🍬🌿 8×8 Adventure – Harvest Diary
Candy Rain Auto by Zamnesia
👑 PART 2: THE SOLO SURVIVOR GETS HER STUDIO SESSION! 900 PHOTOS, BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS & A HARVEST WORTH CELEBRATING! 📸💎✂️
Hello everyone, and welcome back to another chapter of the 8×8 Adventure! 🌱💚
My friends…
OUR CANDY RAIN IS READY FOR HER CLOSE-UP! 🍬👑📸
And believe me, this girl deserves every second of the spotlight.
Last week, we said goodbye to our beautiful solo survivor in the growing room. We documented her harvest day, looked back at her journey, and began the transition into the post-harvest chapter.
This week, we're taking that story a little further.
We're bringing her into the studio, giving her the photographic attention she deserves, getting our hands busy with the trimming scissors, and finally putting some numbers on the table.
And what a beautiful result!
🍬🌸💚
Before we get started, a little reminder for anyone joining us for the first time.
If you haven't followed Candy Rain's journey from the beginning, I strongly recommend going back through her previous reports. You'll find the details of how she developed, what made her our solo survivor, and how she reached this beautiful harvest.
I don't want anyone to miss the story that brought us here!
But let's make a quick recap before giving this girl the spotlight.
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🌱 A QUICK RECAP — HOW DID WE GET HERE?
Candy Rain Auto by Zamnesia has been part of our 8×8 Adventure, a project built around documenting different genetics and individual plant expressions within the same general growing environment.
One room.
A shared growing environment.
Different genetics.
Different personalities.
And plenty of individual stories!
The central experiment has been our 12/12 from seed adventure, where the plants started their journey under a 12/12 light schedule rather than following a conventional vegetative period before flowering.
Candy Rain became our beautiful solo survivor in this part of the project.
We've followed her through her development, watched her flowers mature, documented her later flowering stages, and eventually reached the moment when she was ready to leave the growing room.
And now we're here.
From seed to harvest, from the growing room to the studio, and finally to the trimming table.
🍬🌿
If you want to see the full journey, please take a moment to visit her previous diary entries. They're all part of the same story, and I genuinely enjoy having the opportunity to document each chapter rather than simply showing the final result.
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📸 FIRST STOP: THE STUDIO!
Before getting into the trimming, we gave Candy Rain a proper studio session.
And I have to say…
I absolutely loved this one!
We brought her into the studio as a full plant, giving ourselves the opportunity to photograph her overall structure and capture her from different perspectives.
Not everything needs to be a macro photograph.
Sometimes it's important to step back and appreciate the whole plant, the flowers, their arrangement, and the overall result of the journey.
Other times, it's worth getting ridiculously close and exploring the little details.
😂🔬📸
So we did both!
We took some wider photographs, some closer shots, and then moved into the macro world.
And that's where things got particularly interesting.
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🔬 THE 900-PHOTO STACK — CANDY RAIN IN ANOTHER DIMENSION!
Yes, my friends…
NINE HUNDRED PHOTOGRAPHS!
😂😂😂📸
For one of her macro photographs, we created a focus stack using approximately 900 individual frames.
That's right. Nine hundred!
The idea behind focus stacking is to capture a sequence of photographs at different focus positions and combine the sharp areas into one final image.
At macro magnification, the depth of field can be extremely shallow. A single photograph may only show a small portion of the subject in focus.
By combining multiple frames, we can reveal much more detail across the final image.
And Candy Rain gave us a beautiful subject to work with.
For this session, we also played with red backgrounds, creating a different visual atmosphere from some of our previous studio photographs.
I really like how this one turned out.
The contrast, the colours, the details, and the way the flowers stand out against the background…
Beautiful!
🍬❤️📸
It's always satisfying to see hundreds of individual frames come together into one final photograph.
And yes, I know what some of you are thinking.
Growing a plant for weeks and then spending an entire session taking 900 photographs of her flowers…
I might have a little problem.
😂😂😂
But it's a problem I genuinely enjoy!
For me, photography is another way of appreciating the plants. It allows us to look beyond the overall appearance and explore the details that we might otherwise overlook.
And Candy Rain certainly deserved that extra attention.
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✂️ TRIMMING TIME — LET'S GET TO WORK!
After the studio session, it was time to move on to the trimming table.
We started by separating the branches and working over the TrimBin.
Each section was handled individually, allowing us to separate the flowers and collect the trimming material as we went.
Then came the part that always requires a little patience.
One bud at a time.
By hand.
With normal gloves, care, and a pair of Zamnesia curved scissors with pointed tips.
✂️🌸
No rushing.
No throwing everything together.
We worked through the flowers individually, giving each one the attention it deserved.
I genuinely enjoy this part of the process.
Yes, it takes time.
Yes, your hands eventually remind you that you've been trimming for quite a while.
😂
But there's something satisfying about working through a harvest and seeing the finished flowers gradually take shape.
The TrimBin helps keep the workspace organised and collects the material as we work, while the curved scissors give us the control needed for careful hand trimming.
And most importantly, we take our time.
Every flower deserves a little love and attention.
🍬💚
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⚖️ THE NUMBERS ARE IN!
Now, let's talk numbers!
Because after all the photography, the studio session, the trimming, and the time spent working through the flowers, it's finally time to put the result on the scale.
And Candy Rain gave us:
🌿 Wet flower weight: 925.2 g
🌸 Final dry flower weight: 102.8 g
102.8 grams of dry flowers!
Now, I know this isn't what anyone would call an enormous harvest in terms of quantity.
But honestly?
I'm incredibly happy with it.
Because numbers are only one part of the story.
The final appearance, the flower quality, the aroma, the flavour, and the overall experience all matter.
And this girl has already given us plenty of reasons to smile.
🍬💚
The most important thing is that we have a beautiful final result from a plant that was genuinely enjoyable to follow throughout the adventure.
And when it comes to the quality of what she produced…
Well, let's just say I have some very positive things to share.
But we'll save those details for the smoke review!
😉🌸
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💎 A BEAUTIFUL HARVEST — AND A GIRL WORTH REMEMBERING
What I particularly appreciate about Candy Rain is that she has given us a complete story.
She wasn't just another plant occupying space in the 8×8.
She became our solo survivor, and we followed her individually throughout her journey.
We watched her develop.
We photographed her flowering progress.
We brought her into the studio.
We explored her flowers through macro photography.
We created a 900-frame focus stack.
And now we've finished trimming and weighed the final flowers.
That's what I love about documenting these adventures.
It's not just about the final weight.
It's about everything that happened between the first stages of growth and the moment we finally hold the finished flowers in our hands.
And Candy Rain has given us a beautiful example of that.
🍬👑🌿
She's been a pleasure to grow, a pleasure to photograph, and a pleasure to work with during the harvest.
I'm genuinely happy with what she gave us.
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⭐ A LITTLE PREVIEW OF OUR FINAL VERDICT
I'm not going to get into the full smoke review just yet.
That deserves its own report, and I want to give the aroma, flavour, smoothness, and effects the attention they deserve.
But I can already tell you that I'm extremely happy with this girl.
The taste, the smell, and the overall quality have made a fantastic impression on me.
And yes…
She's getting a 10/10 from me!
🍬⭐💚
We'll explain exactly why when we sit down for her smoke review.
For now, let's simply appreciate the harvest and the beautiful flowers she gave us.
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🌿 THE 8×8 ADVENTURE — SAME ROOM, DIFFERENT STORIES
Candy Rain's journey is another lovely reminder of what this entire project is about.
Different plants, different genetics, and different expressions, all sharing the same general growing environment.
Our 12/12 from seed experiment has given us plenty to observe, compare, and document.
And every individual diary contributes another piece to the bigger picture.
That's why we continue to give each plant her own space.
We want to preserve her journey, her photographs, her milestones, and the things that made her special.
Candy Rain may have been our solo survivor, but she has certainly earned her place in the 8×8 Adventure.
And I'm glad we gave her the opportunity to shine.
🍬🌱💚
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💭 FINAL THOUGHTS — OUR SOLO SURVIVOR DESERVES HER CROWN!
Well, my friends…
Candy Rain Auto by Zamnesia has officially completed another chapter of her journey!
We brought her into the studio as a full plant.
We captured her from different perspectives.
We explored her flowers through macro photography.
We created a beautiful 900-photo focus stack with red backgrounds.
We separated the branches, worked through the flowers individually, and hand-trimmed everything with care using our Zamnesia curved scissors and TrimBin.
And finally, we put the results on the scale.
925.2 g wet flower weight.
102.8 g dry flower weight.
🍬💎🌸
Not an abundance harvest in terms of quantity, perhaps, but a result I'm genuinely happy with.
And sometimes, that's exactly what matters.
We don't grow just to chase numbers.
We grow to enjoy the process, learn something along the way, appreciate the genetics, and hopefully finish with something beautiful.
Candy Rain delivered on that experience.
She's been a wonderful part of this adventure, and she absolutely deserves her spotlight.
So, to our beautiful solo survivor…
Thank you for the journey, the photographs, the flowers, and all those reasons to keep coming back with the camera.
You did wonderfully!
🍬👑💚
But we're not finished yet.
The smoke review is still waiting, and I have a feeling we'll have plenty to talk about when that moment arrives.
Stay tuned!
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🙏 THANK YOU — TO EVERYONE WHO MAKES THIS ADVENTURE POSSIBLE!
A massive thank you to Zamnesia for the Candy Rain genetics and for giving us the opportunity to grow and document this beautiful cultivar.
Thank you to Plagron for supporting the garden with the growing media and nutrition throughout the adventure.
A huge thank you to Future of Grow for supplying the additional Black Series 600W fixtures and allowing us to explore the expanded lighting setup in the 8×8.
Thank you to Lumiflora for helping bring additional light deeper into the canopy, and to TrolMaster for helping monitor and manage the room behind the scenes.
And, of course, thank you to everyone here on GrowDiaries.
Every comment, every question, every interaction, and every bit of support makes these diaries even more enjoyable to create.
💚🌱
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💚 COME JOIN THE DOG DOCTOR COMMUNITY ON DISCORD!
And if you're not already part of our little corner of the growing community, you're more than welcome to join us!
🔗 https://discord.gg/dogdoctorofficial
We have a lovely community where growers can share photographs, experiences, questions, ideas, and knowledge.
We also organise giveaways, competitions, community cups, and plenty of other activities.
There are always conversations happening, new things to discover, and opportunities to meet fellow growers from around the world.
Whether you're an experienced grower or just starting your journey, come and say hello!
🎁 Giveaways
🏆 Community competitions and cups
📸 Photography and grow discussions
🌱 Sharing experiences and learning together
Everyone is welcome!
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🍬 UNTIL THE NEXT CHAPTER…
One solo survivor.
One beautiful journey.
900 photographs in one macro stack.
925.2 grams wet.
102.8 grams dry.
And one very happy DogDoctor!
😂🍬💚
Candy Rain, you absolutely deserve your spotlight.
Thank you for being part of the 8×8 Adventure, beautiful girl.
We'll be back with the smoke review, where we'll finally talk about everything that makes this cultivar so special.
Until then, enjoy the photographs, appreciate the flowers, and don't forget to check out her previous reports to follow the entire journey.
Growers Love, my friends! 💚🌱
Happy growing, take care everyone…
And remember:
Sometimes the solo survivor is all you need to make a beautiful story.
🍬👑🌸💎