Grow 001 - Indoor Space Bucket - Auto

I started by planting my germinated seed into a small peet pot full of my medium. After it broke through the soil I removed the bottom from the peet pot and planted it into a grow bag and started it under the lights in my small space bucket. The bucket has a wicking system, so once the roots get settled it should water itself using the reservoir below, but for now I'm keeping the top soil damp while the roots grow out. There is a small white spot on the edge of one of the fan leaves. Could be nothing, could be from the soil I'm using have too many "nutrients" in it. Going to switch to an organic water only living soil on the next grow. I did also notice a tiny spider crawling around the edge of the bucket, so have to keep an eye out for spider mites, no webs yet, but the white spot on the leaf edge could be from that. Going to get some neem oil this week just in case. In addition, I've realized that I didn't use nearly enough soil, so really am tossing up as to whether I should carefully transplant it to a growbag with more soil in it. Otherwise I'll start giving it organic nutrients until around the second last week of flower since the plant will strip this amount of soil in no time. Learning a lot.

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.

Still dealing with fungus gnats, ebs and flows, but starting to get them down and dealt with. Plant is strong enough now that it's not causing massive issues, but working towards getting them killed off entirely. I definitely feel like the plant is stunted and considered pulling it up and starting over with what I learned, but figured I'd let it get to the end just to see what other pitfalls I come across.

More mistakes, was out of town for about 10 days after Christmas break. Had an auto water system set up that ran out of water and mader her pretty thirsty at the start of flowering. She's got really tiny leaves and tiny buds.

Just before leaving on the trip, had started to get some decent sized leaves, gnats were 95% gone at this point.

Super thirsty after being away for 10 days. Stunted from the looks of it, can't get decent sized leaves to grown, a few budsites, but feeling pretty small.

Plant is about 6 and a half inches atm, were in about week 9. The bud sites are bulking up pretty well, but not really sure how well its doing. Feels like it should be a lot bigger at this stage.

Alright. So it's not as big as some of the other plants of this strain I've seen on here. So definitely stunted. But man it has blown up since I got back from my trip to it being bone dry and near death. I was tempted to pull it and start over, but the wife said to see it out until the end in case there's more to learn and we'll good advice. Again it's not a huge plant but the bud sites are dense and frosty. It smells amazing. I'm not sure how much longer to leave it. Don't have a loupe and my phone zoom isn't showing me much. I think it's got another couple weeks of growth left. But we'll see.

Can't believe it's still getting bigger. Just started to see a couple orange hairs. So I think maybe 1-2 weeks left tops. I thought it would be done by now but it seems the stunting and stress I put it through just delayed things. It's definitely on the small side but the bud sites are plentiful. It is growing weird round leaves now. But they're all frosty.