Renaissance Man's First Official Grow: Blueberry OG, Gorilla Zkittles & Cream Caramel In Soil

[LED209]

Congrats on the harvest Ren Man! I think as farmers (especially indoor) we rarely get as much as we were hoping for but you’ve got yourself some great quality home grown smoke and there’s nothing better than that! Congrats, looking forward to the smoke report!

 

[Renaissance Man]

2nd to last journal entry.

Well the harvest is done, the bud is curing and I'm still waiting before I give a proper smoke report. But until then, I want to summarize this grow.

The final product produced 45g of Gorilla Zkittlez, 49g of Blueberry OG and 32g of Cream Caramel which gave me a total of 4.4oz of dry bud from 3 plants. The harvest turned out to be a little lighter than I had thought, but that's ok, because it all appears to be quality flower.

Strains:

The Gorilla Zkittlez from Barney's Farm was a good plant. It gave me some issues at the beginning but I think it was due to my environment. She turned out to be a nice plant. I have a clone of her that I will re-veg in the next grow.

The Blueberry OG also from Barney's Farm was a good plant as well. She never gave me any issues and was by far, the stickiest one to trim.

The Cream Caramel free seed from what may be Sweet Seeds was fun to grow. She was shorter, but very pine smelly. She seemed to be able to handle more nutrients than the other two.

Growing:

I learned so much from this community, I can't even explain. The knowledge that circulates here is pretty invaluable. I learned that environmental conditions are a major factor in growing... successfully. By the looks of my roots when I pulled them out of the 5 gallon pots, they did not appear to grow out to the sides. On one hand, I was nowhere near rootbound which is good. But on the other hand, I think the lack of the roots growing out, stunted the size and thus the yield of the plants. I will be up-potting twice instead of once from now on.

I also did not notice any difference of utilizing a drought, but it's probably because I had nothing to compare it to. I will probably incorporate some sort of droughting to my next grow as I learn more about it.

Lighting:

I am very impressed with my two Viparspectra's that did the job, the 95w P600 and the 100w P1000. For a total of 195w, I am pleased with the outcome. The next grow will feature the 240w XS2000, and I may add the other two during flower.

Medium:

I was pleased with the medium blend that I used of Ocean Forest, Happy Frog and Perlite. I will be using the same blend for my next grow with a little added compost. I think that I should have fed my soil/roots with more microbes and that could have been better, but I'm still learning that part. I will for the next grow.

Nutrients:

Megacrop or Tegabrop was a good easy nutrient to use. I pH'd my water, although I read it was not necessary with MC but it seemed to respond well. It definitely is a little time consuming to measure out "x" amount of grams for 3 different plants, but I suppose you get used to it and is expected for an indoor grow.

Overall:

Overall, I am pleased with how my first grow went. I had some more plans as I wanted to make some labels for my jars and put descriptions and all that, but I don't have time. In fact, I had a hard time keeping up with everyone else's journals towards the end. I think this community is great and I will continue to give back wherever I can. The next grow will be starting soon and I'll start a new journal for that one. In the meantime, stay tuned for a smoke report.

 

[Trala]

Good job Ren!

I really enjoyed watching your grow unfold.

You are a pleasure to watch!

 

[Krissi Carbone]

This was a great recap/synopsis/commentary on what @Trala noted, a grow very pleasurable to watch. That sounded a little sexy but I'm rolling with it. You took the reigns quickly and utilized this endless mountain of information here to lead you to this beautiful as @BakedARea would say, cultivated blessing.

Excited to see the next round with the new ammo RM.

 

[Trala]

This was a great recap/synopsis/commentary on what @Trala noted, a grow very pleasurable to watch. That sounded a little sexy but I'm rolling with it. You took the reigns quickly and utilized this endless mountain of information here to lead you to this beautiful as @BakedARea would say, cultivated blessing.

Excited to see the next round with the new ammo RM.

Well this is awkward.

I wasn’t talking about his grow. I was talking about our daily shower webcam time.

But you’re right, he goes alright growing too

 

[Krissi Carbone]

Well this is awkward.

I wasn’t talking about his grow. I was talking about our daily shower webcam time.

I mean no invite? Damn. That's unfortunate

But you’re right, he goes alright growing too

Yea, he's ok. I guess.

 

[BakedARea]

Congratulations on a beautiful harvest! Cultivated Blessings indeed!

VPD is holding steady at the sweet spot

You made my heart flutter and a couple other things happened I can't mention here when I saw this! Is this an app you're using or a spreadsheet? Whatever it is, it looks sexy and I want it!

Great write up/synopsis like '82 mentioned. So many specific things in that entire write up that I enjoyed. I agree about this community. I continue to learn and grow, grow and learn, and then fail and learn. But we do it together! Blessings RenMan on some great looking plants and your harvests.

 

[Renaissance Man]

Congratulations on a beautiful harvest! Cultivated Blessings indeed!


You made my heart flutter and a couple other things happened I can't mention here when I saw this! Is this an app you're using or a spreadsheet? Whatever it is, it looks sexy and I want it!

Great write up/synopsis like '82 mentioned. So many specific things in that entire write up that I enjoyed. I agree about this community. I continue to learn and grow, grow and learn, and then fail and learn. But we do it together! Blessings RenMan on some great looking plants and your harvests.

Haha! Thanks @BakedARea! That VPD chart is just something I found online. Take a look VPD Chart . I found myself walking back and forth between the computer and the tent many times during flower!

You are a pleasure to watch!

Thanks @Trala (*looking around at my in-house cameras suspiciously) I'm trying to catch up on some journals today so hopefully I can find out whats good in your grow here soon.

I wasn’t talking about his grow. I was talking about our daily shower webcam time.

Damn, I thought that was password protected... haha

Excited to see the next round with the new ammo RM.

Thanks @Krissi1982, going to drop some beans today. Just trying to balance life with kids and homeschool... It can get busy..

 

[BakedARea]

Ohhhh hell yeah!!! You are awesome Ren Man! Thanks for that gem. Bookmarked here in case I lose it but I also added it to the home screen of my phone.
Awesome tool!

 

[DonMist]

Which nutrients are you considering? I used bottled nutrients my first grow and at the beginning of my second grow, but I switched to GeoFlora organic nutrients early on and my third grow was with GeoFlora from beginning to end. From my own experience if you're in soil organic is the way to go. No mixing different nutrients, no pH'ing the mix, just sprinkle the granules on top every two weeks and you're done. Such a time saver and you end up with organic hooch. I will NEVER use bottled nutrients again. I do supplement with Cal/Mag but that's a simple add to the water and no pH'ing needed.

It's easier with watering too. With bottled nutrients you water until there's ~20% runoff to ensure full coverage, which means you're dealing with runoff water and you have to dump that or use something to remove it from the trays under your plants. With organic growing you water just until runoff, and if you're using fabric pots (you should) you just let the plant suck any runoff back up. Not having to pick the plants up (think heavy) to dump the runoff was worth the switch all by itself.

When you grow organically you're feeding the soil and the plants take what they want when they want it. With bottled nutes you're basically force feeding the plant and you have to pH the water to allow the nutrients to break free from the chemical bond so that it becomes available. I ended up with really good stuff with the bottled nutrients, but it's more work and in my opinion easier for things to go wrong. I journaled my last grow that was organic end-to-end and I'm journaling my current grow if you want to take a peek.

Just to comment on cleaning the runoff water up. I use a turkey baster, or a gigantic syringe with a tube attached that i bought on Amazon. Thought this was a pretty good idea to avoid heavy lifting and pointless movement of plants.