HomeGrownNLD's First Grow - 220W T-Neon - 2014/2015

[HomeGrownNLD]

True its a bit lower 7.66 7.76 according to the water supplier (brabantwater). The plants are coming along nicely. Have one strange mutated lady but she's going strong. Will sub your journal.

Peace and

 

[PlanetJ]

I'm not sure if you did it for the camera, but if not, your light is kinda high above the plants .. 10cm is what I aim for .. width permitting (the reflector from this fixture dictates a certain hight if you want to cover the whole tent .. I prolly gonna buy a second one and hang them side by side)

 

[HomeGrownNLD]

Yeah the lights are high because of the picture. They normally hang around 10 to 15 cm above the top canopy. Should have trained them better to have an more even canopy but for a first time I am pretty content with the way they look next round I will probably use a 300w LED and 2 plants and hopefully use the tneon's as a side lighting if I can cram it into the small space I have

 

[HomeGrownNLD]

Week 06 - Day 38

The ladies are going strong, they aren't drinking as much as I expected but nevertheless the ladies are doing great. It looks like the tallest of the 3 is a little bit behind in terms of maturation, still only white pistels. They are really starting to smell .

Some pictures:

This is my favorite, super dense nug's and smells incredible.


Again my muted lady. She is the frostiest of them all.



The tallest, still has some gaps to fill. I'am sure that will happen in the course of next week.


All 3 of them.


My deformed lady, it isn't getting any worse and she is really starting to fatten up. Still don't know what could be wrong with her.

And a close up to finish this post:

 

[PlanetJ]

If I where you, I'd defoil the fanleafs that correspond to a budsite where the leafs of the bud are about 2 to 3 cm's in length .. this will allow more light to the lower bud sites.

The fanleaf acts as a 'solar panel' for these buds, but once the bud has enough leaf of it's own, you can defoil it, as it only stores nutrients and water from then on .. it's not needed in a controlled environment

Looking good!

 

[HomeGrownNLD]

Have been thinking about doing that for a while now. Maybe I'll just try it, doing 1 or 2 at a time. Should I gently try to pull them off or should I try using scissors? Will also be flushing for 2 weeks starting this thursday, that should be long enough since its a 8 week strain. Will also be getting a jeweler's loup to check the trichomes.

 

[PlanetJ]

Regarding flushing, if you have been building off your nutes according to scheme, reconsider: A critical look at preharvest flushing

Fanleafs .. you can pull them down, they will snap off .. or you just cut them somewhere along their stem with scissors .. either way works fine. Make sure the bud site they correspond to, is 5 to 6 cm across or so .. else try to tuck it away a little.

 

[HomeGrownNLD]

Very interesting read thank you for the link. I am currently reducing the amount of nutes I give her. Currently an EC of 1.5 I feed them every other day always with PH 6.5 water.

 

[HomeGrownNLD]

Week 07 - Day 44
Only 1.5 weeks to go and man those ladies are coming along nicely. I have ordered a jewelers loupe (20x magnification), but that thing is still 6 days away from delivery. I have tried making pictures of the buds but the trichomes are not clearly visible. I can spot a few milky ones but I can't be certain. Hope anyone can enlighten me what the best time for harvest is?

And of course the mandatory pictures:

 

[PlanetJ]

Nice pictures .. how many ladies do you have in there ? 3 ?

This should help with deciding when to harvest:

If you prefer more head high, harvest when a few ambers are showing, and the rest is milky. If you prefer more couch-lock, go for 50/50 amber/milky. I'm just being a parrot here

 

[HomeGrownNLD]

Yes I've got 3 ladies in my grow tent. Thanks for the info about the trichomes, but my jeweler's loupe isn't delivered yet the store didn't have them in stock and had to be ordered from the manufacturer should have it in about 5 - 6 days. So now I have no way to check the trichomes during the last 1.5 weeks of flowering. It should be a 8 week strain according to Greenhouse Seeds.

 

[PlanetJ]

You are under CFL, expect a week or two more for them to mature. My 8 to 10 weeks strain took 11,5

There are a lot of white pistils still .. that is a sign she is not there yet. When she will be near-ready, most of these will have gone brown, just 2 to 3 per bud will be white. Yours look not there yet

 

[HomeGrownNLD]

WEEK 8 - DAY 1

Been a busy week but the plants are still going great. They are really starting to swell up. Also my jewelers loupe is in so I was able to check the trichomes more clearly. Currently 50% Clear and 50% Cloudy haven't seen any amber's yet. I'am so excited and can't wait to try my homegrown bud's.

I read somewhere that the best time for harvest is just before the lights are on? could someone enlighten me on the subject.

I will be using a drying rack/basket. I will roll over the buds once a day to prevent any flat spots after that they will be placed in glass jars for at least 3-4 weeks (will probably vape one or two buds to sample).

For the fun part, pictures:

















Hope you enjoy!

 

[PlanetJ]

Personally I put them in 48h of dark before harvest. Reason is that the plant will go in survival mode, and use up the starches and sugars .. making the smoke less harsh, if then dried and cured well

 

[HomeGrownNLD]

So yesterday was my first harvest day. I must say it's a lot of work even with only 3 plants but it was a enjoyable day, put on some good tunes rolled a joint and started working.

After reading about DocBud budwashing technique I decided to give it a go, was a bit strange dunking in all those branches. I left a couple of branches unwashed as to do a test. I used 3 10 Liter buckets, 1 room temp with Lemon Juice and baking soda, 1 hot and 1 cold.


All of the lady's hanging getting ready for their bath.


Almost finished.

Today I started on manicuring them to get them ready to finish drying in my drying racks. I hope I did a good job on the manicuring part as this was also my first time doing it.


A total of 320 wet bud and about 50 grams of trimmings and popcorn

Talking about the trimmings and popcorn, I wanted to try to make some hash out of this. So I freezed all of the trimmings and started reading about hash making. I wasn't in the liberty to buy any bubble bags so I tried a poor mans method, the gravity hash technique.

I will upload some photos about the process as soon as it is done (couple more hours probably). I'am pretty happy about the results so far at least for a first time.

 

[PlanetJ]

Should be around 60 dry then .. nice going Gravity hash can be pretty good .. beats the crap they sell at the coffeeshop

 

[Dutty Panty]

Congratulations!!

 

[HomeGrownNLD]

So today was the final day of drying they have been drying on racks for the last 5 days. They were a little crispy but the stems didn't snap yet so I decided to put them in jars after reading a thread by Medical Marijuana. Will be burping them in a couple of hours.

I did however notice that some of the buds lost their smell a little. I hope this comes back during the curing process. As I have no humidifier the RH during drying fluctuated between 40 and 50% which is a little low imo and they may have been drying to fast.

The total weight of the 3 ladies is 100 grams, which will probably decline a little due to the left over moisture.

I almost forgot to post back about the hash I made. Was a little disappointing as it was only a mere 1.5 grams. I lost a lot of trichs during the syphoning phase. So I will need to tweak the technique a little. However this is probably the most potent hash I have ever smoked and I'am pretty happy with it.

as I said.. It's not much

I also want to thank all who have followed this thread and have helped me whenever I had a question. I'am already preparing for next round. Which will likely be on soil again, however the hempy style also appeals to me. But am not in the position to buy a new line of hydro nutrition so will probably be doing that after my second grow.

 

[Tead]

Wow!

I did however notice that some of the buds lost their smell a little. I hope this comes back during the curing process.

Mine does. It'll be a bit different, but similar.

 

[David Bowman]

Hope all is well in your world.

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