Outdoor Sour Diesel Auto - 1st time

Wow, this first week was rough... a day after going in the ground we had a couple of very cold nights (47f) and rain. These Sour Diesel are just humming along. They tolerated the cold much better than the amnesia haze. So far no drama from these girls.

This is the last day of June and it has been 16 days since putting the germinated seeds into the soil. Weather has been rough. Weatherman says we've had 4.5 inches of rain this month and more 90 degree days than ever before in June. One of my SDs is pretty sick looking. I will be asking for some help with this one. I have some holes in the leaves and sections torn out. We've had some VERY strong rains come through but this looks more like it's being eaten. I have only been watering but I'm temped to test a diluted spray of water and hydrogen peroxide. The healthier of the two plants has some pretty wide leaves! I have been gone for the last 6 days and it was cool to see how they have grown. (Friend had done some watering for me while I was away.)

These two Sour Diesel plants have grown about 4 inches in height in the past week. I applied LST to them today. Each SD (I have one in the dirt and one in a smart pot with happy frog soil) is about the same height so far. The weather continues to be wet and humid. However, we have had a few sunny days with very high UV index. I applied a light layer of grass clippings to the soil while it was dry out. I have removed the remaining clippings as the weather is getting rainy again. I have a ton of wild grape vines around my yard. I decided to try doing a tea with them. I tore and crumpled up some leaves and soaked them in some small cups with water and a small amount of molasses for a few days and cycled this twice.

29 days from going into the soil Wow, what a rough week. Humidity has been in the 80s to high 90% range all week. We have also had a TON of rain (several days with 1-2 inches per day). I did what I said I would not be doing... I moved the ones in pots up higher in the yard to dry out. (I currently have three varieties. For each variety (this sour diesel for example) I have one in the dirt (mixed natural soil and composts) and one in a 5 gal. smart pot and happy frog soil. I just needed to give these an extra opportunity to dry out! Growth has been less than the previous week (maybe 1-2 inches). The LST I performed seemed to go OK. Bugs have been taking their bites. My wife was going to get rid of some bug balm. I grabbed it and have selectively applied some to a small tag I adjacent to each plant. It's pretty smelly stuff and so far seems to help. Here's hopin' for dryer weather!

The previous couple of weeks have been very wet. A neighbor has recorded 10-12 inches of rain this month. The LST I did seemed to not feel right so I released them from it. I also started a some fertizers as we're in pre-flower stage now. I felt the rain probably had been washing nutrients from the smart pot soil. So far so good. The colors in my photos seems off - overly warm looking. Each SD is about 14 inches tall. However, the SD in the dirt is my most sickly plant of the bunch (see my other diaries). The bugs like this plant more than the rest. I did find a spider under one of the main leaves. It (or whatever it was after) really caused the leaf to curl up (towards the stem) and wilt. I removed it.

These SD have really shot up this week gaining about 9 inches since last week's report (most growth from my three varieties). I have been doing 2 weak (1/4 strength) feeding per week for a couple of weeks now. I will be transitioning to feeding only the Jack's 10-30-20 from this point on. When I feed it is 1 gallon of water distributed among the 6 plants I have. Of the three varieties I have growing, this SD is both my weakest and most vigorous of the bunch. The one in the ground has been my most sickly and most prone to being eaten by bugs. While the one in the smart pot is doing great. (One in the ground = 22 inches high and other in the smart pot = 25 inches high) We had a good stretch of weather (more sun + less rain) and that's really helped the girls. I am also beginning to smell them from a few feet away.

Finally some better weather! These SD gained about 6 inches in the past week. The one in the dirt is 28 inches high (and still quite sick and weird looking) and the one in the smart pot is 31 inches (and of my 3 varieties, the healthy SD is my tallest plant and the sick one is as tall as any of the others). I am only giving the jacks 10-30-20 bloom now. I feed it two or three times per week. They are starting to look a bit frosty now. It's really cool seeing the flower growth! Still seeing some leave damage from bugs. :-(

This week has returned to being rainy and quite humid again. The previous week was glorious and I noticed two interesting things happen: 1) Finally some side branches growing 2) Root protruding above the soil I added a layer of soil on each of the plants to cover them. I also have kept up with a couple of light feedings of the Jacks bloom fertilizer. These SD continue to lack the frosty look of my other two varieties. They all seem behind where the 10-week autoflower calendar would put them. If that schedule holds true, I would be harvesting in just under two weeks. That just seems too soon based on how small the buds are. Buds on all my plants look quite small and I am sure it's a result of the less-than-optimal amount of direct sun they receive. This is probably 5 hours per day. Maybe the rain and cold weather we’ve had has slowed them down a bit. I’d love to think that they may get 3 weeks more of growth vs. the two weeks that the calendar indicates… The stigmas are all 100% white. I'm hoping for continued bud growth. The two SD plants are each now approaching 40 inches tall (8 inches of growth in the past week). These are by far the tallest of my plants. The others varieties have slowed down to about 2" of growth per week. These two SDs are definitely my "mutt & jeff" in their health. The taller of the two looks great but I am wondering about its lack of trichomes. The slightly smaller one (in the dirt) has been my "mutant" since day one. Its leaves never did look normal. It too lacks trichomes as compared to all the rest. While this is my 1st grow, I have to assume the smell is "normal" now. (I have nothing to compare this to.) Just maintaining and hoping for more dry weather in the future!

66 days since going into the soil Six inches of rain in the past 7 days. Two inches in the past 24 hours. This will be the 1st week without any pics :-( These two SDs grew about 2-3 inch in the past week. And this strain continues to be the tallest of the bunch. While my other two varieties grew about 1 inch, this averaged more like 3 inches of growth in the past week. However, it does remain behind the others in smell, trichome development and flower density. It does have by far the most side branches through. The SD in the smart pot is 41” tall and the one in the dirt is 40” tall. After making last week’s post I did some further research on the timing and lifecycle of autoflowers and came to understand how wrong I was. I was worried that the plant would be finishing sooner than they actually would. I am now assuming that from this point (August 9, 2021), I have somewhere from 25 to 32 days left before they are fully mature. This will put harvest in the 2nd or 3rd week of September. Here is my timeline (past and future): June 14th – planted germinated seeds in the soil July 13th – first signs of flowering September 1st – stop adding nutrients September 15th – probable harvest

70 days since going into the soil Unfortunately my girls are rotting. But these sour diesel are the most resilient of the three varieties. So far I have found one or two small patches of rot on my two SDs. This is much better than the wide spread rot on my other two varieties (amnesia haze and og kush). I trim away what I can find, but this has been the 2nd rainiest summer in our area on record. Oh well. This is why I planted 3 varieties. One of these SDs is my rockstar of the bunch. Not only is it pretty resistant (so far... crossing fingers), but its cola is becoming pretty impressive (15 inches or so) and by far has the most side branches with flowers. The other SD (in the ground) has been my mutant. It's looking OK as far as rot, but the flowers are smaller and less dense looking. These are the only variety still growing. They gained an inch or two in the last week.

I need to figure out how to indicate that these Sour Diesel seeds were "freebies" that came with my order from North Atlantic Seed Company. They have weathered the miserable summer we have had better than my other two varieties (OG Kush and Amnesia Haze). I'm soooooo glad I got them! I have only seen one small section of rot on each of these two plants. They are each just about 43 inches tall and the stronger of the two has a very solid looking cola on it now (15 inches or so). It continues to get meatier looking and fill in more. The stigmas are still growing and still white. These were also the last to start looking frosty. And their smell is picking up too! I'm almost to the point where I want to prop up the larger of the two plants. I stopped adding any nutrients a week ago. I ordered a little hand held microscope (60x) from Amazon and have been enjoying checking the ladies. :-)

OK, this sour diesel was my rockstar of the 3 varieties I grew. As with all 3, one was in the ground with compost and natural soil and the other was in a 5 gallon smartpot with happy frog soil. In this case the smart pot did much better. The seed I had in the ground was my mutant. It never did look right the whole time growing. These were in the ground for 100 days and I wish I could have left them in for another week or so. But rot was happening and I felt like i was playing a losing game of "chicken" with tempting more rot. I ended up getting 2.65 oz from these two plants. They were my largest yielding plant. Hindsight being 20:20 I would have given them more nutrients early on. I was very light on them. My grand total for the season (8 seeds) was 5.2 oz dried (combo of amnesia haze, og kush and sour diesel). Two of these seeds were grown else where and were quite small there too. Those accounted for about 3/4 oz of my grand total.