First ever grow! outside melbourne

[nelso420]

Hey Guys! 

 

First time grower but have been frequently checking this site for info. Some great stuff on here!

 

Just though id get some pointers as I've never grown before only a few veggies/herbs here and there. No chance of indoor growing so outdoors it is!!

 

Live in Melbourne and its just starting to get warmer here ( Spring time late September ) and a lot more sun so thinking now is the time to get these bad boys running. Is now a good time to start?

 

Got 5 Northern storm autos and 5 reg white widow max.

 

Going to start them in wet paper towel method then pop them into large outdoor pots with a good organic soil mix. Got a smallish backyard but gets pretty good sun throughout the day, with the late afternoon getting a little shade from the house. Its not really hot so i dont think i have to worry about the heat.

 

Going to pop a half cut plastic bottle on top of the seedling to keep the humidity up when they are coming out of the ground. - good or bad idea?

 

Been seeing a lot of info about perlite, do you guys suggest mixing some of that into the soil as well? anything else.. dont want to spend heaps but happy for a little spend!

 

I understand autos dont need as much fertz as they are a shorter lifespan. Any suggestions of fertz i could get from Bunnings that i can use for both the Regs and Autos?

 

Thats the only aspect of growing i dont understand! really rookie when it comes to that so hope i can get some good advice and any tips and pointers on how im going about this grow would be great!!

 

Thanks heaps for reading!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sir PsychoHashy]

Hey Nelso, welcome aboard.

 

It's getting around that time of year to start thinking about outdoor plantings.  Don't know what the light hrs are like down Melbourne way, but you may find it worthwhile to give your photoperiod plants a little bit of supplemental lighting for a while to keep them from going straight into flower.

 

You should plan ahead for visibility, and smellability, if you have neighbours, as both of these things can get you either busted or ripped off.

 

White Widow should be a fairly short stocky strain, which is good for backyard stealth, but can still be pretty stinky.  But as you probably don't want them too big, it might be worth waiting another month or so to start them as well.  Might be worth planning for a bit of low stress training to spread them out and keep them low for good stealth.

 

As for your autoflower's, I would suggest you hold off on germing them yet, especially for an outdoor grow.  They will grow in soil mixes, but it is vitally important that it's a nice light and loose mix that allows the roots to grow freely, mixing perlite and coco (good coco, not the shite from bunnings unless you want to clean it thoroughly) through the soil will help, you would need to wait for a soil grower for better suggestions.  As for feeding auto's, they can be pushed with nutrients, particularly from around week 2-3 through to about week 5-6, so I don't know where you got that info from.  I have never grown them any way other than hydro so I can't really help with fertilisers.  Biggest issue at the moment is light hours, for auto's to do well they need lots of good light.  Because of their short veg cycle, anything less than ideal will stop them from reaching any sort of decent size before going into flower properly, and without good light during flower they won't fill out very well either,  Guys on here have done okay with them outdoors, but not at this time of year.  I prefer to grow them indoors under good lights, but have done them outside in coco/perlite, but you have to get it right.  I've had from 2.5 grams up to 210 grams off the same strain for example, all down to conditions, they are very susceptible.  The 2.5 was 1st attempt outside in shitty soil/coco/perlite mix, best outdoors was 3/4oz in coco/perlite, and the 210 grams was indoors in recirculated hydro in perlite under 18hrs/day of light.  I would encourage you to research growing auto's before having a crack at them, they can be a bit tricky to get right.

 

Best of luck

[_Puff_Tough_]

if youre using the wet paper towel method use distilled or demineralised water or you could add a drop of bleach to 500mls of water and use that solution.

[cap'n yNg]

Welcome aboard nelso.

All the best with ya grow matey

[_Puff_Tough_]

welcome aboard this is bat country !!!

[nelso420]

Thanks for the info guys! Can anyone suggest a simple but good soil mix for outdoors.

 

Herd the Yates potting mix with dynamic lifter with some perlite in it is good?

[wannagrowbuds]

1/3 each Searles 5 in 1, coco and perlite.

 

The Debco vegetable and herb mix looks quite nice too, none of the bark and shit you get in some mixes.

Edited September 24, 2015 by wannagrowbuds

[nelso420]

Think im going to be giving the Debco organic potting mix a go! No slow release fertz and seems real nice and fluffy. Going to add some perlite to the mix as well

[nelso420]

Has anyone here tried the Debco organic potting mix?

[Sir PsychoHashy]

I've used Searles Premium potting mix with pre buffered coco and perlite in roughly equal parts and found it to work quite well, however I did feed with coco nutes at  a reduced strength, so not organic.  Having said that, if the Debco has no fertilizer added it would probably be better unless it's too dense or has bits of shitty bark in it, I'll be checking it out for future reference.

 

There's a couple of guys on here who have made up their own soil mixes, and I'm pretty sure there are a couple of posts with recipes somewhere on the site, might be worth looking into if you are keen on soil and/or organic growing.  I liked the simplicity of the mix I used, and that I could use hydro nutes to control feeding, but that's only because I don't know how to grow in soil.