Wedding Cake + Orange Cookies x Nicole

Recovery from the topping this past Friday has gone very well. New nodes will now grow horizontal making an easy shape to maintain. Once a set of four nodes are formed on each side I will top down to the third, and clear off the second nodes on each side. This trims the resulting main branches down to eight, four on each side, which will form into eight main colas come flowering. Doing this focuses energy and nutrients more efficiently on fewer top colas which in return produces larger buds. This part is always the worst for me because I'm really hands on with my plants, and this technique makes veg relatively boring due to all the training I'm saving myself from doing compared to other methods. However, it's efficient, easy, and tidy in the end thus making it worth it in my opinion. As always I'll be updating every couple days throughout the coming weeks. UPDATE: Almost through the week now, and the maturing nodes are now strong and long enough to tie down. I use a wooden shish kebab skewer and some easily bendable ties from bread or toy boxes over Christmas to keep them growing squat. This will help make an even canopy at the top as well as provide me with an easy visual to determine what needs to be pruned and defoliated before the flip to flower. As you can see, they are delicate and it takes a calm, steady hand to tie down these baby nodes. I removed a fan leaf by mistake during this process, but I believe she will do just fine without it now that more new nodes are quickly pushing out. I will be topping at the third and pruning the second nodes in probably a few days depending on how mature they appear to be. Stay tuned!