Diary of a Tree Farmer in a farm town

[Lorlabelle]

Last summer was the first outdoor grow I took seriously. I had thrown some seeds into the ground the year before and they became trees before I knew it. I didn’t feed, top, trim, touch them and they grew beautifully. Last year I grew OG Kush and Pineapple Express girls outdoors and actually took care of them. Fed Roots Organics dry amendments, topped twice, lollipopped and carefully defoliated at the right times. the girls grew right in our beautiful, fertile, river valley soil. Surrounded by farms, I am very fortunate to have ideal microclimate conditions to grow big, beautiful trees. And being legal in my state, with two medical card holders in our house, I’m grateful to live here. My biggest issue is with wind. I lost two 9 foot plants in early flower last year to wind. This year I have a plan for that.

I have wanted to start a grow diary for a long time. I don’t have tons of time, but this grow seems like a good one to go into detail about. I transplanted eight 2.5 week old babies outside the day after Memorial Day. Generally considered the safe date around here to plant outside. They are from Atlas seeds, which I’ve never used before, but they all popped except two. I germinated 10. I have 2 Sour Cherry Diesel, 1 Cherry Lime Reserve, 2 Crazy Train, and 3 Green Apple Candy. I did a horrible thing on accident to the first round of seeds I tried to germinate. I left the heating pad on without checking that the probe was placed correctly and I cooked my seeds. So upset over that one.

This grow is going to be my diary grow. I’m in the middle of harvesting my indoor plants, I have 6 clones going strong from my purple trich plant, but this outdoor grow this year is what I’m focusing on in this diary. I prepped the soil with a light dressing of Roots Organics grow formula, bonemeal and blood meal, and a little bit of epsom salts, and turned the soil over afterwards. It’s been super rainy here so I haven’t had to worry about watering. I do have a drip irrigation system and I cover the ground around my plants with landscape fabric. I find it helps not only with weeds, but with dirt splash on the plants when it rains. I’m super excited about the strains I’ve got going this year, they’re all new to me as far as growing goes. They are 3 weeks old now. The pic below is one of my trees from last year. I’ll post pics of the garden now in the next post.

 

[Lorlabelle]

The weather has finally turned for the better, today was gorgeous, and just in time. The chilly rain has stunted my little girls. At almost a month old, they should be bigger. However, they appear healthy, and they are loving the heat and the sun that's finally arrived. I topped most of them today, they are small, but they have reached 5 nodes. This is spring has been cold and wet, not ideal for young cannabis plants. My only hope is that the exposure to the colder temps has made them a bit hardier. I scratched in a couple tablespoons of Roots Organics Uprising around the root areas today and watered it in slightly. I will feed them sparingly, unlike my indoor girls. This is my outdoor set-up late in the evening around sunset. It will look very different in 3 months!

 

[Suds.an.buds]

The weather has finally turned for the better, today was gorgeous, and just in time. The chilly rain has stunted my little girls. At almost a month old, they should be bigger. However, they appear healthy, and they are loving the heat and the sun that's finally arrived. I topped most of them today, they are small, but they have reached 5 nodes. This is spring has been cold and wet, not ideal for young cannabis plants. My only hope is that the exposure to the colder temps has made them a bit hardier. I scratched in a couple tablespoons of Roots Organics Uprising around the root areas today and watered it in slightly. I will feed them sparingly, unlike my indoor girls. This is my outdoor set-up late in the evening around sunset. It will look very different in 3 months!View attachment 2459256

Nice area you got there can’t wait to see how they finish

 

[Lorlabelle]

Nice area you got there can’t wait to see how they finish

Thanks, the different color fabric is making me a little crazy but I had to use up the black stuff I had first. I have 2 Sour Cherry Diesel, 1 Cherry Lime Reserve, 2 Crazy Train, and 3 Green Apple Candy. All from the same seed vendor. I’m eager to see how they do. Hoping for an extended summer.

 

[LoveGrowingIt]

Nice work! It's amazing how big these plants can grow.

 

[Lorlabelle]

The weather has been gorgeous the last two days and my girls are praying nicely. They just look happy. We put our irrigation in today and I mulched around the edges with the extra salt marsh hay from my veggie garden. Mulching with salt marsh hay seems to be an east coast phenomenon. The bales come from the coast and have very very few weed seeds, making it ideal for mulch. It isn’t cheap, because there’s quite a demand for it here and I always end up calling the garden centers several times to locate who has it. It’s available only during the very early summer. It looks like a soft bed lol. I mulched to keep dirt from splashing the leaves when it rains, to keep the weeds down around the periphery, and discourage certain insects. Also helps keep the soil from drying out too much. Here’s what it looks like today.

 

[Lorlabelle]

Finally getting the weather I need to allow my girls to thrive. Summer started off cold and rainy and they did not like it much and stagnated for a week or two. It's been 99-104 here the past few days and the sativas in my outside garden are loving it. This girl here is a Crazy Train. I topped the other day and will top again in about a week. The watering system is working perfectly, and usually I only have to use it a handful of times during the summer. It is time to scratch in some more Uprising, it's been about a week since I fed them. My nute schedule is vastly different and a lot lighter than the indoor girls.

My indoor harvest yielded roughly 4.5 oz per plant. Indoors I am ok with that for now. I'm hoping for a pound a plant outdoors this year like last year and the year before. I found some jars of bud from 2 years ago outdoor harvest and thought what the hell am I going to do with it. I am a chef by trade, but I am not super fond of edibles, although I can make them no problem. I don't like the unpredictability of edibles. There are too many variables involved in how it will affect me and it often either does nothing or just puts me to sleep. I can make some killer brownies or candies, but I don't like to eat my weed.

I want summer to last forever, but I also want my plants to mature like tomorrow ha ha.

 

[Lorlabelle]

They’re not trees yet, they’re more like big bushes, but I’m satisfied with the veg growth for this past month. I just came to check the growth against the last pics I posted and I’m pleased so far. Been using Roots Organics dry amendments and Lost Coast plant therapy for the bugs. We’ve had some rain, but it’s been hot, which my sativa-leaning strains are loving. I have had to run the irrigation system quite a lot more this year. They’re happy and loving the weather. I topped twice and did some trimming around the bottoms, but my outdoor plants I do not train like the indoor grows, and I do minimal interference. I have four different strains going and they are all about to start flowering. Probably have about 2 more months left before harvest, aiming for late September and hoping the first frost isn’t until October. Excited about this grow, these are some strains I’ve never tried growing, and 3 I’ve never smoked. I’ll post more pics soon.

 

[Lorlabelle]

 

[Galgrows]

Pat yourself on the back they are looking great.

 

[Lorlabelle]

Pat yourself on the back they are looking great.

Thanks!! They are loving this weather. Finally. Started off this summer cold and rainy. I can’t wait to see what I get out of this garden. Just hope fall is warmer later.

 

[Lorlabelle]

My girls are happy girls. They’re just starting to go into flower this past week. Getting bigger by the hour it seems. The tallest one is the Crazy Train, taller than me by a couple inches. I’m 5’5”. These are 4 different strains. I have 8 beautiful ladies. 2 Sour Cherry Diesel, 2 Crazy Train, 1 Cherry Lime Reserve, and 3 Green Apple Candy. I’ve accidentally posted the same pic twice, twice. I’ve been scratching in about a 1/4 of a cup of Roots Organics Uprising dry amendments around the base of each plant once a week. I’m switching over to the Roots Organics Bloom food as of this weekend. I don’t bother with calmag or anything fancy. I might add a bit of Sonic Bloom to the Roots food this year to see if it gets me bigger buds.

I’ve tested my soil with an at home kit and it’s pretty healthy, but I’d love to have our local university agriculture program test it more in depth and get a better idea of how to prepare it next year. Costs a bit too much at the moment, and also, so far this fertile riverbed soil has proven itself year after year.

I’ve turned on the watering system once or twice this summer, but mostly we’ve gotten plenty of rain. I’m using Lost Coast plant therapy to control the little bit of insect invasion I’ve had. It’s not cheap, but it’s very effective and you can use it right up until harvest. I have very very minor leaf damage, very little bug action overall. I found two lady bugs on the girls today, that’s a nice sight.

The heat this year is doing wonderful things to these sativa leaning strains. They got a slow start with a very cold and wet beginning of the summer, but the weather has switched and it’s been heatwave after heatwave since the middle of June. I can’t wait to see what these plants produce. Last year I got close to 10 lbs off 8 plants. I’m hoping for a similar harvest this year. I’m thinking about having a trimming party when the time comes. The Black Eyed Susans are a giant wall of flowers along the outside of one side of the “cage”, as I call it. They just looked especially vibrant tonight.

I have those six clones indoors going strong. They’ve gotten huge. It’s almost time to flip them.


Thanks for reading!! Happy gardening!

 

[Lorlabelle]

New entry: a little over a month since the last pics. Having a bit of trouble with low nitrogen of all things. Had some prematurely yellowing fan leaves in the lower middle of some of the plants, so I tested the soil again and found it to be low in nitrogen. I amended with about 10 lbs blood meal and 5 lbs bonemeal, raked it into the top layer of soil, watered it in a few times. My little grow spot is roughly 500 square feet. We’ve had almost no rain for over a month, significant drought here, water bans and all.

The crazy trains are doing awesome. The cherry lime reserve is really nice too. My sour cherry diesels are suffering from the nitrogen levels a bit more than the others, and budding and stacking nicely, but the flowers are a bit smaller than I’d like so far. Most of them have about another 3-4 weeks, the green apple candy needs even longer. Just praying no frost anytime soon. Forecast for the foreseeable future is very favorable. Wow that was a lot of f’s.

Just thought I’d post a few pics from today and this past week, so I can compare the progress of these girls to the last post. These are all bud pics taken today. Getting nice and frosty. I haven’t taken many of the whole garden lately. The last pic is the most recent of the whole thing, it was taken a few days ago.