First Time Grower

I didn't know what I was doing and was still trying to understand pretty much everything. I have a much better understanding but still very much in over my head. So far, I have only been using the Vivosun VS1000 LED light. I don't know the PH as I had no idea how to test for it yet. I don't know how to measure CO2 levels. Just after these photos were taken, I began to step my game up.

Here we are all up to date! My girls (Tosha and Alana), are worrying me. I'm still very much a novice and have no clue how to tell if there is a problem. One plant seems to be progressing nicely though two of her leaves seem droopy and rough in appearance (to me anyway). The other plant has been lagging behind but since I installed my second grow light yesterday, it seems to be kicking into gear. I transplanted them on day 8 from the propagation dome to 7 gallon fabric pots. Today, I added back my original light to the tent and have both lights running. My VS1000 is on high setting and my BESTVA Reflector Series 2000W COB has both the VEG and BLOOM lights on. This week a learned how to test and balance my PH solution and it needed about .5 ml PH up to hit 6.46. I tried to do this from the beginning but Vivosun sent me two garbage PH meters (1 soil and 1 pen) that didn't work AT ALL. I also bought two small fans from them for extra circulation and they barely make a breeze on the highest setting. I am really despising them as a company. All their products are garbage. Anyway, Vivosun is the reason why I was not testing my PH levels. That problem is now solved. Immediately after 1 week I started adding nutrients instead of just a little peroxide and calmagic. Mid-week, the RapidStart came in the mail so I added that to the solution.

I did a lot this week. I flushed each pot with about a gallon of plain ph water. I topped each plant and then two days later removed the original leaves at the bottom. Last, after I waited a few days to let the plants recover, I ended the week with an adjusted feeding solution. I decided to cut out the peroxide from the solution since these girls are rooted and healthy now. Plant 1 is doing amazing. She has all kinds of new growth emerging since I topped her off. Plant 2 is gaining some ground. She has been growing tilted and one of her leaf sets has been laying on the coco. Part of me wants to remove it as I suspect it is just a drain of nutrients. I'm trying to decide my next move and which leaves to leave alone and which to snip. I think I will wait at least another 4 days before I stress these babies out again. Any advice on LST, topping, fimming and defoliation would be appreciated. I'm trying to train the branches to grow outward using twist ties and paper clips to some effect. I was able to at least open up the plant enough for the light to work it's magic in the core of the plant.

I'm happy with the results so far. Diving in and trying different things to find what I like. Each plant is being groomed based upon how I feel the plant is communicating it needs.

This week started off very well but nearly ended badly. I topped them again and removed some bottom growth that wasn't able to get any light anyway. Then later in the week, some slight discoloration appeared on a lower leaf. I realized that it was likely nutrient burn as I hadn't ever seen any runoff after I water. I Ph'd 4 gallons of water and gave 1 gallons to each and went back and did it again as I still had no runoff (7 gallon smart pots take a ton of water apparently). I also raised the lights to 22 inches. That seemed to work. Now that I finally had 20% runoff, the soil was taking way too long to dry out. About 2 days later I fed them 1/4 gallon of nutrient solution even though the soil was still kinda wet. Some leaves at the bottom (really not that many) were developing a different kind of discoloration and one turned a rust color in the middle and and a tear in the leaf. I removed it. I fed them just a few ounces solution each day; not even going through a quarter gallon in that time. They appeared to recover. They went through a lot of stress lately so I'm going to be gentle and only feed them for the next week at least. I tested the runoff and it was slightly a reddish tint (slightly acidic) so I PH'd the new solution around 6.8 in the hopes of balancing out the water on the root level. The girls seem to have recovered and have grown a ton despite the drama this week. These photos were from Wednesday morning which is exactly 5 weeks since tiny green dots first appeared in the soil. Right after the photos, I added more CoCo which makes them look short now. But all in all I think I have it under control now.

They are really starting to grow and fast. They are completely healthy and resilient. I think I made a big mistake when trying my hand at topping a few weeks ago and cut off some nice bud sites. Some of the first branches to pop are now without any nodes. Interesting enough, the plants responded by growing all new nice and thick branches. I think I'm done messing with topping for this grow as I may have already hurt my final yield. I'm probably going to Veg for another month or until they are about 2 feet tall. I'm currently getting ready to put up a trellis net. Since I flushed with 2 gallons ph'd water about a week ago, I have increased the amount of water I'm giving them at one time. They seem to want 2 gallons per feeding to get runoff. Well I did that once with solution and they are now exploding in size. It takes about 3 days to start drying out. When I lift the pot it's still has some water weight but getting lite. I'm realizing that since these are such big pots, I have to give more water so the roots can spread out through the entire pot. I think prior, 1 gallon per feeding wasn't fully saturating the entire pot and leaving dry coco on the bottom. Humidity spikes now after I feed but goes down by the next morning. I have to replace my dehumidifier. It seems to be completely useless.

Ever since I changed the watering schedule to 2 gallons every 3 to 5 days, these babies have exploded. Suddenly, humidity has become a major issue. My dehumidifier is garbage and will maybe work when I dry/cure in a small closet later on. I just dropped 200 on hOmeLabs 4,500 Sq. Ft Energy Star Dehumidifier for Extra Large Rooms and Basements. I could have gone with a lower model but this one was only $40 more than their weakest and $5 more then their middle tear. I figured, why the hell not? If it is too big I'll send it back but the dimensions are supposedly all about the same no matter which model. I put up the trellis net the day of these pictures and not really sure if I'm doing it correctly. The branches may not be long enough yet or maybe I need to lower the net even further. No idea! I'm hoping to switch to flower next week but I am dead set on a two foot plant before I switch. My tent is supposed to be 4x4x6 but is actually 3'11"x3'11"x7'5". That's fine by me. I figure the pots are about a foot, the lights will have to be minimum 1 foot away from the plants and will probably eat up another foot in space at the top. That leaves me with 4 feet to play with. Since Blue Dream doubles in size during flower, I figure switching at 2 foot tall will be ideal. Sorry about the photos! I took them with the lights on.

Solid week. I was going to veg longer but I need to get on with it. I want to run 4 plants next time to fill the tent. The pictures are exactly 8 weeks from sprout. Over the weekend, I lollopped them which caused some stress. It was necessary though. Watering was becoming impossible with all the under growth. Heat and humidity were out of control. There were huge fan leaves blocking light to bud sites. There were dead yellow and crusty ass leaves in the center that were starved of light. I have only flushed these girls once to test how far I can push it. Well here at the very end of week 8, I have new signs of discoloration forming on the tips of the plants. Like last time, I raised the lights back to 2 feet and started week 9 today with a 2 gallons each watering of ph'ed water with a half dose of only the Diamond Nectar and Cal Mag. No runoff. I am now getting another 4 gallons ready with a half does of each nutrient but a full dose of FloraBloom as I want them to transition. Today (day 57), I let the lights go off at 10 am but didn't turn them back on until 8pm. Tomorrow I will do the same. Saturday and Sunday off at 9pm. And then finally on Monday I will do a full 12/12 light cycle. I have no idea if this helps in any way, it just seems like the season change over the course of time. I don't recall the sun suddenly going down 8 hours early all of a sudden in a day. I plan to hang another layer of netting this week so I can weave the sure to grow blue dream branches through them for a more even canopy. The new dehumidifier came in the mail (meant for something like 2400 sq foot basements) and I am using it in a home of 1800 sq feet hahahaha This thing is an absolute MONSTER and brought the humidity down from 77% to 49% in about 4 hours.

This week was very uneventful. They are growing healthy. I waited a full 4 days to water this time and one of the plants started looking weak and a branch or two became rather soft and flimsy. I watered and two hours later she fully recovered and looks great again. I am not a fan of this trellis net. The squares are far too big which is making it difficult to keep the canopy completely even. I'm getting concerned about their height now. I assumed they would start getting tall now that they are in flower but they seem to just keep getting bushier. I'd like for them to jump up another two feet before harvest.

These babies look amazing. I am extremely happy with it. I just hope they don't get too big for my tent! I had to defoliate again, The growth was making it too hard to get the wand in there and water correctly. Besides, I want to keep heat and humidity down as best as I can. I preserved the canopy, making sure not to trim any leaves that would cause light to pass through to the ground below. THEY LOVED IT> unlike last time. This time there was zero sign of stress. I turned up the FloraBloom last week and reduced the Floragrow to a minimum. I find it interesting that my plants seem to favor the light from the weaker of my two grow lights. The main one certainly provides the most light but I suspect it is lacking in white or blue light whereas my smaller light seems to use mostly white/blue lights.

Sorry I posted this a week late. The photos are in fact from last week and I just never got around to posting them here. Not a lot of news. I still haven't put up my second trellis net but I don't think it's necessary yet if at all.

88 Days in. Today I put up the second net. I also raised the lights, lightly defoliated and repositioned the fans. I now have a wet/dry vac which is making life so much easier. Not much to report. Some discolored and dead leaves in the middle where there is no light (removed). The plant on the left continues to lag behind and just seems stunted overall compared to the other. I mean it's healthy just a midget. Everyone told me that Blue Dream grows BIG in veg. I must be doing something wrong. They are bushy but don't seem to be getting the height I wanted. I can't imagine I will be vegging for anymore then another 5 weeks. Next time, I am doing 4 plants in 5 gallon pots (7 is just too damn big and needs too much water). I am now watering every 3 days as if I wait 4 days the plants branches start to soften. I was giving 2 gallons each but now I'm up to 2 and 1/2 gallons per plant every 3 days. It's gotten to the point where it's just too much of a paint to be slowly mixing each nutrient to each container, giving 10 minutes to sit and returning for the next. It seems to take all day just to prepare the water. I really would like to avoid going to 3 gallons per plant because container.... if this happens I will just start feeding every other day with less water.

Sorry I failed to take pictures or update last week. There has been a family emergency and I just didn't have the time. I will post an update for the end of week 14 now.

Well here I am just entering into late bloom with 3 weeks left before harvest and I have just encountered my first MAJOR PROBLEM. I don't know what is wrong. Last week, I noticed some nutrient burn forming on the tips of the leaves of both plants. I flushed with some ph'd calmag water. Everything seemed to be recovering well. I had a pretty rough night Saturday and felt like all hell on Sunday. I forced myself to mix the nutrients and water but apparently I made a mistake. When reading my feeding chart in my hangover state, I managed to confuse some of the nutes and wound up giving 2.5ml/gal of Flora Nector when I was supposed to leave it out this week. Ugh. Today (Tuesday) I opened my tent and noticed a bunch of leaves are starting to turn yellow, some have yellow spots and I found about 3 or 4 leaves that have a few rust colored spots (not many spots but still). I am in flower! I can't have issues like this now. Not to mention, the plant on the left is just not growing upward like the other. Yet, the buds it is producing are rather large and bigger then the plant on the right. I hope I didn't mess these girls up. After flushing last Thursday I really really don't want to do it again right now. They only have 2 more weeks until I use FloraKleen to flush the girls out before harvest. This week that is just starting is my "late bloom" week and next week is my "Ripen" week.

The girls have done much better. I am only giving 2 nutes regularly and just a taste of flora micro every other feeding. Today marks 15 full weeks. I leave for vacation in under 3 weeks. I need a couple days to harvest and a week to flush. That means this is my final lap around the track. I spoke to a friend who explained I need to cut the nitrogen in late flower. He also said that it's normal for a plant in late flower to cannibalize some leaves. This explains most of my troubles last week. Other then that, the heat is becoming an issue but only when the bedroom door is left closed. Unfortunately there have been several days where my roommate closed the door laye night bringing his girlfriend home. This could also have caused some stress and discoloration. But regardless, these babies are ready to pop.

I skipped last weeks update. These photos are actually taken just shy of week 17. I began flushing this past Friday and will flush one final time today. I plan to harvest Thursday night. I will take pictures and both Thursday and Friday as my week 17 update. They will be on dry racks until I return from vacation on 5/16. I will then transfer the buds to mason jars where they will remain for at least 3 weeks. I may even leave some in the jars for much longer in hopes of creating some truly amazing smoke. As you can see, there are some crazy colors appearing on the leaves. I don't much care at this point. I am at the end and am more concerned with flushing out all the nutes so that the flavor is enjoyable. I am also having someone step in for me while I am away to water the plants again. I will be trying to regenerate them and they will be placed on an 18/6 light schedule while I am gone. I am told they may yield a bit less next time but I don't care. I would like the opportunity to use my new found knowledge to make clones of the plant on the right side in the coming months.

I put the girls in darkness for the last 48 hours before harvest. Monsters. Took me 12 hours to harvest. I am not going to weigh it as I just don't have the time. I will weight it after it dries. I made a few cutlings in hope I can make some clones. I left folliage and tiny buds on them. I put them back in the tent under 24 hour light to try and regenerate them. Leaving on vacation now and will update this journal in 2 weeks

Today is day 135 and this should be my week 19 update. I was on vacation for week 18 happy belated harvest day! Before harvest, I had them in complete dark for 48 hours and they hadn't had water in 5 days. Before I left for vacation, the first thing I did was trim off the leaves and sugar leaves. It was only after that I cut the branches to lay them to dry. After they were trimmed up, I cut branches off of the plants mostly to preserve the large buds in clusters for appearances. I put in well over 12 hours of work on harvest day but after 90% of the works was done.. They rested in two completely full drying racks in my bedroom closet with the doors half closed over, an oscillating fan was placed 5 feet from the closet doors. It was 8 days later that I arrived home to complete the process. The humidity tracked about 50 - 52% and temperature was upper 60's to low 70's the entire time I was gone. After dried, I placed it all in Mason Jars (22 to be exact) anywhere from 50% to 70% full. I tried a small nug and rolled it up. It was actually pretty good already but still kind of grassy I still not have weighed it at this point except for one jar that came in at just over an ounce. NEXT, the girls are STILL ALIVE. You will notice that I left a lot of small nugs and a good amount of leaves on both. The nugs you see were not worth a thing when I left but grew while I was away. I had them on a 24 hour light schedule so I wouldn't have to worry about timers. They were watered 2 gallons each Saturday, 1 gallon each both Tuesday and Thursday while I was away. They look like they could rebound and give me another good harvest. It will also let me try my hand at clones soon. I plan to clone both these girls and add two more plants to the tent.

I have been burping the jars twice a day. When I first placed the buds in the jars, humidity was reading 44% inside. The next morning I turned on the shower connected to my bedroom and then opened the jars stacked in a closed closet next to the bathroom. After I was done getting ready, humidity in the jars went up a few percent. Then in the evening I burped without the shower on for another 10 to 20 minutes. I have done this for 4 days now and the humidity in the jars climbed a few percent each day. They were at 59% earlier but are now down to 56% as I am burping them right this moment. I tested another bud just now. Wow am I high. It's damn good and tastes a bit better now. It is starting to get sticky when breaking it up (unlike a few days ago). The grassy taste is nearly gone and it burns much smoother too. The color is starting to set in and the hairs are getting nice and red. I believe I will continue to use the shower trick each morning to bring humidity up another percent or two until I reach a high of 62%. Then I will only burp when humidity is around 48% from then out. The girls look like they will make it for another round. I am treating them like two plants entering late Veg. They are loaded with branches and have what appear to be new leaves forming already. They are loaded with some nice little buds too which have grown much bigger since harvest. I don't want to harvest again for fear of screwing up the regen. I am nervous that one may go herm and seed everything up (they have been through a ton of stress). I made sure to smoke my test J with my girls and blew plenty of their own smoke at them. They seem to like it lmao **UPDATE** Long story short, when you try to reveg plants they are super sensitive. I was able to get these girls full and healthy again. Then I forgot to water them for 5 days and they dried out. One bounced right back but the other took some work. I had to remove dead branches to allow the second plant to thrive again. Just when I was about to flip them back into flower, some roommate drama happened. I was forced to scrap the girls and I was furious about it. The buds just got better with age. I've been in a daze ever since harvest. Just a word of advice, even if it is legal to grow plants in your state.... DO NOT TELL TO MANY PEOPLE. My fool of an ex-roomate went and bragged to his friends at the bar one night. Two morons showed up and broke in and tried to take them. They walked into the wrong house. Needless to say, I had to scrap the entire operation.