Pandemic Grows Outdoors and Organic Hempy

Here's my grow's for 2020. Pulled last harvest Sept. 2019, and shut the room down for a planned vacation in Dec. Finally broke out some seeds in late March - 6 original sleeslack skunks (regs). Old seeds poor germination only 2 made it. Gave one to son. Started another 5 seeds - 3 Kiwi 2lb'er (fems) and 2 Bay-11 (regs) from seeds I made from the first release from Grandaddy Purp seeds many yrs ago. All these germinated. Late April a fellow grower gave me a Knockout Kush clone.


I live with an HOA that can be a pain so I built an area to grow outside, from ground to top of fence is right at 8'

Should have mentioned in first post that I don't mind comments or questions in this Journal;

Late May topped all seven and used tops for clones also took a 2nd lower clone from the skunk.


A few wks later clones ready for transplant

Clones on the 4th of July
Clones will be used for the indoor organic hempy attempt.

Wish you the best of luck. Living in an HOA can be a nightmare. I couldn't imagine trying to grow in one. Bunch of authoritarians always looking for something to bother people about. Hopefully those neighbors with the windows open like you cause they will smell that shit soon lol

Now this is my first in the ground outdoors grow since a series of gorilla grows in the late 80's.
In the new outdoors pen where I cut a hole in the deck, this ground hasn't seen the full light of day for a couple of decades. So I pulled out a few wheel borrow loads of river rock and added a couple large bags of soil builder, watered and let waited about a month and a half for planting. For feeding I'm trying a new product for me called "Nature's Living Soil" You can dilute it 1lb into 1 1/2 - 2 gal of potting soil to make a super soil equivalent. Or 1lb to 5gal of soil to make a full term potting soil.
When I planted outside I used 1 lb for each plant.

Planted 7 plants 3 are regs (skunk and 2 Bay-11) 3 fems (all Kiwi 2lb'ers) and a Knockout Kush
If you start up front by the gate and go clockwise 2 - Bay-11, Kush, Skunk then 3 Kiwi's coming back to the gate.
All these took a hard core topping to try and control the height.

Romulanman said:

Wish you the best of luck. Living in an HOA can be a nightmare. I couldn't imagine trying to grow in one. Bunch of authoritarians always looking for something to bother people about. Hopefully those neighbors with the windows open like you cause they will smell that shit soon lol

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I do live in Colorado so it's all legal and the one neighbor with the best view opened the first dispensary in town over a decade ago so he doesn't give a shit. But yea the board hasn't written any rule about growing and I don't want the subject to come up. They have been stinking for some time now but haven't had any complaints. Keeping fingers crossed

Its lookin good so far! I looks like I see some mesh on the ground level. Did you put that in the ground and how far down did you go? I suspect for voles/moles?

Romulanman said:

Its lookin good so far! I looks like I see some mesh on the ground level. Did you put that in the ground and how far down did you go? I suspect for voles/moles?

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Yes put 1/4"x1/4" hardware cloth mainly to keep rodents (mice squirrels skunks etc) out it's only down 4 to 6" with river rock holding both sides. A vole and a mole both found a way in but left because there were no worms in the area at that point, I still doubt I've got a worm population since it's been under a deck for so long. Don't have any weeds either!!!

WattSaver said:

Yes put 1/4"x1/4" hardware cloth mainly to keep rodents (mice squirrels skunks etc) out it's only down 4 to 6" with river rock holding both sides. A vole and a mole both found a way in but left because there were no worms in the area at that point, I still doubt I've got a worm population since it's been under a deck for so long. Don't have any weeds either!!!

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Man thats pretty lucky!! Smart move and I can appreciate the extra work that goes into the garden for stuff like that. Im kinda OCD and it works in my favor for pot. I've gone the long route plenty of times to evade the thieves and rodents.

Here's a montage of the Outdoor pen. I've only watered using my tap water which isn't the worst but is no where near the best. Little rain in July and NONE in August. Having major forest fires in the area, there has been more ash drop than rain in the last 3 weeks.

7/17/20 Knockout Kush starting to throw out some hairs and start flowering


8/5/20

Part 2
One of the Bay-11's is a dude 7/28/20

Part 3 Bay-11 been flowering almost 2 weeks Should finish before Halloween. The 3 2lb'ers just started hoping the weather holds this fall they will be pushing into the beginning of Nov. The Skunk hasn't shown sex yet, I'm sure it's a female but hasn't started yet I'll probably cut it down tomorrow, there is no way it will finish before Thanksgiving. If I take it out now I'll get more sunshine on the short KO kush and more room for a 2lb'ers

Now lets talk about the indoor part of the Pandemic grow.
If you are not familiar with Hempy its a passive hydro method. Using an inert medium ie: perlite, coco etc.... the idea is create a small rez in the bottom of a bucket and use it up before it needs any attention. It's a very simple hydro option that creates much better production than a soil pot of the same size.

Now I've been a non-conformist in the current hempy world and have used soil for my clones and seedlings for ever and even veg in 2qt soil pots and then put in a bucket and put a soil cap on that.
Ever since supersoil came out I've thought about an organic hempy bucket, but I wasn't going to make a batch which is 1/4 cubic yard to experiment.
Now that "Nature's Living Soil" came out I could try out my pipe-dream.

Here's what I've done;
I've taken 1lb of NLS and mixed into 1 1/2 gal of Ocean Forest to make a strong "Supersoil" Using 3.5gal buckets filled with chunky perlite to above the rez overflow hole (drilled 2" up from the bottom) filled in some fine perlite to keep the medium above out of the rez.

For the medium which is normally just coco or perlite with or without vermiculite growstones or mixes of the above. I have mixed 1/3 supersoil and 2/3 mixed coco (got chunks. strains and fine core). With this setup I don't expect to feed for the rest of the grow. Again I've never tried this before nor has anyone else.

Building buckets;

Built the buckets 8/16/20 and took them into the grow room watered them real good (2gal each). Didn't water them for 9 days (8/25) They showed little to no growth for these 9 days but they were building roots and got them set in the rez. Real good growth after 2nd watering, even did a little topping last night may do some more tonight, I really need to control height.

a couple shots from 8/28

Chopped down the Skunk today, still no hairs showing so I know it will never finish and this will give the short Kush some direct sunshine for it's last 2wks of flower.

Flipped to flower 11/13. I've found with sativa dom strains it's better to drop below the 12/12 if the skunk doesn't start in a week I'll drop to 10 hrs light.
May need to put a screen in to keep the plants under the light.



This one will be clones this weekend. Did some searching this week and the Kiwi 2lb'er are sold out on every site I checked. So I'm going to try and keep it until I get a chance to grow it out.

Winter tried to move in early this year. On Tuesday 9/8 it snowed at less than a 1000 above my valley home temp dropped to 33F next night warmed up to 39 now back to the low 40's for an overnight low. It really seemed to push the flowering, and they survived well. The Knockout Kush is done and will be cut this weekend. The Bay-11 might finish a week before halloween, the 2lb'ers should be 2 wks later. I stood up on the bench for a photo of the 2 smaller 2lb'ers behind the monster and they are slightly ahead of the monster, which is showing all of the sativa side of it's genetics

Good thing I chopped the skunk outdoors, the clone of the outdoors beast showed sex and it's a boy. Never cloned the extra 2lb'er maybe I'll put it in the skunks bucket, but with the size of the other 3 it's probably better to give them the room.

It's been awhile need an update. The photos are from a wk back 9/22. First the outdoors. They all are budding hard the 2 lb'er by the gate is over 10' but I don't think the weather will hold out long enough for it to finish. The Bay-11 (next 3 photos) and the other 2 2lb'ers should all finish before Halloween. I gave them all a PK boost before these photos. That's the only additive so far in this grow.

Now the indoors, the hempy buckets seem to be eating up all the nutes from the natures living soil had quite a few yellowing leaves. I cleaned them out and then top dressed with straight NLS they kicked in again but my grow room smelt like a hog farm for a week, Again photos from last wk.
In order of photos, Group, 2lb'er, Bay-11, and Knockout Kush

hey wattsaver , just letting you know your soil core does work! any updates? thank you for sharing your wealth of hempy knowledge