I'm new to the forum, so I hope I don't step on anyone's toes for posting a thread that has been addressed elsewhere. I live on the central coast of California (Santa Cruz County, specifically) and will be growing some clones outdoors this season. I decided to go with 5-gallon pots, so that they can be moved as necessary to get the optimal amount of sunlight. I purchased Fox Farm's Ocean Farm soil and also some of their fertilizers being Grow Big, Big Bloom, Tiger Bloom, Open Sesame, Beastie Bloomz and Cha Ching. This will be my first season growing so I'm trying to get a good growth guide calendar that can lay out how many weeks plants in this region generally stay in the vegetative growth cycle and how long they generally flower. Does anyone have some information about this? I want to make sure not to start feeding the flowering nutrients too early (considering that they help induce flowering) so I can get the best vegetative growth out of the plants first. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I'm several hours north of you but I'll try and help the best I can. I plant in early June and harvest in October. If you're growing in Ocean Forest that hasn't been amended you will need to start feeding nutrients a couple weeks in, these are "veg" nutes and will not induce early flowering, or you can build your own soil and never have to worry about bottled nutes...good luck!! ETA - (disclaimer)I don't know anything about nor have I ever used FF nutes. Santa Cruz is a big county so you want to pay attention to weather as to when you should plant outside...the SC mountains are def different than the coast. Also, don't forget about pest PREVENTION avoid those fuckers all together is easier than fighting them once they've shown up.
Mendo Clouds, thanks for the advice. I'm actually right on the coast, so the mountain weather won't really be an issue. Just out of curiosity, how many weeks of vegetative growth do your plants usually get before flowering starts?
You can plant seeds outdoors anywhere between april and july, and you can put clones out any time bewteen may and agust. The earlier you get them out, the more veg time they will get. They generally start flowering in august and finish in october. If you plant outdoors in may that will give you 3 or so months of veg time. You will either need to add organic nutrients to your soil, or feed throughout the grow, as mentioned already. Feeding flowering nutrients won't bring on early flowering. Only lessening day light hours will induce flowering. Feeding the proper nutrients can only help the plant grow big and strong. With organics you can mix all the nutrients into the soil and never have to worry about veg and flowering nutrients. Its amazing how simple growing can be when you mix the food right into the soil and let the plant take what it wants. It's when we try to take control and force feed our plants that problems really start happening.
mjmama is right on!! You have time to cook your soil before you plant I would take her advice and never look back.