Outdoor 2021 – Photoperiod

3/14 Transplanted pineapple meatball babies into 1 gallon pots filled with Down to Earth Potting Mix. (I found out a few weeks later that this soil SUCKS for cannabis due to horrible drainage) Plants are sitting under my Spider Farmer SF-1000 in a grow tent.

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Fungus gnats were in full effect here due to the Down-to-Earth potting mix. That stuff doesn't drain worth a damn! I had just sprayed the plants with neem oil and soap in this video... and needless to say that didn't turn out well (more to follow) In other news, the French Macaron roots were growing like crazy at this point.

Started hardening off all plants this week. I was bringing them in at night for 4-5 days, then finally letting them stay out all night. Also gradually brought them more and more into the sunlight over the course of a week or so. You can see that there is a fair amount of damage from fungus gnats... and moreso of me overdoing it with neem oil (and using dawn foaming soap, which apparently is a big no-no).

• Fungus gnat situation now fully under control. • Additional issue with stock DTE soil is that it doesn't drain worth a damn and roots are getting compacted in there. – started squeezing sides of pots every couple of days and tried to work some perlite into the mix which seemed to help a little.

• French Macaron got planted into her 30 gallon fabric pot packed with HEAVILY-AMENDED Roots 707 soil. – No more BS soil for me. Back to the good stuff! • Took clones of the Chem Brûlée and Pineapple Meatball to determine sex •Those girls are extremely root bound at this point... but don't want to accidentally transplant a male into the BIG pots since I am on a plant count restriction (6 mature plants in California) Here's my Super Soil Recipe: Sonoma Sungrown 2021 Photoperiod Soil Recipe Makes ~8 cubic feet of Supersoil (enough for 3x30 gallon smart pots) 7 cubic feet Roots 707 Potting Soil .5 cubic foot worm castings 1.25 lbs. bone meal 1.25 lbs. fish bone meal 2.5 lbs. high phosphorus bat guano 2.5 lbs. blood meal 1.5 cups oyster shell 1.5 cups kelp meal 1.5 cups alfalfa meal 1/3 cup Epsom salts 1/2 cup agricultural lime 1 cup Azomite 1 tbsp granular humic acid 1 tbsp mycorrhizae (mykos)

With sexing all sorted out, I made some decisions. Transplanted Chem Brûlée into 5 gallon pot. Transplanted Pineapple Meatball into her 30 gallon forever home, both with super soil. French Macaron really starting to kick ass, and the FM and CB perked up IMMEDIATELY. As you can see in the first two photos, they were incredibly root bound. Also of note, you can see how crappy the DTE soil is compared to the stock Roots 707, which I put under there a few weeks ago. The bottom inch is Roots 707.

This week was a banner week for the Adult Garden. Booming vegetative growth for all three girls.

The plants continue to kick ass. New French Macaron and Chem Brulee leaves are all 9-fingered now. Crazy happy plants. Sprayed with light BT spray (trying to avoid any caterpillar issues this year as much as possible) early in the week. Sprayed with light Neem Oil / Castile Soap (no more dawn, no more issues!) late in the week. Today, June 9, I also defoliated a bit. Keep in mind that I don't want to do much this year as far as topping and training, so I've done one simple top on all of the plants, and essentially have created 4 main colas for each plant. I only did this to create some airflow under the plant. I don't plan on doing a lot of this stuff. Gonna let the sunshine do her thing. Even though these girls have some hot-ass super soil in there, I'm still going to be doing some top-dressing. Mixed this up and slathered it on there on Saturday, June 12. ------

Everything is booming. No signs of deficiency. From here forward, I'm going to really be focusing on IPM for the next 4-5 weeks as we head towards flowering. These goddamn caterpillars are going to feel me. Will be proactively using BT spray once every 10 days or so to keep any major caterpillar colonies from starting. Also will be spraying with OHN once per month and also a few light Neem/Castile soap sprays between now and August. Got really damn hot at the end of the week. Thursday hit 106ºF. Girls came through it looking great, but the heat wave seemed to accelerate bug hatching.

BOOMING. Have had an unusual amount of thrips and noticed a few Katydid nymphs on Tuesday (7/22), so I hit everything with 1.5tsp Neem Oil and 1 tsp of Dr Brommers soap in a 1 qt sprayer. I also decided to do my only planned dusting of Diatomaceous Earth. Executed that on Wednesday, 7/23, and also top dressed with DE to attack larvae. Thursday 7/24 Mixed up first batch of flowering top dressing. I put it into a 55 gal garbage can and watered it to get the cooking process started. Will only let it go for a week or so and then will top dress the girls.

Girls are doing well and WAY bigger than my plants were at this time last year. The extreme heat we've been having seemed to have a bit of effect, but now I've stepped up the watering. These girls are thirsty, drinking 5 gallons every 24-48 hours now. On the evening of 6/29, I gave everything a healthy foliar feed of BT to proactively stay on top of the caterpillars/butterflies/moths. Current growth rate is 1" per day on French Macaron and Chem Brûlée. Pineapple Meatball is turning into a GD bush with very little intervention on my part. (I only topped the plants once) Wednesday 6/30 ----------- Applied my first flowering-focused top dressing and watered it in. Humic Acid – ¼ Cup Kelp Meal – 1 Cup Fish Bone Meal – 2 Cups Alfalfa Meal – ¼ Cup Bone Meal – 1 Cup Gypsum – 1/8 Cup Oyster Shell – ¼ Cup 1 Bag of Bu’s Blend Cow Manure Compost ~6 Cups of Worm Castings

What a season so far. The three photoperiod girls are looking very impressive thus far. Their growth rate has slowed to about a half inch per day, and the signs of early flowering are appearing. 3/6 Sprayed with Mammoth CannControl 3/10 Light top dressing with Bu's Blend + Custom Amendment Mix

The girls just keep on cooking...and things are starting to get really bushy. I'm hoping that we're close to finished on the vertical growth front. Chem Brûlée just keeps getting bigger and bigger, but she seems to be spreading OUT faster than she is growing UP at this point (she's already 56" call). Pineapple Meatball is just a straight up bush. French Macaron is 62" tall and VERY thick on the vegetation front, but not as WIDE as the chem brûlée. 7/13 Sprayed with light neem/castille spray

There are simply beautiful plants. Starting to see signs of flowering now... especially with the Pineapple Meatball. I have noticed some yellowing of 5-10 lower leaves on the FM and CB, but none on the pineapple meatball. I top dressed everything a week ago and also did another top dressing of crab meal and neem seed meal (about 3/4 cup of each on each plant). Should be plenty of Nitrogen in there if the plants need a bit of a boost. I've also caught just a few adult aphids sniffing around the chem brulee plant. My brussels sprouts are nearby, and I'm battling aphids heavily with them. IPM Sprayed with Canncontrol (basically thyme oil) and top dressed with neem seed meal.

Skipped a week in my journal due to travels. Had my neighbor water my plants. Having some minor early deficiencies with my photoperiod plants (particularly the chem brulee)... so I decided to go ahead and give everything a solid feeding of Foop Bloom 1, 2 and Sweetener. This is their first ever bottled feeding. Have been running on supersoil and a prayer. Also top dressed everything and mulched with rice straw to help with the soil drying out a bit too quickly. Leaves have been yellowing on all three. Mostly relegated to the interior of the plants. Chem Brulee is looking a bit too yellow overall, as well. French Macaron is a 66in. Chem Brulee is 56in. Pineapple Meatball is 45in. I have a sneaking suspicion that my neighbor didn't water them quite enough while I was gone. Will probably continue with the Foop feedings... probably at least once per week. Don't want to overdo it. Also top dressed with my flowering top dress mix and mulched all plants with a thin layer of rice straw. 8/4 Sprayed with Neem Oil and Castile Soap 8/5 Sprayed with Gravenstein Apple FFJ and OHN 8/6 Sprayed with Neem Oil and Castile Soap (this will likely be the last time I spray with Neem Oil, as I don't want residual oils as buds start swelling. Also fed 1/4 strength FOOP to ensure we head off any deficiencies.

8/9 The two half-feeds of Foop seemed to have turned the nutrition tide. The top dressing I applied (with mulch this time) should be kicking in over the next few weeks, but I'm leaning toward continuing to feed Foop once or twice per week to keep things moving along nicely. Flowering is now kicking into high gear... with the Pineapple Meatball being the farthest along and the French Macaron being the least. Ordered Lacewing larvae and wasp eggs (that are parasitic to caterpillars) on the way. Hoping to get them applied by the end of this week. 8/11 Insects deployed.

8/20 Went a little overboard with the FOOP (considering these girls had never been fed by bottle) and apparently burned the Pineapple Meatball a bit... but I'm going to not overreact and stay the course with feeding FOOP every other watering. Buds are really starting to set up nicely. I dusted the soil with diatomaceous earth this week and also sprayed with CannControl. Planning on hitting them with BT at some point next week. No caterpillars yet, but I know they're coming. Continued to removed interior leaves as they yellow. 8/20 Realized that the straw mulch i was using was definitely helping my roots get into top dressing (likely contributing to the over-nuting of the pineapple meatball), but it also was keeping the top layer of soil too moist. Found some root maggots (from fungus gnats and flies) around the stem in a few spots. Removed all straw and applied Diatomaceous Earth to soil surface. Also hung new sticky traps to track bug activity

Buds are really starting to form and set up. Chem Brulee smells strong as hell (tropical diesel). French Macaron really developing nicely as well. The buds on the Pineapple Meatball are probably the furthest along, but they are the least odorous at this stage. They smell like garlic. Feeding Foop every third watering. Stepped up watering to 5gallons per day. They've been really thirsty in the heat. Started using Doctor Zymes to combat thrips, mites and aphids. Really impressed with it so far. Ladybugs will be arriving tomorrow. Will be releasing this week. Now chalking much of the discoloration to neem oil burn and nute burn (top dressing AND feeding was simply a bit heavy handed at first)... but it doesn't seem to be affecting the buds at all. If anything, it's forced me to defoliate a bit, which is a good thing. Likely part of my pest issues can be chalked up to over-vegging given how long these ladies have been outside. Overall, though... I'm feeling good in the heart of flowering.

Buds are really setting up nicely. French Macaron smells right on brand... and the Chem Brulee... my god! It smells like a Tropical Rocket Fuel. Amazong. The Pineapple Meatball has a really unique odor, but it is still fairly faint. Hoping that the neem/nute burn didn't somehow affect its resin/terp/bud production. It certainly hasn't seemed to affect the French Macaron and the Chem Brulee! This week, I sprayed 3 times with Dr Zymes, and it completely knocked out the small number of fungus gnats I was dealing with. Also released 4,500 ladybugs, and it's been fun watching them spread and work. Will probably stick with the once-per-week Zymes treatment for the next few weeks.

Things are looking really great. Buds are fattening up and my backyard smells like my version of heaven. Hit everything with Dr. Zymes on Monday and then went with BT on Thursday. Will be doing this routing weekly until finish. Found a single caterpillar the other day, but I've been going over each top bud twice per day and picking off eggs with a needle nose tweezers. This is a labor of love. Between the BT and the monitoring, I'm hoping to get a few more weeks on all of these before having to start havrvesting. When I do harvest, I'm planning on harvesting in waves... meaning to harvest the ripest buds and to let the others fatten up. This is partially to maximize quality, but also a practical decision due to my limited amount of drying space (3x3 tent). Alternating watering with plain water and a worm tea with 2 TBSP each of Fish Bone Meal, Kelp Meal and Alfalfa Meal and Foop sweetener (using at recommended volume per full feeding schedule, and plants seem to be liking it... would normally be using molasses, but I like using things up). Tuesday 9/14 Checked trichs with the digital microscope today, and was pretty blown away with how far along everything is. • Pineapple Meatball is ready to harvest. Plenty of Amber. Going to try to get the whole 1st cut (best, most developed buds) harvested on 9/15 and dried by next week so as to make room for the Macaron • French Macaron is about 5% amber and 80% cloudy... so we'll probably be ready to pull her next week • Thankfully, the Chem Brulee, though the most pungent in odor, is quite a bit less mature than the other two. Hoping to comfortably stretch her another two weeks. After the first cut is all done, I'll go back and grab everything else... which will all be fresh frozen and turned into hash rosin or FECO oil.

Excited to get these things dried and cured. The terpene profile is really interesting, if a bit on the lighter side. I'll report back on the smoke report.

French Macaron hit peak purple and trichs are all ready to roll. Chem Brulee smelling amazing and packing on weight. Pineapple Meatball remainders have now started going DEEP purple. Could end up with a few head stash nugs off of this late harvest.

She was ready to harvest, but I was planning on waiting a few more days... mostly to let the Pineapple Meatball finish drying in the tent. But... rain started falling and took down the French Macaron (I had stakes in but hadn't actually bound the branches yet. Didn't think it was enough rain to make them snap. Lesson learned! Buds are looking fantastic after 4 days of drying. Excited to get this trimmed up, as the buds are quite stunning (and really, odorous). Two days in garage purgatory stank up my wife's car's interior. Gonna take a few weeks for that to come out fully. Haha!

9/22 Chem Brulee is all finished up. Just waiting a few days until the French Macaron is fully dried and out of the drying tent. The plan is to trip about 25% of it to be headstash flower, and then to fresh freeze the remainder of the "would-be-marketable" buds so as to make hash with them. Trim will be going to the worms.