Sombro's back garden effort.

[sombro]

ok the camera is back from the shop so its time to start the journal.

I have 10 superskunk plants in about 5 gallon pots in the back garden, they've been growing since may and are looking more or less healthy, a few of the plants have yellow tips as can be seen in the pics but not all, i'm a bit confused as they've all been treated the same.

the main challenge i've faced is how much to water, some seem to need more than others, some go droopy from lack of water after only 1 (very hot) day whereas others can go 2 days without any ill effects.

i'm giving them a standard fert 7-6-5 in a slightly weaker solution than advised on the bottle.

let me know what you think all comments welcome, i'll post updates with more pics when appropriate.

peace, sombro

 

[THE BROTHER'S GRUNT]

Whats up sombro. Damn man am i glad you got your camera back from the shop. You have yourself a very nice garden going, or should i refer to it as a jungle.

 

[Mutt]

Wow man, your gonna have to get some heavy farmin equipment come harvest.

 

[ftw2012]

I think i can smell them from here! nice "jungle" as TBG would put it..

 

[Hick]

looks to me like a very slight nutrient burn. I think I would stop the nutes for a week or two, and watch the new growth closely. They look great other than those tips.

 

[Dr.GreenThumb]

I think you will need help somking all that... call me

 

[sombro]

they're already looking happier, the tips are back to normal. I was away yesterday and couldn't water them, although mrs sombro insisted that they were ok they're looking a bit sad and droopy so i'll water them when the sun goes down and then every day from now on.

I'm going away for a week soon and stil don't really know what to do about watering them, does anyone have any suggestions???


thanks everyone for your support, you're all invited to the testing in october!!

 

[Mutt]

I hang out at this DIY site a little bit. Find pretty neat ideas.
but here is one page with a couple of Ideas.

homemade self-watering device

 

[Hick]

Self Watering System
I found this link awhile back while encountering a similar scenario.

 

[sombro]

great ideas, thanks a lot. I think I've seen the one that Hick suggested for sale in the local garden centre. Its unfortunate that some of the above will be males but hopefully they'll show themselves before the month is out and there will be less to water while I'm away. At the moment they get 2L each every day 2L X 10pots x 7days is 140L of water (about 40 gal !!)

time to buy that water butt I've been thinking of.

 

[sombro]

update

my children were affected by a small local disaster, the greenhouse in the first pic was not properly secured and an unseasonal but very strong gust of wind blew it on top of the plants, some branches were broken off.

I've removed the greenhouse but one plant in particular was affected. Still every cloud has a silver cliche and at least we've had some shake to smoke this weekend.

still nervous about leaving them for a week, mrs sombro is putting the pressure on for me to extend that week to ten days I see the phrase "you love those plants more than you love me" making its way into a conversation soon.

more photos soon

peace

sombro

 

[sombro]

update

right the boss has informed me that my presence is required for 10 days with her on holiday,I'm still worried about watering. Unfortunately none of the ideas put forward by our learned friends will supply enough water to ensure survival over that period. Fortunately though we have an automatic irrigation system and I've spent the whole day servicing and working out how to program the damn thing.

Good news / Bad news time again, where the water actually goes depends entirely on the mains pressure at the time, I don't know where to put the plants to ensure they get enough water but are not damaged by the spray. I've decided I'll put a shield in front of each plant so that the water can drain into the pot without blasting off the leaves.

I hope it works, can't put any pictures up because Mrs Sombro has the camera with her. I'll post up some photos of the carnage when I return and hopefully some reportage that may be of interest to lovers of the herb.

peace

 

[sombro]

right, I got back from my holidays to find that all was well more or less, the watering system I'd set up worked fine for 8 out of the 10 plants, the other two were just about clinging to life. I gave them a good watering, one sprang to life almost immediately and showed me that it was a male boo. The other will need some more tlc to be coaxed back into life.

One of the remaining healthy plants has turned male too, bastard, it's now just leaves in a paper bag in my larder waiting for hard times.

So from 10 two have turned out to be males and one is in a very bad way. I'm pretty sure that at least 5 of the remainder are females with a couple still to show their colours.

As I had to scatter the plants around the garden so that they could be accessed by the sprinklers the plants have had varying amounts of light, the effect that has had on their growth is amazing for just 10 days away, they now look like 3 or 4 different strains, the ones in the front garden have grown bushier, the ones with less light have gone a bit more spindly and the ones hidden in the borders out the back have shot up.

enough banter, here's the photos, going to buy some fertilizer for the flowering stage later today

peace

sombro

 

[THE BROTHER'S GRUNT]

Whats up sombro. Bummer about the males but we all get them. Your plants are looking very healthy with the exception of the one plant but i'm sure it will spring back to life with a bit of TLC. MJ is one tough plant to kill so be sure and give it time to recover. Great job man.

 

[sombro]

Ok, so I got a bit neurotic about the watering, I read a post from one of the sabios that intimated that if plants in pots need watering every day (and mine do) they are most likely rootbound. So in order to prevent this I've dug a couple of trenches in my garden, filled them with a good substrate and some worm castings,cut a large section of the bottom of each pot out and planted them in the trenches.

I've left two out, one as a control to see any difference between planting them and not and the other because it's still recovering from holidaygate ! As you can see she's coming along nicely.

I've put the frame of the greenhouse around the plants in readiness for early next month when the temperature drops a bit and I can put the cover on.

peace

oh and apologies for the crappy photography

 

[Hick]

Wooo-hooo...loking great som'. You're gonna like the results of the "trench"..

 

[cat_tail]

Mad prop's, bro! One day I hope to have my own little "garden of eden". Keep sending pics! Happy growing.

 

[sombro]

well I checked this morning and they're looking nice and healthy, I've moved to watering every two days but using 50% more water. just thought I'd share a couple of photos because they're all in preflower and I'm getting pretty excited about it all!!

going to make my 4th attempt to get some flowering nutes this morning, lazy bloody stoners don't open unti 11.30 and those are the ones that haven't closed entirely for august!

thanks for the advice and support all, it means a lot.

peace

 

[sombro]

right, I'd stopped giving vegging nutes a while back but just recently I've had a problem with yellowing leaves starting at the base and progressing upwards, I added nutes last thursday and the leaves are starting to return to their nice healthy green colour.

Got some flowering nutes and have added the first installment. On the bottle it says to use the fert (it's ATA's Bloom-C) in conjunction with their veggie nute (grow-c). Can I continue to use the all purpose fert (7-5-6) I've been using alongside the flowering fert? This would prevent nitrogen deficiency.

Also as you can see below the damaged plant is coming along but not really as fast as I'd like, any advice to speed up it's recovery would be great.

peace

sombro

 

[THE BROTHER'S GRUNT]

Whats up sombro. Glad to here you got the problem fixed with the leaf discoloration. The ladies sure do look great man. Keep up the great work because harvest is right around the corner.