13 Aug 2021
Happy Friday the 13th everyone! I’m not a superstitious person, but I hope everything I did today turns out well.
Today was a big day in my grow room. I finally cleaned up my big tent and got my three little Ladies transplanted into their new pots, as well as set up their new home to maximize their environment. I moved my Spider Farmer SF-1000 light into the big tent so that each of my girls has their own dedicated light, but that the spillover from the other two will be 3x as good! I leveled the lights 18 inches above the plants for even light distribution over the entire grow area.
I also got a new standing oscillating fan for improved airflow and took out the other two I have been using. I can always add them back later if needed. I also repositioned my carbon filter and exhaust fan which opened up the whole top of the tent to place the 3rd light.
I changed a lot of stuff in my grow room today in order for it to be neater, more organized, and basically more efficient as a grow space. Now if I can just get rid of all the damn boxes! That’s an inside joke with my wife.
Now to my ladies… As I mentioned above, I transplanted my trio into their final homes today. I filled the pots with the same soil that they are currently in, Fox Farm’s Ocean Forest Potting Soil. I opened a small hole in the middle, then extracted each plant, one by one from their solo cups. I broke up the root ball of each plant so that the roots cover more area in their new home. Then I surrounded the root ball with more fresh soil and made sure each was secure in their positions. I then defoliated each plant of all their dead or dying leaves and then carried them upstairs to the grow room. After placing each plant into position, I labeled them all so I, and I’ll assume all of you, can keep track of which is which. They’re still C1, C2, and C3.
Today I didn’t want to do anything really crazy, so I just watered the plants with two gallons of properly pH’ed water in order to get the plant roots and fresh soil wet enough to stay moist and consolidate a little better into one mass. I also wanted plain water so that I could see what the TDS levels were like from just the soil and water considering that the soil has some nutrients all by itself.
So, each plant received approximately 3/4 of a gallon of water from 2 separate gallons. One with a pH of 6.4 and TDS going in of 89 ppm, and the other 6.7 with TDS of 98 ppm. Each plant had a decent amount of runoff from the water given. The runoff results were as follows:
C1 - pH 5.7, TDS 628 ppm
C2 - pH 6.2, TDS 532 ppm
C3 - pH 6.1, TDS 622 ppm
As you can see, the TDS going in was under 100, but the runoff was significantly higher. I think I’ll wait until their runoff TDS is lower before I recommence giving additional nutrients. I’ll just have to see how it goes. Temperature is hot outside again, so the temperature was a little elevated at 84F, and the humidity was 55%.
Now the fun of caring for 3 big plants at once. 🙄 I thought two was tough! What have I gotten myself into! Happy growing everyone!
15 Aug 2021
So today started the fun of feeding three plants at once. I’m still just giving properly pH’ed water to try and use the nutrients in the soil first instead of adding additional nutrients to a pot that is already full of nutrient rich soil. I may do this one or two more times before starting the nutrients in the water solution again.
I’m going to document each plant properly here in the note, but I can only put one on the updated weekly report for the website. I’m going to alternate between the 3, so today I’m going to start with C1.
Each of the plants seem to be adjusting well to their new pot, as well as to their new environment inside the big tent. I took a couple of pics of each plant today to add to the diary for your viewing pleasure.
The gallons of water (3 of them) were filled with tap water and then measured and treated independently as follows:
C1 - gallon had initial pH of 7.7.
C2 - initial pH of 7.7.
C3 - initial pH of 7.8.
I added 5 gtts (.25ml) of pH DOWN to each gallon which adjusted the pH to 6.2 in all three gallons.
TDS going in was as follows:
C1 - 94 ppm
C2 - 98 ppm
C3 - 91 ppm
Runoff was also measured independently, and all 3 had very low runoff pH levels. Very low!!
C1 - 5.2
C2 - 5.4
C3 - 5.3
TDS runoff was:
C1 - 597 ppm
C2 - 577 ppm
C3 - 647 ppm
As you can see, the TDS runoff is still pretty high due to the soil. I’m going to be looking after them carefully over the next week or so to see if any deficiencies can be seen and address them to prevent any issues from becoming a problem. So far so good. Stay tuned to see how this all ends. Happy growing everyone!
20 Aug 2021
It has been nearly 5 days since I’ve fed my ladies. I’m not proud of that fact, but it is what it is.
They are all looking a little drawn out and dry, and a few of the leaves on C2 have gotten some pinkish/red borders on some of its leaves. I don’t really have any reason other than pure laziness!
Today is the last day that I plan on giving plain pH’ed water, but I’m going to ease into nutrients on the next feeding by using half quantities till I see how they do.
Today they each were given a gallon of water. The initial pH of each gallon was 7.3. I added 3 gtts (.2ml) of pH DOWN to each gallon which adjusted their pH levels to: C1 - 6.7, C2 - 6.6, and C3 - 6.7. Their TDS levels going in were: C1 - 90 ppm, C2 - 95 ppm, and C3 - 92 ppm.
Runoff pH and TDS levels were:
C1 - pH 5.8, TDS 422 ppm
C2 - pH 6.0, TDS 529 ppm
C3 - pH 5.8, TDS 489 ppm
The temperature in the tent was 82F, and humidity was 53%. The plants still look pretty good, and are continuing to grow and adjust well to their recent changes. I’ve decided to just let these ladies grow naturally to see how it goes. What I mean is that I’m not planning on using any LST or HST methods to train them. I do plan on topping them at some point, but not yet. I’ll just have to see how it goes.
Happy growing everyone!