2024 Massachusetts Outdoor Growers

[CCGNZ]

There it is.. below the line is what i've been looking for with consistently 40+ lows. I'm sure there will still be some frost and possibly a hard freeze still to go... but I think they'll be ok moving into the greenhouse this weekend. It also helps that they're running out of room in the closet and I have a very light schedule this weekend.

As they go out the keepers will get transplanted into 3 gal pots. I'm hoping the weather forecast holds true because that looks like some good hardening off temps.

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Popped 65 seeds April 8,put under a Spider Farmer LED w/heat mats,really good germ rate,wanted to plant outside today but this week weather not inspiring me.also just saw the MFKN ground hog eating sunflower seeds for my feathered friends,delayed planting for next weekend as i'll get better growth under the light also have my habanero spray just made in case that ground hog gets interested,I love dogs/cats,most animals in general but hate FKN rodents they are destructive across the board and this ground hog seems to show up earlier ev. year,usually planted by now but these seedlings will be the biggest I've transplanted and I'm becoming a fan of starting things later as experience tells me what good is having plants out in cloudy/cold/shitty weather.We are almost there,good luck everybody.

 

[p59teitel]

True story - about a year after I got this bitch sent over from Germany as a 9 week old pup, I was over at the neighbors having a beer. Guy says hey have you met the woodchucks? I said nope. Guy says they come right up on the lawn within ten feet of our elderly Portuguese Water Dog, no fear at all. I said yeah I dunno if they’d get the same reception in my yard…

A few days later my male German Shepherd starting barking his head off by the back door. Went to see what the commotion was.

It was then I met one of the woodchucks - she was eating it.

She’d stripped the skin off of the ribs, gobbled down the kidneys, liver and all the meat on one rack of ribs. She had blood dripping down her muzzle and was snarling at my male because she didn’t want to share. Fought me like a tiger when I tried to take it from her, too.

A week later I looked out the window and did a double-take when I saw her prancing with the second woodchuck hanging limply from her mouth.

Damn that bitch could hunt. Three time proven manstopper too. Lasted until she was 13 1/2, when her esophagus stopped working. Survived twice as long as the diagnosis said she would. Bitch hadn’t been able to keep any food down for ten days when I made the call to the vet. Tough as nails right to the end, walked a mile in the forest the day before she got the needles. In this pic she was 11, it was 93 out and we’d been playing ball for about a half hour -

 

[stealthfader508]

@p59teitel @CCGNZ ... That's a beautiful dog, I'd hate to have her locked onto my forearm... but the way a loyal dog will protect a backyard always makes me proud. My two labs are all bark no bite so I employ a swifter way of dealing with thieving garden pests ... it arrives at about 1200 feet per second, and lands right behind the ear.

Had a big day today in the greenhouse, it was moving day... Everything got potted up into 3 gal bags. I used a mix of 70% compost/recycled soil, 15% fresh peat moss, 15% aged pine bark and a big scoop each wheel barrow of ground stone dust and plant-tone.

Tonight is their first night under the stars.... after a few hours of lights on. I rigged up painter lights to extend daylight to 10:40pm, to match the light schedule they've been on indoors (17on/7off). I'll dial this back over the next few weeks to land at 8:24pm which is sunset on 6/21 (summer solstice)... by 6/1 all will be in their final spots and I'll lose the lights.

I've identified 3 certain males so far, and left them in 1 gals for now. There's one super vigorous one that I really like so far (JW13) ... so I'll keep a close eye on how that one flowers indoors, but so far that's my keeper.

Indoors I moved all the clones up to the top shelf under the COBs. I stuck them on 4/12 and most look like they're ready to begin putting on new growth, and most likely have roots. I'll leave them under 17/7 for a few more days and flip them to flower on Wednesday (5/1).

 

[stealthfader508]

It's been six nights outside and the plants have responded much better than I expected. I figured they would take some time to bounce back from being transplanted and going outside on the same day.... but they all took off right away. So much so that I pulled each one up onto the workbench and pruned them back hard, taking 3-6" off the top of each and removed any unnecessary growing shoots. The next few weeks are really important to build a good strong lower stem structure with good balance. I also super crop the lower limbs extensively, but i don't typically bend the limbs over... I'm just creating callouses up and down the limb... it really helps them to support themselves later with minimal trellising, if any at all.

The gas lantern technique is working as expected so far. I haven't seen any indications of premature flowering on any of them. The lights come on at 7pm and go off at 10:40 (natural sunset is about 7:45 right now)... tomorrow it'll be a week so I'll begin shutting the lights off at 10pm and then back them off by 30 mins every 7 days for the next couple weeks. After next week the supplemental lighting is probably unnecessary but I'll stick to the plan to avoid any shock from a big change in night hours they receive.

I also finally set up the drip irrigation zone to the vegetable beds. I've never used drip in the past and can't believe what a complete game changer this is going to be, why didn't I do this years ago? I'm using a wifi water controller so once it's dialed in it just runs and I can control it from anywhere... technology is just fkn incredible, I'm running drip everywhere on my property.

 

[paradise1]

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Hey bro !!! what thing cover your greenhouse it? PE poly? because i want to buy some...and i want to ask... how much is block the sun. i scare its will block the sun to much and the bud will suffer and lack yield and potency?

 

[stealthfader508]

Hey bro !!! what thing cover your greenhouse it? PE poly? because i want to buy some...and i want to ask... how much is block the sun. i scare its will block the sun to much and the bud will suffer and lack yield and potency?

It's 6 mil greenhouse plastic. It doesn't block out any sun. They do sell different shades of opacity if youre looking for some shading though... I would recommend some shading if you're in a super hot location to help keep the temps down.

 

[CCGNZ]

@p59teitel @CCGNZ ... That's a beautiful dog, I'd hate to have her locked onto my forearm... but the way a loyal dog will protect a backyard always makes me proud. My two labs are all bark no bite so I employ a swifter way of dealing with thieving garden pests ... it arrives at about 1200 feet per second, and lands right behind the ear.

Had a big day today in the greenhouse, it was moving day... Everything got potted up into 3 gal bags. I used a mix of 70% compost/recycled soil, 15% fresh peat moss, 15% aged pine bark and a big scoop each wheel barrow of ground stone dust and plant-tone.

Tonight is their first night under the stars.... after a few hours of lights on. I rigged up painter lights to extend daylight to 10:40pm, to match the light schedule they've been on indoors (17on/7off). I'll dial this back over the next few weeks to land at 8:24pm which is sunset on 6/21 (summer solstice)... by 6/1 all will be in their final spots and I'll lose the lights.

I've identified 3 certain males so far, and left them in 1 gals for now. There's one super vigorous one that I really like so far (JW13) ... so I'll keep a close eye on how that one flowers indoors, but so far that's my keeper.

Indoors I moved all the clones up to the top shelf under the COBs. I stuck them on 4/12 and most look like they're ready to begin putting on new growth, and most likely have roots. I'll leave them under 17/7 for a few more days and flip them to flower on Wednesday (5/1).


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Everything top notch on your end bro,I've been at this since 80's and the paranoia combined w/ over plant count still has me in stealth/gorilla mode,my boss at the golf course(young kid in his early 30's) just got 2 20 liter drums of Fish Shit if I'd have known that I wouldn't have bought 2 bottles,20 liters are $799 at Amazon,1st time I've seen it used on the golf course in 25 yrs.,maybe 50 lbs. drums of Recharge are next LOL.

 

[CCGNZ]

@p59teitel @CCGNZ ... That's a beautiful dog, I'd hate to have her locked onto my forearm... but the way a loyal dog will protect a backyard always makes me proud. My two labs are all bark no bite so I employ a swifter way of dealing with thieving garden pests ... it arrives at about 1200 feet per second, and lands right behind the ear.

Had a big day today in the greenhouse, it was moving day... Everything got potted up into 3 gal bags. I used a mix of 70% compost/recycled soil, 15% fresh peat moss, 15% aged pine bark and a big scoop each wheel barrow of ground stone dust and plant-tone.

Tonight is their first night under the stars.... after a few hours of lights on. I rigged up painter lights to extend daylight to 10:40pm, to match the light schedule they've been on indoors (17on/7off). I'll dial this back over the next few weeks to land at 8:24pm which is sunset on 6/21 (summer solstice)... by 6/1 all will be in their final spots and I'll lose the lights.

I've identified 3 certain males so far, and left them in 1 gals for now. There's one super vigorous one that I really like so far (JW13) ... so I'll keep a close eye on how that one flowers indoors, but so far that's my keeper.

Indoors I moved all the clones up to the top shelf under the COBs. I stuck them on 4/12 and most look like they're ready to begin putting on new growth, and most likely have roots. I'll leave them under 17/7 for a few more days and flip them to flower on Wednesday (5/1).


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That G. Shephard is awesome,one of the smartest breeds out there,I also have a powerful pellet gun when humane practice doesn't work as a last resort as I haven't had a dog since I lost my beloved Doby.

 

[p59teitel]

Thanks for the kind words, Stealth. Due to her herding lineage she was an ass grabber, not an arm biter lol

 

[p59teitel]

Off the windowsill and into the ground yesterday, glad I didn’t water! It was time as the roots were filling the keg cups.
Running Tashqurghan from Afghanistan and Chitrali and two different Karakoram range from Pakistan.

 

[p59teitel]

Plants starting to take off in the last week. Seeing some septoria so pulled a bunch of spotted lower leaves and sprayed with copper sulfate, hopefully the dry weather the next few days will help too. Bugs also doing some damage, will hit with Azamax spray later today, always a challenge…

 

[p59teitel]

Hope everyone’s garden is doing well. The Karakoram landraces had massive growth over the past month, 4 of them are taller than any previous plants have been at this time. I was hoping not to have crazy tall plants like last year but who knows -



The Tashqurghan are doing well too -



Ended up with a male and female Chitrali, the male produced flowers earlier than anything I’ve had before, I topped it a couple days ago to collect pollen -



Still getting some small amounts of Septoria on a couple of plants, but it’s nothing like it was last year. Starting to see caterpillars so some B.t. will be in order soon. They are nitrogen whores and are getting top-dressed cow manure and worm castings every couple of weeks, in addition to Pete’s Perfect Piss Potion added to waterings. Hope the weather continues this perfect pattern of warm sunny days followed by some soaking thunderstorms.

 

[stealthfader508]

Looking great @p59teitel !! Those will be 15' tall by september.

I have all kinds of shit going on... i still have some in 2 gallon bags I need to get uppotted or in the ground. I have 4 plants outside in raised beds going au naturale. They're absolute giants and should end up visible from space ( i hope the google earth satellite gets a new shot this summer because it'll definitely be visible) ...

one of the plants in the greenhouse started flowering a few weeks ago and just kept going... not sure what it's thinking but it looks like it has no plans of reverting and is flowering all the way through... it could be done by august 15th at this pace.

I'm just now starting to chop the clones I flowered indoors beginning 5/1 .. these are clones of everything I have going outside this year and I open pollinated them all with the 3 strongest males I had this year... from all these seeds I'll choose the 3-5 best females, mix all the seeds together in a predetermined ratio by weight, and that'll be my 2024 seed mix.

Happy 4th of July everyone!!! .... USA

 

[mandocat]

Hey folks ... sorry for disappearing for a couple years, but it looks like you guys have done a great job of keeping the Mass Outdoor thread alive! I never stopped growing, but dealing with things like running a business, teenage kids, and fighting cancer have all limited my ability to contribute here on RIU. With things finally settled down I'm hoping to contribute a lot more this season, and excited to share some of things I've learned along the way about outdoor growing in Massachusetts... but even more so I'm excited to learn what you all have learned about this incredibly challenging hobby we've chosen.

This year marks 25 years since I popped my first beans back in 1999, and I've learned a ton over the years... but my number one takeaway is that growing outdoors anywhere in New England is a massive challenge. The deck is stacked against us because we just don't have a suitable climate for growing cannabis... and without SOME luck we don't really stand a chance. There are millions of tips, tricks, and techniques that can increase the odds of landing a suitable harvest, but without some help from mother nature we're all toast.

My hope is that this thread can remain a place that we're all able to share our collective experience with what works (and what doesn't)... and hopefully tilt the odds a bit back in our favor this year.

I'd like to kick this year off by sharing what I've learned about a topic that is appropriately timed for this stage of the 2024 growing season.... strain selection. This is the time of year when most of us start digging through our seed vault, or searching seed banks for the varieties we want to grow this season... and in my opinion, this is where many outdoor growers make their first mistake.... they select their strains for the wrong reasons. People that are selecting their strains based on things like potency, yield, flower time, pretty bud shots on IG, could be setting themselves up for failure from the start.

The problem is that 99+% of the seeds available in most seed banks are produced from strains bred indoors under carefully controlled conditions . If the breeders want the climate to be like Jamaica, they can dial that in ... if they want it to feel more like Mazar-i-Sharif, they can also make that happen. So when you take those poly-hybrid strains... most of which have never seen a single day of real sunlight, shortening days, or rainfall in their generational history... and you grow them outside in the inhospitable New England climate, you have no idea what you're going to get. Most of the time you'll get something completely incompatible.

So the first tip is to try and choose a strain you've had success growing outdoors in the past. If a certain strain has already performed well and resisted the dangers of your specific garden and microclimate, there is a very strong likelihood that it will again. If you haven't grown anything that stands out or you're just beginning, look for breeders that breed somewhere in New England under the sun. I haven't shopped for seeds in a couple years but I know there used to be a few breeders from the area marketing their seeds.

An even better approach is to just make your own seeds each season. The idea is to selectively breed your best females with a strong male over several generations to continually produce seeds that are more likely to succeed in your garden. It's super easy to do, and you can selectively pollinate just one branch of your choice females. You don't need to grow a massive male that impregnates your entire crop. Flowering one or two strong males, and pollinating one female branch can produce all the seeds you'll ever need, with only a few minutes of effort dusting it with pollen at the right time.

There's no such thing as a landrace strain for New England. We haven't had fields of weed growing and open pollinating itself for hundreds of years like other parts of the world have. If we did, the choice would be easy and we'd all be growing that. So my opinion is the next best thing is to replicate nature and create your own. Everybody should be doing it if they can.

Well anyway, here's to a great season everyone! Did anyone learn anything new with all the rain last year?

My current status is a greenhouse that looks like a bomb went off... it needs a full top to bottom cleaning

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I've finally learned to focus more on strain selection, as I work on finding leaf septoria resistant genetics. Had one plant do exceptionally well against it last year and am running a couple of its daughters this summer. I have always made seeds outdoors, and indoors, and had a couple of pollen chucks turn out pretty good! It is very rewarding when that happens, maybe my one small contribution to the evolution of cannabis genetics! I'm in Oklahoma, but selection is as important here as in
Mass..

 

[John Deere X390]

Another Mass grower. This is my first time growing in 30 years! I got two plants from a friend at work. The first is #14(Blueberry indica and Night nurse) and Blueberry muffin being grown outside in my 30 year old compost pile.

 

[keup.taylor]

I've finally learned to focus more on strain selection, as I work on finding leaf septoria resistant genetics. Had one plant do exceptionally well against it last year and am running a couple of its daughters this summer. I have always made seeds outdoors, and indoors, and had a couple of pollen chucks turn out pretty good! It is very rewarding when that happens, maybe my one small contribution to the evolution of cannabis genetics! I'm in Oklahoma, but selection is as important here as in
Mass..

are you running the salvisa and beshear again? WHere's the septoria resistant list you suggested? I'll start one....

I have very little septoria on my pineapple muffin plants from humbolt (friend I gave cuttings has low septoria on pm's too). I have zero septoria on my tropicanna poison from sweet seeds...... I have a lot of septoria on my gorilla cookies ff from 420, medium amount on my made of honor by med20 ( some better than others), medium on my candy store from ethos, and medium amount on my mixed nutz, a nasc freebie. Autos variable, and a whole bigger discussion.

 

[mandocat]

are you running the salvisa and beshear again? WHere's the septoria resistant list you suggested? I'll start one....

I have very little septoria on my pineapple muffin plants from humbolt (friend I gave cuttings has low septoria on pm's too). I have zero septoria on my tropicanna poison from sweet seeds...... I have a lot of septoria on my gorilla cookies ff from 420, medium amount on my made of honor by med20 ( some better than others), medium on my candy store from ethos, and medium amount on my mixed nutz, a nasc freebie. Autos variable, and a whole bigger discussion.

I have 1 Salvisa and 2 Salvisa offspring from the resistant plant from last year. The 2 offspring are doing great! The Salvisa is doing pretty good. Looking at my pollen supply and trying to figure out what to cross to my resistant strains and look at next year. But at least I have a direction. Its tough to admit I can't grow whatever I want outdoors in the environment I live in!

 

[p59teitel]

Vaguely annoying year here. Too much septoria on the Tashqurghan and too many male Karakoram. And still waiting for 3 Tashqurghan to show definitive sex. Funny though that the confirmed female Tashqurghan and the one I suspect is female are actually keeping the septoria mostly in check.

Anyway, here are the 2 female Karakoram (out of 5 of one variety; the other variety produced 3 males). One Christmas tree and one topped by some critter while young. Both varieties produced plants over 10 feet. The variety with the females is septoria-resistant; the other variety not so much. I’m collecting pollen from the males to make seeds -



The sole Chitral, Pakistan female started to flower a week ago with tight nodes. Plant is over 6 feet, has done ok against septoria with only minor damage and should produce well -



Last is the confirmed female Tashqurghan. Strong diesel and citrus scent, over 7 feet, pretty good against septoria -



Good luck to everyone! Hoping for a dry fall.

 

[p59teitel]

Hope everyone’s gardens are doing well. No real damage from hailstorm and high winds a week ago. Still waiting for one Tashqurghan plant to declare sex. Slowest strain ever to flower, so far there are two females that have preflowered, one male that already has flowered and been chopped, and one male just forming flower bunched. Really weird because previous Northern Afghani strains have been fully into flower by now.

The Chitrali however is cruising along and well into flower, thinking she will be done early October. Flowers smell of mandarin orange and gasoline with maybe a little vanilla or something. Showing some vulnerability to PM so spraying with a weak peroxide solution, but overall a nice plant. Hit her with pollen from the Chitrali male and also two year old pollen from the South Waziristan, Pakistan repros I grew two years ago just for shits and giggles -



Both Karakoram are a few weeks into flower too, healthy plants that hopefully will finish soon after the Chitrali. Flower smells are fruity, maybe melon or cantaloupe. Tall one is close to 12 feet -

 

[JeffWix]

I’ve collected seeds from decent local outdoor. The grower has been growing personal smoke for almost 40 years and just lets them go and use seeds from her favorites for the next year. I’m looking forward to crossing thin leaf effects with these “native” genetics. When growing outdoors it’s impossible to find breeders that grow in a similar climate.

People Under the Stairs is from there and grows serious dank and breeds outdoor and indoor.