Weed it and reap: My first Dinafem garden grow

[PermanentWaves]

 

 

Good morning, everyone - hope everyone is doing well.

 

Well, the wait is almost over. I can't believe we're here already at our new growing season. I big thanks to @Dinafem-Mark for sending me a pack of Sweet Deep Grapefruit and the newly-released Ocean Grown Cookies. I can't wait to get these going. I also have a freebie Critical+Plus 2.0 auto seed that will be joining the others.

 

It was my first grow last year and I learned a lot. The fabulous summer we had meant a couple of my plants ended up over 6ft tall, which was amazing, but nerve-wracking as it's hard to hide such huge plants. This year I will be using smaller pots and sowing my seeds in a few weeks' time. I sowed them earlier last year and got caught out by the really cold snap in April and nearly killed them. Hopefully, these three will start their life in the greenhouse at the end of the month. They will then be either outside in the garden or in the greenhouse, depending on the weather. I invested in a good greenhouse heater/thermostat and dehumidifier last year, so those will help when the weather gets cool and damp.

 

So I've gone for mainly indica plants. I really love the indica effect - it works well for my back pain/insomnia/stress. I'm currently smoking a sativa-dominant strain - it's quite mellow and relaxing, but if I'm feeling stressed out, it can sometimes exacerbate my edginess and I don't like it. It's indica all the way for me from now on.

 

I also have some Dinafem Purple Afghan Kush and Shark Shock CBD in reserve if any of the above turn out to be a disaster.

 

My grow is completely organic and very simple - sunshine and fish mix. I experimented with a couple of composts last year - one was a bog-standard all-purpose compost, and the other was Canna Pro. I had one plant in each - and they both ended up the same size, so there was no real difference in the quality of the plants. I'll be using the bog-standard compost as it's cheaper.

 

So this is my Dinafem adventure in the starting blocks. Looking forward to seeing how everyone gets on this year - both in the gardens and out in the wilds. Good luck to everyone. May all our jars be overflowing come November.

 

Hopefully I'll see you all again in a few weeks once those seeds get in their new, fluffy, composty homes.

 

Cheers xx

[Kipper420]

Good luck. Happy harvesting.

[lattitudepirate1]

Good luck mate, all the best to you this season! 

 

As a fellow GH grower ill be following this one closely. Sweet deep grapefruit sounds heavenly! 

 

Which heater & dehumidifier did you opt for? Im reluctant to heat/ dehumidify in my greenhouse as it almost seems a pointless task what with the lack of insulation/ old thin glass? (She's an old wooden frame 10 x 8 - probably 40 years old or more! Well maintained but still a damp box come Autumn) 

 

Come September time, i'm not sure any dehumidifier could keep up with the condensation & moisture where I am. 

 

Cheers! 

[PermanentWaves]

55 minutes ago, lattitudepirate1 said:

Good luck mate, all the best to you this season! 

 

As a fellow GH grower ill be following this one closely. Sweet deep grapefruit sounds heavenly! 

 

Which heater & dehumidifier did you opt for? Im reluctant to heat/ dehumidify in my greenhouse as it almost seems a pointless task what with the lack of insulation/ old thin glass? (She's an old wooden frame 10 x 8 - probably 40 years old or more! Well maintained but still a damp box come Autumn) 

 

Come September time, i'm not sure any dehumidifier could keep up with the condensation & moisture where I am. 

 

Cheers! 

 

Hi - thanks for your comments.

 

I went for the Bio Green Pal 2.0 (with digital thermostat). My greenhouse is also quite old so I wasn’t sure how it would work out, but I couldn’t have been happier with it. It cools and heats and the thermostat makes it much easier. During the hot weather, if the plant was inside, I set the thermostat to automatically come on as soon as the temp reached 25 deg, for instance, so it got some breeze in there. I didn’t have to use it as a heater until late September/October when it got cooler and damper. Again, I set the heater to come on as soon as the temp dipped to 14 deg, and it ticked over keeping it at a steady temp. Every morning, it was dry as a bone inside the greenhouse. No condensation at all.

 

I put the dehumidifier (Ebac 2250e 15-litre) on a timer so it came on for a couple of hours at dawn (when the humidity was sky high), but didn’t need to use it during the day as the fan heater kept it pretty dry in there. Because it’s a fan heater, it doesn’t take long to heat the greenhouse as well so it’s not on all the time. I did try a paraffin heater first of all, but the fumes were awful and the condensation was still a problem.

 

My photo plant had zero mould on it (it ended up 6ft high and only just fit in the greenhouse) so was really pleased. The electric bill wasn’t usually higher, either, as I thought it might be. It’s definitely worth having for those autumn months and summer cold snaps - which I’m sure we’ll get this year.

 

[PermanentWaves]

1 hour ago, Kipper420 said:

Good luck. Happy harvesting.

And to you 

[lattitudepirate1]

@PermanentWaves Fantastic! Thanks for that write up chap. 

 

Im going to have to do some research now and see how I can get some power in the GH to implement something similar myself. 

 

I too use to use a paraffin heater but had similar experiences to yourself. If anything, the condensation was worse! 

 

Thanks again,

 

LP

 

 

[Dinafem-Mark]

@PermanentWaves Thank you so much for getting your 2019 outdoor adventure up and running mate

 

Another grower who selected a new strain being our OGC - Ocean Grown Cookies along with our Sweet Deep Grapefruit 

 

Let's see what you can do my friend. This season is going to be a blast and really happy to have you along for the ride 

 

Good luck mate. I'll keep dropping in as you update throughout the season

 

All the best 

 

Mark..

[Dr feelgood]

Great title mate, look forward to seeing how they grow.

[Happyeccentric]

Going to enjoy watching this.  I'm away to Google bio green pals as that looks good

[PermanentWaves]

Hi, everyone - fantastic to see so many new diaries springing up already. The 2019 outdoor grow is here at last!

 

The glorious weather last week spurred me on to get going. I popped my Ocean Grown Cookies (OGC), Sweet Deep Grapefruit (SDG) and Critical+2.0 Auto straight into seed compost on 21 April. I don’t do the wet towel method - I’m happy to wait a few days for them to germinate. They were then stored in a warm, dark place.

 

Three days later my SDG had popped her head through. The morning after the OGC had also surfaced so I took them down to my toasty greenhouse where they were able to spread their wings and soak up the sun. The SDG is slightly bigger than her BFF.

 

 

Now I’m just waiting on the Critical+ who is obviously having a lie-in. Still no sign of her tonight - hopefully she’s just a slow starter or the seed has sunk a little lower in the compost than the other two. I’ll give her a few more days. If she still hasn’t shown I’ll gently scrape back the compost to see what’s going on.

 

Anyway, just sunlight and water for these girls for the time being. The temperatures are going to be cooler this week so they will stay protected in the greenhouse during the day and I might bring them into the house at night if it gets cold.

 

That’s it for now, folks. If my Critical girl can be bothered to get up, I’ll update and get a snap. Otherwise happy growing and see you all next week xx

[Dinafem-Mark]

We have a Sweet Deep Grapefruit and Ocean Grown Cookies ready to join the outdoor fun and fingers crossed that the Critical shows her head

 

Until next week buddy

 

All the best 

 

Mark..

[PermanentWaves]

Thanks, @Dinafem-Mark. Still no sign of the Critical today, which is a shame. That’s eight days ago I planted her so it’s likely to be a dud. I’ll perform an autopsy tomorrow to see if she attempted to escape her shell. At least the other two came through.

[Andromedian]

We are doing Sweet deep grape too, lovely looking strain from the off, so far anyway....

Best of luck my friend

[PermanentWaves]

Thanks, @Andromedian. I noticed that you’re running some Grapefruit in your diary as well, although yours are a lot more advanced, but looking really good. It’ll be interesting to see how these new strains fare in our great outdoors.

[PermanentWaves]

Hi, everyone- hope you’re all doing well.

 

Well, this weather’s a bit crap, isn’t it? This time last year we were basking in some lovely May warmth. I’ve had to have the greenhouse heater on this week - during the day and night. I’m really glad I invested in an automatic thermostat in the greenhouse as it means I haven’t had to worry about wrapping and unwrapping the plants and trying to keep them warm.

 

Sadly my Critical+ never germinated. It was planted exactly the same time as the others and kept in the same place. For some reason it didn’t even want to break its shell. After eight days of no-show I gently scraped away the soil to see how she was doing, but she’d obviously decided 2019 was not her year.

 

Never mind. I still have my Sweet Deep Grapefruit and Ocean Grown Cookie. The SDG is the taller of the two as she popped above the soil a day earlier than her cousin. She’s just over a week old and doing well. I might pop them in their final pots soon as they are getting tall.

 

Here’s the grapefruit girl - she’s starting to develop some nice leaves now:

 

 

And here’s the Cookie grrrl:

 

 

Could do with some nice sunshine this week to really get them going. It’s amazing the difference the sun makes on their growth.

 

 

They’re both still on rainwater at the moment. When they go into their final pots, I’ll start introducing a little fish mix as they get bigger.

 

So that’s the first week gone. Let’s hope the weather warms up for us all this week - especially for all you guerilla growers.

 

See you all next week xx