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"Growing in Hell" well close enough, I'm growing outside in the middle of the summer in the Arizona desert, but I'm currently at my second attempt in 10 years from a seed I found in a bag of gorilla glue I think #4 from the dispensary so I planted it outside and given my location in Phoenix Arizona and the summer being here now with 115 degree days sometimes but 106 average daily temp with 0% humidity so I tried an outdoor/indoor combo, which is a small green house built over the in ground plant when temperatures got too hot so I could still use natural sunlight and covered green house to black out plant to control light schedule and temperature with swamp cooler. I have no idea if anyone has ever attempted growing this way (outside in the Arizona desert planting in spring and flowering in evap cooled greenhouse during summer covering to control sunlight) but my plant has been very happy the last 6 weeks since putting in the green house up and brought the temp down with evap cooler and also importantly brought humidity up to appropriate levels just using evap cooler itself most days but added humidifier for really dry days. Since I planted the seed in mid March and with the seasons changing the light schedule was way off so it took 10 weeks of vegetation before I was happy with size to switch to a 12 hour schedule to initiate flowering.
(RECAP) FROM FIRST POST WEEK 9 -5/19/2018- "Growing in Hell" well close enough, I'm growing outside in the middle of the summer in the Arizona desert, but I'm currently at my second attempt in 10 years from a seed I found in a bag of gorilla glue I think #4 from the dispensary so I planted it outside and given my location in Phoenix Arizona and the summer being here now with 115 degree days sometimes but 106 degrees average daily temp with 0% humidity, so I tried an outdoor/indoor combo, which is a small green house built over the in ground plant when temperatures got too hot so I could still use natural sunlight and covered green house to black out plant to control light schedule and temperature with swamp cooler. I have no idea if anyone has ever attempted growing this way (outside in the Arizona desert planting in spring and flowering in evap cooled greenhouse during summer covering to control sunlight) but my plant has been very happy the last 6 weeks since putting in the green house up and brought the temp down with evap cooler and also importantly brought humidity up to appropriate levels just using evap cooler itself most days but added humidifier for really dry days. Since I planted the seed in mid March and with the seasons changing the light schedule was way off so it took 10 weeks of vegetation before I was happy with size to switch to a 12 hour schedule to initiate flowering.
7/2/2018- Since then the plant has been on a more regular schedule appearing to flower at a good rate maybe too fast actually as I'm now concerned about when to harvest.
I can see the very bottom smaller nugs have all white hairs and I dont care as much for them to be ripe and know since they don't get as much light they wont be as far as long, but the bigger ones on the rest of the plant look ripe except for the very top crown nug is still less then half white hairs. So my question is if different parts of the plant are ready for harvest and some parts look like they could have a couple weeks to go. So when should I harvest? Can I harvest part of the plant as they ripen or does it always have to be the whole plant at one time to harvest and just deal with the few parts of the plant that aren't ripe enough. It's been difficult to tell as I think everyday this will be the day but then think it could go another couple weeks.
I was thinking 6 weeks flowering is sorta too soon to harvest as I read gorilla glue has an 8 week flowering stage then again so many of the nugs look perfect and feel like if I wait any longer they will be ruined some how, and the fact I live in the desert growing in the blazing hot summer anything could happen waiting those couple weeks for it to ripen. For example if the power goes out or swamp cooler stops for some reason while I'm out, my plant's dead in 10-20 minutes tops being outside in the sun and would start baking inside that small clear enclosure, just like a baby being left in a hot car. It's already happened a couple times but I was home to catch it in time as I have a temperature alarm set to go off it goes over a certain degree.
Any suggestion anyone has that would be great for when to harvest a plant with different nugs at far different stages of ripeness, some look like they are ready now, some look like they could go a couple weeks even being the same size but just different parts of the plant. I will try an post some pictures of those different parts of the plant at different ripeness but you get the idea but I guess so you can see what I'm talking about. When to harvest and the different nugs growing at different rates and the only idea I have come up with is it could be because of the way I'm growing not getting even light or as intense of light to my plant through the day with sun filters to help with heat, because my thought process was, doing it this way, since the sun moves the light distribution would still be better than an indoor set up but that's why I'm asking or even posting on here otherwise I could really care less to share this information, though it's good to share experiences for other growers to get information to help like me.
After reading the week description above and also saying I finally updated pics to include the different parts of the plant at different ripeness, I ask when should I harvest? If it's just the 4 pictures up there then I've been lazy to go out and take new pictures starting week 7
Yes I would agree with others you have around 4 weeks left if you want to take it to it’s full potential and terms of a mixed body and head highs. _______________________Definitley flush for the full 2 weeks in 2 steps. First water with the volume of the pot in Luke warm water (20c) drench the pot without too much run off. Wait 10 mins follow up with another load of water 1-2x volume of pot. IMO the water does not need to be PH adjusted when flushing soil.✌️🏻
Well it's two weeks later since my last post about asking when to harvest, coming to know I was gonna have to give it 3-4 more weeks but in two weeks the plant hasn't change too much, more red hairs and some of the buds appearing darker in color more shriveled leaves from brutal sun, temp OK sun rays are not OK and one gust of wind I lose a shade boom buds can't keep up too long so I try to keep an eye on it and fasten the shade the best i can, also with that sun damage to plant I still need to find the right amount of shade to give plant now even earlier as I was letting it get morning sun unfiltered but no more, now it has the most shade because it was the only shade I have available right now so a store trip is needed.
The trichomes appear milky white to a darker yellowish brown maybe I'm not 100% sure but it might be why the buds appear darker or kinda dark yellowish brown or it's the sun ray damage I think, but I need to buy a new digital magnifier to replace one I broke two weeks ago.
I'm anxious to be done as it's very hard to keep this up when it's been a 115 degrees for three days in a row, but thankfully that evap cooler was blowing 65-75 degree air it only got as hot as 84 degrees inside my little greenhouse where "Amy's Green Drop" is anxious also to be smoked, it's what I'm calling it from the movie Congo in the 90's.
Week 19 and it happens to be a rainy week with on and off cloud coverage which was actually beneficial to my plant but the humidity has been up due to the fact I also use a swamp cooler and if it's gonna be this humid for another couple days then I'm worried about mold developing on the buds so i think I'll break out the AC to get rid of some of that moisture in the air and maybe alternate between the two.
The AC hasn't been used once the whole grow cycle so far but living in AZ we get random storms from the monsoon season not to mention tons of dust, high winds, flash flooding which could be used to flush my plant because it needs it now if rain builds up around and gets under the green house, j/k lol. I've been thinking about buying lady bugs to get rid of all the white flies, any experience anybody, would that work?
After writing the above, I could hear the wind picking up outside and remembered that a storm was coming so I ran outside to prepare and it punched it's way through Phoenix with extremely high velocity hurricane type wind, gusting up to whatever it takes to bring large trees down or make a wooden shed door fly off with a wall of dust to the sky and then finally finishing with heavy rain. I was outside the entire storm from beginning to end, well at least until the wind died down and it was just light showers by then. Even with having my greenhouse tied down I had to hold onto it for dear life or it would have taken off like in the wizard of OZ.
Honest to god I was almost pulled off the ground or several times more onto my greenhouse when the tsunami type wind would hit, pounding me and the greenhouse from behind having to pull down while leaning back with all my weight and strength.The whole time I'm screaming for my brother who was inside to come out and hold the greenhouse so I could tie it down better because it was just coming apart trying trying to fly away or be ripped apart as storm hit us I was holding on for Amy's Green Drop's dear life. It was pretty insane and wish I had video of me doing it but just have a video a friend sent of his backyard getting hit so you can imagine that wind hitting my greenhouse.
The after math was bad 😭 the wall of the greenhouse was getting hit so hard by the wind making it press inward towards plant it snapped off in the middle one of the lower branches making the two buds on the end half hanging there from a 90 degree angle from branch so I knew there was no way to support it back in place enough to heal itself so I clipped it off and started drying it. One other next to it got bent up pretty bad so I'm trying to LST it back to place. The storm also killed my swamp cooler somehow, I guess it's because it has a lot of electronic components on top that was soaked from the wind the rain came from the side, I know, you'd think a swamp cooler could get wet.
Now I'm stuck using only my A/C and a humidifier to control moisture and temp and I'm worried it's gonna be pretty hard only using AC in such a small greenhouse as it takes time to find the right ratio of intake and outtake air but can only open greenhouse to mix in so much hot dry air, so starting it was getting down into the high 60's, and I have to figure something out because I can't let it get that cold in there for the last few weeks. I'm almost ready to call it quits If I can't find an equilibrium with AC and humidifier, and if there are anymore storms on the way.
Next time I'm getting a bigger sturdier greenhouse that goes into the ground and has hard clear walls and roof, other than the recent storm and excessive sunlight finding the right shading it's been very beneficial doing the indoor/outdoor combo grow and would recommend it as you can live in any weathered extreme hot/cold climate and still grow outside,
Trying to recover from storm, one person suggested Boomerang by Fox Farms when dealing with temperature change related problems, and the fact my plant was on a swamp cooler for the first 18 weeks of her life and now switching to an A/C unit to control temp the greenhouse is about 10 degrees colder and during the day and night. The fact the storm brought a lot of moisture and lower temps too it would have been enough to stress my plant out but add the storm, broken branches and leaves that's a lot of different stress factors all adding up too a not so happy plant. I ordered the Boomerang Root Conditioner the second I could after the storm waiting for it to arrive in mail I finally got to administer it to my plant this morning and will hope to see her bounce back to her, before the storm glory.
I'm drying those two buds but it's been so humid even inside my house but it's only a day tops from being dry enough to smoke well enough in a pipe. It probably wont taste too well because it was clipped as a victim from the storm and was full of nutrients I'm sure as I feed that morning. It is very very sticky and can not handle it without gloves and anything I use to try and pluck leaves it sticks. I have never had weed be this sticky but than again I've never grown my own and had it this fresh. I've had some fresh weed but it was never this sticky, is this just because its so fresh and will it get less sticky the drier it gets?
The root stimulator I think caused new buds to grow all over my plant especially the top crown. I think this because within the week after using it a lot of new white hairs started popping up all over and looks like growth on the tops of the Nugs, as they cone up to a really sharp point because of the growth. I'm not sure if this was something that was suppose to happen a long time ago since I was going another two weeks or so anyway, well at least until that storm hit and stressed my plant and looked like everything just stopped then 5 days ago I put in that Comeback Formula and the plant has blown up with new growth.
There's not too much going on and no new growth on the lower branches but that top crown that was always lacking growth compared to the lower ones has blown up, which I was glad for but now with the new white hairs I feel like it's gonna take that new growth weeks to mature so now I feel like my plants all screwed up, I don't know. Also the storms caused a day or two of lighting problems with it getting more than 12 hrs one day and less than 12 hrs the next, I couldn't do anything about it, just hope it didn't screw with my baby's internal clock too much.
Excerpt from https://www.growweedeasy.com/ready-for-harvest-pictures "This cannabis bud keeps putting out new white pistils right when it looks like it’s about ready to be harvested! Some plants keep doing this over and over during the flowering stage, and you may eventually have to just decide to make the chop. This picture is right before the grower decided to harvest this plant" The picture referred to in this quote from the website is the 5th/2nd to last picture above. "This bud has many tiny new sugar leaves and new pistils on top. It also has a top-heavy “fist” shape. These are common symptom of heat or light damage, especially if they only appear on the parts of the plant close to the light. If this is happening, look at the older parts of the buds to decide when to harvest. Even though there’s a bunch of new white pistils on top, this bud is ready right now because the rest of the bud looks ready!" This photo is the 6th/last picture above.
These last pictures were taken for the week 11 of flowering. I had her back on the swamp cooler the last week or so because the A/C unit broke from having to deal with 115 degree days back to back but thank goodness the humidity dropped the same time to allow the swamp cooler to work. Wasn't until 10 or so days later using swamp cooler did I chop her down and it did it's job well getting the plant into the mid 60's overnight and i heard that helps just before harvest time for last minute trichome production, can't say it did for sure but something did because it went from having a lot of green showing to a Sugar white in appearance with the only green coming from the shade leaves and the ends of the leaves poking out of the plant. When you took a step back that's all you could see as the orange hairs even disappear into a sea of white crystals. I'm writing this weeks post 2 weeks later from pictures above and I actually just harvested plant so next week has photos.
I chopped her down after 11 days of using swamp cooler after the A/C unit broke because on that 11th day I had planned to finish the week til harvesting but a storm was in the forecast and the humidity was gonna be up and the swamp cooler wasn't going to work so I felt that morning was the day. Good thing too cuz it was a very humid day and the swamp cooler wouldn't have worked as my plant had never been in that situation before it's whole life because before I could switch to A/C when too humid but not anymore so it seemed like fate that forces beyond my control decided for my plant to get chopped down that day within a day or two from a 12 week flowering. The plant is essentially white except for the shade leaves sticking out green from white stalks of white cloudy crystals, even the orange hairs seem to disappear among all the whiteness and it looks more covered in like cane sugar now making the crystal more noticeable and the plant way whiter then compared to earlier it looked like diamond crystals and where harder to see unless in the right light or angle.
The plant really turned around that last week or so as it blew up in crystals and the purple was coming in more and more on the leaves, I'm assuming because the nutrients were being starved out. I don't really like seeing purple on my bud as I've always associated it with badness or nutrient deficient bud but that's just my personal preferences and I know has to do with genetics too. It was a lot more work than I had planned for to get that plant ready to hang to dry as the leaf cutting was endless and I don't even want to imagine to more detailed leaf cutting later before jarring it. I stopped cutting the leaves off as my area could be getting drier air soon and I watched a video saying if the air is too dry to leave on the leafs as it helps with a slower drying time and the video also said you don't want to bleed chlorophyll all over the buds too which I could see happening so I stopped.
The plant doesn't give off too much of a smell unless I get right up to buds or I grab it, squeeze it, shake it up it blows up with a very pungent fruity smell, It's a weird good smell I haven't really ever smelled before like I want to say how some people like the smell of dirty shoes type thing, a good piney pungent smell mixed with a fruity Trix Cereal type aroma, an addicting smell, it's hard to describe, but once you take a bud in your fingers and rub it smells a stronger fruity weed smell. It's probably just the combination of fresh cut leaves with the buds mixing together and although it smells really good right now, it's just not a smoking bud smell more like a wet fruity cut flower smell. Can't wait until all the leaves are mostly removed and dry enough to start the curing process. Was worried I'd get that infamous "hay' smell like my first plant did but this plant has smelled good for months so I didn't know where the "hay' smell would have come from on this plant and don't know where it did that time either. I will post pictures after it's dry and I start to put it in jars to cure.
The moisture level was around 65% and will probably take a couple weeks to get to a premium smokeability but I know I'll be sampling it along the way and already have actually and had a real "head change", I was shocked because especially considering I smoke all day everyday and haven't had a real head change in ages, well I guess ever since getting weed from dispensary for the first time way back, this must be next level stuff I guess, geez, lol it's good rainbow rock candy/gorilla glue #4/Amy's Green Drop whatever Ive called it over these 20 something weeks.00
Also I'm pretty sure the storm caused an imbalance in the p.h. of the soil causing a nutrient lock out too. Not sure if the boomerang helped with that but I'll be a little more involved in future grows testing the soil and such but with this outdoor side of the house in ground plant side project grow I'm not that "testy" I guess I'd put it this time.
@IncognitoGreenThumb, super interesting case study... can't help you but I'm learning. solution : harvest what's ready, and leave what's not until it is... that way you dont have to compromise...
The plants looking great. I use fox farm too, when you said you used the comeback formula would that be the boomerang? I've used it on mine when they've had hard times and it seems good...but I'm not flowering like you are, so I'm not sure of the effects. I'm glad I got to see your diary. 😊💚
@IncognitoGreenThumb, mine were on their death bed with heat stroke the other morning, and I watered em with that boomerang and other stuff, and it was so funny watching them visibly pick up over the next 30 min. Probably heat stroke and thirst.
@Experimentgreen, It was the boomerang comeback formula and it definitely helped because my plant was struggling. I ordered it the second after the storms hit and once I feed it to her after waiting for it in the mail for 3-4 days she looks like a different plant now but bounced back within 48 hrs after giving it to her, as in that next days morning she was perky and a brighter green again, not so droopy and yellowish.
Wow! I am surprised its still there... Such a strong winds. It shall return back to normal in a week from stress. You might try to add some root simulator, protector for the stress to your solution.
I put my plants under a 600w by the window that way they get both sunlight from the sun and my 600 metal halide . that boost the grow very well its called hardening.
Not only that but if a fairy comes by and sprinkles some fairy dust that should help..... For future grows.
That is quite an adventure. I'm glad to read that you are ok! I'm sure the plant will recover just fine as well. A new greenhouse does sound like a good idea!
Holy F’ing shit! That read like a mystery novel. I was riveted!
Dust devils and mini twisters are abundant and random in the US SW desert. Such extremes! That, combined with little natural water - it’s a miracle anyone lives there at all!
Best of luck with this grow, and the future green house.
Consider moving, if that is an option.
Global warming. Colorado river drying up. It does not bode well for residents of the American Southwest for the next few decades.
Good luck friend
I think the curling and brown tips I see in the photos are due to excessive nutes. I don't think it's the sun. Those brown tips won't go away when you flush, but any new growth should look normal once you do. I know you are close to harvest, the flushing will do her good. By the way, she is a very nice looking plant!
IncognitoGreenThumb
