Outdoor Desert Grow - It's Possible! (I hope)

I've got a little garden growing out on the patio here in the Southern California where it is not uncommon to see 110+ days . I've got 7 plants and 5 different strains going right now at different stages of growth. All 7 plants were started from seed, 3 of them at the end of May / beginning of June, and the other 4 were started at the end of June.

This is a pure outdoor grow. I do not have the money or space to dedicate to an indoor grow. One way that I have been dealing with the heat is to keep the plants in shade from about 2PM until about 5:30PM when the sun seems to be at its strongest. Also, at the end of the day, I spray all the plants with some Botanicare Liquid Karma, to help with feeding and moisture.

As far as the strains, I am just going by what they were labeled at my co-op:
(1) Twilight
(1) St. Nick
(2) Sunny Kush
(2) 3rd Eye
(1) Unknown

Has anyone ever heard of these strains before? The only one I can find any info on at all is Twilight. Maybe these are just some names given to them by local growers... who knows.

Currently I've got the 3 larger plants in 3 gallon pots using Roots Organics potting soil, and the 4 seedlings in 1 gallon pots using the same soil.

This is my first grow ever, but I have been researching this for years. Hopefully there are others out there that have tried to grow in these conditions that can pass on some valuable advice. Almost 2 months in things are going pretty well. Below I'll make a post for each of the strains showing you their progress so far.

I plan on updating this throughout the rest of their grow.

Check back and follow along, but more importantly - give me advice.

Thanks

Dont be afraid to water daily(nutes weekly_), in those temps they prob need it. I dont know those strains but in those extreme conds sativas usually happier than indica which can be stressed, stop growing at 110+

This is the St. Nick plant that I have going. This is by far the biggest plant of the bunch and has grown a lot in the last 3 weeks since I transplanted it from a Solo cup to a 3 gallon pot.

On June 28, the plant measured about 6.5 inches.
Now, on July 20, the plant is up to about 20 inches.

I did try to FIM the plant a couple weeks back, but I didn't do it right apparently and all it really did was slow the plant down.

Here are some photos of the progression:

This is after the transplant from Solo cups. About 6.5 inches.




This is about 6 days after transplant. About 8 Inches.




I attempted to FIM this plant but was not successful. This is the area I tried to FIM.


And this is that same area immediately after the cut. Can anybody tell what went wrong here? Did I not cut enough of the growth away?




Here's the plant 3 days after FIM.




At the same time I was trying to FIM the plant, a roommate, unbeknownst to me, added MiracleGro to the brand new fertilizer. This was too much for these young plants to handle and they started to burn.






I leached the plants with about 9 gallons of water per pot to get all the nutes out and then started to feed her* a quarter strength helping of General Hydroponics nutes a few days later.
Here she* is about 2 weeks after the Failed FIM attempt. This is about 5-6 weeks of grow time.




And just yesterday, I think I am starting to see what looks like female pre-flowers. What do you think? Do I have a little lady?

Here is my Twilight plant. She is not doing nearly as well as St. Nick but has bounced back from some early nute burn.

Here she is immediately after transplanting from a Solo cup to a 3 gallon pot.




This is the plant about 6 days after the transplant.




Just like the St. Nick, she went through some serious nute burn because of the addition of the MiracleGro. I have since leached her and she looks much better.



I'm not sure why I haven't taken any more pictures of this plant in the last couple weeks since the MiracleGro fiasco, but I will take some more tomorrow and update the post.

very nice, they will start flowering soon enough, two weeks tops, and even before that you will start to see a growth burst. keep them healthy, keep em secret

*BUDS said:

Dont be afraid to water daily(nutes weekly_), in those temps they prob need it. I dont know those strains but in those extreme conds sativas usually happier than indica which can be stressed, stop growing at 110+

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice! I just created a second water bucket without any nutes, but the correct pH (which I am using anywhere between 6.5-7.0.) I was wondering if watering them everyday with the nute water would be too much feeding.

So here is a photo from this morning of the Twilight plant. As you can see she is doing much better than before, but she is still only showing 5 finger leaves. Is this normal? Are there some strains that just don't produce the big fan leaves?

This is about 35-40 days of vegging, and she currently stands at about 12-13 inches.

Looking good bro

Keep it up

Good luck

peace
doublejj
P.S. Those black pots collect heat. Better if you can shade or paint them.

doublejj said:

Looking good bro

Keep it up

Good luck

peace
doublejj
P.S. Those black pots collect heat. Better if you can shade or paint them.

Click to expand...

White spray paint

I've used cheap white paint & brush.

peace
doublejj

As I mentioned in the OP, I have one strain growing that does not have a name associated with it. When I got this plant, it was just a seedling and was in old, already used soil that was incredibly packed down. Out of laziness I never transplanted this plant into some proper soil. As a result this plant just kind of stayed stagnant for a couple weeks - it didn't grow, but it also didn't show any signs of stress. It was just about 3 sets of leaves, beautifully green, but staying put for a couple weeks.

I eventually got around to moving this baby over to some Roots Organics soil and giving the roots some room to move around in and grow. Within days this plant took off. I don't have any pictures of this plant from early in its life because I never thought it was going to do much. But now it is one of the two healthiest looking plants in the garden.

Take a look:





As you can tell, the plant looks like it has been topped. I would love to take credit for this, but the plant seems to have just naturally split. I'm thinking this happened as a result of sitting stagnant for so long without much growth - maybe the hormones just built up or something and when the roots could finally take off, two shoots grew out instead of the one. Who knows - maybe one of you?

doublejj said:

Looking good bro

Keep it up

Good luck

peace
doublejj
P.S. Those black pots collect heat. Better if you can shade or paint them.

Click to expand...

You know I was just thinking about this. I was looking at this white paint that is made for roofing that they use out here. It's supposed to be really good at keeping heat out, but is a little pricey for the little I would actually need.

phyzix said:

White spray paint

Click to expand...

Is white spray paint enough to keep the sun out and keep my roots cool.

Speaking of which - I've read a lot about techniques to keep the soil moist and cool. Some people use a sun screen over the soil, and I've seen others use wet newspaper. Any suggestions in this regard?

And just for good measure, I thought I'd put up a group shot of the whole family.

Hopefully I'll start including some photos of the seedlings as they get bigger soon.

TheDurty said:

You know I was just thinking about this. I was looking at this white paint that is made for roofing that they use out here. It's supposed to be really good at keeping heat out, but is a little pricey for the little I would actually need.



Is white spray paint enough to keep the sun out and keep my roots cool.

Speaking of which - I've read a lot about techniques to keep the soil moist and cool. Some people use a sun screen over the soil, and I've seen others use wet newspaper. Any suggestions in this regard?

Click to expand...

For white versus black:

http://www.jea.com/about/pub/downloads/science/E-6_Absorption-Reflection.pdf

I personally add vermiculite to the soil mix if I need more water retention. It also works well as a top dress, it holds in water similar to mulch.

if your worried about the heat go to home depot and get some black netting...dont get green because that actually reflects more light....look at my profile pic and build you a cheap little tent to cut back on midday sun....i live in san diego and i have grown year round for the past 3 years.....