to transfer her to a bigger pot with more soil.
:::ANOTHER MISTAKE I MADE:::
I started my grow in a 3 gallon fabric pot that I filled up a quarter of the way. After a week I realized my mistake that I should have given it as much room to grow as possible. After the gnat issues I was tempted to just let it ride its way out, I know either way the yield of this plant has been terribly compromised, so lets call this a learning experience. I've moved the plant carefully into a full fabric pot trying not to disturb the roots at all, but lets be real I for sure did.
At least if she dies its early on and I can get another seed started asap.
Lets see what next week brings.
Go baby go! I got one kinda like this that I have been working on forever now and it friggin came back! The weird leaves went away and all looks normal, stunted as all hell but curious how it will play out.
Ima follow this to check final, good luck and may your harvest be potent!