thekingchief
New Member
Welcome, anyone that's interested, to my annual backyard grow.
Before we begin I just want to note that this Journal starts at around day 60 (today) of my grow. I just registered here and only do one grow a year so I figured I may as well do one for what's left of this grow and add what I can to the knowledge base for others looking to grow this strain.
I am a novice grower, I usually pop a few beans every year, throw them in the backyard and hope for the best. This year I decided to learn a bit more and put a bit more of an effort in. So far I've had a lot of fun, despite some frustrating moments.
Background up to this point:
I am growing in Southern Ontario. I started my seeds indoors around the 10th of May. I had 5/5 germinate using paper towel. From there I placed them into red solo cups. For 3 of the cups I used Pro-Mix Organic Vegetable & Herb soil and the other two I used Miracle Grow Organic soil. I put them outside immediately. A few days of heavy rain punished me severely by over watering and subsequently nute burning all the seedlings. I performed emergency surgery and replaced all the soil with nutrient free seedling soil. This seriously set back my progress and three of the seedlings struggled to come back from the brink. For 2 weeks there was almost no progress with the three hit hardest and I had written them off and decided to focus on the remaining two that seemed to be recovering and growing somewhat normally. Those two now had to carry the team and the weight of the world (grow) on their shoulders (leaves). I purchased two 7 gal smart pots and used the PM in one and the MG in the other. I was sort of running an experiment to see how each soil differed. Once freed from the captivity of a beverage container they both started to progress much better. I placed them next to my pool in direct sun (probably get around 8 solid hours per day directly) to give them the feeling that they were at a 5 star all inclusive in the hopes that the relaxation helped them grow. I cut off what remained of the brown crispy nute burned leaves so they could forget the previous traumatic ordeal.
Meanwhile, the other three languished in a sort of stasis on the other side of the yard, nestled in cups with a patch of sweet corn. They had maybe 2-3 nodes of leaves, all of which were 3 tipped at most. Almost every leaf was burnt at the ends and had begun crisping and breaking off. Despite watering them, they never grew leaves or showed really any improvement. I had fully resigned to the fact that they were goners and even stopped checking them. Then one day, after planting some store bought plants and having a few left over pots I decided fuck it I'll throw them in some soil and see what happens. When I went to fetch them, I found that my cat must have knocked them over as they were on their sides, with half of their soil spilled out. Nothing is coming back from that I thought, they might of been like that for days. With little optimism, but still wanting to test the resiliency of a plant nicknamed "weed" (which presumably means it grows against the odds), I placed them in new pots with PM. Like deployed soldiers on RnR leave, around the pool they went.
The two in bags started growing well and really began to pick up the pace. After both started leaning and growing in strange directions I staked them with bamboo. More surprisingly, the other three started slowly adding nodes, albeit closer together and smaller. It was amazing just seeing them doing anything but dying. Two of them kept falling over so I staked them. Most encouragingly, their new leaves weren't turning brown and actually looked somewhat healthy despite being much smaller than they should have been. Like the New England Patriots in the 3rd, I began to think they may yet produce something.
Because life likes to screw you just as things are looking up, I awoke one morning to the two bagged plants riddled with holes in their leaves. Searching all over I couldn't find any signs of the culprit. I knew it had to be something like a caterpillar or snail, but I couldnt find even a single one. It looked to be only on higher leaves, so I figured it was something attacking from above. Each morning more and more holes, some leaves had become skeletons and they had even started showing up on the smaller plants. At the same time I noticed some sunflowers I had been growing had had all their leaves chewed off and were now just stalks. The bastards were only targetting specific plants. Options for insect repellents are very limited, most things only kill insects on contact, so I began thinking this was how it all ended. After a ton of research I came to a break through... the Japanese/Oriental beetle. An invasive species, that feeds at night and targets all the plants I noticed with holes. Buying the only product I could find in store designed for these fucks, I attempted to thwart the massacre. The beetle trap, which attracts them and then traps them inside, caught maybe 50 the first night. Day after day I caught dozens, sometimes close to 100. Within a few days I stopped noticing new holes. For some reason the 3 plants in the ER wernt targeted as much and actually escaped with only a few badly damaged leaves.
That occurred last week, so thats almost the entirety of the story thus far. I have trimmed off all leaves that were 50%+ damaged and left the rest, which you will clearly see in the pictures. This weekend I am going to build a meshed box to prevent further insect scumbags from potential attacks.
Going Forward:
In the pictures I took today you can see a difference in the green between plant 2 (PM) and 3 (MG) although both are almost identical in height. All the plants in PM are the same darker green (plants 1,2,4,5). I'm not sure if I should attempt to do something about that or just leave it.
Being Autos I know time is limited and I think all of them have entered an early flowering stage, so I'm not sure if I should transplant the ones in pots into bigger pots. If anyone has any advice on this please let me know.
So that's where we stand as of today, we shall venture on into the great unknown and you're welcome to come along for the ride.
Pictures:
Plant 1:
Plants 2 (left) and 3 (right) - the team MVP's
Plant 2 - Pro-mix:
Plant 3 - Miracle Grow Organic:
Plant 4:
Plant 5:
Before we begin I just want to note that this Journal starts at around day 60 (today) of my grow. I just registered here and only do one grow a year so I figured I may as well do one for what's left of this grow and add what I can to the knowledge base for others looking to grow this strain.
I am a novice grower, I usually pop a few beans every year, throw them in the backyard and hope for the best. This year I decided to learn a bit more and put a bit more of an effort in. So far I've had a lot of fun, despite some frustrating moments.
Background up to this point:
I am growing in Southern Ontario. I started my seeds indoors around the 10th of May. I had 5/5 germinate using paper towel. From there I placed them into red solo cups. For 3 of the cups I used Pro-Mix Organic Vegetable & Herb soil and the other two I used Miracle Grow Organic soil. I put them outside immediately. A few days of heavy rain punished me severely by over watering and subsequently nute burning all the seedlings. I performed emergency surgery and replaced all the soil with nutrient free seedling soil. This seriously set back my progress and three of the seedlings struggled to come back from the brink. For 2 weeks there was almost no progress with the three hit hardest and I had written them off and decided to focus on the remaining two that seemed to be recovering and growing somewhat normally. Those two now had to carry the team and the weight of the world (grow) on their shoulders (leaves). I purchased two 7 gal smart pots and used the PM in one and the MG in the other. I was sort of running an experiment to see how each soil differed. Once freed from the captivity of a beverage container they both started to progress much better. I placed them next to my pool in direct sun (probably get around 8 solid hours per day directly) to give them the feeling that they were at a 5 star all inclusive in the hopes that the relaxation helped them grow. I cut off what remained of the brown crispy nute burned leaves so they could forget the previous traumatic ordeal.
Meanwhile, the other three languished in a sort of stasis on the other side of the yard, nestled in cups with a patch of sweet corn. They had maybe 2-3 nodes of leaves, all of which were 3 tipped at most. Almost every leaf was burnt at the ends and had begun crisping and breaking off. Despite watering them, they never grew leaves or showed really any improvement. I had fully resigned to the fact that they were goners and even stopped checking them. Then one day, after planting some store bought plants and having a few left over pots I decided fuck it I'll throw them in some soil and see what happens. When I went to fetch them, I found that my cat must have knocked them over as they were on their sides, with half of their soil spilled out. Nothing is coming back from that I thought, they might of been like that for days. With little optimism, but still wanting to test the resiliency of a plant nicknamed "weed" (which presumably means it grows against the odds), I placed them in new pots with PM. Like deployed soldiers on RnR leave, around the pool they went.
The two in bags started growing well and really began to pick up the pace. After both started leaning and growing in strange directions I staked them with bamboo. More surprisingly, the other three started slowly adding nodes, albeit closer together and smaller. It was amazing just seeing them doing anything but dying. Two of them kept falling over so I staked them. Most encouragingly, their new leaves weren't turning brown and actually looked somewhat healthy despite being much smaller than they should have been. Like the New England Patriots in the 3rd, I began to think they may yet produce something.
Because life likes to screw you just as things are looking up, I awoke one morning to the two bagged plants riddled with holes in their leaves. Searching all over I couldn't find any signs of the culprit. I knew it had to be something like a caterpillar or snail, but I couldnt find even a single one. It looked to be only on higher leaves, so I figured it was something attacking from above. Each morning more and more holes, some leaves had become skeletons and they had even started showing up on the smaller plants. At the same time I noticed some sunflowers I had been growing had had all their leaves chewed off and were now just stalks. The bastards were only targetting specific plants. Options for insect repellents are very limited, most things only kill insects on contact, so I began thinking this was how it all ended. After a ton of research I came to a break through... the Japanese/Oriental beetle. An invasive species, that feeds at night and targets all the plants I noticed with holes. Buying the only product I could find in store designed for these fucks, I attempted to thwart the massacre. The beetle trap, which attracts them and then traps them inside, caught maybe 50 the first night. Day after day I caught dozens, sometimes close to 100. Within a few days I stopped noticing new holes. For some reason the 3 plants in the ER wernt targeted as much and actually escaped with only a few badly damaged leaves.
That occurred last week, so thats almost the entirety of the story thus far. I have trimmed off all leaves that were 50%+ damaged and left the rest, which you will clearly see in the pictures. This weekend I am going to build a meshed box to prevent further insect scumbags from potential attacks.
Going Forward:
In the pictures I took today you can see a difference in the green between plant 2 (PM) and 3 (MG) although both are almost identical in height. All the plants in PM are the same darker green (plants 1,2,4,5). I'm not sure if I should attempt to do something about that or just leave it.
Being Autos I know time is limited and I think all of them have entered an early flowering stage, so I'm not sure if I should transplant the ones in pots into bigger pots. If anyone has any advice on this please let me know.
So that's where we stand as of today, we shall venture on into the great unknown and you're welcome to come along for the ride.
Pictures:
Plant 1:
Plants 2 (left) and 3 (right) - the team MVP's
Plant 2 - Pro-mix:
Plant 3 - Miracle Grow Organic:
Plant 4:
Plant 5:
