Harvested one of the plants around day 70, trichs were mostly cloudy with a few ambers. RH and temps were getting way too high even with aircon and a dehumidifier, and I needed to make some space in the tent. This one seemed pretty much ready to chop, so down it came.
Hung the whole plant untrimmed for 8 days, then gave it a rough trim and into a jar with a hygrometer where the RH rose to around 68% - telling me it's still a tiny bit too damp for jarring, so the buds are in a big brown bag now, slowly drying out a bit more at the bottom of the tent.
WEIGHT - 140g of lovely top notch buds 
plus around 40g(ish) of trim, and around 40g of 'inbetween' buds, not loose and airy enough for shake/trim, but not quite dense enough to make the 'main' jars. Those are being smoked now while I wait for the cream of the crop to cure :smoking:
MAIN BUDS (this is a large 20" x 22" paper bag, for reference)-
Lazily Trimmed Nug Close Up -
Cut the other four on day 76, and they are hanging now. This high RH is finally working in my favour. It's sitting around 60%... perfect for a nice slow dry and cure. If all goes to plan these will hang here for at least 10 days, hopefully more. I'm wondering with this 60% ambient RH whether I can just leave them hanging for a good 2-3 weeks and they'll just start curing 'on the vine'? The only airflow is passive exhaust, temps are consistently between 20-24C, so I think it'll be difficult to actually over dry them.
In terms of the smoke - it's early days to be testing I know, but I can already tell it's high quality. I've got a fairly high tolerance so a big concern for me with growing autos was would the potency be up to scratch? I'm glad to report that the answer is a resounding yes.
Whilst I have zero growing experience, I have plenty of smoking experience. I work in the music industry and travel for work a fair bit, so I've had the opportunity to smoke top grade stuff in places like L.A and Amsterdam. I only bring this up to reassure anyone considering this strain based on my review that whilst I'm a growing newb, I know a good smoke when I find it, and this is most definitely a good smoke.
Buds are not super dense except for the very tops, but they're not soft and airy/fluffy either, they slightly crispy and SUPER sticky and resinous (gums up the grinder after two joints). When you give one a squeeze it gently springs back. The effect is powerful, not mind bendingly strong, not question-your-place-in-the-universe-and-come-up-empty strong, but a nice smooth high, exactly what I'd expect from a decent cheese.
It STINKS just like it did when it was growing, which was mainly that classic cheesy skunk smell mixed with a strong smell of sweet berries (and a slightly odd hint of baby sick that thankfully doesn't come through in the taste, and is fading away since drying!). No hay smell.
The taste is lovely - it tastes like good quality UK cheese with a bit more of that berry sweetness, and a bit less of that 'choking' cheesiness that you typically get with the classic Exodus cut. I do like that absurdly strong flavour that good UK cheese typically has, so I'm hoping that will come with the cure, or maybe it will be more present when I try the top of the main buds, or the buds from the plants that were left for longer before cutting.
It still has a bit of that fresh weed 'bite' to it. That's to be expected though as it's uncured, and technically not even totally stem-snapping dry yet (although it's pretty much there). I expect in a few weeks the taste will have developed appropriately. Even as it is right now, if I received this in a street deal I'd be asking for more... so all in all, very happy.
Assuming no major issues with mould, then it's looking like the total yield for all five plants is going to be around 20-30oz of high grade sticky buds, and probably another 10-15oz of trim/popcorn buds, which I'll make into hash.
That is for 5 plants in a 4x4 tent with 450w of LED lighting.
At the start of this grow I bought 2x 2l glass jars for storage, and I remember thinking 'wow... if I grow enough to fill both of these up to the brim then that would be pretty awesome'.
It's looking like I'm going to need to buy another eight of those jars, maybe more.
:smoking:
. I think at first the pale new growth was just a bit of light burn, or just because the plant was going through a really massive stretch. But I think in my attempts to 'fix' it I now have a soil PH issue. Whilst my soil tester was showing slightly high PH, I don't think it's reliable - I did a couple of slurry tests last night with distilled water and a calibrated PH pen and they came back very low - 5 to 5.5, odd considering how hard my water is, but perhaps the PH down or organic feed is building up in the soil and lowering PH too much, I don't tend to water until run off. 
I could smell it as soon as I pulled the roots out of the perlite. LUCKILY the rotten smell was confined to the VERY bottom of the perlite swick pot, and was nowhere near the main pot/soil. I checked the roots underneath the main pot carefully, and they didn't look unhealthy at all, but judging from the smell I'm sure it was only a matter of time before root rot set in.
and even if I lose a bit of final yield weight from this setback, it still looks like it's going to be a very healthy harvest. Hopefully they'll perk up in the next few days now. I'll recheck the soil PH tomorrow and see where it's sitting.
