Orange Sherbet Auto - Organic Outdoor

It's that time of the year again! Doing a few autos this spring/summer and very excited to try out some new genetics! Thanks Fast Buds for the prize - due to lockdown it took a few months to get my seeds but I did eventually get them and I can't wait to try them out ;) First order of business this year, is to stock up on some sativa stash and this Orange Sherbet Auto looks like it will certainly help me with that!😝 Soaked seeds for 24 hours in dechlorinated water, then transferred to paper towel method and in 24 hours further I had long tailed sprouts ready to go. After soaking the jiffy pellets in water, I squeezed them out and mixed up some trichoderma (beneficial fungus) with some water and soaked the jiffy pellets in that before placing the seeds inside. I've had damping off issues before, so this time I'm inoculating the soil first to get rid of any pathogens. I'll also be using the trichoderma this grow to hopefully build up resistance to powdery mildew. On day 6 I added some kelp to the water before watering. Soil I'll be using is re-used Freedom Farms Organic Classic living soil. I used this soil last year but have nurtured it since then. This week I added some rock phosphate and some Biodyne Environoc 401 Microbes. Before starting the grow, I also added worm castings to the soil. Spring is here, but there's still some cold snaps now and then that could easily stunt autos, so I'm keeping them inside for now under 24 hour CFL lighting and will harden them off slowly Day 1 was 10/10/2020

The girls have been doing great this week under CFL's as well as venturing out outside for a few hours each day to harden off. In the previous week I made sure that the medium was well watered with dechlorinated water and microbes, so transplanting should go smoothly. A lot of people say not to transplant autos, that you should start them in their final pots. While I think there's a lot of merit in this thought, I think this advice is better suited to indoors or at least a greenhouse where the plants can be left without fear of nature getting too involved - but when you are dealing with outdoors and need to bring plants in and out in the first weeks, it's just not an option for me to lug around 40L pots. I have grasshoppers, slugs, monkeys, sudden weather changes to deal with - so I need to start off with small pots first and keep them ultra mobile in case. When I transplanted, the medium in the prior pots was still a bit moist and roots were starting to emerge in the drain holes of the small square pots. I put 20g of mycorrhizal fungi in each planting hole and afterwards watered with kelp and trichoderma. The plan at this point is to organically innoculate the plants/soil with beneficial fungi and to build a good root system. I'll start mild nutes next week. The mycorrhizal fungi will help make use of the rock phosphate, even though I'm feeding bloom nutes later, having the rock phosphate is like a nice backup reserve of phosphorous if the plants needs extra. I added a mulch layer of alfalfa hay (lucerne) just on the surface to help keep the soil surface moist, since we get very hot days here. This will also bring some organic material back into the soil over time (but not the primary reason since it will takes ages for the nitrogen to become useful to the plant). I would even go with an inorganic mulch, but alfalfa hay is super cheap and readily available to me. Things to watch with it are mold and other insects it attracts. Peace fellow growers! ✌️🌱

This week was a rough one. First, I had a rogue slug that I just could not get rid of - but I persisted and hunted him down, finding the bugger camping out under one of the bags. I added some diatomaceous earth to try prevent them coming back. Then my plants went from being ahead of schedule to almost dying completely. An extremely hot day caught me off guard and nearly decimated all of them. They appeared to handle the heat fine during the day, but after I could see that they were hurt pretty bad. I was worried about them being completely stunted, but after a few days they started to continue veg. I think I lost a week maybe of veg maybe which really sucks with autos, so unfortunately I think this will affect the final size of these girls and their yield. But hey, this is nature after all! I gave a good dose of kelp to try and assist with the healing. Started feeds this week. I'm trying a silicon product for the first time, part of my mission to proactively fight powdery mildew, which I get almost every grow. According to hydroponics.co.za where I bought it: "Silicon Plus is a soluble silica liquid, fortified with potassium, enhances plant resistance to a biotic stresses such as drought, heat and cold and biotic stresses such as resistance to pests and diseases. Can help with Penicillium digitatum (green mold), Sclerotinia stem rot, Rust, Fusarium wilt, Powdery mildew, Red spider mite, Root knot nematod" Helps against heat stress too? I should have read that a week ago! 😭 Peace, fellow growers ✌️🌱

First signs of pistils on a few of the girls this week at day 26. This feels a bit earlier than normal for outdoor autos, I think the heat stress may have freaked them out a bit. I was hoping to get more veg in before this point, not sure anymore if I'll reach the >1m+ height I was pushing for. Still stoked that they made it this far and are recovering. I'm convinced that using the Silicon Plus just before the heat hit, helped them handle that and recover better than they would have otherwise. I'll treat plants with that from an earlier age next time. By the end of the week, one of the orange sherbets still hasn't shown any pistils, so I'm hopeful this one can veg for longer and reach her potential. I've noticed all kinds of mold growing on the alfala mulch. While it could be beneficial (and possibly introduced from the trichoderma), there is a variety of mold types and what is worrying is the black mold. I'm not taking a chance here, so I removed all the mulch and will consider something else for the rest of the grow. Started mild bloom nutes this week. Peace ✌️

The girls are bouncing back as they go for the big stretch! Seeing a massive boost in growth in all of the plants. Still not getting quite enough sun, but they are enjoying the rainwater - which is helping me since I'm only watering on nute days for now (once a week). Peace, fellow growers ✌️

No drama this week! The plants are all doing great and are exploding into flower. They're stretching and bulking and looking like they'll still be a decent size even after losing about a week of veg. It's high snake season here, caught a baby brown house snake (harmless) - sorry about the blurry pic... Getting too excited to enjoy the harvest :)

Moved the girls to a sunnier part of the garden this week. The tradeoff is that there's a lot more ants in that area, so I had to give a good dusting of diatomaceous earth on the soil surface. Seeing some impressive vertical stretch as they reach their final height. Considering I lost a decent chunk of veg time, I'm stoked. Had another slithery friend visit the garden, this time a variegated bush snake - which is non-venomous and quite common. Catch you next week :)

Getting a little more height as I enter week 4 of flowering. Buds are forming nicely, starting to smell great:) The weather is being a bit miserable. Watching like a hawk for any signs of powdery mildew, but so far so good! Have a happy week, fellow growers ✌️🌱

#1 Hit 102cm this week in height, which I'm stoked about. The smell is building up, giving some hints of the strain's unique profile. It's been less rain this week but the hot summer days are here and humidity is getting uncomfortable and thick. It's around this time of the year I get nervous about powdery mildew and bud rot. I've found some buds affected by rot but just cutting and removing the affected parts. But - no powdery mildew at all, which is awesome because I would normally start seeing that. Something I've done seems to have worked, but I'll comment on this at harvest... Had another snake visit this week, a brown house snake. Harmless - but it did get a few bites into my thumb before chilling out and seeming to enjoy basking in the sun on my warm hand (you never really know what he was thinking though, he is a snake after all). My daughter wanted to name him "Handsome", but I wanted "Thnake" - so we settled on "Handsome Thnake", before releasing him. Cheers buddy!🐍 (apologies for sharing a lot of the writeup each week with other diaries of mine, but they have very similar info and it makes these updates a bit easier!)

As the buds start to dense up, the risk of mildew and rot become a greater and greater concern. The weather here has been incredibly hot and humid, contrasted with non-stop rain and these plants aren't getting a solid supply of good light when they need it most. When the sun is out, it's well over 30 degrees C, so it's either not enough or too much. I'm noticing more and more bud sites that are getting destroyed by rot - interestingly, I'm seeing 2 kinds of rot. One seems to be be the standard dark grayish botrytis mold and one is whiter and puffier. On more than one affected bud, I've noticed that inside the whiter mold is a little worm! Sorry, didn't a pic of the little bugger, but definitely something watch out for. I'd like to know what the parent looks like. On a brighter note, the buds are looking and smelling good. I may have to harvest these early and they may not get to fulfill their potential 100%, but they will still produce some fine herb!

This week was chop week for #2. Bud rot is rife this season, with all the endless rain, heat and humidity. All of my plants have been affected, regardless of breeder or strain. Some more than others, but it's pretty bad this season. Funny, I finally seemed to conquer powdery mildew - which is my normal fight, but this season it's been replaced by (in my opinion worse) botrytis. You can see this is some of the pics. It's horrible seeing your hard work get derailed, but this is outdoors and nature is a variable you can't control. I think if you're growing outdoors you have to accept this, no matter how good your grow is - there's a large amount of luck needed to get a good harvest. #1 Can still go for longer as it is less affected and I'm prepared to try push it for another week, monitoring it like an eagle. See you next week!

I've pushed this plant as far as I can, but starting to see more buds getting affected by bud rot. This week was very hot and humid and I'm about to go on holiday, so chopping time! See you at harvest week ;)

In spite of a really challenging grow season with high humidity, non-stop rain and high temps on the sunny days, this strain performed well. Heat stress almost got the better of them, but the girls pushed through and delivered some extremely tasty buds. I enjoyed growing this strain and I especially enjoy smoking it :) I will grow this again for sure. I received these seeds from Fast Buds as a prize from a previous grow. Thanks guys, you really are an amazing company!