Lot's of tragic stories on the thread this year, but I'm not sure any of them can top mine. Other than about a pound of premature stuff I was able to salvage, I lost everything to rot this year. I can't really pinpoint any one reason, but the primary reason I believe is neglect. I knew I had rot creeping in back in late August, but life was so busy and I just avoided the problem. By mid september the rot had found it's way to all 8 plants in the greenhouse and pretty much destroyed everything.
But you live and learn, and next year I'll be back at it again. The changes I'll make for next year are as follows:
1)
Disinfect the greenhouse... This week I plan to power wash the entire greenhouse with a bleach solution, then again once or twice in the spring before going in the ground. This year I didn't clean ANYTHING from last year in the greenhouse before planting. After harvest last year I just left what remained of the plants standing through the winter. When I removed them in late winter they were all infested with mold and all I did was chop them down and throw them out.... big mistake, I'm sure I had mold spores flying around everywhere all season.
2)
Get new fans and clean them often ... I didn't touch or clean my 3 circulation fans at all from last season ... you can see from the picture below the back of the fans were covered in gray moldy spooge which I'm sure just continually blew mold spores throughout the greenhouse all season long
3)
Filter all of my intake air ... my greenhouse has a 2'x2' exhaust fan that works great... but the intake end of my greenhouse is backed up to thick, swampy woods.... I wouldn't be surprised if the fresh air coming in has all kinds of mold spores in it... I have an opening between the two windows on the intake end that I planned to just add another window to this year, but never got around to it... I'm glad i didn't though, because next year I'm going to fill that spot with two 24" HEPA filters and close the windows ... all intake air will need to be filtered
4)
Use my dehumidifier at night ... in years past I would always close up all the windows and run my dehumidifier through the fall nights when the outside RH is almost always 90+ ... I didn't even bother with that this year, just left the exhaust fan running 24/7, big mistake (i think) ... I already have the Inkbird to control both the fan and dehumidifier and next year I'm going to take the five minutes it takes to set it up correctly ... I'll have the exhaust fan run whenever outside RH is below 75%, but when it goes above 75% (at night) I'll have the Inkbird shut down the fan and kick on the dehumidifier
5)
Grow smaller (or less) plants ... there is absolutely no reason in the world that I need 8 plants all ten feet +. I don't sell it, and I end up spending about a month trimming buds that I only ever keep about 10% of. It's stupid and a waste of my time. Sure my friends love it when I drop a pound of weed in their laps, but they'll have to get used to an ounce or two. I may either just wait until mid-june to plant in the ground, or plant in pots next year.
6)
Better Genetics ... I'm not going to pretend that it's genetics that did me in this year.... because all eight of the plants (all different strains) were pretty much infested with rot ... it was most certainly environmental and it goes to show that there is no such thing as a strain that is completely resistant to rot ... however, I did have one plant that resisted it best, and it's the only one I was able to harvest anything from ... the strain was Salami Leg x Mendo Montage from Big Pond Genetics ... Big Pond Genetics is out of western Mass and I believe most of his breeding is done outdoors ... I'm now a firm believer that genetics that have been bred through generations outdoors, in a similar terroir, will perform best when grown outdoors in that same region ... My seed collection is as vast as they come with all kinds of big name and hype strains, but I'm done trying to grow them outdoors in New England ... a great strain that's been been bred through generations indoors in "lab-type" conditions is just a roll of the dice outdoors ... I'm now on the hunt for a good strain, bred locally, that I can grow out through the winter indoors and then just run all clones of that next season
I wasn't even going to post my tragic story or final pictures from this years debacle.... but I figured I owed it to you all to share the good with the bad ... so without further adieu, here's the giant dick in the ass that was 2021 ... see you all in 2022
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