Ok fellas whats going on - this will be my second outdoor medicinal grow this year - brief rundown of last years - I ran Blue Dream, Liberty Haze, Critical Kush and Pineapple Skunk in 17-22 gallon totes ...drilled large holes in the bottom and allowed roots to grow through to the soil. Overall the grow went well..about 400 grams per plant dried weight - ill attach some pictures - but i ran into some issues that I plan on correcting this time out - first off there were some birch trees overhanging the grow that were being eaten by caterpillars and during flowering it was literally raining caterpillar shit from above all over my plants so be weary - no caterpillars or bugs on my plants they were just feasting on the surroundings and leaving their mark. What i did to fix this problem was basically rigged a plastic tarp over the tops of the plants - kind of stapled one end to my house and stretched it across to make an awning of sorts (a really really rigged awning) but hey it worked for the most part and kept the plants dry from rain and caterpillar shit - but i also think what ended up happening is I limited the amount of light because the plastic was not greenhouse grade and also the caterpillar shit dirtied the hell out of the plastic and made it a luke warm brown.
anyway to correct some of these issues I'm chopping down all the trees in the area and I'm looking into potential a car port?...buy some greenhouse plastic and create a structure that offers protection from rain - I live in the north east and rain season last year was brutal - a lot of people had moldy crops because it rained for 3-4 day stretches at a time
so on to the plan for the next grow and some questions i have for the more experienced - ill be switching over to smart pots - i can legally grow 20 plants but I'm thinking ill do a little under that - i was thinking 10 #45 gallon smart pots , 6 #65 gallon smart pots and I wanna try 1 #100 gallon pot - I'll be using a local mix of soil - 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 super humus, 1/3 treated sludge - and then I will be adding perlite and lime
As far as spacing goes I'm thinking 6 foot radius around the 45gallon pots and 10 foot radius around the 65 gallon pots and the 100 gallon pot is going to be all by itself - I'm also going to cut out the center of the smart pots to allow the roots to make it into the ground easier .. Prolly mix some fox farm and blood and bone meal into the ground to give that extra boost late in flower
Onto strains : this year I'll be running a great variety and a lot of which I have never flowered before so I was just looking for some Input on anybody who may have had some experience with these strains:
Because of the weather in my area I'll be tryin to stay as close to 8 weeks flower time as possible and it gets cold so I'll also be running a lot of stuff with blueberry in it:
I'll be running two liberty hazes and two blue dreams - same plants as last year and they were amazing - prolly the BD in the 100 gallon
And then onto some new ones:
Midnight kush
Rocklock
church
Doctor
Purple haze
SLH
Double bubble
Amherst sour d
Lost coast og
Sour cream
Sage n sour
Cheese
So not sure if people tend to have goodluck with other outdoors ?
So basically I'm trying to get 2 lb plants -
Moving onto supplemental lighting - it's my understanding that around where I live 44degrees - solstice is June 21st .. And most people don't plant outdoors until end of May or early June but I'm looking to go outside before that so I know I'll need some supplemental lighting - my question is how much lighting is enough to prevent flowering .. I could just set up a flood light on a timer and have it turn on at 4 am until sunrise .. I don't need growth to happen I just need to prevent flowering ... As of right now the plants are in 7 gallon pots and I'm just putting them outside for a few hours and then back inside under some t12s ..
Thoughts?
I'll add some pictures of last years set up and continue to chime in as the season goes on
Also I'll be putting some of the smart pots on a steepish slope that's all basically gravel .. Not sure how I'm going to accomplish that yet
anyway to correct some of these issues I'm chopping down all the trees in the area and I'm looking into potential a car port?...buy some greenhouse plastic and create a structure that offers protection from rain - I live in the north east and rain season last year was brutal - a lot of people had moldy crops because it rained for 3-4 day stretches at a time
so on to the plan for the next grow and some questions i have for the more experienced - ill be switching over to smart pots - i can legally grow 20 plants but I'm thinking ill do a little under that - i was thinking 10 #45 gallon smart pots , 6 #65 gallon smart pots and I wanna try 1 #100 gallon pot - I'll be using a local mix of soil - 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 super humus, 1/3 treated sludge - and then I will be adding perlite and lime
As far as spacing goes I'm thinking 6 foot radius around the 45gallon pots and 10 foot radius around the 65 gallon pots and the 100 gallon pot is going to be all by itself - I'm also going to cut out the center of the smart pots to allow the roots to make it into the ground easier .. Prolly mix some fox farm and blood and bone meal into the ground to give that extra boost late in flower
Onto strains : this year I'll be running a great variety and a lot of which I have never flowered before so I was just looking for some Input on anybody who may have had some experience with these strains:
Because of the weather in my area I'll be tryin to stay as close to 8 weeks flower time as possible and it gets cold so I'll also be running a lot of stuff with blueberry in it:
I'll be running two liberty hazes and two blue dreams - same plants as last year and they were amazing - prolly the BD in the 100 gallon
And then onto some new ones:
Midnight kush
Rocklock
church
Doctor
Purple haze
SLH
Double bubble
Amherst sour d
Lost coast og
Sour cream
Sage n sour
Cheese
So not sure if people tend to have goodluck with other outdoors ?
So basically I'm trying to get 2 lb plants -
Moving onto supplemental lighting - it's my understanding that around where I live 44degrees - solstice is June 21st .. And most people don't plant outdoors until end of May or early June but I'm looking to go outside before that so I know I'll need some supplemental lighting - my question is how much lighting is enough to prevent flowering .. I could just set up a flood light on a timer and have it turn on at 4 am until sunrise .. I don't need growth to happen I just need to prevent flowering ... As of right now the plants are in 7 gallon pots and I'm just putting them outside for a few hours and then back inside under some t12s ..
Thoughts?
I'll add some pictures of last years set up and continue to chime in as the season goes on
Also I'll be putting some of the smart pots on a steepish slope that's all basically gravel .. Not sure how I'm going to accomplish that yet
Also, I keep hearing Blue Dream has ideal genetics for our area, and this solidifies that. Gonna have to get me some beans for sure.