Outdoor 3 x Early Top Tao (Photo, Reg) - Maria's Early Spring Games

[Exotic Flower]

Early Top Tao (Photo, Reg) - Day 3

Growing away!!!

I've been tickling them gently to strengthen the stems.
The airflow in that room isn't ideal, but it's okay.
A little cooler weather again for a while.

Will move them under the Mars Ref 192 in the tent later.
Unfortunately there are a few gnats flying around in there with the chili, mint and lavender.
But the light is obviously much better, and nice air circulation.

 

[Exotic Flower]

How bad is the local soil ? have you planted in it before? how well does it drain? sandy or clay? how safe and what access to your spot is available? I used to pack in loads of amendments this works best, custom to your local.

Can you get osmocote plus and D lime? this if your local soil drains well but not too sandy

Have you done any PH testing of the local soil? I have a couple of more things to look out for. Grab a handull of local soil and firmly form a ball that's slightly larger than golf ball. The use your finger and push it into the ball to the center point. Does the dirt break apart or does your finger simply leave a hole? If it breaks apart you have a nice soil consistency. If not you might want to amend the soil with something to break up its consistency like perlite or leaf compost.
I personally like option 2 for photos. The insta-transplant pots(sleeved) work well but I use them for autos as even a slight dirt shift can effect them greatly, rather than photos as photos are no problem to transplant and a slight setback on a photo is gernerally a small thing. Another reason I wouldn't use insta pots on my photos as the stalks get so big they would fill the entire pot with stalk and would not be able to get them out of the ground(the pots), plus potentially cutting off circulation

@912GreenSkell and @Habitual --

Last night I went out to the site and scrunched myself a nice golf ball size lump of earth / dirt, dropped it in a plastic bag and took it home to test.

It's a dark yellow color, not fully clay though.
Has a few rocks in it here and there, but they can be pulled out.
Has some organic matter, leaves and twigs and stuff, not much broken down.
A lot of this earth has only recently been bulldozed from high rainfall mountain side jungle.

I did some research online for this area.
It's supposed to be fairly acidic due to the high rainfall.

GreenSkell's finger push test -- the soil does break apart, it isn't clay enough to just stick as a ball.

How to test for pH and TDS?
Not sure, so I dropped the lump in a flat bottom tumbler glass.
TDS and pH tested some tap water -- 80 ppm and about 6.5 pH -- and added that.
Mixed it all up nice, and let it sit over night to settle.
In the morning, the bottom is the earth, then brown colored water, with some leaf matter floating on top.
pH and TDS tested it:
pH was the same at 6.5, which was a BIG relief. Adjusting pH is a major difficult hassle outdoors.
TDS was ... 50. WTF?!?!?! How could the TDS be less than the tap water that I put into it?

The last thing was really weird, to be honest.

Since I'm going to dig holes in this soil and add potting mix and coco anyway,
I don't think I'm going to do much to amend this soil.
Maybe just dig the hole, then throw in a bit of perlite / vermiculite and maybe some dolomite lime*
(not too much lime, because it'll throw the pH out too much),
then pour in my potting mix, coco, perlite and vermiculite mix with some water storing crystals.
* I'm still undecided between using dolomite lime in the soil, or CalMag supplement.

Then in goes the 3-4 week old seedling.

The soil test was a better result than what I feared.
Now, for a nice break in the weather this weekend.
Hopefully my batch of growing supplies will be in soon.

Thanks for your help, guys!!!

 

[islandgrower]

@912GreenSkell -- question for you! Or anyone else.... @Habitual ?

Thinking about after a month or so, putting them outside. Which option best:
1. Putting them straight into the local soil only.
2. Putting them in a hole filled with potting mix, surrounded by local soil.
3. Putting them in a *sleeved hole with potting mix, surrounded by local soil.
4. Putting them in a buried pot filled with potting mix only.

* Sleeved - I dig the whole, put in a a plastic pot with the bottom cut out.
That way the local soil won't straight away leak into my good soil,
but the roots can grow down into the local soil.

I think [HASHTAG]#1[/HASHTAG] would be the worst option, lazy but poor soil.
[HASHTAG]#4[/HASHTAG] would ensure quality soil, but then have pot size restriction.
[HASHTAG]#2[/HASHTAG] and [HASHTAG]#3[/HASHTAG] allow some good soil plus unrestricted size.
But think that [HASHTAG]#3[/HASHTAG] will allow the best of both worlds.

What do you think?
I recall you having some pots with holes so the roots could grow out
when you transplanted them. I think this is a good idea. Hence [HASHTAG]#3[/HASHTAG].

Forgot 1 option [HASHTAG]#5[/HASHTAG]. Dig a large hole let us say 3 ft by 3 ft by 18" take out local soil and mix with storebought and put back in hole. Just loosen up the bottom a little more for easy root penetration.

"carpe diem"

 

[islandgrower]

@912GreenSkell and @Habitual --

Last night I went out to the site and scrunched myself a nice golf ball size lump of earth / dirt, dropped it in a plastic bag and took it home to test.

It's a dark yellow color, not fully clay though.
Has a few rocks in it here and there, but they can be pulled out.
Has some organic matter, leaves and twigs and stuff, not much broken down.
A lot of this earth has only recently been bulldozed from high rainfall mountain side jungle.

I did some research online for this area.
It's supposed to be fairly acidic due to the high rainfall.

GreenSkell's finger push test -- the soil does break apart, it isn't clay enough to just stick as a ball.

How to test for pH and TDS?
Not sure, so I dropped the lump in a flat bottom tumbler glass.
TDS and pH tested some tap water -- 80 ppm and about 6.5 pH -- and added that.
Mixed it all up nice, and let it sit over night to settle.
In the morning, the bottom is the earth, then brown colored water, with some leaf matter floating on top.
pH and TDS tested it:
pH was the same at 6.5, which was a BIG relief. Adjusting pH is a major difficult hassle outdoors.
TDS was ... 50. WTF?!?!?! How could the TDS be less than the tap water that I put into it?

The last thing was really weird, to be honest.

Since I'm going to dig holes in this soil and add potting mix and coco anyway,
I don't think I'm going to do much to amend this soil.
Maybe just dig the hole, then throw in a bit of perlite / vermiculite and maybe some dolomite lime*
(not too much lime, because it'll throw the pH out too much),
then pour in my potting mix, coco, perlite and vermiculite mix with some water storing crystals.
* I'm still undecided between using dolomite lime in the soil, or CalMag supplement.

Then in goes the 3-4 week old seedling.

The soil test was a better result than what I feared.
Now, for a nice break in the weather this weekend.
Hopefully my batch of growing supplies will be in soon.

Thanks for your help, guys!!!

Hmm lower than the tap wow . Let me think . Maybe the ppm ions in the water bonded with the soil ions thus reducing the ppms. Lol strange but I am no scientist. Ps subbed up

"carpe diem"

 

[G.Leave]

Forgot 1 option [HASHTAG]#5[/HASHTAG]. Dig a large hole let us say 3 ft by 3 ft by 18" take out local soil and mix with storebought and put back in hole. Just loosen up the bottom a little more for easy root penetration.

"carpe diem"

Hey...I actually don't go any deeper that 15-16" and have very compact soil underneath. In the test garden I dig 3-4 foot holes and have had some great results considering the very limited 8 hour of direct sun tapering down to less than 6 by harvest. Last season I pulled 21oz from a hole less than 4X4X16"deep.

@Maria Sanchez
Hmm dark yellow...In all of the years and many different locations of growing I have never grown in a dark yellow soil!! In fact I cant even think of an area here that has yellow/golden soil! Ph sounds good. I use lime in my soil(6.2-6.5) and I don't find it is a problem with throwing the ph out, I feel the benefit outweighs the negative.
You plan overall sounds excellent...I am very keen to see this grow!!

 

[Exotic Flower]

Forgot 1 option [HASHTAG]#5[/HASHTAG]. Dig a large hole let us say 3 ft by 3 ft by 18" take out local soil and mix with storebought and put back in hole. Just loosen up the bottom a little more for easy root penetration.

"carpe diem"

Hey @islandgrower -- yeah, good point.

Because once they're outside it's straight into flowering due to the (sub)tropical light cycles,
so I don't think they'll get that huge. And I don't want them to go through to late summer,
or they'll get smashed by the hurricanes here. I don't need a massive root space.
But this would be a good option, once I pick out a few rocks here and there.

Thanks!!

 

[Exotic Flower]

Hmm lower than the tap wow . Let me think . Maybe the ppm ions in the water bonded with the soil ions thus reducing the ppms. Lol strange but I am no scientist. Ps subbed up

"carpe diem"

@islandgrower -- thanks for jumping into the thread!!

Yeah, I'm trying to get my head around this.
It's almost like a negative ppm reading that sucks out the original content.

Think I'm going to test it again this weekend.
Maybe something was just wrong with the test.

Thank you!!

 

[Exotic Flower]

@Maria Sanchez
Hmm dark yellow...In all of the years and many different locations of growing I have never grown in a dark yellow soil!! In fact I cant even think of an area here that has yellow/golden soil! Ph sounds good. I use lime in my soil(6.2-6.5) and I don't find it is a problem with throwing the ph out, I feel the benefit outweighs the negative.
You plan overall sounds excellent...I am very keen to see this grow!!

It's not the yellow of clay, but it's not usual loamy brown color either.
Should show you a photo. Dark yellow to yellow-brown.
Thanks for the tip on the dolomite lime. I think I still ordered it in the end.

 

[islandgrower]

Hey @Habitual -- yeah, good point.

Because once they're outside it's straight into flowering due to the (sub)tropical light cycles,
so I don't think they'll get that huge. And I don't want them to go through to late summer,
or they'll get smashed by the hurricanes here. I don't need a massive root space.
But this would be a good option, once I pick out a few rocks here and there.

Thanks!!

I think if flowering on June1st it may reveg going to the longest day on june 21st.

"carpe diem"
We have hurricanes as well not for the past few years though thankfully.

 

[Exotic Flower]

I think if flowering on June1st it may reveg going to the longest day on june 21st.

"carpe diem"

Prob won't get that far.
Outside in end of March = 12/12 or close.
Two months later, it's end of May, or start of June, about 13.5/10.5 here.
My guess is that it'll continue flowering.
But I hope that at the end it doesn't start doing that crazy regen fox-tailing thing.

I'm in the (sub)tropics around here.
Most flowering time info for strains is for temperate climates,
e.g. north america, europe, australia.
It's going to be an experiment.