Prospero’s Grow: Week 5: T-minus 1 Week to Flower and Important Lesson On Watering Cannabis Plants

After almost a month growing my own cannabis plants, things are going well and I think the plants are going to be ready to start flowering in about a week, which is right on schedule.

After advice from several growers, I’ve decided to put juicing cannabis on hold for the time being after I ran out of fan leaves on my departed Killer Skunk Berry plant. While both other strains do contain a good deal of fan leaves, it’s definitely NOT a good idea to cut too many leaves off a plant that is still in veg. Weedist’s own Denver Green Beaker put it best in his comment on a post from a few weeks ago:

“While removing fan leaves can allow more light to reach the newly developing leaves, the fan leaves are powerhouses of energy production, and removing them generally affects the plant’s ability to maintain fast, vigorous growth because of the loss of energy production and stress. Different growers have different methods, for sure, but I usually don’t remove any fan leaves except ones that are unhealthy or are receiving very little light (because they’re at the bottom of a lengthy plant).

Overall, my Triple Diesel is looking simply awesome, with a strong central stalk now firmly in place and large leaves that are already producing a slight smell. The Third Dimension I recently acquired was already pretty tall and mature, and the extra few weeks of veg before flower should only help overall growth.

I have been very careful not to overwater or overfeed the plants. A common first time mistake is to overdo it with water; just like humans, too much food or drink is not going to be good. I’ve been following The Other Tomato feeding schedule with the addition of Nirvana from Advanced Nutrients every three to four days. However, I did learn an important lesson this week about adjusting the amount of water relative to the size of the plant.

Because I now have two different size plants, I actually need to treat each one a bit differently, before going to bed, I checked the plants to see if they needed water and both seemed fine. When I woke up the next morning, the Third Dimension was looking pretty terrible. After first panicking because the plant was looking so droopy, I gave it a good deal of water and then fed both plants with the standard nutrients, adding 5 ml of Fortify and increasing the Nirvana to 10 mg (I have usually been doing about 5 mg).

Third Dimension in serious need of some water…

Within an hour, the Third Dimension was back to its old self and looked fine. Even though it did definitely seem like a disaster at first, it just turned out that she just needed some water. I have now taken to watering the Third Dimension every single day, giving the much smaller Triple Diesel water only every two days or so. For the first three days after it wilted, I also added just 5 ml of Nirvana to the Triple Diesel’s water, just to give it a little boost to make sure it gets back to 100% health.

Finally, I did finally go ahead and get some reflective material, which can be found pretty cheaply at any grow store. I’ve been told that it should help keep in lumens of light, which should just increase the amount of total available light for the plants.

About an hour or so later, after getting some water and finally deciding to hang up some reflective material..

This first growing experience has been filled with little opportunities to learn, and it’s been great to get lots of opinions. Any other grow tips that experienced Weedists can give? Leave your marijuana grow tips in the comment section below!

Prospero’s Grow – 15 Week Series:

1. Week 1: Set Up and Explanation of Juicing Cannabis
2. Week 2: All Going Well and Nutrient Advice
3. Week 3: Advanced Nutrients Nirvana and Some Real Growth!
4. Week 4: New Developments from The Wizard and Start of Juicing Cannabis
5. Week 5: T-minus 1 Week to Flower and Important Lesson On Watering Cannabis Plants [this post]
6. Week 6: It’s Flower Time!
7. Week 7: Starting to Flower and Introduction of Advanced Nutrient Bud Candy
8. Week 8: Flushing Cannabis Plants and Raising the Grow Light
9. Week 9: Frosty Leaves and Real Buds! More Juicing Cannabis Information
10. Week 10: Growing Steadily and Some Thoughts On Pruning Cannabis
11. Week 11: About Time to Start Flushing
12. Week 12: Almost Harvest Time, Strong Cannabis Smell
13. Week 13: Harvesting Cannabis. This is It!
14. Week 14: Trimming and Curing Cannabis
15. Week 15: Final Thoughts On Growing your Own Marijuana
16. Epilogue: How to Make Your Own Homegrown Bud Joint Stash