Primeau’s First Grow, Soil Photoperiods Out On The Patio, 2021

Looks about right, Primo! You'll see the growth in a few days. Have a look at my recent 3-stemmed Durban, recently fimmed and now pushing up new growth. Photos posted in my current journal. Be well!
Thanks @Emeraldo! Your Durban’s looking good, hopefully I return in 10 days to find my latest attempt was successful!
 
Ok so here’s the group shot before I leave. Plants are just inside the pergola where they’ll get about 5 hours direct sun per day while also being mostly protected from the elements. Last time I left they did get some sideways rain under the pergola while we had a tornado 40 minutes away but it wasn’t enough to soak the pots so that’s probably not a horrible thing if they get a little moisture again this time. Otherwise they’ll be in the capable hands of my friend and I look forward to seeing them and comparing ‘before’ / ‘after’ photos when I get back! Sometimes it’s nice to take a break from looking at the plants every day so you can truly appreciate the growth. I’ll continue following along the everyone else’s journals while I’m away.
Thanks and Happy Growing!


 
So I arrived back home this evening after leaving on July 10th and am very happy with the growth!

L2R: BB1, BOK, BH1, GD, HZ2, BH2

July 10th:

Today:

BH1 in particular I’m pleasantly surprised with. It’s been one of my smaller plants throughout this grow and started its life with those white splotches and mutated leaves as seen earlier/^^ but exploded while I was away nearly catching up to my healthiest looking plant BOK.

The youngest two plants HZ2 and BH2 also grew considerably and I’ll likely transplant them into bigger pots tomorrow.

On another note, my tomato cages arrived while I was away and I spent some time assembling a cage around the still lanky GD. I’m pretty pleased with the ability to customize/build the cages to various heights with as many posts and arms positioned wherever the plant needs them.

It was fairly windy tonight and I didn’t have time to examine the plants too closely but there was some pretty noticeable insect damage I’ll need to get ahead of.

Tomorrow I will be transplanting, watering/feeding, building more cages, etc. and will post more photos.

Thanks and Happy Growing!
 
So I arrived back home this evening after leaving on July 10th and am very happy with the growth!

L2R: BB1, BOK, BH1, GD, HZ2, BH2

July 10th:

Today:

BH1 in particular I’m pleasantly surprised with. It’s been one of my smaller plants throughout this grow and started its life with those white splotches and mutated leaves as seen earlier/^^ but exploded while I was away nearly catching up to my healthiest looking plant BOK.

The youngest two plants HZ2 and BH2 also grew considerably and I’ll likely transplant them into bigger pots tomorrow.

On another note, my tomato cages arrived while I was away and I spent some time assembling a cage around the still lanky GD. I’m pretty pleased with the ability to customize/build the cages to various heights with as many posts and arms positioned wherever the plant needs them.

It was fairly windy tonight and I didn’t have time to examine the plants too closely but there was some pretty noticeable insect damage I’ll need to get ahead of.

Tomorrow I will be transplanting, watering/feeding, building more cages, etc. and will post more photos.

Thanks and Happy Growing!
Funny how good they grow when you aren’t looking at them every ten minutes! I’m as guilty as they come! Your plants are looking awesome and welcome home!

NTH
 
So I arrived back home this evening after leaving on July 10th and am very happy with the growth!

L2R: BB1, BOK, BH1, GD, HZ2, BH2

July 10th:

Today:

BH1 in particular I’m pleasantly surprised with. It’s been one of my smaller plants throughout this grow and started its life with those white splotches and mutated leaves as seen earlier/^^ but exploded while I was away nearly catching up to my healthiest looking plant BOK.

The youngest two plants HZ2 and BH2 also grew considerably and I’ll likely transplant them into bigger pots tomorrow.

On another note, my tomato cages arrived while I was away and I spent some time assembling a cage around the still lanky GD. I’m pretty pleased with the ability to customize/build the cages to various heights with as many posts and arms positioned wherever the plant needs them.

It was fairly windy tonight and I didn’t have time to examine the plants too closely but there was some pretty noticeable insect damage I’ll need to get ahead of.

Tomorrow I will be transplanting, watering/feeding, building more cages, etc. and will post more photos.

Thanks and Happy Growing!
Happy looking plants.
 
Yesterday I transplanted BH2 and HZ2 into they’re final 10g fabric pots. Here’s a look at the root balls, what do you guys think?




To me I wonder if I haven’t been following @Emilya watering instructions properly as I would have expected to see more roots along the sides whereas most of the visible roots are seen on the bottom 3 inches of the rootballs.

Now some solo shots, I’ll start with the plants I think I’m seeing deficiencies and maybe some of you can help me out. It’s worth noting here that while I was away for 10 days, my friend was watering my plants with the hose so they did not get any added nutes. Last night I watered and fed with the Reefertilizer nutrients so hopefully if I’m reading these deficiencies right the nutes will correct the issue.

BH1 (64 days):

Overall I’m really happy with how this plant has exploded over the past couple of weeks but there is one leaf that looks to me like a Calcium deficiency?





BH2 (43 days):

This one has grown pretty well over the last couple of weeks as well but I think I’m seeing signs of calcium deficiency here too and she seems to be the bugs favourite so I’ll be giving a thorough soaking with Safers Insecticidal Soap. I transplanted her into the now standard for me mix of Gaia Green Living Soil, Worm Castings and Perlite with a few tablespoons of feather meal then watered to runoff with nutes so hopefully that will address any deficiencies.




That’s all the obvious signs of deficiency in seeing, interesting how they’ve shown on the two Blue Haze plants and none of the others. Maybe a sign that these Blue Haze are hungrier than the others and could use a higher dose of nutes moving forward.

BB1(73 days):

This one the FIM attempt seems to have turned into more of a standard topping and she’s still determined to be the tallest of the bunch at about 3.5 feet currently:




BOK(64 days):

Continues to be my healthiest looking plant.



Grape Drink(64 days):

Maybe the FIM worked as intended?





HZ2 (43 days):

Like BH2 seems to be a favourite amongst the bugs (they prefer young blood?) and will get a strong dose of Safers tonight too.

 
I would say that after your last transplant you stopped trying to entice the roots to grow laterally by watering only the edges once in a while, and by letting them dry out completely between waterings. Your roots appear to be growing the way that occurs without a lot of human intervention, pretty much following the water as gravity takes it to the bottom. By simply dumping the water on them and letting it fall down to the bottom as gravity would have it the roots have taken a vertical stance, with very little side growth. It takes extra effort to create a proper rootball.... they don't just naturally occur.
 
I would say that after your last transplant you stopped trying to entice the roots to grow laterally by watering only the edges once in a while, and by letting them dry out completely between waterings. Your roots appear to be growing the way that occurs without a lot of human intervention, pretty much following the water as gravity takes it to the bottom. By simply dumping the water on them and letting it fall down to the bottom as gravity would have it the roots have taken a vertical stance, with very little side growth. It takes extra effort to create a proper rootball.... they don't just naturally occur.
Thanks Emilya! appreciate you taking the time to chime in even when it’s with a well deserved chastising of my watering technique (and my friends as he was in charge while I was away for 10 days). When I saw it I thought that my rootball was not all it could be and you have confirmed, I’ll continue working to improve!
 
Very nice bunch of plants primeau, i think the "BOK" one is the best lookin too. Don't be scared to take off some of those bottom leaves that have already served their purpose, it should help with new growth
Thanks Lizard! Yah the breeder notes for the Blood Orange Kush specifically say:

“It’s essential to prune the lower branches and older outer branches because they’re short-lived crops. It will increase air circulation inside the plant and allow light to reach deep into the plant’s core, resulting in more even and healthier growth.”

Up to this point I’ve only removed some fan leaves when they’re well and truly dead and likely would have fallen off soon enough anyway.

I guess that with flowering likely to start mid-August, I might want to get on with it soon if I’m going to do some pruning of the lower growth to allow the plant time to recover before flowering starts. There are two growth tips in particular right at the bottom of the plant which seem like they won’t produce much so I might chop them and see if I can get some roots to take and give them to a buddy as clones.

Other than that my current plan is to use the tomato cages to spread things out and try to ensure all the colas and fan leaves get a fair share of the sun.

Keep the advice coming, I can use all the help I can get!
 
Today I pruned the bottom two branches and a couple dead leaves from the BOK.
The branches that I pruned I snipped the bottom nodes off and submerged the stems in water in plastic bottles. Since flowering should be starting soon outdoors, I’m going to move them inside at nighttime under the cheap LEDs I used to start my plants so that they don’t begin to flower. Hopefully we see roots soon then a friend of mine will be taking them and growing then indoors.



 
Also on the topic of flowering coming soon, how concerned should I be regarding light leak outdoors i.e. either from nearby street lights, neighbour’s or coming from the windows of my house? I guess I’d expect that on clear nights outdoor plants would see some light from the moon and stars but are the man-made light sources capable of messing with my plants flowering? Either by delaying the start of flowering or even causing the plants to re-veg or hermy? There’s a couple spots on the patio I could wheel the plants to each night to minimize light exposure but I’m not sure I will be able to eliminate it 100%. I know this is a big concern for indoor growers and wonder what everyone’s thoughts are for outdoor grows.
 
Also on the topic of flowering coming soon, how concerned should I be regarding light leak outdoors i.e. either from nearby street lights, neighbour’s or coming from the windows of my house? I guess I’d expect that on clear nights outdoor plants would see some light from the moon and stars but are the man-made light sources capable of messing with my plants flowering? Either by delaying the start of flowering or even causing the plants to re-veg or hermy? There’s a couple spots on the patio I could wheel the plants to each night to minimize light exposure but I’m not sure I will be able to eliminate it 100%. I know this is a big concern for indoor growers and wonder what everyone’s thoughts are for outdoor grows.

Great question! Often wonder about this myself...Last year the neighbors installed a motion sensor that went off every hour or so and lit up my entire yard. Granted I have a greenhouse for nights, but the extra lights may not have made much of a difference after all as they were a decent amount away. There is also a streetlight about 50 yards shining on my greenhouse all night. Never had anything happen. YMMV?
 
Hey thanks @Abstrakt! I’m not sure what YMMV stands for? I’ve done a bit more reading online and from what I can find most folks say streetlights or lights leaking from the windows of nearby houses shouldn’t be a real problem. The reasoning provided was mostly that the intensity of light leaking from these sources is pretty insignificant relative to the sunlight plants get during the day and also the fact that it is never pitch black outside and thus the plants are trained to understand their specific light / dark cycles, even if the dark cycle outdoors consistently includes light from the moon, stars, street, houses, etc. Consistency seems to be a key here as many indoor growers have pitch darkness in their tents during the dark cycle and thus their plants can be more sensitive to light leaks, also there might just be bad genetics that don’t show up until the light leak event occurs due to the perfect conditions most indoor growers will strive for.
Anyways, this could all be complete nonsense but it makes me feel better about leaving my plants out on the patio without going to great lengths to ensure total darkness every night!
 
Back
Top Bottom