I am returning to growing after a few years off, personal situation once again in a position where it makes sense. I had a bit of a false start- I had a couple of free seeds (critical plus auto) left over from when I stopped. Successfully germinated them but lost them as seedlings (fairly sure this was due to having my water levels too high and the rockwool cube never drying) So as I've ran out of the autos I had left over I've got new seeds and am finally going photoperiod. She went in July 17th One week 2 weeks. The bigger bucket next to it is what its going in long term ( Because I'd had the seedlings problem I wanted to rule out a few variables so shes in the pot I normally grow chilies in and the chillies are in the big one so I could rule out it being anything to do with the pot - the chilli is doing fine in it) 3 weeks - moved into its final bucket.
Last week I began some LST Went away to do a festival and came back to find she's getting pretty leafy. Week 4 I've done a little more training. Only being home two days a week most weeks this time of year will probably limit how elaborate I can get with training. (Thats the reason for the DWC decision too- I tend to get home early hours of monday morning, have a few hours sleep, go up to the attic to check on things and do anything that needs doing, then I'm gone again from wednesday- most other growing methods I'd be expecting to come back to a dead plant) I've had good success with scrog net on my last (few) auto grows so my thinking is I'll give it another few weeks growing like this, then once its the right height for the net (and hopefully growing fairly omnidirectionally at that point) put the net in, probably one week of veging into the net then flip it so theres still plenty of net to take its stretching. until next week bud enthusiasts...
So as mentioned I did some more LST on the plant after the last photo was taken so she then looked like this. went away, did a festival, came home to a bush week 5 theres like 5 branches currently making a claim to be a new top, I've done some more training to pull all those side ways (thinking it might be the last round). Lets see what next week brings
Double update this week. So after the last photo (22nd july) I did more lst a week later she'd bounced back to and now at 7 weeks Touring schedule for the autumn is starting to shape up, theres a pretty brutal 5 weeks in europe so no breaks long enough to come home and trying to leave my other half with as little work to do as possible with this in that time will largely dictate flowering and harvest schedules.
Week 8 been a really hot week, some of the leaves are a little dried out I'm around a little more this week so I can do a mid week water too.
Not updated here in a few weeks: What in the last post I thought had been drying due to heat showed itself to be the beginning of a deficiency problem. Lowered the pH a bit and theres been no new leaves going bad and lots of new growth looking healthy since. theres still a few old leaves with discolouring, but i'll take them off if they don't shed. week 9 week 10 (you can see the deficency at its worst here) Week 12 all better Flipped to 12/12 lighting this morning- veg was a little longer than I'd like but means I don't have to leave my partner to do the harvest as I'll be away on tour.
One week into 12:12 put a scrog net on to tidy it up a bit. this is where my none square grow area may bit me as its not as wide at the back as front. and these are a week later (now 2 weeks into flowering, 1 into the net) The bits where its higher in the back right corner i've run out of squares to train it into because of the non-square tent and its coming up the outside of the net. Once its got a bit more stretch to play with next week i'm going to try and train it back on itself to even things out. we'll see how that goes.
3rd week of flowering feels like the stretch is beginning to slow and its starting to smell a lot like flowering season in the tent. I'm about to make up a big batch of nutrients then I'm off on tour for 7 weeks leaving my other half in charge. Hopefully I come back to some dank buds nearing harvest rather than a dead plant.