2011 SoCal Spring Balcony Grow

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balconyfun

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Whatsup THC Farmer!!! I love Southern California! So this is my second balcony grow... I kinda f'd up the first grow by just putting some moms out on the balcony in March and ended up with a spring harvest, so I decided to try and do it right this time.

So the strains I've got this time are Larry OG, Madman OG, GDP, LA Woman, Sour Kush, and BH Bubba (was told it means beverly hills... not sure of exact genetics).

sorry in advance for the long first post, but hope it's all good details! :clap:

I snagged the clones from a local collective (changed it up from the first grow - had way too many issues with PM and bugs to not worry about the collective they came from). I had them under 24/0 CFL lights for about 5 weeks before I put them outside, and we're now into weeks 4 and 5 of flowering! And because I know I'll be asked - yes, I live i a south - facing apartment, and the girls get maybe 6-8 hours of direct sunlight a day, plus a few more of indirect.

I also topped 4 out of the 6 plants to try my hand at cloning, and the plants responded VERY positively to it! I wish I had done all 6! The only issue is some of the leaves in the bottom kind of getting blocked out by the leaf canopy above, but I've been rotating them and trying to help them out. I do have some holes drilled on top of most of the containers, so hypothetically I could take some string and train the plant, but honestly I guess I'm just lazy... I had fairly good success cloning - 3 out of 4 made it! Only 1 really took to the soil, and the other ones just kinda looked sad... I had to water the 1 good one, so I figured what the hell, might as well keep watering the pathetic ones, and after a while - HOLY MOLY they're growing! Awesome!

My major concern is the odor these badboys are gonna put out.... Last time I had 4 plants with 4 colas - now it's 6 plants with around 15 colas!! In the last weeks of the first grow, if the sliding door was open, the room in my apartment was CRAZY SMELLY. Awesome for yield, scary for apartment living - good thing a lot of people in my building are super old.

Running FFOF/LW/perlite soil mix with the FF trio of liquids (Grow Big, Tiger Bloom, and Big Bloom), as well as 2 of their soluables (went with Beastie Bloomz and Cha-Ching... i just didn't feel like shelling out the extra $ for 2 weeks of Open Sesame.. most people seemed to love the 2 i got and didn't see as many rave reviews on Sesame - hopefully i won't regret it). And of course I'm PH'ing the nute solution before I water.

I decided not to put them all out at once so I could manage the harvest a little better, but man, did that make my nutes schedule a little confusing. So much easier just knowing what week EVERY plant is and make sure they get the proper nutes. Won't be doing that again! GDP and LA Woman started a week later than the rest.

I have done zero for pest / mold prevention, and they're all still looking super great this far out. Last time they started crawling with stuff around now... I do have some Green Cure if it becomes a problem. Thought about neem, but then I didn't do anything about it, LOL....


Here are my pics - feedback is always welcome and appreciated! It's only my 2nd grow... hopefully, if all goes well, I will be able to sneak in grow cycle #3 this year too! In the picture of all 6 you can kind of see my set up.. they're just chilling on a blue tarp, and I blocked out the side with a brown tarp. Simple!
 
2011 spring all
Bhbubba1
Bhbubba2
2011 socal spring balcony grow 4
2011 socal spring balcony grow 5
Larryog1
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Lawoman1
Lawoman2
Madmanog1
Madmanog2
Sourkush01
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Clones
420Gator

420Gator

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They already look better bro. I'll be following this one hope u get some tighter nugs
 
mastacheeser

mastacheeser

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your kinda pushing the timeline on the flowering girls a lil. what you using for nutes? they should be getting a pretty diff regiment.
 
joeca1i

joeca1i

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start giving them lower daylight expose soon,or else they'll start to revege..
 
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balconyfun

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start giving them lower daylight expose soon,or else they'll start to revege..

thanks for the replies everyone!

thanks for the advice.... but how do i give them lower daylight exposure? and yes, i'm using the search engine now :) lol
 
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balconyfun

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your kinda pushing the timeline on the flowering girls a lil. what you using for nutes? they should be getting a pretty diff regiment.

I'm using Fox Farms nutes and following their flowering schedule.

I guess I dont understand what "pushing the timeline" means... I've read in SoCal you can get 3 or 4 grow cycles a year, and I did read a bunch of people saying stuff about moving indoors to outdoors, but I never saw anything really specific other than "it's trouble"... well, that, and you can do seeds in spring but not clones, and I didn't know why.... now I know!

also saw this while searching right now "Next year be sure to synch your light cycle before moving them outside. You really need to adjust/reduce the amount of light they are getting indoors slowly, until it matches up with the natural light cycle outdoors." will do.
 
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balconyfun

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bring em inside or cover em

if i'm in weeks 4 and 5, how much time should i shave off natural sunlight? and does the time it stays covered stay the same, or do i cover them longer as the weeks go by? i still haven't found much by searching... thanks for your help!
 
420Gator

420Gator

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ive never grown outside but from my understanding u wanna get to 12/12 just like inside
 
mastacheeser

mastacheeser

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pushing the timeline was just refering to you flowering when its really veg season. the key is 12 hours of darkness.
i think your stuck bringing them inside at about 6-7 every night, and putting them back out at 6-7 in the mourn or just sticking them back out an hour or more after sunset
SAME amount of light EVERY day, your target should be 12 hours light 12 hours dark

i think the seeds in the springtime refers to the extra couple weeks required to get seeds started. seeds you gotta germ and let go for a couple weeks before theyre strong and healthy. if you got good clones theyre ready to go asap
 
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balconyfun

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ive never grown outside but from my understanding u wanna get to 12/12 just like inside

ok, so the Equinox was March 20th, meaning the days are now getting more than 12 hours of sun everyday... so I'll just check out the sunrise / sunset times and cover them up at night whenever the 12 hour mark hits. I guess I then need to take the cover off in darkness so that it gets the morning light. Sounds like I need to go to Home Depot for another tarp and some 2x4s to make a crude tent LOL

Does it matter if they're in direct light for like 6-8 hours and then indirect light for the remaining 8-6 hours?

Again, thanks for the help. And if I don't get the best buds in the world, it's ok - the first grow sucked, but was still covered with trichs! I also have a vaporizer, so I can deal LOL
 
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balconyfun

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the key is 12 hours of darkness.
i think your stuck bringing them inside at about 6-7 every night, and putting them back out at 6-7 in the mourn or just sticking them back out an hour or more after sunset
SAME amount of light EVERY day, your target should be 12 hours light 12 hours dark

I'm in apartment living and don't really have the indoor space, but this seems so much easier than trying to cover them LOL. Maybe I can work something out. But then again, the balcony is pretty small so maybe a tent works.

thanks again
 
420Gator

420Gator

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theyll be ok with less direct light just less density but if u dont let em reveg like last time youll be good bro
 
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balconyfun

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Ok, so with some more research, I came across this thing that tells you how many hours of daylight you get at your latitude (http://astro.unl.edu/classaction/animations/coordsmotion/daylighthoursexplorer.html)

My plants finish between April 21 and May 8th. So according to that site, right now there is 12.5 hours of daylight. On April 21, there will be 13 hours of daylight. On May 8th, there will be 13.6 hours....

Will the extra hour to hour and a half really matter that much in the last 2 weeks?? Even if I vegged at 24/0?

The other thing about my last grow (and it being messed up) is that I didn't use all 3 of the Fox Farms liquids. For some reason I decided not to use Tiger Bloom, which obviously wasn't smart.

Sorry for my noobishness, but I thought that by putting them out a few weeks earlier and using all the nutes this time, that would have them turn out right. Thanks again for all your help! This forum is insanely helpful!
 
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balconyfun

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LOL the hyperlink in my post above got shortened to say "sexplorer.html" at the end LOL

made me laugh
 
mastacheeser

mastacheeser

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according to that site, right now there is 12.5 hours of daylight. On April 21, there will be 13 hours of daylight. On May 8th, there will be 13.6 hours....

ive been meaning to look this up thx
 
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balconyfun

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update:

Pics from

Day 40 of Sour Kush, Madman OG, Larry OG, and BH Bubba

Day 35 of GDP and LA Woman
 
BHBUbba01
Larry01
Madman0
Sourkush1
GDP01
LAWoman
Mogrow

Mogrow

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thems some healthy lookin plants balcony, looks like you might have timed it just right..
karma to yer balconyness.
 

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