Late Entry Sour Tangie

Week 1 Sour Tangie So far so good, and it seems nice and healthy. We had quite a bit of wind and rain this week, so I used a cheap greenhouse to keep the plant outside, because there were great sunny humid periods in between that I didn’t want to miss. She was happy in the green house, but it got tall stretching for light through the condensation. Because of this I needed to fashion some supports today. I’ve mastered this using chopsticks and tie wire. I can’t believe how many days of rain we have had this summer. But now coupled with the heat, conditions are ideal as long as I can get through the seedling stage. The garden is looking good at the moment with butternut pumpkin, passion fruit and sweet potato just a few things doing well.

3 weeks on. This one is just stretching out for the sky! So tall and lanky it's hard to keep on top of, but I do know why. Because I took the family away for 4 days, I kept the plants on the balcony out of the sun to retain moisture while I was away. I gave a deep watering before I went. My wife came up with the best idea using a good old chinese takeaway container and piercing a small slit with a knife. This allowed water to slowly drip out at the rate of about 1 drop each 10 seconds or so. It worked brilliantly and I recommend this if you need to leave your girls at home for a while 👍

Week 4 Sour Tangie is going well enough. After issues with getting leggy, my mate wolf suggested topping to settle it down a bit. Although it wasn't my original plan, it worked really well in stopping vertical growth a bit allowing it to toughen up, and new growth to catch up. A bit of burn too. I had this last year with my living soil too, but I thought this was already established. I may have given a dose of bio vega that was a bit strong. Organic nute burn doesn't seem to hit the plants too hard, but it does seem to slow things down for a while. So I've backed off to simply a small addition of mico and seaweed solution for the rest of the week

5th week of growth for Sour Tangie. The tops have grown back nicely, and the inner branches have had a chance to catch up a bit so it looks a lot nicer now So far so good 😊

Week 5 - 6 weeks of growth Sour tangie is going really well. It’s healthy and putting on some good size too. I think it’s about to flower, which I am hoping for so I have a chance at least to finish the grow within the contest time frame. I have to say it’s a bit stringy and sort of hangs everywhere, but it may be because it’s young and the stems are still a bit flimsy. For a bit of interest I have attached some pics of my awesome dragon fruit plant which flowered beautifully earlier this week. It is a cactus like plant which looks ugly as hell for the most part. When in season, small buds appear along the stalks which grow and turn into long bulbs prior to flowering. They flower properly for one night only! It is an awesome sight as you can see. This is the one chance to get out at night and hand pollinate the flowers. The female organ protrudes from the flower with fingers raised waiting to be pollinated. You can greatly assist the process and increase your chances of fruit if you get out that night and collect the pollen from the rear of the flower, and rub it into the protruding receptor. I am fascinated by this, and was quite excited about this fleeting moment of beauty on an otherwise ugly plant.

Week 7 of growth Sour tangie is going along ok. It seems to have stretched a lot, resulting in a lanky structure. The stems are very lanky and bendy. It’s really not much to look at, but I will give it the benefit of the doubt that it could be because of the rapid stretch and it will straighten out later. This is the last week of veg, with flowers developing now, so I will make a full switch with the food from next week 🍻

Sour Tangie week 8 of growth. After an incredibly humid week, this one has thrived, and in fact seems to have taken on a much nicer shape. Looking a bit stronger, maybe now that the stretch has slowed down, but nice and tall giving everything a chance to fill out with pretty much no leaves taken off so far. It’s an ideal size, and it’s good to see in such a small pot. It is so easy to move around when I need to, but it does need a bit more regular watering

Week 10 of growth I think it’s still too early to call what this one will be like. It’s nothing to look at really. Straight up and down, pretty sparse and it seems to be fussy with food and water. I do like the way the buds crawl up the stems in a line, so hoping that these turn into some really long fat tops. A bit of frost starting this week, but no real smell yet.

Week 9 10 weeks of growth for sour Tangie. A good week of weather and more size being added to the buds around the top. At this stage it looks like it’s gonna be all about the four main tops, with the middle and lower buds looking pretty small and sparse. The smell is really nice on this one, but the shape is a bit lanky. Will still need a few weeks before I can judge it too closely. A bit of yellowing, which hasn’t occurred as much on the others, so I have reintroduced a small amount of n into the feed, and added some fresh worm compost around the top of the soil. I’m not too concerned as this can be normal for a full organic grow. I have no chance of finishing on time for the contest now, so will just see this one out as per usual. Cheers 🍻

Week 10 11 weeks of growth Sour tangie is pretty uneventful at this stage. It’s been a tough week of weather again with constant rain, and the plants have been in the shed a fair bit. Still, it seems this one is like it’s in a holding pattern. I expected the buds to join up and make some nice thick heads. Instead they are small and dense and patchy. So even though it probably won’t be the best yielder, one thing it has going for it is an awesome sweet minty smell. Really sticky too. With the contest closing I haven’t finished on time. That’s cool though, I haven’t been able to get the best out of this one anyway, compared to some of the other guys.

12 weeks of growth for sour Tangie Same story really. It’s nothing to look at, although it is starting to put on a bit of weight finally. The stems are so thin and long, I feel like they might snap in a decent wind. Not really a sturdy plant. But it has a really nice strong aroma and is sticky as hell, so it could just be a diamond

Thanks Garden of Green for sending the seeds for this one. I couldn't finish in time for the Autumn Cup, but at least was able to get a jar full from this one. It's not a bad smoke, but if you are looking for a real citrus tangie experience, it's not here.