Autos in the Prairies

Well this will be my second outdoor auto grow in this area, last year was a bit of a flop long story and wasn’t true outdoor was more of a 50/50.

Location, my back yard/deck. Not worried about smell of views here.
Conditions
4a climate zone for Canada.
July & August is our summer.
June our 43-50f is what our nightly low bounces around at so Im not sure if I should plant for June or for July.
End of August it’s getting windy, cold, wet and Temps start dropping because in September it freezes at night.

Now it will depend on strain as well so here are the strains, I have four that I’m going to try and see who is the best suited to my area for my future knowledge.

Strains:
Triple XL by lineage genetics
" This indica-dominant auto can be grown in a wide range of environments and even gives good results outdoors in higher latitudes. It is therefore a very hardy plant which has good resistance to both plant pests and varying conditions. Wherever grown it has a life cycle of 8 - 9 weeks following successful germination.

Northern light auto by original harvest seeds, just because I had to order from a specific seed store to get the island sweet skunk next on the list but the strain is claimed to have a 47 day flowering period from these breeders. So a 70 day seed to harvest fingers crossed…

Island Sweet skunk auto
Grown native on Vancouver Island for over a decade so I figure it can handle a bit of weather.
80% sativa 50-60 day flowering so add another 21 for veg your at 81 days or just under 3 months.

Then the Purple Afghani autos, 75/25 indica and meant for higher altitudes of Afghanistan with a 50-60 day flowering period.

I have inquired to Vancouver seed bank as they have a autoflower texada time warp but I want to know what they crossed the texada timewarp with.

So my questions are as follows.

Fox farm soil mix or coco?
How big of pots should I use if they are going outside? I normally use 5 gallons on my indoor autos but in autopots it doesn’t matter and I did them in 5 gallons for soil but would have to feed them come 4th week… Sooo if I don’t want to be chained to my plants daily what do you out door growers suggest?

Also… When should I soak seeds/ move outside, how long should I grow them inside for the limited amount of time that I can if that’s even the best thing to do.
Should I just start them outside, wait till a certain age/size or should They be going outside daily until they are to big to move in and out everyday… I’m thinking I could go from solo to 1 gallon pots and then up to finals if I’m careful just not sure the best ways as I’ve been doing indoor grows.
Please tag anyone you know with outdoor experience and possibly anyone with a climate like mine.

@Myfriendis410
@Not2SureYet
@dbrn32
@MattyBear

3 Likes

I have questions.

Can you bring plants in at night or in inclement weather? Try to structure your life around being able to do that as you can control their flowering interval and have them finishing before things turn cold.

Have you given thought to using ‘regular’ female plants instead of feminized cultivars? I would hazard that a decent regular female plant will blow away any hybridized and feminized strain and will provide better disease, pest and fungus tolerance. $.02 US haha.

Re your q on soil v coco: coco will need liquid daily so plan for that. Soil in large enough container not as often but likely fairly frequently. Coco doesn’t need a large container.

I would start em indoors as soon as possible and support them for as long as I could to get them hardened off before going outside.

4 Likes

Flip side to soil and coco is that you’ll probably get faster growth in coco. If you have fast turning autos a little boost in early growth will probably go a long way, if you can handle the upkeep.

3 Likes

That is yet to be determined, it may be possible to pile them in my shed, but again they are autos sooo shouldn’t matter right.
This year I will be able to but in the future I won’t because I’ll be away from home on a job for 2 weeks at a time.

Why do you say that about a regular seed?

I don’t have any… Okay well I got a bunch of random bag seed from my dad and then two freebie regulars but normally I’m not home enough to mess with that.

I don’t want to waste to much space inside because I hopefully will still be running 4 inside on my autopot system.
Once they are two weeks old I think I won’t have space.

Bump it please