Week 7: 5x9 Main Stage Week 7 saw the four Chicken ‘n Wafflez, three Jelly Donutz and one Vanilla Frosting (all from Humboldt Seed Co.) really start coming into their own; soon it’s going to be a straight up jungle in the 5x9. Good news! The beneficial nematodes have worked wonders against the fungus gnat infestation; they knocked it down in a week, DONE! If you’re in living soil and haven’t invested in beneficial nematodes to prevent/combat fungus gnats, I’d say it is a must. I ordered from naturesgoodguys.com, received 5 million for total (shipping was the highest cost, so if you can order some other beneficial insects for your grow at the same time, do it, so you only pay for shipping once!) I’m thinking at the end of week 8 I’m going to flip to flower. That means I will need to take clones from each of the plants in the 5x9 this week, in case, later, any of them turn out to be keepers. As far as watering was concerned, they are definitely drinking more as they fill out these 30-gallon pots. Generally, the rule is 5-10% water by volume for living soil. I water every other day, generally, and for the most recent watering, I went ahead and gave a little over 2 gallons per plant. To make it easier to prep the water I just use 5-gallon buckets and do all my measurements accordingly for each bucket. I want to get in a better habit of filling the buckets for my next watering before I leave the grow, so the chlorine has at least 24 hours to off-gas, but sometimes I’m lazy and forgetful. It is supposed to be better for the microbes to let any chlorine off-gas… but like I said, it doesn’t always happen that way lol. I imagine if your water has more chlorine it could cause more of a problem for your microbes, in which case letting the water sit out for 12-24 hours would probably be more beneficial. Most Recent Watering: -Quillaja (¼ tsp/gal) -Rootwise Mycrobe Complete (½ tsp/gal) -Rootwise Enzyme Elixir (3 ml/gal) Happy Growing!