VICTORIA - outdoor growers. Post your 2013 preparations here

[skeletor]

looking good!

[protein]

Has anyone used solar lights to keep ladies from going into flower when doing indoor-outdoor? Someone mentioned this to me and said it worked but didn’t want to risk fucking it up unless i knew for sure. I want to put out early this year and get some big ass 9monthers going. I usually get a couple of sativas going from seed this time of year but I also have this beautiful line of bubbleberry-hindu kush that I grow indoor-outdoor. my aim is to get a big girl up in veg under 16hrs and put her out already 3’ tall but to prevent her from turning until the days get longer surround her with a few solar lights to disrupt the cytochrome pathways. Anyone got any ideas on this? And, no I only have this line in cutting form - no seeds
 
 
-protein

[canetoad]

Protein:

 

You say, 'put out early this year...'

We are nearly at the spring equinox. For growing outdoors, that is your trigger. If you have sprouts at this moment they will happily go outdoors and finish their cycle from this point on.

 

When you talk about 9 monthers what do you mean. The natural cycle of the cannabis plant is annual. That means that it goes throught its natural life cycle once a year. Spring to autumn. By growing under light you are attempting to both replicate and mutate this natural cycle. You throw a couple of bio-botanical terms into your post; do you really know what they mean? Or are you just cherry picking in the hope of disguising your lack of cultivation knowledge?

 

Just as the food snake oil salesmen would have you focus on a particular nutrient rather than the bigger picture of a balanced diet, it's easy to be sucked in to micro-managing a cannabis crop.

 

It's a hardy, tolerant plant. The cultivator needs to know a few basic gardening principles to raise a healthy outdoor crop.Growing cuttings is always dodgier than growing from seed. 

 

I grow because I like to get stoned. Work out how much plant matter you need over a year, three months...whatever. Then work on a feasible plan to produce that quantity whether it be outdoors or under lights. If you are growing for other reasons - feel free to experiment. Results dont matter!

 

You are growing cuttings. You would have kept them alive, if not thriving for several months (days, weeks). Already the natural annual cycle of the plant is disturbed; there is no way you could put these plants in the sun and expect the same result as a crop grown from seed. It won't harm them ..... all plants are happier in natural sunlight if other conditions are good. You will have small and stunted plants that produce small and stunted buds. 

 

To grow a good clone requires plant knowledge and gardening nouse. If you are a noob, please make it easy on yourself and grow a few bagseeds as practice. 

 

Good luck mate,

cane

[The Blob]

Spring equinox is sep 22nd. I would have thought now is still early?Especially with this crap weather and bugger all sunlight. 9 monthers means now till mid year, seems plausible to me in a indoor/outdoor setup?

 

 

looking forward to this season

Edited September 14, 2013 by The Blob

[louise]

Has anyone used solar lights to keep ladies from going into flower when doing indoor-outdoor? Someone mentioned this to me and said it worked but didn’t want to risk fucking it up unless i knew for sure. I want to put out early this year and get some big ass 9monthers going. I usually get a couple of sativas going from seed this time of year but I also have this beautiful line of bubbleberry-hindu kush that I grow indoor-outdoor. my aim is to get a big girl up in veg under 16hrs and put her out already 3’ tall but to prevent her from turning until the days get longer surround her with a few solar lights to disrupt the cytochrome pathways. Anyone got any ideas on this? And, no I only have this line in cutting form - no seeds

 

 

-protein

 

Yep, I have used solar lighting to keep vegetative plants from going into flower early. The solar shed lights (available at Aldi, The Reject Shop and Bummings) that have an array of white leds work better than the little solar garden lamps.

 

Although it wont have any effect on cytochrome pathways...  you will find some of those in the liver, while phytochrome is the light senstive pigment that effects the onset of flowering in photoperiod sensitive plants.

 

 

With regard to preparations.... I prepare my beds in autumn, cover them over winter with straw to prevent weed growth. Uncover in August to expose the soil and warm up the beds and then mulch with coco chip mid September. Plants go in as the season advances..

Edited September 15, 2013 by louise

[pegz]

Well, I'm gonna put a couple of 8 week old plants outside & just let em veg all spring/summer, probably in 30lt pots.

 

Currently they are under a Phillips in coco, what do you guys recommend for an outdoors potting mix & feed?

 

I want something simple, I don't want to be dicking around mixing up elaborate concoctions.

Edited September 16, 2013 by pegz

[xStozy]

im a newbie. can anyone tell me what type of strain i should grow? like sativas or indicas and what type of problems may i face growing outside in melbourne weather-wise.

[canetoad]

xStozy:

Melbourne has perfect weather for outdoor growing; sativas or satty Xs do very well over even the hottest summers as long as you are not too precious with them. The narrow sativa leaves don't offer as much surface space for evaporation and heat damage.

 

Problems you may face:

 

1. Soil in you area. Some suburbs have predominantly acidic soil or heavy clay, neither of which will give you best performance.

 

2. Bugs and snails can play havoc with young plants, especially if grown in high organic content like compost or manure. When the plants are a bit bigger it's not much of a hassle. I pop my seeds, plant in tubes and put them outside straight away but keep them on a table in the yard until they are about 15cm high at which point I plant out in the garden. At this stage they can cope with a bit of chewing!

 

3. Thieves. If you are in one of the older suburbs (Richmond, Collingwood, Coburg, Brunswick etc) where there are a lot of back lanes, tea-leaves are know to travel the lanes looking over fences for grows - usually in March or April, just when you are savouring a nice little harvest. Make sure they are hidden from street, air and neighbours. Tell no one about your grow. 

 

All the best mate. Hope you can get a decent grow going this summer.

[asterisk]

Looking forward to this one Canetoad. Last years grow was impressive - Very happy plants!

[crow]

Well, not sure if they qualify as preparations anymore as we're into the growing season but I've finally started on my outdoor plots.  We're not quite at the time when risk of frost here is past but these little babies have been toughened up over the last month or so.

 

I'm doing a stealth bush grow about 250m from our house.  My partner's not real happy about the growing but doesn't complain too much if it's not right under his nose. 

 

After a couple months of fluffing around, spots I'd picked out don't look so good now that a lot of the camouflaging foliage has died off, so happened upon a nice stealth spot and got into it yesterday [of all days - it was 36 degrees here].  So between, wiping off pouring sweat, swatting millions of sticky black flies and running back to the house every 10 minutes to check on my daughter, I finally got it done.

 

I sowed one each of feminised Durban Poison and Fast Neville on 8th Sep.  Seedlings were moved inside at night until transferred to Oregon Breather Bags on 21st Sep.  Since then they've endured many nights below 5 degrees and one frost so not very advanced.

 

In the Mallee, we can't really count on any summer rainfall so I'm trialling a subterranean irrigation system / wicking type setup - a couple of empty juice bottles in a 12L bucket covered in weed mat and filled with perlite as the reservoir.  I've dug a couple of holes as deep as I possibly can and lined with black plastic to keep out the surrounding vegetation and then put the reservoirs at the bottom.  I've backfilled the hole with a mix of Searles premium potting mix, Searles 5 in 1, mushroom compost, coco, dolomite and soft rock phosphate - absolutely no value in the native soil so it's piled up next to the holes.

 

One of the plants suffered terribly in the transplant process but after a good water and a bit of respite from the hot sun [a bucket on top of her] she recovered quite nicely by later this afternoon when I transplanted the second plant [ahhh the benefit of hind sight!].

 

Anyway, they're in and it's a start. 

 

Cheers and good luck to everybody with their grows this season.