bigunyun's grow journal

Started with one tent and realized I need two... or three... now have two 4x4x6 tents, each with California Lightworks SolarXtreme 1000 (800w) LEDs in each. Plus Cloudline 6" fans vented up/out with carbon filters on each. Have a smaller "veg" tent for getting plants started, it's 3x2x5 I think. Have a couple blurple lights in there and a 4" fan.

Grow #1 - planted 3 random seeds from an unknown bag I'd been saving for years. All 3 turned out to be females... called them the 3 amigas.

They were all planted on 3/10/20, turned to 12/12 on 5/4/20 after ~7 weeks of veg

Didn't really know what I was doing... pinched them all a couple or three times and LST'd... ended up growing two in one tent and the other in its own tent.

The solo girl smelled for all the world like Cat Piss so that's what I called her. The other two smelled like Bubble Gum and Juicy Fruit so there you go.

Well, had a hard time keeping temps and RHs down in the tents, and the stress showed up in these girls in flower. Both Cat Piss and Bubble Gum started throwing nanners like mad in late flower. I had to take BG out of the tent and put her outside she had so many nanners. A lot were sterile, but a lot had pollen it seemed.

So Cat Piss I decided to harvest a little early, and chopped her on 6/28 after about 7 weeks in flower. Measured the yield at 12 oz but it probably wasn't completely dry so I'm thinking probably 10 oz. Even after 4 weeks of curing it's meh I think. Smokable but nothing to write home about. I think I should've let it go longer. Interesting, I have found just a few mature seeds in these buds and only a few immature. Despite all the nanners around I really didn't get much in terms of seeds.

The BG produced some super sweet buds. I let her go another couple weeks in out in the garage and she fox tailed like mad, too. Those buds somehow seem to take longer to cure, they still haven't fully even though I chopped her on 7/8 and it's cured now 3 weeks. Quality and taste of this BG is better than the Cat Piss, but I still think I probably chopped her too soon, too. Great taste and nice buds but not that strong.

The Juicy Fruit ended up foxtailing like crazy too...heat and light stress I think... and didn't notice it but some of those biggest juicy buds may have had some bud rot and I tossed a couple of the biggest ones. This was another nice plant but not that strong, either. This girl didn't hermie or throw nanners. Harvested her last on 7/11.

Those 3 girls were all in 3 gal pots and potting soil. I fed them all nutes with every watering. I got a little carried away and they all got overfed for a while in flower and then I overcompensated a bit and it was hard figuring out how much NPK to give them. BG was def. overfed and I didn't flush any of them. Maybe that's why BG isn't curing quickly, not sure...

At the same time, as an experiment, I planted 2 Pixie Dust seeds in soil in 3-gal pots and just put them in the flower tent. They got 12/12 their whole lives. Amazing to watch. I never fed these girls until they started looking hungry after about 10 weeks and then I gave light bloom nutes. They grew huge, plump colas on their main stems. I never LST'd or did anything except water them. Some of the biggest buds ever and I think about 6 oz per plant. But a couple weeks before harvest they both developed BUD ROT and I had to chop the biggest buds on both plants, such a bummer. Some was salvageable and I ended up getting around 6 oz from both plants but again they were chopped early. I have barely been able to get a plant to full maturity yet. Temps and RHs in my tents are the issue.

Next grow I started a Big Bud, a Pixie Dust, and a Bianca in dirt in 5-gal pots. Got some Blumats and they take some adjusting but plants seem to like them. Even in a bigger pot these girls still need to be fed in flower. Each was veg'd for about 7-8 weeks.

At first I had organic nutes in the reservoir and grew some mold almost immediately. Got rid of those and used just General Hydroponic nutes, and got a water chiller to keep the reservoir temp at around 68. Added oscillating fans in each tent, mini dehumidifiers (they don't do squat really) and air conditioner and dehumidifiers in the lung room but it's still a struggle.

At the same time I have 3 trees growing outdoors in 20-gal whisky barrels in dirt. I'm feeding them a bit, too. They're huge about 8 ft tall now.

Here's the lessons so far:

1) Even with good dirt it's hard to have a big enough pot to grow a plant to harvest, so you're pretty much going to have to feed every plant
2) Next grow I think I'll just use coco and a 5-gal pot with two Blumats per pot
3) Somehow have to get the grow room cooler and drier and that means installing a mondo air conditioner and venting it properly that's going to take a little work
4) Even with my inline 6" fat I added an oscillating fan to help airflow.

Pics are current setup, with 3 plants from my third grow. Big Bud alone, and Bianca and another Pixie Dust together.

Ok now I've smoked a lot of that bud from the first and second grows...

After curing, the best of the three girls was the Juicy Fruit. It stayed sweet after curing and had a good buzz. That was a sativa and it had these big, juicy fat buds that were pretty huge with some major fox tailing. Those foxtails, actually, smoked great some of the best. This plant was the last one of the three I chopped and it never hermied, didn't throw any nanners, and did not have any seeds. Really big, light, sticky, sweet-smelling buds. Even the plant was fragrant.

The Cat Piss I don't love. It's more of a hybrid and it does work but does not smell great. It doesn't smoke badly, tho. Decent buzz but not as heady as the Juicy Fruit. This plant I ended up chopping a little early, I think, because it started throwing nanners in the flowers and I was worried about seeds. But Cat Piss had only a couple or three seeds in the plant so I don't think those late in-flower "survival" nanners really produce many seeds. I wish I had let the Cat Piss go a little longer maybe it would've been better but still... that smell...

Last girl was the Bubble Gum, which smells delicious and sweet. That girl was over fed even tho it was getting the same kind of nutes as the other two... it got dark green leaves and all the sugar leaves turned brown and she wilted terribly but I let her go another couple weeks... she seemed almost lifeless. Then I dried her but maybe not enough. I didn't flush any of these plants. This girl I finally just chopped but she had thrown hundreds of nanners in late flower.. still... not a seed. But despite the sweet smell those buds don't smoke right... the first hit is great, but then they just turn to a black char that won't even really smoke, can hardly keep a joint lit. So maybe that's all the excess nutes or maybe she just needs longer drying/curing idk.

The 2nd grow were the two Pixie Dusts, each grown in dirt 3-gal pots. One seed was stunted at sprouting but ended up being a thick, bushy, low plant... other grew amazing buds but the biggest got bud rot late in flower and had to be sacrificed. I did get a few jars of good bud from each but those were also harvested early because of the rot. They haven't finished curing yet but they are pretty good so far!

I finally fixed the issues in the grow room and got the temps and RHs into VPD range thanks to all and have good ventilation. Next grow (my 3rd) should be decent and have a few girls outdoors, too, which is another story.