Just a bit of backyard fun in the sun

Well, I figured I'd start a new diary for the summer time outdoor fun. My indoor flowering will be done by end of july but I have been moving my vegging plants outside over the past couple days.


now bear in mind, I'm not in the tropics , nor am I in a prime growing area like California. I'm at 52.5 North latitude and 2850 feet in elevation in western Canada.


Putting plants outside unprotected before last week would have ensured disaster LOL but now , mother nature has finally brought us summer time weather and I have been busy germinating seeds and transplanting vegging clones and seedlings.


My set up for now is just open sunshine and I have a covered area I can move the plants to in case of heavy rains. Around here we can get hail , torrential plant destroying rain right thru till july.
Once end of august comes I'll have a small hoop house so I can keep them warm at night in sept. We can hit zero C at night by sept 10th and hard frost by sept 30 so will be planning accordingly.
Some of my plants will require light dep starting by mid july, some are autos so should be fine without light dep.


I am growing in 18 gallon rubber maid totes with sunshine mix 4 fortified with dolomite Lime. I'll be using Alaska fish and some other semi organics but keeping things super simple and low maintenance.


So the varities that I'm running
First up germinating in 4" starter pots
-Afterthought Autos Azure Rocket - 6 regular seeds (seedbay freebies)
-Ancestral Seeds Betty Warp (betty paige x texada timewarp) - 5 regular seeds
-Swordfish (Black Tuna x Shiskaberry3f2) 10 seeds - my own cross
-OJSDKB F2 - server fund seeds by member Baked Beanz - 6 seeds
**males will be cloned and killed from swordfish and ojsdkb if they stand out and are early to flower.


Plants vegged a lil over 6 weeks indoors
- Shiskaberry F1 - 1 plant topped and trained and in 18 gallon tote
-Shiskaberry3 F2 - 1 plant , topped and trained and in 18 gallon tote.
-Antenna Seeds Purplelazerlite - 3 female seed plants , 2 in a 18 gallon tote and one in a 5 gallon pot


will take some pics tomorrow and update

more coming but I have some work to do first and waiting for the new seedlings to rise from their cups.

Bring on the barbecue.

Let's go outside and play.

Are you gonna spray anything on the plants? I find the 1st week
outside are when insects go nuts on the fresh greens. I only use
organic or low toxicity stuff like a few drops of dish soap in water.

I even made a small smokey fire once when I was watering my
RSC Lebanese in 2009 to smoke out the bugs. But honestly, this
was more for me.

Like 8 trillion black flies and mosquitoes vs one human is no fun.
So fire smoke signals to the rescue it was. Oddly enough, all the
leaf hoppers and grasshoppers vacated the area as well.

Be careful when making fires.

Ya they will get a spray down with Scott's eco sense bug begon.
I'm not a big fan of spraying stuff on my plants but will take measures if required.

I lightly spray the plants and use the rest of the bottle to spray the entire area from an upwind position.

P.S. I pretend I'm napalming the entire area.

so I've sowed all the seeds into starter cups. I started the OJSDKB 24 hrs after the others and they all had tails this morning so all 6 of those have joined their cousins in starter pots.

so far Ancestral seeds Betty Warp (from Vancouver seedbank) are off to a good start , being the only ones above soil as of today. 4 of them are up and the fifth is pushin dirt.
I'm going to give each variety 7 days inside, matching the outdoor daylight hours , then outside with cut off 2 liter pop bottles over them while they harden off.
will post up some pics tomorrow

okay it's been a couple more days and have seed germinating update.
Betty Warp 5 for 5 and all are stretching and developing well. They look very uniform.
OJSDKB F2 , 5 for 6 above ground, looking normal , #6 is my fault, I dropped the cup when I went to water it and it dropped a couple feet to the ground
Azure Rocket 3 for 6 are above ground, 2 look normal and are progressing, 1 looks a little funny but will let it ride. no action on the other 3.

The let down.... my new cross Swordfish. most had split and had little tails when I potted them up. but only one has come up of 10 and to my dismay it is a 3 leafed mutant
these are fresh from the bud seeds so I'll let the big pile of seed age till decemberish before I do a "for realz" test grow on the Swordfish.

So, have 12 good seedlings to go out with my other plants and 1 iffy one. The 3 leafed mutant is being killed LOL
will get some pics once they are outside and enjoying some sunshine.

well..... I'm stressin out big time over my outdoor. The last few days have been ultra poor weather here. Cloudy with sunny breaks but very cool and intermittent heavy wind and rain. yesterday around noon I was outside tending to things and it started downpouring hail the size of frozen peas. Got all the girls under cover , no worries. Glad I left them sheltered as today it phucking snowed!!! About 2 inches of wet shitty snow, then it hailed for over an hour, then it rained like a monsoon for a couple hours and stay grey the whole day. I went and looked at the temperature.... 11:30 pm and it's +5 C outside. Can't be good
now, I'm at 2850 feet elevation but my 58 plants up the mountain are at 3020feet and have no protection from this disaster. I dunno what to expect when I get up there tomorrow but I'm thinking the mountain plots are gonna be frozen or at best smashed to hell from the rain and hail and snow.
oh well, all is good with the seedlings as they haven't gone out there yet.

will update after I have assessed things.

I hate lousy Spring weather.

Sounds like you almost have to grow in greenhouse up there.
I really think You may have to build a Walipini into the side
of a mountain where your at someday.

Pit Greenhouses

Build a $300 underground greenhouse for year-round gardening

It's often surprising what an established Cannabis plant can endur... Almost as shocking as a Canadian weather forecast, lol, good luck my friend, I hope they fought it off... Down here we are getting slow growth from clouds and heavy rain, with cool nights, but I know from years past they are pumping roots down just waiting to shoot up at the first sign of light!

+3 this morning haha
just went out and checked the backyard girls and they look okay. No drooping or bad signs. Glad I got them under cover before the deluge.
the shitty temps and grey skies are a bummer but it's the hail that worries me.
headin up to check out the mountain plot in a couple hours.

How's the mountain plot?

well, I can't believe it but not as bad as I thought. still 52 of 58 standing. 1 or 2 are write offs for sure but otherwise, as long as weather improves and doesn't stay the shits, all is not lost LOL

It's getting warmer here now.

So maybe you'll get the same weather soon.

I put out 5 plants two nights ago and 1 got a
few bleached leaves. Seen that before should
be ok.

Ahhhh the joys of growing in the great white north.
Sounds like the kind of weather I've been getting here as well. But I just had a light dusting of snow. I managed to drown a few with the heavy rains tho.
This plant always amazes me with it's ability to survive what I and mother nature throws at them.
I would not worry to much about the swordfish seeds. They just need some down time before they are best, at least a month or so. Should be fine by December for your indoor run.
I wouldn't be so quick to get rid of the mutant. Some great plant's can come from these.
Anyway subbed for the show.

Best of luck with your outdoor and may all your Buds be Huge

Peace GG

Where I'm at, there is a heat index of 102F! It's cookin outside! Lol

Glad your outdoor plants are still in it to win it, Tom.

thanx man

my god the sun does exhist!!! LOL
grey skies parted at about 10am today and back to full sunshine. Still cool at +13C right now but warming
supposed to be some good weather coming and that's good because I'm transplanting the rest of the stuff for the backyard. I took a bunch of nice healthy clones from the Ustad Shiskaberry 3 F2 going on 5 days ago now (looking awesome but no roots yet) and today transplanted from the 2 gallon pot into a roomy 18gallon rubber made tote.
**will add some pics of that shortly.
seedlings for outdoors won't go out for a few more days, I need more totes LOL

bring on the sunshine!!!!

gorilla ganja said:

Ahhhh the joys of growing in the great white north.
Sounds like the kind of weather I've been getting here as well. But I just had a light dusting of snow. I managed to drown a few with the heavy rains tho.
This plant always amazes me with it's ability to survive what I and mother nature throws at them.
I would not worry to much about the swordfish seeds. They just need some down time before they are best, at least a month or so. Should be fine by December for your indoor run.
I wouldn't be so quick to get rid of the mutant. Some great plant's can come from these.
Anyway subbed for the show.

Best of luck with your outdoor and may all your Buds be Huge

Peace GG

Click to expand...

ya brutha, I know you can relate
us north of 50 degrees outdoor growers gotta be on point to get decent results most seasons.
I culled the mutant but have 2 nice healthy swordfish seedlings coming along, all 5 Betty warp (very vigorous and identical) , 2 azure rockets with vigor, 2 total mutants but 4 total and 5 Baked Beanz OJSDKB f2s. Along with plants vegged going on 8 weeks now from clone, 1 each of Spice of Life - Shiskaberry F1 , Ustad Seeds - Shiskaberry 3 f2 ,and from seed, OTLB Collective - KPA (kimo x P.afghani) and 3 x Antenna Seeds Purplelazerlite
should be a fun grow. Don't expect huge California style trees tho

Damn it's going to be hot today at 32°C. That may not seem
hot to you people in California, etc. But this is hot for Canada.

TT, I really wish I could just throw you an extra 10°C to warm up with and keep the balance = 22°C.

If only things like this were possible.

corky1968 said:

Damn it's going to be hot today at 32°C. That may not seem
hot to you people in California, etc. But this is hot for Canada.

TT, I really wish I could just throw you an extra 10°C to warm up with and keep the balance = 22°C.

If only things like this were possible.

Click to expand...

today is nice out, sunny +24C , lil breeze and a perfect day for preparing more 18 gallon totes for transplanting the seedlings into.
got the shiskaberry 3 f2 female and the KPA outside in the shade of one of the apple trees hardening off for a couple days.
fun times , I hope it's all worth it come fall and praying for a late summer that runs well into sept haha