Countryfarmer's outdoor grow

Noballs said:

Nice plants. What is the white stuff on the leaves?

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Bt powder. It has a sticking agent that is not present in the liquid version allowing me to go longer between applications. Also, from what I have read, the liquid version is more susceptible to being broken down by sunlight than the powder version, usually only being effective for 72 hours before needing to be reapplied.

veggiegardener said:

Beautiful plants and pix!

Diatomacious earth?

You're going to be very happy!

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I hope so my friend. Lots of work involved to get to where I am at right now (as if I need to tell you that). When both plant sexing and predation had reduced me to the three plants I have now, I was hopeful that I would garner 24 ounces or so out of the three plants. With all the weight that is now present on them and roughly another four weeks of flowering left to go I am beginning to think I may get a dry weight harvest of around a pound per plant. Just amazing how fast the bud sites grow during flowering.

Wow Country... Really nice pics of a really nice grow. I'm beginning to think mine will not be nearly as big of buds as you are getting, but then I'm in WI. No wonder all the good smoke has always come from CA.

filmore said:

Wow Country... Really nice pics of a really nice grow. I'm beginning to think mine will not be nearly as big of buds as you are getting, but then I'm in WI. No wonder all the good smoke has always come from CA.

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Your buds will not be as bif Filmore because the sturcture of the plant is rather small from being in the basket.It will be dank tho I bet

I'm not in CA Filmore. I am in the heart of the deep south.

Well, the vicissitudes of outdoor growing have struck yet again.

Lots of rain here the last few days, so even though it was still sprinkling I took myself out to the grow site. The Big Bud plant, so heavy with bud that she was already leaning a bit at the top colas, was shattered. One of the top colas was laying on the ground, and the other was bent over. I knew I should have added an additional length of support to her staking system and have only myself to blame. Luckily I had brought along some duct tape, so I went to work on her and salvaged what I could. I lost about a quarter pound of wet weight and do not know if the surgery job I did on her can save that part of the plant, but we shall see.

The smaller of the two unknown mexican-strain plants also was shattered. If anything she was in worse shape than the Big Bud as hers occurred on the main stem. No idea why that stem broke as it was tied off to a stake support, but it did. I did some surgery on her as well, taping and adding another stake that I took out of my deer fence. I lost about an ounce wet weight from her, along with some minor stems that had popcorn bud on them. No idea if she will live or not, or if the buds will continue to mature or not. Significant damage done to her, but I will just have to wait and see. She may end up getting harvested much to early. If so I guess I will just use the entire plant to make hash with.

The other unknown mexican-strain, the hardier of the three, is a bit sad looking carrying all of that water weight, but she is holding up fine and the sun is supposed to be out with blue skies tomorrow and for the rest of the week.

Just deflated right now, but all you can do is the best that you can and try to take away a lesson or two in the process.

Oh crap country... man that sucks so bad. If the fix does not work then I'm almost positive the resin glands will ripen up anyway. Those are some beautiful plants.

potpimp said:

Oh crap country... man that sucks so bad. If the fix does not work then I'm almost positive the resin glands will ripen up anyway. Those are some beautiful plants.

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Another storm front rolled through this evening with some high gusts of wind, so I took myself back out to the grow site to see how the plants are holding up. I really don't like going out there this frequently, especially with the surrounding vegetation dying off, but I felt as if I had to ensure they were riding out the high winds.

All three plants are still weighted down pretty heavily with moisture, but it appears as if the duct tape is doing the job and keeping the broken sections of the two plants together. My adding additional staking support seems to have helped a lot as well. I just hope that both of the damaged plants recover, but only time will tell. Worst case scenario, I have to harvest one of the large colas off of the Big Bud and most of the unknown strain plant. If so, they become hash.

Keep your fingers crossed for me that the plants decide to repair themselves and continue to ripen.

Sure that makes sense. I am so excited about the whole experience and the buds have a wonderful smell to them.

Bummer Country... So happy that the sun is supposed to shine all week, no rain here. Frost though. I was sure worried about mine too last week. I like the idea of making hash, but have never tried it. Guess I'll do some reading on it. Hope your harvest is safe from here on out.

Ok, once again back out to the site. Even though I don't like going out there this often, I had to check to see if the damaged plants were at least maintaining their hold on life.

It appears as if my duct taping/staking has kept the damaged sections of plants alive, so that makes me extremely happy. The two that were damaged look like they have been in a fight with all the tape and staking, but as long as they make it to harvest I am happy.

Speaking of harvest, I am beginning to wonder if any of these plants will ever completely ripen. They have been flowering now for 52 days, and none of them are showing any signs of being ready any time soon. All of them are indica dominant, with the two unknown mexican-strain plants appearing to be even more of a dominant indica hybrid than the Big Bud, if not pure indicas. I would expect them to be ready to harvest after flowering from 50 to 65 days, but how they look at this point I doubt that they will be ready even at the high end of that estimate. Very strange, and it has me beginning to be concerned about a hard frost, which usually arrives in mid to late October in my area.

I think your plants will finish easily.

Some indicas will finish in a few days, unlike most sativas, that can go for months, almost done.

I learned about supporting plants the first time I had a successful grow.

One plant, that I first tied down and then shortly after, had to tie up.

There are many ways to accomplish support. I use twine in the cage, and remesh in the green houses.

Several t-posts around the plant with twine looped around, every foot or so will usually do the trick of keeping buds off the ground.

I use bailing wire hooks to tie up stray branches as they appear.

a little foresight will help provide a little extra ventilation, by using the supports to space your buds.

My last update shows how this looks in the cage.

You'll need to watch for mold with your rain issues, but overall, I'm betting you'll get over 3 pounds.

Two years ago, a friend, and first time grower, got 7 pounds from four indicas, that looked similar to yours.

If the broken branches begin to wilt, misting would help, but that would mean basically camping at your grow.

damn, i wanna see a pic of the duct tape job. i love that shit.

Well Iv also heard that the Indicas will ripen in no time.My buddy does La con and that shit will flip fast.You should have no problem finishing the heavy indicas before frost

Countryfarmer said:

Ok, once again back out to the site. Even though I don't like going out there this often, I had to check to see if the damaged plants were at least maintaining their hold on life.

It appears as if my duct taping/staking has kept the damaged sections of plants alive, so that makes me extremely happy. The two that were damaged look like they have been in a fight with all the tape and staking, but as long as they make it to harvest I am happy.

Speaking of harvest, I am beginning to wonder if any of these plants will ever completely ripen. They have been flowering now for 52 days, and none of them are showing any signs of being ready any time soon. All of them are indica dominant, with the two unknown mexican-strain plants appearing to be even more of a dominant indica hybrid than the Big Bud, if not pure indicas. I would expect them to be ready to harvest after flowering from 50 to 65 days, but how they look at this point I doubt that they will be ready even at the high end of that estimate. Very strange, and it has me beginning to be concerned about a hard frost, which usually arrives in mid to late October in my area.

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Harvested main colas today, you may want to do the same. Had some bud rot thanks to 10" + rains from TS Hermaine. Finally got control of the fan leaf drop with massive doses of N foods the last few weeks. Colas have very short pistils, super fruity bubble gum smell, resinous, now hanging in my wine cellar curing. It's my C99 backcross. More to come that's left in the field to finish. Like an apple, take 'em when they're ready.

Tomato cages worked great.

Your plants will finish. If you're gettting 80% brown pistil, 20% fresh, plump calyxes, it's time to take some of the best colas out.

Have fun,
UB

Here are some new pics of the plants and the bud sites. I took shots of some of the areas wrapped by duct tape.

The smaller of the two unknown mexican-strain plants is not filling out its bud sites even though the pistils are beginning to change color and recede. If it finishes up with just small popcorn clusters of bud I am not going to go through the effort of hand trimming it and will just use the entire plant to make hash with.

The larger of the two unknown mexican-strain plants is probably my nicest looking plant, with full, cone-shaped bud sites that have a nice skunky, spicy scent to them. This plant also appears to have the gene for purple coloration, as all of the bud sites are showing a nice purple hue.

The Big Bud plant is just really sad looking. Today I noticed that the main stem, right above where it is coming out of the ground has split almost in half. Tomorrow I will go out to the site and wrap that stem in wire to help keep the split from expanding.

At this point I will just be happy to have this harvest over and done with.

Lookin' really good Country.

Thanks guys. I'm pretty happy with how they are looking collectively, even with all of the grafting and duct tape.

I spent a couple of hours working at the site today. I wanted to do an in-depth inspection of each plant since we had had so much rain here recently. I found one small popcorn bud on the Big Bud plant that had all the signs of bud rot, so I clipped it and threw it away. The other buds around that bud site look and feel fine, but I will keep an eye on them. I think I clipped my bud rot problem really early though.

I did find two small bud worms in my detailed inspection. One was already dead and the other appeared to be dying. Other than that, no sign of worms. It appears as if the Bt regimen is working to keep me free of any significant worm problem. I can not recommend it enough. Completely organic and almost 100% effective in controlling bud worms before they become an issue.

I was extremely concerned about bud worms as up until just this last week my site always had brown moths and various butterflies. I have not noticed them as much this week, although some are still present. I am going to probably do one or two more Bt applications before harvest.

I spent some time re-taping the broken sections of my plants. I also spent some time today fixing the break at the low part of the big bud.

Grafting and duct tape to the rescue yet again! This plant now has two 7' stakes and four 5' stake supports. I also had to do a little sling work to one unstaked bud branch in order to give it more support. This plant is certainly a producer.

While I was doing my inspection, I spent some time testing the strength of the branches on the three ladies, and shaking them a little to aid in drying. I had just shaken the largest of the two unknown strain plants and stepped away when I heard a "crack", and turned back in time to see a large branching section of the plant slowly fall to the ground.



So I run over to the plant and see that while it is bad, it is fixable. So more time splinting, staking, wrapping and taping and this plant is now fine. I also added another stake to its support for a branch of roughly the same size.

I have no idea what this strain is, as the seed came from a bag of mexican brick, but it may be outproducing the big bud strain. It is definitely more of an indica dominant plant than the big bud, although the big bud is a primarily indica hybrid.

The runt of the group is looking very sad after its splinting from a couple of days ago. The branch that broke on this plant is wilting and I noticed dead sun leaves. I believe it to simply be in shock as it was not a complete break. But it may cause that section of the plant to ripen differently than the rest of the plant.

This third plant I am simply not impressed with. It is definitely of the same type of strain as the other bag seed plant, but the leaves are more slender and lighter in coloration.

The bud sites are growing as popcorn clusters, and to be honest I may not even attempt to trim this plant. I may simply use it, along with my trimmings from the other two, to make myself some bubble hash.

And there is my update for today. All of the plants are still healthy. They look as if they have been in fights with all of the wrapping, taping and staking, but that is a good problem to have I guess. Means my bud sites are getting heavy as shit.

i took a good beating from the rain the past few days, too.. made her way up here in the NE. it seems that my bubba kush had really hardy stems and could easily handle the weight of the colas, the hollands hope plant was very weak and bendy, but at least they didnt seem hard enough to crack, still pretty bendy... the buds weigh so much the main cola was horizontal :/ and the super lemon haze plant[twin towers] was sompletely sideways but shes doing fine and should pop up tomorrow in the sun..

god luck my friend. cant wait to see your harvest!