My 2023 Perpetual Grow - Organic, Partial SIP

Thanks @Pondwater. I just use Alaska Fish Fertilizer for veg and Botanicare Pure Blend Pro for nutrients. The soil was started off years ago with just plain potting soil, and I've been adding compost and re-using/re-composting the soil constantly.

I use a standard SIP bucket, with a small pot inside the top bucket, so its just soil being used as a wick. See the SIP Club thread at SIP Club - Getting Hydro/Coco Results In A Soil Based Medium for more info on SIP buckets etc. I highly recommend them!

So far my best yielding plant and at the same time pretty potent has been Blueberry Kush x AK47, which is what I'm enjoying currently. The Wedding Cake I have doesn't have the same kick but has a pretty strong smell and is a nice smoke. Once I get through my current seeds, I plan to get some more BBKxAK47 seeds.
 
Alright, lots of pics n stuff today!

First up this week is Gelato seed #7 after 8 full days of veg. Everything seems to be growing good. As usual I am top-watering this plant to start, keeping the soil moist at the top until she is ready for the SIP action.

Next up is the Wedding Cake seed #2 on day 14 of flower, so almost 2 weeks flowering. This one is already popping out flowers, so I don't expect it to stretch too much more. I also expect it to finish up a little quicker than the OGK #15 because of that. I continue to train but have stopped defoliation mostly. I'm also letting the plant build up the canopy in the middle now, and am tucking in any leaves that reach too high or cover buds while training the outer branches outward.

Lastly is the OG Kush seed #15 coming in at about 12 weeks of flowering. She still isn't quite finished to my liking, so I will give her another week or so. I will feed one last time today, and it should take about 4 or 5 days to use all the water, leaving a while for a solid drought right before harvesting. The trichs are dense and big and the buds are looking badass. Getting excited to 'unwrap' my Christmas present!

And finally a wider shot of the flowering area:

:yummy:
 
So I've been looking at the trichomes on my OG Kush #15 and there are a LOT of clear/cloudy crystals with very little amber. This is after 12 weeks flowering! I will have to check out more bud areas, but this seems to be what she looks like all around. Since I pulled a leaf off one of the middle buds, I expected it to have more amber trichs than the buds, but it looks like I am going to definitely wait another week on this one. I fed yesterday, and am starting the first part of a drought today, so it looks like my timing is just right.

:rollit:
 
Happy Holidays everybody!

I gave myself an early Christmas present and got a ViparSpectra XS2500, 250W LED grow light. I figured it was a bit of a waste having a 600W HPS going when I'm only flowering 1 or 2, possibly 3 max at a time, so I 'downgraded' to a 250W fixture. All in all this doesn't seem like a 'downgrade' because there are so many advantages to LEDS. I'm going to recover the cost of the panel in about 2 years due to electricity savings, the tent stays a lot cooler keeping my VPD more in check, and the light is spread out over a wider area, instead of being focused mostly in one spot in the center, so better light penetration.

The OG Kush is on the left and the bigger stretchier Wedding Cake on the right. The WC is popping up big flowers and is not even at 3-weeks flowering yet, so it looks like some nice big flowers are forming. Hopefully they stay dense under the new light, with lower temps.

Here are some pics to enjoy until my next update, if I get a chance tomorrow. The contrast between the two plants is significant, with lots of purpling around the edges of the bud leaves of the OG Kush on the left. Huge trichomes. Nice light smell. Hoping to harvest on Christmas Eve or day.

:blunt:
 
Another quick update, starting with the smallest plant, the Gelato seed #7 on day 16 of veg. This plant was topped after 12 days of veg, now only having 4 main branches left she will be quad-lined as usual. There seems to be quite a bit of growth here for only 7 days, so I'm pretty happy with how this one is coming along. I'm keeping a small amount of water in the SIP and top-feeding veg feed every few days or so until she is ready for full SIP action.

Next up is the Wedding Cake seed #2 on day 21 of flowering and looking sweet! There are pretty big buds on this one already, so again she should finish quicker than the next plant up, the OG Kush #15. She will be enjoying a more stable VPD and better light penetration because per my last post I switched to LED lighting. Its very nice for taking pictures too. You can already see the trichomes popping out in the closeup shot below. I am expecting really good things from this plant.

Lastly we have the OG Kush seed #15, on day 91 of flowering and she is pretty much ready to go for harvest. I will wait until Christmas Eve or day so I have a really good present to unwrap this year. Almost all of the bigger side leaves have fallen down and gone brown, almost all the remaining leaves are yellow, and almost all the buds have a vast majority of red hairs. Its hard to make out the crystals with all the leaves on the buds, but wherever there is a pistil showing there is a cluster of dense, big trichomes. Am very happy so far, just need to make sure my drying and curing is on point this time.

Lastly the flowering area:
:ganjamon:
 
This is the final day and the final shot of the OG Kush #15 before the chop tomorrow morning. This is day 9 of no watering and she finally showed signs of drought, pretty significant signs, but just on time! You can see the comparison of about 1 day difference in droughting in the picture below.

Can't wait! :yummy:
 
Alright, even though I spent a lot of time looking for the right LED panel, I have to say I am pretty blown away by this new light I got. I have two other 100w off-brand LED panels and together they just don't compete with the new LED at all. The main feature that I like is the lensing and even distribution of light. They post a PPFD map with their advertising and from what I can tell its actually accurate!

They actually seem to focus a bunch of the lights toward the perimeter of the lighting area and even out the lighting a bit so you don't have a massive hot spot in the middles. I watched some videos and read some stuff and am even more impressed now.

What I did was move the lights closer together than standard, raising the focal point of the light in the middle and brightening the light in the middle a little, then lowered the lights a bit past the recommended 10.6" from the peak of the plant, since my plant is highest in the middle and gets lower toward the edges. The center of the plant is now getting about the same amount of light as the more outward parts, and the light covers the single remaining flowering plant a bit better. All in all, only flowering 1 or 2 plants I'm betting I'm going to get better results with 250W of quality LED lighting than I did with 600W of HPS. I can also take good pictures any time I want!

Here is some pics of my lone flowering plant under the new light with my current setup:

So thats my rant about the new light, I'm obviously pretty happy with it. Its a Vipar XS2500 for anybody thats interested.
:rollit:
 
With the new year coming, I figured I'd update the general info along with my journal, since things have changed over the past year instead of starting a new journal for 2024.

Overview:
Lighting:
250w Vipar XS2500 (Flower), 2x Generic 100W LED Panels (Veg)
Area: 4x4x8 tent (Flower), 3x2x4 (veg)
Medium: Organic living soil + compost in homemade SIP buckets
Pot Size: 5 Gallon buckets
Seeds: Montreal Cannabis Seeds | Best Canadian Cannabis Seeds
Nutes: Botanicare Pure Blend Pro (Flower), Alaska Fish Fertilizer (Veg)
Techniques: SIP, defoliation, droughting and quad-lining (LST) + drying/curing techniques
Average Harvest per plant in 2023: 6.3 Ounces

Lots has gone on this past week and I'm very happy with the grow at this stage. Every time I make adjustments like a new light etc, its like starting over again with better equipment and knowledge and I get more excited about my grow. With the new light I lowered my overall cost significantly, so its now pennies per gram to grow instead of multiples of cents or dollars per gram.

In any case, the first up this week is the Gelato seed #7 after 22 full days of vegging. This plant is being quad-lined and is in a SIP bucket and is growing at a very nice pace. I've been pretty meticulous about watering on time on this one and keeping her healthy. At this stage I'll do another big feeding so the SIP will be topped up fully, and the plant should be able to handle all the water it provides.

Next is the Wedding Cake seed #2 after 27 full days of flowering and showing a lot of promise. All the sugar leaves are coated with small trichomes already and if you rub them, its a very similar smell already to the last WC plant I grew. The bigger leaves are lighter green than the bud areas, so I think I'm a bit short on nitrogen, but won't add any at this stage of flowering.
I stretched this plant out about as much as I could over the past week, leaving the canopy spread out more and taking up more light, so she is now in her final form for flowering. The orange hairs are coming out now on multiple buds, so this one is a week or two ahead of the last flowering plant, the OG Kush seed #15 which took a lot longer to mature.
You can kind of see in the side shot below that I've been doing defoliation on the middle of the plant all through veg, leaving only a top canopy and continuously pruning the lower leaves and the ones on the tallest branches. This helps with airflow through the plant and keeps the small buds lower down from forming and wasting energy on crappy buds.

Finally I'll mention the OG Kush seed #15 again which has been drying for 5 days now. I'm going to do a trim today or the next couple days here and then put the buds in a bowl with a thick cloth over top. This is because my drying room is only 30% humidity, so the leaves and buds dry fast on the outside, leaving a lot of moisture inside. The bowl/cloth will even this out and slow down the drying, so I can get the buds just right before popping them into jars. I've found that if you put buds into jars too soon and then burp the jars, you get too many wet/dry cycles and it smells like hay instead of terpenes. Thats my technique for drying and then I will cure in jars up to 6 months before really testing it out, providing I have enough good weed in the mean time, else a few weeks. Been a while since I had some good old OG Kush, so probably sooner than later.

And lastly, a shot of the flowering area:
:bongrip:
 
Well I decided to at least start trimming today, so I got some pics of the trichomes, which have a good bit of amber, mostly cloudy and a few clears it looks like. This is about where I wanted it, a nice mix of medicine, though I expected more amber at this point. This is after 13 weeks flowering of OG Kush seed #15.






 
Well I decided to at least start trimming today, so I got some pics of the trichomes, which have a good bit of amber, mostly cloudy and a few clears it looks like. This is about where I wanted it, a nice mix of medicine, though I expected more amber at this point. This is after 13 weeks flowering of OG Kush seed #15.






Congrats on the harvest looks great
 
Gotta love harvest time!

The OG Kush seed #15 is pretty much dry, weighing in at 230grams or 8.11ounces, making this my biggest OG Kush harvest yet I think! These techniques are definitely paying off! Not much of a smell on this one as is expected, but the smell that is there is dank. Thats the only word I know to describe it. It doesn't really smell like anything other than crystals, but there is also a dankness to it that I like.
From the looks of things I'm going to be a happy camper once the drying and a bit of a cure is done. As mentioned before and you can see in the pics there are lots of dense clusters of trichomes and the trichs are really big. I assume this would be good for making hash too, but I prefer flower.
Another success!

:ganjamon:
 
Gotta love harvest time!

The OG Kush seed #15 is pretty much dry, weighing in at 230grams or 8.11ounces, making this my biggest OG Kush harvest yet I think! These techniques are definitely paying off! Not much of a smell on this one as is expected, but the smell that is there is dank. Thats the only word I know to describe it. It doesn't really smell like anything other than crystals, but there is also a dankness to it that I like.
From the looks of things I'm going to be a happy camper once the drying and a bit of a cure is done. As mentioned before and you can see in the pics there are lots of dense clusters of trichomes and the trichs are really big. I assume this would be good for making hash too, but I prefer flower.
Another success!

:ganjamon:
Congrats on the harvest looks tastey
 
@con I think it will be!!!

Alright, so this week I have been trying a couple new strategies & adjustments to my technique.
Firstly I am letting my SIPs really go dry or low between feedings. I want a lot of oxygen and nutrients to go to the roots between feedings, so this is my strategy for this portion of the grow. I normally have been topping up every 2 or 3 days but in this case more like 4, 5 or more. My roots have been most dense in the upward portions of the soil and I want to encourage more lower growth.
Secondly I am just letting the vegging plant grow, with hardly any defoliation, leaving a dense uppper canopy of leaves while quad-lining. The lower/middle branches will have to fight to make it through the canopy as they are not getting hardly any light by comparison. I will train any branches that make it through the canopy. I did this with the Blueberry Kush x AK47 and they were my biggest & best harvests. I'm not sure if it was all genetics or technique, so am trying it again with the Gelato strain. I will defoliate the inner canopy when I put it into flowering.

And without further ado, we have the Gelato seed #7 joining us after 29 days of veg. I have two 100w LED panels above this plant and it seems to prefer the new one with more blue light over the other, stretching and bushing out more on that side than the other. This plant is pretty dark green even though I haven't really fed it a lot of high nitrogen feed as I usually do. I think there must have been a lot left over from the previous grow in this soil, or maybe its the extra compost I added. In any case, she is coming along about as good as can be expected in these conditions.

Next up is the Wedding Cake seed #2 on day 35 of flowering and stinking up the place very nicely. This one seems to have a nicer smell than the first WC seed, but is very reminiscent of the first. Out of all the plants I grew in 2023, this is the smelliest. The buds are putting on good weight now and the trichs are getting noticeably bigger and clustering more densely. With lower temps in the flowering room, this plant is using slightly less water so maintenance is even easier than normal at this stage.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, cut this shit!" "Man, what'cha gon' do now?" (What we're gonna do right here is go back) "How far you goin' back? (Way back)" "As we go a lil' somethin' like this —hit it!"
Hehe, I found an old Skunk #1 seed I got as a freebie years ago that I never grew out, and it has sprouted and seems to be slowly growing a tap root. It just cracked, popped a root then stalled, so will see if its still viable. Going to give it a couple days. This one is only represented as being 15% THC, where I usually seem to prefer a strong Kush, but as we all (should) know, its not just the THC content that makes a good plant. Hoping for an actual skunky smelling plant with that old school terpene profile if this one grows. I probably grew this one out when I first started growing, but I didn't have anywhere near the knowledge or resources that I have now, and I didn't really take pictures or document anything back then.

:yummy:
 
I'll take that kitten! Poor kitty lol.

Things are sure looking green today. Will be lots of nice colors to look at in this post.

Gorilla Glue seed #18:
Coming along nicely, she is looking a little bit yellowish, but I have her very close to a 40w LED that
I use for early veg. She seems to be loving it, usually if it is too close they get a bit purple in the
new growth, but this plant seems to be taking it well. According to my research, hemp plants can take
ridiculous amounts of light right from early veg so thats what I give em, and I like to keep them short
and fat too. She has had 11 full days out of soil, putting her on day 12 of veg.

Blueberry Kush x AK47 seed #4:
Pulling in at 57 days old, day 8 Flowering is the BBKxAK47. I did some defoliation, tucking and training earlier
in the week, and noticed a lot of the leave tips on the branches got emaciated a bit from being under the
big leaves, I think because of not enough airflow and sweating from the big leaves. In any case, they seem to
be pulling through it and spreading out nicely now. I will probably have to do some more tucking and defoliation
to make sure the canopy stays nice and even and all the bud sites are getting light. I'm counting over 30 tops here, which is what I was shooting for. Big difference from last weeks pic.

OG Kush seed #14 (SIP Bucket test):
At a solid 108 days old and day 64 flower, the OGK plant is purpling up nicely. Looking like she has another week or two left in her, she is also yellowing up quite a bit on the bottom leaves, which can be seen in the last pic I'll post. In these pics you can see the purpling nicely, and the contrast in colors between the OGK plant and the early flowering BBKxAK47. I wish I would have worked harder to spread her out a bit more, but she was pulling hard against the training once she got into flower. I've been feeding her just water for a long time now, and she is finally starting to show colors. Really looking forward to seeing how this one finishes.

And finally, a shot of the flowering area:


That's the roundup for this week, my Fruity Pebbles OG v2.0 plant hasn't finished drying yet as I had expected, so I will be chopping her up probably starting tonight and will update on the results of the harvest once complete.
Those are some beauts:)

Following now that I found this journal, keep it up!

Cheers.
 
Alright, lots of pics n stuff today!

First up this week is Gelato seed #7 after 8 full days of veg. Everything seems to be growing good. As usual I am top-watering this plant to start, keeping the soil moist at the top until she is ready for the SIP action.

Next up is the Wedding Cake seed #2 on day 14 of flower, so almost 2 weeks flowering. This one is already popping out flowers, so I don't expect it to stretch too much more. I also expect it to finish up a little quicker than the OGK #15 because of that. I continue to train but have stopped defoliation mostly. I'm also letting the plant build up the canopy in the middle now, and am tucking in any leaves that reach too high or cover buds while training the outer branches outward.

Lastly is the OG Kush seed #15 coming in at about 12 weeks of flowering. She still isn't quite finished to my liking, so I will give her another week or so. I will feed one last time today, and it should take about 4 or 5 days to use all the water, leaving a while for a solid drought right before harvesting. The trichs are dense and big and the buds are looking badass. Getting excited to 'unwrap' my Christmas present!

And finally a wider shot of the flowering area:

:yummy:
Just chunky!
 
I love growing weed!

And on that note, firstly this week is the old Skunk #1 seed that I tried to sprout that didn't get anywhere after popping out of its shell, so I started another OG Kush (seed #16) and it is just coming out of soil this morning. I will count this as day 1 of veg and give it around 50 days at most before flowering.

Next up is the Gelato seed #7 coming in after 36 days of veg and she's getting ready for flowering pretty soon. This strategy of not doing any defoliation yet and keeping the center branching under control using the leaves seems to be paying off. Its the only way I seem to be able to keep the main branches growing outward instead of having the middle branches take over. I'm only topping up the SIPs every 5 days or so as well, as soon as they really get low or are empty. Keeping a close eye so I'm not running them through drought cycles unnecessarily.

Lastly, flowering away is the Wedding Cake seed #2 on day 42 of flowering and still stinking up the place. The buds have slowed growing upwards it seems and started bulking up sideways a little more. Very minimal maintenance and feeding on this one coming into late flower. The leaves are probably more yellow than usual at this point, but still I'm not adding any extra nitrogen to the feed, just going to let it ride. You can see a lot of trichomes on the sugar leaves in the pics which is usually a good sign. Will drought in the next week or two. Hoping for an early finish.

:smokin:
 
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