Okay, so here’s the latest from Beginner Super Skunk over on the East Coast lol. Originally, there were 4 plants in my tent. Turns out the plants grew too damn big, and - in the middle of week 1 Flower I made an executive decision to remove the “runt”, see if I could keep her in veg (so far, so good - she’s officially growing like a “weed” with more space, literally OUT of the tent just chillin’ under some CFL’s, best I could do for now).
Meanwhile, back in the tent. We got 3 ladies growing - I think they are happier to have a bit more space, but it’s still filling up quick. I’m pruning very strategically (Don’t want to lose too many lower fan leaves, or leave just enough to help tell me what’s ‘going on’). I couldn’t stand the fact that I wasn’t able to get the temp/relative humidity right “at night” (lights off) so I bought a slightly move expensive inline fan (which, to my amusement and horror - seems to suck ALL the air out of the tent to the point where the suction looks like all the walls of the tent are literally “caving in” at night. Remember, during the “day” I keep my tent open, which gives the plants PLENTY of ventilation - and I have much easier control over their temp/RH. Inside the tent, along with this new, more powerful inline fan that’s supposed to be sucking out the humidity? (still, when I wake up - I’m at around 60%? even when I have other fans circulating INSIDE and OUTSIDE the tent, and the freakin’ window open which is making me freeze to death lol). So that’s small problem #1.
Problem #2 is - I don’t know what to expect exactly in week 1 of flower, it went kind of slow and I think removing the 4th plant helped speed things up, as in - the 3 girls that are in there now are growing faster, most of the terminals are through the trellis. (I had two horrible disasters where the circulating fans fell on the canopy, first time I didn’t lose anything. 2nd time, I lost a beautiful bud terminal and I tried to save it, but the next day it was all dried up and withered away, so instead of wasting time on repair, I hope i did the right thing, I just gently pinched it off with my fingers. If it takes longer to flower so be it. Under the microscope (I need to get a better one) I see some of the larger buds developing little white hairs. Clearly, at this point the plants seem to be giving it their last go at growth. Am I supposed to put the lights as close to or as far away from the canopy as possible now?
With 3 plants in there, I was able to also put a couple of CFL lights shining up from underneath, giving more light to the whole area - because everything is SO BUSHY (as you’ll see from the pics). I didn’t realize I put the plants in 3 gallon pots and not 5 gallon pots, which honestly I think would have been my only option, because there’s just no damn room.
One of the plants (the biggest one of course), her soil started to smell a tiny bit moldy. I sprayed her with a Neem Oil mix, and waited for her to dry out before watering/feeding. She seems fine now. I don’t see any or smell any mold problems on the soil or the plants. I do have some blue and yellow sticky traps in there for pests, but I know there is SOMETHING minor going on, every now and then (less and less now, but in veg more so) I would see little tiny holes in some leaves. My magnifying glass isn’t good enough to really get close and see what’s going on. I treated the plants with a Neem Oil mixture BEFORE flowering stage, and I’m watching very closely how I water and feed them.
Since adding the Cal-Mag, that DID solve a lot of the lower fan leaf problems. @raustin
I’m just going to post some pics, if you all can inspect them carefully and tell me if you see anything I may not, please don’t hesitate to say something. I’m so close to the end, 6-7 more weeks away - I would hate to screw this up big time now. I’m not putting pics up to “show off”, i’m putting pics up to get help and get more experienced eyes on things I may not notice.