Critical Jack & OG Kush fully automatic in a bramble bush!

[bigbadbudboi]

Critical Jack & OG Kush fully automatic in a bramble bush!

 

 

 

 

 

So after Dinafem's fantastic offer to grow some of their offerings to take part in their diary competition (many thanks to Mark and the team!) and much deliberation over all the wonderful strains in their catalogue I decided on Autoflowering OG Kush and Critical Jack to see if I can improve on my first try with auto's last season. Having tried buds from a few autoflowering plants friends had grown in the past I was pretty unimpressed with the flavour and highs I found but after reading tons of positive reviews here of Dinafem's autos I was convinced last season to give them a try and I wasn't disappointed! The flavours and highs I got from smoking the Critical Jack and Bubba Kush in particular convinced me that auto's had lots of potential to fill a few early jars with top notch bud and I needed to refine my grow skills to get the best out of them.

 

To that end this season I aim to try at least 2 or maybe 3 different methods of planting out to see which works the best in terms of minimising shock to the plants and getting them to fulfil their potential and grow the most buddage! 

 

First things first, here's my plot in the bramble bush that iv been using for the last few years so its had a fair bit of compost, manures and organic material added although you can see from the pictures the soil still looks a bit like sand! So I strimmed down all the green material that had grown over the winter, marked out how many plants I think I can fit in there, turned the whole patch over and then made some planting holes. Iv found that nice deep wide holes with high sides and a good mulch on top help use less water and keep the areas round the plants cool and moist when it gets stupidly hot in the peak of summer      Put some of my compost in the holes and then thankfully its rained for a week or 2 on and off so well watered in! Some pictures depicting what I just wrote...

 

 

There will be a mix of photoperiods and autos here, with the autos hopefully being ready and making space for the photos to flower into in August. I'm going to wait at least another week or 2 to get seeds going as the weather is swinging between cold and wet and then sunny and very warm at the moment and I think those swings in temperature were part of my problem last year. No eager beavers this year, watch the weather and wait for a couple of sunny weeks to be forecast and then its all systems go!!

 

Well that's the start of my diary started at last! Iv been having a look around the other diaries in this thread and there's some big plans afoot in the competition, it's gonna get interesting and whatever happens with the magic beans provided by Dinafem we're all gonna be winners come the end of the season!! Good Luck and happy growing everyone 

 

 

 

[lattitudepirate1]

Good luck mate, all the best for the season! Looks like a nice secluded spot!

 

Atb,

 

LP

[bigbadbudboi]

@lattitudepirate1   Cheers man and best of luck with your grow too! Really interested to see how big your Critical gets after such an early start 

 

It sure is secluded in my little patch of heaven, so much nicer than growing in the awkward loft space I had before! Nobody knows I'm there if I keep quiet 

 

[Tommy tucker]

@bigbadbudboiHey dude.Great start.Is this the same spot from last year?

[Happyeccentric]

Impressive holes that must have been a workout 

[weedouk420]

Looks nice and hidden @bigbadbudboi Would love an outside spot like that 

Will keep popping in on this one pal 

Atb mate.. 

Weedo

[Andromedian]

Good start my friend

lovely looking plot, and a nice bit of prepping done

 

be safe 

and stay lucky

[bigbadbudboi]

@Tommy tucker   Cheers man, yeah same spot as last year but I'm putting in a lot more effort this season because I was well down last year on the year before's bonanza! All the best for this season dude, great looking plots you've got and you've certainly put the effort in so far for a serious harvest 

 

@Happyeccentric  I skimped on my holes last year and suffered for it so I went til i hit solid rock this time! It's always a good work out getting the ground ready but the good thing about using the same plot for a few years is it gets easier every year! Good luck with your grow 

 

@weedouk420  thanks mate! Yeah its a lovely spot, well hidden but a bit too close to our track and sometimes when we drive up to the house with the windows open in September you can distinctly smell high grade ganja! Pop in whenever you want dude, doors always open 

 

@Andromedian  thanks and you dude! You've got a tasty looking line up, great to see so many strains being tried out by you guys, you pioneers really help the rest of us figure out what we can grow well outside! All the best on this seasons adventure!

 

Thanks for looking in everyone!

 

 

 

[Dinafem-Mark]

@bigbadbudboi That's one cool looking plot my friend and some serious work already been put in

 

Best of luck this season mate. Let's see what you can do with our genetics in the great outdoors 

 

As with all Dinafem grows I'll be along for the ride and watching with interest 

 

All the best 

 

Mark..

Edited April 23, 2019 by Dinafem-Mark

[bigbadbudboi]

@Dinafem-Mark  Thanks man, I'm doing everything I can to make sure I get the best out of your awesome auto's this year, can't wait to be smoking the Critical Jack again and really looking forward to my first try of the OG Kush! Welcome along for the ride man, let's hope it's a smooth one 

 

 

While I'm waiting for the weather to pick up iv been mixing up some planting medium ready for the auto's to go into when they're ready. The last few years iv used a mixture of my own humanure compost, aged sheep manure and some worm castings with good effect growing photoperiods but with the auto's I wanted a bit of a lighter mix so this year iv added some coco fibre and I'm currently testing this out on my photoperiods to make sure its not too hot. I'm hoping that the mixture will be light enough that the plants roots can quickly grow through it and it has plenty of aeration but that it also has enough nutrition to see the plants through their life cycle.

 

So a bit about humanure for those who are unfamiliar with it. We currently live off grid and in the summer months water can become scarce so we use a dry compost toilet system whereby we fill 20 litre tubs with our shit and a mixed chipped organic material covering and then use hot composting to turn our waste into fabulous compost! Because the compost heap reaches around 80c for 5 days or more we can put a lot of things in the heap that wouldn't normally be safe to compost, like pet feces or dead animals, so it's also a very good way of making sure that nothing on the farm goes to waste. The compost produced is a bit chunky but everything iv planted in it has grown well and the soil is real sandy here so it really helps improve the soil structure. If anyone is interested in making their own humanure then look for The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins and you to can turn your shit into black gold! Here's a pick of mine...

 

 

The next part to the mix is where I got really lucky this year! I help out at the local sheep farm a few times a year in return for a trailer of manure and a few cheeses and when I went to help clear out the sheep barn earlier this year my friend said "I think I have some other shit you might be interested in for your plants." So we go round to where he keeps his chickens and there's a roofless animal pen about 5m by 5m and when we step onto the floor its like a black sponge! He told me he took a load of the sheep bedding and dumped it in this pen about 2 years ago and his chickens have scratched about in it and broken it down until it was proper black gold! So I dug myself out a trailer load of that and it's lovely and light and there were lots of red worms in it, I couldn't believe my luck! So that's my secret weapon this year, I think the plants are really gonna love this stuff, it just looks and feels perfect, here's some pictures...

 

This is the normal manure/bedding I get which I mix in with my humanure compost as an accelerant...

 

 

And this is what that looks like after its been 'chickened' for a couple of years...

 

Gorgeous stuff! I get far too excited about compost 

 

So for the mix its 1 part humanure compost, 1 part secret weapon and 1 part coco fibre which iv mixed up and left to get sexy for a few weeks until the girls are ready for the great outdoors. A picture of the final mix just itching to grow some awesome ganja…

 

 

The plants will have about 20 litres each of this stuff in their final holes and with a bit of luck that should be all the nutrition they need, although they will also get a fortnightly foliar seaweed shower which iv found all plants respond really well to. That's my nutes covered and all it cost was £5 for 70 litres of coco and a few pence on the seaweed, this is gonna be some cheap cannabis 

 

Next up some planting plans....

[Dinafem-Mark]

@bigbadbudboi Putting in some serious prep work for the season ahead 

 

On 26/04/2019 at 4:35 PM, bigbadbudboi said:

That's my nutes covered and all it cost was £5 for 70 litres of coco and a few pence on the seaweed,

 

By the sound of things you've covered most things with what's been put into the earth 

 

Next stage plant out

 

All the best 

 

Mark..

[Andromedian]

On ‎4‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 8:37 AM, bigbadbudboi said:

 

 

@Andromedian  thanks and you dude! You've got a tasty looking line up, great to see so many strains being tried out by you guys, you pioneers really help the rest of us figure out what we can grow well outside! All the best on this seasons adventure!

 

Thanks my friend

Yeah sometimes it takes years to figure out shit in this game,

including what to grow...

 

Same to you mate, hope all goes as planned

 

stay safe

be lucky

[bigbadbudboi]

@Andromedian  Deciding what I want to grow and then smoke for the next year is one of the hardest things about outdoor growing for me. Indoors I could get a bunch of new flavours and highs every 4 months or so but just growing outside here I find myself getting a bit bored of the same strains before iv started the next lot! I guess that's a reason why the plant numbers and variety go up year on year with the guerrilla scene, I started the first year with 5 plants of 4 different strains and so far this year iv got 33 plants and 20 different strains up...so far    If I get a lot of girls from that lot i'm in for a busy summer but il be like a kid in a sweet shop when they're all in the jars!! All the best man, looking epic over your way!

 

 

 

[bigbadbudboi]

Right it's been a busy couple of weeks after the itch got to me and after too much time laying awake thinking about it I got up at 3am last Wednesday morning and gathered my equipment in the dark ready to set the stage for the seeds to fulfil their destiny! 

 

This year I wanted to try at least 2 different methods of transplanting auto's to see which gave a quicker recovery time from transplanting and hopefully a better final yield.

 

The first method is the one I tried last year but which I believe I didn't do justice to and so thought it was worth another shot. I saw this in a thread on here but cant seem to find it again so apologies to whoever shared it, I would give you credit if I could remember who you were     It basically involves cutting panels out of a pot and then growing that inside another pot the same size until you want to transplant at which time you plant out the whole pot with the panels removed and the roots can then grow out freely, undisturbed by the transplant. Here's a pick of my pot in a pot, I paint the outer pot white to help keep root temps down...

 

The other method I'll use, and the one I see most people use, is to grow the plant in a smallish pot for a couple of weeks until it can handle a transplant and then get it out there! Nothing fancy and iv done plenty of transplants so hopefully if done with a bit of care the plant will be happy in it's new home and carry on going for it. We shall see...

 

So I got these lovely looking Critical Jack seeds....

 

 

And these lovely looking OG Kush seeds....

 

I got my seedling mix of 1 part earth worm castings and 3 parts expanded coco and then I filled the pot in a pot up to about an inch below the rim (to allow for a bit of mulch once the plants a bit more established) and watered a patch in the middle of the pot with some very weak seaweed solution. After that I sprinkled on a wee pinch of mycorrhizal fungi powder where the seed would go and then I put one of each strain to bed, pointy end down with a fine cover of potting mix. I did the same with the smaller pots except the potting mix in them was all pre moistened with the same seaweed solution. Here's a pic of them together in their pots that probably wont win cream of the crop...

 

So there they are all tucked up and ready to start their journey towards stinky nuggets of goodness! The weathers set fair and so far so good this season, looking forward to having some plants ready to come down in August, to be continued...

Edited May 7, 2019 by bigbadbudboi

[Andromedian]

21 hours ago, bigbadbudboi said:

@Andromedian  Deciding what I want to grow and then smoke for the next year is one of the hardest things about outdoor growing for me. Indoors I could get a bunch of new flavours and highs every 4 months or so but just growing outside here I find myself getting a bit bored of the same strains before iv started the next lot! I guess that's a reason why the plant numbers and variety go up year on year with the guerrilla scene, I started the first year with 5 plants of 4 different strains and so far this year iv got 33 plants and 20 different strains up...so far    If I get a lot of girls from that lot i'm in for a busy summer but il be like a kid in a sweet shop when they're all in the jars!! All the best man, looking epic over your way!

 

 

 

That's always the way mate.....

The best smoke we grew last season was Fire99....but half were autos

Lemonade OG, another really nice smoke....

Then every year, more new strains to choose from

20 different strains

must be a headache keeping them separate, when drying.....

 

be lucky mate