By continuing to use the website or clicking Accept you consent to our cookies and personal data policy and confirm that you are at least 18 year old. For details please see Privacy Policy and Terms
May 7: could have waited another few days but want to try raised beds with a few days of cold overnight happening soon. Forecast for next two weeks looks good to go outdoors for autos soon, but first we have three days with overnight at or just below zero. After Wednesday they can likely be outside most of the time.
May 10: bit of snow overnight.
May 14: current soil is likely not good for cannabis unfortunately so I’m skeptical these plants will thrive. The combination of too much K+ in soil with too much Na+ In water, the general lack of Ca2+ and Mg2+, combined with the use of Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) means the soil from last year has lost all structure and is now a straight fine silt or clay. Extreme example of Sodium Adsorption Ratio (SAR) and how “soft water makes hard ground”. Quite amazing actually as I’ve never seen a soil like this…it looks fine initially when dry or moist, but when hydrated it forms a cohesive gel. Terrible structure, and to cap it off it is very alkaline with a runoff pH of 9. Nine. Fuck. New soil arrives tomorrow.
Smaller one was accidentally pulled out of soil during planting and May or may not survive. Likely not.
Seems to stay above 10 C overnight under glass in a cold frame but I’m not relying on that yet except for these two early autos.
May 22: definitely not thriving, but could also be due to cold rather than the alkaline soils.
A neglected pair of early plants planted in alkaline soil. Also a bit shaded and the second one was yanked out of ground early losing her roots but she’s coming back.
June 6: cool and rainy today. Bigger one is tall enough to tie down so I did. Used a piece of wire to hold apical tip below the other growth tips. Will do this for about week and will release once the lower sites are bigger and apical dominance has been broken.
June 8: adjust tie down but a couple hours later I noticed the stem had shifted and folded. Patched this unintended supercropping using green floral tape which you can barely see on the stem. Floral tape is great and readily available at florists at the local mall. Breathable, flexible, very helpful for this kind of thing.
June 21: interesting how the tie down leads to the lower growth tips growing much faster. This is likely a reliable way to improve yield without stressing the plant very much.
The response of this plant to the tie down is a bit of a revelation. I didn’t think these plants would do much with the cold weather start and potentially bad soil, but in the last month they’ve done great. Now using tie down method on some other autos where it looks equally impressive. Influenced by @Roberts and his auto tie downs using 12 gauge wire.
Didn’t think this diary would be a contender for best outdoor grow, but now I think I better start posting weekly videos.
June 24: decided to tie down more branches and also the smaller plant that had lost its root as a baby but kept going. With tie down it’s starting to look like a single plant. It’s also starting to flower after 8 weeks of slowish vegetative growth, and this is likely due to the overnight temperatures.
It has been a cool and wet June here.
June 27: this plant is doing great and it is really responding well to the tie down. I always figured this was more an indoor technique but it certainly is working great outdoor on this auto White Widow. I love growing weed. Endless variations and techniques to be applied.
July 8: added Power Bloom and a handful of malt as a top dressing.
July 9: laid scrog net out. 3.5 inch squares.
July 10: perfect and sunny all day.
July 13: great weather continues. 😎
July 22: did not start out intending for this to become a Scrog grow, but it seems to be working. First plant to try this on and it seems like a good idea even for outdoors.
July 26: now using gypsum as Ca source rather than Cal.Max which has unwanted N. About 500 g of gypsum dissolved in 1000 L should provide 100 mg/L of Ca. Need Ca and Mg to balance excess sodium in well water.
July 27: plant 2 has escaped the wire tie down and is rising up against the net. This is okay as it is on north side so I’ll let it go.
July 31: these will take another two weeks I think which is of course super long for this strain. Started in early May when it was still too cold, and June was cool and rainy so it’s not as far along as it could be. On the other hand, it’s decently big with lots of extra bud sites from the tie down.
Started using soluble wood ash as K source. See today’s Gorilla Gelato diary entry for details.
Aug 5: plant 1 is starting to fade and has decently solid buds forming. Plant 2 is several days behind with bigger buds that have not firmed up yet. A bit longer still.
Aug 10: still not quite ready. Nice sunny weather continues so I’ll wait some more.
Plant 1 is likely ready very soon, and Plant 2 needs a bit more time. Weather is still good so keep going’….
Aug 15: will harvest most of plant 1 tomorrow morning. This will be the very first harvested bud of the year. Woohoo.
Aug 16: harvest half of Plant 1 and maybe a third of Plant 2. Will leave the rest to mature further. First batch 266 g wet.
Aug 20: took the rest of it down. Second batch 177 g wet.
Used nutes until the end but I won’t do that anymore as there was too much P or molasses which meant some of it doesn’t burn properly.
Just using plain water for last two weeks now on the other plants.
Total wet 443 g from two plants.
Started in early May and we had a few cold nights including a bit of snow once. The plants were covered and did okay but that is why the grow took so long. Plant 2 was almost killed as a seedling but was stuck back in ground and it recovered surprisingly well but the buds on that pheno weren’t as nice as Plant 1. The tie down definitely works for a few plants but is too much of a hassle at scale.