SE Michigan Outdoor 2021

October 16
Knocked down the tomatoes for compost pile.

Harvested about 2/3 of BB#2 plant. Not fully ripe but with weather rainy and cool; don’t want budrot to take hold.

Flower clusters were a lot more airy than the SD plant harvested earlier this week. A little disappointing actually, might leave the last 1/3 of this one up and see if it a couple of tops swell more.
Rough trimmed, washed in 4 buckets again (H202, baking soda and lemon juice, waterx2), and hung in shed.

October 17
Didn’t plan to harvest today but decided to partial harvest another SD plant. Took about 1/of it down, rough trimmed, washed (4 buckets again) and hung in shed.
A few buds rough trimmed and Waiting for wash:

with the cooler evenings, this plant is actually purpling up a little.

Going to let the other 1/2 of this plant and the remaining buds on the BB plant harvested yesterday roll for a while to hopefully ripen further. Balancing ripe with mold attack.

Heat in shed for a little high when the sun came out today, wasn’t watching the space heater and it was 90 when I caught it.

October 18
On a roll with harvesting (early). Harvested about 2/3 of the floppy BB plant tonight. It actually looked ready-ish. Mainly harvested tops. Much happier with the bud density vs the BB #2 plant chopped on 10/16. Colas aren’t as pretty but are frostier and denser. This plant reminds me a lot of the one I used to run inside.

washed with baking soda/warm water (1 cup to 5 gallons), then H202/warm water (two cups to 5 gallons), then double rinsed in cool water. Baking soda bucket was pretty dirty. Liked this order better and didn’t add the lemon juice which didn’t make sense with neutralizing the sodium bicarbonate anyway.

All hanging in shed. SD harvested last week is getting fairly dry, daytime temp is a bit high in the shed. There is quite a bit of weed out there right now.

Oct 19
Looked over the SD stuff chopped last week. Threw a lot out due to mold. Bummer.

Going to give a longer wash starting with sodium bicarbonate moving forward and going longer in the soda and H2O2 buckets. The wash I did it didn’t knock back the mold and looks like there were spores throughout the buds. Last week before harvest was quite perfect for mold attack in those buds. Fingers crossed that the BB and SD chopped over the past few days end up better.

October 22
Brought the BB#2 chopped on 10/16 in from the shed last night and dry trimmed about 1/2 of it. Will try to finish it tonight and add a picture or 2. Put the bucked down buds into a paper bag to finish drying slower, shed temp is too inconsistent and the SD plant that was harvested 10/13 was over dried hanging in there for 6 days.

BB buds after drying for a few days are kinda airy but look like they’ll be smokable. Didn’t find mold growing on any of them and the scissors got pretty coated in sticky resin.

Ended up with two quart jars of the SD. Jars don’t have visible mold but am keeping eye out. Debating making QWISO hash out of all that, the mold was widespread .

Buddy and his wife ended up with 13 jars of their SD and they didn’t have a mold issue.

Edit:
Forgot to add that I found a single seed when trimming the BB last night. Nice brown mature one too, I may pop it for shits and giggles next spring. Didn’t spot any nanners this year but doesn’t mean they weren’t there somewhere. All the plants were assaulted with light pollution all season. Could also have blown in from elsewhere.

October 23
More Trimming today. Jarred up some of the BB#2 buds that finished in a bag.


plan to trim the rest tomorrow and get the other plants that are still hanging into paper bags.

October 24
Watched football and trimmed bud most of the afternoon, finished jarring the BB#2 plant, found another seed.

Knocked the fans off of the remaining colas left up on SD plant I partially chopped last week. Buds are getting a little more color too.

The final SD plant is really turning purple but it’s still 3ish weeks from ripe. Not sure it will finish or not.

October 26
Took down the rest of a SD plant today. Purple is more pronounced, looks kinda cool. Rough trimmed and washed - baking soda, H2O2 and rinse.
Pre rough trim picture:

Post trim and hanging pic:

Bud Closeup

Different SD plant that is really turning color

BB#2 remaining bud

Might chop the last SD plant this weekend, need to look at it in better light.

Accidentally clipped a couple of buds when rough trimming. Wet trimmed those down and going to give a quick dry to try maybe this weekend.

October 28
Took a look at the BB clone that has been untrained in a pepper bed today. It’s really turning purple also, the other two BB plants didn’t do that. The main cola has been bending over under weight and only the up facing side is purple though:

Down facing side of same cola (green)

I was planning on harvesting this plant whole and dumping it my buddy’s house for him to trim and dry, but now I’m feeling greedy and kinda want to keep this. It’s the best smelling plant this year (strong pink bubblegum smell), plus it’s turning purple. Haven’t had a Bubblelicious pheno that did either before. I may just give him a few jars of the stuff already curing plus a bunch of the dried but untrimmed stuff. Free weed is free weed. Really getting sick of trimming…

The later ripening SD plant is still chugging. Fed her today. She seems much more mold/rot resistant than the SD#2 plant. Still bummed about how much of that plant went in the compost pile, it had a lot of nice chunky and dense flowers.

SD Pic of lots of bud tops:

Bud closeup:

This one won’t be ready this weekend. Probably 2ish weeks still. Pistils have all turned but it doesn’t look ripe yet.
@Balzac89 do you mind weighing in on that estimate? my indoor skills exceed my outdoor ones.

Hot pepper plants need a final harvest before they get pitched in the compost pile. Have a ton of habaneros and Tabasco peppers, probably gonna dry a shit load of them Saturday.

@LeastExpectedGrower these are at the end here in Michigan but it was a good season for peppers.

C. Nesbitt said:

Hot pepper plants need a final harvest before they get pitched in the compost pile. Have a ton of habaneros and Tabasco peppers, probably gonna dry a shit load of them Saturday.
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@LeastExpectedGrower these are at the end here in Michigan but it was a good season for peppers.

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These look fantastic! I had as many peppers & similar size plants, but things timed out here. I ended up with about 40 rip Aji Lemon Drops (out of about 125 or so on the plant), and about 40 ripe Goats & Tobago Treasures. I picked the green peppers off the plants this morning since the Goat and TT dropped their leaves from the frost. I'm holding off on the Aji's which seem to be doing ok. My Manzano Yellows produced one ripe pepper and about 20 green ones...hopefully they'll counter-ripen.

So far I've made:
Peach Goat/TT jam
Aji Lemon Drop Lemon marmalade
St. Lucian Habanero hot sauce (spent time playing music there, have a fondness for that style)
Aji Lemon Drop Honey
Habanero Honey

I also did poblanos, but while I love 'em, they were big and didn't produce that much...I can buy them at the farm stand down the road for 3$ for a bag of them...so next year I'll skip those.

LeastExpectedGrower said:

These look fantastic! I had as many peppers & similar size plants, but things timed out here. I ended up with about 40 rip Aji Lemon Drops (out of about 125 or so on the plant), and about 40 ripe Goats & Tobago Treasures. I picked the green peppers off the plants this morning since the Goat and TT dropped their leaves from the frost. I'm holding off on the Aji's which seem to be doing ok. My Manzano Yellows produced one ripe pepper and about 20 green ones...hopefully they'll counter-ripen.

So far I've made:
Peach Goat/TT jam
Aji Lemon Drop Lemon marmalade
St. Lucian Habanero hot sauce (spent time playing music there, have a fondness for that style)
Aji Lemon Drop Honey
Habanero Honey

I also did poblanos, but while I love 'em, they were big and didn't produce that much...I can buy them at the farm stand down the road for 3$ for a bag of them...so next year I'll skip those.

Click to expand...

That’s a nice nice selection of peppers. We had light frost last weekend but the peppers made it thru in my yard.
Hope the counter ripening gets you some of those yellows to come out.

I made fermented hot sauce with habaneros and Tabascos this year and have a second batch fermenting still. Made a large batch of jerk marinade for a pork recipe and froze that for use all winter. Dried a bunch for later use mainly in chili.
We also did chili reallanos several times with Anaheim’s. Poblanos work for those too but I have better luck and yield with Anaheims.

Where do you source your hot pepper seeds? I used the Pepper Gal out of Florida for years but she shut down last year. I’ve grown a bunch of Burpee stuff over the years too but really prefer to grow heirlooms or at least use seeds from smaller operations. Vegetable gardening is a great hobby.
Looking forward to your indoor pepper experiment.
Back to trimming, I’ve got this pile to make it through, hoping to get 2 jars filled tonight.

C. Nesbitt said:

The later ripening SD plant is still chugging. Fed her today. She seems much more mold/rot resistant than the SD#2 plant. Still bummed about how much of that plant went in the compost pile, it had a lot of nice chunky and dense flowers.

SD Pic of lots of bud tops:
View attachment 5018401
Bud closeup:
View attachment 5018402
This one won’t be ready this weekend. Probably 2ish weeks still. Pistils have all turned but it doesn’t look ripe yet.
@Balzac89 do you mind weighing in on that estimate? my indoor skills exceed my outdoor ones.

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Estimating yield is a crapshoot with outdoors. Especially if don’t know density of the buds so fourth. Looking good tho bud

Balzac89 said:

Estimating yield is a crapshoot with outdoors. Especially if don’t know density of the buds so fourth. Looking good tho bud

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Yeah, estimating yield is a fools errand. The bud density of my 6 plants is hugely different, even between plants of the same strain. I do have way more than “about a pound” curing already at least.

I was more looking for opinion on that particular plant still being about 2-3 weeks from ripe and ready to come down. With fall setting in here it seems ripening happens faster than what I’m used to indoors.

Shortening daylight cycle plus cooler temps are a different set of variables. I could throw out a new “is this ready” thread but those get lame and occasionally abusive.

I really have a much easier time judging ripeness under bright ass indoor lights too, my last indoor grow was under 1000W MHs and HPSs. Looking at them near dusk under clouds outside is not the same.

I’ve got plenty of bud already harvested so I’m letting this plant roll as long as I can. Snow is forecast after this weekend so it may be a moot point.

Halloween
Harvested the rest of the BB#2 plant. Buds seem a bit heavier but still pretty spongy and airy.
Also harvested a few final buds off an SD plant. Washed and hung it all.
Cut the 4 harvested plant skeletons down and put in the compost pile. Also harvested what was left of the peppers, hot peppers and eggplant then threw the plants in the compost pile. Final veggies

Looked at the BB clone plant and thought about harvesting but decided to wait. Same with the last SD plant. Both are getting very frosty and quite purple.

November 1
Pick of a later harvest BB#2 allowed to go two extra weeks.


Didn’t really add much mass but are nice looking buds.

Suppose to drop below zero tonight. (Flint area) .. so your right on time.

Syntax747 said:

Suppose to drop below zero tonight. (Flint area) .. so your right on time.

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We’re a little south, closer to Ann Arbor, but yeah, it’s getting cold.
Have two plants still up that may get an emergency chop if they take hard frost damage.
Everything is turning purple with the cold. One plant is really getting close the other could use a couple of weeks but the season is winding down.