I started a grow with some seeds that I got while I was in the UK. I picked up 5 feminized Big Easy auto flowers and 5 feminized Midnight Express auto flowers. I decided to grow a single Midnight Express seed to see how it went. The plant has come along pretty well, but is somewhat short. I contribute this to waiting to long to transplant it from the solo cup I germinated it in. It could of had another week or so of growth had it not been root bound that whole time.

Anyways, if my timing is correct with when I planted it and it sprouted, I should start flushing at the end of this week, meaning it should be ready to harvest on the 7th of Nov. However, I broke my old phone that had the proper schedule in the calendar, so it may be a week too early at that point. I can't remember exactly.

I have attached some photos of it in its current state. It has a single 125W CFL bloom spectrum light, and 2 smaller 40-50W CFL bulbs of the same spectrum. I have grown it in fox farms happy frog soil, using a 4-2-2 veg nutrient and switched to a 2-3-4 nutrient solution once it started budding. Light schedule has remained on 24 hours straight of light for the whole grow. I am pleased with the results so far. I gave it the last watering with nutrients today, giving it almost the whole gallon as it seems to handle a lot of water at once very well and it was over do for water. The rest of the gallon (less then a quarter) will be given tomorrow. The overall temp has remained between 70-80F the whole grow with a fan for circulation.

Is there a way to rotate the pictures? I did not realize they would be sideways like this

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Why the 24 hour light the whole time? I remember when I used to grow weed, the light cycles were quite important. Specially during the flowering stage. Also, I recommend "topping" your plants, as they'll grow outwards with more colas.

Enjoy the harvest

It is an auto flower, they do not need the change in light in order to start budding. They are crossed with ruderalis to make this happen. They essentially have an internal clock that tells them to start budding regardless of light cycles or spectrums.

This internal clock also makes it so you can't do things like topping. The more you do that, the more time the plant has to focus on healing instead of growing taller. With auto flowers, that's precious time lost as you can not control when it stops growth and begins to bud. The only stress or training you can use is light tie down stress training, to open them up to more light.

When it comes to photo period strains, I top them like crazy and get some pretty big bushy plants. It's just not possible and hurts yields with auto flowers unfortunately.

if you run your images through a 3rd party imaging editing software they should come up correctly. Open it in some free software, save as, and upload should be good to go.

Awesome looking plant btw.

Thanks, I'm excited to see the final yield and try it out. The buds are all purple, and even the leafs are purple on the underside. I have never had any cannabis that was completely purple like this before, always just small specks of purple throughout the green.

It's a heavy indica, so I will have to try it out for sleep.

I plan on getting a better light set up and will try to grow two at a time next. Maybe I'll give the Big Easy a go. I just hope this one yields enough to hold me over until the next harvest. I'm thinking it should give at least 2 ounces. I have never grown autos before though so I don't know how well they produce.

A lot has obviously changed since I was growing! I used to get 10 seeds at a time (non feminised) and usually would get 5 or 6 females. Sounds like the process has become much easier.

That's how I started as well. I would always use seeds I found while breaking up bud that I had. I still have a bag filled with them, and will probably use those at some point too. I wouldn't say it's easier, it has just taken the chances of males being grown out of the equation. You still need to worry about nutes, pH, lighting, and everything else. Unless it's an autoflower, then you don't have to worry about lighting as much when it comes to the time schedule.

There is a down side to the autos though. You get much less bud off of a plant. You can not top them to make them branch out, and if you make even the tiniest mistake that will reduce growth speed, you suffer in the final yield since you can't just keep them in veg growth.

But back to my plant, I just performed the first of two flushes on it. Placed it in the shower and used the shower head which is attached to a hose to flood the soil. All the run off was colored brown from the nutrients that I had been using. I will probably give it one more light feeding, then another flush a few days before harvest on the 7th.

I'll have to post another picture before I cut it down.

One more week!

Harvest day is here!

Yesterday I cut off all the big fan leaves and any other leaves that I could easily get my scissors in there to cut. Some of these had some decent trichomes, so those were placed in a wicker basket with pieces of paper towel pressed on top of them. This will dry them slowly and evenly before I place them in a jar in a few days to let them cure a bit. The same will be done with the sugar leaves after trimming the buds. I'll probably roll a joint with them as there is not a whole lot to do anything else with them.

The plant is hung upside down on two wire hangers from the lowest branches possible. It's in the same closet it was grown in, being kept in the dark for a few days before introducing light. There is a small fan on the bottom on the closet to circulate air, not blowing directly on it. Humidity is about 40% and temp is between 65-70F.

In about a week I'll let you all know how the yield is before curing it for a couple more weeks.

Getting really excited!

I think you can top autos, I did it on two plants I have going now and while it did seem to slow down the growth for a bit, the yield doesn't look like it was that poorly affected. I topped them only once very early after the second set of fan leaves appears.

Maybe I'll give it a try on the next plant. I have 4 midnight seeds left and 5 Big Easy. I should try a side by side comparison to see how it effects yield. I need a better light set up if I am going to do more then one plant though.

I would recommend some LEDs if you can afford them, I have a few of the Platinum LED P150 fixtures and they are working great for a small closest grow. Also, it makes a big difference in light efficiency if you build a reflective enclosure/tent around the plants, look for something called foylon if you're DIY.

I have always heard negative things about led fixtures, especially for how much they cost. I don't have the money for them anyways. Right now I'm using a 125W CFL with two smaller 35w aimed at the plant from the side. What I think I'm going to do next, is get a t5 ballast that stretches across the length of the closet so I can place more plants underneath it. Then line the closet with something super reflective.

Because of only having a single stalk that was drying, it was dry enough to trim up today and place in a jar. It was a disappointing looking yield. I did not weigh it but there is maybe a quarter ounce from a single plant.

I tried some before curing it, and it was super smooth, and had an excellent taste. Kind of like a mix of some berries and an earthiness taste.

I'm excited to see how it will be once cured for two weeks.

I took two hits and am pretty high, but I also have a very low tolerance due to not smoking much anymore.

Anyone have tips on how to get bigger fatter buds for the next plant? It would be another midnight express.

That name reminds we of a horrible movie and a funny hippie bus accident we had in istanbul

The strain genetics has a lot to do with size, but with that being said, better lighting, CO2 supplementation will for sure help. If your only using little CFLs they are not going to produce huge nugs. I used to use 1000w myself but have recently transitioned over to LED. I have just switched to bloom, but during veg they grew rather fast and very healthy. It will be my first harvest with LEDs and so far its showing promise.

If you can afford one I would recommend going that route. I use a P300 and a Mars hydro II 900 both put out a identical spectrums (I have them side by side), but the mars light has a larger footprint. Perfect for closet grows. The more available light the more it can produce. As soon as mine get there I'll post pics.

I believe it was the limited light, not the genetics in my case. The package with the seeds said it should easily produce a lot more then the quarter that I had gotten.

I should get some better lights soon and will try again when the time is right.

I would say that new lighting would be your best bet. From your pics the buds looked good. There are cheaper options on LEDs that work, there's no need for a commercial type light for a closet setup do a little research on them and decide what works best for you like price, warranty, spectrum etc. and I think you will have better success next time.

LEDs have came a little ways since they first came out which is where I also heard all the negative reviews, but since then they have gotten better and cheaper and reviews have gotten a lot better. In my case it seems to be working out just fine.

Good luck on whatever route you choose