Day 29 Flower (Day 71)
Woohoo! First day of week five of flower and an easy day at that. I just gave the right girl 3 liters of pH 6.2 water and took some pics.
I'm still experimenting with bud photography. This time with a tripod but still no additional lights. I also need to take the pics when the lights are off as the flowers look funky under the LEDs.
The right girl is slowly starting to bulk up, but the left girl is lagging. That is no wonder, though, considering that she has had much less light due to those space issues.
Also, there's a huge quality difference between the lights in each tent. So I'm looking forward to comparing the bud quality that each tent will generate.
Day 30 Flower (Day 72)
It slipped my mind, but it's been over two weeks since I gave the girls nematodes to get rid of the gnats. As always, the nemos did their job quickly and effectively, and I haven't seen any gnats since. However, to ensure that they stayed gone, I did a second treatment today, mixed up 10 million nemos into 6 liters of water, and gave each girl half at pH 6.6.
Day 31 Flower (Day 73)
Chill day. I just gave the right girl 3 liters of pH 6.5 water and cut some clones from her.
She is deep in flower so I'll try to monster-crop her. Never tried that before but have heard that it creates some really bushy plants. As she already is bushy I'm curious to see how bushy a monster-cropped clone of her will be. She had a few low branches that I left during lollipopping for this reason and I cut four of them with a sterile razor blade, then scraped the lower part of the stem and dipped them in Clonex. They're now sitting in the window with a small LED spot to make sure that they have enough light to re-veg.
Day 32 Flower (Day 74)
I know that I got a new tent for my left girl only a few days ago, but I decided to upgrade to give her a bit more space.
I went to my local grow store today and picked up a tent made by the same company as my main tent (UndrCovrLab).
This new tent is also made specifically for my wardrobe, maximizing the available space. I went from a tiny 40x40 cm tent to a "massive" 75x45 cm tent. Still very small but almost 2x bigger. Woohoo!
The left girl was squeezed into the 40x40 tent for so long that I had to use some LST to spread her out and increase light penetration now when she has some more breathing room.
Speaking of lights, my small ViparSpectra is a bit underpowered now in this larger space, so now I have to consider upgrading that as well. The simplest solution would be to get another ViparSpectra, and while this little light has been performing well, it lacks UV diodes. I'll look around for options.
We have gotten hit by a heatwave here, so now my tents are sweltering. The main tent reached 36 degrees C today at one point :/
Oh well, I cannot do much about it except hope that the heat doesn't stress out the girls too severely.
The girls are very thirsty in this heat though, and I gave each 4.5 liters of pH 6.5 water.
Day 33 Flower (Day 75)
All I did today was to give the right girl 3 liters of pH 5.9 water. A bit low as I used too much pH down and then was too lazy to fix it.
Day 34 Flower (Day 76)
No idea what happened, but an army of fungus gnats invaded my right girl. It's only four days ago since I watered her with Nematodes against gnats, and there were no gnats at all then. A few days later, it is gnat central in my main tent (the left girl in the other tent has no gnats). It's almost like I didn't give nemos to the plant but instead gave her gnats. Weird as the nemos have always worked great in the past. Now I need to start fighting these annoying little shits. Sigh. I'll give nemos another go, and if they don't work, then I'll use some sand. Worst case scenario, I'll use Neem oil, but I really don't want to go that far.
I gave each girl 3 liters of pH 6.5 water, and that was it for today.
Day 35 Flower (Day 77)
The last day of the fifth week of flower and all is (pretty well) well in the tents.
The left girl is 103 cm tall (6 cm increase in a week), and she is lagging quite a bit behind the right girl. She is healthy and quite sticky to the touch, but the flowers still have a lot of fattening up to do. I hope that will speed up now when she has a bit more room to spread out so the light can penetrate the canopy deeper. Getting a more powerful light would also help. When in doubt, add more photons!
Someone who doesn't need more photons, though, is the right girl. The top bud has been burnt slightly, and there's light bleaching on a couple of colas as well as on a few fan leaves. I removed the driver from one of the lights and raised the light a bit higher. Every centimeter counts when you're running out of space! The right girl increased another 3 cm this week and is now 123 cm tall. I hope that is it as I'm now completely out of room.
The gnat army in my main tent is still going strong. So strong that they have now sent out a small expeditionary force to my small tent and started to colonize the area. Sigh. I Will hit the girls in a day or two with nemos, but today I just put up some yellow sticky traps and gave the right girl 3 liters of pH 6.5 water.