Lighting Monsters in my closet, my ongoing grow thread

[Ozone69]

Well dangit, both the Auto Northern Lights seedlings didn't take to being moved into the pots and soil, and promptly died on me. Think I was just a bit too aggressive and moved them in too soon and they just weren't strong enough for the change yet. Starting to think that the universe just really really doesn't want me to do my little just for fun comparison between AN and EJ nutes. Every time I mention that I'm getting it going again over in the thread I started on it something happens to kill off one or more of the plants.

But anyway.... back to the drawing board and on to whatever is next I suppose.

The other two plants are moving along well. Berry Bomb started getting some discoloration on some of the leaves that has me concerned. After reading around and consulting the infirmary I picked up some Cal Mag supplement and started giving her that yesterday. Not necessarily seeing the same on the Auto Purple plant that's still in veg stage, but decided to go ahead and added it to her diet as well.

Auto Purple has started her upward growth and starting to show her pistils. At least with the two seedlings not making it I was able to really focus the overhead LED lamp on her. Getting into a good growth spurt phase, so good timing for lots-o-light. Trying to keep the LED's a bit closer this time to see if she can be a bit more compact than the BB. Though admittedly that could be affected by genetics as much or more than how close I keep the lights. :smoking:

No pics at the moment. Will try and snap some updated shots later today.

 

[Ozone69]

The CaMg seems to have at least slowed or stopped the yellowing, thought the leaves that were hardest hit weren't able to recover. Thought about trimming them off to pretty her up a bit, but decided to leave her battle scars in place for now. Thinking she has another week maybe two before she should be ready to start flushing, but keeping an eye out for signs.



The Auto Purple is starting to really take off with the vertical growth. Starting to see some preflower as well. Not seeing any problems so far from adding the CaMg to her diet. May have had a nice boost in growth shortly after, but hard to say if that can be attributed to the supplement, timing in life stages, or just a little of both.

 

[Ozone69]

Realized it's been a little while since I updated the ole' log, so snapped some shots tonight and thought I'd toss out a progress update on the grows.

Suppose I should really start with giving a little smoke report on the Whiteberry plant that was harvested a couple weeks back. After drying she only came to about .3 oz, so little more than a 1/4. But.....I think I must finally be getting the hang of the flushing, harvesting, drying, and such phases a bit more or something because there is a noticeable lack of chem taste to it that's been there on everything I've grown so far. Just a really nice, mellow tasting smoke with just a hint on the back end of the taste of some light berry. Enjoyably smoke and nice high. I'd grow it again if given the chance.

Up on deck to be harvested is the big girl, the auto berry bomb. Leaves have just been yellowing out like mad this week. Held off until today as I had planned to start flushing, but really felt like I was pushing it. Original plan is to flush for a couple weeks using just filtered water, but might have to consider going just one week. About a week go or so I took one of the small lower branches with just three or four little popcorn buds on it, trimmed them up and dried out for a couple days. Sampled the smoke and if those were any indication, I can really see why flushing on an organic grown plant may be way more optional than with the chem, hydro plants (those I grew up to Whiteberry really did have a strong chemical kind of taste to 'em). Really looking forward to sampling the final product on this one.



The auto purple plant looks to be finishing up it's growin' and starting to maybe move into flower. She should be at around week 6, so time wise should match up to start transitioning. Starting to keep an eye out for the vertical to stop and should be moving to transition nutes in the next few days, if not on the next time I mix up a batch.



In other, fun and exciting news...since I was really starting to feel cramped for space, and since the cat kept jumping on top of the humidity dome last time I used the kitchen table to germinate a couple seeds, I caved in a picked up a little 2x4ft tent and outfitted it with a 2ft, 4 bulb T5HO fixture I had from the original closet build. The plan is to mostly use it for germinating seeds and getting them started before moving into the closet. May also start playing around with one or two of the photo period seeds I've got to maybe start cultivating a mother plant to play around with some clones. Only the one little light fixture for now, so limited on what it can do. May look into something like a DIY COB LED (how's that for a string of acronym's?) for some extra light. I've got some clip on fixtures I can throw some CFL's or some 12W LED spots I've got lying around in as well that may be able to help with extra light if needed.

For now I've started it out with planting the remaining four seeds from the assorted five pack of Grass-O-Matic seeds I had. The one I planted several grows ago didn't germinate, so this will be the first GOM plants I've grown. The assortment pack is supposed to be a mix of their popular favorites, but don't come labeled or anything so are essentially mystery seed. Three of the four have sprouted. Well...3 1/2 kind of. One just popped late today and still has to open up. Can see the tap on the fourth a little under the top of the soil trying, so it might still make it out to join the rest. Planted on 3-12 so about 5-6 days from planting.

Wanted to compare the airpots with the fabric smartpots, so picked up four of the 3 gallon. Running a mix of one part Ocean Forest with one part Happy Frog and one part perilite. Those that aren't a fan of the OF soil will be happy to know this was the last of my bag of it, and I'm planning to try some Roots Organic next so may not be getting any more OF. Going to run the Earth Juice Hi-Brix two part nutes on them. Hoping to use the Earth Juice Oilycann Cal Mag supplement that also has humic acid in it, but may have to start off with the General Organics CaMg+ depending on when the EJ gets in at the hydro store.

 

[Ozone69]

Seed #4 in the GOM mystery bunch popped out of the soil and into the light overnight. So all four have successfully germinated. No pic of it, so you'll just have to take my word for it. :smoking:

Four at a time will be a new personal best for me. Should be fun to see how they all fit in the closet once berry bomb is cleared out in a couple weeks and these really start to take off. The issue I find with cramming too much in the closet is not so much that it won't fit, but that with only having the one, relatively skinny door to access things it can be hard to reach any plants tucked away in the sides without moving everything around. Compared to dwc, though, soil requires much less maintenance. Plus the three gallon pots are plenty smaller than a five gallon bucket. So I believe my previous thinking that three was the max plants may only apply to DWC grows using the buckets in the closet.

 

[Ozone69]

Didn't see any upward growth on the Auto Purple since yesterday, so moved it to transition nutes this morning. And the little white hairs went BAM!!!

 

[Ozone69]

Berry Bomb is maybe a week to a week and a half to harvest I'm hoping, really get the feeling I could take her almost any time now. But...trying to get her a little more yellowed up based of a thread over in the new growers stickies I've been keeping an eye on while she finishes up. Also still hoping that she'll doing the purple color change. See some of it on the tippy top of the main cola, but hard to see. Crossing fingers if I give her another week that it'll spread and deepen.

Anyhow...decided to tape the wrinkly old sheet up tonight and let her do a little modeling in the photo studio.....

As the Bomb goes Boom!

One from the side...

Main cola:

Big branch on the side hangs out too far to fit in the backdrop:

Bud on the long side branch...was right up against one of the side lights (even got T5HO singed on two or three leaves):

 

[Ozone69]

Saw several of the lower leaves on the Auto Purple plant that are fading out into a light green this AM. Thinking that moving to the transition nutes which cut back on the Part A added may be starving her for nitrogen a little. So I added a little more back into some solution and gave it to her with the watering this morning. Will have to keep an eye on things and see if she starts to green back up. If it does turn out to be the case, I'll have to remember to adjust to ratios a little for autos from the Earth Juice label recommended mix as it may have happened with the Berry Bomb as well. I still think that cal/mag was correctly identified as the bigger issue there. Been giving Purple CaMg+ since she was started on full strength nutes this time around, though, and that's part of why I'm leaning toward nitrogen as the first thing to test.

 

[Ozone69]

The increase in the grow nutes seems to have slowed the progress of the yellowing on the Auto Purple. Going to start bumping up the bloom to full strength, and also thinking I'll try going a little higher on the CaMg+ as she moves into flower. I should really try taking more pics and do so every day for a while, as it's hard to tell if the yellowing has stopped or just slowed. She does look to be purpling out fairly nicely deep in the buds...

The four GOM mystery seedling are growing along and look to be doing their thing. Started them yesterday on half strength nutes. Kitty grabbed #2 when I wasn't looking and yanked yet out. Caught it quick enough that I think I was able to save her, but keeping an eye on it for now. Worried they may be stretching a bit. #4 in particular seems a bit on the lanky side. Wish I had the $$ for more/better lights, but will have to make do with what's on hand for now.

 

[Ozone69]

Harvest night for the Auto Berry Bomb. Very happy personally with how this plant turned out. Can't wait for the smoke once things have dried and cured. Moved the four small seedlings out of the tent and into the closet and using the tent to dry.

 

[Ozone69]

Did the final trim on the Berry Bomb tonight after drying for about 6 days. May have over dried a bit. Have to rethink the frequency of the exhaust fan on the tent I was drying in. Think it'll be OK..just a mental note for next time. After all was said and done, ended up with just about 3oz of bud and a small jar of trim I'm going to make QWISO with.

The Auto Purple I think got messed up a bit. I thought it was having a deficiency, and after trying to correct I think I either mis-diagnosed or overcorrected and started to look like over watering was the true problem. I remember reading a couple places that over watering is one of the most common problems a new grower will have, so suppose I was due. Checked back in the logs, and she should only be 2-3 weeks behind the Berry Bomb, so should be getting close to finishing. So going to keep her going for now, but pulled back on the watering frequency. She's for sure trying to live up to the "purple" namesake and showing some nice color.



The four Grass-O-Matic assortment plants are still doing their thing. #4 is off to an early lead, with #2 bringing up the rear. Seeing as how #2 got pulled out by the cat for a few seconds when it was a little seedling, though, I'd say it's recovered nicely.