Going on vacation in 3 weeks. what to do with the girls?

Hey, mid-level grower with a situation here. I've got two plants in scrog which I flipped to 12/12 almost exactly 2 months ago. The problem is that I'll be going on vacation abroad in 3 weeks time, and I'll be gone for 3 weeks. I'm just wondering if these girls are gonna be ready?

If not, what are my options?

cut them early?
try and DIY a watering system and let them grow while I'm away?
Let them dry out in the pots after I've gone?

I don't want to be thinking about the fire hazard while I'm away on vacation, so it's not very tempting to let the room keep going... but if an early harvest is really a giant waste I might have to consider it.

Some pics from today:

it doesnt look like it.. if you are i mean you'd be pushing the envelope i assume maybe in 3-4 weeks you could start flushing but i wouldn't say your harvest ready in three.. you have anyone VERY VERY close you can trust to just flush them?

do not let them dry in the pots after your gone your going to come back to fucked up brown ass leaves.and shit... it needs to either be cut or left to finish... hard decision i don't recommend pulling early its pointless the flavors and shit aren't there nor is the high.. so id try to get someone to care for them.. even if you have to bring them to someone.

sound like your fooked unless you have a very very trusted friend

what media are they in and what pot size?

you could setup a fairly cheap auto drip but the down side to that is your not there so if the ph swings which it will or the pump over waters its going to fuck it up too

Dang, over 8 weeks and still swelling? You are going to have to cut early, I would just wait till about 2 weeks and 3-4 days from now, chop, and then quick-dry...should be fine, it's not that early, idk why they were saying its pointless^

You will lose some weight, but the quality will still be there for sure...good looking girls btw

Edit* I would switch the light schedule to 11 on 13 off immediately! It will help them finish a little quicker, you could even do 11/13 this week then next week go to 10/14 and they will be good man

Thanks, vitamin and the rest of you guys for the advice, but it turns out my only friend who knows I grow wants to help me out, so he'll drop by and check up on them + water etc.

I was leaning towards an autodrip system, which I think would work, but the fire hazard and all that would've been in the back of my mind all the time.. when I get back, I'm gonna buy myself an IP-camera so I can check in on the plants next time I'm going away!

I'm thinking of going that route for the house and room.. they are fairly cheap .. good to know your figuring it out. It the future you should really consider vacations when your committing to 8-10 week run ..

In my experience you can pull pretty much any strain at 9 weeks and it will still taste & smell great. Besides from really heavy sativas but I don't run them very often and really only use them for breeding stock. What strain is it?

ch33b, I knew the vacation was coming and that it would be a tight fit, but the alternative was NOT to plant so I had to give it a go.

The strain is critical haze from mr. nice. It's all I've ever grown which is about 5-6 runs now. I don't smoke myself but people seem to like it a lot. It does take a while to finish tho.

I guess the new question is if they can go for 6 weeks until I'm able to harvest them? will it be too long or what? From my experience when they begin to look ready and I start reaching for my loupe, they are still 3-4 weeks away from chop. worst case I'll ask my buddy to simply "snip the stalks" and cover up the cab the last week. sounds unnecessary tho.

It wouldn't be totally pointless to pull early if you had too but you are gonna lose out on potency and yield. You see on your pics without seeing trichome you can tell they are still very immature due to the the many pistils that are pearly white and flaring out. They are reaching out to collect pollen from a near by male, until most of those white pistils go thru degradation they're not close to ready to even flush yet. I honestly believe you can go on your vacation and come back and may be fine. But if worried you'll have to chop em about 2 weeks b4 you go becuz harvesting properly could make mediocre buds turn out half way decent and u need to be there to make sure it goes right

the VERY last option is using the gravity feed balls that stick in your soil for like outside planters.. you could possibly rely on 4 of those stu

vitamin_green_inc said:

Dang, over 8 weeks and still swelling? You are going to have to cut early, I would just wait till about 2 weeks and 3-4 days from now, chop, and then quick-dry...should be fine, it's not that early, idk why they were saying its pointless^

You will lose some weight, but the quality will still be there for sure...good looking girls btw

Edit* I would switch the light schedule to 11 on 13 off immediately! It will help them finish a little quicker, you could even do 11/13 this week then next week go to 10/14 and they will be good man

Click to expand...

i said its almost a waste to harvest early for the simple fact that harvesting early before the trichromes turn and your buds actually ready your THC levels set ill aren't peaking and a lot of plants get the flavors most are looking for in the last couple weeks.. on top of production loss.. but his bud tips in the back look way freaking farther out than 2 weeks aways from harvest.. maybe its his LED light not blasting enough to thicken the buds but to me it looks like he's at least 1 month away from being able to even start a flush still.

Phil K, I was thinking about using drip irrigation using a big tank of water/nutrients and one drip tube to each plant. I think it's gonna work out perfectly with my buddy keeping an eye on the plants for the 3 weeks I'm gone, giving them a total of 6 weeks from today to finish. Seems right to me. And about the led lamp, this was the first run using this lamp, and for the next run I'm gonna add some more leds to get more coverage. Also the canopy got taller than I had planned. thanks for the advice!

8/10 said:

Phil K, I was thinking about using drip irrigation using a big tank of water/nutrients and one drip tube to each plant. I think it's gonna work out perfectly with my buddy keeping an eye on the plants for the 3 weeks I'm gone, giving them a total of 6 weeks from today to finish. Seems right to me. And about the led lamp, this was the first run using this lamp, and for the next run I'm gonna add some more leds to get more coverage. Also the canopy got taller than I had planned. thanks for the advice!

Click to expand...

yeah i thought they kinda looked a tad thin.. but if your friends trust worthy enough you probably could rely on him sowing up every other day to water... as opposed to spending money on a feed setup. .. but if you are going that route get it ahead of time set it up and let it run by itself for a week or two so you know if theres any issues you need to address .. the biggest thing is just getting the water dialed in so its not over watering.. make sure your buddy knows how to check the waters ph id have him check the resivoir when he stops by to make sure the PH isn't swinging for some reason... and keep the resivoir oxygenated or the sitting water will get shitty and stagnant in a few days.

They'll probably be ok in a couple weeks. I'm not sure they'll be finished, but they should be pretty close. Personally I don't trust others to do my watering. They rarely get it right in my experience. And leaving your lights on while you're not home always strikes me as a bad idea if it's an extended period, but really in general. At least you're using LEDs - still you never know when an electrical issue can pop up. And when you're in this game you need to be on top of anything bad - because if an electrical problem occurred and it wasn't even related to your grow that shit would not matter even a bit to your insurance company and possibly the law.

I wouldn't quick dry though, I'd just let them hang in a controlled environment and trim them when I got home. Your environment might not allow for this, but where I live you can get away with it as the RH is usually pretty high and often at that 60ish sweet spot that's perfect for drying.

Most homeowners insurance requires someone to check up on a house regularly even without a grow op inside it. Just some thoughts.

phil k, I've never checked the ph! I have litmus paper and stuff but I just never had the need to do it. It has never been an issue. Also I grow in coco with a kitty litter-sand reservoir at the bottom. I just watered it to the max and I'll be noting how much water they'll need for the next three weeks.

OG, I think my buddy will handle this, but I'm gonna make the watering routine as simple as possible anyways. I'm planning on setting up a big container with premixed water/nutrients, and I'll be giving an exact measure of water to administer at given days, probably ~3 separate occasions total while I'm away. Plan b is to give instructions to snip the main stalks halfway through at 1,5 weeks and seal the cab with duct tape (one vent on each side) AND turn off all electricity. It really depends on how they look the last days before I leave. Plan c is to chop before I go. I really don't like the idea of leaving the lights running, like you say, it's a small risk with big implications. I HIGHLY doubt that there will be a problem, but I know I'm gonna be worrying about that shit when I'm at the beach trying to relax...

Can't wait to come home to a harvest tho! That's the good thing about this situation!

yeah i can tell from your leafe curls.. i didnt wan an get into it cause i know a lot of people believe that ph doesnt matter but anyone who generally says that you can see the issues. its not obvious to people that don't ph.. I'm not saying you have to ph but to have a better grow ph is vital... otherwise there wouldn't be.. ph perfect chemicals.. ph up and down.. ph meters.. and soils would be ph balanced.. if ph didn't matter.... theres a article i quoted on here that high times put out mid winter about PH and guerrilla cartel growers.. the strains adapt over time to damn near anything..

as for your buddy doing it..OGE is right on the point you need to trust him.. lets say he gets lazy doesnt show for a week and the plants don't get water.. still being in soil the leave will brown up under the lights and shit with no water.. so he can fuck it up for you too.. it comes to harvesting early or trusting someone else.. setting up a auto feed while gone can have really bad consequences like if a timer fails and the pump continually pumps water out of the resivoir it can over water the plants.. flood your floor.. pump can fry for no reason and then they aren't getting water.... i mean the auto feed systems are fucking great if you are there to check in on it.. if not.. things can go wrong with it too..

im not saying don't harvest early.. but i can promise you that you won't be as satisfied with the final product as if you let them priorly finish .. thats all i am saying about early harvesting. i know people here in michigan last year that had to harvest in fucking october cause of the PM here getting so bad. i don't smoke their bud but i know they did all winter... can't speak for the quality but they were obviously okay with it.

i have some strains like.. GTH#1... a lot of my widow and AK47 crosses all not only put on shit loads of weight the last week but all the real dank smells start coming on them then and my trichromes are twice as dense in my last two weeks ... so there is going to be a trade off regardless of what people say.

8/10 said:

phil k, I've never checked the ph! I have litmus paper and stuff but I just never had the need to do it. It has never been an issue. Also I grow in coco with a kitty litter-sand reservoir at the bottom. I just watered it to the max and I'll be noting how much water they'll need for the next three weeks.

OG, I think my buddy will handle this, but I'm gonna make the watering routine as simple as possible anyways. I'm planning on setting up a big container with premixed water/nutrients, and I'll be giving an exact measure of water to administer at given days, probably ~3 separate occasions total while I'm away. Plan b is to give instructions to snip the main stalks halfway through at 1,5 weeks and seal the cab with duct tape (one vent on each side) AND turn off all electricity. It really depends on how they look the last days before I leave. Plan c is to chop before I go. I really don't like the idea of leaving the lights running, like you say, it's a small risk with big implications. I HIGHLY doubt that there will be a problem, but I know I'm gonna be worrying about that shit when I'm at the beach trying to relax...

Can't wait to come home to a harvest tho! That's the good thing about this situation!

Click to expand...

Phil k, I'm not an advanced grower so I've got some dialing in to do, but eventually I'll read up on ph to see if it is something I need to worry about. I'm kind of a middle of the road grower, I don't want too much hassle with growing like having 40 different "flower boosters" and hormones and whatnot. If the plants seem to be okay all the way to harvest, I'm good. at least for the time being. And my buddy is 100% trustworthy, he's not lazy either. I'm sure he's up for the task and he'll do fine. I am however leaning towards plan b, which is having my friend snip the stalks and seal the cab after a week+.

8/10 said:

Phil k, I'm not an advanced grower so I've got some dialing in to do, but eventually I'll read up on ph to see if it is something I need to worry about. I'm kind of a middle of the road grower, I don't want too much hassle with growing like having 40 different "flower boosters" and hormones and whatnot. If the plants seem to be okay all the way to harvest, I'm good. at least for the time being. And my buddy is 100% trustworthy, he's not lazy either. I'm sure he's up for the task and he'll do fine. I am however leaning towards plan b, which is having my friend snip the stalks and seal the cab after a week+.

Click to expand...

yeah trust me whats working for you don't fix.. just something to keep in mind.. can't wait to hear how it ends i hope everything gets lined up so you don't have to worry about your girls!

okay, thanks man, I'll post an update when the time comes!