Planning out the 2025 outdoor grow

[TomH]

Your plants are absolutely gorgeous @TomH. How on Earth do you keep up with all of them… and do it so well? Color me impressed!

The good Lord blessed me here with really good growing conditions and a GF that indulges my extravagances. She is definitely a huge help in keeping all this growing well.

 

[TomH]

All outdoor plants (4), have been planted in their long term digs.

The two big plants are super blue dream. Clones that were cut more than a year ago. Kept them at a manageable size by regular trimming, lowering the light intensity and feeding less.

It’s rough because the plants just want to take off. As it is, both have single pairs of stigma’s everywhere. They are feeling their oats.

Both super blue dream plants got a significant haircut this morning to remove older leaves, small hidden branches and anything growing towards the center.

The small plant in a container is KC Wolfenstein. A hybrid that is new to me and I’m curious to see what it does. It’s mainlined for best sunlight exposure.
Direct sunlight for the three planters is about 6 to 7, with the remaining being exposed to bright sky and reflecting surfaces for a total of about 14.5 hours light sky.

The three planters are remote from the rest of the garden and one indica. Blackberry moonshine is growing on the hill with the garden.
It’s an indica, which I’m badly missing in my closet now. Looking forward to some sweet mellow medicine.

 

[Tremojem]

I'll be watching for certain.

 

[TomH]

All the cactus flowers I can find, so far.
Then came the last days of May, with more buds in the offing.

 

[Zen_seeker]

Anything new in bloom?

 

[TomH]

Anything new in bloom?

Yo, Zen, how is life treating you?
It’s been a really rough few weeks here.

Anyway, here’s a few blooms.

 

[Zen_seeker]

Yo, Zen, how is life treating you?

Like a punching bag.
I find some peace looking at your garden pics. I was never good with cacti. You’ve got the touch.

It’s been a really rough few weeks here.

I hope it’s nothing you can’t handle.

Anyway, here’s a few blooms.

Thank you. They look great, as always.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

Yo, Zen, how is life treating you?
It’s been a really rough few weeks here.

Anyway, here’s a few blooms. View attachment 103601View attachment 103602View attachment 103603View attachment 103604View attachment 103605View attachment 103606View attachment 103607View attachment 103608View attachment 103609View attachment 103610View attachment 103611View attachment 103612View attachment 103613

I searched to see if I had missed any posts from you, a couple of days back. Hope things are better or getting there fast.

Your flowers are always gorgeous

 

[TomH]

The last week and a half have been chasing down a mystery illness that my GF has been dealing with.

Local ER services are okay, but really leave a lot to be desired.
Turns out she’s got a form of enteritis in the middle of the small intestine, probably related to celiac illness.
For days she was having horrible back and abdominal cramps, it would come on in waves (she said it felt like labor pains coming on).

The ER medicated her for discomfort and even accidentally identified it in a blood test result, but failed to actually identify nor treat it.

Her GP finally saw her and looked at the blood test results and images, figured it out and got an antibiotic going. But the pain will persist for up to two more weeks.

During all this I bug sprayed my plants with an obviously too strong mixture (Dane brammage), plants lost about 3 - 4 weeks of veg time, just now getting back to normal looking. Fortunately, still in veg, many weeks left and very forgiving plants. They literally had to regrow significant amounts of leaves. It was like a chemical defoliant.
I don‘t have any new pics, I get back into town tomorrow and will try to get some posted.

Never mix chemicals when you’re preoccupied.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

Wow! You guys have had a nasty stretch. Sorry it took so long, but good on her doc for diagnosing the issue. It sucks that they can't do anything for the pain while she's waiting on the antibiotics to do their thing. The plants don't mean much when you have a loved one who is hurting, but it was nice to read that you got those straightened out, too.

 

[Stoneyluv]

wow Tom that sounds serious man, hope she feels better soon!!!

 

[TomH]

Geeze, where to start.
Queue the music to the good, the bad and the ugly.

The last month or so has been awful.
GF, still dealing with mystery illness, another several visits to the er and doctors but no closer to Id or cure.

My chemical nightmare in the weed garden is finally behind me but lots of lost time.

Anyway, here’s the good. Just fun gardening pictures.

 

[TomH]

Here’s the bad,
During all this craziness with my GF and the plants, my daughter got t-boned at a major intersection after lights went out.
Car is totaled, she’s sore but otherwise undamaged, the car did its job. She was lucky, her guardian angel was there for her. She said her momma helped her ( her mom, my wife, passed away five years ago this month), but Jessy swears momma helped her.

Pictures of the plants in the midst of my chemical nightmare.

The smaller the plant, the more the damage, but everything had a lot of damage.

These are about three to four weeks ago.

It was stressful enough, all plants looked like they were going to flower even though our days are 14.5 hours and getting longer.

They have settled down but the two super blue dream plants now have copious points of stigmas everywhere. They will be thick come flower season based on how many budsites they have.

The two smaller ones, KC Wolfenstein and Raspberry Moonshine are hitting their stride, KC got a little lanky but that might be the sativa genes.

 

[TomH]

This isn’t the ugly but I’m too stoned to continue that story so here’s where they are now.

 

[steamroller]

Miss seeing you around more often. Yor garden looks great.
I am glad your daughter is well and hope your girlfriend finds a solution to what ails her.
I am starting to think that with all our fancy smancy indoor growing skills we are making seeds that will never again thrive with outdoor lighting schedules. The longest day here in NY [where I grew outdoors like a machine back in the 80's from bag seed] is only 15 hours and 18 minutes.
I'll be getting my outdoor plants out soon so they can fade like daylight the rest of the year.

 

[Zen_seeker]

Hey Tom, sorry for your bad luck. Lots of that going around these days. Best wishes for your family. My wife went through hell, sort of is still, but they found a med that seems to be working now. Not a fan of the side effects but it is what it is.

Love the plants man. So many varieties and colours. Wife has cactus envy. I don’t buy them for her anymore as they are to expensive to keep torturing with a slow death.

All the best bud.

 

[TomH]

Hey Tom, sorry for your bad luck. Lots of that going around these days. Best wishes for your family. My wife went through hell, sort of is still, but they found a med that seems to be working now. Not a fan of the side effects but it is what it is.

Love the plants man. So many varieties and colours. Wife has cactus envy. I don’t buy them for her anymore as they are to expensive to keep torturing with a slow death.

All the best bud.

Here’s a cactus that bloomed overnight.

 

[Zen_seeker]

Here’s a cactus that bloomed overnight.

Cool, thanks. I’ll show her tonight. Still won’t buy her another though.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

Hate that you guys have been having a rough go of things. It's past time for some good news on diagnosing and treating your girlfriend's health issues. I hope that's in your near future. Huge thanks for taking the time to share your beautiful garden with us. You've surrounded yourself with some amazing plants.

 

[TomH]

Holy smokes, been a busy month or two.

Laura (my GF), is mostly ok but seeing a GI specialist. She has celiac disease which makes anything in the digestive tract worse.
My daughter is driving a newly purchased vehicle compliments of signal outage at a major intersection.
No injuries so thank God for that.

I’m currently doing better than most of this year has been other than joint problems. Keeping active helps but doggone sometimes there’s not enough weed to get rid of the pain.

The plants have recovered from the chemical nightmare. The sativa (KC Wolfenstein) very quietly became bigger than the super blue dream plants. I’m hoping for a good fruiting season.

The indica (blackberry moonshine), is now about a meter tall. The others are about 1.7 meters tall.

A few other things are looking impressive in the yard.

 

[TomH]

The light schedule for the Sativa and the two Super Blue Dream clones is interesting.
the get about 3 hours of bright sky, followed by added 1 hour of reflected sunlight off the nearly white wall. The reflected light is 15k-20k LUX. This is followed by about 5 hours of direct sun with varying amounts of reflected light off the wall. At that point the plants are getting blasted but holding up. The next 5 hours are bight sky with reflected light from the fence and neighbors house.

I’m expecting that the reduced afternoon sunlight will both reduce harvest size and improve taste/aroma because the afternoon sun won’t be boiling the terps off.

On another note, Laura and I went to see Clint Black at the Alameda Co. fair on july 3. It was a good show, but age is making him sound just like Willy Nelson. Still a good show, lots of weird Bay Area people.

 

[TomH]

Here in California, at least at the latitude where we are, July 31 is the day nature flips the plant and the stretch begins.

I’ll be trimming back all the plants the week of July 14 to get ready for the stretch and flowering.

I had them trimmed back really hard right after bug spray incident and all of a sudden, they are dense again.

They are beefy!

 

[stonemason]

Looking great tomm.