No Till Hugelkultur Organic Outdoor First Run

Hello gardeners. This is my first attemp at growing outdoors. Hopefully this journal will get me some help as I bump along on this ride. I live in Central California and I'm Prop 215 Compliant. Here it is!

Location: Central California

Strain: 6 X "Super Sour Diesel" (Super Silver Haze X Sour Diesel) clones in a solo cup ~6" tall (Donated from friend)

Containers: 3'x3'x16" Plywood squares open bottom

Soil: Local mix @ 2 yards consisting of peat moss, lava rocks, perilite, compost/casting, organic amendment and minerals.

Environment: Day Temps 80~110 F, Night Temps 50~70 F, Humidity 8~20 rh, wind 1~7 mph, Direct sunlight 6~8 hours/day

Transplant: 06/20/2016

Garden Method: Raised bed Hugelkultur with 4~6" of straw mulch and introduced composting worms

Watering: As I see fit, city water unfiltered, hard pH 7~8 pH with chlorine

Feeding: Soil drench coconut water, Aloe vera juice and Dynagro Protek once a week. Top dressing with neem meal, crab meal and kelp meal once a month. Foliar spray kelp, alfalfa and protek worm tea once a week.

Pest Managment: Weekly spray Azamax/neem oil alternating and local nature predators such as praying mantis, lady bugs, jumping spiders, paper wasps and others I can't see or name

Plant Training: Toping, super croping, scroging

Notes: I believe this strain is not suited for outdoors, we'll see!

Hope all goes well. Let me know if you have questions, comments or concers.

 

Day 19 Update

Girls are looking good. Just wanted to post some pictures of them 19 days from transplant. Also, soil stays moist after 7 days of not watering in 100 degree + temps. There's also a plethora of macro life forms such as ear wigs, sow bugs, soil mites and many critters going on about their daily lives.

 

Hi Lion thanks for you interest in my grow journal and sorry for not updating as much as I should.
Growth isn't vigorous and I'd like but they are moving along. Soil stays moist under the straw much for 6-7 without watering even with multiple days of temps in the the triple digits. Doing malted barely, fulpower, kelp and fish emulsion weekly. It's seem they're starting to flower and strech now when I hoped for that to happen around mid August. No major pest damage, just minor holes from leaf miners. Here some shots.

 

Fish emulsion is mixed at one tablespoon per gallon. I feed my "tea" at 2 gallons per plant. Havn't seen any signs of deficiencies. Maybe I should up the emulsion for the strech? I do not make my own compost but thinking about one. The local nursery sells a yard for $35 so I get it there.

 

Reporting on growth. The bloom has set in and the strech is real. They're streching between 2-3 inches a day. Going to prune up the sucker branches and small growth. Here is a look.

 

Thanks Slamva. I'll be happy with 4 ounces per.

 

Update! Since flower, they've streched about 10". I made a mistake by topping right before flower. Now I have wierd growth consisting of 3 fingered leaves. I'm starting to hit them with heavier doses of molasses and coco water from 1/8 cup of coco and one teaspoon of molasses to 1/4 cup and one table spoon. In addition, I've pureed whole aloe vera into this mix too. They stand about 4.5' now. Node spacing is tight up top at 1~2" and with gaps of 3~4" at the lower branches.

 

She's filling in,starting to produce some terps and trics. Should I defoliate some fan leaves? They've become a little dense and bushed out a bit. Three ounces sounds very reasonable. Hope the fill up nice and fat!

 

I topped them twice along with low stress training with twisty wire. My veg wasn't the best. Too hot with low RH? Anyway, how much sun leaves should I remove?

 

So today, October 1st, I decided to harvest. We're expecting rain tomorrow and don't have the means to put up tarps to protect them. Sorry I haven't update my journal. The last few weeks of flower they filled up nicely. I went on a weekend get away and upon my return, the girls all toppled over. I wasn't expecting that at all considering the size of the plants. Here are some pics of tonight's work.

 

Goodgrace, the trics were around 40% amber near the tops and about 60% towards the middle and bottom. I've sorted the A grade and the swchaggy buds. It's strange how the bottoms matured before the top. Smells like it's all diesel.