Well well well! We made it to week 3 of flower and everything is just fine. Hahahahaha! Much excite!
11/11/2025
So here we are! Ready for a new week and some new stuff to look at. Over the last couple weeks we've been focused on upward outward growth. Height and leaf structure. Roots and nutes. (Had to tune there. Just had to do it.) But now that the stretch has basically ended, it's time to focus on the buds. We're going to focus on the lowers this run. I feel like tho
This week we are changing some things. I've decreased the humidity down to 45% and increased the temp to 78°. I might drop it back down to 75°, but I've read you can have it warmer and brighter with CO2 in the mix. And I happen to have CO2 in the mix. So I'm trying it out. Plus, I think the plants are looking for more light. They are praying a bit I increased the light intensity to 90%. It should be around 850 PPFD. I know that's a bit high for an autoflower, but these 2 are definitely enjoying the light.
As for the solution, it's stays the same this week. I set the pH to 5.9 as I have read a slightly higher pH is good for the flowering stage. Probably helps with specific nutrient uptake.
Papaya Cookies is looking fantastic. I noticed that she has a circle of tops all leaning out and making a nice open canopy. As for any ailments, I don't see anything anymore. I got rid of all the leaves with any type of issue on them and am now at all fresh growth. And some of the older leaves just to keep some energy coming in. Thos of course wasn't today. But the circle of tops looks great. I may have to use the scrog net. We shall see.
Lemon Cherry Cookies also looks fantastic. She has tops everywhere. Nothing leaning out, but a pretty even spread of tops all over. I did notice that she got a little bit taller than Papaya Cookies. But I'm not sure when that happened. They were perfectly level the other day. Now she's about an inch taller than her counterpart. Maybe a bit more. Something tells me this little lady has a bit more growth in her. I'm just not seeing it. Hopefully she gets over 24". That's what I want. 2 ft plant. I'd prefer a 3 ft plant, but I can't have everything. This one will do just fine. Tons of bud sites. Lots of light and air flow. Perfectly fed.
I also need to address the fact that I won't be cleaning out my buckets this week. There's no change in nutrients, and I made sure to at least wipe the sides of the bucket just over the water. There's a lot of air and water circulation, so I'm not all that worried about anything slimy or icky. There's just no point. They are getting just under a gallon of fresh water every day. So it eventually replaces the older water and depleted nutrients. Anyway, rant over. Lol.
Oh no! I just spilled my humidifier! Shit!...
Well that sucked. Anyway, I have these new grow tent duct vents. They are supposed to block out the light and let the air in. The ones I got go on the 8" ports on the bottom of my tent. Good airflow.
That's all for now.
11/12/2025
Well I noticed an issue with both plants. Light stress. They seemed fine for the lostest time with the light at 90% now I have the light at 60% and the DLI is 45 mol. The tent is also running a bit warm and won't go down. The humidity is also giving me a bit of an issue. It won't stay below 50% I have it set to 75° and 45% RH.
Anyway, light stress. I think I cought it in time before any real damage can be done. Both plants were showing signs of stress. Yellowing tips, cupping leaves, praying to high. All the things. So let's hope they are alright. I bet they are.
Papaya Cookies looks great. I had to take a few leaves off of her. Inner leaves that were blocking bud sites. I also noticed the sativa side of her genetics. The internodal spacing is pretty long. I like that for trimming. But I also like a super dense bush. Just buds and colas. Barely any leaves. Not true. I always keep leaves.
Lemon Cherry Cookies was the one that I noticed first. She was perfect until now. And then I knew it was light stress. Anyway, other than that, she's doing great. I did pull a few leaves as well. Not too many. Same reason. Blocking bud sites.
The pH is swinging down now. So I need to add a lot of pH up. When I added the silica first, it was super high. It kind of leveled out to like 6.2, but without it, it's like 4.3 and that's way too low. The watering trick works for the most part. I forgot to increase the pH to 6.2 so it can adjust the pH to 5.8 it works, kinda. As I said, I didn't bring the lH up enough to get it at 5.8. So today I needed to put them in the spare bucket for pHing. No big deal, but they are gonna get heavy and bendy. We'll have to see what happens. Hopefully they start drinking a gallon a day soon. Much easier to pH a gallon of water than to try and do it with half a gallon.
The Other One still has plenty of life on her. Still growing that main cola.
That's it for today.
11/13/2025
I noticed a leaf start to die on Papaya Cookies just like the last time. So I sprayed the shit out of the plants with the crop defender stuff. No way am I running into another infection or disease or bug. Nope. Not me.
I'm also starting to think another few days of grow nutes would have been a superb idea. I just have a feeling had I done that, I'd have a larger canopy and taller plants. However. The disadvantage to taller plants is the light height. I'm topped out and the plants are currently 16" from the light. And they're only 24" so I guess a perfect plants size in a 3x3 is 2 ft tall. I think I can go a bit higher, but I'd have to attach each corner individually and raise it that way. I could get about 5" out of that. Then I can increase the intensity.
Speaking of, I found that my leaves were starting to get yellow tips on both plants, so I took a peek at the rest of the top. Light stress. Not much, but enough to make a couple of leaves start to canoe. And a few were praying way too hard. So the light went from 80% all the way down to 60%. The light at 80% had a DLI of 55 mol. Maybe 60. I'm not sure anymore.
Anyway, it was way too high. So I messed around with it. 50% power was actually the most accurate, but I wanted a little bit more. In the center I'm trying to separate the plants, so there's an opening where the most concentrated light hits. It looks pretty good so far. The leaves are starting to go back to normal except for one on Papaya Cookies that was near death from last night to this morning. Lights on hours for the tent.
Other than that, the plants look really healthy.
As for the environment. It's pretty much spot on. No hiccups. No issues. When I sprayed the plants down, I made sure to keep the probe out of the way. Naturally the humidity went up a bit, but it's now lights out and these ladies are getting their rest. The humidity can stay up for a little while. It'll drop back down when the plants dry off.
I think that's all for the day. I didn't check the pH as I forgot. But it's ok. I'll be topping them off anyway.
Speaking of, Papaya Cookies is drinking the most at nearly a gallon a day. Lemon Cherry Cookies is a little behind drinking about 3/4 gallon a day. No big deal. That's just the pace they drink. However, with the light stress taken care of, I can assume they'll start drinking more.
Something I noticed is how light the smell is. As I said before, a plant smell is a healthy plant until it needs to smell. At this point I should be seeing trichomes. Haven't seen any. I'll take a peek when the light comes back on. I mean, it could also be because I live in the smell. So I might be nose blind. But still I can tell a big whiff of strong weed when it comes to me. But yah, I wonder if the light stress was melting the trichomes before they could develop. 🤔 Ponderous.
However, if I'm right, then the plants are still super healthy and happy. Reason being. These are 2 completely different strains. I chose them because of the short life cycle they have. But each one is different. But neither of them have a strong smell. Not yet anyway. But I have concerns. Isn't the lack smell a lack of trichomes? Not good. I'll have to research this.
11/14/2025
Having some trouble getting the heat down today. It's stuck at 80° and that's not good. No clue what else to do. I opened my door to let some 45° air in and that did nothing. Opened the tent door and it only dropped to 75° instead of the normal 70° to 72°. No changes whatsoever. I don't get it. Does something happen in the flowering period where the plants turn themselves into heaters? My heater is off, the humidifier is off. The dehumidifiers are on, but they've been on for a week or so. No changes there either. Please advise. Lol.
The pH is wild today as well as the TDS and the EC. They are reading super high. I don't understand that either. They both got the same slurry of nutes as always. What am I doing wrong? It's all a mess. Lol. The water temp is dangerously high. I have a couple ice blocks in the buckets to help keep the root zone cool, but it won't be enough. They thaw really fast.
So yah, just a strange day of everything going wrong.
I'll check back this evening if anything changes.
Alrighty. I'm back. So a little update. I've got the water pHed back to 5.8 but the nutes seem to be out of control. I might just add plain pHed water today. Just to help drop the TDS to a reasonable range. Currently it's at like 1250 ppm. Although, I do have another mix ready to go with only 700 ppm. That's also pHed to 5.8 and they'll only need about a half gallon each I think. They may need more. But I'll cross that bridge when I get there. I might do plain water, I might do another light mix. Probably a light mix.
I've been plucking the weird leaves off of Papaya Cookies for the past few days. Chances are this little lady will last to harvest at the rate she's going with any nutrient issues. It could also be the crazy fluctuations in the lH or the crazy high nute potency. No clue how that happened, but I'll keep a better eye on it. Honestly I haven't noticed any nutrient toxicity issues. Lemon Cherry Cookies has a nice deep green color. But a bit too dark on some. We'll have to see what's in store for us when the lights come back on.
11/15/2025
So both laides may have nutrient lockout. Their tips are starting to yellow and the water mix is reading 1440 ppm. Way too high. So I mixed in some plain pHed water and got them down to around 1100. Still a bit high and definitely too high for an autoflower. At least I think. It's lights out now, so I'm waiting for lights on to see how they are doing and maybe replace some more water. Not exactly sure how it got this high, but I'm fixing it. It's definitely early and good thing too. What if I didn't catch it til later. Both plants would be dying. But nope. I caught it really fast. Plus, I check the water daily. I'm pretty sure it was my mix from yesterday. But it's been the same mix for the week. Nothing different. Maybe just a build up I guess. Oh well, live and learn, right?
Papaya Cookies still has dying leaves. One here and there. Not really much to be done about it if it's the stem issue, but I don't think that's the case. I think the stem is completely fixed. So I'm guessing this is a real lockout. No matter. I'll be fixing it completely when the lights come on. I'll pull a gallon and dump a fresh water gallon in. Obviously pHed to 5.8 so hopefully I get the pH and the water back in order. Her pH was also super low this morning. Like 4.8 again. No clue what's going on, but I fixed the pH and it kinda fixed the water. It's not as high.
Lemon Cherry Cookies is slightly different. Her pH is actually pretty close. Her pH was nearly spot on hitting around 5.85, but the water was at 1260 ppm. I tried to bring it down, but only succeeded with about 100. So now the water is 1140 ppm. Still too high, but close to the manufacturer recommendation.
She's also looking suoer great! Buds are coming in nicely. If not maybe a bit slower than expected, but I'm guessing that's due to the lockout issue. Still, no issues except the yellowing tips.
The Other One.
...lol... That's all. Oh yah, I haven't done a thing for her except swap out her water like last week.
The environment is still giving a bit of a headache. At least for lights out. Now it's down to 69° which is a step in the right direction, BUT now the humidity is at 52% which is way too high. I want it down to around 45%
The day environment is ok. The temps have now risen to around 78° but the humidity is down to 44%. So ones up and ones down. SMH. I'll have to figure that one out for the next run. I think I just need the dehumidifier from AC Infinity. That way, it won't blow hot air constantly. It will vary. And I think at that point I can get the VPD right with the temp and humidity. Hopefully.
That's all for now. I'll post some pics what the plants wake up.
PS. This week's video is wrong. I didn't like the time interval and as you can see, it's much too fast. So I changed the interval to 30 minutes instead of an hour. This should slow down the video and help see the progress of the plants more clearly.
11/16/2025
So both ladies look perfectly fine, but I think they were suffering in silence. Too many nutes, and the pH has been plummetting like crazy. So today I took about a gallon out of each and refilled the water with plain distilled. That cleaned up the super high concentration of nutes. Then pHed to 5.8. I'm not sure how long the pH will hold. It doesn't take long for it to tank. And when it tanks, I mean like 4 6 pH. That was in less than 24 hours. I wonder what I'm doing wrong. If anything. Either way, I'm gonna check again when the lights turn on.
So I ordered a water pump about a week ago and forgot to get the tube I need to pump the water out. That should be here today, let's hope it's the right size. Anyway, that'll make swapping water much easier. As I clean my buckets throughout the week, swapping water without actually pulling the buckets out will be even easier. See, I don't let the build up start in the first place, so when I pH, I give a quick wipe down of the bucket and the air stone hose. Sometimes there's a small build up of something, but I wipe it away with a paper towel. I don't see the need to bleach and whatnot between waterings. I keep my area very clean and the buckets clean as well. Maybe a thorough cleaning between runs, but not between waterings. That's ridiculous. It's not like there's poison in the buckets than needs to be bleached away. It's just salts. Soap and water baby. Soap and water. Anyway, that's my rant for the day. Not much of a rant, more like the process of cleaning I have. Maybe good for someone who reads this.
Papaya Cookies is looking great! I took the bad leaves off yesterday and wouldn't you know it, there aren't anymore today. I think it's because I mostly sorted out the EC and TDS nonsense. All that was left was the pH. I made sure to nail it last night and again this morning. Both ladies should be perfectly fine. With the right amount of nutes at the right concentration should make her put out some crazy results.
Lemon Cherry Cookies seems to be impervious to everything. She just keeps trucking along. Suffering in silence as she goes. Well, now that I have the stuff fixed for the week, (2 days) it should be good. Now I have to go back and figure out when I changed the water. Honestly I don't think I need to. I can just add a little extra for the next top off. Especially because I swapped like a quarter of the water today and if it doesn't stay where it needs to be, I'll swap out another gallon. That way in the morning on Tuesday, I should be able to give it a normal dose for the week. Not much of an increase. The bloom nutes are the only thing increasing. Just a quarter teaspoon. So not much at all.
The environment is back to normal now. Well, kinda. The humidity is still a little bit high, but I think that's my fault. I have it set to 45% for the week and when it hits 44% the humidifier kicks on and drags it all the way up to 50%. Not sure why it does that, but it does. It's really annoying. Cuz then it gets stuck in the high 40s for hours. No clue why either. The lung room is at 66° and 37% humidity. Honestly kinda cold for me, but I need it for the plants. Plus I can just put a hoodie on and slippers.
I think that's all for the day.
Oh,
TDS: 940
EC: 1.9
pH: 5.8