Coastal Virginia, outdoor grow, first time

[alexankh]

Hello ILGM!

I am new to the site and hobby. I threw some bagseed in a pot back in April and it grew, and I am now well into flowering with my 2 plants.

The picture above was taken on 4/20. I kept it on my sunny kitchen counter for a few more days then put it outside

picture taken 5/23

I am winging it, not reading any forums at this point. My sister in law recommended this King Harvest Fish Fertilizer for our veggies, so I’ve been giving it to this little girl as well. As we will see, she liked it,

At this point I also germinated another random bagseed.

Picture taken 6/8

At some point I transplanted this into a 5 gallon bucket.

Soil, I made an error here, I recycled soil from another pot. I know!! Terrible! I will rectify this later. But nature finds a way…clearly she’s living and thriving.

Still giving it the Kings Harvest on the weekly. Oh and daily watering because its hot.

June 21 - I think we have some preflower.

Starting to notice some yellowing of lower leaves. I call my buddy and he tells me its because I’m running out of nutrients in the soil.

July 2

Black bucket is younger by about a month, but this monster quickly shoots up, possibly because of the bigger pot. This one has fresh garden soil.

July 21

Later that day, I repotted into this 18 gallon pot with fresh potting soil mixed with my own compost.

I also spotted this…

Just the one branch is droopy, not sure why. It was like this pre-transplant

I snipped it. See the black inner stem.

Close ups of the colas

The droopy stem thing happens twice more, one week apart. Same plant

Not really sure what to do.

On the upside, I am starting to get some trichromes on the blue bucket plant.

At this point I am watering with 0-10-11 fertilizer both plants.

Thanks for reading, please help me out with my droopy limb, and how I can plan for a successful harvest.

Cheers,

Alexankh

[Tylersays]

Welcome to the forum!

Your plants are looking good! Definitely a sativa strain, I’d say.
Most bagseed I would imagine, is from a “photo” plant. Which basically means it’s a natural annual plant.
Seed sprouts, it grows, it flowers and seeds, it dies.
Hmmm…sounds like another species I know…

At any rate, you might be forcing them to flower early with the fertilizer your currently giving.
Outside they shouldn’t be going to flower for another month or so around here, extending into October.
Right now you want a high nitrogen fertilizer to GROW the plant! The vegetation stage is for building the plant to handle the big buds to come later.
The fertilizer you mention will server you better at the end of August than now, I believe.
Right now you want something with a big first number, which represents nitrogen content.
At this point they need the nitrogen primarily and the others more as trace elements.
When flowering starts, it reverses and nitrogen isn’t needed as much, or at all.

Drooping is usually associated with thirst! It’ll sometimes start in a area and sweep across the plant in a wave.
It can also be caused by stress.
Did you drill holes in the bottom of the barrels? The plants need plenty of water but the roots need oxygen too.
Over watering is worse than under watering any day.
The soil should be moist, but not wet.
I’m in Central Virginia in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, and with the heat recently I’ve been giving 2 gallons to each every 2 to 3 days.

Everyone is welcome to do whatever works for them, but I really think you’re hurting your potential yield from these plants trying to fight against nature.

Not showing off or anything like that at all, but these are the plants I started in late May and mid June inside before moving outside.

The 2 in the foreground were the May start. And they’re both in crap Miracle-Gro soil from last years tomato grow.
BUT, they’ve been watered with Ph’d water and when old enough Fox Farm nutrients and CalMag supplement on “plain” water days.

Pretty amazing what the right food can do!

Your plants really do look good! Everyone here wants you to succeed!
But, the middle of the week seems to be the dead zone around here! LOL!
It’ll pick up this weekend!

Ooh…hey @Cannabian thoughts?
On either post! I don’t want to steer people wrong!

Happy Growing Everyone!!

[Cannabian]

Well if you really want my thoughts on the matter? My first impression is if you folks can and are able to grow large plants,why use a container at all? The largest limiting factor to growing big healthy cannabis it root mass. So next grow try a mound ontop of decent garden soil… the results will shock you! Seriously. And if you want apple tree sized plants in the pound to 2 pound class, start plants under an average grow light i doors 2 months prior to planting date. Run your lights for photos at 16/8 not 18/6.
On to pots and fertilizers… because pots have a limited amount of nutrient carrying material available and cannabis is a fairly hungry plant, the nutrients get metabolized at different rates. Some nutrients such as magnesium and calcium aldo get washed out with each successive watering. Because of this there are a few issues with containers that you will likely not see in a balanced true garden soil. The first is imbalance of nutrients, the reason should be obvious. The second is uncontrolled and poorly buffered ph… very common when using bottled nutes as salts begin to accumulate due to unbalance and poor ph control. In soil, it is well buffered, and when you have a large pile of it, there is plenty of access to nutrients.
Ok on to nutrients relating to flowering… I personally do not know of any studies that suggest changing nutrient ratios will cause or stop flowering in a photo plant? If yall have, please share this with me. Generally, plants have a life cycle, as the name would suggest, a photosensitive plant is controlled primarily from the hours of complete darkness it recieves per light cycle.
So nutrients should not have much bearing on that? The trigger should be genetic… as for nutrients during veg and early onset of flower I find that a well balanced regime with normal N is ideal… once buds are to the button stage, I would maintain the same N ratio but raise the P and K, this is why the PPM is typically quite a bit higher… the plant still requires N and if it cant get it, the lower leaves will be used to feed the upper part of the plant… it is progressive. Therefore, if you want a plant to remain as healthy as it can through the end game it requires some N. However, a natural plant will drop lower leaves and they will go yellow etc. Partly because the climate has changed, but also because the plants metabolism has. Its normal for leaves to change color in the fall, and fall off! Remenber to remove any yellow or dead leaves as they can start mold, mildew and provide places for critters to hold up.

Big plants NEED big root

[Tylersays]

OMGoodness! That plant is almost enough to make me believe there is a God! That looks like 2lbs of just leaves without counting any bud!!

I’m definitely doing a couple in the ground next year, if not all 4 - our limit.
I like the mound suggestion. I imagine that helps a lot with drainage
Have you ever experimented with companion planting? Like using beans on the same mound since they take nitrogen and put it back into the soil rather than consume it? I know the three sisters used gourds or melons for root shading but I’d be afraid of mold/mildew growth.

My G13 should be here in the next day or 2 and will go right into the fridge for next spring!
Reportedly those plants have the potential to get huge with HUGE yields.
Definitely putting those in the earth proper!

I have no evidence about nutes forcing a plant, but honestly didn’t know! That’s why I tagged in an expert!
We hit 13hrs of daylight at the end of August. I plan on starting bloom nutes then after another week of grow stuff and a week of plain, Ph’d water to try and clean out some of the salts.

Thanks for the help and advice!!

HGE!!

[Cannabian]

That pkant is probably no less than 10 pounds of dried bud!

[Cannabian]

The ph will allow the plant better access to food thats all.

[Budz]

Transplanting in flower is almost the equivalent of throwing a bong.

[alexankh]

@Cannabian why go in a pot at all? good question.

we get some pretty acute storms (hampton roads) and the ability to bring it inside if i’m facing a category 5 hurricane is a big plus.

but your sentiment is noted. next year i will put a few in the ground

[alexankh]

@Tylersays so i started the flowering nutrient too soon. roger that. i just thought since it appeared to be flowering that i should help it out.

[alexankh]

@Budz I was really nervous transplanting during flowering but i was getting root bound and i didn’t think it would go the distance. i would not do it again unless absolutely needed.

[alexankh]

@Tylersays yes i have holes in the buckets and i get runoff so i know things are flowing

[Tylersays]

After reading @Cannabian 's response I’d say you’re probably good to keep using them but get some degree of nitrogen in there too at least for the next month.
By the end of August we’ll be at 13hrs of daylight and flowering will really take off! Some extra nitrogen couldn’t hurt right now. But probably not much beyond September 1st or so.

Definitely a good point about the hurricanes. Started with a bang early in the season but kinda died off. But you know…
Here in the mountains we tend to get remnants of the ones that come across the Gulf into Louisiana and that area.
You guys are in the direct full-force coastal slam area!
Started in the ground early enough and given a good start on the season and strong and you’d probably be surprised at what they can stand up to.
Weed is a tough cookie!

HGE!

[Cannabian]

Better to pot up a rootbound plant even if it is flowering! Its hurting in the small pot anyway! But that depends too. If its in a grow bag that can ne pretty harx to do without stress. In a tapered plastic nursery pot I can do it so hently the plant wont even know.

[Cannabian]

Beleeeee dat mufu! Hey by the way one way to protect a plant from breaking is staking. If you expect a big assed storm to roll in. Wrap her up in cage wire and stake that bad boy to the ground. For smaller plants just wrap in chicken wire and pound rebar in the ground and use bailing wire to secure. It will take the hand of God himself to f…k over your plants!

[Cannabian]

Sorry for the typos, this sciatica has me smoking a lot more weed than usual 8

[alexankh]

budding is bulking up on the blue bucket plant. black bucket plant is just starting to flower

[alexankh]

@Tylersays @Cannabian @Budz

it’s been a HOT minute. oh so hot here. 90s and above. and a decent amount of rain. along with 60-100 RH outside as measured by a meter. not sure hot accurate it is.

anyway the plants are doing great.

here’s the cola of the champ in the blue bucket. then two more bud sites. these buds are sticky and getting really dense. i was worried at first because they were rather thin. i have also done some defoliation.

i also lost another limb to pests but was able to harvest some buds.

there is one more problem limb which i am not sure what is going on. see below.

either bud rot or pests. i cut out some nasty looking leaves and i might have to harvest this limb early as well.

[alexankh]

here’s the whole plant

[alexankh]

in other news, i have one clone of the previous plant also flowering, along with two blue dream autos that are a few weeks old and i just FIMed. pics coming in the next day or so

[alexankh]

@TheVirginian thanks for stopping by!

here’s the photos of the clone and then the two blue dream autos that were FIMed. one of them is being eaten by caterpillars. i think i got them all.