Outdoor Prepping for first grow - Roof Garden

[Aris]

Hello all and welcome to my questions page. Here I hope to post my questions regarding my setup and gather all the info needed in order to start my grow (early may). My appologies if I should have posted in the new growers forum.

Before you can help me, I'll try to give you guys an idea of what i'm thinking.

The setting is an urban, semi stealth roof garden. I'm higher than up than the other buildings, plus have a wall that gives me an extra 80cm coverage above the pots.
Direct sunlight is at 10+ hours, maybe more in the heart of the summer.
I don't have pots, but some large old water basins (see pic, will add exact size later on).
Since taking the pic, i've already got tomatoes and peppers (for coverage), lavendar and basil (for smell and bugs) growing.

Strains:
I'm thinking mostly dwarfs, with a few bigger plants in hope of getting a good harvest. so...
RQS Royal Dwarf
Dinafem Roadrunner 2
Black Rose Auto
NL x Big Bud auto
Sweet Cheese

The last three are freebies, so should i be worried about germination for these?

What do you guys think of the setup?

I'm worried about the basins, i'd like to get 4 or 5 plants into each, but am not sure if this is a good idea or not. will intertwining roots kill off the weaker plants?

 

[maffro]

Id put 4 max in those, 3 ideally then lst the outter plants away from the middle. Make sure the drainage is good too. Put some gravel or broken terracotta down 1st. If your going for dwarfs then 10 litres per plant should be enough, good cheap/ free source of 10 litre pots are the black buckets bunches of flowers are displayed in in supermarkets and petrol stations.

 

[absinthe]

welcome aris stin parea mas...all my freebies have germinated 100%. what are the dimension of your basins? (pots)

 

[Aris]

Id put 4 max in those, 3 ideally then lst the outter plants away from the middle. Make sure the drainage is good too. Put some gravel or broken terracotta down 1st. If your going for dwarfs then 10 litres per plant should be enough, good cheap/ free source of 10 litre pots are the black buckets bunches of flowers are displayed in in supermarkets and petrol stations.

I figured 4 would be my max. I forgot to mention that i wanted to lst at least two in each basin, both to keep them a little low and increase my yield.

Thanks for the tip on the drainage, the basins are propped up on bricks to allow for good drainage.
I can't move these they are too heavy so pots aren't an option, but theres plenty more than 10 liters available per plant, more like 50 or 60 (which makes me think if even dwarfs might overgrow a bit)

Why the gravel/terracota? to help with drainage?

welcome aris stin parea mas...all my freebies have germinated 100%. what are the dimension of your basins?(pots)

thank you filos! what do you think of the strains i've chosen? my only concern is maybe replace the dinafem roadrunners with SAD 2 from sweet seeds. I did't go to the spot today i'll post exact dimentions tommorow but its around 1.2x60x70(height).

 

[Aris]

Finally after about 10 days of straight rain we've got a sun!

If the sun stays out i'm going to wait a few days for the dirt to dry out and then i'm going to prepare my soil.

Since i'm on a budget i can't really spend too much on expensive soil mixes and plant foods so this is my plan:

Keep about 50% soil already in the pots and mix it with tomato potting soil (mix of soil, manure, peat moss and perlite) + gravel + shredded up nettle.

I have access to a whole lot of walnut leaves/bark/nuts that has been sitting since last autumn, but i read online that it contains some sort of plant poison so i scratched that.

I will also make a few batches of nettle tea to sit in the sun and brew.

Any other ideas of what i could put in my soil? I have a good amount of used esspresso grinds, anyone tried this?

 

[Banana]

Hello Aris,

i am am going to try and help with the question you asked in the live help thread here, because only staff are allowed to answer questions on that thread.

i should start by saying I am a first time cannabis grower myself, but have loads of experience growing fruit, flowers and vegetables.

you don't say how many days old your seedlings are, you have not posted any pictures of them. How many leaves have they got on them? Being specific will help others help you better and faster.

so I sprouted my 3 ongoing AutMazar seeds outside. At the moment average daytime temperatures where I am are 24C to 28c nighttime temperatures. 16C to 20C. My seeds are in pots, I am checking on them about 6 times a day. without knowing how old or big your seedlings are, all I can say is that planted in a basin as big as you indicated, the roots should be nice and cool In The moist substrate, as for the leaves, they will always let you know if they are suffering in which case you can mist them with water. If you are unable to check on them regularly, there is a possibility that the strains that are not happy in crazy heat will bite the dust.

to reassure you somewhat, all I can say is that cannabis is a weed, if your substrate is moist and there is good humidity in the air, they will probably be okay. If the strains that don't like heat die, it's probably not the end of the world - right.

hope I have helped a bit

good luck

 

[Aris]

Banana,

I know its a bit late.. but i never saw your answer.. i always thought this thread was lost to eternity...

I really appretiate the time you took to give me a helping hand...

I lost 6 plants... I'm still not sure why... it could have been the heat, it could have been over watering, or something may have attacked them (a few had injured stems)...

I can't explain exactly, but they got squishy and started drooping over ... and some had injured stems...

The good news is that the ones that survived (Royal Dwarf & S.A.D.) are alive and well producing stinky flowers And the large basins have given them space to forget that they are dwarfs!

We seem to be close and our climates should be similar as well... The weather was good this year, even the early rans that we got. How is your grow going? have you harvested?

Aris

PS: Just for the record, and in case it gets answered and ends up helping out someone in the future... i'll post a pic. You can see how healthy it looked and how in a matter of days got squishy and ended up wilting away.

 

[Banana]

Banana,

I know its a bit late.. but i never saw your answer.. i always thought this thread was lost to eternity...

I really appretiate the time you took to give me a helping hand...

I lost 6 plants... I'm still not sure why... it could have been the heat, it could have been over watering, or something may have attacked them (a few had injured stems)...

I can't explain exactly, but they got squishy and started drooping over ... and some had injured stems...

The good news is that the ones that survived (Royal Dwarf & S.A.D.) are alive and well producing stinky flowers And the large basins have given them space to forget that they are dwarfs!

We seem to be close and our climates should be similar as well... The weather was good this year, even the early rans that we got. How is your grow going? have you harvested?

Aris

PS: Just for the record, and in case it gets answered and ends up helping out someone in the future... i'll post a pic. You can see how healthy it looked and how in a matter of days got squishy and ended up wilting away.

View attachment 365789View attachment 365790View attachment 365791

i have harvested Budha Purple Kush, the one I stunted, and what a great smoke. Even though the yield was very small, we are really enjoying it.

my 3 AutoMazars are outside in the ground and doing great, you can check them out in my grow journal in the new growers section.

i suspect your seedlings got a bit too much water, but it's hard to say from the photos. But since you say they went squishy that sounds like they rotted from inside and that is an excess water/poor drainage issue.

glad to hear the ones that survived are thriving, keep on keeping on. I can't believe how good my own stuff tastes, it's worth all the hard work and aggro in the end. :Sharing One: