With only 5 days to go I'm going to start warming up some soil/Coco and prepping some perlite into Coco and will buffer it in a couple days.

I have to adjust my soil/Coco mix as I suspected pH is off and is a little alkaline. 7.5 so I am going to see about some DTE acidic mix, maybe some elemental sulfur, or some iron sulfate. I believe the latter would be sufficient. Tick tock is it 4/20 yet?

Who's staying up to drop their beans? Almost time!

Happy 420!! 13 hours and 40 minutes in we have signs of life!

Think different sunk as soon as I dropped it in my bottled water and decided to show me her tail.

They have all been placed in paper towels in between 2 ceramic plates on top of my pellet stove... Yes I'm still burning for heat right now, I've made great use of this process since NYGC and have successfully germinated 8 of 9 seeds this will be 9 of 10.

making use of run off. About to start an herb garden and some other crops. My rhubarb just exploded and Rose bushes are just waiting for the weather to break and climbing everyday. Flowers in the recycled tires love a little here and there plus I have an apple tree and some other flowers in front that don't seem to mind.

Can't wait to get the side by side going fingers crossed for more tails 😉.

Growers Love everyone!! Best of wishes to everyone!! 

28 hours after dropping beans all have tails in the paper towels. Will more then likely be dropping them in my medium when I get home from work. So I've been prepping Coco and warming up my soil bags this morning.

For those that are new to the forum here is my recipe for my amended Coco/soil/perlite.

1&1/2 bags cocopalms,30 gallons native mole hill dirt, 2 gallons of roots organics big worm (ewc), 1.5 cubic feet perlite, 4 cups blood meal, 6 cups azomite, 6 cups seabird guano, 1 pound green sand, 6 cups feather meal, 1 pound fish bone meal, 4 cups Epsom salt, 6 cups alfalfa meal, 1 pound granular humic acids, 2 pounds kelp meal, 2 pounds oyster shell, 3 cups garden lime, 6 cups langbienite, 3 cups diamatocious Earth, 6 cups bti bits, 6 cups roots organics uprising foundation and equal part grow, 4 cups uprising bloom, 10 tablespoons oregonismxl, and 6 cups of insect frass. Roots organics Trinity mixed by application rate into 2 gallon solution and watered in.

Very happy about a 100% germination rate and I hope my soil mix is okay for seedlings. I figure if it doesn't work now it will make decisions easier. There's a light topping off just mole hill dirt so they have a bit of a chance. Happy growing all! Hope everyone else's beans are popping too.

My seeds sure are taking their time. It didn't help that the seeds sunk deeper then I actually planted. Glueberry in Coco sprouted by itself but the rest needed help. So I gently excavated the rest, low and behold all Coco girls had cotelydons so I exposed them.

The soil girls were way too deep and thought they were gone. I dug out half the medium on think different only to see the seed shell attached to the tail , and gently covered her lightly with the soil I removed. The other 2 didn't have shells and I'm not sure they're going to make it.

Guess I'll know in a couple days for certain. Luckily I have 1 more of each seed so those 2 can be replaced and the side by side can continue. Fingers crossed for the soil girls, they'll still be behind regardless so planting additional seeds shouldn't matter much. Happy growing everyone!!

All soil girls popping up, day 1.5 for Glueberry. She might not like my soil, might be a little hot.

I'm not going to count this as day one since cotelydons haven't opened on think different or night queen, but they should be open by the time I get home from work.

So the story begins, hope you all follow along on this journey. The side by side is going down but there is always a chance at failure with the soil blend. Hopefully it won't be for naught. Growers Love!!

Germinating another think different after the soil one failed. Still waiting on her to pop.

Coco gals are doing good and beginning to show nice progress. The soil gals have pulled out of their funk and seem to enjoy the blend of organic matter.

Just cruising along now we wait on roots. Have to get a tea brewer up and running again and might have to switch tents I was planning to use. But I'll save that for another post.

Happy growing!!

So where do I begin!? First off I guess I'll state that my grow area for this challenge is still occupied and I'm going to trying clearing it out. Since the plants in there now are in the midst of flushing I think I can move them out and get it cleaned up tomorrow.

Now on to my lighting and environment. It's warming up here so I'll be giving them 4-5 hours of darkness during the hottest parts of the day. I'm also thinking of ditching the ballast I'm running and get a true 600 watt ballast. I don't think it was appropriate to be running a 1000 watt ballast on 600 watts with the 600 watt bulb. I think it threw off the true color of the bulb/spectrum and made it run too hot. Needless to say I'm going to need another bulb as well. I won't be using the mh just straight hps through this run.

Onto the SAFC girls. Really even growth coming from Coco gals, they've hit a bit of a ca/mg issue but are ready for pots. Problem is, I don't have room in my veg area for them. Thus the explanation of environment. I'm fairly confident they will snap out of it when I increase ca/mg, only been using 3ml a gallon. I'm switching my Coco to House and gardens and I will prefertigate it tomorrow and transplant on the 9th.

Soil girls are gaining momentum now that I've increased watering frequency. Though I think drainage is really poor from lack of perlite I'll be transplanting at the same time to increase drainage and give the roots a more comfortable home.

Think different hasn't really broke ground yet either so I'll be aerating when I get home after work.

After preparing my Coco/soil pots I'm more confident I can get away with a daily watering but we'll see how well they do first. Happy growing everyone!!

I believe think different dampened off again. I put her in a different pot but think she's a goner. I am in the middle of setting up my tent with some cheap LEDs while I clean my hood and floor. Will throw the hps in when I get a new bulb next week. Pics when I'm done transplanting.

Getting everything situated in the tent. Got my auto drain going and about to hook up the auto watering. The light was raised for convenience that's not where it will stay.

I haven't got my new ballast and bulb yet but I will get them eventually. I accidently dripped nutes water on my soil glueberry, she didn't like that.

despite the size I transplanted both soil girls think different didn't make it through. Sad but here's night queen soil/Coco.

Wasn't very pleased with the roots, dusted them with oxl, dropped some green sand and oxl in the hole and watering will be less frequent. Will be mixing a top dressing and brew up a tea to try and kick things off.

And the Coco gals, Night Queen is showing some sativa like structure whilst the other 2 are fairly short and wide. Still have that ca/mg curl and I have to get them on auto water before I spill nute water on them too. I didn't realize how low they were, water pools a little on the halos, and it flows right were the leaves sit on gb and td. Nq has a little yellow showing on new growth and the other 2 look like they've been over watered or slight n tox. I don't think it's either, maybe I damaged roots too much removing them from the bags. I didn't have a good transplant this time, but I think they'll pull through in the next few days and perk up.

With the way things are going I'm not sure I'm going to top any of these plants. I figure I have another week to decide. I'm going to clip off some lower growth and see where to go from there.

Hope you all are doing better then I am in this challenge then I am. Having issues this grow, don't think I was truly ready to start this challenge. I've been side tracked by work and life. I really should have sat out this challenge and got my 💩 together before starting another grow. It is way hotter in my room then normal and I'm going to have to buy another AC unit. Getting a stand up portable one to try and get through this challenge without more problems.

My son is getting into trouble and I've had to send him money for fines and school. He's actually a good young man, just wrong place wrong time. I wish he'd just move out here with me, things would be easier to handle without spontaneous cash withdrawals lol. Anyways, happy growing everyone!

So things were looking better and I decided to trim off the first nodes off all the Coco girls. Think different got topped and night queen was fimd. Glueberry now looks ready to be topped. I'm hoping the longer breeder times work with me.

Soil girls not doing so hot, my soil mix must be too much for the sensitivity of auto flowers.

I feel like I should be trying to grow a couple more autos, I am debating on germinating the Colorado cookies today and just run 2 of those in roots organics original with my mix on the bottom. I don't want to deal with different ec and feeds in Coco. Still chugging along. Happy growing!!

So this side by side is a bust. I warned everyone this might happen. I've got 2 Colorado cookies to try and compensate. I'll probably just move the Glueberry and Night Queen soil girls outdoors replacing them with the cookies. See what happens.

Day 20 for Coco girls and Glueberry has pistils.

Ec running pretty high, now that I checked, I don't think my halos are set right and I will increase fertigation. I hadn't hand watered in a couple weeks and things have been kind of dry in the tent. Weird because it's like 75% rh in my shop. I'll have them back on track in a few days. I've been ignoring them for the most part. I have other girls I'm taking care of and these just haven't been a priority.

Colorado cookies #1 day 1. Will be using Roots organics greenlite with their 3 part uprising dry amendments. First top dressing today with foundation,ewc, and oregonismxl. Going to try keeping it simple 😉

Day 1 Colorado cookies #2

my run off water has made my rhododendron, rhubarb, and iris grow like crazy this year.

started giving it to my Apple tree and some other bushes and shrubs 👍