Outdoors in SE Virginia

My drying/curing cabinet is supposed to be delivered Tuesday, so that sets chop day, probably for the three outside and the one plant indoors. It would be most convenient to have them on the same timeline, and they are all ready to go. Gonna be a busy day cleaning up 4 plants. Anything that doesn’t present as a quality bud goes in the freezer for more Bubblehash later on.

I’d pull them to avoid that risk - less radiant sun, damp nights are a recipient for disaster.

Been busier than a one legged man in an ass whooping contest. I think I have a decent game plan. I'm picking up a pop up shelter from Lowes tomorrow that can supplement the lean to for Blue Dream and add some space to the lean to so the spray doesn't get under it. I ordered the goofy screen panels for it that are coming in on Thursday because stink bugs are making a big show here and they get bad quickly so if I need to I can put all three inside with fans and maybe even lights.

I got to sample the Bag of Oranges that had a spot of PM on the leaves that I took early and man is it potent. The taste was crap because I didn't really bud wash it I sprayed it with peroxide solution then hose washed it with the sink sprayer to get as much crap off as possible. Bad idea in retrospect, a full bud wash with baking soda and lemon juice would have been nice plus a good rinse. However, the good thing was for being harvested what I would call early and smoked right off the drying rack it kicked my ass. I'm hoping with a good four bucket bud wash and two more weeks to mature it's going to be some really nice medicine for us. I just wish it would show some signs of yellowing. It never ran out of food at all which bothers me a little but I've never used Dr. Earth before either. Got some nice shots in what might be the last bright sun they will ever see today.

Damn, those are frosty! The outdoor plants come down today, just is still out on the bluse mystic I the tub...more to,follow...

In Southwest

Got El cheapo pop up shelter put up about 2 hours before the rain last night. What a life saver. With some tweaKing I think it's going to be good. I can hang some small fans on the side rails for the colas which I already did. Suns out now so I'm taking the lean to down to get room for sunning the girls an extra day I wasn't expecting which is nice.

gwhunran said:

In Southwest

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Nice! I used to do some deer hunting down that way in Wise county with Wounded Warriors. Really nice area, very similar to where I live as far as topography.

I bet your like a kid on Christmas Eve waiting on that drying cabinet. I gotta say I'm pretty jealous. I got 4 new buckets, some baking soda, peroxide, lemon juice and 30 gallons of distilled water ready to take down one or both of the bag of oranges plants if they start heading south at all. Otherwise I'm going to try and go for ripe trichomes come hell or high water. There's been a lot of activity up on the mountain the last couple days, I'm guessing somebody is trying to take down a guerilla grow. I've been hearing them up there a lot the last couple weeks which makes sense, hope they get it down before the rain gets them. It's all just woods up there and only accessable by 4 wheelers or horses so they picked a good spot. It's also hunting season so now there's hunters in the woods stumbling across peoples crops.

It was a tough call, since the sun is shining today, but I took down the outdoor plants this morning. They are drip drying after their peroxide wash while I wait for the drying cabinet to arrive...I’m excited to see how it does.

It’s cool you can hear activity on the mountain near you; all I hear is cars whizzing by. you gotta have some motivation to setup a guerrilla grow that involves 4 wheelers and horses to get to it. I can grow more than enuff In my backyard to keep me supplied until well into next growing season, so I’ll opt for convenience and proximity. I’m lazy these days...

You should have a varied and ample supply in a couple weeks, with some of it already approaching the magic 4 week cure, so I bet you are happy with this growing season. I hope to be able to trade some flower with ya at some point so we can compare each other’s work.

I'm done with the bubblehash for now too. The 25 micron screen mud was not drying out very well, so I pressed as much water out of it as I could and ran it thru my grinder with healthy doses of Girl Scout Cookies I have left over from a trip to DC. I’ll be using it as a bowl topper or filling joints so having the ground up weed mixed in is okay with me. Sacrilege I know, but it’s how I like to enjoy my hash.

Hell yeah, sun's out buds out! Got the girls out enjoying the sun and so far the tent has been fantastic. The roof panels make for a great place to clip on fans for the colas. I can fit the two biggest plants in there I'm the most concerned about and I have a box fan and two others blowing on the girls from all heights. Stink bug migration is in full effect with numbers getting out of hand quickly so I'm hoping the screen panels show up tomorrow. I'll lose some sun but keeping them off the plants matters more than that to me at this point. I want to get one of those hand held bug vacuum things that zaps them after it sucks them in but money's snug right now and that's not a big priority. That sucks about the hash but if you're happy with it that's all that matters. I think you could have used a grater or microplane when it was wet and spread it out really thin to dry for the quickest dry but at this point just smoke it and enjoy it. Watch for a bleach smell though in case in does mold because of how long it was wet. Hash can and will get mold, yeah I've done it. I'm going to try and let Blue Dream go as long as I can. She just keeps bulking up and is foxtailing a little bit on the cola now. Until I get a hard frost or have some mold problems she's going to have a home on the deck. The Bag of Oranges should be done in a week or two at the latest. The tops are swelling really nicely, starting to get that fully ripe look. Trichomes are nice, so goddamn frosty especially since this is a water only grow for me. I usually use a bunch of additives like Bud Candy, Big Bud and flower boosters. I did give them some advanced nutrients grow in the begining in the one gallon fabric pot before I decided to try organics with this grow but since then it's been Dr. Earth and water with some molasses. I've seen some deficiency issues but that's me not knowing how to correct an organic grow more than anything. I'll probably stick with salt nutes for my autos and try the organics again with my next photo run. I just need to do more research on loading calmag up front and working in some lime to balance the ph before I start.

Glad your rain protection solution worked, and you are getting some sun today...mine disappeared around noon, and I won’t see sun again for a while...that’s okay too.

got the cabinet up and running and loaded. For now, I am using their default settings for dry (68 degrees/53 percent) and cure (68 degrees/49 percent). I have 4 trays loosely loaded, I’ll let it work the dry cycle overnight and condense them down to open up 3 racks for the Blue Mystic I’m gonna chop tomorrow AM. thought about pushing the blue mystic another week, but want to get the buds on the same cycle for dry/cure...

it’s like having a dorm fridge in the dining room...

Now that is high tech bad ass! The best dry I get is when I can convince my wife to let me get the house down into the upper 60s since I'm drying in ambient air conditions. I like to start out in the 55 percent area and then pull it down to 50 or 45 depending on how frosty and dense they are with my dehumidifier. I just use an unused bathroom with no sunlight and good airflow. I have extra shower curtain rods suspended over the tub and use coat hangers with clothes pins. Very cheap and easy to mark with a sharpie. I put a date and strain on each coat hanger so I don't mix them up because let's be honest, we get high and forget stuff.
That machine looks really nice because once you get it dialed in the way you like it's going to be super repeatable. There's some times of the year I just get quick drying no matter what and I have to deal with it. Having that drying machine gives you the control of your drying that an engineer must be drooling over lol. I'm excited to see how the cure goes with it too as that's where so many flavor profiles really develop. You have got to be going nuts staring at that

its like the Showtime Oven sold by Ron Popiel - set it and forget it. The cost was a bit high, but so was I when I bought it...

i’m able to get within 75% of the optimum drying conditions in my home, but could not get the temp down without turning my house into a freezer, and jacking up my electric bill. The Cool Cure also allows me to keep growing since the grow room doubles as the drying room, so the 2 functions are separated now. The default settings are right in the sweet spot, and seem to be working well.

the drying cabinet is my last major investment in my favorite hobby...I can be compulsive sometimes...I have 3 stereos, 5 computers, 9 guitars, 4 cameras, more lenses than I can remember, and a passel of decorative blown glass (mostly Murano) in my home. other than a better overhead light (I’ve been looking at California Lightworks) I can’t think of much else to improve in the cannabis growing hobby; the MarsHydro TSL 2000 i have works just fine though.

I increased the frequency and duration of light from the pair of 10,000k T5 bulbs that are angled in 45 degrees from the sides of the grow space, and they are making the plant go nuts - all the long vertical branches are growing new, chunky and dense flower sites at their ends, and more brand new flower sites are popping up all over the place on a plant that is in its 10th week of flowering. This light scorches the leaves, bit the flowers just explode so I use it at the end of a grow, starting with 15 Min per hour in the middle of the light period, and slowly crank it up to 100% of the light period. I was gonna chop it today, but might wait just to see what it does next. it takes some time and a bit of acrobatics to get the plant outta the tub, stay tuned for some photos this morning. <I’m gonna finish my coffee first.

I stuck my Bubblehash in the drying cabinet, and it is drying nicely, and is “crumbly” so we’ll let that ride too.

your plants are the kind I’d like to grow next year. I will prolly do 2 laid out flat as I did this year, and let 2 go au natural just to compare them. The GF however wants all 4 of hers tied down flat next year. She works At Lowe’s here, and is the plant whisperer. She has 40 orchids in her house, and when Lowe’s starts throwing away plants that have lost their flowers, she gets a heads up and inspects them and culls out those that are salvageable. that’s why I have a decent orchid collection here too...

when do you start your plants outdoors and do you begin them indoors first, and then go outdoors after they’ve developed a bit?

After some contortions here is the Blue Mystic out in the open. The lower parts of the plant are covered in single calexes that are fat, and covered in mostly amber trichomes. The ends of the branches are throwing brand new flower sites, and I spy some blue hue in them. The further up the plant you go, the clearer the tricromes become.

I did some light defoliation in prep for the chop tomorrow; she’s back in the tub now. I rearranged the stuff in the drying cabinet, and have 3 shelves reserved for her. it will feel odd not having any cannabis to nurture - the other house plants will certainly benefit from that. They’ve been bitching about how much effort I put into the weed so now is their time...ha.

Wow, just wow. My wife is going to go nuts at the orchids. I bought her one a long, long time ago when I was active duty and not a gardener and it did not do very well. It lasted about 4 months but it was very pretty and she loved it. She always makes a fuss over them at our garden center. I played a little guitar in HS and college but gave it up after compound fractures of three of my fingers on my playing hand during a rugby game. They didn't heal quite right and when I try to bend them quickly two of them lock up. I taught my son how to play some and he still picks around. If my wife ever hears Smoke On The Water again I think she will kill him. Yours are works of art though...damn .When I was younger I worked in a Garfinkel's department store and I was in the housewares section so I dealt with all the glassware and stuff. I really liked the Waterford crystal stuff they had back then but the $10K lamp was out of my budget at my wage of $3.35 an hour lol.
This years seeds were planted by a buddy indoors in DC in June since we couldn't start until July and I put them out on July 12th because I had to wait to buy some soil and stuff to up pot them into the 15 gallon pots and 7 gallon pots. I gave them a couple days of hardening off under my lean to and then let them have what little full sun they could get. This is the first outdoor I have done so it's been a learning experience all around for sure.

This is part of the GF orchid collection...around 40 total.

took the Blue Mystic down this morning. not too excited about the density/formation of bud sites. Branches were really long, and coverage was sporadic. No matter, I’ll get something out of it and hash out the rest. It is in the dry/cure cabinet, and looks to be happy in there...I have it filled pretty much to the max, so I think I’ll go for a 2 week cure after a 4 day dry, then seal in the CVaults.

definitely gonna start next year’s crop indoors in April, and put outside around 1 May.

most of the recent crystal was poached from Ebay. Can usually find Murano, Waterford etc or 25% of retail or less. I got on a serious dolphin kick, on porpoise of course...

My wife was Gaga over the orchids just like I thought. I have no space in the house for house plants unfortunately. I'm a bit of a hoarder and I need a good spring clean out. The treadmill the wife just had to have that is a great coat hanger, and some old furniture all need a trip to the dump. Next time my son comes home to visit I'm going to borrow a trailer from my neighbor and have him haul all this crap out for me. When your house is 1300 SQ ft that just about fills it up, other than the all important grow room of course.
May 10th is when your area hits 14 hours of sun exactly so May is a good time to start an auto outside. It's getting max sun without being too cold outside. Maybe try a staggered start of two weeks apart like a perpetual grow starting seeds every two weeks for a month and see which ones do best. That way for next year you'll be better dialed in. That's what I'm thinking about for my outdoor next year. Super Autos that take 100-120 days and get huge, but started indoors in big pots early on a two week delay. I'm still doing strain research to find the right one for my and my wife's medical needs but if I can it's how I'm going. No more of this mid October harvest crap for me thank you. The girls survived rain on and off all night last night and 98% humidity according to the gauge with 6 fans running full blast and me up all night making sure electric cords were staying out of the water and dealing with leaks. I'm chopping the two Bag of Oranges tomorrow or Saturday. They are 65 days and look terrific. The indica leaning one is perfectly ripe and the hybrid one could maybe go one more week if it was sunny and perfect skies but it is almost perfect . The buds have finished swelling completely and only trichomes going over to more amber remains. I've got all my buckets, peroxide, baking soda and stuff ready for bud wash and trim. Now I just have to get ready for the hard work. Blue Dream is looking good but with the Bag of Oranges filling up the drying room and no need for anything to smoke I'll just let it mature some more. It's so open it doesn't seem to be as big of a risk for mold as the other two are and it keeps putting on weight. I keep having to add supports to all the secondary buds as they all flopped over and were just dangling down from the new weight.

between the 2 of us, we’ll get all this optimized for next year I’m sure. I’m thinking of throwing a couple plants in the ground too just to see what they do; critter control will be crucial.

it feels odd not having any cannabis plants to water/trim/feed etc. The other indoor plants do miss their aromatic cousins.

If I could make it up there I’d be part of the trimming party. I helped a friend cut some plants I helped him grow the other night, and I reeked of the dank for most of the next day. It’s funny, around here if you are out shopping/dining you can get a good whiff sometimes of the dank when a fellow grower walks by...we should have a secret handshake too...

These two aren't too bad and the wife's been bugging me to let her help. I'm just a bit obsessive when it gets to this stage. I've put so much time, pain, and energy into them by now that I want to be the one that decides what is getting removed for trim and what's trash. Also with the little bit of PM I had early on I need to go over everything with a scope to find anything that looks funky before I bud wash it. I want to know if anything had visible spores or mites before it gets dunked. They look good and I feel so ready to chop. It's too stressful to have buds that dense and sticky outside in fog and 99% humidity. I had 7 damn fans outside last night. I was laughing at my own stupidity as I was plugging the last one in at 3 in the morning. With my insomnia it's not like I have more important shit to do but it does look ridiculous under a 10x10 shelter
That's the girls. The close-up is the indica dominant one. It's so ripe I just wish it had gotten bigger. It fought a deficiency from the start of flower I never could figure out. I'm pretty sure now it was a bad P deficiency but how to correct it in an organic grow quickly is something I need to research. It came out great nice and dense but just poor yields.