Hi Everybody!
I just started checking in on the forum after taking some time away. It is nice to see people helping each other constantly on here. For myself, I used to grow indoors with a 3x3 setup with led and t5 lights with a lot of success. Recently, I have had to grow outside in ZONE 5 climate. Needless to say, I have come across a number of challenges that I wanted to share with anyone interested. The timings are approximate but I can see visually or developmentally, these plants are 2-3 weeks slower than what I am used to seeing in an indoor grow. I have also germinated Mephistero strains indoors in the past but did not get to complete them so I am sure that these differences are environmental and not strain/breeder specific.
Here is my setup:
Strains
Mephisto Auto Ghost Toof x 3
Mephisto Auto Forum Stomper (FREEBIE!) x 1
Outdoor Grow Soil
Pro-Mix BX
CIL Compost with EW castings
Happy Frog Bat Guano
Earthworm castings - both home composted and purchased
Perlite
Feeding
Alaska Fish
Bio Bizz Fish
Bio Bloom
Ground Kelp
Grotek VitaMax
Grotek Monster Bloom
Week 0 to 3
The first 3 weeks of these were a bit stressful for me. The weather dropped to about 48 degrees farenheit in the evenings for these seedlings. The weather was not cooperating. Initially, I only planned to have one plant and to choose from the strongest of the two GTs that popped. Then as the weather warmed up on week 2 and week 3, I sprouted another Ghost Toof seed and then finally a Forum Stomper seed. My rationale was that, if these latter seeds avoided the cold then they will have a better start and possibly surpass the first two seeds in growth.
In comparison to growing indoors, the growth from the beginning was already very slow. The growth in the first 3 weeks was often observed in my indoor grows within the first week under a grow light. Currently, the plants are received a good amount of direct sunlight probably 10 hours daily. The growth has been steady and the nodes have been close together.
Week 4 -6
On week 4, I transplanted the first two into a 5 gallon fabric pot and 3 gallon nursery pot which no hiccups. The slow growth continued after transplant and there was thankfully no more stunting. Probably 3 or 4 sets of leaves at this point for the first two plants and the younger plants are still sprouting. Still not a lot of stretch and mainly vertical growth with really close nodes. I decided to transplant the Forum Stomper plant after the leaves reached the edges of the smaller pot closer to the end of week 4.
I saw early signs of pre-flowers on the older GTs. I transplanted the final Ghost Toof seed and shocked it. I did not dig the hole deep enough when preparing the new pot and the soil around the roots was really loose. I almost gave up at this point because I knew that the plant would be effected by the move. It was literally only 2/3 into the dirt and I knew it was irreversible at this point. Bad prep and rushing on my part. The next day, none of the leaves were responding to sunlight, but the day after, the higher leaves began to respond. On this week I decided to LST my plants. I am used to having longer branches to work with for LSTing but from how the plant was growing, it looked like vegging would not continue for much longer. So I am experimenting with this training, in the longer plants I staked them at an angle. For the forum stomper I am bending it down with only a few nodes developed.
Lessons So Far
Drainage
For some reason when I was mixing my soil, I forgot how important adding more perlite to the soil is. Especially when adding very dense, rich, moisture retaining compost. This was my first mistake and I can tell by how long it takes for the soil to dry up to my knuckle even in hot weather. I am watering once a week when I prefer to be able to water 2 or 3 times a week. In combination with rain, it has been more critical to get in the nutes that I want to feed during rainings or all ready for the single watering each week. Also the density is counter productive to root development.
Training
Training these has been strange because of the short height and slow growth. Having a lot of wind recently, it may have been good to stake the main stem as I can see relative to the height, the plants have put significant amount of energy in stabilizing with a thicker mainstem. In comparison to an indoor grow, I would likely see this stem thickness with more height. Indoor plants do not have the same intensity of wind to deal with, so they are able to use that for growth instead of girth I reckon.
Timing
I started these as early as I could really. But with the growth and development being 2/3 weeks behind what I am used to seeing, I wondering if they will finish in time before the Fall comes. I say that development is slow mainly because of lack of height, lack of stretching and late signs of pre-flowers I imagine it will not be an option to harvest as late as October because of the drop in temperature. The Summer will be intense but very short. So if other growers are giving this 14 weeks to finish, I imagine I will need a couple more at least.
Anaerobic Compost Tea
I started trying to do this, but because of the delay in the soil drying it really sat out in the sun for longer than I liked maybe 3-4 days. Without an air pump I do not think this is a wise choice. So moving forward I am just going to mix things (fish, guano, castings, nutes, kelp, molasses.... ) when watering rathering than letting it stew.
In conclusion, this has been a tense experience for me. I definitely miss having an indoor setup - now I realize how much of a luxury it is to have control over temperature, light timings, light angles... unfortunately I do not have a choice right now but I am lucky for a lot of reasons too. My outdoor setup is not covered so I have long hours of sunlight. I actually did not know I would be able to grow again when I got rid of my tent and lights so regardless of what my yield is I should be thankful.
Thank you for reading I will update in a couple of weeks if not sooner!
I just started checking in on the forum after taking some time away. It is nice to see people helping each other constantly on here. For myself, I used to grow indoors with a 3x3 setup with led and t5 lights with a lot of success. Recently, I have had to grow outside in ZONE 5 climate. Needless to say, I have come across a number of challenges that I wanted to share with anyone interested. The timings are approximate but I can see visually or developmentally, these plants are 2-3 weeks slower than what I am used to seeing in an indoor grow. I have also germinated Mephistero strains indoors in the past but did not get to complete them so I am sure that these differences are environmental and not strain/breeder specific.
Here is my setup:
Strains
Mephisto Auto Ghost Toof x 3
Mephisto Auto Forum Stomper (FREEBIE!) x 1
Outdoor Grow Soil
Pro-Mix BX
CIL Compost with EW castings
Happy Frog Bat Guano
Earthworm castings - both home composted and purchased
Perlite
Feeding
Alaska Fish
Bio Bizz Fish
Bio Bloom
Ground Kelp
Grotek VitaMax
Grotek Monster Bloom
Week 0 to 3
The first 3 weeks of these were a bit stressful for me. The weather dropped to about 48 degrees farenheit in the evenings for these seedlings. The weather was not cooperating. Initially, I only planned to have one plant and to choose from the strongest of the two GTs that popped. Then as the weather warmed up on week 2 and week 3, I sprouted another Ghost Toof seed and then finally a Forum Stomper seed. My rationale was that, if these latter seeds avoided the cold then they will have a better start and possibly surpass the first two seeds in growth.
In comparison to growing indoors, the growth from the beginning was already very slow. The growth in the first 3 weeks was often observed in my indoor grows within the first week under a grow light. Currently, the plants are received a good amount of direct sunlight probably 10 hours daily. The growth has been steady and the nodes have been close together.
Week 4 -6
On week 4, I transplanted the first two into a 5 gallon fabric pot and 3 gallon nursery pot which no hiccups. The slow growth continued after transplant and there was thankfully no more stunting. Probably 3 or 4 sets of leaves at this point for the first two plants and the younger plants are still sprouting. Still not a lot of stretch and mainly vertical growth with really close nodes. I decided to transplant the Forum Stomper plant after the leaves reached the edges of the smaller pot closer to the end of week 4.
I saw early signs of pre-flowers on the older GTs. I transplanted the final Ghost Toof seed and shocked it. I did not dig the hole deep enough when preparing the new pot and the soil around the roots was really loose. I almost gave up at this point because I knew that the plant would be effected by the move. It was literally only 2/3 into the dirt and I knew it was irreversible at this point. Bad prep and rushing on my part. The next day, none of the leaves were responding to sunlight, but the day after, the higher leaves began to respond. On this week I decided to LST my plants. I am used to having longer branches to work with for LSTing but from how the plant was growing, it looked like vegging would not continue for much longer. So I am experimenting with this training, in the longer plants I staked them at an angle. For the forum stomper I am bending it down with only a few nodes developed.
Lessons So Far
Drainage
For some reason when I was mixing my soil, I forgot how important adding more perlite to the soil is. Especially when adding very dense, rich, moisture retaining compost. This was my first mistake and I can tell by how long it takes for the soil to dry up to my knuckle even in hot weather. I am watering once a week when I prefer to be able to water 2 or 3 times a week. In combination with rain, it has been more critical to get in the nutes that I want to feed during rainings or all ready for the single watering each week. Also the density is counter productive to root development.
Training
Training these has been strange because of the short height and slow growth. Having a lot of wind recently, it may have been good to stake the main stem as I can see relative to the height, the plants have put significant amount of energy in stabilizing with a thicker mainstem. In comparison to an indoor grow, I would likely see this stem thickness with more height. Indoor plants do not have the same intensity of wind to deal with, so they are able to use that for growth instead of girth I reckon.
Timing
I started these as early as I could really. But with the growth and development being 2/3 weeks behind what I am used to seeing, I wondering if they will finish in time before the Fall comes. I say that development is slow mainly because of lack of height, lack of stretching and late signs of pre-flowers I imagine it will not be an option to harvest as late as October because of the drop in temperature. The Summer will be intense but very short. So if other growers are giving this 14 weeks to finish, I imagine I will need a couple more at least.
Anaerobic Compost Tea
I started trying to do this, but because of the delay in the soil drying it really sat out in the sun for longer than I liked maybe 3-4 days. Without an air pump I do not think this is a wise choice. So moving forward I am just going to mix things (fish, guano, castings, nutes, kelp, molasses.... ) when watering rathering than letting it stew.
In conclusion, this has been a tense experience for me. I definitely miss having an indoor setup - now I realize how much of a luxury it is to have control over temperature, light timings, light angles... unfortunately I do not have a choice right now but I am lucky for a lot of reasons too. My outdoor setup is not covered so I have long hours of sunlight. I actually did not know I would be able to grow again when I got rid of my tent and lights so regardless of what my yield is I should be thankful.
Thank you for reading I will update in a couple of weeks if not sooner!
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