Speaking of pests, we have grasshoppers. Oddly, they would only rarely take a small chomp out of a leaf. But they seemed to like hanging out on the plant. I’d pick a plant up to take back into the tent and one or more grasshoppers would jump off.
Anyway, this last Friday, I harvested the Blackberries. I planted three, and despite several mistakes, they all survived to harvest. Small, purple buds that are full of resin:
Great work, the bud looks yummy. 
I noticed as September began the the three Superglues seemed to be struggling. More leaves turning spotted and/or yellowing. Oddly, the Afghani CBD didn’t seem to be having the same problems. I checked the guides here on ILGM, watched numerous YouTube videos and concluded that it was likely a PH problem.
When I first started this grow, for a couple of weeks I checked the water PH and it was about 7. The plants didn’t seem to mind that, they were healthy and green. I stopped checking PH, mostly because Cannabis is a plant that grows wild, it grows in illegal grows in the woods—and those plants certainly aren’t having their PH fussed over.
Well, that seems to have been a mistake. This last week I sat down with the PH tester and the various feeds I used and the results were eye opening. The water now had a PH in excess of 8, the Cal-Mag was close to 8, the Bloom had a PH of 4!, and food was just over 7. The plants were being whipsawed between opposite ends of the PH spectrum. So, I PH corrected everything, and changed the feed schedule to small amounts/every other day.
Two of the Superglues now look good, one is still struggling. What intrigues me is why the Afghani was able to tolerate these swings. Genetically, it seems fairly close to the Afghani landrace strains. Did it tolerate the swings because it’s closer to the wild plants? Or simply because Afghani just aren’t bothered by that?
And this post brings the grow current. The Blackberries will begin curing on Saturday. I ordered Auto Blueberries and Northern Lights from ILGM to replace the 3 Blackberries. The plan is for the next grow to be all Autos.
Yes. Fox Farms Coco, which seems to require Cal-Mag supplementation.
They sure smell good!
i do like growing autos in between my photos…llol
plenty of fresh mmj minimal down time
Time to trim the Blackberries buds. Then jars with 62% Boveda and vac seal. The big plants are just steadily increasing their bud size. About three weeks until the first buds should be ready. I had the girls out this morning inspecting, feeding and trimming off dead leaves and such. I couldn’t resist a picture of the Afghani with her now 9 inch top cola.
Nice looking plant! 
I’m really interested in growing some Afghani this coming spring outside. After reading your posts I think I’m making a good decision 
Saturday morning, early, one of my boys says to me ‘looks like the plants are ready to harvest!’ I shake my head ‘no’, and say it should be two more weeks. But then I got to thinking ‘what if he’s right?!’.
The tent is on a front porch with a dim white bulb for light outside the tent. Under the LED light, the colors have never looked right, even with the protective glasses you’re supposed to wear. I usually drag a bright lamp in from the living room to inspect the girls and I hadn’t done that in a week. So, I brought the light in, opened the blinds and took a long hard look.
The top and bottom pictures are Superglue buds, they had lots of ready pistils and were covered in sugar. Ditto for the Afghani in the middle.
How did I get the timing wrong? The website where I bought the Afghani seed said 7 or 8 weeks, but the actual seed site said 6 to 7 weeks. And the Superglues were clones, not seeds! So, I had no way of telling just how old they really were. ILGM this last week sent out a link to harvest information, and there’s a lot of good information there. Get a good, bright light and really check to see how your plants are doing!
Another interesting thing I learned was about curing. I know it’s similar to fermentation, I know Chlorophyll gets converted, but it really didn’t hit me until Saturday that ‘curing’ is an anerobic process!
My son and I had been trimming up the auto Blackberries on Thursday. Much of the trim and buds were put into two jars with very loose lids and stashed in a dark cupboard. One large stem and branches my son finished late Friday afternoon and put into tightly sealed jars.
Saturday morning I opened the tightly sealed jars to add them to the rest of the bud and trim. They really smelled strong of Cannabis. In contrast, the loosely sealed jars smelled like lawn grass!
Anyway, buds in one jar, trim in another jar–62% Boveda pack in each and vacuum sealed in a bag. Now for a week of curing and then more bud trimming and curing. With local weed at $400 an ounce, I don’t mind a bit of hard work to put away a nice stash of Cannabis. This first grow was a success, and a lot of lessons were learned. Now there’s one lonely looking auto Fruit Punch in that tent!
Remember those are just estimates or guidelines that the websites post. Your girls will tell you when they are ready for sure. To my novice eye it looks like you still have some time. I can’t zoom the photo but your postals still look white. Check your trichomes with a magnifier to see what color and harvest when they get a mixture of amber and cloudy depending on your taste.
Just want to make sure you are burping those jars and checking their RH for the first week to 10 days of cure / jarring? @Loneviking
Yep, burping every day and there’s a 62% Boveda pack in the jars.
I wish my 35mm could directly post to the web! With the I-phone it’s a challenge to get the light just right, but trust me, there’s lots of red pistils/cloudy trichomes and sugar.
First grow for me too, at least for 40 years, and we didn’t know anything about trichomes back then. Heck, the lousy Mexican weed we had back then probably didn’t have any but it sure had lots of seeds. I’m seeing lots of brown pistols and some amber trichomes on the sugar leaves, but not on the flowers themselves. Somebody said to look for at least 20% amber on the flowers, so I guess I’m waiting a few more days.
