I’m posting the following journey undertaken by my friend Theodore Complete on their behalf.

Growing the Youngling

Day 8

The soil was dry up to the depth of my first knuckle so I saturated the top with a spray bottle. Maybe every 2 days is the sweet spot for watering.

I’m comfortable with the ability of the bucket to regulate temperatures and humidity in a fairly controlled spread, and I continue to use a little dome over the seedling to ensure higher humidity ranges until it starts to grow a bit more. There are variabilities to the temp/humidity data I’ve tracked that can mostly be attributed to me messing around, but nothing that I would consider a detrimental spike. As long as I’m keeping it between 20-30 C daytime and dipping at night I think it simulates outdoor conditions fairly well. There’s a weird phenomenon that causes a daily temp dip around noon by a few degrees that makes the temperature graph remind me of an EKG readout. I don’t know the cause but I’m also not losing any sleep over it - It makes me feel like I’m watching the heartbeat of the plant.

It’s too early in the game to use the LED side lights - there simply aren’t enough leaves to absorb all the extra photons.

The growth evident in the fan leaves is promising, and unless I start to observe any major changes I plan to leave it be for the most part.

Day 9

Day 10

Gave it a drink and left it alone until 5pm, decided to start getting it a bit tougher and turned on the side lights and fans on low for a few hours before it sleeps for the night.

Day 11

I read a review on the style of LED from reddit user SuperAngryGuy that suggested an optimal plant distance of 8 inches to cram every photon into the plant. Judging by his post history full of thorough lighting reviews I felt confident his knowledge base is better than mine by a few orders of magnitude.

I swapped the upper fan ring with the LED sidelight ring and propped the plant further Up using a paint can to within 8 inches. I also left the LED lights on because I grew up watching Home Improvement and Tim Taylor bellowing “MORE POWER” is forever in my heart.

Day 12

Let it be. I noticed a dip in temps and realized I left the probe out of the bucket. Whoops.

Day 13

Went to water it in the morning and noticed the leaves look wilted. This happened after I made the environmental changes 3 days ago and it feels like I made backward progress compared to photos at the start of the week. Damn you Tim Taylor. I rolled back the changes made this week - dialled back the light to just the LED, moved the plant further away, moved the warming mat back in, and put the humidity dome on. The negatives took a few days so I’m hoping I’ll see improvement in a few days as well.

Also, True North Seed Bank mysteriously credited my May 2 order and then entered a new identical order for me and sent me a receipt of payment for this new order. Maybe I’ll be inundated with seeds soon.

Day 14

I was a bit disheartened yesterday realizing I did some dumb stuff before the plant was ready and had caused it some damage. The Tugboat suggested I try to emotionally distance myself, so I’m going to try that. I’ll let it go a few days at status quo as before and hope it regains the vibrancy it showed before I started mucking around. Stay tuned.