Outdoors in SE Virginia

Hey Mr. Dog, or can I call you Mud? Central Virginia, I'm 75 days into my first ever grow. I too am growing Girl Scout Cookies outdoors, although in grow bags. Other than my son and a friend to whom I gave a couple of my plants, you're the only other person I know doing roughly the same thing I am in roughly the same part of the world. Nice to meet you, and maybe we'll have stories to swap. I'd be interested in following along. (Sorry about the thread-jack, Retired Engineer. )

Smaccio said:

Hey Mr. Dog, or can I call you Mud? Central Virginia, I'm 75 days into my first ever grow. I too am growing Girl Scout Cookies outdoors, although in grow bags. Other than my son and a friend to whom I gave a couple of my plants, you're the only other person I know doing roughly the same thing I am in roughly the same part of the world. Nice to meet you, and maybe we'll have stories to swap. I'd be interested in following along. (Sorry about the thread-jack, Retired Engineer. )

View attachment 4949750

Click to expand...

I assume that's a photo? I'm not far from yal I'm swva

Smaccio said:

Hey Mr. Dog, or can I call you Mud? Central Virginia, I'm 75 days into my first ever grow. I too am growing Girl Scout Cookies outdoors, although in grow bags. Other than my son and a friend to whom I gave a couple of my plants, you're the only other person I know doing roughly the same thing I am in roughly the same part of the world. Nice to meet you, and maybe we'll have stories to swap. I'd be interested in following along. (Sorry about the thread-jack, Retired Engineer. )

View attachment 4949750

Click to expand...

No prob on adding to the thread; plenty of electrons around for everyone!

Someone should just start a VA growers thread like the Maine growers thread so we don't continue to hijack RE's thread. I'm a lazy bastard by nature and way better at ideation

Retired engineer said:

I’ve just been leaf tucking, and can get most of the bud sites clear in that manner. I am torn on defoliation...these are autos so minimum stress on them is best I think, and have not needed it, yet...

Click to expand...

They really look nice, I usually just decide depending on the strain but I haven't done autos outside yet where the sun is so much more powerful than a grow light. I like the idea of tucking though, it gives you all the benefits but no stress. Are they staying tucked outside with the wind and rapid growth towards sunlight or are you needing to retuck a lot?

i check the leaves several times a day and push below the canopy those that are blocking light. The plants in general are so low that winds don’t disturb the canopy too much. I’ve pinned a couple of large fan leaves out of the way with wire hoops too.

Keeping them in the milk crates makes moving them around so freakin easy...I shift their location frequently, here they are catching the last rays of the day. I’ll move them back to the best position to catch sunrise in the morning, after a light foliar feeding with Flowers Kiss. I hit them with that once in a while a couple hours before the sun hits them. Tomorrow is week 5 FF feeding schedule too, so should see some pretty explosive growth in the next few days. It’s getting harder and harder to find anything to tie down, so might be on autopilot, so to speak, now...

Morning stretching and calisthenics—a limber plant is a happy plant. Couple posts follow since there is a 10 photo limit per post. They were fully in the sun at 0830 this morning. If I shift a couple things around I can make that 0800, and they will be in the sun until 2000. Twelve hours of uninterrupted sun, directly overhead...I’ll rotate them 180 degrees when the sun is directly overhead so the non-dominant part of the plants are getting full exposure for the entire 12 hours.

Plant #2

Plant #3

Plant #4

Chill zone.

I have mine in 2x3 masonry tubs for mixing mortar. They're durable as hell and only 7 bucks at Lowe's. I put a couple bricks down for now as pot feet. They're 15 gallon fabric pots and fit great. However, they are a bitch to move as I end up moving mine around throughout the day like you do to get the best light.


This is a Blue Dream I double potted. I cut the bottom off the one gallon pot it was in and barely buried it in 1.5 cubic feet of ocean forest soil. It's been out for a little over a week and is loving it.

That looks like an awesome plant, it will be huge by harvest season. I read it’s advisable to let a plant fill it’s container just short of being root bound, and them either repot it, or give the roots a chance to grow...cutting the bottom off the 1 gallon pot and putting it in a bigger one is brilliant.

This is my first time growing outdoors, so I’m not sure when the growing season ends. I have autos outdoors, so their genetics will prolly dictate that event. I hit the magic 12/12 at the end of Sep, so longest I think I can push them is until mid-Oct. What has your experience been?

My first time outdoor as well. Our first frost is October 17 where I am and Blue Dream is cutting it close with that. It should be finishing up right around then. The other two are Bag of Oranges by a breeder named Useful Seeds and should finish up a little earlier.
Your autos outside will act just like they do inside as far as finishing time, based on all I've been reading. Adding a little more to what the breeder says usually works for me indoors, but it's never an exact science. I can sometimes find grows on growdiary if it's a popular strain and see how long it took somebody else. That's a good way to get info for sure. I've been growing a lot of Magic and Ronin Garden stuff as far as auto strains go and they are really stable and frosty.

I’ll be in the market for some auto seeds eventually, will be fun to research and find the right strain...

Retired engineer said:

I’ll be in the market for some auto seeds eventually, will be fun to research and find the right strain...

Click to expand...

I really liked that Bum Wine and Nurple. Nurple had a couple different phenos and about 10 percent are a killer purple bud pheno. All three Nurple have a nice grape smell and slightly sweet/musty grape taste. Don't know where you get seeds from but DC Seed Exchange is a great place. He's been low on auto selection lately but so has everyone else I checked. He's always shipped the same day as payment and I got my seeds in 2-3 days. Really good guy and he gives a veterans discount. If you want to order from him just ask and he'll give you a code for 15 percent off vet's discount since you're a vet.

Thanks, I checked their website and the cupboard was mostly bare...I have time so will keep checking back, I’ll need to order early Nov probably so I can start in early Jan...I’ll give him a call, and he might be able to set aside 10 seeds of a great strain for me. I hate playing roulette/lottery looking for seeds...that makes ya eventually settle...

Got my popcorn, enjoying the show! Stoked to see how those ladies finish.

I just found this on the internet - I can probably McGyver up something similar, but the plants on sticks routine is working pretty well so far and there is zero chance they’ll topple over in a high wind