Outdoor An noob's outdoor grow log, without much logging...

[Amendment64]

Colorado foothills, 8200' elevation. Times are a'changing, and we're in the middle of it here. I wouldn't wanna be starting my first ever grow anywhere else

Day 1 - started with 11 seeds in 18 oz tiered party cups with LW DP Auto Blueberry, Dinafem Critical Jack Auto, and Royal Queen's Quick One (Auto). These strains are all sold as 8-10 weeks seed-to-harvest.

Week 1 - 8 successful germinations in 18 oz tiered party cups with LW. Plan was to transplant them into larger pots permanently outdoors after 1-2 weeks. They spent most of their day out in the sun and all night indoors hardening off.

Week 3 - Only four were worth transplanting into 5 gallon smart pots of OF. The rest will be hands off indoor plants. I should have transplanted all of them sooner because then I would have had at least 6 to put in the smart pots. One grew kind of sideways for some reason and it can't handle the recent winds so a close pin on a stick is being used for temporary assistance. All watering done with untreated mountain well water oxygenated for a minimum of 6 hours with an airstone.

Week 4 (current) - All transplants seem to be taking well outdoors. Made a mostly natural barrier around the plants and tied up a hardware cloth over the top for the hail we get regularly and basically am using chicken wire as a door to get in. I only go in to check the moisture of the soil once a day but I water over the top of the hardware cloth.

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The plan for the future is get nutes next weekend because those in the OF should be all used up so I'll get them on feeding schedule...nothing else really for a routine. I haven't even checked pH and don't know if I will unless their conditions deteriorate. I'm keeping an eye out for bugs and pissing all over the perimeter to keep wildlife away; the barrier is a just a suggestion and I'm fulling expecting a deer, elk, or bear to eye-ball my buds when the time comes so a constant olfactory reminder of human presence is a further suggestion to stay the heck away from my babies! My dog takes care of small pest removal with vigor.

I think they may be stunted because of the late transplant so I believe I may have pushed harvest back a week or two (if "it works like that", I have no idea and don't care too much either way). I'm planning to harvest around September 1st-15th... first frost is generally around October 1st but I can finish them in the garage if need be.

 

[GCase]

:gthumb:

 

[Amendment64]

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Just one shot from week 6, I'm not even sure which strain this is haha! Will have time for more pics next week. I made the mistake of starting my first grow ever while the busiest I've EVER been otherwise. Thankfully it's been raining almost daily so I haven't need to water them.

I was gonna get some nutes, but I'm too lazy and don't want to fix what ain't broke cause I'm a dumb noob, woot! I think I'll save the nutes for my next grow attempt and know that my potential is just that much better than this one. Right now I'm only checking them once a day and just to make sure they are not dry as a bone from the sun. It's been really windy and rainy for these last few weeks but all four have survived and seem to thrive after the transplant to the scary outdoors at week 3. All that hardening off that was done while they were seedlings in their cups was worth the effort it seems.

 

[Amendment64]

Week 8

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I noticed the very first/bottom leave set on each plant is dead but everything else is green and lush so I've moved past worrying unless more start yellowing/dying which doesn't seem likely at this point since I'm not watering, not feeding nutes, nothing, no changes just more sun and more rain. They're getting rained on and wind-battered and they're loving it. Each main stem is 3/4 the thickness of a standard pencil and they are strong because they've hardly had a motionless moment with our constant winds. The tallest is approximately 12" tall, the shortest about 8". The tallest has 10 "tiers" of leaves.

I haven't even tried to identify any specific functioning on the plants, i.e. budding. I'm just gonna let it happen, that's why I went with auto fem seeds haha! Where I'm going to try to be a scientist is in the harvesting, drying, and curing process. A section in the Cannibible trilogy of books talks all about how most weed starts out decent (all seeds have great potential) but is handled like shit (classic nature vs. nurture duality case), the handling of course starting at the harvesting process and ending only once buds are being consumed somehow. So the months of online research I did to get this grow going is now turning to researching the harvest, drying, and curing processes. I will update all my noob progress in this grow here in this thread until this grow's weed is in my steamroller...Of course that's going to include the second leg of this adventure: harvest and beyond!

 

[Amendment64]

AFNlogo
...derpa any thoughts derk!?

Did I do wrong by deciding against feeding them any nutes? I know that lost me potential but I'm cheap and don't want to fix what isn't broken...being a stupid noob I could make things worse. But maybe it would have been so worth it that I should have definitely ponied up for the nutes...!?

I'm more so worried about whether or not I can get away with not feeding them any nutes this entire grow other than what they got in the LW as seedlings and in the OF they got transplanted. They're getting mostly rain water and I have no immediate urge to check the pH of the soil. I didn't even check it when I first started them, I don't have a pH meter and don't really want to get one

 

[Amendment64]

Not many thoughts from AFN about my babies...oh well, they all look fabulous and are starting to explode with buds. I've counted 8-10 buds per plant.

It seems I'd really have to screw it up at this point to ruin this harvest since they've basically been running on "autopilot" (pun intended)...fem'd auto seeds so beyond the transplanting I've hardly even looked at them because of all the rain we've been getting. Haven't checked the pH once even when potting them. This has been a very interesting experiment in how much output I can get with minimal input on my behalf. I know some of you are good at obtaining and reworking second-hand goods but I didn't have the time to do that here so I was willing to pay some money to try to ensure a reasonable outcome. Thankfully some things I'll be able to re-use next grow. Given my resources and time-constraints (busy-body) this is what I considered to be the minimal investment to get something in return that would be worth my time...I hope. So far it looks like it's been a decent gamble but I'm guessing I'll have to wait till October (after it's cured) till it gets judged in my steamroller.

Expenses:

Seeds from online source + shipping $100, ouch
Pack of 18 oz party cups $5?
Bag of LW $25
Five gallon smart pots x 4 + shipping $35
Bag of OF x 2 $40
Drip tray x 4 $10
Spare mulch $free
Air pump, airstone, air-line $20
Watering container, spray mister $10
Hardware cloth, chicken wire, twine $25


$270 total spent on grow thus far.

Of course I'm assuming I might pick up basic things for the harvest, drying, and curing processes but I don't imagine anything beyond $50 worth. I already have saved a bunch of washed out glass jars from pickles and peppers haha.

 

[evol]

Adding nutrients will help add yield and just make it more healthy in general but they are not needed for buds to grow. It is worth the extra $ in the long run to buy and use them imo just because I like to have more control then just basically letting nature do its own thing. Lookin good though!

 

[smith4924]

Anymore recent photo's. How much light a day are they getting? Nutrients will do wonders for you. You could do something simply like General Hydroponics Micro and bloom lucus formula. the 2 1 liter bottles would cost you about 30 bucks and would be plenty for a grow or 2

 

[Dominas999]

Anymore recent photo's. How much light a day are they getting? Nutrients will do wonders for you. You could do something simply like General Hydroponics Micro and bloom lucus formula. the 2 1 liter bottles would cost you about 30 bucks and would be plenty for a grow or 2

I am currently using the GH flora series on my grow and I didnt half notice the difference, I bought flora micro, flora bloom and flora grow all came to £30... Interesting experiment looking forward to the results

 

[Amendment64]

Thanks for the responses! More pics will be coming this weekend when I have the time. They're only getting direct sun maybe 4 hours a day, 10-2 o'clock when the sun is high enough to shine down through the trees. But they get sun indirectly through the trees about 12 hours a day...you know, whenever the sun is out at all. I cut down a few trees for the grow but left most in place...this is in the middle of a forest.

I think I'm not gonna bother with nutes this grow...it's already week 9 and these are suppose to be 8-10 week strains, so if I was using nutes this whole time I'd wanna stop and flush the plants at this point, right?

I have a grow depot in the nearby city and they have quite a selection of nutes...I was gonna go with the Trio next grow but I have a lot of options. No matter what I won't be asking if I should start nutes in the middle of the grow, I'll just feed from the get go!