Clarification on my last question about soil covering.

[757Botanist]

Thanks for all the replies, nice to see some familiar names respond bc yall helped me a few years ago. But I failed to mention in my post yesterday that I’m doing an outdoor grow 7 plants) in 5-7 gallon pots . So the pots are black. I took some old t shirts and wrapped them around the pots to avoid cooking the roots, but my original question was about covering the soil to avoid the soil drying. Any suggestions?

 

[Galgrows]

I grow in 2 -15gal nursery plastic pots 2-10gal. Many holes drilled into the sides. Now i've never covered the tops of pots ever. But you do as you want, use straw clean straw. My summer temps range between 85f to 105f then at that time i move them under shade until the sun gets off them. I suggest if your doing photoperiods you get larger pots.

 

[757Botanist]

I grow in 2 -15gal nursery plastic pots 2-10gal. Many holes drilled into the sides. Now i've never covered the tops of pots ever. But you do as you want, use straw clean straw. My summer temps range between 85f to 105f then at that time i move them under shade until the sun gets off them. I suggest if your doing photoperiods you get larger pots.

Great advice. I’m current working cleaning and drilling holes in 3 white buckets I have. Bc I grew last summer in 7 gallon pots and they did pretty well but I also know if I did at least 10 gallon it would’ve given me a higher yield. 7gal pot got me a little under a lb.

 

[Galgrows]

Some of my last years grow

 

[757Botanist]

Some of my last years grow

Those look amazing! So let me ask. When did you begin defoliating? How frequently did you do it? And at what stage veg or early flower? Mine sort of looked like that but I feel like I could done more. I posted the girls below. They were super bushy, but the bud looked and tasted amazing!

 

[Galgrows]

I do alot of defoiliation as the plants are nearer to harvest it just makes it easier to trim. I do wet trim meaning i trim right after harvest and hang branches not the whole plants. Not quite as close as your trims in your hand cause i don't mind trichome suger tiny leaf. Mine is strickly personal for myself. I don't really need to remove many leaf during veg outdoors but say come mid aug. I'll start remove tiny pencil lead stems and leaves on the inner parts of the plant. Lolipop from soil to mid section of the plants. It varies how much i do. Your plant looked great, yes i'd remove the huge older fans during mid flower.