Maine Outdoor 2020 (first timer)

Infurnoman said:

I would definitely get on giving the plants support early on, and having a way to pull branches out for air flow is great!

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That is 10 days of growth and you can see how fast a plant can fill out a support system.

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Thanks for the pics. So is the idea that the support will prevent breakage during a wind storm at this early stage? Airflow doesn't seem to be an issue on my plants yet, but I gather that becomes key during the budding phase.

Here's all 6 plants as of today. Maybe I should get some stakes in now and rig up a net for them to grow up into. Another question--I only topped the leader once and 3 nodes have grown since then. Should I top the two twin stems again now? Should I top elsewhere?

I usually wait until they get into flower before I stake mine. I like to see what the final shape will be so that I can set up the stakes accordingly for best support. It’s the late summer September wind and rains that wreak havoc. I’ll use painter’s tape to tie in branches outside the supports and just tape them to a cross support or a branch that is well supported. It’s quick, inexpensive and very effective. Pics are from last September.

Top everything until the last week of July.

Seawood said:

I usually wait until they get into flower before I stake mine. I like to see what the final shape will be so that I can set up the stakes accordingly for best support. It’s the late summer September wind and rains that wreak havoc. I’ll use painter’s tape to tie in branches outside the supports and just tape them to a cross support or a branch that is well supported. It’s quick, inexpensive and very effective. Pics are from last September.

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Thanks--that's kind of what I was thinking. Hopefully we'll be in flower by mid-August!

D'sNuts said:

Top everything until the last week of July.

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Every branch? Once or repeatedly?

If things go well I'm going to have way more harvest than I can use (thinking of giving a bunch away to veterans who need it for medicine if there's a way to do that legally), so I'm not really super worried about maximizing yields. More about plant health and airflow, although I certainly don't object to a bountiful harvest!

I only top the branches that are reaching up, then leave the bottom branches alone so that they catch up and make a more even canopy

Infurnoman said:

I only top the branches that are reaching up, then leave the bottom branches alone so that they catch up and make a more even canopy

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^^^ This. And wait a few weeks between topping. You want to see how the plants respond. Some strains will bush out like crazy after only one or two toppings. I have a Couple Dinafem Gorillas that I topped twice and won’t top them again whereas I will top at least once more on some other strains. Problem is if you top too many times, the law of diminishing returns can set in and all you end up with is more trimming for the same yield. You also don’t want to end up with just a few huge colas in the northeast. Great recipe for bud rot.

Seawood said:

You also don’t want to end up with just a few huge colas in the northeast. Great recipe for bud rot.

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Excellent point. It's been about three weeks since I topped, maybe I'll take another shot at it later this week. How's it going at your place?

NewEnglandFarmer said:

Excellent point. It's been about three weeks since I topped, maybe I'll take another shot at it later this week. How's it going at your place?

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So far, so good. Some of the girls didn’t like those 100 degree days last week. Started to show some signs of heat stress but seem to be back to normal now that it’s cooled down a bit. Averaging about 3/4”/day since I got them into their final pots a couple weeks ago. That’s pretty typical for my grows so I’m happy and they seem to be happy as well!

Your plants look great. Multiple 100 degree days? Holy heat wave, Robin, we only hit 96 here for one day.

UPS just showed up with my Neem oil concentrate, I'm going to apply some tonight at dusk. After doing some Googling and reading I decided to try a recipe that includes 1 tablespoon of neem per gallon of water plus 1 teaspoon of Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap. You're supposed to emulsify the soap, neem, and about a quart of warm water first by shaking vigorously, then adding to the rest of the water.

Will hit tops and bottoms of leaves and see how that works. I wish I knew for sure what critter was munching on the leaves. With the holes so tiny, I'm thinking it's not a caterpillar but some little bug. But not really too sure yet. Will keep a close eye on things.

Any tips/advice regarding Neem welcome.

It was hot as balls here last week. 2 days in a row at 100.

Your critters are probably just leaf hoppers. They’re usually not a problem that gets out of hand. Any pics of the damage? Be careful using any sprays...might want to try one plant first and wait a day to see how it responds.

Pics a few posts above in this thread. Tiny little holes mostly from what I can see. I went ahead and sprayed the garden, fearing more leaf damage if I did nothing. Figured their recipe had been tested, and I noticed 1 Tablespoon Neem per gallon was half the recommended dose in the concentrate directions. It was right at dusk, I pretty well soaked all the foliage top and bottom. The Chinook Haze looked a little sulky afterward, but the others seemed OK at the time. This was between sunset and dusk, fairly warm and no dew yet. Will check on them in the morning...hopefully this takes care of the problem. I notice these folks (coastal California I believe) use neem during vegetation and switch to Bt during flower.

Checked on the garden first thing and all is well. That sulky Chinook Haze looked downright perky. Let's see if this puts a halt to the leaf chewers.

Anybody able to identify these critters? Found them while doing my daily checkup.

First of all, these two need to "get a room":


Not sure what this is...harmless? Or trouble?


And what is this white foamy stuff? Sorry about the focus, couldn't get my phone to lock in properly. Basically a bunch of little white bubbles:


Looking healthy overall as far as I can see. Just topped again yesterday. They've had no water the past week and we had some scorcher days, but the soil still feels damp below the surface. That mulch really helps. Been drizzly/foggy all day today.

Have 5g of compost tea brewing and plan to do a nice root drench at dawn tomorrow. If I get some on the foliage will that wash off the neem oil? Or maybe judging by the bugs I'm seeing that Neem oil didn't really do the trick. Although I guess it doesn't affect some of the larger insects.

The foam is from froghoppers, I've always called them spit bugs because of the nasty spit. Usually the bug is still hanging out inside the froth and I pick them out and blow off the nasty foam ahah.

Idk what that other bug is, maybe a leaf hopper? Hard to tell from the photo but if it was a leafhopper, they do like to bite leaves.

NewEnglandFarmer said:

Not sure what this is...harmless? Or trouble?

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Firefly

Finished week 10 and these gals are looking fine. Saw 8-13 inches of vertical growth this week. Topped them a second time mid-week. They seem to be hitting their stride. After almost 3 weeks with no rain we finally got an inch over the past 24 hours.



I tried a little foliar drench of aloe vera (1/8 t powder in a gallon of water), they seemed to enjoy that treat.

Today I pulled back the mulch and topdressed with some kelp meal. I meant to do 1/2 cup per plant but I had a brain malfunction (no, I wasn't smoking anything, am on hiatus this summer). Instead I did a full cup per plant. Do you think I'm asking for trouble? I haven't watered it in yet (supposed to rain tonight) so I could go back out and try and remove some of it.

The kelp meal was spread evenly around a 3 foot diameter circle.

Am I in danger of burning roots with kelp meal? Or causing other problems?

Leave it be or go out and try and remove some?

Talked to the woman at Coast of Maine who's in charge of coming up with the product formulas, procuring ingredients, and doing the labels (very helpful and friendly, they're a good company). She said don't worry at all about the excess kelp meal, not going to hurt anything.

By the way, when I pulled the mulch back to topdress I found a boatload of slugs underneath. So far I haven't seen one munching on any plants. Are they cool or should I be tossing those out of the garden?

NewEnglandFarmer said:

Talked to the woman at Coast of Maine who's in charge of coming up with the product formulas, procuring ingredients, and doing the labels (very helpful and friendly, they're a good company). She said don't worry at all about the excess kelp meal, not going to hurt anything.

By the way, when I pulled the mulch back to topdress I found a boatload of slugs underneath. So far I haven't seen one munching on any plants. Are they cool or should I be tossing those out of the garden?

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Kill all slugs look up the bowl of beer trick.

thumper60 said:

Kill all slugs look up the bowl of beer trick.

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What?! I couldn't possibly waste my beer that way!

Joke. I'll give that a shot. I remember trying that in my grandmother's garden back when I was in high school. Budweiser I think. Very effective.

Will slugs eat leaves?