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.