Plant no. 3 cut and hanging... so the growing season is officially over for me. Now I just have to process it all. This has been a great thread. Thank you smokeNtoke! I have enjoyed following along with the grows here. Always an adventure in the wild PNW!
It's been a pleasure seeing you folks grow your plants out... Some valuable indirect experience, I couldn't get anywhere else. Charlie, I have to say I was a little skeptical early on with your yellow leaves. I was pretty sure yours would be taking a dirt nap by now, lol... But you pulled it through just as you had planned. Again, well done mate! I'm still in the middle of harvesting, cleaning and flipping my other grow room and cleaning all this mess from this years out door grow, but shortly I will put some real effort into looking for some Autos and other seeds. I ran across something with a very early flower and the description made it sound PM bullet proof. Sounds like my kind of backyard fun... Anywho, just wanted to share the fact that this was probably the best thread I had the opportunity to participate in, mostly because we could all relate to our common struggle here in the PNW; weather. Smoke: Harvest must be good!! Been a while...
So, GHGMama does the majority of the curing - keeps track of burping... The whole gig. Well, this stuff isn't class A... Won't be taking it to market, but after just two days in the jar, this stuff has a "lovely smooth thick, delicious, fruity smell that just infects the nostrils" world according to mama and she says she's going to go back and sit in the cure room some more lol...
Not sure if its the camera, but those have some amazing color to them, almost a silver ash. It was great to see what all you guys pulled off, its an inspiration for next year. I think i'll go with a few autos, and maybe one giant tree just to see what happens.
I love these flowers especially in macro mode! They def pull a funny silver color - I noticed that early on! I'm with you on the autos!! I still would like to grow a tree... it's just in me now, but man, that was a shit ton of work - more self induced I suppose, considering my grow method. It was a learning experience... it was tough and it was daily for many months!! It was the best and the worst of times!! I loved the beauty, aroma and shade they provided on our 90 degree days... I loved the humming birds flying through the canopy as I watered each and every day... The bees, The fountain... ...~DabNaps~... Ahhh.. it was a lovely time and yet I'm soooo relieved it's over!! I'm taking a break from the Photos next year... Autos for three harvests is my plan!!
I have a friend who is an expert gardener who feels the same way about my growing techniques. He shakes his head every time he sees my scruffy plants. But it lets me move them around, and I always end up with some kind of a stash. What early flowering strain did you find?
Spent the last couple days manicuring my Snoops Dream. it is now in the cupboard curing with the UK Cheese and Sour Tsunami. My dried total is roughly 1 pound. Have to say the snoops was the best strain of the 3 for growing outside. I may grow that again next summer if it is as good as it appears. It never had any mildew problems, and went the longest without having bud rot start to show. Proof is in the smoke. This was a great thread, and fun season. Look forward to more improvements next year in my educational grow process. Growing my own medication sure beats paying for it!
Good job wwout! Good job everyone. I am finished with trimming and drying and must face reality. My yield projections were wildly optimistic. I ended up with about 5.5 oz. of bud from my 3 plants vs. the 8 I was expecting. Hidden patches of mold took a heavy toll - but at least it was confined to certain buds instead of rampant throughout everything, like it was the last time I grew, a couple of years ago. Unfortunately it got into some of my biggest, fattest buds. So, I don't have much, but it's plenty for my needs, and the quality is there. The best of it will be gourmet weed for sure, especially with my hygrometer and Bovedas and all the useful tips I have picked up here. That's what I was aiming for. But man, what a lot of work. It's just too ridiculous. Next year, autos...
Like most of us you'll start selecting strains that did well for you on previous grows.. I'm running more and more Blue Berry all the time.. It's just proven itself time after time as a great finisher here.. It doesn't pack on the buds like many strains even the main cola being more a stack of discrete buds then a coke can of solid mass.. What she does give me are a ton of thumb sized tight buds that smell like a bowl of fresh picked Blue Berries.. As she finishes she keeps dropping her fans like many sativas do and by harvest she's sticks and buds with very minor trimming needed..
I love to smoke some Blue Berry!! In fact, I have a packet of seeds, regular ones, so they need to be sexed, that I need to get working on here in the next week or so I think.
That's an interesting observation. Each of my Papaya plants was a distinctly different phenotype. One finished over a week ahead of the others and was just as you described - numerous smaller buds. That was the plant that had almost no mold and the best yield. Papaya was not the best choice for this climate. The buds were oily and soft and they hardened into dense nuggets. 2 oz. fills just over half of a quart jar. Papaya is quite a bit like the Mazar I grew under lights for a number of years. My Short Rider (skunk) autos are not nearly as sticky and dense, but the smoke is very good. Some unavoidable realities for western Washington: - At 48 N, in a good clearing, natural budding doesn't start until near the end of August. - Humidity is over 80% throughout the fall and often over 90%. - Light fades quickly with overcast sky, tall trees and shorter days. - Fog, rain and wind storms are likely any time after mid September. The best bet for a photo strain in this climate might be some variant of skunk that only needs about 6 weeks of budding. Then it's done by October 10. That was the stuff I grew back in 99. It's not as deluxe as some of what is out there, but it was good... a lot better than the "Timewarp" people grow because it's a sure thing and won't mold no matter what the weather does.
That's not the PM bullet proof strain I ran across... I can't seem to find the book mark or the note I made about it, lol... A victim of the SuperHighMe syndrome, I'm sure...
After drying and curing I ended up with just over an ounce of good flowers and about 14 grams of popcorn and good sugar leaf. Combining the trim and popcorn from the outdoor with about 10 grams of trim from my indoor plant Blasted some oil, pic after scrapping from Pyrex before final purge.
After watching Bubble Man talk about dry sifting all summer and all this rosin business, I was pretty sure that's what I would do with all my trim, but I'm not ready to pony the $$ for some large sift trays. What I do have are bubble bags... So, I think I might just go that route. This time though, I'll be sure to freeze the hash balls and micro plane them on to some cardboard, so it can dry more kief like.. Last time I made bubble hash, I came back to find it moldy after a couple of months
Butane extraction then everclear added to purge butane. Evap everclear, scrape, put on non stick mat and toss in the toaster oven at 150.
That leads back in the direction of what people have grown in my area for many years. Mighty Mite used to be the go-to strain for outdoor commercial growers and guerrilla operations. The plants don't get very big, so growers would put in a couple hundred of them and pray every night. Their green, leafy bud used to show up in zip lock bags in the fall. It was cheaper than indoor and the best outdoor from California. It does finish early. Here's another skunk variant offered by Nirvana: https://www.nirvanashop.com/en/feminized-marijuana... It might do pretty well up here in the PNW. In this climate, outdoor on any significant scale seems to involve compromises and is largely the province of rural homesteaders on a tight budget. Meanwhile, commercial weed is a legal industry, run by technicians in climate-controlled production facilities. The greatest good for the greatest number. My goal this year was to beat the system and grow premium quality with sunshine and a bucket of dirt. My friendly feline kept wanting to invade my trimming space. Other than that my Papaya bud turned out pretty well. But I don't think it would work if I was growing very much.