Aussie Caramelo outdoor grow

@Benzels, yeah man 100% got a grower there especially dealing with heat like that man that's awesome, yeah bro I've always been stoked with Herbies quality and satisfaction guarantees man great quality 🤙🤙🌱 I'm keen to try zkittles man got a couple on the way

@BarneyRumble420, The really good strains often need more work....But anything that still sticks it leaves up and grows happily in 40C has at least earnt the chance to try again. Still got a few more caramelo seeds left so why not. Tried to pop 1 seed and got 1 plant. Kinda what I expect of herbies seeds thou. Same with Zkittles 1 from 1.

@Benzels, yeah man very, I've noticed that too some sites leave all the details out unfortunately, wonder if it'll taste like caremello bro, you might get that pheno man if not try a few more of that strain if you like it and hopefully you'll get it how you like it

@BarneyRumble420, Thanks mate- with the weird weather and unseasonal rain for a few days straight, my caramelo is drooping a few shoots badly today but hope she drys out and recovers. Same to you mate- hope your grow is stress free.

@Shooey, Yep mandarin tree. Good cover plant-nice dark green leaves and can be trained to go quite bushy and not too tall. Mine was spose to stay around 6ft in height but I got lazy pruning it a few years and now id have to lop off the top 1/3 to get it back under control and I cant do that to a tree that produces so much fruit. So im stuck with a sunblock that prob cuts an hr a day of usable light to my plants due to my own plan. Im slowly moving from the one or two larger plants to 3 or 4 medium sized ones- Allows me more variety to test out diff strains and if one gets rot or dies- I have multiple back ups. I dont grow to sell anymore and its all personal so I need to make sure I get some kind of harvest and multiple plants is a safer bet. Being old school I still have it in my head to aim for a pound a plant and anything under that means I did something wrong during the grow or its a lousey strain, but gotta shift my way of thinking to the new school way of growing. 2 plants at a pound each or 4 plants at half a pound each- same diff right? And anyone who can grow in QLD is a effing legend in my book. Its currently 22% humidity here now- I die when its over 40% !!

@Benzels, yes mate, it always rears its head at some stage. I’m in SEQ where we usually get wet in Jan Feb, and constant humidity in March. If you get through that you’re ok. For a few reasons I only grow in pots now. I can move em into the shed if I need to, plus I have pre teen kids now who are starting to work it out (some of their friends know already). I had a few big ones last year and it was a major hassle hiding from neighbours, kids, mould and cranky wife!! Great looking garden you have mate, is it a mandarine tree at the back? I love my citrus too. All the best bro

@Shooey, Actually I had to rip the Caramelo out yesterday due to bud rot issues. The Bc Buds hash plant has a few signs of it too and already had to snip a few small bits off her. Unfort once a plant has root rot- it rarely recovers fully and tends to be weak and prone to other issues like bugs and bud rot. I kinda expected this to happen...was really hoping it wouldnt -thus the treatment with lime sulfur- but it didnt work. Didnt follow the golden rule of drainage, drainage and more drainage. I mean I live in the driest state, on the driest continent - it doesnt rain in summer here. And I plant right in the ground- normally I raise the bed up a bit or plant in mounds- didnt this year. Got tropical rain- Paid the price- the whole plant weighed 1455 grams wet. She had 6 weeks to go too.

@Wyregrasser, Cheers mate. they are tough but I have had a set back. that wet weather did have an effect on the caramelo..she has been finicky since day one and ive nursed her thru..she did NOT like that 4 days soaking rain and was wilting badly.. but she seemed to recover just fine. Seemed to being the word...*sighs* I noticed spider mites on her last friday.. and one new bud site had bud rot on it. So I made up some lime sulfur spray that i have used before on seedlings with no issues and gave her a spray. Turns out the new spray bottle I had was smaller than I thought and i used the wrong ratio of mix and burnt her new shoots and bud sites. Badly too. Instead of 1/2 strength spray like I normally use, I used 1.2 X strength spray. So shes half fucked as of today. IF she survives she will produce half the yield she would have if she didnt get badly burnt. But the spider mites are basically gone too so not sure if its a win or not..I may have saved her but half killed her too. So now im takin a hands off approach with her and we see how resilient they are- even thou Im thinking this is just a bad strain for outdoors and its just not going to recover either way. Time will tell.

@@Jhindlehydro, really? Cause milk sprayed onto the plants is meant to kill powdery mildew- but thats after the sun causes a chemical reaction in the milk. I did notice when ever I fed em the soil got a nice growth of fuzz on it a few days later, but I was only experimenting with it and now you have said that Im gonna stop and save it for a tester plant another time. just to be safe. lols. Not gonna risk my zkittlez for anything atm. Might try bud candy thou. that does have lots of good reviews. cheers bro.

@Benzels,bro I have had buddy loose a huge plant late in flower like 2 lber. He fed it milk and it turned into a powder mildew festivalllllll I only use advanced nutrients or few other things. Big bud is key and something like bud candy or terpinator . Bud factor x etc I fully believe that buddy's fish head trickery tho he does that like 3 feet down or more

@@Jhindlehydro the old fish head trick hey? I swear that trick has been around for so long and it works so guess all that protein at the bottom of the hole does something huh? Maybe thats why pple use things like bud candy? Ive just started trying high protein milk diluted in water for the same reason-1 cup of hi protein milk per 10 ltrs of water and thats 15 grams of protein per watering can. Lots of B vitamins and minerals too. Seems to work quite well too-im actually shocked it worked at all but even more surprised its actually working so well. Who would have thought it? and its so cheap too.

@Benzels, I’ve been using Organic Gardening Solutions (OGS) super soil, loosely based on the subcool recipe. They are based in Brisbane and sell direct online. Cut back with their aeration mix, coco coir and my home made compost. I’m lovin it and they are top blokes to deal with bro 🍻

@gottagrowsometime, And next time I grow under lights, I will be using my own home made super soil, but its going to be very light on the nutes, I just want a good clean base mix, some mushroom compost and add good drainage and air flow to it with perlite and vermiculite, bit of coco coir too but not much, and just run weak mineral nutes to it. Organic is too hard IMHO if you are happy with the results from weak mineral grows. And trust me, if you have seen really good clean basic soil, with a bit of mature for the veg stage to get a real good start, then half strength bloom nutes thru flower- the plants may not win photo comps as there will be a bit of yellow on the older leaves but thats about it. The yield VS the amount of effort is totally worth it. If I pushed the plants harder with more nutes, then you start to wonder if more light would be a better option to get the bigger yields-More light will have a bigger impact on bigger yields then more nutes...So is it really worth it pushing the plant so hard with all those nutes? Soil is so forgiving of mistakes as you add nutes less often so if you screw up you usually only do it once and its easy to fix. Dont get me wrong, organic is the way to go if you have the time and dont mind the extra effort to dial it in-The really great organic growers you see often have done the same room or tent for years and slowly tweaked things here and there until its perfect. prob took em 10 crops or more to get to the point they could say " Yep this is totally dialed in and I dont need to tweak it now" And often they use the same strain time after time after time so the small changes they make each grow can be checked back against previous grows. Thats what it takes to get really good at organic. Thats why I admire really good organic growers. And why I choose to run mineral nutes in soil insted.

@gottagrowsometime, That run off is pretty high...1520 is def quite alot ,So id say your fine there. And this is my first time growing a ZkittleZ, wont be the last as its rare I find a strain that isnt fazed by the aussie summers, then again this wasnt a normal summer here but she still will get a few more chances with me...but I do agree the new growth does look a bit weird doesnt it? I look at my older leaves and they are def getting a darker green than I intended for her to get, But her new growth is so light green I worried she wasnt getting enough nutes so gave her a dose of veg booster(multiple fast acting forms of nitrogen) and now she is quite dark green for an indica heavy girl, but her new growth STILL looks very light green to me. So id say you are doing the same thing I did...Something an old grower told me once-not sure how true it is, but he said "look at the plants stems-the leaves should only be a few shades darker than that., if they are more than 4 shades darker your over doing the nitrogen." Also for pest control-look into something called BACILLUS THURINGIENSIS or Bt for short. Its a product you spray onto plants intended for human consumption , and basically its a bacteria that as its lives produces these organic crystals that are super sharp and super tiny and any bug that eats them gets their guts shredded and they die. best part is its totally harmless to humans- we can eat it, smoke it or whateves and no probs. Its used on most of our food crops already so totally safe. Fungus Gnats especially are decimated by it.

@XII_XII_EarlyRaver, Thanks mate. Its been one of the more challenging outdoor seasons Ive had. Had to start over with all new seeds from new seed banks, Im still rebuilding my collection and have to figure out what works and what doesnt all over again. The weather went insane in general and totally bonkers a few times on top of that, But its been fun actually documenting it for once for a diary. Wont be the last time now, its fun looking back and seeing what was done.

@@Mr_SCROG, Happy to help. And believe me ive done even worse than this and it was ok. These plants are tougher than you think and as long as you keep infections out, and keep em dry AFTER you repair/fix them so they dont rot- they will be fine 90% of the time. One of these days im going to experiment with grafting some plants to see if i can have a Sativa root and trunk with two main stems, like this Zkittlez plant has- cut one side off and graft an Indica top onto it. If it works the Indica side will finish in 8 or 9 weeks and then 4-5 weeks later the sativa side will finish up. I wouldnt be trying that if these plants were too delicate to take the abuse. Just be gentle with her as it takes 2-3 weeks to heal. The worse the damage the longer it takes but yours should be cool in 2-3 weeks.

@BarneyRumble420, Thanks bloke. Yeah the ZkittleZ is just getting bigger, thicker and heavier every time I look at her. I dumped a whole 10 ltr water can full of Green House Feeding short flowering Nutes on her, one of those 10 gram trial packs per watering can. And she went bananas. lols. Loved it. I need better pics in better light- her canopy is 4 ft long X 4.5 Ft wide and 5 ft high. 4 main colas, 4 smaller main colas and maybe 2 dozen secondary colas. Its insane bro. And smell is so unlike any weed ive had before, so green and fruity and cannabis like but no skunk or dank at all.. no fuel smell or nothing. and not citrus either....But damm is it strong.

@Sour_D, Cheers. its been an interesting summer weather wise but all in all a good grow.