Out There in the Garden...

Since this diary starts pretty late in the grow, here's some catch-up info: I'm in Colorado on the 40th parallel at about 6500 feet. This is my 4th outdoor grow, and my 10th overall-- the 6 indoor grows have all been auto's under LED's. I skipped doing an outdoor grow last year because of the grasshoppers-- we had plagues of Biblical proportions here in '18 and '19. Growers at lower elevations just a few miles from me were wiped out... That's why the plastic greenhouse is still up-- I intend to cover the frame with bug netting soon. Insecticides are pointless when there are literally hundreds of thousands of the little fuckers in an acre; adult grasshoppers are very hard to kill, too. (From now on, I'll call 'em the LF's...) It looks like they might not be so bad this year. The second deterrent to growing outside up here is the short season-- the first frost can come before the equinox-- another reason the greenhouse skin will remain, ready to be added to when the temps drop in September. That's also why I topped the 3 Critical Widows (CW's from here on)-- trying to keep them under the 6-foot frame of the greenhouse. And, also-- the law here says you have to do an outdoor grow in a greenhouse... Site preparation for the garden involved a report from CSU on the soil quality (decent pH, but not a lot in the way of nutrients), adding a couple of bags of earthworms 2 years ago, two bags of peat to lower pH some, an inch or so per year of horse/goat manure worked into the soil in the fall, plus half a box of Bio-Live by Down-To-Earth. BTW, two supplements I LOVE are Bio-Live and ReCharge. They make a huge difference in the soil and availability of nutrients.