Northern Lights Special / Purple Power / Easy Sativa outdoor grow journal ORGANIC !

Hi,
I'm new here and wanted to share my experience of growing outdoor in Canada... I grew some bag seeds last summer with tomato fertilizers and not much knowledge/care just for fun, but this season it's gonna be different ! I yielded around 5-6 oz from 3 different unknown strains and some was pretty good !

SEEDS: I ordered them from the Attidude shop and it cost me around 75$ for 12 female seeds. I bought them with my brother-in-law who lives right next door and we're each gonna grow 3 plants. In Canada, more than 3 plants will get you in trouble, under that, if you're unlucky enough to get busted, you can only get a ticket... So why so much seeds ? We wanted to grow 3 different strains to have diversity and for fun, and to be sure we would have at least 6 seeds germinating. If more, easy to find takers or good gift to friends. Here is what we ordered:

-3 Northern Lights Special (KC Brains)
-4 Purple Power (Female seeds) We got 5 !
-2 Easy Sativa (Female seeds)
Freebies: -1 Critical (Dinafem)
-1 White Widow

We chose these strains because they're supposed to be quick, good for outdoors, low odor, high yield, etc... I received the seeds very fast, about a week, well packaged and you could never guess it was seeds !

GROWING SOIL: I started the seeds in Jiffy pellets for germination and it worked great! after, I'll transfer them in 5" pots with clear domes (greenhouse) I found at the dollar store... These are fantastic for the first weeks ! For soil, I made my own:

-50% good soil from Wal-Mart
-30% Worm castings (Best Natural compost!)
-10% Peat Moss (good humidity retainer)
-10% Perlite (aeration)
-FRIT or Trace elements (great all minerals bonus) I already bought this for my Bonsais (eBay: Bonsai Mark)

I'll be adding shrimp compost later on when transfering to bigger pots !

FERTILIZERS: My goal in growing my own plants is to know that it's good organic weed ! So I was pretty careful on that. I ordered them from eBay for around 110$ and they are all Advanced Nutrients products:

-1L Iguana Juice Grow
-1L Iguana Juice Bloom
-1L Big Bud
+ Freebies: -50g Big Bud powder
-50g Carbo Load powder
-50g Bud Blood powder

STARTING INDOOR: here we have a very short summer usually, but this year it's gonna be great ! We are at the end of march and there's no more snow already !!! It is sad because it's not normal at all, but my plants will surely benefit from that! They were started around mid-march by the west window but I already had a 48" basic garage/shop Fluorescent and bought 2 tubes (1 daylight / 1 plant and aquarium) for about 10$ at Canadian Tire. This is only going to serve until it is warm enough outside but like I mentionned earlier, we had almost 30 C last week near Montreal and it is the end of march !!!

That's it for my basic starting setup !!!

PICS to come !

 

here are my babies...

1st pic: package from The Attitude
2nd pic: Seeds in jiffy pellets, I used wax to make color dots to know each seeds
other pics: in pots, 5 sprouted from the soil already (9 days)

 

Wax isn't going to harm my plants in any way so it stays there...

Soil is soil... basic potting soil from Wal-mart is still earth... The great soil you can buy from fox farm or others is just basic soil with additives already in it... I added what I wanted and made my soil how I think it should be... There's no magic solution and thousands of soil mixes...

FRIT contains OVER 28 vital trace elementsand minerals that are essential tothe health of your bonsai trees and houseplants. Very EASY and safe to use.This slow acting granular compound will release all the major trace elementsover a 12 month period. 30% of the compund is soluble in the FIRST hour, soyour bonsai will get the nutrients they need NOW and LATER. The remainingnutrients become available with the natural breakdown in the soil over thecourse of a year. If you don't have healthysoil, you can't have healthy trees. Bonsai soil in generalis fairly inert and lacks the basic components needed to support a tree. Thisis where FRIT steps in. Simply mix it with your soil, or sprinkle it on thesurface at 1 tablespoon for a 6 inch pot. Safe for use on established, newlytransplanted bonsai, prebonsai and houseplants. THAT IS IT!!! Very simple!!!! Think of FRIT as a comple MULTI Vitamin foryour trees. Frit only needs to be used once per year.

I know for the Big Bud, my brother-in-law wanted it and if I was buying more than 85$ (I was a few $ short with only both Iguana Juice) I was getting the freebies + free shipping, So...

No, I bought the earthworm castings, I discovered worm composting while doing some researches and I already had a composting bin that I'm going to transform into that... I already ordered my worms cause I tried everywhere and no one had some...

Thanks for the advice ! Later on, I'll try some LST or training on my plants... Tiyng down and wiring with some bonsai aluminium wires to get more than one big cola... I already have bonsais so wiring is easy...

 

For the domes, I just checked this morning, and one of my babies seems to have some problem... In the middle of the 2 first leaves, there is a drop of water that stayed there and it seems like one of the leaves is turning black and dying while the other one is getting way bigger... In the middle, where the second leaves appear, there's nothing... I think this one got too much humidity and is gonna die...

The 3 NLS seeds are already started and I only wanted 2 (I bought 3 for safety), so not that much of a big deal, but I'll check on that... We're always learning... I removed the domes since then... I'll keep you posted...

 

Yep, That's what I did... At first, I just opened the aeration holes on top of the domes, but it wasn't big enough so I removed them... And I only watered them when transplanting, but the domes, as you can see, keep pretty much all of it inside...

 

Well, it's official, the seeds got too much humidity and water (first time I use the pellets...) I'll order some new seeds and get them in about a week...

Right now, I've got 1 Purple Power and 1 Northern Lights Special that are in great shape, and two other babies that I'm not sure they'll make it... (the Critical that was a freebie and one more NLS) I'll probably order one more NLS to have 2 strong plants (one for me and one for my brother-in-law), 2 Easy Sativa and maybe 1 Iced Grapefruit just for fun and for my girlfriend... She found, just the name, great ! Anyway, at the end, I'll be able to split the harvest and try all strains...

So I'll most probably end up growing:

- 2 NLS
- 2 Easy Sativas
- 1 Purple Power
- 1 Iced Grapefruit

Next time I'll let some water evaporate before putting the domes and they should be fine after a few days when you start watering regularly as they grow... I'll keep you posted !

 

Ordered some new seeds yesterday from The Attitude again ! I've got 1 Purple and NLS groing strong and I think the 2 others I tought were going to die will survive (1 more NLS + 1 Critical). Decided to go for variety:

1 NLS (that's the strain I prefer and wanted at least 2 so we grow 1 each)
1 KC Brains MANGO
1 Female Seeds ICED GRAPEFRUIT
1 Easy Sativa
1 BIG BUD
+ 1 free bonus : CH9 Cluster ???

So we can each grow 3 different plants, and after harvest split and try many stains !!!

Also started my Wormcomposting bin !!! I'll get some great worm compost and Tea : ) !

 

Here's some pics... Not bad pictures (the 3rd one = Critical !) I used my 4yo daughter's camera: Casio Exifilm 26mm 5x... Pretty impressed...

 

got the new seeds and I started them... Just a waiting game now... The Purple and NLS are about 3-4 inches and I can see the leaves are completly different... I'll post some pics soon...

 

The Purple Power and NLS are now about 5 weeks old and the second batch of seeds are about 3 weeks old. I moved them outdoor for about 2-3 weeks now (in the shed at night at the beginning...) transplanted them to bigger pots... I used a mix of black earth, worm castings/compost, sheep manure, shrimp compost, little bit of peat moss, perlite and Trace Elements. I put the plants deeper (1-3") in soil so the plants look smaller. We had some wind for a couple days and the trunks really got bigger !

I started LSTing with the Purple, it was about 12" tall... I'll put pics of the results regularly... and I'll LST the other plants as they grow big enough...

Will put photos tomorrow... There's a problem uploading... Message error and contact the administrator... Hum...?

 

BB = Big Bud
PP = Purple Power
ES = Easy Sativa
IG = Iced Grapefruit
M = Mango
NLS = Northern Lights Special

LST pics to come...

 

I started LST on my Purple, it was around 12" tall... Here are the pics; right after I've done it, the next day and the last one is 4 days later... First try at LST but I also have a couple of bonsais. I used some gardening wire coated in rubber, it wors well, you can bend it & shape it however you need to and I found it at the Dollar store... I'm pretty impressed how fast it goes ! We had a great week of really warm weather, sunny and little bit of rain... I'm going to LST the NLS today.

The other pics are from today, may 27th, you can see the NLS alone and the 4 others that were started later...

I also scored some fish emulsion at Canadian Tire for 10$ / 1L + my wormcomposting bin produces a lot of "worm/compost Tea". I can't wait to see them grow more and more...

Damn... Still a lot of problems trying to upload pics... Hope it gets better...

 

Grrrrrr...... takes forever to upload... you have to upload 1-2 pics at a time or it will fail...

 

I started LST on the NLS and here it is after 24 hours... It was a little bit bigger than the purple and it shows, it's doing way better... The timing was better on the NLS... I also watered yesterday evening with Worm Compost Tea to give them a little boost ! I'll mix Iguana Juice, Worm tea, Fish emulsion and bonthrive (bonsai fert.) with water in between each fertilizer. These are all BIO ! After talking to a lot of people who all said pretty much the same, I won't use Big Bud during flowering on any plants... My brother-in-law wanted to try it but anyway he's moving and I'll be left alone to take care of the plants. I'll probably keep 3 at home and 3 in the woods nearby (secure spot) cause I don't want any trouble with the law... (3 plants & under = small ticket only / it is the law in Canada)

NLS on the left and purple on the right (last pic)

 

I will enjoy !!!

I gave the Critical to a friend and I saw it this week: it started to flower !?! It is an "AUTO" so maybe, this early in the summer without enough sun from 6h to 19h, it started flowering... He'll keep it just for fun and we'll see if it becomes one Big Bud !!!

June 1st
(I will LST the other plants soon !)