Ahh at this time of year discussions turn to budrot, when to chop, lots of bud porn and of course plans for next year. Almost finished my first rather small grow and I've learnt a lot! So heres a thread to discuss what went well, what went wrong, and what we are doing next year.

I'll start

This year I grew 10 fem Nemesis by seedsman. I learnt that it is possible to start seeds outdoor at a geurrilla site but is a pain in the ass and I lost 50% at this stage. I also lost another plant due to poor site choice and not preparing the ground properly. I lost no plants to wildlife thanks to good protection, and will never compromise on this in future.

Of the 40% that made it 1 was left untopped, 2 were topped in the normal way and 1 was FIM prunned.

The untopped plant is the tallest and has the fattest main cola. The two topped in the normal way did okay and I think have more bud on them. The FIM prunned plant is the smalest and has the most bud. 5 main colas have grown from the prunned point.

Plans for next year.

Next year I will be spending a bit more dosh and getting strains proven on uk420 to finish early. I am hoping to grow easy sativa bassed on funkimunki's grow, possibly orange bud bassed on Magoos continuing sucess with this strain, and passion#1. Durban poison may be a subsitute as Im keen to grow Sativas.

Next year plants will be grown at my special seedling site, but a proper coldframe will be made. Some of the seeds will be started earlier in April, some in May. All my plants will be topped early on and possibly a second time as I like short and bushy

Against the rules Autumn digging will not be done, each plant will get a good wide deep hole gug for her in spring and filled with good quality compost mixed with topsoil.

Next year i gonna attemp clonning.

Also thinking of holding on to a male from my reg seeds and having a bash at seed production.


Wakenbaker

OK

Well what have I learnt from this year?! Well almost the same as you Wake. I got through something like 60 seeds before I could get something about 3" tall

I've also learnt that it's a lot of work without being able to drive, almost impossible so driving will be a nessesity. Currently my grow partner is back at Uni which makes it harder!

Next year I'm gonna do tried and tested strains too. Also thinking of building a greenhouse on site if I cant sort out a place to grow some seedlings and clone them. I am also gonna top all my plants and maybe go with fewer plants (around 30) maybe split between 3 sites. I'm also gonna make my cages much much bigger. Gonna do 100% females because this year pulling males has been a right hassle!

~Satta

What have I learnt from this year?Nowt that I didnt already know,but I have a few hundred kilos of fish waste and other goodies I intend to fert some ground with for next season,oh yeah,I wont use Hollands Hope again Apart from that next season will be the same scenario as this year I hope?

Yea hopefully some more of this nice October weather...

~Satta

indoor plants are generally crap outdoors, by the time they flower, all the best sun has gone and you get smaller buds.
oh, and not to get complacent regarding location. I lost a fair few to robbers just by not taking a few extra minutes to cover my path

The main things I learned this year are to ensure good outdoor strain selection relying on forum grow reports for finishing times as most of the seedbanks stretch the truth regularly in this regard.

Coco fibre is much easier to carry than damp heavy compost. Preperation is essential, scout now for south facing sites and get digging where possible (digging in the summer heat is no fun). Ensure your plot has good drainage, I didnt for one plot and have payed dearly this year!! Google maps is great for finding plots from your armchair.

I already bought some seeds for next year as follows: Barneys farm: LSD, Next gen seeds: Bonkers and Timewarp, Secret valley seeds: Outdoor mix.

Gonna have to try the Easy sativa too along with some of the DP strains that have done well for others here this year.

You got Bonkers ID?I read an article several years ago in HT magazine about a valley full of Bonkers in British Columbia,its one of those strains I always thought "Must try sometime"

post copy pasted, thanks

also im thinking about typhoon (spelling?)

Yeah dude im gonna make a couple of coldframes over the winter one for the allotment and one for my seedlings i'll be starting them off outdoors again. Im gonna do regs next year, and of course some fems dotted around




Haha this thread is more for the first year growers who are learning a lot!! But I bet everyones learnt summint new even if its just a new site found! I'd be happy to know how your easy sativas do as I'm gonna be running them if I can get some seeds. Do you know when there gonna be in stock?



What strains are you gonna do next year?



Yeah im gonna try and fit some site hunting on my to do list. I'll be watching your easy sat diary im gonna crack mine outdoors in April in a coldframe.


Your advice is all great keep em coming.

Wake

Ah yeah so much to learn ay? I have to say mine are dont be lazy with protection from bunny rabbits, plant more seeds than you need, EASY DAY TIME ACCESS this year has been a pain. And pick proven outdoor strains also to top as it yields most and is the most stealthy :]

Dig Big Holes. And get the compost / nutes in early.

More White Widow, plus guests t.b.a.

Wake,Early Sativas are back in stock in January,I managed to get a few more packs of the '09 stock,Funki is your ,am for info on them,I bought my packs on the strength of his incredible grow,I just got back in from an afternoon of trimming,took a shower,and a leaf was washed out of my hair

What did I learn this year?
Don't believe everything I read when it comes to seeds/seedbanks, wish I had a pound for every time I say this!
Stick to what you know and continue to improve your own line that works for you instead of trying to buy sucess.

Also to stop complaining about the weather in July and August, I do like a hot summer but I also enjoy walking to my plot without 40 litres of water too!

i confirmed that life is full of ups and downs ..

I have learnt this year that dog walkers and black berry pickers are everywhere, and if you see black berry bushes do NOT plant near them. Even if they are the most rubbish blackberry bushes ever, do not plant near them because the chances are you will come back and find some elderly, country walking, tweed cap wearing sort picking them (even if they are rubbish) happened to me this year.

Found a great spot through a vastly over grown / unused field in the middle of no where, is just a field filled with nettles, brambles, all sorts of other crap, and the odd rubbish black berry bush that is obviously starving of nutrients and produces tiny sickly looking fruits, and been honest I was convinced that no one would wade though an entire field of nettles and rubbish (in the middle of nowhere) just to pick a few sickly black berries (how wrong I was) in fact three times now I have seen black berry pickers while leaving the spot, and while the spot is secluded enough and away from the black berries one black berry picker did come dangerously close.

My advice, if you see black berries, apples, plums, cherries, or fruits of any kind then (do not) plant near them because chances are come harvest time someone will be coming to pick them, honestly folks really freaked me out this year I mean the black berry bushes I'm talking about are seriously rubbish, but still people have turned up to pick them, and believe me walking away from your patch, turning a corner and suddenly seeing two black berry pickers stud there comes as a shock. Do not plant near any naturally growing fruits, no matter how rubbish they are!!!!

I always plant near the juicyest blackberry bushes you've ever seen in your life,one fly in the ointment for elderly jam makers is the 12 foot spike-topped fence they have to scale to reach them.I found an old mansion grounds earlier this summer,perfect for next year,have to get through a fence to look around,I found a path cut with secateurs through nettles and undergrowth to reach the pears and damsons,how the f**k do people find these places its not like your average pemsionable couple decide to brave thistles,massive matresses of brambles etc just to snoop around

Certainly have mate, also the SV outdoor mix is currently on its way from greenlife which includes yet another timewarp cross, got the shipping confirmation last wk. Will let yall know if they deliver as this is the first time I ordered from them and I thought it was worth the risk after reading some good reports and recomendations. They're Canadian stiff is nice an cheap too!! Just no fems for the good outdoor stuff as yet.

Your so lucky findin that mansion BP, will be callin yourself lord of the manor next!!



Dont know about the typhoon, but the others I listed will hopefully do the trick. Theres also plenty of early strains that have delivered for the guys posting on here, do the research to harvest those buds, theres always plenty of good advice here on 420.

The coldframe sounds like a good idea Wake, may ave to try that meself after I have cloned the ladies nxt spring. Would be good to get the mothers out to make space for the clones where its nice and cosy indoors.

wakenbaker:
next year i'll be moslty growing JAMIL SAYYIDA, tried and tested this year. early flowering,no complaints, except maybe by today's standards not uber strong, but then it's a leb cross and to be expected .maybe a few of sannie's outdoor strains( the erdbeer f3's look like a winner) and if i can score a pack , purpurea ticinesis.

One lesson I have learnt from this year,well,two actually,never grow a pure sativa,not a dutch sativa but a pure equatorial one,I took a pic of one today,great looking plant,but just starting to flower Second lesson?I am getting some white widow for next year,I looked at a few today,mega-white,covered in resin and smelling like lemons

Yeah Youd need to run her into January!! Whos white widdow are you getting? Thankx for the heads up on easy sats aswell.

Yo! My lessons learnt are all about decent plot (enough sun) and cracking seeds early enough, Pretty gutting to see 5 months of hard(ish) work and worry amounting to nought!



Gonna crack seeds at least a month earlier in 2010 and be a bit more selective with the strains..

All the best me fellow guerilla's

Its dutch passion white widow Wake,they are very heavily frosted,I was quite surprised,and quite pleased to be honest,doesnt smell skunky at all,its got a very lemony boquet,I will certainly run a few next year.The sativa is a genuine philippine sativa,I didnt even count them in numbers,they were just stuck out from curiosity,I have a pic I just uploaded.

yeah me too.. HH used to be a banker for me but now its fucking pathetic. ive praised this strain for years but now i must eat my words. i wrote off to nirvana to complain about the lateness of their beans but never got any reply. i will never use their seedbank again (thats every year ive grew out their stock for over 10 years) for outdoor beans as they have each year become later and later, with this year being a complete piss rip and my HH wont even finish to maturity even if they were left till mid november which is a full month later than last year!! how the fuck is that possible??..

this year ive learned that big effort doesnt mean big mature crop. ive also learned that growing in containers is a fucking nitemare outdoors for guerilla growers. i learned that 3 bad summers doenst mean its going to be a good one the next year!

i think we all learn something each year, even if we do know how to grow (its not exactly rocket science after all) we all come out of each season better growers and a whole lot stronger for the next years assault with a heap of new ideas to test out.

ive had some highs and lows over the last few years growing up here but the last 3 years have been the worst ever. its looking like im going to be busy making bubblehash for a while instead of smoking jars of ripe buds. boo fucking hoo but least i should get a nice stash of hash if nothing else. all my plants are still out fighting the ground frosts we have been getting here and not to mention the endless rain and gales! ah well.. some purples about ready but the potency of them looks pretty fookin weak tbh so hoping for better some in a week or 2 from the others if the grey stuff dont dust em first!

i have usually snipped off and dried a few branches ready for the trimming session (about now'ish normally) but this year its just not possible! i cant chop for at least 2/3 weeks and even then its going to be too leafy/hard to trim/ sore for my lungs to smoke i reckon. we shall see..

the joys of growing in northern europe eh..

With easy sativa being the only real sativa viable, we have to grow mostly indica dom beans. It's the only way to get the solid buds we all crave. Does anyone know of a 50/50 cross with a really 'up' sativa high??

The blueberries are off my list, as the smoke is good, the outdoor finish times are way off, leafy buds all round I fucking hate this. I'm a little sick of couchlock indica highs, considering moving back indoors tbh.

Lessons learnt in 09? Bunnies are a bigger threat than bad weather or humans.

My lesson for this year is, spend your time finding a good spot! even if you have to travel an extra mile. It seems a few people have been rumbled from getting a bit sloppy with site selection (nearly including myself) I just spend an hour on a lazy sunday, a sandwich, a few smokes and take my time getting there. I think rushing leads to mistakes, whether it may be preparing your site making to much noise and motion, attracting a nosey rambler etc. If you slow down your pace it easier to remain undetected.

Visit when you know other people will be at home, dusk or dawn, or when eastenders is on

Sometimes experimenting with strains pays off, but if you decide to test the untested always have a nice backup of strains that are proven... i have some monster superskunks that are just showing resin now. I might be lucky and harvest something decent?

Dig a well! (if possible of course) i spent half an hour digging one. Hauling water would have been a back breaking experience. If theres some growers who feel water is just under there feet, give it go! dig down 3-4 feet and see what happens. The well i dug this year was under the root zone of a fallen oak, i could get 30 litres a go, sometimes 45 when it had rained recently. If you can get those 15 litre water drums that are filled with mountian/spring water that are found on dispensers in office's, they make a good water container.

mulch! you can use bits ripped up comfrey, nettles, old oak bark (rich in calcium, non acid forming) etc....
This isn't something learned from experience but i would like to test different methods of getting a constant supply of water to the tap root. Digging a deep narrow hole, filling it with peat (wicking medium) and then planting on top. Im going to be experiementing next year with different methods.

And dont let the horror of bud rot let you down, always plant plenty and hopefully you will be rewarded with a bounty.

Lastly have a good stealthy drying system, ready for your return of the erb... not having it sorted could mean funny smells drifting up the nosey next door neighbours big hairy nostrils. A big, big tub with a mini dehumdifier, a couple of pc fans, sealed with gaffa tape works well and is stealthy.

Sorry to hear of your misfortunes Mr Mojo and goodluck for what you have left outside.

Dont forget the Durban SB another sat dom that does finish ok, seen a few good results on here this year. As for goin back indoors its the only way I'm gonna be able to cross out the early beans I got with some choice sativas I fancy.

My AI plants have all been written off bar one plant which should be ready round about now though the bud was quiet leafy last I looked. I'm gonna be pollinating this one AI with the Papaya and Mazar then wrapping her up in bubble wrap to keep the frost at bay (hopefully). Then another cross indoors with some earlier genes to get em to finish sooner. Grapfruit with its delicious sativa high and that mouthwatering flavour is on the top of my breeding list along with the Super Silver Haze, money and time permitting.

I think the only way we will get more sat varieties is to breed em ourselves, for this very reason my male plants are just as important as the ladies!!

Greenlife just delivered my Secret valley outdoor mix, 12 beans, havent checked my bill yet though as it was in US $'s. Stealthy packing too.

As for the bunnies, well they did a lovely job of topping my plants earlier this year!!

May we grow wiser with each passing year!!

Yeah, thanks ID, the Durbans were in the back of my mind. Didn't funkimunki do them this year??

Anyone know when the durbans finished?

You should look into LST (low stress training). I 10 main colas on one of my LST'd girls...I LST'd 4 plants and all had 6 or more main colas. With LSting you aren't cutting so the plant doesn't lose any growth time trying to repair itself.

Look into Durban Poison from Dutch Passion its a great femmed seed product, haven't had any hermies with them. Its a very very easy strain to grow and it is 100% Sativa and finishes the last week of September. Its also a prolific grower and I didn't have a touch of mold or powdery mildew. Durban's love being LST'd...tie them over every other node and do it 5 times and they will finish around 4' tall. The smell is a very strong citrus smell with a very heady high, its not the racey type high either which is nice and its pretty potent. Its a very beautiful flower too, it will start to turn a golden/purple come mid September if temps dip into the low 50s for more then a few days.


What? What indoor strains are you growing? I've grown indoor stuff outdoors and it flowered much faster then the other stuff, but then again that depends on it being Sativa, Sativa dom., Indicia dom., or Indicia.

I'm guessing he means late finishing sativa doms which start flowering a week ago.

When do you expect to harvest them mate? Is it a 100% sativa? I do fancy doing the widdow as its just about the most famous strain in the world!



Some good metal cages 1ft in the ground and 4 ft high and your plants are bunny proof.

4 foot high wake? They are bunnies not kangaroos,4 foot I couldnt get over the fences myself unless there was a gateway or I carried stepladders I am cutting my WW first thing in the morning mate,they look very nice,and smell totally different from their neighbours which were chopped a few weeks ago

I'm thinking of just building one big fence round each one of my plots next year...

well if they start flowering at -13 hrs sunlight it don't make a blind bit of difference what strain they are to me.
too late when you need 8-9 wks to finish flowering. but for the record i tried big bang and nlx this year. both indica doms (well the nlx pheno i had was, although a nl white widow cross)
at least the nlx is smokeable after 6-7 wks :-)

Yeah thats an important thing I learnt this year. Its not just number of weeks flowering but When do they start flowering. Or to put it another way, pick tried and tested strains for security, other strains for fun/experiment.

Don't trust anyone to look after my plants if the outdoor grow goes tits up.

For me it's going to be 3 sites - better chosen and prepped than this year. Prepping the soil is going to be critical.

Probably try and get Early Sativa, Passion #1 and maybe Cali Orange.

I've recently spotted a couple of prime sites for next year. I'll make sure and get round to preparing them this winter.

Have a test dig, and get a feel for the soil. You might get lucky and have some good well drained dirt. No need to dig. Many folks here just plonk 'em in, and some folks go nuts with ph/lime/manure etc, and get below average results. I've found that my regular site in clayish soil, which has been turned over last year, hardly needs any more work, just a quick flick with a fork, and a sprinkle of lime me thinks...I'll use chicken pellets instead of manure this year, thanks to Badpenny and Ouncyboy for that tip.

Sticky,my biggest ladies this year were around 10-11 ounces,not bad for a plot that was prepped last winter and since then had nowt done to it,no watering,no ferts,no nowt Chicken Manure is great,better tip is I popped around M's who owns "Cavemans" place a few weeks ago,and collected some sacks of Bat guano, £12.50 & £18 for 20kg sacks,I have 80kg stashed away for next season,its never too early to think of next season especially if this ones been a goodun

what did i learn? seeds change with each annual batch. this year's Mandala no1 nowhere near as good and fruity as before. still huge cropper tho. Also, when the seed company says ready end sept they mean ready Halloween!

Yup, those guano sacks are clearly cheaper in large quantities. Might splash out on a 20kg jobby for my bigger site. Last year I learnt not to add fert when liming. Just leave the lime alone, and add ferts a few weeks before planting. They cancel each other out or summat..

Next year im gonna dig 4ft x 4ft hole and save the top soil. Then im gonna add a bag of manure to the hole and dig it in to the subsoil. Then refill the hole with a mixture of compsot and topsoil.

you guys are so lucky, i would say the worse thing about adhd is the inability to plan, i do or i dont do, always act on instant though, always cocking up, i'm always hoping i'll get it under control one day, then i'll be able fly with pigs.

You can get it cheap enough to make your eyes water,only problem is its minimum order of 25 metric tons and you have to arrange shipping from Mozambique

One thing I have been pondering is how to make a site with heavy red clay soil productive. I noticed the other day some marsh grass in one corner at the lower end of this plot so it must stay really moist. My plants are a little further up the very gentle slope but I still had problems with waterlogging as can be seen in my diary. Theres about 18" to 2ft of clay then the really rocky subsoil and the whole lot just doesnt drain, 2litres of water poured in a hole just sits there and I am looking for a solution to get better drainage.

I was thinking along the lines of a raised bed with a ditch running all the way around to give the water somewhere to run off. Do you any of you guys reckon this would work?

I also have my eye on a marsh area and was thinking of maybe giving some of the marsh growing methods on UDG a try. Managed to find another two possible sites as well one of which is fairly large with a drainage ditch close by for water though this site will probably be a hit and run type grow as it is a good journey away and I may even give it to one of my lifelong smokin buddies to cultivate.

Peace all

Indicaderek, google 'swamp tubes', if you raise the plants above the waterline, a tap root can get in there and supply nonstop water to the plants. They'll be monsters if yo get it right.

PMFSL DONT SPOSE UL HAVE A FEW BARROWS FULL SPARE WILL YA?

plans for next year? not to grow in my garden... to go proper Guerrilla...

Goes to show how much money hydro and Nute firms are making,buy it in bulk,package in small plastic tubs and sell with an eye-catching label for £10 a kilo 20kg sacks or the exact same product for £12.50-£18 or a tenner for a plastic kilo tub,hmmnnnn decisions decisions