Looking for outdoor growing advice

[Tfogoman]

Good day to you. I am an outdoor grower looking for sound advice for my future grows. I have been growing outdoors in my organic garden for 3-years now. Most fem strains are doing well delivering great yields and what I consider reasonably high THC amounts. This is in consideration of liver synthesis vs. lung. I grow to make edibles not to smoke. Although I don't have a benchmark, I'm assuming that my autoflower strains (1st try this season) did well. I live in growing zone 6, grow in 15 gallon containers, make my own soil, and feed with Dr. Jim'z Chicken Soup for the soil. My sun, rain, wind, and heat environment is exceptional. I grow among my sun flowers, pole beans and other veggies that cycle through the growing area. I don't use any growing techniques other than mother nature.

Any insight will be appreciated...

[ductwizard]

what is your question?

[crucialbunny]

You and I sound very similar in regard to growing organic. I'm in Southern California and began growing weed again about 10 years ago. When I re-started after a 20 year hiatus I did a great deal of research and dove headfirst into buying all of the whizbang nutrients and high end packaged soils and for a number of years I found myself often overcooking my soil and chasing PH constantantly and had some less than desired harvests. When I grew back in the late 70's early 80's it was so simple. I would dig a hole, put a fish in it, cover it with backyard dirt, plant a seed and water. So, about 6 years ago I decided to go back to my roots (bad pun) and began creating my own soils and growing in 30 gallon cloth bags on my balcony. I started a worm bin and with that and natural compost I make I have ended up with a very balanced organic living soil. My resulting grows improved greatly but unfortunately also began to attract many more moths and thus far more bud worm damage. I have now overcome that problem by building screen houses with PVC pipe and mosquito netting. Keep up what you're doing and best of luck to you.

[Allotrope1000]

Hi, tfogo.
After 4 years of legal home greenhouse growing, in 7 to 11 gallon fabric pots. I put two heavy sativa hybrids in the ground this summer. You might try it.
Key tactic is good soil prep. I dug a 5' diameter x 18" hole in my veggie garden, mixed in sand, coco, compost, store bought garden soil and perlite. Used 15-15-15 Home Depot slow release fertilizer supplemented with Miracle Gro and Bloom. Got the pictures harvest currently drying. Going to be spending several hours trimming.

[DabberDog]

Drying outside!!!???!!!??? What are you, high? Why does that seem so wrong?

[User420111]

Because UV light will immediately start to degrade THC and CBD. That's why we dry inside, in a dark, cool location.

[DabberDog]

Is that it? Maybe we're missing something.

[Gator]

Yeah, something is fu here

[DabberDog]

They look fresh cut. Maybe that's just a harvest staging area.
Tfogoman don't dry outside.

[Gator]

I was thinking the same thing LMAO

[Allotrope1000]

Whoa! Calm down, folks.
Dabber finally got it right. The pic is an outdoor staging area. After bud washing the harvest, it drip dries on coat hangers in the "staging area" a few hours before moving to my climate controlled drying room, basement, 55°F, 50% RH, full air circulation and total darkness. I was just showing 70% of the harvest from one plant

Come on! 😄 Did you really think I was drying outdoors? 😎

[DabberDog]

C'mon. You're a stoner, we're stoners. Stoners do stupid shit and think stupid shit. Can you blame us for jumping to conclusions, then coming around to our senses?
I found in my one washing experiment that they dried inside, in about an hour. SoCal coastal humidity, mid 70°'s, light fan action.

[Allotrope1000]

I have washed all of my harvests since day one. When I saw the dirt and debris washed off the buds, I was sold.

Currently emerging from trim purgatory - for a while, anyway. So far, from two plants, I have 1.5 lbs trimmed bud. Have to trim another 8 to 10 ozs before turkey time. 🦃

[Allenpro]

As an indoor grower in Maine my best suggestion is dont do it unless you enjoy disappointment. Thats all I get from growing outside up here. But 40 years ago we had really good luck growing outside in Ky.