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Setup description:
Outdoor, on a north west facing balcony, currently there is direct sun from 16:00 till sundown. So roughly 4h… (I know it should be more for a good result. Still I will give it a try.
The 2 plants I choose had a description that made me hope it will run good anyway.
Week 1 started easy. Perpared the soil 2 days before planting the seeds with nutrients and kept it moist over the whole time. Seedlings sprouted after 2days. Didn’t think it would go this fast. Currently it’s about 16-20°C during daytime. A bit Windy (ca20-35kmh) and nighttime temperatures around 10°C. We will see if it is too cold… could be…
Edit day 2: 12°c over the day… we will see how northern those plants are…
Edit day 3: still around 13°C, wet but not really windy. The Northern Lights look a bit stronger than the epsilon. But both seem to take on the challenge of surviving in the suboptimal habitat I offer.
Edit day 4: night temperatures went down to 9°c but plants still seem to be growing. And weather will be better over the next few days. So I think they will make it.
Day 7: Both plants did well in their germination week. They had suboptimal climate conditions ( temperature bit below 10°c in the night; rainy and windy weather with not much direct exposure to the sunlight max4h ). Mother Nature can be a cruel mom, but those who’ve matured under her hand got big and strong…. 🤞
I will add updates over the week
Last 2 days we had 25-27°c over the day. Next days will be colder and wetter.
Day 9: fanleaves grew a bit bigger, but I fear the growth will be slower because of little direct sunlight… and with the soon coming temperature changes down to 15-18°c
Day10: next leaves are starting to grow, it’s getting colder. The morning started with 9°c. And tomorrow morning it will be only 5°C. I’m thinking of taking them indoors this night and support them with led lights…
Day 11: 5°c in the night, 75%humidity in the morning.
Day12: it’s getting warmer over the next 2 days. Afterwards it will be back down to 5°c in the nights…
Day 13: 23°c over the day. Nights also above 15°c. Already curious how much growth will be there tomo
How low can the temperatures drop without damaging my autoflower northern lights? Currently it’s around 12°c over the day and 3°c in the night. Shall I take them inside the flat?
Cold weather continues so I let the grow inside with artificial light. Super cheap lamps from ewitti I bought on amazon. So I don’t expect much effect but keeping them alive. I don’t have air ventilation so I hope to get them outside again next
Beeing outdoors seems to be good for the ladies. They are having nice weather temperatures above 20°c over the days. Peeking temperatures around 27°c.
Temperature went down to 21°c for the rest of the week. Night temperatures are around 12-14°c.
Update Day 34:!Northern lights still pushing prefllower and grew 5 cm so now she is 20cm tall. Hopefully she will continue growing in this speed.
Today I set up solar watering with waterdrops to get ready for a week of holiday.
The northern lights is still pretty small - only 15cm - but it already started preflowering. So I guess harvest will be small as well. What can I do to maximise harvest under the circumstances I have.
Not much you can do, this is one of the outcomes when growing autos outdoors....tiny plants flowering.
Next time grow photoperiod fems and in the same amount of time, you can harvest so much more.
If space is an issue, plant the fems late in the season, 4-6 weeks before the summer solstice and the will stay smaller, but out yield any auto on the market when grown outdoors.
Still not to late to put some new seeds in.
When growing autos outdoors, planting about 4 weeks before the summer solstice will give better results, as the days are the longest they will be all year and then they will out perform any auto planted early in the season.
Day 42: We are starting this week with northern lights beeing 33cm tall. And epsilon beeing 23cm tall. Epsilon is now in preflower as well. I’m excited to see how much height gain we will have this week. Weather will be awesome and i will do the watering manually again this week.
The ladies had a breakfast with tasty nutrition this morning. I will see how they react.
Day 45: after not finding any clue for an over nutrition I decided to give the ladies breakfast again.
Both plants had growth last days and I hope to compensate my sadistic behaviour from April…
Day47: epsilon 32cm; northern lights 43cm
Woohoo gaining more and more height whilst flowering! I realised some brown spots on my foliage followed by instantly panicking… after calming down I searched the net for an explanation. Pretty sure it is minerva flies. I started spraying leaf coat on the foliage hopefully we will see a positive outcome from my behaviour.
Also found a strange bug in my hair after feeding the ladies this morning. This beast also has wings to fly with but I knocked it in the air so it couldn’t escape. Took a photo of it before flushing it down the toilet while laughing satanic…
It will be raining over the Weekend and I was unsure if i shall take the plants indoors. But after the responses on my grow question I will let them outside.
I am very happy about the vigorously developing side branches on the northern lights. On the other hand epsilon is still very small…
Day 49: I am happy with the Development. Hoping to keep the Speed up to have a decent harvest after my mistakes in the early stages.
After beeing away for 1 week with automatic watering I realised something strange growing on my plant and now I’m unsure what it is. Hopefully it is not a pollen sack
How to cope with rain when plants are flowering? My automatics have entered flowering stage recently and in 2 days it will be raining in the night. Should I take them inside or let them outside to have a little bit stress?
This is really only a concern during late flower when buds start getting dense. If you're unable to move them or put up a small temporary structure like a little hoop house then do your best to shake off the plants afterwards to remove as much rain as you can. I would avoid coverings that directly touch your plants, like trash bags, as you're likely to trap moisture against the buds and create the mold you're trying to prevent.
We are starting this week with epsilon beeing 41cm tall and in early flowering stage. Northern lights are flowering like crazy at a height of 47cm, hopefully there will be no mold because the flowers already look pretty dense and humidity is high furthermore it’s raining a lot this week. So I decided not to add water/nurients.
I defoliated the northern lights a bit to give the sidebranches more light.
Meanwhile the epsilon catches up and is now as tall as the northern light. The northern light stopped stretching. So she is entering late flowering stage now i guess.
We had a lot of rain the last 3days. Didn’t see any mold so far. 🤞hopefully it will stay like this. Added pictures of top flowers. Since the northern lights stopped growing in height this is the only indication for progress I have now. But progress is visible.
I think northern lights will finish in 2-3 weeks. Pistils getting orange and brown already. Epsilon still has a way to go. 3-4 weeks I guess. Currently it is close to 50cm.
Northern lights stopped growing after 51 days. She looks healthy I would say. Will she now completely stop growing and just go for buds? Or is something wrong with her?
This week is pretty wet again. Rain and high humidity. Hopefully I will not encounter mold. Would be super sad. As long as I am nearby I will take northern lights indoors during the rain.
Northern lights top looks like it’s consisting of at least 4 budsites and it’s super dense there. I am still feeding both plants, next week only epsilon will be fed and northern lights will start to get flushed. Trichomes currently mainly clear on northern lights.
Epsilon is now in full flowering mode and stopped gaining height. She is currently at 52cm. Her top flower looks beautiful.
Day 60: I ordered a digital microscope hoping it will help check the trichomes better and deliver some nice fotos.
Day 61: Checked trichomes on northern lights estimate 20%are clear 78% are milky and 2% are brown. So I will soon cut it down. Either this weekend or next weekend.
We are in the final weeks before harvest, at least northern lights is not really bulking up anymore. Think she wants to be cut soon, maybe this weekend already. Since her sidebranch in the front is not on the same stage like the rest I am considering to harvest only the ripe buds…
Day71: northern lights is still standing because I realised growth in the flowers and most trichoms are milky , 2% are brown. So she gets at least 1 more week.
Epsilon really packing on flowers! Nice tho see and hopefully they will become even bigger. Maybe in july it will become harvested.
Hi(gh)! This will be the last week for the northern lights. She is already starting to get yellow. I already harvested a side branch - hopefully it will get dry soon so I can test it.
The epsilon will get the full week to fully ripen. But it already looks great.
I think it is not best grow shown on this platform but it was done under conditions that most people would call impossible (max 6h direct sunlight till 21:00 in the evening)
So yes I am happy!
Springtime
