Frisian Dew & Biddy Early - UK

[Cannaculture]

I've been slack getting this thread going but better late than never.

So, I've got 3 Frisian Dews ( Dutch Passion) and 2 Biddy Early (Serious Seeds) outside in my garden. Both Biddys and one Frisian are in the ground, the remaining Frisians are in pots.

The ground I prepared earlier in the year. I dug a thrench and filled with compost from a garden centre, fish meal, bone meal and bat guano then left it for a week or two to settle down. Whilst this was happening I was getting all five plants going under a 400w hps.

Once they'd all got to about 1ft, I put them outside during the days, bringing them back in at night, getting them used to the outdoors. We've had a pretty cold start to our year so didn't want to shock the hell out of them by putting them straight from the nice confines of a tent into the harsh realities of an English "summer".

Around the beginning of April though I transplanted them all to their final homes. I think the bed I'd prepared for three of them was still a bit hot when I planted them as they all showed signs of burn. However, after a week or so, and some hard rain, they recovered and turned a vibrant green.

As of today, they all seem to be thriving. The Frisian in the ground seems to be growing like Jack's beanstalk, it just keeps reaching for the sky whilst the 2 Biddys in with it are growing out nicely into rounded bushes. I did prune and top the Biddys early in their life though.

Owing to some strong winds, I had a couple of incidents that could have been nasty. My tall Frisian almost snapped in half! Luckily for me it wasn't a complete break and there was still tissue connected so I was able to tie it back together and as of today it's holding firm!

One Biddy almost came out of the ground all together and one of the other Frisians in the pots lost an entire limb. All in all, not ideal, but I got away with it. Now all the girls are reinforced with bamboo and are standing up strong against the forces of nature.

Given that i'm a complete tit in a trance I have no pictures of these in the ground/pots early on in their lives, however these ones below are from around mid-late May so they've had about a month and a half outdoors by this stage.



Incase the photo names don't come out when you look at them the order is like this - 2 Biddys, Frisian 1, Frisian 2 (pot), Frisian 3 (pot)

 

[Kebz]

Nice work, cc. The UK has had some pretty poor weather for outdoor growing but regardless of that and nature trying its best to 'toughen up the girls', you got some nice looking plants there.

 

[Cannaculture]

Thanks Kebz, all seems healthy so far. I just hope the sun shines a bit more than last year and that the rain isn't so persistent!

So, a bit of an update from the pictures posted last. This latest round were taken a couple of days ago. Since the previous we've had a spell of nice hot sunny weather which has recently turned cooler bringing with it some rain. During the hot spell I was able to feed them a couple of times with some basic NPK nutes.

Perhaps i'm wrong with this but I don't get in there and feed them when there is rain about. I wait until it's been dry a few days and then hit them with the feed coupled with a nice drink. They seem to really respond to this as hopefully you'll be able to see -

Same order as before, Biddy 1 and 2, then my Frisian that's in the bed and then one of the potted Frisians.



Sorry these photos look a bit washed out only they're taken with my phone just as the light was beginning to wane.

 

[noobynubert]

frisian dew has such a unique smells and taiste, one of the first strains i tried when i started smoking(still one of my fav) , its grows monster in northern mi's climate

 

[Cannaculture]

frisian dew has such a unique smells and taiste, one of the first strains i tried when i started smoking(still one of my fav) , its grows monster in northern mi's climate

Funny you say that as my uncle smelled them the other day and said they reminded him of something he hadn't smelled in years! And in a good way!

I hope they don't get too monster otherwise i'm gonna have to do something drastic to keep them from prying eyes.

 

[wiggles]

looking real nice canna, how long have they been growing for? they look very well acclimated, nice fat leaves and not too leggy. hope mine get as bushy as yours soon, think they really take of when they can get that tap root down.
il be watching with allot of interest now mate. ps love the profile pic of nancy, weeds is brilliant :)

 

[Cannaculture]

looking real nice canna, how long have they been growing for? they look very well acclimated, nice fat leaves and not too leggy. hope mine get as bushy as yours soon, think they really take of when they can get that tap root down.
il be watching with allot of interest now mate. ps love the profile pic of nancy, weeds is brilliant :)

Thanks Wiggles! I've had them outside since early April but gave them a few weeks in a tent before that to get them going. They did start out a bit leggy and I worried that they were just going to turn into long spindley things but to my surprise they have definitely bushed out over this past month and a bit. The Frisian in the bed still looks like it wants to get tall though.

Yeah, gotta love Nancy, and Weeds, even if it is a bit of a cliche to have her as your avatar. I'm going to get around to changing it soon, just haven't found anything to inspire me yet.

 

[Cannaculture]

Ok, just a small update on my outdoor progress. Not a lot of change since the last update except this time I took some better pictures and got some of the damage they suffered.

All seem quite happy. Gave them a full dose feed on tuesday with some Canna Vega. I'm not really wanting to give them too many nutes so just going to keep it all simple and add things one at a time for different grows. In flower I'll just switch up to the Canna Flores and I was given a bottle of Big Bud - Advanced Nutrients I believe - so will use that during certain weeks once in bloom.

Bit concerned Frisian 1 is going to get too tall. Ordinarily i'd start to train them down and out but because of the split in the stem i'm worried about further damage. I'll play it by ear, but just worry it will get too tall before I think it's strong enough to bend down. This is what it looks like -

I guess I got lucky because, as you can see above, the plant nearly snapped in two. Fortunately I saw it early and it wasn't entirely severed. Also, one of my potted Frisians lost a limb (pictured below) in the same winds. A lesson in staking early if ever there was one!

Any suggestions or input on this would be greatly received.



Thanks for stopping by.

 

[Kebz]

Hey CC, I can see the girls have been enjoying the bit of sun we've had. Good job on saving the one with the split stem and with the girls in general, they seem happy. If your worried about the height of the plant i'd consider fimming. I like the technique as it encourages bushy growth like topping just seems like the plants recover slightly quicker. Unlike lst'ing it wouldn't affect the split main stem.

 

[Cannaculture]

Hey CC, I can see the girls have been enjoying the bit of sun we've had. Good job on saving the one with the split stem and with the girls in general, they seem happy. If your worried about the height of the plant i'd consider fimming. I like the technique as it encourages bushy growth like topping just seems like the plants recover slightly quicker. Unlike lst'ing it wouldn't affect the split main stem.

Kebz, thanks for the advice. FIMing is one of those things i've seen talked about here and there over the years but never bothered to look into. I topped some of my indoor ones as I new the sort of growth this would encourage but this FIM sounds preferable, especially if you think they recover faster.

Will be cutting that new growth forthwith! Thanks again.

 

[wiggles]

wow man, your garden is looking amazing, so much growth already! should be updating my diary on thursday when i get a break from work. man im getting excited for having some nice big ganja bushes, wont have to worry so much about bugs. loving your bushes mate really looking healthy and smelly :)

 

[Cannaculture]

Thanks Wiggles ... yeah they're really starting to thrive now! We've had a bit of rain and then some blazing sunshine at the latter end of this week. I fed them once since the last update and I think there's been a noticable amount of growth.

 

[wiggles]

looking good mate, bushing out nicely, you gonna top them?

 

[Cannaculture]

looking good mate, bushing out nicely, you gonna top them?

Thanks again Wiggles.

I'm in two minds still in regards to topping. I'm only going to top my Frisian I have in the ground, if I do it at all, as this has the most potential to get away from me.

I checked a table for daylight hours and according to that light here doesn't go down towards 12 hours until getting on for the end of September. If that's the case these girls have the best part of another 3 months to veg!!

Thinking on it, that means I can give it plenty more time to heal the split so that maybe I will be able to train it after all.

 

[wiggles]

you think our plants can veg till september? i usualy get pistrels around late august. im not gonna top atall, i like me some christmas trees :) would like to d some training to, got this little plant that isnt keeping up with the other ten, so might just put it through some stress :)

 

[Cannaculture]

you think our plants can veg till september? i usualy get pistrels around late august. im not gonna top atall, i like me some christmas trees :) would like to d some training to, got this little plant that isnt keeping up with the other ten, so might just put it through some stress :)

Truth is, I don't know. The reason I said that was because I looked up a calender for daylight hours in the UK and it doesn't start getting to 12 hours of light a day until around the middle/end of September. Because indoor growers use the 12/12 light schedule to induce flowering I just assumed it'd work the same way.

The fact that you usually see flowers earlier than that though is a comforting thought. Obviously an outdoor grow doesn't work to the same priciples that our indoor farmers do.

As for your runt of the litter, give that training a go. It increased my yield last year for certain and whilst you lose the christmas tree effect, the added bud sites you create more than compensate for it in my mind!

 

[wiggles]

Truth is, I don't know. The reason I said that was because I looked up a calender for daylight hours in the UK and it doesn't start getting to 12 hours of light a day until around the middle/end of September. Because indoor growers use the 12/12 light schedule to induce flowering I just assumed it'd work the same way.

The fact that you usually see flowers earlier than that though is a comforting thought. Obviously an outdoor grow doesn't work to the same priciples that our indoor farmers do.

As for your runt of the litter, give that training a go. It increased my yield last year for certain and whilst you lose the christmas tree effect, the added bud sites you create more than compensate for it in my mind!

i think outside the plants get this natural preset and they know the deal, they are in suboptimal condidtions and they cant just sway in the cool breeze with 30 digree heat all day, its wet and cold alot so they grow accordingly. i think if we got an entire summer of amazing hot weather they would flower later as i have seen bushes in hotter countries that don't need to finish because winter never comes.

i will train the hell out of it, make a nice little stem spiral like my friend did one year.

 

[Cannaculture]

i think outside the plants get this natural preset and they know the deal, they are in suboptimal condidtions and they cant just sway in the cool breeze with 30 digree heat all day, its wet and cold alot so they grow accordingly. i think if we got an entire summer of amazing hot weather they would flower later as i have seen bushes in hotter countries that don't need to finish because winter never comes.

i will train the hell out of it, make a nice little stem spiral like my friend did one year.

I hope that is the case. I'm going to have to keep a close eye on them to try and see when they do flip as I didn't pay enough attention last year to things like that.

You should definitely make that spiral!! You can then start a whole new section on here about cannabis topiary.

The weather is meant to be blazing over the weekend so here's to some great growing weather!

 

[wiggles]

I hope that is the case. I'm going to have to keep a close eye on them to try and see when they do flip as I didn't pay enough attention last year to things like that.

You should definitely make that spiral!! You can then start a whole new section on here about cannabis topiary.

The weather is meant to be blazing over the weekend so here's to some great growing weather!

yeah man we can have an LST show down! im gonna go break my youthful back tomorrow and get all the plants in the ground. luckily i got alot of rain yesterday so the plants got a good drink for the transplant tomorrow. look out for an update on my diary coz its about to get serious :)

 

[Cannaculture]

yeah man we can have an LST show down! im gonna go break my youthful back tomorrow and get all the plants in the ground. luckily i got alot of rain yesterday so the plants got a good drink for the transplant tomorrow. look out for an update on my diary coz its about to get serious :)

Good stuff Wiggles!! Looking forward to seeing them all relocated. I bloody hate digging so I don't envy your task but it'll be so worth the effort when they start thriving and reaching for the sky in a couple of weeks!

The weather is meant to be staying nice and sunny too for the next week so if you can get up there and water them in they should establish nice and quick.