Tropicana Banana Outdoor In The Ground Living Organic Soil Grow 2023

[CBD BudMan]

This is a single plant grow that started with a couple more, but those succumbed to heat stress... You can read about that here.

Anyway, I have a small but beautiful feminized Tropicana Banana girl, under a white 40% shade cloth that's growing well in my back yard and thought I'd share. I'm starting late with this journal... but, better late than never.

In a 7 cubic foot hole in the ground I mixed and placed:
2 bags FFOF
1 bag FFCL
1 bag Bu's Blend compost
1 bag Worm Gold Plus
24 quarts perlite
Dynomyco mixed as per instructions
All water is RO

She germinated on 4/5/2023
I've been feeding her a steady diet of GeoFlora Veg every 14 days as per instructions.
Mid June I started watering with MSA silica.

June 23rd, top dressed with Kelp Meal & a pinch of Humic Acid along with scheduled feeding of GeoFlora Veg. Then 2 inch layer of FF Coco Loco soil and a 5 gallon watering with MSA and Neptune's Harvest Seaweed Fertilizer, both at max levels.

Some current Pics:

She's showing her maturity here:

The bug that you might see near the top of pic above is a predator, I believe, as I never see any damage from them. My local hydro shop guy says this too, but IDK.

I'll keep updating as time permits...

 

[CBD BudMan]

I elected to not use MSA in this morning's watering as I've seen no real change in her when I did. Perhaps she doesn't need it?

IDK...

 

[Bill284]

This is a single plant grow that started with a couple more, but those succumbed to heat stress... You can read about that here.

Anyway, I have a small but beautiful feminized Tropicana Banana girl, under a white 40% shade cloth that's growing well in my back yard and thought I'd share. I'm starting late with this journal... but, better late than never.

In a 7 cubic foot hole in the ground I mixed and placed:
2 bags FFOF
1 bag FFCL
1 bag Bu's Blend compost
1 bag Worm Gold Plus
24 quarts perlite
Dynomyco mixed as per instructions
All water is RO

She germinated on 4/5/2023
I've been feeding her a steady diet of GeoFlora Veg every 14 days as per instructions.
Mid June I started watering with MSA silica.

June 23rd, top dressed with Kelp Meal & a pinch of Humic Acid along with scheduled feeding of GeoFlora Veg. Then 2 inch layer of FF Coco Loco soil and a 5 gallon watering with MSA and Neptune's Harvest Seaweed Fertilizer, both at max levels.

Some current Pics:

She's showing her maturity here:

The bug that you might see near the top of pic above is a predator, I believe, as I never see any damage from them. My local hydro shop guy says this too, but IDK.

I'll keep updating as time permits...

Love Grows buddy and so does your garden.
Good morning Amigo.
Great work, beautiful lady.
It's peak heat season for you there and I heard it's bad down south.
Sorry about her sisters.
Forest fires and smoke galore around here.
But that's OK as long as your growing and showing and she can handle heat.
I use potassium silicate, helps strengthen cell walls.
Gives them ability to withstand hot or cool temps better.
Just a thought.
@NickHardy this is the gentleman I mentioned.
Though you might like to meet , this is his new journal.
Alright I have to get to work.
Talk soon.
Take care.




#VIVOSUN #Love What You Grow
Bill284

 

[CBD BudMan]

Love Grows buddy and so does your garden.
Good morning Amigo.

Thank you and good morning to you too.

Great work, beautiful lady.
It's peak heat season for you there and I heard it's bad down south.

I know it always sounds bad when people from other places hear about the temps here, but high 90's f and low 100's f are the norm for us this time year. Last year we got to 113º f, so we haven't hit our peak yet. It will though.

Sorry about her sisters.
Forest fires and smoke galore around here.
But that's OK as long as your growing and showing and she can handle heat.
I use potassium silicate, helps strengthen cell walls.
Gives them ability to withstand hot or cool temps better.
Just a thought.

I used to use that as well. However, it's sodium based and is detrimental to the beneficial microbes in a LOS grow. This is why I now use MSA as it has no salts and doesn't harm the microbes.

@NickHardy this is the gentleman I mentioned.
Though you might like to meet , this is his new journal.
Alright I have to get to work.
Talk soon.
Take care.




#VIVOSUN #Love What You Grow
Bill284

Take care my friend...

 

[NickHardy]

Hiya,

Heard great things about you from Bill “Accident Prone” 284!

Outdoor, soil? Witchcraft to me so I’ll def follow along!

Nick

 

[CBD BudMan]

Hiya,

Heard great things about you from Bill “Accident Prone” 284!

Hello there @NickHardy ,
Welcome to my grow... One small plant is embarrassing, but...

Outdoor, soil? Witchcraft to me so I’ll def follow along!

Nick

LOL... I hear that a lot from my Bottle Feeder friends. What's so interesting is that Living Organic Soil (LOS) is literally nature just doing her thing as she's been doing on this planet for hundreds of millions of years. There are lots of great ways to grow our plants and I love the diversity. I grew up on a nice little family farm, so LOS is what comes naturally to me. I'm more comfortable with this system. Plus, I like the differences I get from an outdoor LOS grow vs an indoor bottle fed grow.

Mother Earth and Father Sky...

 

[CBD BudMan]

UpDate Time

My Tropicana Banana girl is looking good. It's been in the mid 90's to 101º f since I've reported last and in the coming days it's forecast to be 105º f.

Today she measures 35.5 inches. I'm still kicking myself in the but for not starting earlier in the season, 'cause she'd be another 18 inches taller right now, maybe more. And I'm still happy that she's doing well and I'll have this new strain in my cupboard soon enough.

Happy growing to all...

 

[Bill284]

UpDate Time

My Tropicana Banana girl is looking good. It's been in the mid 90's to 101º f since I've reported last and in the coming days it's forecast to be 105º f.

Today she measures 35.5 inches. I'm still kicking myself in the but for not starting earlier in the season, 'cause she'd be another 18 inches taller right now, maybe more. And I'm still happy that she's doing well and I'll have this new strain in my cupboard soon enough.

Happy growing to all...

Wow 105 is what the greenhouse gets up to.
Too hot for me.
She is fending off the heat well though.
She is huge don't fret about her size.
Did you see my girl's ? Tiny compared to her.
She will make you proud don't worry.
Hope everything went well over the weekend.
Take care my friend.




#VIVOSUN #Love What You Grow
Bill284

 

[CBD BudMan]

Time for another update:

She's now 36" tall. While her growth is slower, she continues to grow in this heat. And the side branches are now growing much faster than before.

And here's a close up of her:

She's on a steady diet of GeoFlora Veg and RO water with Monosilicic acid mixed in at 5 ml per gallon for heat stress. I'm using this as a precaution as this is the only plant that I have left from the 4 plants I started with, due to heat stress and possibly other issues. It would've been nice to see if this Tropicana Banana girl had the genetics to do well without adding this to the water, but I didn't feel like taking that chance.

Does anyone know when I should switch to GeoFlora Bloom? I've been looking around here and I can't find a definitive answer for an outdoor grow. The nights are already getting longer here in California since June 21st. So technically, she's going through the "flip", but in slow motion as mother nature does her thing under the open sky.

Thanx for listening...

 

[Bill284]

Time for another update:

She's now 36" tall. While her growth is slower, she continues to grow in this heat. And the side branches are now growing much faster than before.

And here's a close up of her:

She's on a steady diet of GeoFlora Veg and RO water with Monosilicic acid mixed in at 5 ml per gallon for heat stress. I'm using this as a precaution as this is the only plant that I have left from the 4 plants I started with, due to heat stress and possibly other issues. It would've been nice to see if this Tropicana Banana girl had the genetics to do well without adding this to the water, but I didn't feel like taking that chance.

Does anyone know when I should switch to GeoFlora Bloom? I've been looking around here and I can't find a definitive answer for an outdoor grow. The nights are already getting longer here in California since June 21st. So technically, she's going through the "flip", but in slow motion as mother nature does her thing under the open sky.

Thanx for listening...

Beautiful girl my friend.
She is so thick, just love indicas.
General rule of thumb is when you see pistils its time to switch to bloom nutrients.
We barely get 8 hrs of darkness right now.
It was a late start to flower up here last summer.
Halloween harvest if I remember correctly.
Too cold and late for that up here.
Do you remember when your last outdoor harvest was?
Probably September ish, you seem to be ahead of us out west.
But as soon as you see pistils it's flower time.
Hope everything is going well Amigo.
Take care.




#VIVOSUN #Love What You Grow
Bill284

 

[CBD BudMan]

Beautiful girl my friend.
She is so thick, just love indicas.

Thank you @Bill284 . Yeah, she's a 60/40 Sativa/Indica hybrid that loves showing her indica side for sure.

General rule of thumb is when you see pistils it's time to switch to bloom nutrients.

Even for an outdoor grow using GeoFlora nutes?

We barely get 8 hrs of darkness right now.

Just off the top of my head I know we get at least a couple more hours of darkness that you guys do that far north.

It was a late start to flower up here last summer.
Halloween harvest if I remember correctly.
Too cold and late for that up here.
Do you remember when your last outdoor harvest was?
Probably September ish, you seem to be ahead of us out west.

I certainly know what you mean about how different day/night ratios effect the timing of our plants as to when they go into bloom.
As for harvesting times. This really is dependent on the genetics. I've had some strains ready for harvest in Sept and others as late as early Nov, right here in my same back yard.
This depends on two things:
1). How long the flowering time is for a particular strain and,
2). How sensitive each strain is to the gradual increase in darkness each night. Meaning, some strains trigger a little sooner or a little later than other strains.

But as soon as you see pistils it's flower time.
Hope everything is going well Amigo.
Take care.




#VIVOSUN #Love What You Grow
Bill284

Thank you for your wisdom and knowledge...

 

[CBD BudMan]

Weather man says 101º f to 107º f for the next 13 consecutive days! Oh what fun that will be!
We'll see how my girl holds up...

 

[Bill284]

Weather man says 101º f to 107º f for the next 13 consecutive days! Oh what fun that will be!
We'll see how my girl holds up...

It's a 100 in the greenhouse, yeiks.
I have every fan I own trying to cool them.
You are stuck in the heat and sun your poor garden.
Hope the heat breaks before 2 weeks, that's a long go.
A couple days of that would be more than enough for me.
I'm looking forward to today though.
Rexer is coming for a visit. Hehe.
Stay cool my friend.
Take care.




#VIVOSUN #Love What You Grow
Bill284

 

[CBD BudMan]

It's a 100 in the greenhouse, yeiks.
I have every fan I own trying to cool them.
You are stuck in the heat and sun your poor garden.
Hope the heat breaks before 2 weeks, that's a long go.
A couple days of that would be more than enough for me.
I'm looking forward to today though.
Rexer is coming for a visit. Hehe.
Stay cool my friend.
Take care.




#VIVOSUN #Love What You Grow
Bill284

@Bill284 Yeah, this is fairly common this time of year as July and August are always the hottest time of the year for us. We've broken no records here yet. So, while anything can happen, I don't think things will cool off much in the next two weeks.

Thank you for the shout out, and I know you're keeping your green girls happy in your really awesome grow setup...

 

[CBD BudMan]

Discoveries During Preflower Trim

I trimmed some excess leaves from my Tropicana Banana girl today:

She now has a bit more air flowing through her branches.

Here's what I'm concerned about...
Checkout these photos, below:

Looks like more heat stress to me, but it's only on the newer growth. Anyone got any thoughts on this? I'd appreciate the help.

Other than that, the plant does look like she's doing reasonably well...

 

[Bill284]

Discoveries During Preflower Trim

I trimmed some excess leaves from my Tropicana Banana girl today:

She now has a bit more air flowing through her branches.

Here's what I'm concerned about...
Checkout these photos, below:

Looks like more heat stress to me, but it's only on the newer growth. Anyone got any thoughts on this? I'd appreciate the help.

Other than that, the plant does look like she's doing reasonably well...

Only time I've seen curling like that it was a pest.
Any signs of eggs poop or a bug?




#VIVOSUN #Love What You Grow
Bill284

 

[CBD BudMan]

Only time I've seen curling like that it was a pest.
Any signs of eggs poop or a bug?

#VIVOSUN #Love What You Grow
Bill284

This crossed my mind too. So I've double checked, and no. I see no signs of bugs, eggs, poop, etc. But I've been noticing that this seems to happen after the second watering following a GeoFlora Veg feeding. Without sharing these observations, I went to my local hydro store guy and he said the very same thing... that it looked like I was over feeding. And this was mainly happening as I've been giving her smaller waterings, in-between her deep waterings, to help her deal with the heat. I've now stopped these smaller waterings and these same leaves are slowly returning to normal. I really hope this is all it was.
Time will tell...

P.S.
All this has me wondering about my other plants that had such bad leaf curling. Could it have been this same over feeding too? I say this because the Super Lemon Haze that was in my garden is supposed to take the heat just as well as this Tropicana Banana I have in my garden now. Hmmm. My head is really spinning with all this.

 

[CBD BudMan]

Well, I was wrong!!!

I cut a large fan leaf from my girl and took it down to my local Hydro shop guy and he placed the leaf under one of those digital microscopes. And we discovered that I've got thrips! It looks like a rather good size infestation too. Look at these pics:

And whatever kind of bug this is:

So this evening, I'm going to spray them with B.T. I'll probably have to keep spraying them for a while to get ride of them all. But at least we've got answers now. Sorry for the grainy images. That's what happens when you take a pic from a monitor.

And if anyone knows what that last yellow bug is, please let me know...

The battle keeps on...

 

[Bill284]

Well, I was wrong!!!

I cut a large fan leaf from my girl and took it down to my local Hydro shop guy and he placed the leaf under one of those digital microscopes. And we discovered that I've got thrips! It looks like a rather good size infestation too. Look at these pics:

And whatever kind of bug this is:

So this evening, I'm going to spray them with B.T. I'll probably have to keep spraying them for a while to get ride of them all. But at least we've got answers now. Sorry for the grainy images. That's what happens when you take a pic from a monitor.

And if anyone knows what that last yellow bug is, please let me know...

The battle keeps on...

Last one looks similar to aphids.
I thought it might be a pest.
The curling is different from what you get from overfeeding.
I have been spraying the greenhouse every other day or so.
SNS, and BT alternating.
I've battled bugs before, it's a nightmare sometimes.
Anything you can do to prevent them getting a hold of your garden should be a priority imo.
Kill them buggers.
BTW thanks for those images.
They are going to give me nightmares.
Take care my friend.




#VIVOSUN #Love What You Grow
Bill284

 

[CBD BudMan]

Last one looks similar to aphids.
I thought it might be a pest.
The curling is different from what you get from overfeeding.
I have been spraying the greenhouse every other day or so.
SNS, and BT alternating.
I've battled bugs before, it's a nightmare sometimes.
Anything you can do to prevent them getting a hold of your garden should be a priority imo.
Kill them buggers.
BTW thanks for those images.
They are going to give me nightmares.
Take care my friend.




#VIVOSUN #Love What You Grow
Bill284

Thank you @Bill284
Yeah, lots of bugs for sure. I'll be spraying couple times a week with BT till they're gone.
The battle continues...