Early Season Grow 2021

Week 5 This year I decided to combine diaries, as well as skip the first few weeks straight to the more interesting part of the grow. I have planted really early this time, but the weather has been fairly kind to me. The mornings are still a bit cold, and because the sun is lower, they are missing out on a few hours of sun in the morning. But hey, at least I’m back into it, YES!! After watching a few of my fav diaries in the off season, I decided to try new nutes this time. With professors organic and Ozi tonic, as well as Great White. Early indicators are so great, especially the great white! I add it to soil, dust on when repotting, and add lightly to a foliage spray when they are seedlings. When repotting I noticed unbelievable root growth. With soft pots this time, I am concentrating hard on root health this time round. So far they are in excellent health, except the “Shittles” which has always been a pain in the ass. Green Gelato is taller with fat ass leaves, and Sugar Black is real stumpy and branchy. They are both deep dark green, which I’m thinking is due to colder mornings. Because it’s so early in the season, we still have less than 12 daylight hours, so they should finish out quick for me without the need for light deprivation I hope. That’s my plan, a quick small early grow and another longer one from around New Years I reckon. Great to be back into it 👍🍻

Week 6 An excellent week of growth this week. Looks like they are just changing and stretching now, right on time. So far everything is going perfectly to plan for this early grow. I made up their first brew of tea from worm castings, seaweed, coconut water and molasses, aerated for 24 hours. They absolutely loved it, and have just been beaming ever since. Weather is a touch cold in the mornings still at around 12c and nice sunny days of 23 - 26c each day. So far all is well 🍻

Week 7. Another solid week of growth and big changes now they are well into flower. I have switched the feed completely over on all plants now and they are in full swing, and right on track. Green Gelato is the standout. Beautiful shape and dark green colour. Sugar Black Rose is compact and bushy, but has dense little buds that already have some dank smell! Sweet Zkittles,,, I really should stop calling it shittles now cos it is actually catching up, despite still putting out some weird shaped leaves. Really happy with how this early grow is going 🍻

Week 8 The plants are on fire right now. The sugar black rose and the gelato have stopped growing vertically now and are just swelling up nicely. The sweet zkittles has really taken off and caught up. I’m pretty impressed after such a slow start. It turned me off sweet seeds a bit at first, but then I remembered which Seed bank they came from. The others were from “attitude” which have always been great quality. But the zkittles came from “seedsman”, a seedbank I have lost faith in. I have had a few duds from them and won’t be going back. A few pics of my garden are included which has a beautiful mid spring look to it at the moment. I recommend using tomatoes and training them through a with fence to provide cover for your crops from the neighbours. They still let heaps of light in, but they give good camouflage. And give a tasty feed now and then! Cheers all 🍻

Week 9 Another nice week of growth. Aside from a brief storm early in the week, it has been fantastic weather for growing. Warm and dry perfect spring weather. A slight problem this week with a bit of organic burn after I top dressed them with some of my compost then gave them a feed, it may have been just a tad too hot with a bit of brown on some low leaves, mostly on the sweet zkittles. Outside of that, they are steaming on nicely 🍻

Week 10 Major stem snap on the zkittles. I had to move them into the shed because of some bad weather hanging around. I just moved to open the window and the spade fell down on her splitting the stem down the middle!! 😔 What can you do,,, I feel like I did a good repair job because it was still holding on a little strip, rather than a clean snap. At least it was my least favourite plant. Will see what eventuates from here. The others are doing very well. Sugar Black might be ready in a week or so, with Gelato at least a week behind I think. Quite a few caterpillars starting to sneak onto them now. I need to inspect closely every day and I usually find one almost daily now. They usually give away their location with part eaten leaves or little bits of black shits. Bastards! 🐛

Week 11 Awesome! The final week now for sugar black. It started to show a few ambers, and buds have really darkened off in the last few days. Gelato is going great, only a week behind I think. Perfect timing for this speedy grow. Almost home 🍻

Week 12 This early season grow could not have gone better. I scored nice enough weather for the most part, it was just the early weeks that were a fair bit of effort. The Sugar Black is already hanging up, and the Gelato is only on water and will be cut in coming days. So 12 weeks from seed to finish with photoperiod plants is exactly what I hoped for. I’m lucky to have the climate to do this, to get a quick harvest and a better yield than an auto flower. The sweet zkittles is still a while away, and is still giving me problems with bugs and yellow leaves and the rest. I really don’t like this plant, but you never know till you try it in the end I suppose 🍻

I'm really happy with the way sugar black turned out. It was an easy grow all round. It has a really nice taste too. It had the most dense buds I've grown outside before. I did have the tiniest pinch of rot in one spot but it never came back. It's a good all rounder and I recommend it for sure

Green Gelato went exactly to plan and I couldn't recommend it more highly. For the outdoor grower it's an easy grow with excellent resilience. But the Green gelato is definitely not for first timers. It lures you in with an amazing flavour then it kicks in like a mule! I really enjoyed every bit of this grow

All in all a below average experience. I will likey give sweet seeds another go one day, but not sweet zenzation / zkittles.