Aesliip’s Grow: Nutrients Disaster!

Disaster strikes my grow op! Here near the end, a month into flowering, I have run into a myriad of problems. The smooth sailing up until this point was just the calm before the gathering storm; my interstellar (blue) dreams have crashed into planet reality.

Here’s how it went down. A few weeks ago my plants began to droop. I couldn’t figure out what was causing it: whether it was temperature, not enough water, not enough nutrients, etc. I had never added any nutrients or fertilizer and instead of taking the time to research it, I jumped to the conclusion that it needed nutrients.

I figured the soil was running low on nutrients for the plant. I didn’t realize at the time that if you buy the right soil, you won’t need to add any nutrients at all. I went out and bought some Miracle Grow Bloom Booster, which is lighter on the nitrogen and heavier on the phosphorous, which is supposed to be better for any plants that are flowering.

I mixed the fertilizer with water according to the instructions on the box and watered the plants. I gave the small plant and the larger plant the same dose, and after a day or so the small plant’s leaves began to curl back and dry up. A few days more and I realized I had grossly over fertilized the smaller one. It’s dead now. The bigger plant suffered a little bit, but eventually recovered.

After killing my poor cannabis plant, I finally did the proper research as to what the problem was. Based on what I read and from observations of my set-up, the problem was not lack of nutrients, it was poor soil drainage. The water is just sitting there and the plant doesn’t have access to fresh water with good oxygen content. I figured this was because when I water, there is no run-off coming out of the bottom, and the soil at the top was staying wet for more than five days.

I realized the flower pots I have the plants in are too big and don’t drain well. I tried poking some more holes in the bottom, but this was dangerous since moving the pot caused the plants to lean and fall all over the place.

I poked some holes into the soil with a chopstick to allow more air in, and hopefully dry the soil out some, but this doesn’t appear to be working very well. I want to get in the soil and churn it up a bit, but I’m afraid of damaging the roots.

I will continue to look things up and find ways to aerate the soil. In any case, while it sucks that I killed one of the plants, I’m glad that I finally made some mistakes. We learn from mistakes, and the goal of my first grow op hasn’t been to get a big yield, it was mainly to learn. Once I start harvesting from the big plant I’ll likely make more mistakes, but each mistake equals experience, and that’s what really counts!

Aesliip’s Grow Series:

1. Germinating and Setting Up
2. Vegetative Stage Weeks 1 and 2
3. Weeks 3 and 4
4. Blue Dream, Weeks 5 and 6
5. Weeks 8 and 9, the Smell!
6. Final Vegetative Weeks
7. Flowering Stage
8. Sexing the Cannabis Plants
9. Flowering Update
10. Nutrients Disaster! [this post]