Here is a quick video of our solitary Northern Lights hermie plant on harvest day. We had to isolate her from the main area after the plant started displaying intersex traits.
It was a hard choice to move or kill the plant, because the plant was about 3/4's of the way through the flowering phase and we didn't really have another place for it. And yes this can be expected for some strains, but we didn't want to pollenate any of the other plants.
She was ultimately quarantined to the veg tent where we had our clones for the the next cycle. It was pretty fun to watch the clones also go into flower mode. However it took nearly a month for them to re-veg. Delaying the next cycle.
We were pretty sure this NL plant hermied as a result of human error. We made a couple mistakes with lighting and light leak during the vegetative phase. So this wasn't unexpected. We were happy to find that only one plant hermied.
The lighting was 12 LED bulbs putting out a combined total of 108w.
If anyone has any input about the leaf coloring that would be great. We did reduce total feeding strength about 2 weeks prior to harvesting.
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2018 Outdoor Cannabis Grow Week: Forget the week...Today we are harvesting Strain: Super Silver Haze
Last plant to be chopped down. Wanted to put together a quick video to pay homage to all three of them. It was quite the journey this summer and fall. That actually started way way back in early winter of 2018. When all three of these plants were selected from a cloning rig. They were the lucky ladies out of a group of ten cuttings.
All three of these plants had a slow start because of the cold temps through the spring and summer. But all of them took off once the temperatures started remaining above 70 degrees. And turned into giants that just didn't want to flip into flower mode.
They didn't need a lot of care and support during the vegetative stage. SSH strain grew tall during this stage and the stems were plenty thick to support them reaching heights of 13 feet. It didn't hurt that the summer saw very few high wind occurrences.
During this period we didn't need to provide them with any nutrients. Our soil was pre-mixed store bought 55 cubic liters and we then mixed it up with coco coir that was left over from our indoor grow.
We felt this was needed to help stimulate the root growth and allow oxygen to get and the excess water to flow out of the medium without pooling.
Although it was fun, it wasn't all happiness and orange sunshine.
We learned pretty early into August that these ladies were going to need either a meteorological miracle where weather remained mild and dry through October and maybe into November. Other option would be to physically manipulate the plants light cycle.
Unfortunately due to the heights of these plants any kind of tent or cover was going to be impossible for us.
So we were left with the natural option and had a wild ride watching the weather get progressively worse over the next 2.5 months. September went by without any major issues, and for the most part October's temperature didn't drop too much. But the constant humidity in the fall months was severely damaging to the bud development.
Some weeks the temperature was hovering in the 60's but it was either raining all day and on the off days the humidity was still >75%. That promoted a bud rot to form on all of our plants. And try and we might to remove the diseased sections, it wasn't always successful.
Given our experience with just three outdoor plants. We gained a new respect for any groups that professionally run farms out in the other legal states.
We also didn't use any pesticides this year. Another factor that promoted bud rot was the caterpillars we didn't realize were in our buds until harvest time.
Yeah Bub. I'm talking to you and all your friends. Next year it's on, like Donkey Kong.
Fun fact as we were trimming the leaves off the buds. This one caterpillar had an aphid riding on it's back. The aphid is just out of focus in the back but you can see it's body outline.
So this may sound like the grow was a total loss, but that's not true. We had pests, rot and harvested all three of the plants well before full bud development. And all of these facts are not ideal.
But we did learn a lot, and now know true sativa strains like SSH will need help converting over to flowering to make go full term before the season ends in New England.
And we have a lot of bud to work into oils, concentrates and edibles.
I have to say we are still perfecting our skills at the Ice Water Hash Bubble Bags. Our first run was good, but all other runs have not yielded anything great.
Here is a photo of some scissor trimming and finger hash formed into a little ball. Although it's small this was the first time i've been able to get nearly all of it all my fingers. Usually I would just scrub that stuff off and accept the loss. Again just another example of the small victories from this grow season.
This shot is really poorly focused and I don't have the caterpillars in the shot. But I took the photo because they would slowly start climbing the bag, even reaching the top after a little while.
Kind of felt like I was playing a caterpillar version of Tempest. Where I would need to knock them back down to the bottom or they would escape into the house and I'd be in trouble.
We have a ton of the pre-developed popcorn buds. If you can call them that. :(
Now all we have outside is around 100 gallons of soil and stems and roots which will be composted and spread around the gardens. Lots of experience gained this year, and a new approach to the 2019 grow season.
So that's where I left those pink flamingos...
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2018 Outdoor Cannabis Grow Week: 11 of Flowering Strain: Super Silver Haze
Well we did it! We were able to get one of the three Super Silver Haze plants to get nearly through the flowering stage. There were a lot of doubters out there. And a couple of times it really looked doubtful that these plants were could go the distance. But hey to poorly paraphrase MeatLoaf, "1 out of 3 ain't bad". And that's basically how we feel. 👏🙏
So we are seeing that this plant ended up having the slowest development during the flowering stage. It also had the least bud rot. Which could have been due to the fact that it was the farthest away from other plants and bushes.
The top colas were looking pretty ripe. And with the incoming weather bringing frost warnings and rain it seemed like a good time to harvest.
As you can see below even some of the top colas weren't fully ready for harvest. Oh well. There is always next year. And we'll have plenty of product from this season to convert into hash and canna-coconut oil for edibles.
We're definitely going to be testing our baking abilities this holiday season. 🍪🍫🍬
So of the plant really started showing a lot of purples.
According to WikiLeaf and other sources on the interwebs. Purple is unfortunately not indicative of a higher potency. But this could be due to genetics or the environment was optimal.
In our case it was almost certainly environmental. By that we mean the plants were allowed to flower in cold temperatures below 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
Under these conditions the chlorophyll in the leaves started to break down and another compound called, anthocyanin starts showing through as the concentration overtakes that of the chlorophyll. As you can guess this compounds color is purple.
The purple buds also stood out with these thick orange pistils (see below). The buds were ultimately not ripe and were not as filled out as we would have liked them to be by week 11. It was probably due to the cold, rain and end of the growing season weak sunshine.
We are very excited to try out these purple buds though. Our indoor grows haven't yielded any of these so this is a first.
From our research Super Silver Haze lineage is primed for purple buds. Northern Lights is a strain known to contain large amounts of anthocyanin.
Anyways this was a fun run. After this post we're transitioning into harvesting posts / videos. And then edible creations.
If you have any suggestions for edibles we would love to hear them and get any special recipes.
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2018 Outdoor Cannabis Grow Week: 9 and 1/2 of Flowering Strain: Super Silver Haze
Week 9 and 1/2 and we are cutting down the second plant. Unfortunately it is also immature, but the harvest was required to prevent the spread of bud rot. And the weather in New England was supposed to be cold and wet for the majority of the next 10 days.
Looking at the plants using a jeweler's loupe we saw that the plant had a pretty decent presence of amber trichomes. Not enough to really warrant harvesting at this time, but a higher concentration than the first harvested plant.
Some of the buds still had a lot of white pistils on them. As you can see in the photo below.
Some thoughts after growing Super Silver Haze outdoors in New England.
1. Train and top the plants
We didn't do this and they grew to be between 10-13 feet in some places. That was fun but it made them hard to manage. Had we topped and trained them over the course of the summer. The heights would have been managed better, and we could have better addressed other issues as they developed.
2. Provide support for the plants as the buds developed
Here in New England as the season changes from summer to fall the area gets a lot of wind and heavy rain. Both of which did a number of the tall top heavy sativa plants. By not providing them with proper supports, most of the plants had branches and stems that snapped and died.
3. Manipulate the light cycle
We allowed the plants to enter the flowering cycle naturally. This was by far our biggest mistake of the outdoor season. Had we forced the plants into flowering one month earlier, they would likely have reached their full potential in the flowering cycle.
4. Pesticides during the vegetative cycle
We didn't use any pest control methods this season. As a result the plants were attacked by caterpillars. These were in the buds as they were harvested and dried. Doing some general research on this subject, we could have found a number of safe options that would have helped the end product.
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2018 Outdoor Cannabis Grow Week 9 of Flowering Strain: Super Silver Haze
The Super Silver Haze strain is a 100% true sativa plant, and in our opinion they have truly thrived here in the New England climate. Today is chopping day for one of the three plants. It is farthest into the flowering stage, and also is getting hit the hardest with infection.
Although these plants have been very resilient to the cool climate here in New England (lows in the high 30's), they were susceptible to both mold and pests. And that has pushed up the harvesting timeline.
But that was not exactly their fault. We decided not to use pesticides, and did not provide them with any covering during the wetter weeks between September and October. It is very possible that these plants would not have had these issues if we tended to them differently.
Ultimately this was an experiment to see how well the strain could grow here in New England. And we provided them with minimal assistance. Other than the nutrients in the pre-mix store bought soil, we fed them nothing during the entire vegetative stage. And then offered only a handful of feedings during the early-middle flowering period.
In our opinion this strain did very well, and grew tall and healthy. And probably could have gone another couple weeks if the rot and pests weren't a factor. And that is without a covering.
All of the flower and sugar leaf from the plant being chopped today will be converted into concentrates which will be used for edibles. The plant matter will be bagged and frozen fresh. From what we have read, drying can remove some of the Terpene flavor profile from the concentrates if plant matter is allowed to dry.
That will be another video down the road.
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Bud sites are starting to really fill in which is great. But we've also seen a fair occurrence of bud rod on one of the plants.
Having come from mainly running indoor grows, we have been trying to manage these new challenges as they develop. Which is obviously not ideal, but it's sort of all we could do.
We have been very lucky with the temperature. But the excessive moisture really hurt our plants.
Here are some bud shots at week 8. They are clearly not ready to be harvested. But we are racing against factors that we cannot control. So harvest is likely coming in the next week or two.
Even the lower bud sites have started to show amber colored trichomes and red pistils.
This photo was used for our youtube video. One of the better buds on the most eastern facing plant. It's been hit hardest by the bud rot.
Under a jeweler's loupe we are seeing a mix of clear, cloudy (white) and even amber trichomes.
We've noticed that the pistils and trichomes are in different stages based on where the plants are positioned. They sit in a row with one plant facing the east, one being in the middle, and the last plant facing the west.
The most western plant is the least ripe, with majority of pistils being white and the trichomes largely still having that clear look.
The most eastern plant is the most ripe, with about 40-50% of the pistils having turned red, and the trichomes being majority cloudy, followed by clear, and less so amber.
Here is an example of the bud rot. Such a shame that we couldn't control or prevent it from happening this year... 👎
It has been a really fun ride, watching these plants go from being cuttings, to foot tall transplants, to 12-13 foot giants.
And we arrived to this point with minimal feeding and training.
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After surviving a pretty wet couple weeks things have become dry and mild again here in New England. Some temps into the low 40's are expected, but this is preferable over 60's with high humidities.
We noticed today that the plants had taken quite a beating from the wind gusts that went through our area the night prior.
It wasn't obvious as the plants are supported and weren't flopped over on their side.
What we noticed was a patch of ants around the snapped stem area. Any idea why they are there? We assumed this was for the sap of the plant.
Anyone have an idea if these little insects are helping or hurting the plant?
**update**
We have taped the plant and added another support rod. So hopefully they will not have any additional stem snaps before harvest.
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With all of the rain we have received over the last couple weeks, and the relatively high humidity levels our garden and surrounding area has been invaded with mushrooms.
It's not a good sign for fighting bud rot within the cannabis garden, when all around the plants we have wild mushrooms sprouting up. Basically most of New England has been the perfect conditions for fungi.
But we did our best to remove them from the area. Not sure if those mushroom are even a threat to the cannabis plants.
And since we have no idea if these cool looking things are a problem. I'm more or less going to ignore that possibility and geek out on mushrooms for a bit
Anatomy of the mushrooms in these photos:
Cap: is a yellow and light brown color
Scales: yes, they are a off-white color
Gills: are prominent and well spaced
Ring: hangs off the plant and is white with bits of yellow (better example in the photos below)
Appearance seems to fade out as the mushrooms progress through their life cycle.
Compare the younger mushroom (above) with the two older ones (below).
A basic search on the web, led us to believe these are Amanita frostiana mushrooms.
According to wiki, this genus contains some 600 species, including some of the most toxic mushrooms to be found around the globe.
Some of those well known species include:
Amanita muscaria - also called the fly agaric and fly amanita. They contain muscimol and ibotenic acid. Primarily found in the cap of the mushroom. It is these two compounds and their interactions with the body that cause the psychoactive (hallucinogenic) effects. We are merely citing wiki and related sites for information, and are not promoting human consumption of these mushrooms.
Two other infamous mushrooms for their toxicity are:
Amanita bisporigera and Amanita ocreata - Also called Destroying Angel, what a name right?
It contains amatoxin which inhibits RNA polymerase II and III (just nod like that means something to us). Symptoms do not appear for 5-24 hours when most of the toxin has been absorbed by the kidney and liver. And it is at this time that the damage is irreversible. As little as half a mushroom cap can be fatal. And these can be confused for the magic mushroom variety.
Amanita phalloides - Death Cap. I mean if the name itself doesn't drive a little fear into you you. This excerpt hopefully will.
And quote, "The death cap is one of the most poisonous mushrooms in the northern hemisphere. It grows throughout the entire temperate zone of Europe, Asia and North Africa. It was carried (probably with tree seedlings) to North America and Australia. This amanita is responsible for most mushroom poisonings, and even small doses can be very dangerous. Resistance to the poison varies among individuals, so specifying a fatal dose is difficult. The poison - amanitin, damages the liver and kidneys. Initial symptoms occur 8 to 48 hours after ingestion. In this phase, the person experiences fatigue, stomach nausea, dizziness, headaches and feelings of cold, even freezing. The nausea intensifies, stomach aches occur, accompanied by strong retching and watery diarrhea, leading to dehydration, and eventual circulatory failure. This is usually the immediate cause of death in children. If the patient survives this phase, his condition appears to improve (usually the fourth day after ingestion). In the second phase, the kidneys fail, and sometimes the liver as well. Death usually occurs four to twelve days after ingestion."
Full link to site: Safety about wild mushrooms and simply search wiki or call your local poison control. Better yet don't go foraging for wild mushrooms if you aren't a pro...
I don't believe these are Amanita mushrooms they are a lot smaller. But still pretty cool looking. I sort of gave up on researching these ones after doing a serious deep dive into the Amanita genus.
Artsy photos are easy. Looking through a ton of photos for, white small mushrooms with ring, less fun.
Here's, "the odd pair"
Calling this one, "the loner"
And this, "mushroom deep in thought"
Anyways like I said, I have no idea if these mushrooms are going to negatively impact our cannabis garden. But it was fun photographing and researching them.
Please be careful even just handling mushrooms. After researching the more poisonous ones, I went and washed my hands a couple times just for good measure.
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Weather in Massachusetts this weekend was perfect for fall and for our cannabis garden. Temps didn't drop too low into the 50's and the humidity levels were also below 70%.
After 3 days of rain with humidity levels exceeding 85% for most of the work week. We will take a couple dry days before more rain comes to the area.
We had our work handed to us this week, for sure... Removed a lot of lower branches and some bud rot.
Lots of spot checking on the garden for bud rot. It doesn't always look obvious. And the untrained eye may just see a collection of fuzz that could confused for a dense section of pistils. And then it can also be darker red which also has the appearance of aged pistils.
To any one else dealing with bud rot. It pays to look at the plant bud sites from different angles. Remove any dead leaves, and look for dead or dying fan leaves around bud sites. That can be an indicator of disease around your buds.
When in doubt cut away - cut often and cut deep - don't kill your plant with kindness
It is very to want to be gentle with your plants. But by doing so you can be setting it up for more issues later on in the grow. If you find bud rot, cut that area out from the plant completely. Leaving anything could just promote return of the mold in a week.
But this philosophy should really be practiced from start to finish. These plants required a ton of late stage stem trimming, because we didn't fully remove the lower third of the plant. We removed branches that are flowering but will not develop full buds. It's a waste of resources for the plant. And thats our failure to realize this from the start...
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Week 6...Honestly after last weeks rain and wind, we are pretty lucky our plants are still kicking.
It's October 2 days, so let's just through that unpleasant reminder out at the start of this weeks post. If it weren't for the potential for bud rot / low temps below 50 degrees. The upcoming weather patterns would almost be acceptable.
The weather forecast is predicting 1 day of rain followed by 3 days of dry and repeating through the next ten days.
That's not terrible, but it would be a lot better if we could get the plants out of the rain. Which we can't there's that.
The wind also was a major factor last week that we were not prepared for. 2 of the 3 plants suffered major stem splits at their bases. We brought in larger stakes and the plants appear to be still alive but that was a horrible morning to wake and see them all sprawled out.
We are seeing some purple pistils and sugar leaves. That's neat. Well actually just the volume of sugar leaf and bud sites is definitely encouraging.
Looking over the plants and where they are in the flowering cycle. These plants are strong candidates for ice water hash extraction, followed by iso-propyl for the finish.
We are certainly appreciating all the comments and feedback on the various sites and places we post. Please keep them coming!!!
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Week 3 of flowering, and September is almost gone. We are still totally at the mercy of whatever weather comes here in New England. With any luck things will continue to be mild and dry.
The outdoor plants bud site production has definitely started taking off. But again the temperatures are likely slowing overall progress. In just a week there has been a development.
This week, the temperatures are hovering around 60 degrees, and it may even include some rain...
Let us know your thoughts on the status of these plants. Can they go the distance?
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Week 2 of flowering, and it's now September. We are at the mercy of whatever weather comes here in New England. With any luck things will continue to be mild.
It's been nice to see the outdoor plants starting to get the bud sites going. But again the temperatures are likely slowing all production down a lot.
Even the bees in our area are starting to freeze up in the afternoons.
Seriously starting to consider looking into building an outdoor enclosure for the plants just to ensure they can go full term as temperatures start to consistently reach the 50's and colder.
But for right now we are going to appreciate the fact that we are into the flowering stage. So there is an end in sight.
Let us know your thoughts on the status of these plants. Can they go the distance?
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Got a couple or a lot of weeks left in your flowering stage? Starting to worry if you're going to have enough days to get to the harvest before it gets too cold?
Welcome to the unpredictable world of New England weather...
This weekend brought the first real break in an otherwise long and continuous stretch of very hot and near unbearable levels of humidity. However that also meant dangerously low evening temperatures. Some parts of New England saw well into the mid-40's.
While that's not going to kill your crop. It's not going to help move things along much either.
Luckily the temperatures in the greater area appear to be coming back into the 60's and 70's.
Courtesy of https://www.news10.com/weather
If our crop was a football team (go Pats btw), we'd be looking at a hail Mary toss right about now to get to the endzone (i.e. Harvest). Case and point, we're about 2-4 weeks in of a possible 8-12 week flowering cycle. And the temps have started to drop below the 50's.
We're hoping for mild couple of months into late October. But who really knows. We read the farmer's almanac, which if accurate said something about a cold winter. But we don't need to get to winter...just to middle fall.
We aren't going to be creating any outdoor palace for these ladies. It's just fingers crossed and hope for the best.
How's everyone else managing things around dropping temperatures?
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Looking back at one of our first indoor grows. Such a mix-matched set-up. Half the plants were 100% sativa the other half were 100% indica. That was a fun test of our abilities at maintaining an even canopy...
This was photo was taken very early in the vegetative stage. They had all been recently transplanted from solo cups into either 1 gal or 5 gal cloth grow bags. Medium is coco coir.
They literally exploded into monsters, doubling in size in about 1-2 weeks. Gotta love pH balanced nutrients feeding. They do wonders for your garden.
In our opinion, when your plants are under 2 feet tall, they are so easy to train. It's at this point in your grow when you first begin to transition to training mode. I miss the daily low-stress training and super-cropping.
Looking forward to our next indoor grow. For Sure!!!
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Not to get super sentimental. But when you actually invest the time and effort into growing a cannabis plant. Each part of the grow comes with it's challenges and rewards. And if you're lucky you also get a lot of medicinal product as well. But that is just one of things that makes this entire process so much fun.
Hopefully you're all experiencing more rewards then challenges!!!
It's getting close to harvesting season across the US. I'd love to hear or see some success stories from other growers!
Here's a photo we use on our blog. It's not the healthiest leaf, but whatever.
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Getting into the last week of August. Here in Mass we are dealing with a little bit of a heat wave this week. Weather in some parts of the commonwealth are going to see temps go over 100 degrees.
The plants are happy, just need to make sure they are getting the water they need. Ironically the humans are the ones appearing to be wilting in the same conditions.
Seriously, is anyone else sort of done with summer??? Or at least these 90+ days with 70+ humidity.
What we're really hoping for are milder temperatures from now through the end of the season in October (hopefully not November). Fingers crossed as these girls don't seem to want to switch over to flowering naturally.
Aside from enjoying the nearly explosive growth of the plants this summer. We've also been able to enjoy seeing a wide range of insects show up. Here are a couple that we were able to get photos of.
Moth on leaf
We're not really sure if a moth is a good or bad thing for the plants. But it looked nice and was willing to sit still for a close-up.
Green planthopper (can you see it? 😄)
So these are definitely not helpful to the plant, however they look super cool. We also see a number of different species in and around our garden. By far the best looking ones are all white. Sorry couldn't find one to get a photo of.
Flower Spider - Misumena vatia
This was a surprise to see. Take that literally. We didn't see this spider which is the size of a small marble until one of our faces was right next to it...
Misumena vatia - is a species of crab spider. With the largest and most well-known being the flower spider. These are also called the goldenrod crab spider or flower (crab) spider because they are often found on goldenrod plants.
Another interesting note: these spiders have the ability to change color from white to yellow. And the spider can adapt colors to blend with the plant (if white or yellow). It takes about 10-25 days to go from white to yellow, and about 6 days to reverse.
Bumble Bee (Bombus) - Just chilling out
This bumble bee was just chilling out. The photo is a little misleading with the lighting. It was actually taken close to dusk so the temp was lowering and that was why it was so inactive.
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After a little reorganizing in the tent and moving the light over 30 inches away from the canopy, and also feeding (reduced nutes, CalMag & pH balanced water):
One day after the plants were spaced out. Starting to look a little better already. Filling out the canopy like happy little ladies ought to do:
