ASG:
Miracle grow might be an "ok" soil for garden flowers, but most canna-growers avoid it like the plague.
Dont get me wrong, i ve seen big plants grow in that soil and with good sized buds. But, big fruits arent necessarily tasty fruits. Its like those big green peppers you see in the produce section of super markets. They look great and all, but they dont smell and they certainly dont have any taste.
But to be specific, the chemical ferts of the soil give buds that dont burn very well and taste kinda chemical... Not very sweet.
Not to worry though. No one got it right the first few times of growing. And
we all still do little or bigger mistakes with our grows.
Dont feed any ferts for at least a month (the soil has plenty). Just plain water that has been sitting for 24hrs in an open container. This will get most of the chlorine out and the plants love it.
If you find a fish fert, try it. Plants do love it.
During flowering you can get a bio-fert (for bloom) like Biobizz, Canna-flora (i m trying to remember the name of another one that is available in the states)......Pure Blend Pro!
The reason its advisable to start with small pots, is to stimulate roots (so they can "fill" the pots) and not turn the soil "sour" (alkaline) from an early stage.
When the roots fill up the first pot (germinating pot) you move her on to a slightly bigger one. Now she has plenty of roots and with the fresh soil (and bigger shoes) she will take advantage of it and grow even bigger with even more roots. 2 weeks later you move her to an even bigger pot because her roots will have filled up the old pot.
The more root a plant has, the more nutrients and water she will be able to absorb. Thus giving you bigger and healthier plants. Thats why most nurseries (garden stores) do that with their plants.
I used to start plants in large containers myself. First they would grow really slow and then a month later they would grow fast. But everytime, i would notice that despite the large pots that i gave them (from an early stage), my yeild was never better than an ounce or two. When i harvested and took out the rootball to inspect it, i d notice that it was really small and underdeveloped. Thats why i never got proper yeilds.
Imho, proper repoting should be an individual chapter in todays grow books.
check out the two pics that i attached. The first one is from a cut with a poor root system. The 2nd one is from a plant that was gradually repoted. It took just 10 days for this rootball to form and as u can see it is ready for another transplant. Now she will take advantage of her new shoes and new (fresh) soil.
As for the manure....i aint a friend of manures. They can easily burn cuts or little plants. My dad lost some of his little pepper plants the other day, cause he gave em manure. Not all strains will react the same to manure. Some can take it (i.e NL) others will "fry" in a few days.
Thankfully this didnt happen with your AK cut.
But why use manure, when theres so many great bio-products (ferts) out there, you know?
All in all, your plant looks good and we are here to make sure that you get really yummy buds by harvest
Give her sun, sun and more sun.