plants always stay small

[ralph20]

Greetings. I have been trying to cultivate outdoors in my balcony for the past three years. I live in southern europe and my balcony gets a lot of light during spring and summer seasons, the heat being around 28-35 degrees most of the summertime. I always use medium to large pots, typical soil for plant growing and I try to water enough so that the upper soil is not dried out in the surface, normally some water every two days. I use fertilizers, according to directions, more nitrogen in the vegetative phase and less during the flowering phase. I have tried different seeds, from plain feminized to autoflowering etc. Last time I measured also the pH of the soil with pH paper, it was about 6-6.5.
My problem is always the same, the plant always stays small, it never gets to grow in size and bud quantity, in the end I get a very small amount of buds that are neither quite potent.
I am about to buy new seeds and try again this year.
Can you please give me any clues on what could it be that I do wrong? You can understand my frustration, going through all the process of buying the seeds and cultivating just to get nothing out of it.
Thank you for your time and advice beforehand.

[Canuck147]

Clue #1 - you say no matter what you grow they stay small - leads me to one thing. Roots - I am guessing you had no perlite or aerating of any kind before. Get some - perlite or vermiculite - maybe even a fabric pot.

After germination I grow my roots - happy roots leads to big buds.

If your plants roots were held back before it would lead to a small plant. Roots love oxygen.

ralph20 - and welcome to this forum.

[ralph20]

Hey thanks so much for responding sooo fast! Yes, you are right, I always have small roots and I unfortunately never managed to get some perlite, although I searched for it. But then I thought that the small quantity the soil I buy already has would be enough..Maybe this is why all my plants stay relatively small!
You think the fabric pot would be better?
Thanks so much for your advice, hope this time I get better results

[SoOrbudgal]

Hello ralph20 welcome to the forum. perlite or vermiculite both excellent for help with drainage. A light fluffy soil for new seedlings will help much with your roots, they love it and grow quickly. Please tell us if you want about your pots and are you growing outdoors fully or bringing them indoors to a tent and a light ? If we can help just ask away, good luck

[gbauto]

Agreed. I had the same issue when I attempted an outdoor grow. My native 'soil' is really clay and rocks and turns into concrete after it dries. The plant really struggled and when I harvested it, the root ball was really small. Next season, I amended with a bunch of organic material to help aeration and viola, they grew normally.

Moral of the story-get some better soil.

[Canuck147]

Search again for the perlite and have about 30% mix.

[HighDesertRat]

Sounds like you may be overwatering a bit too...

[ralph20]

Hello again. I took your advice this year and bought perlite and one fabric pot just for the test.
Can you help me now please, I began to grow my plants outdoors again, some autoflowering and some normal feminized seeds. I've come to this point where they are well in their vegetavive phase. I do however see they are not very well, today I found two leaves in one being all dried out. Another one is beginnin to show yellow spots.
What is the problem? Is it disease and how to deal with it?
Hey thanks for your time again

[PRIMO]

It looks to me like your soil is to wet, you need to let them dry out completely before watering again glad you found perlite, use more. If you drill a bunch of holes in your plastic pots it would help. Getting some fabric pots would help more. Lift a pot full of dry soil and use what that feels like to judge when to water. pinch the tops off to get more bud sites and promote growth.

[ralph20]

Ok, this is an update to get your feedback so I actually see if I did anything correct.. I did use perlite and drill holes in my pot. I grow outdoors in my south facing balcony, there's plenty of light but direct sunlight on the plants from about 1-4 in the afternoon.
I grew an autoflowering seed and this is how the plant came out eventually, after about 2 months.


I watered with water at pH=6 about once per week when the soil would be dry and added advancednutrient fertilizers.
Again neither the root neither the plant grew that much.


Would you please comment and advice on whatever you can? Is the light, oxygen reaching the roots too little? Did i trim well before it goes to dry out?
Thanks for your time

[Covid420]

What soil are you using? Are you adding any microbial nutrients for root health?

[Rwise]

Yes products such as Voodoo Juice will certainly help the root system, more roots, more tops, more bigger buds!

[Rwise]

The root shows issues, that bent tap root is a problem. I had 3 plants do that this year, all 3 were dudes.
How much perlite to soil? (I used 30-50%, but have found it kills earth worms so its gone after this grow)
What is the soil? She looks to have been a tad hot on nutes and not enuf light. Autos like 16+ hours a day of direct light. The photos need more than 3 hours direct light as well. More direct light, bigger plant, more buds.
Raise the PH to 6.5 also.
Oh ya, IMHO
Medium pot = 20 gallons
Large pot = 65+ gallons
LOL

[ralph20]

I added voodoo juice, yes..I would say perlite about 30%, maybe less. But the drainage was ok, watering once per week was enough for the soil to totally dry out. The soil was ordinary flowering plant soil. I did try to follow a full schedule of nutrient supply (voodoo juice, b52, etc.) hoping that this would help the plant flourish..

[Covid420]

Does the soil have "time released" fertilizer? If so get rid if it. If looking for something affordable go promix. Use for seedlings at least then when 3 or 4 sets of leaves. Pot up in some ocean forest. Want 3-4 transplants. Roots grow faster better harder stronger in smaller pots. Making them a little bit bigger each transplant

[ralph20]

Covid420 but with autoflowering ones you cannot change pots, that's what I've read. I've actually tried in the past to transplant a seedling of an auto to a larger pot and it died..

[Covid420]

You can but you have to be delicate. Starting cube into small pot into last pot is probably best. As long as you're not damaging tap root and not stressing them anymore after transplanting.