Why did my plants grow so slowly?

[greencrackdealer]

i grew 8 Blue Cookies bag seed and it was my first grow. Right now they are halfway through flowering. The only problems I encountered were lots of bugs (esp. caterpillars) eating leaves like crazy. I grew them outside. They were not fed for the first month and a half. Also did not fill soil all the way to top of 3 gal pots. Yet they are still each 1 1/2-3 ft tall with not a lot of nodes. Kind of like an autoflower. What exactly happened? They have very healthy leaves which are all a nice tone of green and don’t droop/curl. But I know I fucked up a lot, just need some perspective on what actually made the grow so slow.

 

[Hugo Phurst]

I'm not an outdoor grower, but lack of soil sounds like it may have been a factor.

My cousin grew her first outdoor crop, none of her plants were over 4ft and not bushy.
IMO, her problem was lack of direct sun and the wrong soil.
Killer smoke though.

 

[TacoMac]

Stress.

Bugs, you didn't feed them, not enough soil...

Sounds like you didn't even try to help them at all. That's going to net you bad results every single time.

 

[jordanwh]

i grew 8 Blue Cookies bag seed and it was my first grow. Right now they are halfway through flowering. The only problems I encountered were lots of bugs (esp. caterpillars) eating leaves like crazy. I grew them outside. They were not fed for the first month and a half. Also did not fill soil all the way to top of 3 gal pots. Yet they are still each 1 1/2-3 ft tall with not a lot of nodes. Kind of like an autoflower. What exactly happened? They have very healthy leaves which are all a nice tone of green and don’t droop/curl. But I know I fucked up a lot, just need some perspective on what actually made the grow so slow.

3 gallon pots for outdoor plants sounds very, very small. Not sure the exact problem but I would start with larger pots.