1st Outdoor Grow Prep Questions

[music4higher]

Hey all! So, I have some feminized White Widow and Hawaiian Snow seeds on their way from Green House Seed Co. and I want to make sure I do things right so I have a few questions I would appreciate some help with.

I've been searching the forums and have been unable to find answers to these questions. This will be my first (official) grow so please excuse my ignorance..

I say official because I grew a plant from bag seed this past summer and burned the shit out of it with nutrients when it was pretty late into flowering. The buds were getting big and stanky too... With that grow the only nutrients I gave it was RapidGro from veg to flower. This was before I did my research... I got too excited by the fact that I was growing my own weed and stumbled my way through the darkness like a dummy. Live and learn..

The Setup:

I plan on growing them outdoors in pots on my balcony in SoCal. My balcony gets direct light from sunrise to sunset.

For soil, I will probably be using a bag of soil that's good for Cactus Mix since that's what I used last time and it seemed fine. Comments on this?

For nutrients I will be using Fox Farm Grow Big, Big Bloom, Tiger Bloom and some sort of sea tea (whatever is available from the store) for foliar feed.

Here are my questions:
When does the growing season begin and end in Southern California?

Do I have to wait until spring to start this grow?

Can I cheat the "standard" growing season since my balcony receives a lot of light no matter what time of year it is?

I'm doing a test now with some more bagseed to see how it responds to the winter light on my balcony but would definitely love some advice on this from you seasoned vets out there. I'd say it's been a month into the bagseed grow and she has shown her privates. I'll post pictures soon!!

Does not giving the plants the 24hr light during the vegetation stage affect yield? I read that to make plants bigger, the vegetation stage should be prolonged. Will it make my plants smaller? I'm running with the assumption that smaller plants produce smaller yields. It just sounds logical to me but am I wrong about this?

Thanks for any advice! As you may have gathered, I'm pretty anxious to get this going but I've learned that patience is the most important component to growing so I can wait if I have to......

 

[Damagoman]

For soil, I will probably be using a bag of soil that's good for Cactus Mix since that's what I used last time and it seemed fine. Comments on this?

Cactus mix?!?
get some vegetable and fruit mix

When does the growing season begin and end in Southern California?

with less than 14 hours of daylight , they will flower.
Normally, Mar-April is planting season

Do I have to wait until spring to start this grow?
Can I cheat the "standard" growing season since my balcony receives a lot of light no matter what time of year it is?

Bring them in at night
and let the room light shine on them Till they get mature to flower.
If the strain is good they won't hermie. Maybe

 

[music4higher]

Thanks DaMago! I just got back from the hydroponics store as well as the local gardening store to pic up some stuff. I ended up getting some potting soil fortified with bat guano and worm castings and stuff. I just took some pictures of the bag of soil for comments and advice.

Here are the rest of my supplies:

Blue + Red = Purple LED Grow Panel

Free Mazar seeds from seedboutique.com

White Widow seeds from Green House Seed Co.

Hawaiian Snow seeds from Green House Seed Co.

Fooooooood.

My plan is to do a test with some Mazar seeds to see how the plants like the combination of outdoor sunlight during the day and indoor LED light before the sun goes down so the babies can get their 18-24 hours of light.

I'm doing this because I don't want to wait until spring to get this started but also don't want to mess up with my WW and HS seeds just in case the plants freak out.

I'll start a grow journal as soon as the seeds crac.

Any other advice for a beginner before I get this started?

Since I'm using fortified soil, when should I start feeding the sprouts the Grow Big and Seatea?

 

[sportsman9987]

Well id say you could start feeding them the grow big after a week or two with 1/4 dose.
This is gonna be an interesting journal, i cant wait to see it! Nice Led Panel, is there a reason u cant just grow indoors? Maybe just get some CFL's to add to the LED panel for some extra lumens?? Maybe just veg the plants inside and bring outdoors to flower? Dont know man its all up to u tho, just some things to think about... Good luck.

 

[music4higher]

Thanks for your thoughts sportsman! I will start with 1/4 dose a couple weeks into vegging. I can't grow indoors because I don't have space to build a proper grow room. You can see from the pictures below, my "growroom" is pretty janky as it is. I may have to find a bigger, taller, cardboard box depending on how big the plant gets.

Here's the little growbox I built for the plant when it is indoors.

Test grow from bagseed while the Mazar germinates.. she looks a little stressed out from when I repotted her. Originally I had 3 germinated bagseeds in the same pot and two turned out to be male. I pulled those out and I moved the girl to the center of the pot and she still hates me for it. I know now to use separate pots.

Once the Mazar seeds crack, I'll put them in little pots and put them outside during the day and bring them under the LED at night. The bagseed will stay outside to see what happens under the winter sun.

 

[sportsman9987]

Haha very nice bro, i had a little grow box just like that! Some things to consider...you might want to make sure the LED is close enough to the plant, id say 7-8 inchs is probably good, but iv never used LED before so maybe someone else would know better. Also yeah... u want to make sure its 1 plant per pot haha too bad u learned that the wrong way heh, but whatev mistakes only make us better. Also im not so sure i would have that tinfoil in there. Tinfoil tends to cause hotspots and burn ur plant...not sure if that will be a problem with LED, but in my opinion i would get some mylar or paint the inside of the cardboard box white, if thats too much work maybe just leaving it cardboard would be acceptable. I still think some CFL's would benefit u greatly but its ur call. Also one last thing, u might want to think about getting some sort of fan in there. Just to help move the air around and keep ur stems nice and strong for when ur flowering. Other then that it looks great! And you really dont NEED to do anything i suggested, just things that might help...good luck!

p.s. making those grow boxes is really fun haha i loved making mine...

 

[sportsman9987]

O and iv never heard of Hawaiin Snow before...but dayummm 23.7% Thz sounds amazzinggg. Cant wait to see i grow journal of that! Hope u will be making one haha

 

[music4higher]

Thanks for the advice sportsman! LED's emit zero heat so I won't have to worry about that in the box. Since the plants will be outside during the day I figure that will be enough wind to get the stems to strengthen (I hope!). At this time, I don't have the $$ to add more lights. The $$ situation is another reason why I can't grow strictly indoors but who knows... plans change and windfalls happen.

I discovered Hawaiian Snow from looking up past High Times Cannabis Cup winners (it took first place overall in 2003) for a good sativa to grow and after lots of surfing the THC content put this one above the others.

I checked on the Mazar seeds and I see splits in the shells but nothing coming out yet so I'm gonna let them germinate for a little longer before I put them in plastic cups. I'll make sure those are really close to the LED's when they are inside. I can put them right under the lights because of the zero heat emitted.

Thanks again for your input!!!!! I appreciate it. I'm getting kinda nervous since it's almost time to put the Mazar in cups and getting a journal started. I hope I don't hurt them like I did with my last bagseed grow attempt. I felt so bad for burning the shit out of her!!

 

[sportsman9987]

Haha np and im sure you will do fine! everyone makes mistakes but now u know not to put them so close heh. I guess it was quite smart of u to test with bagseed first! Cant wait to see the journal! And ya i always like to get that tap root out quite a bit before putting into the cups as well, just make sure u dont let it get TOO long because it will damage microscopic roots and ur plant wont grow as well/big. But thats only if u let them germ for a wicked long time so dont be scarred haha.

 

[sportsman9987]

O and if burning was a problem i would def get rid of that tinfoil.

 

[music4higher]

Check out my grow journal!!

First timer growing mazar-i-sharif