I hear you. Outdoor growing is fun, at least for me.
As long as you have good airflow thru the plant, mold is not a concern, so defoliate when you're ready.
The nice part about my patio farm is I have easy access to electric so after foliar (and if there are still cooler nights later in flower) I just put a fan on them. Dry in an hour. With these autos they will be done way before botrytis season anyway but the next round will be finishing end of sep so that will help. Also i move them for rain. As far as the outside thing goes in general I just like the way they look out there they look natural and happy.
It does make me a little neurotic though, only about last night I was sitting watching TV and saw a moth land on one through the window. Went out there and killed it and washed down the leaf it landed on. I thought about hanging it next to the plant as a lesson to the other bugs.
I thought about starting a pipe dreams thread for everyone's best stoner fantasy about their plants or growing in general. I last one i had was a day dream about Rick and Morty style battlesuit that let me shrink down to thrip/spider mite/insert your favorite pest here size to rip their guts out.
Was thinking about this for my photo of the month submission but I can't decide on a caption. "have you guys noticed the fungus gnats are bugger this year?" or "i think we're gonna need a bigger glue trap" but idk the crowd here yet, if they're old enough to know Jaws.
Yeah if someone told me it wasn't a gnat I was going to tell them that I live right next to a nuclear plant and ask if they think that might be affecting anything.