Maine Outdoor 2021

7/26 Rained last night and looks like it will rain today as well. The periods we've been having with rain then sun then rain has really exploded growth. I have tops over my fence already. You can see all the dead leaves I pulled. Plants look healthy but I always worry when I lose leaves like this. Luckily I can look back on my old diary and the paper one before for some peace of mind. I've decided to label this week as flower even though we still have about 14 and a half hours of daylight but we're losing light every week. My plants get shade in the evening. My tarps provide a little shade as well. Everything is stretching incredibly that's why I labeled flower. You can see preflowers starting to form. I hope that's why I lost so many leaves (starting preflower). I mean the plants are healthy. I'll check pH with a soil meter tonight and make sure things are good. I would think with the rain it would lower my pH if anything. Definitely using dry amendments next year and dropping the liquid nutes. Soon I'll start adding flower nutes at low doses and see how the girls respond. Still haven't been able to spray BT for the pillars and my IPM. Hopefully tonight it won't rain and I can spray. 7/27 watered today. Still seeing some leaves yellowing and dropping. I left my pH meter so I'll have to check to see if that's the problem. I've been researching and I may need to adjust my nutrient dosage and add more P. I still haven't sprayed. I found a shit ton of earwigs under the wood outside I use to hold down my tarp. I thought they were predators but maybe not. I'll have to research them. I may have to use captain Jack's instead of BT and hope it combats the earwigs. 7/28 Watered as the soil was dry. Killed some earwigs and tied up a branch that is to close to the fence. I researched earwigs and they aren't beneficial but I've noticed that I no longer have ANY aphids that I could see. I'll check lower leaves with my scope as I haven't checked in a while. My pH meter won't work in ANY of my grow bags. It seems like the bags are just a bunch of roots. When I stuck the meter in a pile of last year's soil (next to the grow) it worked fine and read at 6.6. I don't get why it won't work with the grow bags. I'll have to research and see if I can use test strips or something. Still noticing some random damage here and there but it's time to spray and I just haven't done it. Plants are in that transition stage. All the big clones are at about the same stage. I really hope losing the leaves is normal. Looking at my father's tomato plants I noticed the same thing. I looked at other foliage and trees and I'm seeing similar signs of senscence. 7/29 Fed two gallons to the garden this morning. I was able to get one reading off my pH meter and it read 7.3. Still losing leaves but plants are stretching like crazy. Even the little 5 gallon ones I have been neglecting are forming there "asparagus tops" and starting to transition energy. I think I'll start adding bloom nutes next feed or so. I need to treat the PM. I've been slacking on my IPM. Also noticed some weird looking damage on a bud site. I hope it's not those earwigs. I usually have aphids but this year it seems the lady bugs and my treatments kept them at bay. I'm wondering if the ear wigs that I saw were eating other bugs and ran out and started munching on leaves. Hope not. I plan to make a ear wig trap and I need to research more. Planning on spraying LCPT tonight and cleaning up the cage but we'll see how that goes. Very little wind so I took the tarps down for now. I'll update as I get things done. UPDATE: I inspected tops and bud sites for damage. Random damage mostly on seedlings outside the cage. It's hot today and the mis-labeled indica (it's ONE of the strains listed other than DJSBB AND DREAMCATCHER) in the 50 gallon pot seemed a bit droopy. Granted all those strains are highly indica dominant and it could just be the pheno. I gave them a little water just to make sure. It should hold them over till the rain. I took a small plastic container and made an earwig trap with soy sauce and olive oil. Let's see what I catch. I plan to spray LCPT tonight. 7/30 Rained all night so I couldn't spray like I wanted too. Rain and 49 degrees at 8. My earwig trap caught zero earwigs but I killed a few around it. Noticed damage on a bud site that I'm pretty sure was from ear wigs. My bags are on the ground and I allowed the roots to grow through into the ground so I am hesitant to use something like borax to kill them. I'll have to give this a little more thought. Tarps are still down I'll monitor and update. I was able to get two pH readings but they were the five gallon plants 7.2 and 7.3. I'd really like to lower the pH. My water going in is always good and I even measured the pH of the rain so I hope I'm good. May need to check run off for accuracy. 7/31 Didn't water as it poured last night. Wind is high so tarps went back up. Got a read of 7.3 on basically all plants. I don't get it. I'll have to lower what I'm putting in. I also need to figure out the earwig situation and get off my ass and MAKE time to prune the insides and treat the PM. I did this shit last year when I had COVID so I can do it with a stomach flu. UPDATE: I finally got around to applying the lost coast plant therapy. Two hours later and I'm pretty sure I applied it properly. I took some immediate pictures. I also watered a little before treatment. Found and killed two japanese beetles (which I think are the culprits behind the unknown damage). Fucker was on the top of a starting cola way taller than me. I never would've seen him if I didn't treat. I'm going to need to use a ladder and inspect tops a little more closely. On another not WE ARE IN FLOWER!! No question about it. The "spears" are starting to thicken and beginning to start flowers. It was so much more apparent this afternoon. Probably because I was pruning the interior and defoliating as well as getting close to spray. I'm beyond psyched and im going to start reduced dosages of tiger bloom. I'm also going to try to pH my water lower and see if that doesn't make a difference. 8/1 Soil was wet so I didn't water. LCPT did great at eating up that PM. The plant in the tub in the back seems like it may have a virus or something. It just seems weak. It reveged as well. I'll keep an eye on it. If it continues with a weak appearance i'll get a second opinion and if it truly is a virus i'll trash it. I'm not going to risk the rest of my plants. I'm experimenting with the plant. I have the branches tired down at 90 degree angles. I'm thinking about adding a dry amendment and top dressing. I have work to do next week. Weather has been awesome. Sunny. It was 49 this morning though. 75 at noon.