Elusives Grow #2 is starting tonight

elusiveshame · Jan 8, 2023

Watering wicks arrived about an hour ago. 15ish mins ago I set up and watered them, so I’ll check in on them in about an hour and report back.

elusiveshame · Jan 8, 2023

I had to read up on the auto water bases, and turns out you need to start with saturated soil before it’ll work. Whoops

I checked around 2 hours after I put it all together and only the bottom was registering as between “normal” and “wet” on my soil tester.

So, I watered them just now, so we’ll see what they look like throughout tomorrow.

Last night I decided to start LST’ing the Silver Alert since it was kind of lanky and at a height where I could go for the main stalk:

Tomorrow brings on another day :)

As for the gorillas - I watered them today as well, but no auto watering pots below them. Just watered until run off:

Will be adjusting the wires tonight on the left pair, and might start training the other 2 if there’s any good points to hook onto.

SchwiftyGrower · Jan 8, 2023

Great stuff man and good to know in the future for the auto pots you’re really giving me some good info! Keep up with the kick ass work and info!

elusiveshame · Jan 8, 2023

SchwiftyGrower said:
Great stuff man and good to know in the future for the auto pots you’re really giving me some good info! Keep up with the kick ass work and info!

Thanks! I'm hoping the auto pots do something, but at the very least, it's a nice thing to have to catch any run off.

I need to see if nutrients will go up through it, or if I'll need to let it dry out once a week to put in the liquid nutrients from the top. Either way, though, this should help. Guess that's tonight's project :P

SchwiftyGrower · Jan 9, 2023

elusiveshame said:
Thanks! I'm hoping the auto pots do something, but at the very least, it's a nice thing to have to catch any run off.

I need to see if nutrients will go up through it, or if I'll need to let it dry out once a week to put in the liquid nutrients from the top. Either way, though, this should help. Guess that's tonight's project :P

Sweet, you’re on the way to answering my next question lol

elusiveshame · Jan 9, 2023

SchwiftyGrower said:
Sweet, you’re on the way to answering my next question lol

From what I've researched last night, as long as the nutrients are liquid or water soluble, they should be fine to use in the base. I'm going to go at 1/4 and 1/2 doses to start off with in a few weeks, since the nutrients in the soil aren't being flushed out during normal watering and I don't want risk any lockout or nutrient burn.

As of this morning, the plants with the bases are still fully moist on the top, so this seems to be working out decent so far. My tents were a bit high in temp this morning as well (82-84F) due to my pellet stove (had it cranked last night because it was pretty chilly, and woke up to snow), but I've turned it down now since I don't need the house at 78F all day.

Also, I was trying to figure out the best way to water the bases (or the tops of the pots). Last grow I used a food grade rubber tube that I slid over my watering cans spout, and while that worked just fine, it's not the best to use for filling up the bases. I snagged a 2 gallon garden sprayer a few weeks ago for my outdoor crops this year, but I decided to give it a go last night just to see how well it would work for me, and here's my thoughts:

Using this is so much better IMO than using a watering can. First, not only is the flow less, but you have so much better control on where to water. When I was saturating the soil from the top, it was so much more convenient to have a controlled flow coming out, so when my soil tester was in, I could water, wait a short period, and see if the tester updated. The only downside is that it does take a little longer to water, but I don't think that's really much of an issue.

This is what I'm using: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08B42X9NY

Super cheap and very effective.

I'll post some pics later on today and give an update on the plants.

SchwiftyGrower · Jan 9, 2023

Yup that’s exactly what I use. It does make watering slower, but I feel I get a more even and consistent watering. My 3 gallon fabric pots can take a 1/2 gallon exactly slowly spraying all the soil. Takes me around an hour to water all 4 plants with a small amount of run off

elusiveshame · Jan 9, 2023

SchwiftyGrower said:
Yup that’s exactly what I use. It does make watering slower, but I feel I get a more even and consistent watering. My 3 gallon fabric pots can take a 1/2 gallon exactly slowly spraying all the soil. Takes me around an hour to water all 4 plants with a small amount of run off

Yeah, I don't think I can go back to a watering can after this. I've been spoiled xD

I just filled up the bases just now, which took about 1.5 gallons to refill all 5. I removed the nozzle screw cover so it could go faster, but if I'm watering from the top, I'll def keep that on.

elusiveshame · Jan 9, 2023

The photo tent:

As you can see, the soil looks just as moist as last night with no dry spot. I’m really digging these bases.

Here’s the auto tent:

I dialed the light down 1 setting as the front right plant seems to be getting some burn at the tips on top.

I tried raising the light a few inches yesterday but that didn’t seem to help.

Overall, though, both tents seem to be doing very well!

elusiveshame · Jan 10, 2023

Today’s pics:

Autoflower tent:

Front 2 are just exploding - you can see noticeable growth from yesterday’s pic. The back 2 are continuing to get bigger and are about a week behind the other 2.

Photo tent:

Definitely some noticeable growth, but nothing like the autos.

The pots were getting dry on top, so I may not have saturated the soil enough for the auto watering setup to really become beneficial. There’s definitely been some absorption, and it may have slowed down the pots from drying out, but if I don’t see much of a change in the next week, I’ll just go back to top watering.

If they dry out again, I’ll give them a heavier watering as one last attempt before I just nix this idea.

elusiveshame · Jan 10, 2023

I was debating on doing some training tonight on the 2 gorillas or just wait until tomorrow, but when I checked up on them 20 mins ago I decided to adjust since there was a fair amount of growth.

Strawberry Gorilla A:

Canopy shot

Did some leaf tucking as best I could.

Strawberry Gorilla B:

This one seems to have more tops currently, but both are looking great.

The other 2 are growing, but still too small to start training.

elusiveshame · Jan 11, 2023

Today’s photos:

The auto tent:

The photo tent:

That’s all for now

elusiveshame · Jan 11, 2023

Just got done adjusting / adding garden wires to the 2 gorillas.

For those of you who have grown autos - is that fan leaf on top okay for snip? It’s shadowing a bud below it, and that leaf I believe is on the 3rd node from the top.

I’m trying to go as light and delicate on these as I can since I don’t want to over stress them.

SchwiftyGrower · Jan 11, 2023

I’ve never grown autos but I’ve always heard you want to limit as much stress as you can to not stunt the growth. Only heard light LST is the only thing that should be done, but have 0 experience, hopefully someone can chime in for you

elusiveshame · Jan 12, 2023

SchwiftyGrower said:
I’ve never grown autos but I’ve always heard you want to limit as much stress as you can to not stunt the growth. Only heard light LST is the only thing that should be done, but have 0 experience, hopefully someone can chime in for you

I’ve been doing probably light to moderate LST on these 2, but they’ve been really growing so I don’t think it’s too much for them. I did end up snipping that one leaf.

Here’s the pics of them before lights out:

Here’s the plant that was planted a week after the others:

Here’s the one that got kind of stuck:

I think she’s gonna be a dwarf and have an incredibly low yield, but I’m gonna let it ride anyway. She could surprise me, but I’m curbing my hopes on that.

elusiveshame · Jan 12, 2023

This mornings pics:

Le’autoflowers:

Ze’photoperiods:

Just refilled the bases (except the lower right one, ran out of water so I’ll be doing that shortly)

The bases seem to be doing okay. The top soil is somewhat dry, but not completely, and they’ve taken up quite a bit of water from the bases.

I think at best I’ll be able to do is water from the top once per week and maintain from the bases.

I might start training the photos this weekend as they’re looking pretty close to be able to start.

elusiveshame · Jan 12, 2023

Strawberry Gorilla A is already flowering. B is right there, and I’d bet I start seeing pistils showing by tomorrow morning.

The Silver Alert is the only photo I’ve been “training” so far. I had the 90 clip on since she was kind of lanky and the stalk was thin enough to work with the clip. Well, she kept on growing, so now I put a 2nd clip on her:

I also attached a wire to pull her back the other way a bit, but otherwise I think she’s having a fun time.

elusiveshame · Jan 12, 2023

Did some LST’ing to a third strawberry gorilla and all of the photos tonight.

Auto tent:

Adjusted the front 2, used a red 90 degree clip on the back right.

The back left is stunted for sure as she’s growing pistils already. I’ll likely get just a single nug out of her. They can’t all be growers I suppose. I’ll still let her ride tho.

The photo tent:

The 3 white widows are using garden wire as there’s no good spot to use 90 degree clips. I also cut off the bottom 2 sets of leaves on these 3 (first true leaves and first fan leaves) as one side was hitting the soil and the other was covered, so pretty much useless.

The Lucid Dreams x Hell’s Kitchen is using a 90 degree clip, no trimming is needed yet.

The Silver Alert is in the shape of a 5 right now:

All the pots are still very heavy, so it seems like the bottom feeding pots are working pretty decent. The last time I did a top watering was on Tuesday, so we’ll see how they fare tomorrow.

elusiveshame · Jan 13, 2023

Today’s pics:

Auto tent:

Nothing really changed from last night to today. I did water them this morning, though.

Photo tent:

All seem to be growing well. The very top of the soil is a bit dry, but right under is still moist.

I watered all of the bases today as well. They were all 50% or less filled with water, so they’re at least drinking from it. I may add a third wick to each setup on a few to see if that helps any, or I may just run one to the top and see if that does anything.

elusiveshame · Jan 14, 2023

Today’s pics:

Auto tent:

I did some adjusting on the LST last night, and removed the clip from the one in the back as it fell partially off and there wasn’t any good way to put it back on.

Photo tent:

These girls are just loving life. Top of the soil is kind of dry on most of them, but they’re still drinking from the bottom. I filled up the bases this morning, and I’ll use my soil tester later on + check their weight when I do some training later on.

Overall, they seem to be healthy and growing strong.

Elusives Grow #2 is starting tonight

Elusives Grow #2 is starting tonight

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