D28 - The first day in the fourth week of veg for Nordle #2 and the start of the third week for #1. I gave both girls around 2.5-liters of the compost tea I started brewing yesterday, and for once, I remembered to check the pH and adjust it to 6.5. Yay, progress! D29 - Today, it was finally time to top the second girl. She was already seven nodes tall, around 30 cm. First, I got everything together as I prefer to have what I need before starting instead of running around looking for something mid-process: Snips, a couple of glasses with water to put cuttings in, bonsai wire and soil staples, clone-gel and a new razor blade, dwc cloner, peppermint oil and Q-tip. After cleaning the snips thoroughly with alcohol, I topped her just above her fourth node. I'm going to mainline her, so I removed everything below the fourth as well. She went from a lush lady to a stick figure! I secured her remaining two branches using staples and wire. The final touch in the tent was to put some peppermint oil on a Q-tip. Bugs and pests are attracted to the scent of injured plants. On the other hand, they hate the smell of peppermint oil, and it should deter the critters even though the girl smells like a buffet. I bought this tiny DWC system for a few bucks off Amazon a while back and want to try it as a cloner. (The primary purpose of this cloning project is to practice taking clones, plus see how well this hydro system works.) I trimmed each cutting before lightly scraping the stalk, making a fresh cut with the razor blade, and finally into a net-pot. I had planned to put some clone-gel into the water, but it turned out that the bottle had gone bad since last time. Oh well, pure water for this test run then. Finally, I cut up all the removed leaves and stalks into small pieces and distributed them on top of the soil in the pot. Have to keep that nutrition cycle going. Plus, like this, I don't have to worry about safely disposing those telltale leaves. Win-win in my book. D34 - The final day in the fourth week of veg for Nordle #2 and the end of the third week for #1. #2 has recovered great after her first topping, and I'm planning on doing her second topping tomorrow, six days after the first. #1 is a week behind so I'm planning on topping her in a couple of days as I want to make sure that her fourth node is at the same height as the fourth node on the second girl. The clones are looking really healthy but no roots yet but maybe that is to be expected considering that I'm using no rooting hormones.