Sierra Cowboy 5 Variety Outdoor Container Grow 2020

Oh my how time fly's ! with Covid, my remodel job, my personal business and my full time job I let too much time go bye without stopping in to catch up.

The girls are doing tremendous, last years growing experience has definitely had a positive impact. It turns out that watering and feeding on a regular schedule are beneficial and provide for better growth DUH !

So far I can not see any difference between the plants in the 25 gal. containers compared to the 65gal. containers. I have two Vanilla Frostings and two Magic Melons one of each in the different sizes, I imagine it will start to become more evident as time goes on and the root systems develop.

I am sold on my new Nutrient choice, I am using Mega Crop and my plants seem to really like the solution. That along with a little extra Cal/Mag on my last watering, a splash of beneficial micros. and my girls have a nice green glow.

I have quadlined and am preforming a daily regiment of LST with a little SuperCropping just to try and get all the different techniques from last year involved. I know when I walk out my girls are thinking" what the hell is he going to do to us today" but they are a little kinky as they seem to like it.

The only hiccup I have had this season was when it came to quadlining, it was pretty difficult for me to figure out just what nodes to strip, where to pinch etc. Given that I am growing clones and the node growth is different than seed grown plants, I ended up just closing my eye's and pinching. I think the blind technique worked for the most part, a couple have two nice long shoots and two short ones so I might not have got those two right.

I will get some pictures for you all tomorrow, I know how you like eye candy !
Good to be back online, I missed you all !
 
So are you ready for some eye candy? here are my adolescent girls they are a tad shy but I think they will grow out of that phase soon





This is my first real quadlining, I did one by accident last year and it was one of my best plants so I figured there was enough evidence to go for it. All the plants sailed through the process with very little if any shock, they never missed a beat. I am now trying to make out just how much I want to trim and which leaves. I hope you enjoyed the candy , I will try to be a more active journalist going forward but the world is still spinning so who knows.
 
One Thing you might want to consider when you view the above eye candy, these girls are in 25 Gal. black plastic and 65 gal. cloth sacks. For quite awhile I would look at other plants and think " wow why are mine so much smaller" it seemed like everyone's plants were bigger. I then started noticing that they were in 5-10 gal. containers (indoor must be different ), the gig was up. No more small plant syndrome therapy for me , my girls measure up:thumb:
 
Well we have 7 days in the books since Quading our girls, I would say they are doing well. The last photo shoot was 7 days ago so it is pretty easy to see the growth. I have started feeding /watering my pots with a 2 Gal. hand sprayer, it seem to do a better job of distributing the water exactly where I want it. We are sticking to the Mega-Crop with a weekly addition of Cal- Mag. My Brother has found some magical supplement that I looked at this morning, all I have to say is stay tuned, his plants are Monsters. Without further ado I have some new candy for you all, if you see something say something, I am new and learning so keep that in mind please.





 
Your plants are shaping up nicely with the quad-line, and looking nice and green. :thumb:
 
Not Much to report as we are in the veg .stage and all the girls are moving along nicely. I have been exploring different options to supplement my nutrient regiment with compost tea. We have been composting since we moved in 21 years ago so we have a very rich compost supply with years of microbial growth so it should make an excellent base. There are soooo many recipes out there it's hard to decide which way to go, for now I have put about three cups of compost, some Ca/Mag a dash of Mykros, and a splash of corn syrup into a 5 gallon bucket and filled with filtered water. After 2 days of stirring occasionally I have a nice frothy brew. Yesterday I gave each of my girls a cup around their base, this morning they all are reaching for the sun, so far so good ! I got the idea when I went to my brothers house and saw his plants, they were so much bigger and fuller I was shocked. We talked about what we were doing differently and the two biggest things we found were, open sez me ? and compost tea. The first one I am too later for, evidently in the first part of your plants life you add a pinch of this " open sez me" product and it causes your plants to produce more nodes, his plants are loaded with little future bud sites. The second difference was he gives a cup of compost tea to his girls every morning as a morning ritual. The difference between his monsters and my girls is striking and I must say a little humbling, he has been at this for years so I guess follow the leader is the course of action for now. I will report back if I notice any big changes until the " Growing Forward" :thumb:
 
So I am I the last to know this ? I was out in the garage and noticed that my absorbent that I use for liquid spills is 100% Diatomaceous earth. I looked at the SDS for that product and sure enough it is 100% so why am I paying more than $8.00 for 25 lbs. at the gardening center ? It is a granular form that is kiln dried but no other treatment ,at that price I can put a nice even layer across the top of my soil in my containers to prevent insects from using it as their own. Do any of you k now a reason why not to do this? I know the PH. is 7.0 so that should not change things
 
As with all things cannabis we jumped into the compost game both feet first. After doing A lot of research we decided on a recipe and set off to gather our list of ingredients. After pissing in the wind for a while in this small town I got impatient and threw together an adhoc tea utilizing some ingredients we had on hand. The results were enough to get us motivated and have made the biggest improvement since we figured out how to water last year.

We have made huge strides in our grow, this year over last. Having the knowledge of what to do from the start and being comfortable with the basics is worlds away from where we were last year. The girls are showing their pleasure in how they are being treated with vigorous growth and beautiful color. The addition of compost tea should shoot them off into orbit as far as growth and health. I think we found the tea in the Knick of time, we are about half way through veg. so it should give the girls a boost right before going into flower.

I have decided to post pictures of my girls taken today and then in a couple of weeks. We can all see together just what all the compost tea hype is all about and if it's all it's cracked up to be. From what I saw at my brothers house we are going to see quite a different bunch of girls in a few weeks, so without further ado, the Girls






As you can see I have done some trimming and LST on them with much more of that tomorrow. I hope you are all having a great growing season and as always if you see something in the pics please say something, we are still very new to this game
 
They are all looking great so far. :thumb: Any sign of flowering yet?
 
Maybe a little pre-flower but then again I am not the best judge. I have a good idea, that will be my class today, get pre-flower sign smart. Thanks for stopping bye Beez and for giving me a study topic for the day
 
Maybe a little pre-flower but then again I am not the best judge. I have a good idea, that will be my class today, get pre-flower sign smart. Thanks for stopping bye Beez and for giving me a study topic for the day
So it turns out the class is fairly short especially when the plants in question are showing so prominently. My question is ; should I add anything more to my tea so far I have hi-brix molasses, organic compost, Cal/mag, EWC, soluble Mycorrhizae, Azos. I am using MC for nutes. I am thinking I need to add something like crab meal now that preflower has started all inputs are wanted
 
So this week has been pretty uneventful, unless you would like to talk about the Girls:rollit:. The Girls are flourishing, the new tea seems to be very popular with them with massive new growth daily. The color and overall appearance is pretty spectacular, I am thinking that this will be our big good lesson this year, brew the tea from early on and use it. We have been trying to keep up with trimming the under growth and the the small energy eating stuff but these plants seem determined to look shaggy ( Kids these days ) any way ! It seems to be a trend for me to post weekly pics so without further ado










I don't seem to be getting much in the way of views this year must be wearing on the crowd or something who knows. If there are still people looking at my journal and know how to determine when pre-flower becomes officially Flower I would be grateful if you would share.
 
Hi Sierra, your plants are looking really good right now - great color on the leaves. :thumb:
how to determine when pre-flower becomes officially Flower I would be grateful if you would share.
I'm no expert at all regarding this, but here's how I determine it. First sign of pistil stigmas = pre-flower.
Then as stigmas start to appear on the very top with bud sites starting to form = flower mode.
Pre-flower is easy, but flower mode is kinda subjective. For outdoors, usually you will be in pre-flower for 2 - 3 weeks before bud set happens. :Namaste:
 
Well Hello Again fellow growers ! My life is just like yours so I won't go into it, just suffice to say my plants are my refuge. Luckily they are doing well and have me optimistic about my future. The last few weeks have been used to get my girls in shape for the sprint to the finish when all my hard work will pay off in nice beautiful flower. I have followed Emilya's advice and just pumped the nutrients and water to these girls until they show signs they are getting too much. Either I am a chicken or these girls are showing off because everything I throw at them they smile and ask for more. The results will tell but I will say this is at least twice as much fertilizing/ nutrients / water than I gave my plants last year and well look at them






So I am sold on this watering method, Thank you Emilya , once again. if you are reading this and do not know who Emilya is educate yourself, she is my most trusted :420:watering expert and a super sweet person One of my corner stones for certain.

As always if you see something that I need to pay attention too or some advice that you would give, I am all eyes.
 
Your plants are looking great! :welldone:
 
Thanks Beez. I had some incredible :420: support last year and it has paid dividends.
While I have your attention , when I post on my journal it doesn't show up on the new post page so only people who follow my journal see it do you know how to correct this ?
 
It will show up in the Journals In Progress forum page. Each time you or someone makes a new post it will always go to the top of the list. If you check now it should be at or near the top.
 
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